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Alchenar posted:Well WW1 U-boats had a range that was basically around the UK's coastal waters. At one point WW2 U-Boats were sitting off Florida ports torpedoing Merchant ships a few minutes after they were underway. How good were they against military targets in contrast during WWII? Seems that a sub in the right place at the right time could do a hell lot of damage before sneaking away.
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Jan 2, 2014 13:09
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Alchenar posted:Not that much. 'Cruiser' submarines were a big thing in the inter-war years but were never useful. In the Pacific war both sides try to put submarines into areas where they know a battle will happen in advance (Midway is a good example) but all everyone eventually recognised that as a weapon they're vastly more useful being employed against shipping rather than the opposing navy. Makes sense, you'd practically have to know their route to catch them on open sea.
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Jan 2, 2014 14:56
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Azipod posted:Its honestly pretty shocking how many nations went into WW1 still enamored with the Cult of the Bayonet. Magazine-loading rifles were enough to put an end to common use of the mass bayonet charge, let alone machine guns and artillery. If I'm recalling correctly the French had a pretty big obsession with their own elan and thought that their troops "fighting spirit" would overwhelm and frighten the enemy into retreat. Probably because the military leaders are all veterans of the last era. They'll use what they know worked.
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Jan 3, 2014 15:17
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Grand Prize Winner posted:How will it be a colossal disaster? I mean yeah, much like the MG in 1913 we've only used 'em against under-teched Arabs, Pakistanis and Africans, but does anyone really know what a drone-on-drone war will look like? Probably when some smart guy figures out how to really use them to effect in combination with conventional forces. That's kinda what happened with tanks, submarines and aircraft right?
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Jan 3, 2014 16:17
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bewbies posted:Robotics and such are in every conceptual discussion past 2020 or so. Very little discussion of autonomous things, but basically replacing human-in-the-seat kind of stuff for things like resupplying/reloading guns, hauling stuff, etc. The "wingman" or "parasite" thing is getting a lot of traction too, ie, a single manned AFV controls 3 unmanned, stuff like that. To be honest, it isn't all that revolutionary, although it is nice from a manning perspective to reduce a howitzer crew to 2 dudes. More likely a combination of the two. Increased use of automation and remote control with cyberwarfare is just asking for control hijack hijinks.
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Jan 3, 2014 17:30
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a travelling HEGEL posted:Ha ha, that's absurd. Apparently, physics, math, and a sweet-rear end pneumatic cannon are different for the fairer sex. Evidently men have more practice shooting things out of tubes.
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Jan 6, 2014 10:59
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canuckanese posted:I know most of the writings we have from the Mycenae are inventory type lists, but what makes you say that it's useless information? You can learn a lot from inventories. What people ate, what goods they had access to (and therefore, who they may have traded with), how many soldiers they could equip, how wealthy they were, etc. Hell, from the example you used it's illustrating that they believed in making sacrifices or paying some kind of tribute to the gods via the temple. Heck, I think it builds a better picture than "so and so ruled here and kicked a lot of rear end" since inventory records are inclined to be accurate and reliable. There's no political gain to be had for making poo poo up or delivering sick burns. No artistic interpretation or inflation(as happens with saying a thousand dudes marched etc).
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Jan 6, 2014 14:46
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Slavvy posted:I wonder about the ratio of garrison:wall. The really complex star forts seem like they would need a ridiculous number of men to defend the entire circumference. It seems to follow that if the enemy had numerical superiority they wouldn't be hiding in a fort, so surely just spreading your entire army evenly around the circumference, with a several reserves positioned to take advantage of any breach, would be a decent way of taking a fort? It'd take significantly more men to actually perform a full circle attack than to garrison the fort to the minimum degree though. Just think on the geometry of it, you'd need 10 times as many people to make it feasible, and that's against an understaffed fort that can't cover all it's approaches. A fully staffed fort would find such an attack a slaughterhosue..
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Jan 7, 2014 00:55
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Slavvy posted:I guess I'm picturing it wrong. I take it this means there was no real way to scale the walls without first undermining them or reducing them with cannon fire? The walls are going to be designed to be hard to climb. Unless the sentries are all asleep the wall climbers will learn how much it sucks to be stuck moving slowly on a rope while fully exposed to many angles of fire.
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Jan 7, 2014 01:14
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Koramei posted:Alternatively, you join those marauding barbarians and snowball all around the Mediterranean with your new pals 'cause you kind of hated your old rulers anyway. Might have gone like this: Warlike people suffer a famine, and attack another culture to take their food before they starve. Since they were more desperate, the other guy breaks first, generating a horde of refugees. Turns out the other guys didn't have enough food either, now you have two waves of hungry barbarians, one marginally better fed and armed. Repeat until the population drops sufficiently or they get too hungry to fight.
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Jan 8, 2014 09:49
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bewbies posted:In any case, it was a very difficult position for everybody. The "spirit of the attack" kind of thinking refused to die (it still isn't dead), plus you had a TON of public pressure (especially on the Allies) to do..."something"....to get the dirty Germans out of Belgium and France.
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Jan 11, 2014 06:16
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I dunno, it's interesting in it's own right, and an insight into the mindset of soldiers of the time. At the least, you'd get to know what they're worried of happening.
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Jan 12, 2014 09:43
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Probably dates all the way back to ancient Sumer.
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Jan 13, 2014 09:58
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Mans posted:Man, why would you just slash a 12 year old in the face repeatedly Might be just adrenaline and frustration from needing to take the city by storm.
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Jan 18, 2014 20:03
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Agean90 posted:Hey guys im pretty sure americas greatest defense is that it is literally 1/3 of a whole contentent that has friendly neighbors on both sides and the most powerful navy on the planet, not the ability to hand guns to people whole have no desire to shoot people. The sheer material and geographic advantage makes the biggest threat a breakup of the union then? Or does Canada have a good chance if for some reason they wanted to pick a fight?
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Jan 21, 2014 03:46
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I was thinking that given the military spending gap, the biggest non-nuclear threat would be a modern day civil war where the military is split.
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Jan 21, 2014 04:12
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