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How did the shift between close engagement and ranged engagement change through the ages? Mainly curious on the following: -At some point armies transitioned to ranged-primary. What led to the final switchover? -How did engagement ranges change over time? Scale is pretty hard to grasp with a lot of historychat, so it's hard to tell how much effective range evolved.
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Nov 14, 2013 18:39
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SeanBeansShako posted:I believe the final switch over was due to both the killing power of a musket and how easy it was to teach a man to use it. This began much earlier with the Crossbow of course. How much effective range are we talking with each weapon?
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Nov 14, 2013 19:11
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How about bows, crossbows and slings? EDIT: Also, drat, that was some fast improvement. You could go from sometimes hitting something in front of your nose to hitting something you can barely see in your lifetime. veekie fucked around with this message at 19:29 on Nov 14, 2013 |
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Nov 14, 2013 19:27
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Fangz posted:In terms of effective range, from personal experience, English longbows seem to be effective in the 100-300m range, depending on wind and elevation. Napoleonic firearms were generally used with most effect at about 100m. Artillery could reach further, of course.
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Nov 14, 2013 19:56
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Obdicut posted:In history, various fighting forces have had more or less organized training regimes. You'd have to be more specific. Didn't that go all the way back to the Roman professional armies?
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Nov 14, 2013 20:50
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So on melee cavalry, if I'm reading it right, you got the following main roles: -Mobility, unlike infantry you more or less get to pick and choose where you're fighting, which lets your side exploit any vulnerabilities in formation. -Intimidation, because you have a big guy, on a big horse, and they're both moving towards their opponent at a terrifying speed, which could break less trained formations if a significant chunk of their line lose their will to fight on, especially if whoever they make first contact with are probably going to die. -Momentum, heavily armored cavalry can use the momentum of the charge to smash their target, then rely on superior equipment on both man and horse to win through. So basically you look for weak spots and either harass or hammer through, depending on your loadout. Is that right or am I missing something crucial.
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Nov 15, 2013 08:05
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Ensign Expendable posted:"They marched their men through minefields!" was a very common thing to say to illustrate the cruelty of whoever you didn't like. The Soviets said it about the Tsarists, trash level popular "historians" said it about the Soviets, and yet no actual text of order on marching through minefields has ever surfaced. Wouldn't marching people through a minefield be pretty terrible at actually clearing mines anyway? Sure a lot of people are likely to get brutally killed, but they're probably going to miss a lot of mines(the profile of feet on the ground compared to a roller), destroy morale rapidly, and give away any surprise factor you were going to have with the explosions. Also nobody has that many undesirables/reserves to spare.
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Nov 17, 2013 08:12
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At least they had tools. That sounds more believable to send undesirables to do extremely risky work, rather than sending them into certain death.
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Nov 17, 2013 08:53
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Panzeh posted:Also, I imagine most people who were taking swords into battle didn't exactly get to pick and choose which kind they wanted, so it might not be that illogical that some impractical types would be there. That doesn't seem too likely unless they were conscripted. Swords were kind of a significant investment, and if you couldn't afford to pick you're more likely to wind up with a stock servicable infantry sword than some kind of weird design. The weirdass types are more likely to be tailor made to the user.
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Nov 17, 2013 15:18
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Wasn't that how training and discipline played a huge difference in the effectiveness of armies? Simply having enough control to disengage in an orderly manner on demand would be a pretty huge advantage.
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Nov 17, 2013 18:12
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As I understand it, surviving field weapons in general are rare as hell, they get broken, stolen, lost, recycled and a whole range of nasty things happen to a weapon meant to be used, leaving us with tons of ceremonial or ornamental weapons but hardly any weapons that actually got used.
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Nov 17, 2013 21:34
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What's the usual military policy for handling obsolete(whether by technology, damage or doctrine) weapons anyway? Recycling and reforging? Tossed out with the trash? Properly destroyed? Obviously there'd be some significant differences based on the weapon composition, you could recycle metal, but wood, plastic and ordnance would be a different matter.
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Nov 17, 2013 22:01
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How about premodern armies?
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Nov 17, 2013 22:21
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I guess Hitler probably wasn't the best person to determine military policy. How did they even get this far with someone like that at the helm?
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Nov 18, 2013 09:06
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Incidentally, what would you consider the most interesting mistakes on the battlefield in military history?
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Nov 18, 2013 12:25
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That toilet has to be one of the most embarrassing ways possible for a submarine to go down.VikingSkull posted:The Battle of Leyte Gulf was always the Could someone elaborate on the screwups involved for those of us unfamiliar with the battle?
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Nov 18, 2013 18:46
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battle in my mind. From the USS Heermann scaring off a Japanese task force, to Halsey's bungling, the Yamato just steaming around doing nothing of consequence.
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VikingSkull posted:Around this time, the Japanese Northern Force had been discovered (it was a decoy), and Halsey took 3rd Fleet on an adventure to find them. Wheeeeeee! Unfortunately this allowed the Center Force, the Yamato, and Kurita to emerge from the San Bernardino Strait, and they steamed south looking for a fight. This is where Taffy 3 becomes famous with the aforementioned USS Heermann. Basically a tiny rear end fleet is spotted by the Japanese main line. What happens next would be loving hilarious if it was fiction and didn't kill a bunch of people. Long story short, Taffy 3 makes more noise than a dog in a pocketbook, Kurita thinks he ran smack dab into Halsey's 3rd Fleet, and he runs the gently caress away. Ok. That really took the cake for fuckups.
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Nov 18, 2013 20:03
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So how big an impact did resistance forces have on the course of the war? From what I can tell(at least in Southeast Asia), they were to a large degree more effective at wasting enemy resources to fix the inconveniences and hunting down the insurgents than doing any real damage. Of course, the situation might be different here(insurgents going into the jungle might as well have vanished off the face of the earth and not a whole lot of fighting went on after the Japanese took the area). Xlorp posted:Any chance it was a deliberate needle by the communications officer? Halsey can't have been the first to figure out how badly he'd screwed the pooch. Might be a very good chance, he could easily foist that off as a trivial mistake, and as comms, he should be pretty well aware of how screwed said pooch is, short of actually being someone directing the conflict. Pulling a sulk like that is heinously unprofessional in a military leader though.
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Nov 18, 2013 21:47
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Alchenar posted:No it's right there in the Geneva convention. They're not specially recruited to fight in conflicts. They aren't paid more than regular soldiers. They aren't separately organised to the regular army. The Ghurkas and the French Foreign Legion are historical peculiarities but they aren't mercenaries.
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Nov 25, 2013 14:48
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On the mercenary thing, so far it looks like a distinct command structure is the best single point definition. Mercenaries have their own leadership and internal hierarchy distinct from national ones.
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Nov 25, 2013 23:31
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Mans posted:I don't know in which tread to post anymore A lot of what we think as trauma symptoms are simply adaptation to combat though. Paranoia and hyperalertness are useful traits when you really have a decent chance of being stabbed.
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Nov 26, 2013 07:26
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How costly was a professional army compared to a landowning warrior class or a citizen army? Economically that is.
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Nov 30, 2013 09:25
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a travelling HEGEL posted:He's fat, but that's not his gut--that bulge was super fashionable around the late 1500s/early 1600s. Note here, under Kurfürst August's sash: Wasn't the potbelly design used for practical reasons? It helps with defending against gut attacks, by encouraging any blade or point to deflect away from vitals.
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Dec 7, 2013 08:36
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bewbies posted:That paper has been discussed in military circles forever; the general consensus nowadays is that it would be much better if it were titles "why incompetent leaders lose wars" because next to none of it has anything to do with anyone being Arabic or Muslim and everything to do with being corrupt and stupid and selfish (which are traits that are not unique to Arabs). It does actually raise some good points about officer professional development and the like but hardly anything revolutionary.
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Dec 9, 2013 00:07
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Probably not completely blind, they'd have a fair idea of how wealthy their opponent is and how much population they have. You could arrive at a ballpark figure for relative manpower and equipment ability.
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Dec 12, 2013 10:48
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Exact counts, sure, but you know how much land they have, and your merchants know how their cities compare to yours. Probably not good for figuring out anything more detailed than "they have twice as much land as we do and they're filthy rich" though.
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Dec 12, 2013 11:56
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What makes the difference in the noise level of different subs?
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Dec 12, 2013 15:55
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Rabhadh posted:A castle has a clear extra millitary function but a fort does also but to a lesser degree? Castles seem to be a military hardpoint, a political focus AND on top of all that, a residential area. Forts seem to be purely military in role and sometimes political in placement.
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Dec 23, 2013 10:49
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Not a hard and fast definition and more of a sliding scale? Defensibility can make habitability a problem and vice versa. A place of trade and habitation needs easy accessibility, while a fortification wants a much more controlled mobility, and uses up a lot of space with barriers and defenses.
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Dec 23, 2013 11:04
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If you're in armor which makes you incapable of regaining your footing, something has gone seriously wrong.
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Dec 26, 2013 21:40
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Rent-A-Cop posted:Oh I know, but the armor pictured above with that big rigid skirt looks like it would make trying to stand up after you fell down a pretty tricky prospect. I don't expect anyone ever wore anything into a real fight that they couldn't actually fight in. It doesn't actually look that unwieldy actually, the skirt ends above the knees, and retains plenty of mobility within it's space, while being rigid prevents it from constantly flapping around and hindering your movement. It'd also protect your vulnerable crotch joints from being stabbed. More than enough to perform a quick recovery if toppled, though you won't be doing any high kicks.
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Dec 26, 2013 23:19
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You probably weren't going to beat them at their own gig unless you also started training from the same age.
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Dec 27, 2013 00:57
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Maybe they counted anything even vaguely fortified?
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Dec 27, 2013 23:16
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Frostwerks posted:5 arquebusier behind a gabion breastwork is now a castle for propaganda purposes.
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Dec 28, 2013 07:26
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Frostwerks posted:Would somebody smart who knows what they're talking about do an effort post on bicycles in war, both in terms of bicycle infantry (who I gather functioned akin to dragoons), scouting use, couriers, and logistical mounts? I guess there could be a huge overlap with motorcycles. Comedy option As I recall the Japanese invasion of Malaya used bicycles heavily. Not really an expert to know the details though.
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Dec 30, 2013 10:03
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steinrokkan posted:Japanese invasions everywhere utilized bicycles. Though it should be noted they were no miraculous super-mobile devices. If I remember correctly, of the entire force involved in the battle of Bandjermasin, Borneo, only four bicycles survived the long and strenuous march from Balikpapan to Bandjermasin. The natural adversities encountered by the Japanese in East Indies were often just way too great for a humble bike. How effective were they as a means of getting troops on site though? Local history says they basically cut through Malaya in record time and reached Singapore before the British could adjust for the unexpected angle of attack, but given how occupied they were with the Europe side of WWII I'm not sure if it'd have made much difference.
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Dec 30, 2013 14:11
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steinrokkan posted:Bikes were helpful, no doubt about that, but people often cite them as the primary reason for the Japanese swift victory without paying attention to other factors that made advance possible. Such as precise deployment of light tanks from Siam to support the main invasion, general tendency of the Japanese to design equipment to be as light as possible and easily transportable by unsupported infantry even in difficult terrain, military doctrine very much aligned with jungle warfare, and of course questionable state of British defenses. The IJA managed similarly quick advances even in theatres where bikes usually aren't mentioned, and where terrain was similarly difficult - Burma (where the Britsh were once again shocked and overwhelmed when tanks showed up where they expected nothing), the Philippines... So in detail basically bikes were part of an overall more effective jungle warfare strategy rather than the driving factor then? What did the British do wrong there that they sucked so bad at jungles?
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Dec 30, 2013 17:30
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Something more recent I'm curious about. How did submarine warfare go back in WWII? Don't seem to hear much about it, other than a few hijinks the Japanese pulled.
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Dec 31, 2013 22:52
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steinrokkan posted:Anything specific? One common thing about WWII subs that general populace consistently gets wrong is that they were in fact surface vessels with a capacity to become temporarily submerged, not the permanently hidden monsters of the Cold War. Other than that, there's a lot of possible topics pertaining to each national branch. Like what kind of operations were they engaged in, and their role in the combined naval conflict. What sort of tactics did they use?
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Dec 31, 2013 23:32
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gradenko_2000 posted:The Germans+Austrians built a total of 375 U-boats during WWI. Approximately 205 of these (54%) were lost to enemy action (ramming, mines, torpedoes, depth charges, gunfire, other/unknown) and then another 171 (46%) survived the war to be surrendered to the Entente, so a fair bit better than how the Kriegsmarine ended up. It does say a lot about how effective they were that they thought there were so many subs around. How different was that from the WWII effectiveness though?
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Jan 2, 2014 12:00
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