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Cyrano4747 posted:If you think that’s bad you don’t want to know what the cloth was made of. hell, nor the loom
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Sep 7, 2022 19:51
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Only Nazi SS uniforms could be legit loving haunted.
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Sep 7, 2022 20:30
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Sep 7, 2022 20:37
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SeanBeansShako posted:Only Nazi SS uniforms could be legit loving haunted. Except of course for the uniforms of 14th Waffen Grenadiers, the government of Canada assures me that accusing their uniforms of being haunted is a hate crime actually 
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Sep 8, 2022 02:09
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Cyrano4747 posted:If you think that’s nuts look up the patent battles between Mauser and the US govt before, during, and after WW1. poo poo went to the Supreme Court. I wonder, in general wrt this case, who the hell thought it was a good idea to out-sue old German people.
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Sep 8, 2022 08:45
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Tias posted:I wonder, in general wrt this case, who the hell thought it was a good idea to out-sue old German people. I always laugh when someone starts talking about how litigious American society is. Also I dug up my short version of the Mauser lawsuits from earlier in this thread: Cyrano4747 posted:The tl;dr on it is that the m1903 rifle borrowed heavily from the m93 Mauser rifles that Spain had in Cuba, and which were captured in large numbers by the US during that war. The over-all design was pretty derivative of it, but what got the US in trouble specifically were some patents that Mauser had earlier filed in the US for the magazine system, the design of the stripper clips, the design of the stripper clip feed in the receiver, the safety, the extractor, and the extractor collar.* This is pretty normal, Mauser was always good about filing patents numerous places internationally, usually the US, Britain, France, and of course Germany. As I recall Mauser didn't actually sue, but the US government realized it was deep into infringement territory and pre-emptively contacted Mauser to negotiate as settlement. This was resolved in 1905 and the royalties were on both rifles and stripper clips, with the royalties capping at $200,000. This was paid out in a handful of installments that finished up within a couple of years.
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Sep 8, 2022 13:10
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Tias posted:I wonder, in general wrt this case, who the hell thought it was a good idea to out-sue old German people. I mean, it worked for the British with cordite. In the 1880s Alfred Nobel (of prize fame) invents a new propellant called ballistite, which consists of a mixture of nitrocellulose and nitroglycerin. He sends samples to Britain for military trials. A few weeks later, some scientists in a British military lab come up with cordite, a mixture of nitrocellulose and nitroglycerin. Nobel sues, but loses, because the British used a slightly different formulation of nitrocellulose and a different solvent, so according to the British court, hadn't infringed his patent.
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Sep 8, 2022 14:02
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Randomcheese3 posted:I mean, it worked for the British with cordite. In the 1880s Alfred Nobel (of prize fame) invents a new propellant called ballistite, which consists of a mixture of nitrocellulose and nitroglycerin. He sends samples to Britain for military trials. A few weeks later, some scientists in a British military lab come up with cordite, a mixture of nitrocellulose and nitroglycerin. Nobel sues, but loses, because the British used a slightly different formulation of nitrocellulose and a different solvent, so according to the British court, hadn't infringed his patent. Nobel was a Swede, though. That makes all the difference. Never get into a land war with Russia, never get into a legal battle with a German. edit: jokes aside, I've got some vague memory at the back of my head of British patent courts being kinda prone to that stuff when it came to domestic copies of foreign things in the late 19th. The important bit of the Mauser case is that the actual rifle design was recognized by the US government as infringing and they proactively reached out for a settlement.
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Sep 8, 2022 14:04
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Randomcheese3 posted:I mean, it worked for the British with cordite. In the 1880s Alfred Nobel (of prize fame) invents a new propellant called ballistite, which consists of a mixture of nitrocellulose and nitroglycerin. He sends samples to Britain for military trials. A few weeks later, some scientists in a British military lab come up with cordite, a mixture of nitrocellulose and nitroglycerin. Nobel sues, but loses, because the British used a slightly different formulation of nitrocellulose and a different solvent, so according to the British court, hadn't infringed his patent. This reminds me of a scene in one old comedy:  What are you doing? I'm inventing gunpowder! But hasn't gunpowder been invented already? Yes, and I'm inventing more of it!except he would then name it pungowder or sumthink
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Sep 8, 2022 14:07
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Nenonen posted:This reminds me of a scene in one old comedy: If you like this start reading on the history of smokeless powder development. Around 1870-1890 you have a ton of different people all across Europe taking a stab at making smokeless, with a lot of intermediary things that were basically less smoky black powder. Poudre B in France, of course, but there are a bunch of oddball trials in Germany and Switzerland. In Germany in particular it's Max von Duttenhofer's Rottweil Powder Manufactory that does a lot of the late work on black powder that leads into smokeless, starting first with trying to make a less smoky artillery powder and culminating in the "R.C.P" (the specific meaning of the abbreviation has been lost to time, possibilities are Rottweil Chemical Powder and Rottweil Cellulose Powder) small arms powder that was a kind of "quasi-smokeless" powder. A German officer at a trial for it noted that the amount of smoke was akin to a well burning cigar, so visible at the firing end but not all that notable from the viewpoint of someone being shot at, at least compared to black powder. RCP only lasted a year or two before it was replaced with a true smokeless powder based on nitrated cotton. The big benefit wasn't even the smokeless nature, it was the ease in manufacturing. RCP had a super archaic manufacturing process that involved lots of washes and charring and produced both unpredictable yields and a lot of chemical waste, even by late 19th-century German standards. It killed all the fish in the Neckar river, if that's any indication, something Duttenhofer got around by buying out all the fishing rights in all the towns down-stream of his factory. Dutenhoffer was constantly having trouble fufilling the orders, supplying only about half of the contracted 300,000 kg in 1888. This is a problem as the Germans were afraid of imminent war with France and were desperately trying to build a stockpile of the new small caliber Patrone 88 cartridge. It was also insanely dangerous - again, by late 19th century German standards, so think the kind of safety standards that would make a modern Chinese industrialist blanch. As a side-benefit of the new, actually smokeless powder you see much higher potential chamber pressures, which is another thing that is common throughout all of the early smokeless designs. The early ones were basically black powder designs re-worked for smokeless, and as such were comparatively low pressure by modern standards. The higher pressures made possible by the new powders both permitted much higher muzzle velocities and also required an entire new generation of firearms that could handle those kinds of pressures. Hence the extremely over-built nature of the m1893, m1895, and m1898 Mauser rifles compared to the Gew 1888.
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Sep 8, 2022 14:40
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In 1967 an advertising agency contacted the Suomenlinna museum in Helsinki because they wanted to build a display at a client bank's window with cannon balls. Well the museum has all kinds of Crimean war era stuff so they said sure, we have lots of balls in the attic, just go and take some. Then they noticed that these 100+ years old balls weren't just props. There was gunpowder still in them and it was dry. Oops. So they contacted the army and a feldwebel showed up to disarm them with the assistance of the window dressers. 
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Sep 8, 2022 15:36
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Nenonen posted:a feldwebel showed up to disarm them with the assistance of the window dressers. And the screwdrivers.  This is flathead bomb disposal screwdriver erasure and I will not have it.
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Sep 8, 2022 15:54
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Never use a flat bladed screwdriver as a prying tool but definitely use it as a bomb disposal tool
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Sep 8, 2022 16:38
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Also bad to use as a reaction mediator in a criticality experiment
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Sep 8, 2022 16:39
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It's black powder so they could be rendered inert just by pouring water on them right?
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Sep 8, 2022 17:18
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VostokProgram posted:It's black powder so they could be rendered inert just by pouring water on them right? You can't pour water on a museum piece, it would rust!
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Sep 8, 2022 17:21
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zoux posted:Also bad to use as a reaction mediator in a criticality experiment Fine to use for shipboard damage control though. Dammit can't find the picture.
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Sep 8, 2022 17:26
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VostokProgram posted:It's black powder so they could be rendered inert just by pouring water on them right? Not permanently, if that's what you're asking. It will get hosed up, but once dry it will still be combustible and likely even explosive. I'd also not want to bet my life on properly identifying the explosive in there. Don't get me wrong, if you handed me a screwdriver and a cannon ball and said "have at it" I'd probably want to soak everything down as a precaution, but not something I'd want to do recreationally. Speaking of people who do that poo poo recreationally, a guy in Virginia was killed a few years back "restoring" (aka taking an angle grinder to polish the rust off) a battlefield-dug Civil War cannonball. The powder was still good enough to kill him 150 years after it was fired. Don't gently caress with UXO, kids.
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Sep 8, 2022 17:32
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Cyrano4747 posted:Not permanently, if that's what you're asking. It will get hosed up, but once dry it will still be combustible and likely even explosive. 
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Sep 8, 2022 17:33
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Cyrano4747 posted:Speaking of people who do that poo poo recreationally, a guy in Virginia was killed a few years back "restoring" (aka taking an angle grinder to polish the rust off) a battlefield-dug Civil War cannonball. The powder was still good enough to kill him 150 years after it was fired. More like angel grinder 
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Sep 8, 2022 17:36
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VostokProgram posted:It's black powder so they could be rendered inert just by pouring water on them right? That just makes corned gunpowder.
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Sep 8, 2022 18:50
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Isn't "Charles" kind of a cursed name for a British monarch? Are there any monarchies with such infamous members that a certain regnal name becomes retired
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Sep 8, 2022 20:09
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zoux posted:Isn't "Charles" kind of a cursed name for a British monarch? Are there any monarchies with such infamous members that a certain regnal name becomes retired Didn't stop Napoleon III from rising to power (but then to him it was more of a benefit at that point). I would think that enough time has passed from Charles II that it won't matter here, they're not even related and he has just as much power in the United Kingdom as Mickey Mouse has in the Magic Kingdom. I'm sure that if e.g. monarchy was restored to Russia then the first guy wouldn't take the regent name of Ivan, though.
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Sep 8, 2022 20:17
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Anyone have a good, top-level rundown of the Russian Civil War just chilling somewhere? Nothing too detailed or even necessarily that serious, just something better than like god drat Wikipedia to try and get the broad strokes of the conflict into my head in one place. I just realized that I have a decent grounding in the October Revolution and my knowledge picks up again some time in the 30's, but in the middle my summary would be "some fighting happened ; I watched A Young Doctor's Notebook once drunk on a plane". Which probably isn't a very intelligent or well-rounded understanding of a major point in world history.
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Sep 8, 2022 20:22
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Ivan would be a power move. If you told me Putin crowned himself Ivan VII* tomorrow I don't think I'd even blink. Now Nicholas III, that would be a questionable call. *I had to look this one up. Yes I'm surprised there were six of them too. Also that Ivan wasn't even #1
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Sep 8, 2022 20:25
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Xiahou Dun posted:Anyone have a good, top-level rundown of the Russian Civil War just chilling somewhere? Take this with a grain of salt because I haven't personally read it, but years ago I a friend who does Russian poo poo professionally recommended The 'Russian' Civil Wars: 1916 - 1926 when I asked a similar question. The name sticks in my head because of the inspired use of scare quotes.
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Sep 8, 2022 20:28
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zoux posted:Isn't "Charles" kind of a cursed name for a British monarch? Are there any monarchies with such infamous members that a certain regnal name becomes retired I think there's a pope name that is supposed to herald the apocalypse.
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Sep 8, 2022 20:37
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SlothfulCobra posted:I think there's a pope name that is supposed to herald the apocalypse. Petrus Romanus and his reign will see the destruction of Rome, which is a lot less important now than it was when the prophecy was first published in the late 16th c.
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Sep 8, 2022 20:40
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Nenonen posted:Didn't stop Napoleon III from rising to power (but then to him it was more of a benefit at that point). I would think that enough time has passed from Charles II that it won't matter here, they're not even related and he has just as much power in the United Kingdom as Mickey Mouse has in the Magic Kingdom. If Mickey Mouse was the official source of all legitimacy in government and also lobbied really hard behind the scenes to stop gay marriage
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Sep 8, 2022 20:40
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Nenonen posted:Didn't stop Napoleon III from rising to power (but then to him it was more of a benefit at that point). I would think that enough time has passed from Charles II that it won't matter here, they're not even related and he has just as much power in the United Kingdom as Mickey Mouse has in the Magic Kingdom. Likewise, if German monarchy ever comes back, the first König von Deutschland will probably not call himself Wilhelm II, not even if he is another Hohenzoller,  Though it's equally likely that the next German king would just be a Welfe, as those are still around and less cursed by history, thanks to Prussia throwing them out of Hannover and then demolishing their kingdom before it could go bad. Personally, I'd rank the chance of King Ernst August of Germany at the same likelihood as a sudden alien invasion, but it could happen.
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Sep 8, 2022 20:45
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Xiahou Dun posted:Anyone have a good, top-level rundown of the Russian Civil War just chilling somewhere? If you enjoy wargames then I could point you toward either AGEOD's Revolution Under Siege or for a lighter option, Strategic Command WW1 (the 'classic' version from 2010, not the 2019 new version), they both give a pretty good overview of the whole thing in an interactive form, albeit with things not going exactly according to history depending on how the war goes. But there are lots of historical events in both (hundreds in the RUS long campaign) and you get more contextualized understanding of the events. Certainly not a replacement for literature, but it helps putting everything in its place because Russian empire is a huge area and few westerners know the geography and ethnography that well to not get confused without holding a map and an encyclopedia while reading. Plus Revolution Under Siege also has scenarios of Finnish Civil War and Russo-Polish war. The caveat is that it takes a lot of time to fight through the RUS long campaign... especially as you stop to look up more information on some historical event or the biography of some commander.
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Sep 8, 2022 21:09
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zoux posted:Isn't "Charles" kind of a cursed name for a British monarch? Are there any monarchies with such infamous members that a certain regnal name becomes retired https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Formosus
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Sep 8, 2022 21:12
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For "Russian" Civil War coverage, I like the coverage of the Great War channel on YouTube, they got to the armistice and just kept going into the absolute chaos that was 1919-1922. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBmm4D907Xw
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Sep 9, 2022 02:09
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Cyrano4747 posted:Ivan would be a power move. If you told me Putin crowned himself Ivan VII* tomorrow I don't think I'd even blink. I conflated the two significant Ivans for a very long time. I'm actually also surprised that there were six.
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Sep 9, 2022 02:55
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Xiahou Dun posted:
I will confess that I am not really answering your question so much as using it as a springboard, but one of the best histories I've read recently is a Marxist history of the economic changes in the USSR from 1917 to 1921. It's available for free from marxists.org and is a really incredible document https://www.marxists.org/archive/brinton/1970/workers-control/01.htm#h1 zoux posted:Isn't "Charles" kind of a cursed name for a British monarch? Are there any monarchies with such infamous members that a certain regnal name becomes retired Interestingly: the British monarchy has retired "Albert." Edward VII had the first name of "Albert" but was crowned Edward because he didn't want to intrude on his father Albert's turf. Which I guess isn't really infamous but it is still kind of funny that they didn't retire Charles.
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Sep 9, 2022 03:12
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zoux posted:Petrus Romanus and his reign will see the destruction of Rome, which is a lot less important now than it was when the prophecy was first published in the late 16th c. imagine if it's something like a comic where this relates to Romulus Augustulus but that's probably something the writers of the time didn't consider as a thing
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Sep 9, 2022 03:35
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I have heard it said that Victoria would have renamed the entire empire Alberta if they would have let her.
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Sep 9, 2022 03:37
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ContinuityNewTimes posted:If Mickey Mouse was the official source of all legitimacy in government and also lobbied really hard behind the scenes to stop gay marriage Yeah, imagine what would happen if a rich reactionary dingbat gained massive unspoken powers, tried to become a dictator and caused a constitutional crisis. Could never happen in a republic!
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Sep 9, 2022 04:48
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Gen. Ripper posted:Yeah, imagine what would happen if a rich reactionary dingbat gained massive unspoken powers, tried to become a dictator and caused a constitutional crisis. Could never happen in a republic! Sure thing Cicero
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Sep 9, 2022 05:35
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Gen. Ripper posted:Yeah, imagine what would happen if a rich reactionary dingbat gained massive unspoken powers, tried to become a dictator and caused a constitutional crisis. Could never happen in a republic! Whatever,Plato. That Columbus got literally all the cred for discovering the America's snatched by Amerigo Vespucci is never not funny to me.
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Sep 9, 2022 08:43
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