Tomn posted:

According to my French friends, French passenger trains are great if your start or end destination is Paris. Everything else is a nightmare because nothing much leads directly to anywhere else, it just all goes to Paris and back out again.

My friends were generally not Parisians.

ilmucche posted:

This is correct. A lot of trips end up being into Paris, change stations, back out of Paris.

Cyrano4747 posted:

Just to expand, with the note that Cessna's edit is on point AND that it's been like 10 years since I've been there (but with the additional caveat that the exhibit I'm about to talk about hadn't changed at all in the 10 years since my previous visit):

There's a section on the liberation of France that is basically all about how the Resistance rose up and drove the perfidious Boche from the homeland (oh and a few Americans and Brits were there too I guess) that is right next to a giant exhibit about all the material damage that the awful USAAF did that specifically tallies up the cost of replacing all the bridges that were blown up. It's strongly implied that this was needless and a travesty.

Which, like. . . ok, that's true. But. . . . there's kind of a reason all those bridges got blown up, and it kind of has something to do with the lack of Germans in (most of) the country as of the Winter of 44/45.

Xiahou Dun posted:

It also happens to be milhist-adjacent, but for Paris you can never go wrong with hitting up the Catacombs with half a bottle of red wine in you already.

Xiahou Dun posted:

It also happens to be milhist-adjacent, but for Paris you can never go wrong with hitting up the Catacombs with half a bottle of red wine in you already.

KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:

changing stations in Paris is often a huge pain in the rear end tho

Marino Sciaroni. A Carrier At Risk: Argentine Aircraft Carrier and Anti-Submarine Operations Against the Royal Navy’s Attack Submarines During the 1982 South Atlantic War. Pg. 60-61 posted:

The last hurdle that the aircraft carrier and its escorts would have to face would be to get past the threat posed by the superbly manned HMS Spartan, possibly the most dangerous of the steel sharks which was still stalking the fleet.

Without being aware of any of this, Capitán Dabini’s aircraft, with the customary assistance from the Landing Signal Officer (LSO), landed back on board without any serious problems at 0950 hrs.

As Capitán Dabini’s Tracker touched down, the carrier was completely alone; its escorts had remained in the Golfo San Matías in an area that was deemed to be off limits to the British submarines due to its shallow waters. This was a false assumption.

Indeed, an Argentine Air Force Fokker F-27 transport aircraft, with the registration TC-78 (callsign “Titan”), carrying out a reconnaissance support mission for the Task Force, reported the sighting of a submarine at periscope depth at a position of 40°15’S, 60°15’W, 150 miles from Puerto Belgrano and some 30 miles behind the carrier, on a course of 190°.

The Argentine Navy and Air Force had coordinated a series of surface search sorties with the aim of detecting any possible threats to the naval surface units. These flights were carried out mainly by the twin-engined Fokker F-27s, an aircraft that was not appropriate for the maritime reconnaissance role but, of course, the Air Force didn’t really possess any aircraft that were more suitable.

The idea was to do everything possible to avoid an intruder positioning itself in coastal waters (long-range reconnaissance tasks were being performed by the Air Force Boeing 707s), but the flights were sparse, the equipment not very suitable and the crews untrained in carrying out flights over water.

This flight, which had taken off from Viedma at 1400 hrs and was not due to return until 1845 hrs, was commanded by Mayor O. Botto with the rest of the crew made up of Capitán Carlos Romeo Filippi, Capitán Julio Mirgone and the NCOs Altamiranda, Sequí y Godoy.

The submarine had been spotted by the pilot, co-pilot and a crewman. During a second pass, carried out at a height of some 5,000 feet, the submarine had submerged, and it was possible to see the fin, periscope and wake.

Because of this detection, a Sea King was launched from the carrier, some thirty minutes later, towards the datum. The crew of the F-27 was not qualified for the task of searching for submarines (which required special training), and a fruitless search by the helicopter ensued. During the helicopter’s return to the carrier, its crew classified the sighting as NONSUB and were sure that the Air Force crew had made a blunder.

The Sea King’s experience Observer, again Teniente Edgardo García, recalled:

“In less than thirty minutes we had taken off in the Sea King, but we had our doubts about the sighting of this submarine as the crew were not trained on how to classify submarine sightings. For this reason, and as we searched and found nothing, the sighting by the Air Force was rejected, stating that they had probably seen a whale.”

Without devaluing the crew of the Fokker, the Navy crew had good reason for thinking this way, as during times of peace and exercises there had been innumerable cases of detection which later turned out to be whales, reflections, waves and even magnetic anomalies in the Earth – all of which to the human eye or the aircraft sensors appeared to be a submarine.

These false sightings had multiplied during the conflict. For this reason, only personnel specially trained in anti-submarine operations were permitted to classify a sighting as a CERTSUB. Additionally, it did not help the credibility of the report by the crew of “Titan” flight that they radioed insistently to the aircraft carrier Independencia (which was the name of the previous fleet carrier to 25 de Mayo) requesting the immediate launch of A-4Q fighter bomber aircraft… to attack a submarine.

The Fokker would later continue its flight to the access channel for Bahia Blanca (near the main Argentine naval base), where it reported another submarine, this time remarking that it was of smaller size and a different colour.

To the surprise of everybody, the sighting that they reported was the Argentine Navy submarine ARA Salta, which was on its way to its final work-up mission, prior to its planned deployment to the war zone.

Because of this sighting, the Fokker crew was automatically qualified in anti-submarine warfare; therefore, their initial sighting immediately gained more credibility. For this reason, it was decided, therefore, to reclassify their “false” sighting as a certain submarine, or CERTSUB.

Consequently, ARA Salta was immediately ordered to return to port and the Tracker Squadron was tasked with another anti-submarine sortie.

At 1850 hrs Tracker 2-AS-24 (under the command of Capitán de Corbeta Goitía) took off and headed to the datum, where it dropped a field of seven sonobuoys which it then headed back to the aircraft carrier. This aircraft was then relieved by 2-AS-26, which had taken off also at 2330 hrs and monitored the same sonobuoys without incident, and then a newly laid field, before landing back on deck at 0441 hrs.

Tracker 2-AS-24 was then launched once more into a murky dawn the following morning, taking off at 0540 hrs under the command of Teniente de Navio Garabaglia (with Teniente de Fragata “Chelo” Alvarez, and NCOs Lencina and Valljos) for another anti-submarine search from an updated datum (now 40°16’S, 60°05’W), without obtaining any results before finally landing at 1040 hrs. For this search, a new pattern of sonobuoys was sown.

It is interesting to note the sonobuoy fields were laid to the east of the submarine sighting, on the assumption it would attempt to head for deeper waters, based on the operational experience gained the day before.

Unfortunately for the squadron, although the area covered was increased in line with the farthest that it could have possibly moved (Farthest-on-Circle), no submarine was detected by the time the operations were terminated at 2230 hrs on the 7th, with the Trackers having flown 11 hours in addition to several hours of the Sea King.

The contact that had been detected was in the area allocated to HMS Spartan. But the submarine had not yet arrived, making this contact another ghost of the war. A big, black, submerged ghost.

Xiahou Dun posted:

It also happens to be milhist-adjacent, but for Paris you can never go wrong with hitting up the Catacombs with half a bottle of red wine in you already.

Nebakenezzer posted:

Hi milhist thread, it's been awhile

Have this (for me) jaw dropping video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oo4am5c8hUE

zoux posted:

Good lord. Hope for calm seas while you're pouring the molten lead/antimony

TooMuchAbstraction posted:

I imagine that aircraft carriers must be among the most stable mobile sea platforms in the world, just from sheer size and mass alone.

Tomn posted:

According to my French friends, French passenger trains are great if your start or end destination is Paris. Everything else is a nightmare because nothing much leads directly to anywhere else, it just all goes to Paris and back out again.

My friends were generally not Parisians.

Cyrano4747 posted:

I have zero idea. Drag competitions used to feature prominently, with a "beauty contest" judged by "neptune's court" (sailors dressed like King Neptune & Co.). I've heard of poo poo in the 20s-40s that involved crap like drinking shipboard lubricants until people puked, running a gauntlet of dudes with whips while naked, and all sorts of other poo poo that's basically just military-grade hazing.

So this poo poo getting toned down a bit in the post-Vietnam era isn't really a bad thing. It's basically like frat initiation stuff in that some people would eventually take poo poo too far.

Cyrano4747 posted:

HookedOnChthonics posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1B71d-9j9k&t=398s

Some incredible footage here I've never stumbled across before from the landing deck camera of a carrier in the pacific

HookedOnChthonics posted:

Gonna risk the faux pas of quoting myself to bring forward some video perspective on how 35 knots fuckin’ whips actually

ninjahedgehog posted:

Going to London and Paris later this summer, are there any milhist destinations I shouldn't miss? Already got the Imperial War Museum on the docket, and I already did the Churchill war rooms, Tower of London and most of the obvious stuff last time I was in town (which was about 15 years ago, granted)

Normandy would be my top choice but it seems like a little much for a day trip, alas

samcarsten posted:

Is Anthony Beevors book on the Russian revolution good? I’ve liked his other books.

samcarsten posted:

Is Anthony Beevors book on the Russian revolution good? I’ve liked his other books.

Yooper posted:

Yes, I very much enjoyed it.

Nenonen posted:

This is not the current events thread

samcarsten posted:

cool, i asked in the other milhist thread and they said he whitewashes german warcrimes, which i distinctly do not remember from my previous readings of his work.

ChubbyChecker posted:

there's another milhist thread?

samcarsten posted:

There's a history thread in C-SPAM.

samcarsten posted:

cool, i asked in the other milhist thread and they said he whitewashes german warcrimes, which i distinctly do not remember from my previous readings of his work.

Yooper posted:

The Germans are covered briefly, but the focus is definitely on what is happening with the various Russian factions away from the front.

samcarsten posted:

does anyone have links to the nazi uniform posts? the ones about how poo poo they were?

samcarsten posted:

Is Anthony Beevors book on the Russian revolution good? I’ve liked his other books.

Fuligin posted:

I have read many of Beevor's books, but not that one. In general I thought they were all fair to good, as far as describing military affairs. On the other hand, his attempts to describe the political dimensions of the spanish civil war were both atrocious (as history) and repulsive (as politics). He is a grand ol Tory historian and it shows- I wouldn't say he exactly whitewashes nazi war crimes but he does indulge in a lot of questionable equivocation in Stalingrad. So a book on the russian civil war definitely raises some red flags to me (harharhar).
Go in with your eyes open I guess

Cyrano4747 posted:

Browse Cessna's post history in this thread in general, there's lots of good stuff in there. But here are two of the stand out effort posts:

1) German uniforms were complex garbage

2) How do you screw up cammo so bad people need to have matching numbers to make their tents match? WTF??

Loezi posted:

Is it beevor or the other dude who wrote the "US citizen soldiers are just naturally superior to anyone else" stuff?

SeanBeansShako posted:

To add onto the comedy Nazi uniform parade; Ensign on his blog breaks down the insanity of the later models of the German helmet and their cursed liner system.