|
I doubt it, the soviet time table and strategy for joining the war against Japan had been worked out ahead of time with the other allied powers.
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2021 00:24
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 3, 2024 13:37 |
|
|
CommonShore posted:e.2 What I'm really mining into here in my head is the full decision tree of the options available to the US/Allies at the time and the probable outcomes of each of those options, ranging from full blood thirst to unexpected pacifism: I think it's worth pointing out that nobody at the time in Allied command ever considered this a decision tree/continuum. Given that 1 & 2 were unacceptable, everything that could possibly bring an end to the war with the given conditions would happen in parallel, according to the planning.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2021 00:46
|
|
|
drat. Was hoping for something. Anyone just want to share some dope rear end light Infantry/weird specialist unit names/types? I really don't like using my stand in of Hoplite. Not just because they aren't light Infantry, but part of the appeal is how that is pronounced...which is wasted in the spelling. PeterCat posted:I'm just winding you up. My wife heard me laugh from downstairs. Legit. That was good, and I'm stealing it. I was a Paratrooper a million years ago, so I have that disdain for the Cav. At a Parent Teacher Conference, my daughter's teacher thought I was familiar, and asked if I frequented the local bar, The Garry Owen. My wife smiled, because she said she saw my filter click on before I smiled and responded with a "No" rather than an inappropriate tirade about how you would never find me in a Cav Bar, but with language I haven't used since I was a terrible person, but a good Grunt. I don't even know why the gently caress it started, but holy poo poo did we hate each other.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2021 00:58
|
|
|
Baka-nin posted:I doubt it, the soviet time table and strategy for joining the war against Japan had been worked out ahead of time with the other allied powers. The only Soviet invasions of Japan proper were going to be done because the US asked for it- they'd have to foot all the amphibious and naval capability for it anyway. There's no possibility of the Soviets snatching Japan out from under anyone.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2021 01:07
|
|
|
Panzeh posted:The only Soviet invasions of Japan proper were going to be done because the US asked for it- they'd have to foot all the amphibious and naval capability for it anyway. There's no possibility of the Soviets snatching Japan out from under anyone. It's not exactly Honshu, but there are four Japanese islands* occupied by Russia to this day. *As defined by Japan.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2021 02:49
|
|
|
Panzeh posted:The only Soviet invasions of Japan proper were going to be done because the US asked for it- they'd have to foot all the amphibious and naval capability for it anyway. There's no possibility of the Soviets snatching Japan out from under anyone. This is something a lot of "But the Soviet Union!" types forget. The Soviet Union had zero naval capability to go up against Japan, and even less amphibious capability.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2021 03:09
|
|
|
bulletsponge13 posted:drat. Was hoping for something. Hoplites were definitely heavy infantry, not light. They fought with significant armor and large shields that prevented them from moving quickly on a battlefield. The Ancient Greek term for light infantry/skirmishers was peltast. The Greeks also used the term takabara to refer to Persian light infantry equipped similar to peltasts, if you prefer that term. Another Greek term for infantry is hypaspists, a word used in Homer to describe a soldier who fought with a shield, but which came by the 5th century BC to refer to an elite infantry unit of multiple types. The famous hypaspists of Alexander the Great ultimately changed their name to argyraspides (Greek for "silver shields"), after they coated the rims of their shields in silver.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2021 03:13
|
|
|
You also have 'velites' and 'peltasts' who's job was to run out ahead of the heavily armed/armored main battle line and throw javelins at the enemy before melting back, or for harassing the flanks of the enemy in rocky terrain.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2021 03:23
|
|
|
Peltast was a name for a light shield, a Greek skirmisher was known as a psiloi.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2021 04:29
|
|
|
wiegieman posted:Peltast was a name for a light shield, a Greek skirmisher was known as a psiloi. So the future scifi unit name bulletsponge13 is looking for would be be psilons? 
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2021 04:50
|
|
|
If we are going space opera: Velites are irregulars. Colonists armed with their personal hunting weapons, partisans using whatecer they can scrounge, etc. Hastati are corposec, properly-organised militias etc. Light personal armour and a decent longarm. Princepes are real-deal military with hardsuits and portable support weapons. Triarii are hardcore spess marines in powered exoframes using support weapons as personal weapons. Cataphracts are mecha-jockeys in billion-credit gundams.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2021 06:07
|
|
|
wiegieman posted:Peltast was a name for a light shield, a Greek skirmisher was known as a psiloi. That's not quite right. The word for a small, light shield is pelte (πέλτη). (https://lsj.gr/wiki/%CF%80%CE%AD%CE%BB%CF%84%CE%B7) The word peltast (πελταστής) refers to the infantrymen who carried them, or oftentimes, to any light troops. (https://lsj.gr/wiki/%CF%80%CE%B5%CE%BB%CF%84%CE%B1%CF%83%CF%84%CE%AE%CF%82) Psiloi (ψιλικός) is a word that also refers to light troops. (https://lsj.gr/wiki/%CF%88%CE%B9%CE%BB%CE%B9%CE%BA%CF%8C%CF%82). The difference between the use of Psiloi and Peltast is in era/dialect. Psiloi is only used by Roman era authors, such as Diodorus Siculus, Lucian, and Arrian. Classical-era Greek authors, such as Thucydides, Xenophon, Isocrates, Euripides, and Lysias, use the word peltast instead. Diodorus uses ψιλικός to refer to the same exact units that are described by Xenophon with πελταστής, such as Theban light troops at the battle of Mantinea in 362 BC. For example, Thucydides 2.29.5 says "a force of Thracian horse and light-armed infantry/peltasts," which in Greek is "Θρᾳκίαν... ἱππέων τε καὶ πελταστῶν." πελταστῶν is a plural form of πελταστής. Arrian 1.7.9 says "Alexander sent forth a party of his light-armed infantry and archers" which in Greek is "Ἀλέξανδρος ἐκπέμπει τῶν ψιλῶν καὶ τοξοτῶν." ψιλῶν is a plural form of ψιλικός. The word pelte is fairly uncommon, appearing only a couple dozen times in the corpus. However, its pretty clear that pelte is the word that is used to refer to the shield, not peltast. For example, Herodotus 7.75.1 says "they also had javelins and little shields and daggers," which in Greek is " πρὸς δὲ ἀκόντιά τε καὶ πέλτας καὶ ἐγχειρίδια." CrypticFox fucked around with this message at 07:09 on Jul 6, 2021 |
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2021 06:54
|
|
|
Oh hey, good opportunity for a random Greek question: how much crossover is there between biblical and classical Greek? I.e., if a person learns to read biblical Greek competently at a seminary or whatever, can they also read Thucydides, or people from different eras like Plato or Homer?
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2021 11:31
|
|
|
bulletsponge13 posted:drat. Was hoping for something. Probably a Vietnam era holdover, that and it's the Army, so it's a dick measuring competition, like everything else. Originally the AirMobile concept was seen as a successor or extension of the airborne. The original test unit, the 11th AirAssault division was originally the 11th Airborne. After a series of tests and exercises with the 82nd Airborne acting as the OPFOR, the concept was validated and the 11th AirAssault was reflagged as the 1st Cavalry Division (Air Mobile). At one point the Air Force wanted to own the helicopters for the air mobile units and fly Army Soldiers in them, similar to how the Air Force carries paratroopers now. As far as air assault units being obsolete in a near peer fight, this is somewhat true as rotary wing aviation won't last long in a straight fight with the Chinese or Russians. Armor and infantry won't last too long either though. Any fight with a near peer is going to be short and intense if it actually happens.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2021 13:37
|
|
|
Nenonen posted:Do you mean predecessors? Stephen Badsey likes to refer to the intended role of cavalry in WW1 on the Western Front as being that of very, very short-range paratroopers; the idea being that they move faster than walking pace to arrive somewhere inconvenient in the enemy's rear, with the objective of causing havoc and holding that inconvenient point until the main thrust of the offensive can arrive and relieve them. The horses may stay with them, but they're not relying on the horses to leave again, in the same way that paratroopers don't expect the plane to land and pick them up again later; once they're in, they're in for good. It's not a perfect analogy by any means, but it's a simple and memorable way of getting across what they were trying to achieve and were never quite able to. It does also go against the "hidebound donkeys" narrative to an extent; there's nothing wrong with the basic concept, which is both sound and innovative, they were just 25 years too early for it to be practicable.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2021 15:46
|
|
|
Something I learned from watching a video from the Chieftain, the German's performed the first air assault in WWII, using small fixed wing aircraft to land behind French lines and drop off troops. Edit: Had the wrong video , here's the right one. 6:50 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1E9Da2ge-aM&t=410s PeterCat fucked around with this message at 17:20 on Jul 6, 2021 |
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2021 16:27
|
|
|
The Glider assaults were something yeah, and essentially knocked out Belgium's trump card horrifyingly easy.
|
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2021 16:47
|
|
|
SeanBeansShako posted:The Glider assaults were something yeah, and essentially knocked out Belgium's trump card horrifyingly easy. Not the glider troops, the Germans used Fieseler Fi 156 Storchs to land troops behind the lines. I put the correct video in the post preceding yours. The difference is the troops the Germans used weren't paratroopers, the simply loaded soldiers on the planes, landed behind the lines, the troops got off, and the planes flew back to the German lines. PeterCat fucked around with this message at 17:24 on Jul 6, 2021 |
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2021 17:21
|
|
|
On the topic of air-deployed forces, the Antonov A-40 is something that everyone ought to be aware of. It was a Russian effort to get armor to the front lines faster...by deploying it via glider (towed most of the way by a powered aircraft). It turns out that getting a useful tank into the air is a difficult job though. Irritatingly, the tank turret faced backwards when it was airborne, so it couldn't actually shoot anything until after landing and ditching the wings. I had to fix that when I imported the concept into my game 
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2021 17:28
|
|
|
There was also a project to deploy the T-37A amphibious tank without landing by dropping it from a bomber into a lake. Turns out that dropping a tank from a fair height onto an incompressible substance is not so great for its structural integrity.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2021 19:25
|
|
|
Captain von Trapp posted:Oh hey, good opportunity for a random Greek question: how much crossover is there between biblical and classical Greek? I.e., if a person learns to read biblical Greek competently at a seminary or whatever, can they also read Thucydides, or people from different eras like Plato or Homer? They're quite similar, but its easier to go from Attic Greek (the language of classical Athens) to Biblical Greek than it is to go other way around. Most of the changes between the time of Plato/Thucydides and Biblical writings are things dropping out of the language, so if you learn Biblical Greek, it is a somewhat (but not a lot) simplified version. However, most of the aspects that "dropped out" still show up occasionally in Biblical texts, so if you are seriously studying Biblical Greek, you will pick up most of the key parts of Attic grammar eventually. Exclusively reading Biblical texts will not prepare you super well for the more complex syntax common in Attic texts however, since constructions that are rare in bible may be quite common in Thucydides. For example, Thucydides is notorious for his extensive use of participles (verbs used as a noun), and he frequently will write sentences with 4 or 5 of them. Participles are much rarer in the bible, and you probably will never see a sentence with 5 participles in the bible. Biblical texts also vary a fair amount in how often they employ Attic-style grammar. When the bible was written, it was very popular among educated authors to intentionally try to emulate the now archaic Attic dialect. Paul's letters and Acts both employ now-rare Attic forms much more then the Gospels (particularly Mark) do. If you spend a lot of time reading Acts, you will be better prepared for reading classical texts then you would be if you had focused on Mark. The vocabulary also shifted some, but not a ton. The vast majority of words used in the bible also appear in classical texts. Most are used the same way, but some words have shifted meaning, often due to Christian repurposing of generic words to mean something specific. For example, the word ekklesia is used by classical authors to mean "assembly" (Thucydides uses this word to refer to the Athenian Assembly). Biblical and later Christian texts use it to mean "church." Some new words enter the language used in the Bible, and some words also dropped out of use, but there aren't too many of either, and dealing with that issue just requires grabbing a dictionary. Overall, a person who has studied Greek seriously at seminary probably wouldn't find classical Athenian authors to challenging, at least not after spending some time reviewing the parts of grammar that rarely come up in the bible. Homer is a bit of a different story. Homer wrote in an archaic form of the Ionic dialect (which would be very influential for later poets, and is often just referred to as the Homeric dialect). There are some significant differences in vocabulary and grammar between Homeric and Attic texts. Jumping directly from Biblical Greek to Homer would be more difficult, and would require significant additional study. However, unless you have experience with Homer or similar poets, everyone needs additional study to read Homer, so you'd just have to do a bit more work then someone who had studied more Attic more then you would need to do.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2021 20:13
|
|
|
I've been marathoning Ken Burn's The Civil War over the past 2 day. The last episode makes a big point of how the Confederates wouldn't be forgiven or concede the wrongness of their cause while the Union veterans were all forgiving of the Confederates and welcomed them with open arms back to the Union. I have to think that there had to be a good deal of people on the Union side that held animus towards the former Confederacy and that that story isn't told.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2021 20:18
|
|
|
TooMuchAbstraction posted:On the topic of air-deployed forces, the Antonov A-40 is something that everyone ought to be aware of. It was a Russian effort to get armor to the front lines faster...by deploying it via glider (towed most of the way by a powered aircraft). It turns out that getting a useful tank into the air is a difficult job though. To be fair, even the practical airborne-deployable tanks of the war were not well-regarded, and the US left theirs at home, preferring to instead have more 105mm artillery on hand.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2021 20:31
|
|
|
PeterCat posted:I've been marathoning Ken Burn's The Civil War over the past 2 day. The last episode makes a big point of how the Confederates wouldn't be forgiven or concede the wrongness of their cause while the Union veterans were all forgiving of the Confederates and welcomed them with open arms back to the Union. There are these guys quote:But it had another purpose, too; one that became more and more relevant as the years passed: to remind the nation of the causes of the Civil War in order for their children and their children’s children to never endure something so horrible ever again. In their regular meetings – that also rang of Masonic rituals – the post commander would ask the officer of the day, “What should be the doom of all traitors?” To which the response was, “The penalty of treason is death!”
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2021 20:58
|
|
|
CrypticFox posted:Greek Thanks very much, that's extremely helpful. What kicked this off was I happened down a couple rabbit holes that involved some biblical and classical Greek texts getting quoted ("καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος"), and me realizing I recognized some words ("Hey, that's 'theos' and 'logos'!") It happens that my employer has some bulk deals on a few language-learning services and while I'm pretty sure they'd rather I learn Mandarin or something useful, there's nothing stopping me from hitting the Greek button. But there's two ancient Greek buttons, classical and koine, and it looks like all things considered I should hit the classical one first.
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 01:27
|
|
|
Not historical, but for some reason I saw a U2 flying over southwest CT yesterday.
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 03:04
|
|
|
CommonShore posted:With each of these having various unilateral/coalition versions. And you're right: given the constraints of unconditional surrender, the reasons for those constraints, and the climate of Japanese leadership, literally every probable outcome is a loving humanitarian atrocity on a historical scale Pretty much. For the U.S. to stop prosecuting the war against Japan, the Japanese government or people would have had to somehow convince the U.S. that they were done, had learned their lesson, and would never start another war again - even as a large portion of the Japanese government was screaming that the war wasn't over, that victory was just around the corner, and as a large portion of the U.S. government and populace considered the Japanese people and government to be dirty [racial slurs] who sneak attacked them at Pearl Harbor. Remember also that prior to the bomb being dropped, it was assumed that gigantic industrial wars like WW1 and WW2 were just going to be the new normal. The thought that large-scale conventional war consuming the major industries and population of first world nations were just completely over is a very Cold War idea. Truman, speaking and writing after the war, argued the need for unconditional surrender as necessary for preventing a conventional World War III. Irresistible force vs. immovable object and all that.
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 04:23
|
|
|
GWBBQ posted:Not historical, but for some reason I saw a U2 flying over southwest CT yesterday. Might be an ER-2. https://gml.noaa.gov/hats/airborne/acats/acats_er2.html https://airbornescience.nasa.gov/aircraft_detailed_cal
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 04:28
|
|
|
GWBBQ posted:Not historical, but for some reason I saw a U2 flying over southwest CT yesterday. Guess they still haven't found what they're looking for.
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 04:33
|
|
|
TooMuchAbstraction posted:Irritatingly, the tank turret faced backwards when it was airborne, so it couldn't actually shoot anything until after landing and ditching the wings. I had to fix that when I imported the concept into my game Probably a mix of it being slightly more aerodynamic with the back of the turret and so the barrel doesn't get in the way of flying/landing.
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 05:37
|
|
|
EggsAisle posted:So if all goes according to plan, I'll be in France for several weeks around this time next year, mostly in and around Paris, Tours, and Provence. Besides all the obvious hits, are there any lesser-known milhist sites/museums I should hit up? I'm fluent and literate in French so the language isn't an issue. If you are around Tours, you can definitely hop to Saumur where the French Armor Museum is located, the Musée des Blindés. They have a pretty hefty collection of WWII tanks including I think the only Tiger II in working order.
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 12:06
|
|
|
If you're around Calais, do NOT send the flower of French chivalry into a gallant charge against the English lines, though it may be right and proper in war. The English longbowmen are formidable, though they are common men who lack breeding and courage.
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 14:12
|
|
|
Elisha Hunt Rhodes dunked pretty hard on the Confederates: EHR posted:“I remember standing one day looking at a monument in Athens, Ga., when a young collegian said to me, ‘I suppose you object to this monument being here.’ ‘Oh no,’ I said, ‘if you people want to perpetuate your shame, I care little about it. You are simply telling the story to your children of how you tried to pull down the old flag and how you failed.’
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 14:13
|
|
|
They tore down that monument last year, FWIW (and are relocating it somewhere much less visible, apparently)
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 14:25
|
|
|
HannibalBarca posted:They tore down that monument last year, FWIW Huzzah!
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 14:39
|
|
|
PeterCat posted:I've been marathoning Ken Burn's The Civil War over the past 2 day. The last episode makes a big point of how the Confederates wouldn't be forgiven or concede the wrongness of their cause while the Union veterans were all forgiving of the Confederates and welcomed them with open arms back to the Union. The Grand Army of the Republic was a sort of pro-union organization, but their concerns really focused more on veteran's issues than "preserving legacy" or whatever the Sons/Daughters of the Confederacy et al were concerned with. I'm sure there was plenty of individual animosity among northerners but there wasn't nearly the same sort of overwhelming vindictiveness, though poo poo like this managed to seriously raise the ire of even the most magnanimous Union vets. The disparity makes sense in context -- the north won the war to bring the south back into the fold, and it doesn't make a ton of sense to staunchly refuse reconciliation when you've just spent all this time and blood to reconcile. That said, the vast majority of northern vets and the GAR were both huge Republican supporters during reconstruction and so kind of got their revenge as such indirectly through the political machine. I do think the disparity in prominence between northern and southern remembrances is pretty fascinating. As the veterans started to die off in the early 20th century, the northern organizations kind of went with them. The southern ones -- who mostly got their starts as relatively well-meaning veterans' care and advocacy organzations just like their northern counterparts -- went into full-scale INFOWAR mode and managed so successfully to influence the dialogue of the era's history that we're still trying to undo the effects today. bewbies fucked around with this message at 14:52 on Jul 7, 2021 |
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 14:48
|
|
|
skeleton warrior posted:Pretty much. For the U.S. to stop prosecuting the war against Japan, the Japanese government or people would have had to somehow convince the U.S. that they were done, had learned their lesson, and would never start another war again - even as a large portion of the Japanese government was screaming that the war wasn't over, that victory was just around the corner, and as a large portion of the U.S. government and populace considered the Japanese people and government to be dirty [racial slurs] who sneak attacked them at Pearl Harbor. If we stretch he sense of "possible" beyond "politically acceptable back home" and simply look at it in the sense of "can be executed on a practical and material level," short of the US/Allies doing a 180 and saying "ok war is over we are now friends, here is shitloads of food right now for your people," is there any course of action that could be taken, even with the benefit of hindsight, that doesn't result in incomprehensible heaps of corpses? Alternatively, how many gay black Hitlers do we need to throw into the pot to get outcomes that are not the peri bathos of misery? (even if the US wasn't think of it in terms of a decision tree, I often find it helpful to work through a decision tree and contrasting counterfactuals when wrapping my head around something like this).
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 14:53
|
|
|
PeterCat posted:Elisha Hunt Rhodes dunked pretty hard on the Confederates: Reminds me of how a Confederate flag is on prominent display in Minnesota...because a Minnesota infantry unit captured it from a Virginian unit during battle. Virginia keeps whining that they want their flag back and Minnesota just responds "come and take it".
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 15:12
|
|
|
feedmegin posted:I think they actually do dont they? Something about which direction the prop spins. This is a question on the standard US Private Pilot test. Four forces cause the plane to want to turn left: Torque Spiraling Slipstream P-Factor Gyroscopic Procession Link
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 15:15
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 3, 2024 13:37 |
|
|
Nenonen posted:Guess they still haven't found what they're looking for. 
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 15:16
|
|
