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veekie posted: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. 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... Also, compared to other theatres in which the Japanese were engaged, Malaya had an excellent road network so really it stands to reason they would be able to move faster. steinrokkan fucked around with this message at 14:58 on Dec 30, 2013 |
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Dec 30, 2013 14:54
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The Entire Universe posted:Possibly just being distantly separated from the paradigm of warfare in which they had been trained. Japan itself isn't exactly a jungle-ridden country but the IJA probably planned for operations in places like the jungles of Southeast Asia and pacific islands. Contrast British war planning which was probably largely continental land war-centric, with the assumption that stuff like their colonial possessions being unable to put up anything other than the most rag-tag of rag-tag rebellions. Take a look at the US in Vietnam. WWII could have been a hell of a lesson with the pacific campaign's many island fights, but along comes Vietnam some 20 years later and it's like nobody could figure out how to fight in the jungle. For gently caress's sake they weren't chroming the M16's receivers at first. Japanese tactics were oriented entirely on the offensive. It was their opinion that the fighting body of a Japanese division should be at all times seeking an opportunity to exploit, to attack even against seemingly unsurmountable odds, and to prefer close engagements and infiltration of enemy lines over more deliberate approaches. Even their artillery was trained to fire almost exclusively against directly visible targets and to value accuracy over disruption and morale effects of massed but inaccurate fire. In addition the high level command usually didn't attempt to control combat units directly, and individual companies or even individual soldiers were allowed to operate spontaneously according to their own evaluation of the situation. They also formulated their TOEs with China in mind, and China presented an equally scary terrain as Malaya or Burma, and therefore the Japanese entered the war with weapons that weren't spectacular, but were capable of operating optimally even in jungles. It just so happens that all these factors combined provided basically the perfect mix with which to approach the strategic problems faced in 1942's tropical theatres, while they would have been utterly disastrous in Europe. Why?  The above is representative of visibility in the region. You probably can't make out the marching column of soldiers behind the bamboo very well, and neither could Allied sentries. Basically the Japanese army was like an ant swarm that came out of the opaque wall of jungle and, being trained to fight at a bayonet's length, overwhelmed the enemy with its sheer ferocity.
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Dec 30, 2013 18:11
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Dunno about other states, but in Austria, Joseph II enacted a series of reforms that aimed to makes Jews fully integrated into the regular legal structures of the state. It culminated in 1788 when he made Jewish conscription not only possible, but even mandatory. And unlike other Josephinian reforms, this one remained in place after his death and numerous Jews were called to serve in Napoleonic wars and in Hungary against the Turk. Oh hey, there's even an English encyclopedia article about this topic: http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/14438-toleranzpatent And since this law chronologically coincided (roughly) with the requirement that Jews must adopt German names, I would say there's a good chance it answers your question. steinrokkan fucked around with this message at 00:32 on Dec 31, 2013 |
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Dec 31, 2013 00:25
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Wel, at times situation in the Empire was worryingly similar to 20th century persecutions. Relatively mild forms of anti-Jewish sentiments took form of forced exodus from cities where non-Jewish population lobbied to make away with competing Jewish merchants and masters. Ferdinand I's rule is notable for a large scale migration of Jews out of German territories, mostly to Poland (it's quite possible members of this diaspora could find fortune as mercenaries, as Hegel suggested). 16th century also saw reintroduction of ancient laws that forced Jews to be marked by cloaks / hats and yellow badges, and breaches of these regulations were often followed by confiscation of property. Two examples of much harsher approach could be found in Charles VI who decreed that numbers of Jewish families within his domain couldn't exceed certain numerus clausus, and effectively all sons of Jewish families except the most senior ones (who inherited their fathers' place in the clausus) were stripped of all their rights. The second example I wanted to mention was Maria Thereza who caused great upheaval when she ordered all Jews into exile, and made identification and segregation rules much more strict. Speaking of which - it's true that while Jews weren't allowed to serve in the army, they did have contracts as suppliers for the military (and so Marie's decision to exile them caused a lot of distress amongst her officers who suddenly lost a chunk of their logisitcs). SO perhaps it's possible that the origin of your family name could be because of background in trading with the army rather than serving in a combat capacity?
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Dec 31, 2013 01:10
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InspectorBloor posted:You cannot come to Europe and skip cities like Prague, If you make a stop in Prague, DON't visit the very heavily advertised Museum of Communism - it's a tourist trap set up by an American entrepreneur who created it to increase traffic to his nearby restaurants.
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Dec 31, 2013 21:13
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veekie posted: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. 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.
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Dec 31, 2013 22:59
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Comstar posted:The Ice-Cream maker was an unapproved addition too I think. They did have air-con though, to help prevent circuits blowing. Was it? I've read it was a very high-regarded appliance, and one of reasons for keeping / installing them was that medical personnel lobbied for ice cream as a reliable source of dairy nutrients. Also, that promising bonus ice cream rations was a surefire way to increase crew performance.
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Jan 2, 2014 13:32
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The Entire Universe posted:Who were the sea people, anyway? Are there any books that try to get to the bottom of that hilarious mystery? Didn't part of these sea peoples waves correspond with migration patterns in Ancient Greece?
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Jan 3, 2014 02:17
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Lamadrid posted:Who cares , we will have awesome videogames Video game consoles will be the first to be conscripted.
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Jan 3, 2014 16:08
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I guess the actual most important factor is whether all the packages land at the same, predictable spot and can be swiftly collected. Trebuchet would probably be worse at that. Also, a pneumatic cannon is most likely easier to rig so you can fire it from the carriage platform of a truck without any delays on arrival & on departure.
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Jan 6, 2014 11:43
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Phanatic posted:using what is effectively an ICBM to deliver beans to some troops ... was high as a loving kite. They merely studied the Molotov school of bread distribution.
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Jan 6, 2014 19:07
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What was the best way for a pre-industrial army to defeat a modern fortress with its glacis, bastions, casemates etc. if starving it out was not an option. Something more subtle than burying it in bodies? Mining operations? Sustained artillery fire? Was there a general framework to which commanders adhered, or did they come up with ad hoc solutions based on each individual layout? Basically, I've been rereading Tristran Shandy and wondering if, given the intellectual power behind constructing fortifications, there was an equivalent creative force involved in overcoming them.
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Jan 7, 2014 00:12
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If Total War has taught me anything its that if you give any peasant with a pitchfork a rope, he can scale a fortified wall while under fire in about half a minute.
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Jan 7, 2014 01:06
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Fangz posted:If we're talking a pre-industrial army fighting a modern one, the walls would be the least of their problems. Modern in this case refers to pre-industrial, cca 17th - 18th century, at least the way I meant it in my question.
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Jan 7, 2014 01:20
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It's just a speculation but I imagine that if you got displaced from a city by marauding barbarians, you needed to settle down somewhere else real quick, otherwise you were going to miss the next harvest and starve to death. So even if the cities weren't literally torn down in the process of looting, there was little incentive to move back once you adjusted to working a different piece of land? I don't know much about architecture of the region, but I know that clay-based architecture of the Sudan-Sahel style requires virtually constant maintenance and application of new layers, otherwise it quickly falls apart. So it would follow that a mostly abandoned city would then quickly shrink to its new, greatly diminished size even without intentional demolition. steinrokkan fucked around with this message at 22:49 on Jan 7, 2014 |
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Jan 7, 2014 22:46
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He wrote he was a wild beast - lycanthropy proven.
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Jan 13, 2014 16:57
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I would agree with the assessment that the British army was at its best during the last stages of 1918 - the British broke the German back and went from victory to victory, decisively and flawlessly reaping the rewards of prolonged war of attrition in a series of battles that were giant in scale but usually forgotten due to how one sided they were. Ultimately the British were responsible or about 50% of German casualties caused over the course of the final offensive. Compared to that - with all respect to the British - England played second fiddle to other powers in both the Napoleonic and Second World War.
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Jan 23, 2014 10:35
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a travelling HEGEL posted:(It's partially because he was the largest landowner in Bohemia.) The largest landowner, and his land was notoriously shielded from harm, and was granted a number of privileges - it was protected against foraging and wintering of armies, granted an absolution from taxes and de facto independence from royal authority. His duchy contained forges, textile workshops and granaries, and while it was known as "terra felix", Wallenstein was a demanding businessman who didn't let his peasants idle - he enforced a strict new organization of labor which supposedly led to a triple increase in productivity compared to similar guild-run enterprises. Plus he could rely on the Emperor transferring seized property to him in attempt to amortize court's outstanding debt towards him. He was basically a major owner of government bonds, which made him a trustworthy and preferred business partner when procuring supplies outside of his own territory.
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Jan 24, 2014 10:45
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Daysvala posted:Right, the sheer amount of mass involved would create a huge amount of forward inertia and prevent efficient turning, but wouldn't pulling a couple of tons of iron, meat and gunpowder tire out even four horses long before a troop transport of that design could travel any useful amount of distance? Four decent horses could steadily pull anything between 8,000 and 16,000 pounds depending on variety of factors.
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Jan 28, 2014 22:47
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Ghost of Mussolini posted:Around 750,000 German horses invaded the USSR in Barbarossa. Eagerly awaiting Barbarossa: Equestria. But seriously, pack / draft horses are very impressive animals.   Not to belittle the other belligerent species of the WWII, of course.   
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Jan 29, 2014 17:20
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At this rate who can tell what sacrilege will be next - somebody calling the royal family a band of useless moochers on national television? The moral decay of today's generation...
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Jan 30, 2014 12:38
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Koesj posted:You never hear much about the role of the GRU in the Cold War either in mainstream media. Also all Soviet/Russian special forces are apparently 'spetsnaz' be they MVD, or Border Troops, CA, whatever. Much like every US soldier is / was a marine.
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Feb 3, 2014 00:57
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My favorite bomber story is probably this one, which illustrates the insanity of the air war in some of the more isolated theatres: http://petapixel.com/2013/10/29/honored-photograph/ Few Port Moresby stationed misfits notorious for being terrible crewmen formed a rag-tag unit and started doing their own thing, with little regard for their superiors. They commandeered (and allegedly fortified against intruders) an old B-17 carcass intended for cannibalizing, and turned it into a functioning machine (mysteriously - the base was supposed to be totally out of spare parts). Despite not being qualified for independent flight, they started volunteering for all sorts of missions, including those noone else in their right mind would volunteer for. They customized their plane with a ridiculous amount of extra firepower, and basically started using it as their makeshift barracks and HQ. Sadly for some of them the spiral of increasing aggressiveness ended badly.
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Feb 10, 2014 20:25
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jaegerx posted:I thought he used tank destroyers Close enough, he actually used superior European technology to deploy river boat destroyers. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDlra8SsuXc
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Feb 11, 2014 00:43
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Trench_Rat posted:speaking of B-17's there is a new movie coming out aslo HBO is working on a mini series based on Masters of Air Not gonna lie, this looks pretty awful.
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Feb 11, 2014 22:16
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It's war fiction, I'll take depressing over frantic masturbation any time.
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Feb 11, 2014 22:28
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Arquinsiel posted:I like that literally every movie or game about Stalingrad has that same statue fountain in it. It's like they had it on every street intersection, or that was the agreed place that both sides would come to for a fight after school. Guess what, they reinstalled the fountain last year, and bam - the December terrorist attacks hit the railway station next to it. The thing is cursed, I tell ya.
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Feb 13, 2014 00:43
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"Cocking knob", teehee teehee
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Feb 13, 2014 19:44
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Has any nation attempted to modify T-34s with missile systems and electronics and whatnot? Even the T-34s I've seen in photos from 90s Yugoslavia were just the usual plain rustbuckets (except covered in tarps and rubber mats, for some reason).
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Feb 13, 2014 22:50
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xthetenth posted:And we're fighting this on a flat featureless plain in a vacuum and the tank and technicals are both spherical masses? Yes, but you get a bonus to initiative thanks to your charisma.
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Feb 13, 2014 22:55
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Raskolnikov38 posted:I'm incredibly curious if our poo poo roads would even be able to stand up to having a T-34 drive on them. I know that in Czechoslovkia they built cobblestone tank crossings over asphalt roads in military areas (which was any place somewhat close to the borders) because repairing damage caused to ordinary roads would be too expensive.
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Feb 14, 2014 00:15
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Probably reasonably well, the GBS is now much calmer than it used to be and long specialized threads exist without anybody mocking them.
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Feb 16, 2014 22:34
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Even very serious perpetrators don't have to be necessarily punished in such a harsh manner, but I don't think the concept of reconciliation entered anybody's mind in 1945.
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Feb 21, 2014 18:08
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Cast_No_Shadow posted:Not sure which history thread to post this in but this one seems about right. That "Important Guy" was Albrecht z Valdtejna, Albrecht von Wallenstein who in exchange for helping the Habsburgs during the outbreak of the 30 Year War was given the Duchy of Friedland, which became basically a huge factory for procuring military supplies, and was named the generalissimo of Imperial armies. Anyway, I'd be happy to answer any questions, but they would have to be somewhat specific. The basic outline of Bohemian history until about 1618 would look like this: Started as part of the Great Moravian Empire, accepted western Christianity. From the 9th century on existed as a Principality ruled by a native dynasty, the Přemyslids. There remains some confusion over the chronology of important events in this period, but the basic narrative goes like this: Bohemia was a vassal of the young Empire, and forced to pay tribute. In early 10th century Prince Václav (Wenceslav) was accused of being a weakling by his brother Boleslav, and was eventually assassinated (and later canonized as Patron Saint of the country). Boleslav supposedly declared war against the Empire, and after years of struggle hesitantly resumed the tribute, only to later become a major ally of the Emperor in subduing the rising Hungarian threat. What is more important and more certain is that he and his son, Boleslav II, led the state to its first golden age, eliminating political rivals from other dynasties, extending the territory to modern Ukraine, issuing first coins etc. The Přemyslids managed to gain hereditary title of King of Bohemia in 1212, granted through the Golden Bull of Sicily. That made Bohemia an important player since AFAIK there were no other kingdoms within the Empire, and because it stripped the Emperor of any right to appoint rulers in Bohemia, and made the Bohemian King the first Elector. The Přemylids reached peak with Václav II and Václav III who combined Bohemia, Poland and Hungary into a personal union of three kingdoms, but Václav III was assassinated without a heir, and a civil war broke out. Ultimately the Luxembourgs managed to get hold of the throne and made Prague the seat of the Emperor. Charles IV (1346-1378) also presented a Bull which made the lands of the Bohemian Crown indivisible, and thus cemented their position as one of political centres of the German world. Charles IV was followed by Václav IV, a weak ruler who failed to even collect his Imperial crown, and during whose rule the burgeoning movement of utraquists, led by Jan Hus until his execution in 1415, culminated in the Hussite wars aka the one bit of Bohemian history that is somewhat well-known abroad. I won't get into that period because it was a goddamn clusterfuck. The Hussite wars left the kingdom weakened and ruled by a succession of moderate Utraquists (sometimes their confession is interpreted as Protestant, but that is not true - Protestants and utraquists would later become enemies) who won certain religious concessions granted by the Church. In these years the estates of the kingdom leveraged a great deal of power over the throne, something which would become a major source of conflict with the next rulers of Bohemia... the Habsburgs. The Habburgs made a bid for the throne in the 16th century, represented by Ferdinand I who was elected on a "I'll pay you lots of money" platform. The Habsburg period is another huge clusterfuck of the Bohemian nobles and cities trying to gently caress each other over, and in the spare time trying to conspire against the Habsburgs, who were themselves working on moving the effective seat of the royal power from Prague to Vienna. Nevertheless, the powers granted to Bohemia over the past few centuries made it difficult to beat into submission - until the Thrity Year War that is. The Thirty Year War which started over disputed legality of the destruction of two churches in small Bohemian towns, and ended as a major factor in shaping European politics of the entire modern era.
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Feb 26, 2014 21:31
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AATREK CURES KIDS posted:While technically correct, isn't that like saying the American Civil War started over the shelling of Fort Sumter? I'm under the impression that the religious conflict was already causing unrest across Europe and the Bohemian Revolt happened to be the event that drew a lot of powers into war. Sure, but it sounds better this way, and gives it a nice nationalist tone. Basically everybody in Europe held grudges against any number of competing nations, and the Revolt mobilized - both deliberately and unwittingly - a plethora of political forces ranging from Savoy, to the Palatinate, to Transylvania, to Turkey. Furthermore plenty of nobles went into exile and lobbied hard for war in their new homes.
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Feb 26, 2014 22:22
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Just have a pharmacist read it for ya.
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Feb 27, 2014 01:04
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It doesn't really answer your question, but it may help to bear in mind that guns used in Jap. superdreadnoughts up until the Ise class were either directly designed and manufactured by Vickers, or replicated from this Vickers design. So I guess there shouldn't be any surprising divergence of firing performance between British and Japanese guns when the obvious factors are accounted for (elevation of and configuration of turrets, caliber). Speaking of turrets, I believe the Japanese opted to continue using two-gun turrets while the British kept increasing their turret size, the reasoning for that was that a larger number of smaller turrets would give them greater flexibility in attack. Whether this hypothesis was correct, we may never know.
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Feb 27, 2014 17:15
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So the space Yamato is meant to be the ACTUAL Yamato? Thought it was just a Yamato themed spaceship. I imagine there would be some issues with airtightness even during her heydays.
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Feb 27, 2014 19:32
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If they just continued sailing straight past each other, that would open opportunity for one side to turn 90 degrees and open fire from the broadside while the opposing side was facing them with unarmed bows (crossing the T). So the logical thing would be for two sides to tun to face each other, in a zipper fashion. Just guessin'
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Feb 27, 2014 20:02
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Raskolnikov38 posted:I don't if I should find it hilarious or sad that thousands of years from now historians may be having fierce debates over just who weedlord bonerhitler is and why he hates obamacare so much. Don't worry, caches of preserved politoons will clarify that Obama was a foreign cult leader who introduced Aztec-style sacrifices at the altar of Karl Marx.
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Mar 1, 2014 01:52
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