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Crosspost from PYF tweets:
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Oct 6, 2023 21:37
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An oldie but a goldie that one.
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Oct 6, 2023 22:14
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Xiahou Dun posted:Germany suddenly existing changed some things, for a start. A hundred years is a long time. Germany suddeny existing didn't change things immediately, as late as the Fashoda crsis of 1898 the two countries came very close to war. the Anglo-Franco detente was really the result of diplomacy in a decade prior to the WWI, and it was as much about peeling France away from Russia (whom the British were eternally scared of invading India) as a counterweight to Germany. Edward VII actually played a pretty big role in it cuz he was really good at PR and would travel to France and the French really liked him The set of coalitions which fought WWI against each other were quite circumstantial and had the war happened at a different time different countries could easily have being on different sides. We could have easily had pretty wacky alliance combos like UK+Germany vs France/Russia or France + UK vs Russia/Germany or even like Germany+US vs France/UK had US imperialism decided they wanted to take Canda in the late 1800s Typo fucked around with this message at 23:31 on Oct 6, 2023 |
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Oct 6, 2023 23:26
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feedmegin posted:Err....? What? I said they were allied during WWI and WWII. World War I ran from 1914 to 1918, World War II ran from the tail end of 1939 to 1945. The 1920s is not during either war, and the vast majority of WW2 took place in the 1940s rather than the 1930s. "They were allied during these wars". "Err....? What? do you mean specifically during the war, or also during a time period that's not during either war you mentioned" doesn't make you look as clever as you seem to think it does.
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Oct 7, 2023 00:58
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Typo posted:Germany suddeny existing didn't change things immediately, as late as the Fashoda crsis of 1898 the two countries came very close to war. I feel like France + Germany v. the UK is the better move since if you don't do naval builds ASAP and root out the UK they'll forever be a thorn in your side once you're facing off with the eastern powers.
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Oct 7, 2023 01:25
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Pantaloon Pontiff posted:I said they were allied during WWI and WWII. World War I ran from 1914 to 1918, World War II ran from the tail end of 1939 to 1945. The 1920s is not during either war, and the vast majority of WW2 took place in the 1940s rather than the 1930s. "They were allied during these wars". "Err....? What? do you mean specifically during the war, or also during a time period that's not during either war you mentioned" doesn't make you look as clever as you seem to think it does. I think you misunderstood my point. When you talk about e.g. 'By the 1950s China was a significant enemy of the US, UK, and France while Japan was an ally, and then shifted to where it is today as 'major trading partner but also has significant conflicting interests'.' - that's a decades long alliance during peacetime, in Japan's case, similar to where France and Britain were getting to by 1914. My point is this is different to a temporary wartime alliance which doesn't necessarily have any long term effect on their relations after it. Point in example being, Russia was allied with France and Britain during World War 1, was promptly invaded by them right after with the regime change, then essentially frozen out of relations for most of the period from then until Barbarossa when suddenly the Soviet Union was good again. And then relations got frosty again pretty shortly after WW2. Drake meme with 'we're at war and on the same side for now' vs 'it's peacetime and we don't trust you guys an inch'. You kind of have to look at the two cases separately.
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Oct 7, 2023 11:08
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So I'm going through the diaries of Charles 'Chick' Bruns as he rampages across North Africa in his role of combat engineer. On the post for May 4th 1943 there is a picture of a knocked out German tank. The image description is just German tank, which isn't the most informative sentence. Anyone able to tell me what this pile of scrap metal used to be? https://70yearsago.com/4-1943-tuesday/sony-dsc-41/ Edit: This one from May 6th 1943 is an even bigger mystery to me. Especially with the blurriness of the picture and the lack of subtle hint about the nationality of the wreck. https://70yearsago.com/6-1943-thursday/sony-dsc-42/ vvv Much obliged SerthVarnee fucked around with this message at 18:40 on Oct 7, 2023 |
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Oct 7, 2023 18:36
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That is the ever-popular Tiger I. Panzerkampfwagen VI Tiger.
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Oct 7, 2023 18:39
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SerthVarnee posted:So I'm going through the diaries of Charles 'Chick' Bruns as he rampages across North Africa in his role of combat engineer. Second item is a panzer IV, an early series with short cannon. The bustle at the back is a cargo box and not the later necessary bustle ThisIsJohnWayne fucked around with this message at 18:59 on Oct 7, 2023 |
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Oct 7, 2023 18:56
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The first one I can see well enough now that you've pointed it out to me, but the second image? To me all it says is "metal blob of tonky shape". How the hell do you make out not only the model of the tank but also the detailed equipment on it when it is that blurry?
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Oct 7, 2023 19:01
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I'm an almost middle aged man who read "the soviet war machine" [ISBN 0 600 38228 1] at age 5 because i couldn't read but it had pictures. It probably did a number on me 
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Oct 7, 2023 19:09
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Well in that case, what do you make of this thing then? Is that wonky angle at the front a clear sign of a Tiger or is that just a common German way of doing tank front ends? To me it just looks like a shot trap. Also, is there any way to tell whether that thing used to have a turret installed vs. was used like a really expensive convertible for unknown reasons? Edit: This is probably the most army thing I've run into so far: "Pretty quite today. We had to get the serial numbers on everything that had serial numbers. It kept us busy most of the day." SerthVarnee fucked around with this message at 19:26 on Oct 7, 2023 |
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Oct 7, 2023 19:17
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Thats a tiger 1
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Oct 7, 2023 19:25
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SerthVarnee posted:Well in that case, what do you make of this thing then? That is a Tiger. If it would’ve been one of the engineer vehicles or recovery vehicles, it wouldn’t just have a hole. But it can also be a tank that had the turret removed by a recovery vehicle to salvage the last remaining working part, probably. I can’t quite tell about damage enough to say one way or the other. Battlefield salvage was very common, however.
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Oct 7, 2023 19:25
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Did they really still have the ability to do battlefield recovery of tanks and yank out turrets for refit while the Allies were taking over 150,000 prisoners? This is in the area somewhere between Bizerte and Philippeville in northeastern Algeria and it seems to me like the Germans aren't exactly getting many chances to move forward and picking up their poo poo.
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Oct 7, 2023 19:34
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Who knows  someone's put it into a ditch where it's not blocking the road, turret is not in the picture, there's no soot or signs of a massive fire. And it ain't in German hands anymore so you're very clearly not wrong about the hectic situation around it
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Oct 7, 2023 19:44
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feedmegin posted:I think you misunderstood my point. When you talk about e.g. 'By the 1950s China was a significant enemy of the US, UK, and France while Japan was an ally, and then shifted to where it is today as 'major trading partner but also has significant conflicting interests'.' - that's a decades long alliance during peacetime, in Japan's case, similar to where France and Britain were getting to by 1914. My point is this is different to a temporary wartime alliance which doesn't necessarily have any long term effect on their relations after it. Point in example being, Russia was allied with France and Britain during World War 1, was promptly invaded by them right after with the regime change, then essentially frozen out of relations for most of the period from then until Barbarossa when suddenly the Soviet Union was good again. And then relations got frosty again pretty shortly after WW2. It's pretty clear that your point was to try to look clever by 'correcting' me about something that I didn't say with the old snarktastic "Err....? What?" opener (text like that adds nothing but obnoxiousness to a post) and that you were wrong in your 'correction'. I gave examples of countries that switched between being bitter enemies and allies in much shorter timeframe than a century for someone who found that unexpected, you seem to be supporting my argument by adding some more examples of countries switching between being allies and enemies in sub-century time while talking as if I'm wrong and acting like I'm supposed to welcome the wisdom of your generous correction. If you want to engage in real discussion, cutting out the snark and condescension would be a good first step. Yes there was an external threat that drove Russia into alliance with France and the UK during WW1 and WW2, but it was also the same threat that drove France and the UK into alliance with each other in the same time frame. The external threat that kept the UK and France into alliance after WW2 was Russia, and what really kept them as 'the closest of allies' (which is a debateable claim) was opposition to their much stronger ally, the US (the Suez Crisis is a good example of what drove that cooperation). Also during WW2 UK committed several gross offensives against France similar to the ones committed against 1920s Russia - attacking the French Navy without any declaration of war against what was unarguably the legitimate government of France (Mers-el-Kebir took place a week before the French Assembly was dissolved), and later occupying French territories like Madagascar, Syria, and Lebanon while the Vichy government was recognized by most of the world (including the United States), and exerting pressure over who was in charge of Free French forces (and thus who would lead the regime change against Vichy France). These offenses by the UK against France didn't stop them from working together after the war was done, however. International relationships are complicated, driven by a variety of pressures, and definitely change in time frames of less than 100 years.
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Oct 7, 2023 19:53
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Pantaloon Pontiff posted:It's pretty clear that your point was to try to look clever by 'correcting' me about something that I didn't say with the old snarktastic "Err....? What?" opener (text like that adds nothing but obnoxiousness to a post) and that you were wrong in your 'correction'. No, I just literally had no idea what you were trying to get at. You might want to calm down a little.
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Oct 7, 2023 20:07
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SerthVarnee posted:Well in that case, what do you make of this thing then? That's not a shot trap.  If a shot deflects from the nearly horizontal 60mm @ 10ş plate and then penetrates the nearly vertical 100mm @ 81ş upper glacis armour (the strongest, "this side toward enemy" part in the tank), it would have penetrated the glacis in any case. Deflecting from the 60mm plate just damages the penetrating shot a little before it hits the thicker plate. THIS is a shot trap:  In early Panther models, if a shot hit the gun mantle (also the strongest part) just right, it would deflect into the hull top, the weakest part of the tank. Later they reshaped it so it wouldn't happen. In this photo the turret has been turned to side so the round hasn't gone through the roof so much as through the sloped side at a near perpendicular angle - I think it might have gone straight through the side had it hit there, but now even if the tank was hull down or enemy gunner just missed the weak hull side, it was the hull that got penetrated. What are the numbers and letters on the turret btw? 381 KMY or something? Nenonen fucked around with this message at 20:35 on Oct 7, 2023 |
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Oct 7, 2023 20:30
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feedmegin posted:No, I just literally had no idea what you were trying to get at. You might want to calm down a little. You did get snarky because of your own poor reading comprehension. It’s a bit rich to tell someone to calm down now.
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Oct 7, 2023 20:31
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You can't fight in here! This is the war room!
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Oct 7, 2023 20:50
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Was the shot trap design flaw an accident or a calculated risk? I’m sure was way more efficient armor/weight wise to build them the way they did I just feel like that kind of vulnerability should have been forseen long before it made it into mass production.
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Oct 7, 2023 20:51
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TK-42-1 posted:Was the shot trap design flaw an accident or a calculated risk? I’m sure was way more efficient armor/weight wise to build them the way they did I just feel like that kind of vulnerability should have been forseen long before it made it into mass production. Dunno, my feel is that Panther had to be finished in a rushed war time environment, which is detrimental to shooting all bugs in design. The engineers might also not have properly understood at the time how the system works as a whole. Like, once the original turret met the design goals maybe the turret engineer team just high fived themselves and went for beer leaving the hull team put it together.
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Oct 7, 2023 21:05
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There's absolutely a long analytical history about it somewhere, but, this being the before and after of the panther mantle  it does looks like the engineers started with "looks good, nice curves" and then went "...oh" after this happened; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbikYYmMT2M
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Oct 7, 2023 21:47
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ThisIsJohnWayne posted:There's absolutely a long analytical history about it somewhere, but, this being the before and after of the panther mantle 
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Oct 7, 2023 22:27
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Pantaloon Pontiff posted:It's pretty clear that your point was to try to look clever by 'correcting' me about something that I didn't say with the old snarktastic "Err....? What?" opener (text like that adds nothing but obnoxiousness to a post) and that you were wrong in your 'correction'. I gave examples of countries that switched between being bitter enemies and allies in much shorter timeframe than a century for someone who found that unexpected, you seem to be supporting my argument by adding some more examples of countries switching between being allies and enemies in sub-century time while talking as if I'm wrong and acting like I'm supposed to welcome the wisdom of your generous correction. If you want to engage in real discussion, cutting out the snark and condescension would be a good first step. that guy is an english supremacist with a pole up his arse, don't mind him being angry all the time
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Oct 7, 2023 22:37
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Thanks for the correction about shot traps and for humoring me with the image identifications. Going back to the turretless tank, the big hole is obvious enough, but I'm curious about the two smaller holes at the front. Are they for the driver and another person to stick their heads up from, an emergency escape route, a really uncomfortable ammo refilling station or something else entirely?
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Oct 8, 2023 05:41
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They’re hatches for driver and radio operator. Hatches were often salvaged during armor recovery because hatches would get bent from impacts and become unuseable even when your tank was otherwise fine, so destroyed tanks might have working hatches you could nab. Naturally a hatch that is jammed was not desirable.
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Oct 8, 2023 05:45
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Oh yeah. I didn't even think about the hatches, but they are obviously needed on retrospect. So do they close like a door or slide across like....another sliding doory thing?
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Oct 8, 2023 05:57
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SerthVarnee posted:Oh yeah. I didn't even think about the hatches, but they are obviously needed on retrospect. At this point go to google, type "tank hatch" and click "images".
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Oct 8, 2023 05:59
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You know...yeah...I should finish waking up, take my ADHD meds and stop being silly. Thanks for your patience though, I absolutely love having access to a whole thread full of nerds who know way too much about awesome stuff.
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Oct 8, 2023 06:02
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Re: the Panther shot trap. A thing of note is that whilst a real thing, the ”trap” is actually a fairly small cross-section of the frontal arc of a panther. This, combined with the real life surroundings (you shoot as fast as you feel confident about a hit vs. War-thunderesque sniping-ammo-racks and calculating pen chances) means it is hardly the video game glowing red spot of vulnerability. The big problem is that it *is* smack in the middle of the frontal silhouette, so while not exactly huge target it is placed exactly where a enemy gunner would naturally aim at anyway just to maximize chance of hitting the drat tank in the first place- center mass.
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Oct 8, 2023 08:42
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SerthVarnee posted:You know...yeah...I should finish waking up, take my ADHD meds and stop being silly. Go on youtube, find "the Chieftain" (Nicholas Moran), he'll show you how you get in/out of tanks, how the hatches work, etc.
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Oct 8, 2023 14:09
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Vahakyla posted:Naturally a hatch that is jammed was not desirable. The thought intrigued me enough that I replicated it when I did a recreative diorama of this Firefly wreck.  In retrospect though, I don't think the firefly had a radioman there as that space was (I think) used for ammo storage. So, it could have been that the hatch was opened after the fact by recovery teams, souvenir hunters, or curious onlookers. Edit: here's the passage from Adam Makos' book Spearhead. Cursory googling does not bring up any corroborating evidence, but I kinda assume Mr. Makos knows his stuff. 
Chuck_D fucked around with this message at 15:17 on Oct 8, 2023 |
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Oct 8, 2023 15:04
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There's a quote from a British tanker in the desert where their driver (?) popped out of the front hatch for some reason in the middle of a firefight and  got decapitated by the turret traversal.
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Oct 9, 2023 09:28
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I guess Harry won't be handing up any more cheese sandwiches to the loader for the tank commander  .
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Oct 9, 2023 12:56
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Is that realistic? How much torque is there in the traverse?
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Oct 9, 2023 12:59
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Fangz posted:Is that realistic? How much torque is there in the traverse? Is the thing that happened realistic? I'd say yes. Something, something, the Harrisburg NPP Now, different tanks and turret installations and design rigor have different geometry, weight, and power in the traverse so its not a universal thing for every machine, but looking at heavy equipment and industry and OSHA etc, the potential for rapid massive traumatic injuries is a constant worry with big metal things designed by humans. Today you'd either not design like that or put in automatic locks so the hatch won't open/turret won't turn in case it'd be dangerous. ThisIsJohnWayne fucked around with this message at 13:43 on Oct 9, 2023 |
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Oct 9, 2023 13:41
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Was it an internal decapation? I was thinking it was something like that.
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Oct 9, 2023 13:48
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ThisIsJohnWayne posted:Is the thing that happened realistic? I'd say yes. Something, something, the Harrisburg NPP I would assume Option A there because 'turret won't turn' is also a potential human-ending problem if another tank is pointing right at you...
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Oct 9, 2023 14:31
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