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Ensign Expendable posted:Aw yiss, got my hands on some juicy documents about testing tractors. I am unreasonably excited. HEY GAL posted:Juicier than my fabric shipment theft documents? I really want to hear both of these stories.
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Jun 18, 2014 12:05
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Hey guys, what happened to the Ottoman Empire? The way I understand it is that they fought in WWI, got invaded at Gallipoli, held that really convincingly and pushed the allies back into the sea - and then ??? and the Ottoman Empire gets carved up into ten different pieces. What actually happened there? I've legitimately got no idea. And why did the Ottomans lose so much territory and have their nation basically annihilated when Germany got off with just some payments?
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Jul 5, 2014 02:11
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And so I finish reading the thread - including it's predecessor in the archives. This poo poo took me months. Thank you everyone, you have absolutely transformed my understanding of wars and the dudes who do wars. Funny, tragic, shocking, familiar, occasionally heartwarming - you guys and your stories are the best. Could someone refresh me quickly as to what specifically was wrong with the Tiger 2? I know it was a logistical boondoggle but a bunch of people I know won't shut up about how great it was. Wasn't it something like 9 out of the first 45 made actually reached the front lines?
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Jul 1, 2015 04:39
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Thanks guys, I've passed the links on and sincerely hope that will be the last I have to hear of it.
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Jul 1, 2015 05:42
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What was the logic behind east asian isolationism? Did they just really not like the idea of filthy Europeans stomping all around their countries? I understand there are far fewer barriers to Europeans wandering around Europe in this period.
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Jul 26, 2015 08:41
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Can someone tell me about flamethrowers? I'm looking to do a bit of writing about them and want to know all I can.
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Jul 31, 2015 14:16
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chitoryu12 posted:Do you want the history, technology behind them, legality, etc.? The history and, if possible, contemporary opinions on them. I'm very interested in hearing what people who used them or came up against them thought if that's available. Thank you.
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Aug 1, 2015 01:55
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Thanks for the flamethrower stuff. I did notice it said in that big flamethrower diagram that flamethrower guys tended to be executed because their weapon was hated - does anyone have any anecdotes about what line soldiers thought of them? How does one get to be a flamethrower guy in WW1 or WW2? Do they volunteer? Do they pick out exceptionally strong guys? Do they get treated any different from other troops? HEY GAL posted:depends on what sort of paper you're writing, tbh. what's your topic? what's your approach? how many entertaining anecdotes do you want? I don't know about him but I want all of the entertaining anecdotes. Thanqol fucked around with this message at 13:41 on Aug 1, 2015 |
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Aug 1, 2015 13:38
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chitoryu12 posted:Special and heavy weapons like flamethrowers and bazookas would generally be distributed as "X per every platoon" or "X per every battalion" throughout the history of modern military. In the US, flamethrowers and bazookas would be operated by 2 or 3-man teams that were effectively treated as independent units, which would be moved around by the commanding officer independent of the rest of the platoon. Oh, cool. Thanks! HEY GAL posted:wedgewood is old as balls but has good character sketches I got this book today on your recommendation. It's loving huge.
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Aug 2, 2015 00:23
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What are some armies that used clubs in warfare? How do they do against armour? I have a pop culture image of Aztecs using clubs but I have no idea how accurate that is.
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Sep 12, 2015 06:04
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I am including maces in my question but I kind of have an understanding that they're like medieval shotguns - uncommon specialist weapons rather than something line dudes come with. Am I wrong?FishFood posted:The Aztec "sword", the macuahuitl, looks pretty superficially like a club but it's way more rad. Mesoamerican stone industry was super advanced and really good at making standardized pieces of absurdly sharp obsidian called prismatic blades. They'd seat a bunch of these around what looks like a miniature cricket bat and voila! A ridiculously sharp, if fragile, "sword" with no metal required. If I remember right, some Spanish accounts talk about Mexica warriors decapitating horses with them. How do they shape the obsidian? Does it break like glass, or do they chisel it like stone, or file it or what?
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Sep 12, 2015 10:11
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HEY GAL posted:So, since a lot more people were literate during the 30yw than had been earlier (in Western Europe), a bunch of the big generals or political figures were media personalities, almost in the modern sense. (The most famous was Gustavus Adolphus, of course. For those of you who get JSTOR: http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/24417366.pdf?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents ) Deteriorata and I posted some propaganda, but there was also a trade in art objects related to various causes or various famous people. I've seen a little metal figurine of Gustavus Adolphus in his coffin, but I can't find a picture of it anywhere. I've never thought about how I want on my grave before, but this provided the question and the answer at the same time. Holy poo poo.
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Mar 12, 2016 13:28
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So I just saw this poo poo. I know the Three Kingdoms is basically fantasy and propaganda, but I do still feel compelled to ask: Were there any actual formations this elaborate and crazy? Is there any basis for this at all? Or should I treat this like a gimmick villain's one special move?
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Apr 20, 2016 09:36
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Danann posted:If that's the missile I'm thinking of, it's also the same type of missile that the USS Barbero used to deliver mail: They used a missile to deliver mail? What? Why?
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Apr 30, 2016 06:46
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Upon witnessing the missile's landing, Summerfield stated, "This peacetime employment of a guided missile for the important and practical purpose of carrying mail, is the first known official use of missiles by any Post Office Department of any nation." Summerfield proclaimed the event to be "of historic significance to the peoples of the entire world", and predicted that "before man reaches the moon, mail will be delivered within hours from New York to California, to Britain, to India or Australia by guided missiles. We stand on the threshold of rocket mail." ... Rocket expert Willy Ley speculated in 1954 that using small cruise missiles to rapidly delivery mail might be possible for as little as three times the rate for airmail, in part because they could be reusable. Technologists like Robert Zubrin, of Mars Society fame, think that rocket mail, or at least ultra-elite business package delivery, may become commercially viable with the development of fully reusable launch systems, particularly single-stage to orbit vehicles. Such systems would allow package delivery anywhere in the world in 30–45 minutes. from Wikipedia. Goddamn it, why do we not live in this timeline? I'd leave my house and half a dozen missiles would be sticking out of my lawn, full of pizza coupons and bank statements.
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May 1, 2016 00:26
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How did people accurately aim ACW era cannons? Were there sights? Did they whip out protractors and do some envelope math? Were they just really used to how their cannons worked?
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May 9, 2016 23:26
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bewbies posted:The art:science ratio for artillery was much, much higher then than it is now. There were big variances between guns, even of the same type, so having a gunner who knew the personality of his particular section of guns was a big help. You also had pretty significant variances in ammunition and powder which you had to account for, so making the judgment calls on adjustments was a real seat-of-pants kind of operation. They also had to operate under fire with some regularity which is a rarity for modern gunners, you can imagine how getting shot at might affect your ability to use your rangefinding widget accurately. Thanks. This raises a related question - when counterbattery fire happens, what's the intent? Is it to kill all the artillerymen? Or is it to damage the cannons? Cannons are pretty big solid pieces of metal, would they be meaningfully damaged by a direct hit from an enemy cannonball or just knocked around/off its wheels? Did field artillery guys build earthworks around their guns at all if they were concerned about counterbattery?
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May 13, 2016 03:55
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So my uncle gave me a big book on the Spanish Civil War, a conflict I realized I know nothing about other than 'it was a clusterfuck and the fascists won sorta'. I'm not going to ask about the SCW itself when I've got a whole book on the topic, but I will ask: Why didn't Spain get involved in WW2? Was it just literally too hosed to go outside? If so, why didn't the Allies knock it over while they were there?
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May 21, 2016 22:38
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Deteriorata posted:Spain was a non-belligerent. They didn't join the Axis and were technically neutral. So Wikipedia suggests that the thing that made Franco's demands unreasonable was that he wanted a shitload of military equipment, which Hitler couldn't afford. Do we know what Spain's territorial ambitions were, if any?
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May 21, 2016 23:17
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So what was with the early 20th century Naval Treaties? I get vaguely that they were there as a polite way to avoid a massive bankrupty arms-race, but I'm curious about the specifics. How did they get negotiated? How were they enforced? Were people really so worried about someone building a gigantic battleship, larger and more deadly than all the other battleships, that they needed an international arms treaty as though battleships were nuclear weapons? How did this work?
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Jun 14, 2016 05:38
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Trin Tragula posted:Haig has basically just gone "I am too busy for this poo poo, I'll deal with you later". VIII Corps has been put under Reserve Army and General Gough is under strict orders to not let the kids out of the playpen. Beaumont Hamel is, at the moment, supremely irrelevant to how the battle is developing; there's no risk of them just deciding to attack again without orders, so the existing staff as well carry on for the time being until a proper inquest can be held and blame apportioned. If it turns out that none of them are fit for purpose, this at least gives the Staff enough time to identify a suitable number of candidates for promotion, and then to identify more replacement brigade commanders and battalion commanders who are going to have to fill the knock-on vacancies lower down. Hey Trin, I finally started reading your day-by-day backlog in earnest (now that I'm finished with that enormous Wallenstein biography) and it's really amazing. WW1 in the day by day format is an absolutely inspired idea and it helps me place a vast, sprawling mishmash of things that happened into a single coherent narrative.
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Jul 13, 2016 08:12
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HEY GAL posted:what did you think? So it was Wallenstein: His Life narrated on your recommendation and I really enjoyed it. It painted a really compelling picture of the man and I think the real strength was how it handled his transition from the baddest rear end in the realm to a gout riddled old man trying to accomplish one last great thing before he died. It was a really humanizing picture of how someone's priorities can change as their life and health declines which stood as a really sweet counterpoint to the constant accusations of evil scheming that surround him. My favourite moment was when all of Wallenstein's men get really worried that the Emperor doesn't like him any more, so they drunkenly band together and produce a letter saying WE ARE LOYAL TO WALLENSTEIN BEFORE ANYONE ELSE, WHAT'CHU GONNA DO? And on the one hand, it's so sweet and heartfelt, and on the other hand it is basically the proof Wallenstein's enemies were waiting for and almost directly resulted in them deciding to kill him. The book summed itself up perfectly in the end with the verse from his tomb, "There is no light so bright as the sun - and yet, it fades".
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Jul 13, 2016 11:11
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Phanatic posted:Topical crosspost from the .gif thread:  Bad War 2016
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Aug 1, 2016 09:36
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