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DerLeo posted:British fuse design was weak: they tended to trigger on contact instead of after penetration, and obviously that doesn't do you any good. The typical story says that the British had no idea this was a problem until the former Swedish naval attaché to Berlin told Beatty about the Germans's internal bragging vis a vis British shells. Jellicoe actually knew about this problem from his time as Director of Naval Ordinance, but did not hold the post long enough to push through new shell design. He knew british shells were inferior, and just somehow forgot about it until after Jutland. That's the story in Castles of Steel at least (an amazing book for anyone interested in Britain and WWI), which also mentions the Swedish connection.
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Nov 14, 2013 19:11
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In Beevors Berlin 1945, he says that soviet troops were baffled by hollow toothpicks. Poor russians 
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Dec 5, 2013 08:30
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ALL-PRO SEXMAN posted:There's also multiple ways of doing logistics badly. I'll have to do an effortpost one of these days about how Jackie Fisher saved the Royal millions of pounds by actually paying attention to what kind of pillowcases and spoons were being bought by the Admiralty. Please do! The Royal Navy pre-Fisher is hilarious. "Gunnery training? But that will make our ships dirty!  "
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Jan 25, 2014 07:35
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ALL-PRO SEXMAN posted:Now there's another effortpost right here, debunking the legend that before Fisher came the RN was a bunch of circlejerking clowns. I'm not saying they were the Keystone Kaptains, but not having to fight an actual war for almost a century sure didn't lend itself to producing an efficient force. Have you read Dreadnought and Castles of Steel by the way? Great books both on pre-WW1 Europe as well as the RN. And it lists plenty of stupid things they did post-Fisher as well. Though any large organization is bound to have idiots.
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Jan 25, 2014 16:25
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ALL-PRO SEXMAN posted:Yes, they aren't particularly good if you're a specialist on the period, considering how much important research the author ignored. Please enlighten me. 
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Jan 26, 2014 02:09
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Kemper Boyd posted:The top ranks suffered from being filled out with rapidly promoted lower officers who didn't have experience of holding higher level commands. IIRC, at the end of the war, the average age of a German division commander was higher than that of a Soviet corps commander.
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Feb 3, 2014 22:26
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Hell, weren't they completely dependent on American and Canadian wheat and other foodstuffs at that point?
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Feb 17, 2014 22:17
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Norway's new MTBs are named Shield, Storm, Shot, Steep, Flicker and Spark  Too bad they are extremely expensive and nobody needs them.
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Mar 15, 2014 07:31
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PittTheElder posted:What's the deal with all the high masts and faux-rigging on those cruisers? Radio masts and guy-wires to support them?  See if you can spot an issue with the mast design of the HMS Dreadnought. What are those diagonal lines along the hull BTW?
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Mar 23, 2014 12:13
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He certainly enjoyed getting other people drunk, but he himself reportedly preferred weak, almost clear georgian wine.
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May 30, 2014 21:48
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JaucheCharly posted:A friend on mine posted this a while ago, it's a list of ordnance, weapons and tools left by the Ottomans after the defeat near Vienna in 1683. Taken from 200 000 grenade launching muskets? 
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Sep 22, 2014 20:53
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Trin Tragula posted:100 Years Ago You might be one king off there. I assume you mean Edward VII, who had German parents, but George V had an English father and a Danish mother  (Although almost all royals had at least a german grandparent apparently)
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Oct 28, 2014 11:07
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SkySteak posted:This is a gigantic hypothetical but out of interest, given the nature of the USSR at that time, what would have become of Konstantin Rokossovsky if somehow, Operation Bagration had been a failure? I may be running into old WW2 USSR myths again but I was under the impression that the Soviets (and later to an extent, the Germans) were really harsh on failing officers? I may just be getting with stuff like the purges and the early days of Barbarossa. Zhukov had this little adventure, and he did fine afterwards. Smaller scale of course, but still.
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Oct 31, 2014 22:04
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Those fuckers can still be a bitch to open during a -35 C army exercise. But hey, I got to use my bayonet!
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Nov 3, 2014 00:01
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Grand Prize Winner posted:"Unconditional Surrender" Grant: A national hero. Paid for by The Committee to Reburn Atlanta.
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Sep 1, 2015 08:34
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You're thinking of a Napoleonic-war style blockade, which had been abandonded more than a decade earlier as unworkable in the face of mines, MTBs and submarines. But to blockade the North Sea you just need to bottle up the Norway-Orkney gap and the English Channel, simple enough.
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Jan 12, 2016 18:01
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feedmegin posted:In particular, Hungary specifically was a Kingdom - the Habsburgs were 'kaiserlich und königlich', Imperial (the Austrian hat) and Royal (the Hungarian hat). "Gentlemen, we must postpone opening this years parliament, as the emperor brought the wrong hat".
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Mar 15, 2016 13:47
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feedmegin posted:Only if you believe Suetonius, and even then he wasn't actually made a senator. drat glass staircase! 
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May 10, 2016 12:03
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Can someone give me a brief rundown on the british military structure of WW1? I keep seeing references to things like 5th/7th Lancastershire Rifles, and I don't understand what that means.
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Jul 10, 2016 18:21
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Your explanation is great, but it seems like a bizarrely convoluted way to run an army.
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Jul 10, 2016 19:29
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Arbite posted:Call of Duty: Forgotten Fronts. China, Finland and Burma. The official report on the Battle of Jutland as delivered to the First Sea Lord was critical towards admiral Beatty, commander of the Battle Cruiser Squadron. Incidentially, since the battle, Beatty had been promoted to First Sea Lord  Needless to say, changes were made.
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Jul 30, 2016 18:54
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