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Apparently the civil war could have been a lot cooler:
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Jul 17, 2016 23:48
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Deep down you know it'd be the exact same situation with the Ironclads only on land and with deaf soldiers on both sides instead of sailors.
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Jul 18, 2016 00:06
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Tank my rear end that's an Armored Car.
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Jul 18, 2016 00:09
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They could barely manage armoured trains, there is absolutely no way an armoured car would have been feasible.
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Jul 18, 2016 00:18
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I don't think the author understands how heavy armour is, or the sort of power steam engines can produce.
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Jul 18, 2016 00:26
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Tias posted:
Possibly getting outside the scope of milhist here so sorry but I have to ask, while we have you--did you literally have to die in battle to get into valhalla, or were you just sort of in after building up enough warrior points through your deeds? Like, let's say Viking A is the biggest baddest killer that's ever stepped foot on a longship, and he fights in a thousand raids and kills a thousand English peasants, but he doesn't die in any of the fights, he just keeps winning and going home until he eventually dies of old age or cholera or something. And then there's Viking B, who gets shot in the face with an arrow on his very first raid. Never did anything cool but technically died fighting. He gets in but the first guy doesn't? I'd convert to Christianity too, that hardly seems fair
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Jul 18, 2016 00:32
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Forums Viking Tias chiming in!
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SeanBeansShako posted:Deep down you know it'd be the exact same situation with the Ironclads only on land and with deaf soldiers on both sides instead of sailors. It would make the Warhammer Fantasy LARPs an interesting experience if it survives to the present day.
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Jul 18, 2016 00:41
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Ainsley McTree posted:Possibly getting outside the scope of milhist here so sorry but I have to ask, while we have you--did you literally have to die in battle to get into valhalla, or were you just sort of in after building up enough warrior points through your deeds? You had to die a warrior's death not a straw death. Yes that means your second example gets in and the first doesn't. However the valkyries were hovering over battles watching for suitable recruits, and when they spotted one they'd cast a net over him so he'd stumble and be slain by his opponent, allowing them to take the dead warrior to Valhalla. This is why Odin was known as 'the betrayer of warriors'. According to a post earlier in this thread some subcultures allowed a known warrior to be ritually wounded on his deathbed, allowing them to claim that he had died of weapon-wounds and thus enter valhalla.
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Jul 18, 2016 00:59
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Splode posted:I don't think the author understands how heavy armour is, or the sort of power steam engines can produce.
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Jul 18, 2016 01:14
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Basically, gently caress steampunk.
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Jul 18, 2016 01:21
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The Lone Badger posted:You had to die a warrior's death not a straw death. Yes that means your second example gets in and the first doesn't. This is amazing.
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Jul 18, 2016 01:36
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Well, now I'm unreasonably angry at how stupid this is.
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Jul 18, 2016 02:11
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Oh look, someone tore apart that idiocy so that now I won't have to! https://tankandafvnews.com/2016/07/17/editorial-rebutting-a-civil-war-tank-article/
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Jul 18, 2016 02:15
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Weren't civil war era guns all muzzleloaders? How do they plan to reload that gun in the turret?
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Jul 18, 2016 02:16
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The Lone Badger posted:Weren't civil war era guns all muzzleloaders? How do they plan to reload that gun in the turret? It would recoil back into the turret, they'd spin the turret backwards, reload, then spin it around again.
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Jul 18, 2016 02:20
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The Lone Badger posted:Weren't civil war era guns all muzzleloaders? How do they plan to reload that gun in the turret? They were not common at all, but breechloaders did exist. http://civilwarwiki.net/wiki/12_pdr._Whitworth_Breechloading_Rifle
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Jul 18, 2016 02:20
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aphid_licker posted:This is amazing. To pick up on my post a while back, they totally rule lawyered things. If you got caught dying of illness or something not suitably macho, you'd have your buddies slice you with a spear or sword on your chest. If you were too far gone, your buddies would even do it with out asking. That way you could present yourself as dying with a wound on your front. If you were delirious or unconscious when it happened you didn't even have to lie. Not seeing how the Vikings didn't have a majority agrarian culture- the whole reason that their raids and incursions were seasonal was because they had the manpower freed up after planting. The colonies and permanent settlements only came after a big population surge (from raiding) and incremental loss of arable land. I have a bunch of recs on my shelf if anyone wants me to PM a reading list. Viking stuff might fit better in the classical/Rome thread. They basically branched the late iron/classical age with the medieval.
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Jul 18, 2016 02:35
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"lol, good enough to fool ol' one-eye!"
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Jul 18, 2016 02:42
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Splode posted:I don't think the author understands how heavy armour is, or the sort of power steam engines can produce. Steam engines can produce enormous amounts of power. They just couldn't do it in 1860.
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Jul 18, 2016 02:47
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The Lone Badger posted:Weren't civil war era guns all muzzleloaders? How do they plan to reload that gun in the turret? If you wanted to save hydraulics on moving the turret, you could pivot the whole tank since its "mobile". And have an armored shutter to reveal and hide the cannon that you could roll out past the shutter. Chillyrabbit fucked around with this message at 02:52 on Jul 18, 2016 |
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Jul 18, 2016 02:49
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Just have a little rammer in the hull, and turn the turret to point at it. That's how they did it on muzzle loaders on predreads.Bulgaroctonus posted:I can't figure out an appropriate smiley, and am phone posting, so probably couldn't do it anyway, but I've had the exact same dream. So do we fist bump, or just acknowledge each other as hosed up? Well that's probably weirder than my thing of literally never getting through a dream with my teeth intact. Good job!
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Jul 18, 2016 03:38
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xthetenth posted:Well that's probably weirder than my thing of literally never getting through a dream with my teeth intact. Good job! Same, I don't have time to actually yank my dick off when I'm pulling broken glass out of my feet in every dream. Something something military history. Maybe there's a Die Hard angle there.
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Jul 18, 2016 03:46
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It gets stupider: Why didn't the Americans have tanks in the Revolution? I didn't even read it, it's too stupid.Chillyrabbit posted:If you wanted to save hydraulics on moving the turret, you could pivot the whole tank since its "mobile". And have an armored shutter to reveal and hide the cannon that you could roll out past the shutter. Yeah, I think the casemate design is far more practical (not that guy's, it's stupid as hell, just the principle in general) -- I'm imagining something shaped more like a German WWII TD/assault gun, a mobile pillbox with a single gun pointing forward. Then you could have the gun recoil inside along the long axis of the vehicle to be reloaded like naval guns had done since forever. Sure, it'd be the size of a barn, but it's more feasible that that guy's proposal. Something along the lines of a Jagdpanther:  But much more cubical, carrying a naval-mount long 24- or 32-pounder, or a 68-pounder carronade, would be more plausible and a hell of a siege gun. Good luck protecting it from the other side's field guns with unhardened iron plate, though -- by the ACW artillery was getting into modern-style rifles with long pointy shells. The 2.9" Parrott rifle threw a ten-pound HE shell; make a solid shot for it, that'd be 17lb or so, and ... that's basically what they were using in the first half of WWII, which would penetrate 2+ inches of face-hardened armor plate or 3.5" of unhardened rolled homogeneous steel, the inch or two of cast iron locomotive plate the theoretical StuG M1863 could haul along at a blistering snail's pace* would probably not be enough to stop even 12-pound roundshot. The reason USS Monitor and CSS Virginia (that's another thing he hosed up, BTW, the name of the casemate ship in the famous fight; it was built on the hull of the scuttled USS Merrimack, but was renamed upon rebuilding) could be impenetrable is that they weighed thousands of tons (Monitor right at a kiloton with basically just the turret above water, Virginia was 4kt with 4" of iron armor on the casemate, 1-3" waterline belt armor, and lots of heavy guns), whereas the proposed ACW tank would weigh maybe fives of tons. And god help 'em if they take a penetrating shot to the boiler, boiler explosions make WWII/modern tanks brewing up look quick and painless by comparison. *I can't find any numbers for speed, but I'm pretty sure the early steam tractors even when unladen moved so slow that the driver could get out and have a picnic lunch, and then jog up and get back on the controls before the thing needed operator input. It's not going to be able to turn out of the way of the enemy guns once they get the range. Edit: Re: the rebuttal, which made a lot of my points and then some.  Put an armored box around that, it's not that much bigger than an Abrams, and have a gun on either side of the boiler, it could work. As for the traction/ground pressure issue, just have multiple tractor wheels ganged up like locomotive drivers. Chillbro Baggins fucked around with this message at 05:16 on Jul 18, 2016 |
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Jul 18, 2016 05:08
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Bad Angus! Bad!
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In other news, y'all might like my Tumblr sideblog where I make fun of submarine movies (link is to the beginning, I soon gave up on the image macro thing and went to unedited screenshots and commentary, and also take the piss of USN's Tumblr posts toward the end, occasionally posting things on the wrong blog). I tend to get bored and give up halfway through the movie, apparently, but if there's interest I'll reboot it and actually watch through the movies y'all suggest. Hunt for Red October and Das Boot (the origin of the blog) should be first, eh? Seriously, tho, this is a thing that happened. The Navy's Tumblr called a 688 boat a boomer.
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Jul 18, 2016 05:45
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sullat posted:Mostly it was propoganda, like the Germans complaining about Americans using shotguns. Barthas seems to realize they're multi-purpose tools, and he complains about being issued swords for more efficient dispatching of POWs and wounded. Someone needs to write an article about why the Germans were actually the bad guys in WWI, bullshit myths about crucifying Canadians and issuing medals for the sinking of the Lusitania aside. Something something use of gas in the war, something something Black Tom explosion, something something horrible plans for the East.
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Jul 18, 2016 07:14
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Here's my idea for an alternate-history novel: France and Britain get on the side of the Confederacy in 1862, but are reluctant to commit troops to a land war. France stays focused on internal affairs in Mexico, while the UK commits its army to maintaining a completely defensive posture in Canada after a disastrous contested attempt at landing forces somewhere in New England. The main effects are felt in the naval sector. The Confederate States maintain control of the MIssissippi and New Orleans, unlike our regular timeline, and there is no blockade. US naval units are spent mostly fighting French and British naval forces throughout the World, the Atlantic/Great Lakes in particular. Also Egyptian cotton is not a thing and Confederate currency is not devalued for plot reasons. What this leads to is an endless stalemate on Virginian soil. A new Western Front, between the Ocean and the Appalachians. With Union soldiers supplied by the agricultural and industrial might of the North, and the South supplied by whatever their cotton can buy them on the world market. The 1870's look like the 1910's in this future with gatling guns, air war, submarine attacks, ironclad battles, primitive gas attacks, armored trains, trench raids, mines and countermines, pointless "lions lead by donkeys" offensives, endless battles over the same tortured ground. The whole thing ends with Union steampunk tanks setting fire to Richmond.
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Jul 18, 2016 07:29
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Before I even go into how strange that idea is, I want to understand how the Union could hope to survive if it has two of the world super powers of the day actively trying to destroy it as well as dealing with the confederacy. The US that we know today (in terms of industrial might) only emerged after the Civil War whilst the UK was focusing on trying to make the world map more uniformally theirs then it had been before.
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Jul 18, 2016 08:58
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The USA was stronger in the 1860's than you give it credit for.
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Jul 18, 2016 09:37
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cheerfullydrab posted:The USA was stronger in the 1860's than you give it credit for. I think the US navy was weaker in the 1860s than you're giving it credit for. This isn't 1945.
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Jul 18, 2016 11:14
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cheerfullydrab posted:The USA was stronger in the 1860's than you give it credit for. Yeah, there were a lot of problems with a potential European intervention in the ACW from the US threatening Caribbean and other colonial possessions to the possibility of the US making common cause with Russia and turning it into a European war. There's a reason the British didn't really take the CSA that seriously and once Napoleon III went into Mexico neither did he.
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Jul 18, 2016 11:15
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cheerfullydrab posted:something something horrible plans for the East. More horrible than Versailles?
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Jul 18, 2016 11:16
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Should the British have intervened in the ACW, the US economy would have melted down completely. Probably the UK's economy would have been in trouble too, but not like nations tend to rational about going to war.
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Jul 18, 2016 11:20
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The UK hasn't been very rational about its economy recently, either.
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Jul 18, 2016 12:18
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the south has cotton, but the north has grain, and one of them is of greater strategic importance
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Jul 18, 2016 13:32
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Hunt11 posted:Before I even go into how strange that idea is, I want to understand how the Union could hope to survive if it has two of the world super powers of the day actively trying to destroy it as well as dealing with the confederacy. The US that we know today (in terms of industrial might) only emerged after the Civil War whilst the UK was focusing on trying to make the world map more uniformally theirs then it had been before. The North was heavily industrialized before the war, and that fact probably helped precipitate the conflict and also the result. There's somewhat of an advantage of the concentration of effort in a single theater for the Union. It's an existential conflict and there are no commitments to other theaters. Meanwhile, the French and British have to maintain their commitments in Africa, South America, Asia, etc as well as maintaining the European order. It's not like even a quarter of total resources could be devoted to North America.
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Jul 18, 2016 13:35
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On the other hand the south has the East Texas Oil Field.
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Jul 18, 2016 13:36
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well that might be of strategic significance were the war to drag on til the 1930s
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Jul 18, 2016 13:42
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OK, so, I'm not sure how hist this is in terms of milhist, but this is the most applicable thread I could think of to ask where I feel remotely comfortable. (I feel distinctly terrified of GiP, OK) On a (NATO) naval vessel, is the staff system (as seen in the S1/S2/S3/S4/etc staffs in ground units at battalion level, for example) even used? I'm thinking of a vessel as large as a carrier, but the question works equally well for smaller vessels like cruisers, frigates, and destroyers. (Subs have such small crews I'm doubtful my question would make the least bit of sense.) Basically, how do naval vessels (and naval echelons beyond the single vessel) handle all the functions a ground unit has staff officers for? I know higher-echelon naval units might have N-staffs (N1, N2, etc) but those I've only consistently heard of being present at, like, the CNO level or somesuch. Which is not where I'm thinking. Also, if someone could make an effort post on the staff system and how it works today versus the cold war (which is where all my knowledge of "military staff functions" stops, there or the 1990s), it'd be awesome and I'd geekily worship you for a while.
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Jul 18, 2016 14:00
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The wackiest and least likely thing about the scenario I described isn't the steampunk tanks or the Europeans failing to knock the USA out, it's the South having the manpower for that sort of war into the 1870's.
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Jul 18, 2016 14:30
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:The North was heavily industrialized before the war, and that fact probably helped precipitate the conflict and also the result. I know that, it is just that my point was that the Union whilst in a lot stronger position then the Confederacy, it was no where near strong enough to have the major super powers actively join in the war effort.
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Jul 18, 2016 14:50
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