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Wingnut Ninja posted:I imagine Shohei Ohtani would be an even better batter if we outfitted him with millions of dollars worth of radar and a precision guided bat for every pitch. I think some youtuber has probably done that.
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May 17, 2023 19:00
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I read something that the Kinzal was likely intercepted by a PAC2 because the warhead/nosecone was intact. The PAC3 is basically a high speed frag grenade that shreds the warhead of a missile. Also apparently most patriot batteries employ a mixture of PAC 2 and PAC 3 launchers because they have different strengths and weaknesses?
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May 17, 2023 19:01
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No MLB pitcher has intercepted a ballistic missile since Tungsten Arm O’Doyle of the 1921 Akron Groomsmen
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May 17, 2023 19:05
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Wingnut Ninja posted:I imagine Shohei Ohtani would be an even better batter if we outfitted him with millions of dollars worth of radar and a precision guided bat for every pitch. I'd watch The Six Million Dollar Infielder
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May 17, 2023 19:13
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Der Kyhe posted:Imagine what they could achieve if they put this much effort into attacking some actual military target, instead of terror-bombing the cities and civilians. But enough about the V2 program.
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May 17, 2023 19:33
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Wingnut Ninja posted:Getting timely, usable coordinates for a mass strike against contested, constantly repositioning front line tactical targets is hard work. It also requires a degree of battlespace awareness and C2 integration that Russia probably doesn't have. Apartments and bus stops aren't going anywhere and you can pull targets off Google Earth. This is a good point. I imagine the fluidity of urban combat would make strategic weapons and their targeting a bit tricky. Hieronymous Alloy posted:The Acoup blog did a great analysis a little while back about why bad military leadership keeps trying civilian bombing campaigns. Basically they *feel* like they should work, and when you're in a war there's a desire to punish the enemy, so thus bad leadership tends to default into this same mistake pattern over and over again. This is also a good point and tracks with what I remember from my basic military history course regarding the Allied Bombing campaigns of Germany in WW2. It seemed to cost a lot of lives and accomplish very little in the overall, but the "feel" of punishing the enemy was very real and apparently valuable. I guess it should be no surprised that no one learned the lesson.
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May 17, 2023 19:36
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Der Kyhe posted:Imagine what they could achieve if they put this much effort into attacking some actual military target, instead of terror-bombing the cities and civilians. To be fair, the Patriot Battery they're trying to hit is a military target? From a purely pragmatic perspective: Hitting CNI is absolutely the best use of these weapons. They just should have done it from the start and not months into the war once they're losing... They simply don't have the detection and dissemination speed required; or the ODA to do this against relevant tactical or operational targets. But yes, they should just go home.
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May 17, 2023 19:40
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Crazy Ferret posted:This is a good point. I imagine the fluidity of urban combat would make strategic weapons and their targeting a bit tricky. here's the link : https://acoup.blog/2022/10/21/collections-strategic-airpower-101/ It's an extraordinarily long and in depth article that boils down to this summation of the use of strategic air power bombing: 
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May 17, 2023 19:43
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Targeting key infrastructure points makes sense. Perhaps also industrial sites even if Albert Speer was willing to fight the industrial war to the last drop of inmate blood. But random apartments? Especially with hard to replace missiles?
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May 17, 2023 19:48
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glynnenstein posted:I think Russia is making a strategic bet with these attacks that they will help them outlast western support. They don't have any offensive capabilities except grinding their own manpower into dust against Ukrainians and massed attacks using stand-off missiles of questionable tactical usefulness (due both to systemic intelligence failures and poor-quality weapon systems). The latter option saps expensive air-defense resources which increasingly have to come from the west, so they've picked it as a pain point. The horror of it is a desired feature matching the genocidal malice of Putin's regime, not a flaw at all from their perspective. That's sounds like you're retconning strategic foresight onto what is much more likely a 'throw poo poo at the (civilian) wall and see what sticks' improvisation on Russia's part. Just because the terror campaign against Ukraine's power infrastructure to make Ukraine surrender rather than freeze to death in the middle of Winter didn't work doesn't mean Russia knew it wouldn't work beforehand. It takes SMEs like Massicot and Bronk to really unravel how Russia's air strategy, such as it is, has changed, evolved and adapted over the course of the war, and even they may not have enough intel on what Russia is actually targeting with each strike to confidently make such assessments. The emerging narrative, at least to me, is that Russia has caught Ukraine and its supporters on the back foot a couple of times, but they have adapted and are countering the attacks more and more effectively, despite a slow start. But that's just the surface narrative. Is Ukraine teetering on the edge of a catastrophic interceptor shortage? Is Russia improving its targeting and BDA? Has Ukraine found a cost-effective counter to Iranian moped drones, or are their current methods unsustainable? Do we already produce and supply interceptors faster than Russia can build new missiles and drones, and if not, how long will it take to reach that point? I haven't got a clue about all this. I will say that with the recent news about Storm Shadows and F-16 training, as well as the shootdowns over Bryansk, it seems like we've finally started to take the air threat seriously and the gloves are coming off. Edit: https://twitter.com/MarkUrban01/status/1658889631658647557?t=GJT61xhFOWCW6Llxc_B43Q&s=19 Hannibal Rex fucked around with this message at 19:58 on May 17, 2023 |
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May 17, 2023 19:52
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:here's the link : The biggest contributor to the defeat of Germany that the bombing campaign did achieve was that the Luftwaffe was basically compelled to fight every bombing raid (which drew off planes from doingn other theaters) and lose fighters (and more importantly, pilots) with every raid. It also caused the Germans to divert factories into making aircraft specifically designed to counter bombers and make divert scientific research into researching ways to fight the air campaign. As funny as a BF-110 looks with upward pointed cannon, and as effective as it was at destroying liberators and B-17s, it's also only good at that, so functionally speaking, the Germans were forced to divert aluminum, factory space, and man hours to fighting against an air campaign of, at best, questionable effectiveness at destroying German industrial capacity. I think that the Vietnam War did a shitload of damage to the credibility of strategic airpower. We bombed the absolute everyliving gently caress out of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia but we still lost. Nixon at one point intimated a threat to nuke Haiphong to Lê Đức Thọ, who responded with (and I'm paraphrasing here) "Do it,pussy." Kissinger and Nixon had the air force draw up plans, but it was never seriously contemplated.
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May 17, 2023 20:12
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Infidelicious posted:To be fair, the Patriot Battery they're trying to hit is a military target? Yes, in a civilian city outside the frontlines and the only thing Russia could achieve by erasing it would be to enable more terror bombing on civilians. The Russians are completely unable to do anything that makes sense strategy-wise unless its about war crimes, then they do meticulous planning and execution and use their resources efficiently. But if its not a war crime or act towards doing war crimes then Russia is just, well, Russia.
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May 17, 2023 20:12
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If a single launcher was able to intercept 18 missiles coming in at a mix of altitudes and speeds all timed to arrive simultaneously and all you lost was the launcher then that seems like a win for the launcher. How often will Russia have the kind of intel and capability to launch that coordinated of an attack?
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May 17, 2023 20:17
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Murgos posted:If a single launcher was able to intercept 18 missiles coming in at a mix of altitudes and speeds all timed to arrive simultaneously and all you lost was the launcher then that seems like a win for the launcher.
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May 17, 2023 20:29
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Murgos posted:If a single launcher was able to intercept 18 missiles coming in at a mix of altitudes and speeds all timed to arrive simultaneously and all you lost was the launcher then that seems like a win for the launcher. Russia claims that they're producing ten Kinzhals per month, which means that if everything is taken at face value, that would be two months' production of missiles that just got taken out in exchange for what sounds like repairable damage to one Patriot battery.
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May 17, 2023 20:29
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A Festivus Miracle posted:The biggest contributor to the defeat of Germany that the bombing campaign did achieve was that the Luftwaffe was basically compelled to fight every bombing raid (which drew off planes from doingn other theaters) and lose fighters (and more importantly, pilots) with every raid. It also caused the Germans to divert factories into making aircraft specifically designed to counter bombers and make divert scientific research into researching ways to fight the air campaign. As funny as a BF-110 looks with upward pointed cannon, and as effective as it was at destroying liberators and B-17s, it's also only good at that, so functionally speaking, the Germans were forced to divert aluminum, factory space, and man hours to fighting against an air campaign of, at best, questionable effectiveness at destroying German industrial capacity. Also the strategic bombing campaign had a devastating effect on oil production. You can certainly argue that the resources spent on the strategic bombing campaign would have been better used elsewhere, but it had a huge impact on Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan that people often try to handwave away.
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May 17, 2023 20:56
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Der Kyhe posted:Imagine what they could achieve if they put this much effort into attacking some actual military target, instead of terror-bombing the cities and civilians. the civilians are the military target for russia
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May 17, 2023 21:05
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glynnenstein posted:I think Russia is making a strategic bet with these attacks that they will help them outlast western support. They don't have any offensive capabilities except grinding their own manpower into dust against Ukrainians and massed attacks using stand-off missiles of questionable tactical usefulness (due both to systemic intelligence failures and poor-quality weapon systems). The latter option saps expensive air-defense resources which increasingly have to come from the west, so they've picked it as a pain point. The horror of it is a desired feature matching the genocidal malice of Putin's regime, not a flaw at all from their perspective. Seems to me that terror bombing civilians has more potential to bake in western support for Ukraine. That sort of thing hits a nerve that purely military strikes do not.
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May 17, 2023 21:53
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gay picnic defence posted:Seems to me that terror bombing civilians has more potential to bake in western support for Ukraine. That sort of thing hits a nerve that purely military strikes do not. Only when it's in the capital, since most other strikes (done by things other than cruise missiles) tend to go unreported outside Ukrainian press unless especially bloody.
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May 17, 2023 22:01
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Hannibal Rex posted:That's sounds like you're retconning strategic foresight onto what is much more likely a 'throw poo poo at the (civilian) wall and see what sticks' improvisation on Russia's part. Just because the terror campaign against Ukraine's power infrastructure to make Ukraine surrender rather than freeze to death in the middle of Winter didn't work doesn't mean Russia knew it wouldn't work beforehand. Well, I don't think it was their plan from the start; I think that's why their still doing what they're doing now. We started to hear about exhaustion of UAF air defense stocks back at the end of winter, and while Russia is pretty inept, they aren't completely stupid and were certainly aware of that as well.
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May 17, 2023 23:01
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EasilyConfused posted:Also the strategic bombing campaign had a devastating effect on oil production. I read a fairly convincing book chapter that pointed out while German production numbers went up during the bombing campaign, quality fell off a cliff. Partially as a result of having to use makeshift solutions when needed parts couldn’t be sourced, partially due to reduced standards—factories made quotas by allowing substandard products that would otherwise have been rejected. The author claimed that at the height of German fighter production, 25% of all new fighters were lost while in transit to the frontlines. In the Pacific, owing to the vast distances involved, the difficulty of deep-ocean navigation and the lack of quality pilots, the number was sometimes closer to 50% of Japanese fighters lost in transit.
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May 18, 2023 00:04
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Vengarr posted:I read a fairly convincing book chapter that pointed out while German production numbers went up during the bombing campaign, quality fell off a cliff. Partially as a result of having to use makeshift solutions when needed parts couldn’t be sourced, partially due to reduced standards—factories made quotas by allowing substandard products that would otherwise have been rejected. Where was this, I'm curious.
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May 18, 2023 00:17
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EasilyConfused posted:Also the strategic bombing campaign had a devastating effect on oil production. It's the brainbug of "America bad, so therefore the japanese and germans had to be the victims of America."
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May 18, 2023 01:09
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Vengarr posted:The author claimed that at the height of German fighter production, 25% of all new fighters were lost while in transit to the frontlines. In the Pacific, owing to the vast distances involved, the difficulty of deep-ocean navigation and the lack of quality pilots, the number was sometimes closer to 50% of Japanese fighters lost in transit. Ian Toll’s Pacific War Trilogy had interesting info on differences between US & Japanese plane logistics. US was fighting a two ocean war and supplying thousands of planes to the Allies, and still in the most remote parts of the globe they had so many planes arriving that slightly damaged planes were pushed aside to make room for a new arrival. They’d also rotate out experienced pilots & had limitless aviation fuel & space to let them train with sufficient hours, & had dedicated ocean search and rescue. Meanwhile Japan had problems like you said getting planes to the front as some factories weren’t near rail so oxen were used, & pilots were expected to fly until they dropped which worsened one of their big advantages as their elite core got ground down. Also not great about finding all their pilots in the water. Fivemarks posted:It's the brainbug of "America bad, so therefore the japanese and germans had to be the victims of America." Lol Chapo/Blowback brain bug. USA bad, therefore East Germany did nothing wrong & Saddam would have stopped at Kuwait, the real bad guy of the war.
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May 18, 2023 01:29
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Hyrax Attack! posted:Meanwhile Japan had problems like you said getting planes to the front as some factories weren’t near rail so oxen were used, & pilots were expected to fly until they dropped which worsened one of their big advantages as their elite core got ground down. Also not great about finding all their pilots in the water. Wait you already built the factory why not just loving extend a rail spur to the factory?
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May 18, 2023 01:31
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Vengarr posted:I read a fairly convincing book chapter that pointed out while German production numbers went up during the bombing campaign, quality fell off a cliff. Partially as a result of having to use makeshift solutions when needed parts couldn’t be sourced, partially due to reduced standards—factories made quotas by allowing substandard products that would otherwise have been rejected. Yeah the quality of German armour plummeted, and at the end of the war was way less effective than early war production. Ball bearing production was also disrupted several times. Overall quality of just about everything went downhill. This can be observed visually if you take an example of K98s produced throughout the war. Early examples had high quality of fit and finish, where by the end of the war they were a tragic jumble of parts that the only consideration was "does it work most of the time?" The civilian terror bombings like Dresden and Tokyo were ineffective and war crimes for sure, but there was an element of effectiveness to the targeting of Germany's industrial capabilities.
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May 18, 2023 01:32
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Fivemarks posted:Wait you already built the factory why not just loving extend a rail spur to the factory? Because Imperial Japan was a very special place where what we would deem rules of logical economic and political behavior did not apply. The Imperial Army liked to conscript shipyard workers specifically to gently caress with the Imperial Navy.
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May 18, 2023 01:36
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While it is true that there's an argument to be made that strat bombing of Japan in particular was effective, it was also monstrous and brutally indiscriminate. And the allied submarine campaign against Japan's shipping and troop ships in WW2 is maybe highly rated, but still underrated, given how little play it gets in most people's discussions of WW2.
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May 18, 2023 01:36
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Cythereal posted:Because Imperial Japan was a very special place where what we would deem rules of logical economic and political behavior did not apply. Holy poo poo, I did not know that fact. That's a truly wild level of inter-service rivalry and fuckery.
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May 18, 2023 01:39
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Fivemarks posted:Wait you already built the factory why not just loving extend a rail spur to the factory? quote:When a government inspector passed through the Nagoya works in late 1943, he was surprised to learn that newly manufactured Zeros were still being hauled away from the plant by teams of oxen. There was no airfield adjoining the Mitsubishi plant. The new units had to be transported overland to Kagamigahara, twenty-four miles away, where the navy would accept delivery. The aircraft were too delicate to transport on trucks, and the railheads were not convenient. Twenty oxen had died, and the remaining thirty were verging on complete exhaustion. Feed had been obtained on the black market, but the supply was not reliable. I forgot the poor oxen performing a critical task were starving. Meanwhile on their super battleship the admirals had a luxury dining room with elite chefs. mlmp08 posted:And the allied submarine campaign against Japan's shipping and troop ships in WW2 is maybe highly rated, but still underrated, given how little play it gets in most people's discussions of WW2. Oh yeah didn’t they never establish an effective convoy system? Hyrax Attack! fucked around with this message at 01:54 on May 18, 2023 |
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May 18, 2023 01:51
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mlmp08 posted:While it is true that there's an argument to be made that strat bombing of Japan in particular was effective, it was also monstrous and brutally indiscriminate. And the allied submarine campaign against Japan's shipping and troop ships in WW2 is maybe highly rated, but still underrated, given how little play it gets in most people's discussions of WW2. US Submarine campaign did what the Kriegsmarine nearly did in WWI, which was achieve the military objective of starving an island nation and preventing it from getting enough oil and raw materials to wage war. Unlike Imperial Germany, it was not seen as a way to get Japan to quit the war, as the only acceptable outcome was Unconditional Surrender. PurpleXVI posted:Holy poo poo, I did not know that fact. That's a truly wild level of inter-service rivalry and fuckery. The inter service rivalry in Japan was just a hair's breadth short of treason. Hyrax Attack! posted:Oh yeah didn’t they never establish an effective convoy system? By 1944 they didn't have the ships for convoys. By 1945 they didn't have the fuel.
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May 18, 2023 02:03
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mikerock posted:Yeah the quality of German armour plummeted, and at the end of the war was way less effective than early war production. Ball bearing production was also disrupted several times. Overall quality of just about everything went downhill. This can be observed visually if you take an example of K98s produced throughout the war. Early examples had high quality of fit and finish, where by the end of the war they were a tragic jumble of parts that the only consideration was "does it work most of the time?" There is also a strong case to be made that the German production of armour plating for warships had serious QC issues prior to the war and this may have also been a problem for tank production as well.
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May 18, 2023 02:05
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Plastic_Gargoyle posted:Where was this, I'm curious. Logistics by Land and Air by Phillips Payson O'Brien. The author linked it on Twitter as a good primer for military logistics, since the basic problems and solutions haven't changed much since WW2.
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May 18, 2023 02:06
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Fearless posted:There is also a strong case to be made that the German production of armour plating for warships had serious QC issues prior to the war and this may have also been a problem for tank production as well. Wasn't the problem that they couldn't produce quality armor plate in the size needed for battleships, but tank armor was a much more feasible process?
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May 18, 2023 02:06
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A lot of Russia's missiles are fired at military targets, Ukraine just 1) doesn't report on the success or failure of those for a multitude of reasons (nor should they) and 2) even the good Russian missiles have a pretty high failure rate and end up hitting something other than their intended target, which in cities is civilians. Russia does also deliberately target civilian sites for attacks, too, so I don't mean to suggest that they're all failed attacks on military targets, to be clear. there's a reason why ukrainian armor repair sites are being run with like manhattan project levels of secrecy
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May 18, 2023 02:25
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PurpleXVI posted:Holy poo poo, I did not know that fact. That's a truly wild level of inter-service rivalry and fuckery. Shattered Sword touches on it as well. Imperial Japan did not sound like a fun place.
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May 18, 2023 02:30
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Herstory Begins Now posted:there's a reason why ukrainian armor repair sites are being run with like manhattan project levels of secrecy So infested with Soviet spies then? I hope not! 
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May 18, 2023 02:41
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A.o.D. posted:Wasn't the problem that they couldn't produce quality armor plate in the size needed for battleships, but tank armor was a much more feasible process? Thickness was the main problem-- apparently, they had issues with hardening the faces of armour plates and keeping the middles sufficiently ductile to keep them from shattering under impact. As the war dragged on, I think this began to trickle downwards too but I could be mistaken.
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May 18, 2023 02:49
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Yes there's chemicals required in the hardening process that the Germans began to lack as the war progressed, so the armour became more brittle and less ductile. It resulted in more spalling and cracking.
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May 18, 2023 03:15
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Metallurgy is hard
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