Ask Us About Military History: Remove Balls To Fire Blanks

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Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

How bad were casualties among flagships? It seems like the first ship in the line would logically take the biggest beating. Presumably it would also be the toughest ship, but still, I feel like one ship could only take so much damage before it went down. It seems, at a gut level, like an odd choice to put your most valuable ship with your most valuable person up in the front like that.

If it were me (which it wouldn't, because I'm lowborn), I'd put it in the middle or something.

# ¿ Feb 27, 2014 18:57

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# ¿ May 13, 2024 02:15

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

gradenko_2000 posted:

This isn't like RTS games where all the ships would be focusing their fire on one ship at a time. Ideally the first ship of the line would shoot the enemy's corresponding lead ship, with the second ship in line shooting the second ship, and so on, because when you have multiple ships shooting the same target, you cannot observe which shell splashes are yours and so cannot adjust your aim accurately. So the lead ship would not really take much more of a beating than the rest (barring situations where the order of fire was not followed for whatever reason, which could and did happen)

Maybe I'm just not thinking about it correctly�my image of a naval battle (which I realize may be misshapen by hollywood or other bad sources) of is of two lines of ships sailing towards each other from opposite directions, and trading shots as they pass each other before breaking into a melee; the lead ship of either line would take the most damage, because it's going to get shot at by the longest series of un-damaged ships with fresh crews at the ready, while ships further back in the line would get shot at by fewer ships, which have already been weakened by being shot at by the ships in front of them as they passed by.

I acknowledge that I'm probably very wrong about how lines of battle actually functioned, or about how much damage it takes to actually sink a ship, or a hundred other things but asking dumb questions is how you learn when you don't know anything, so I did it!

# ¿ Feb 27, 2014 19:56

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

steinrokkan posted:

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'}

As I was writing out my description of how I thought naval battles worked, I did begin to realize that what you're writing makes much more sense, yeah.

Sidesaddle Cavalry posted:

Sometimes a fleet would unfortunately happen into an enemy line-of-battle head-on, so that the shape of the fight looked like the enemy line was "crossing the T" of the advancing flagship and her followers. Then everyone in the fleet gets to sink!

Well, if it worked for Trafalgar...though I suppose there, the French/Spanish were "crossing the pi".

# ¿ Feb 27, 2014 20:15

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

gradenko_2000 posted:

I'm sorry if my tone came off a bit snarky - that totally was not my intention!

Anyway, in the Age of Sail, wind direction limited where and how you could orient yourself, and ships mostly ended up sailing in parallel lines across from each other. This was also a huge factor in why many battles in the Age of Sail were rather indecisive: one would simply need to sail downwind to escape and one would generally always get away unless one's ships were so much worse than his opponent's. If I recall correctly Nelson at Trafalgar was hailed as such a hero because he was actually able to break this convention by closing in on the French fleet when the British had been failing to do that for a long long time (forgive me MilHist thread if I'm getting this wrong)

Once ships started to become coal and turbine-powered, ships still ended up moving in parallel lines across from each other, but for a different reason: If you're on headlong courses against each other, then eventually one of you will be able to shoot the other from behind with no fear of retaliation because the gun orientations are all wrong, and then you both try to turn into each other to avoid this from happening and it's like two snakes wrapping themselves around each other.

The goal was to cross-the-T: Orient your ships such that you're ahead of and perpendicular to the enemy's course so that your ships can all shoot their broadsides as they pass the lead enemy ship in a line while the enemy can only return fire with a portion of their guns, and this is where your idea of the lead ship taking a lot more damage would actually be true. Speed was a crucial factor in avoiding this situation - if you're traveling at 25 knots and the enemy can make 27 knots and both of you are on parallel courses, then he can draw ahead farther and farther until he can just turn into you and cross your T with little to no effort. If your speeds are equal, then your two parallel courses will only ever remain parallel and the advantage goes to the person with the better scouting because he can deploy his line better than the other and avoid an even-parallel match, or the guy with the better skilled crews/better built ships because any damage dealt to the line will start to unravel the balance of speed and weight of shell.

Sorry if I got defensive! I get nervous asking dumb questions in front of smart people sometimes

That's interesting info, thank you!

# ¿ Feb 27, 2014 20:36

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

BalloonFish posted:

Nelson's tactic at Trafalgar was to use the weather gauge against the French/Spanish fleet. By splitting his force into two lines and going in at right angles rather than the conventional 'two parallel lines exchanging fire as they pass' he made the Combined Fleet cross his own T. Once both his lines were across the enemy's, they could deliver raking fire on both sides. The front end of the Combined Fleet was now downwind and was essentially out of the battle as they couldn't turn around to assist, especially in the light and erratic winds. Nelson's plan put the British fleet at a tactical disadvantage in the early stages but it was traded for a huge tactical advantage in the later stages as it removed a third of the Combined Fleet from the engagement at the very first move. Then more and more British ships piled into the French/Spanish line and it became a series of localised ship-on-ship actions.

Did Trafalgar change the way that subsequent naval battles were fought (other admirals trying to copy him, etc), or did it mostly go back to the usual tactics after that?

I think I remember reading something (possibly on wikipedia, so I've salted it thoroughly) to the effect that the only reason Nelson's gamble worked was because his fleet was at an advantage anyway; by attacking them the way he did, he was basically just turning "victory" into "decisive victory", but if he'd tried it under worse odds, it probably wouldn't have worked out for him.

# ¿ Feb 27, 2014 21:04

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

Not to be pedantic, but do you mean "War of Secession" rather than "Succession"?

I ask not to be an rear end in a top hat about spelling, but because "succession" implies an argument over who should rule the country, where "secession" implies a desire of a faction to break away from that rule entirely, which I think would be a better description.

The argument I've heard against calling it a "Civil War" is that "Civil War" implies that two or more factions are fighting over the authority to rule a nation, whereas the South had no interest in leading the United States, they wanted to break off and do their own thing.

# ¿ Feb 28, 2014 21:40

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

Patrick Spens posted:

Italians did actually great the Americans as liberators towards the end of the war.

I feel like I remember reading somewhere about how Italian soldiers would go out of their way to surrender to Americans because life in an allied POW camp was better than life in the Italian army. Or something like that.

# ¿ Mar 16, 2015 21:20

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

chitoryu12 posted:

In medieval and colonial times, alcohol was the drink of choice and you just drank stuff with very low alcoholic content during the day to avoid getting trashed.

How low are we talking, here? Like, miller lite low, or even lower?

# ¿ Mar 19, 2015 00:25

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

quote:

I heard one person joke about how he accidentally throw a weight and it nearly hit a missiles firing unit.

This may be just my civilian na�vet�, but there's no way in hell that it's possible to accidentally fire a nuclear missile that easily, right?

# ¿ Nov 4, 2015 20:35

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

SeanBeansShako posted:

Is it me or is the Musketeer in blue on the left staring down the artist as he sketched this scene?

It's probably symbolic of something.

# ¿ Dec 26, 2015 16:36

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

HEY GAL posted:

for a real trip, try to follow the lines of sight in Las Meninas
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Las_Meninas
who's looking where? who's in the mirror? what's on the easel?

And who's the man on the stairs? This painting is the original Lost.

I went to the prado and probably spent a good 30 minutes gawking at that thing. It's even more impressive full size. I now have a poster of it hanging in my room so I guess you could say I know a thing or two about fine art

# ¿ Dec 26, 2015 16:47

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

HEY GAL posted:

did the Spartans invent the action-movie-oneliner, or did they merely perfect it

As far as I can tell, Spartan society was just one big action movie (where they're the cartoonish villains who lose at the end), and there's a whole wikipedia page dedicated to their one-liners:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laconic_phrase

My favorite being:

quote:

After invading southern Greece and receiving the submission of other key city-states, Philip II of Macedon sent a message to Sparta: "If I invade Laconia you will be destroyed, never to rise again." The Spartan ephors replied with a single word: "If" (αἴκα).[28] Subsequently neither Philip nor his son Alexander the Great attempted to capture the city.

Google sources don't seem to agree on how Philip phrased his threat, I seem to remember it being longer and more specific in its violence but whatever, that's the gist of it.

# ¿ Feb 26, 2016 22:17

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

Trin Tragula posted:

Hands up anyone else who is imagining a bunch of landsknechts trying to eat with pikes like chopsticks

Well I wasn't

# ¿ Feb 28, 2016 01:12

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

Ask Us About Military History: Stroke the butt fore to aft

An actual post, though:

Delivery McGee posted:

Edit: also, if it comes to fixing bayonets, even in the musket days, things have gone incredibly poorly. Bayonets are still issued, but it's more an excuse to give every soldier a utility knife, nowadays.

Well, I guess they were useful for poking at enemy horses up until Victoria's reign, but since cavalry stopped using horses ...

I'm curious about that; apart from stabbing horses, when would infantry tend to use bayonets against other infantry over shooting at them (mostly I'm curious about the musket days)?

# ¿ Feb 28, 2016 03:40

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

On a subject related to ACW weapons: At what point in the development of firearms did line battles stop happening?

My understanding of why people fought in lines to begin with was that muskets were horribly inaccurate, and in order to put them to good use, you had to group up and fire them in formation in order to hit things. But by the time of the ACW at least, my understanding is that most soldiers were now armed with rifles which actually could be aimed and reliably hit things; but they still used line formations anyway, for the most part? At least in that war.

I guess my question is:

1) Why did armies continue to use line formations even after accurate weapons became prevalent, and

2) Is there a particular point/reason where/why they stopped?

It happened some time between ACW and WWI at least, but my knowledge of the wars between that period is fuzzy at best. My best guess would be that advancements in artillery made standing together in a tight cluster of unprotected manflesh an increasingly unpleasant idea? And obviously if I'm wrong about any of my base knowledge, please correct me. Maybe there's more logic behind the line formation beyond "this is the only way we can figure out how to hit things."

# ¿ Feb 29, 2016 04:09

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

Hogge Wild posted:

a good post from pyf:

But has a spearman ever beat a tank?

# ¿ Mar 3, 2016 16:36

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

Grey Hunter posted:

Swearing? In this mans army! That is horrid. Absolutly darn horrid!

What, never?

# ¿ Mar 30, 2016 15:14

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

On the other front, I seem to remember reading about Italian soldiers basically tripping over themselves to surrender to the Allies by the time they invaded Italy, on account of not really being into fascism anymore, and life in the Italian army being mostly worse than life in an allied POW camp (German soldiers seemed to be a bit more hardcore). Is there any truth to that, or did I read a pack of lies? I think I read it in a book in the school library when I was in high school (15 years ago) so...that could have been an embellishment, now that I think back about it.

# ¿ Mar 30, 2016 22:27

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

Is there any good historical fiction about the 30 years war? Something like the Sharpe or Aubrey-Maturin series, except about a landsknecht?

Between lurking this thread, and getting back into EU4, I've had an itch for some reason

# ¿ Apr 11, 2016 17:35

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

David Simon's Homicide has a good chapter about the effects of getting shot that echoes a lot of what you're saying, with illustrated examples of people who got shot and because they were either high, or on adrenaline, or just plain didn't notice, kept moving like usual because they didn't realize they were supposed to fall down like on television.

It's basically ruined TV for me because now every time I see someone blown off their feet by a gun I have to quiet down a little autistic part of my brain that wants to shout "that's not how it works!"

I think he explained it by saying something like "a shot strong enough to blow someone away would also knock the shooter off their feet" and I'm not good enough at physics to work out the math on that but it's still something i can't not think about now

# ¿ Apr 13, 2016 21:35

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

lenoon posted:

That's only if both shooter and shot are both braced equally though, it's a lot easier to knock a running target literally off their feet and totally arrest their movement while you stay stock still. Hell, you can do it with your fist.

That's what I mean, yeah. Newtons laws are basically the one thing I do know about physics, it's when you get into gun mechanisms and the effects of the stance of the shooter versus the victim that I'm not sure whether just "equal and opposite reaction" is on its own fully accurate (I got a D in high school physics and stopped learning new things after that)

But the point stands generally, that it would have to be a heck of a bullet to work the way it does in movies.

# ¿ Apr 13, 2016 22:05

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

Fangz posted:

Yeah but the point is that it's generally early war, pretty rare, and usually ineffective.

Looks cool as hell though

# ¿ Apr 14, 2016 18:08

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

ArchangeI posted:

Napoleon and Wallenstein each coach a little league team

who wins

I'd watch this sitcom

# ¿ Apr 15, 2016 19:40

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

swamp waste posted:

Oh my god.

What exactly does "browns" mean in this context

# ¿ Apr 16, 2016 01:19

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

HEY GAL posted:

shades of brown, of which there's a bunch
i bet it was all he could do not to list them

Deteriorata posted:

The color of their eyes. "Your eyes are why God made the color brown."

Ohh, I see. I'm not much of a poetry person, so probably the problem was that it was such a rich and complex verse that it went over my head. Probably what it was.

# ¿ Apr 16, 2016 03:19

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

ALL-PRO SEXMAN posted:

God, this is like listening to people describe their loving dreams.

consider posting on a subject that does interest you.

# ¿ Apr 28, 2016 16:01

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

I'm not quite understanding how you get the mail out of the missile. Does it thunk into the ground like a lawn dart or something? What if it misses and hits somebody?

# ¿ Apr 30, 2016 16:21

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

Thanqol posted:

in part because they could be reusable

Now how does this work? Aren't they gonna get a little scuffed up on the landing or something? Is the recipient charged with bringing the missile back to their local post office after getting the package? Sounds like a PITA to be honest

# ¿ May 1, 2016 02:42

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

SeanBeansShako posted:

An informative article looking into the past of counter insurgency tactics.

Interesting article, but I had to chuckle a bit at the end:

quote:

And David Petraeus is tipped by some to be the next US president but one.

Yeah, about that...

# ¿ May 1, 2016 22:17

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

Grand Prize Winner posted:

:

So that's what that's from

# ¿ May 2, 2016 05:28

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

Oh poo poo, agesilaus used to be named grumblefish didn't he? That guy was nuts, or hilarious, or both, I could never tell.

He used to post in the law school/lawyer thread about how defense attorneys were morally bankrupt because they knowingly defended guilty people, and one time he flipped out in a games thread about civ 4: colonization because he didn't like how the noble kings of Europe were portrayed as foppish oafs.

It's too bad he's banned, his posts were something else.

# ¿ May 2, 2016 14:27

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

Polyakov posted:

I think it would be fair to argue that battleships/cruisers were important in the european theater, but it was very much less so on the pacific theater.

It is interesting to note that in europe battleships sunk the most other battleships (5 to 4 sunk by air), and also sank the most battleships while underway (3). The only sinking of a battleship underway by air was the Roma as it was moving to surrender to the allies, (you could argue the Bismarck as well but it couldn't really have been sunk without the use of battleships, aircraft and cruisers).

The prospect of German battleships roaming the Atlantic and attacking convoys was a genuine and very real threat in the early war and also in mid war with the allied convoys to Russia, the same with the Italian battlefleet contesting control of the Mediterranean, especially with the italian fleet it was very neccesary to sink or otherwise prevent their battlefleet from interfering in the Med so that britain could supply North Africa, Malta and not have to send convoys to and from india round the bottom of Africa.

Was there any interest in/effort to use aircraft carriers in Europe by any side in WWII? Or did the availability of land-based airbases make it not worth the effort for anybody (according to video games, carriers do seem to require a lot of effort)?

# ¿ May 3, 2016 14:55

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

Jamwad Hilder posted:

He surrendered to Washington at Yorktown so I think he's pretty well known in the US because of that.

Lafayette might be another one most people here have heard of, not as sure about that though.

If he wasn't famous before Hamilton, he probably is now

# ¿ May 4, 2016 03:36

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

I opened this thread and the eastern europe.gifv thread at the same time and got real confused for a second there

# ¿ May 4, 2016 04:06

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

bewbies posted:

You know what's weird is by date of introduction the zero and F-14 are closer together on a timeline than we are to the F-14.

And Alexander the Great was closer to the construction of the pyramids of Giza than we are to the completion of the f-35

# ¿ May 4, 2016 16:24

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

Trin Tragula posted:

I love the Verdun FPS and I hate shooters as a genre.

I'd love to see one of the French developers, Quantic Dream, or Ubisoft, or Dontnod, do a choices-matter adventure game about Private Jean Crapaud. It'd lend itself perfectly to an episodic release format, and it'd be the perfect way to bring out the whole life of the soldier.

Did you play valiant hearts? What'd you think of it (as a game about WWI I mean)?

Open question to anyone really but also you specifically because of your particular expertise

# ¿ May 6, 2016 23:49

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

I think you're all forgetting about a little masterpiece called Darkest of Days

# ¿ May 7, 2016 00:54

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

SeanBeansShako posted:

Why are we questioning the historical accuracy of vanilla Battlefield games again?

In Battlefield 1942 for some reason the Prince Of Wales was at Midway.

And American paratroopers dropped into Arnhem in market garden :britain:

# ¿ May 7, 2016 04:17

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

lenoon posted:

There's a lot of shooting alright, but consistently over the heads of the guys in the trench opposite, and then you all sing l'internationale. There's controversy over a sex scene because the trip to the brothel level is so depressingly true to life it gives the player syphilis.

Now I'm just thinking about George Baker, the video game. Press X to make lame pun. Try to escape the phantom yolande! Press any key to think about girls George, GIRLS

This game is why God made greys and Browns

# ¿ May 7, 2016 15:46

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# ¿ May 13, 2024 02:15

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

darthbob88 posted:

Yeah, but the first chapter or two really needs to be that sort of upbeat CoD-style thing in the bright colourful fields of France. Give them some time to actually charge across no-man's land and give the Boche a taste of cold steel, let them think it's all fun and games, and then you start ramping up the oppressively brown and grey mud and imminent death.

There should be a trench rat-bashing minigame during loading screens. Also the loading screens are long and boring and you have the chance to get randomly disconnected to represent dying to artillery and sniper shots and disease while sitting in the trench. These will be features

# ¿ May 7, 2016 16:10

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