Ask Us About Military History: Remove Balls To Fire Blanks

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Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

a travelling HEGEL posted:

Until you get into the really arcane poo poo or the stuff produced by armies for internal consumption, military history tends to be written in an approachable style. This is the only subfield that's dominated by people who aren't professional historians and most writers try to keep things zippy without sacrificing accuracy or rigor.

Military history belongs to all of us.

I'm finding Ian Kershaw to be rather tough going at the moment, and Anthony Beevor was a bit of a slog the first time through Stalingrad. TBH I think it's a matter of how deeply you immerse yourself in things, and what audience the author is writing for. Guderian's Panzer Leader is full of units identified by numbers, reaching lines identified by town names on each end, on dates. I suspect this is because he was aiming it at his allied counterparts. Conversely, Eisenhower's report to Congress after the war is incredibly clear, and a hugely fun book to read.

Arquinsiel fucked around with this message at 01:11 on Nov 14, 2013

# ¿ Nov 14, 2013 01:09

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# ¿ Apr 30, 2024 00:01

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Koramei posted:

I thought they carried two different kinds of pilum, and one had a stiff neck? Either way, would it actually make a difference against cavalry? Horses usually won't charge a line of spears regardless of whether those spears will buckle on impact or not.

From what I remember, hazily, from reading a generalist "weapons through the ages" book, the name of which I don't even remember, in an ex-girlfriend's house over ten years ago:

There were three types carried at some point (possibly pre-Marian Reform era, Hastati, Principes Triarii and all that), two meant for throwing at different ranges and one solid "spear" type for poking in the face or throwing point blank. The variations were basically weight and neck flexibility that gave different performance at different ranges and increased the chances of inflicting incapacitating injury or further weighing down the enemy shield if it wasn't discarded.

Ensign Expendable posted:

This is a sweet effortpost. Well done, and please keep going.

# ¿ Nov 14, 2013 02:37

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

PrinceRandom posted:

War is really depressing. Does it ever get depressing reading about real people killing real people?

Since I mentioned Ian Kershaw earlier, I am currently reading The End, his examination of the psychology of the Third Reich from D-day-ish onwards and why they kept fighting etc.

He opens with an example. Robert Limpert, a 19 year old student who was unfit for military service in April 1945 (so you know he was basically crippled at that stage). He lived in Ansbach and when the allies were approaching the town he attempted to cut the telephone wires to the local military HQ so as to prevent an opposed taking of the town. He was caught, the local CO is notified and rushes into town, where Limpert is "tried" in about five minutes and sentenced to death by hanging. They get the noose around his neck, but he manages to wiggle free and makes a run for it. The local cops catch him and drag him back. The crowd punches and kicks him as he is dragged back to the gallows. He is hanged. The rope breaks, he hits the ground. They hang him again. He dies. The CO orders him left there "until he stinks" and then within an unspecified "short" time "requisitions" a bike and gets the gently caress out of dodge. Four hours later, the allies take the town. No shots are fired. They cut his body down.

So yeah, sometimes the sheer senselessness gets to you, and I think it should.

# ¿ Nov 14, 2013 05:34

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

I'm rather fond of Joe Strummer and The Mescaleros' version of "The Minstrel Boy" largely because it's a rough performance, rather than the super-polished version of most rebel songs you hear round these parts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJi0H7D17IM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Minstrel_Boy

Rabhadh posted:

My latent republicanism wouldn't let me pass it over though

Look man, Cork is not a republic and never will be. Let it go. Apologies if you aren't the Cork goon I'm thinking of.

# ¿ Nov 15, 2013 01:11

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Jewcoon posted:

Pretty much every version of Battle Hymn of the Republic is awesome. The Engineering Corps version is still sung by Canadian engineering students.

My school's rugby team had one that involved killing a polar bear, in Antarctica, via anal sex. I hated the entirety of my school's rugby culture except for that one song.

Ninja edit: it might not actually have been ANAL sex, but TBH the details are gone foggy with time and sheer quantity of alcohol involved while learning it.

# ¿ Nov 15, 2013 02:51

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Tell me about WWI artillery strategy. How was it planned, coordinated etc, what patterns of hits were they trying for and what kind of "on call" fire support was available?

# ¿ Nov 15, 2013 23:17

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Koramei posted:

To bring it back to thin sword chat again I just saw this video and it is pertinent (to a week ago):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efZLw-tlIOs

he also disagrees with me on the hand thing

And I haven't watched most of the videos yet (he has like a bazillion of them jeez) but this channel looks fairly good and way better than most weapon focused youtubes.

Him and Lindybeige make a lot of good points about weapon use. Lindybeige seems to have a drat solid pedigree in ancient-to-midieval weapons based on how he talks, but he seems to always be very careful to state that he is only putting forward an idea or opinion of his own and not fact.

That video though, the misconception... it seems to me that any rapier I've ever handled has been heavy enough, but compared to the blocky "conan sword" stuff that most people get to try out around these parts the fact that it "only" weighs 2-3 lbs means that it's maybe half or even only a third of the weight of those crowbars. The terrible balance of the kind of thing that gets bought out of wolf and dragon t-shirt shops doesn't help the perception either.

# ¿ Nov 26, 2013 07:51

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Rodrigo Diaz posted:

Lindybeige is chronically wrong, and he puts himself forward as an authority. Whether or not it's just his opinion he expects people to treat it as credible historical fact. As such he deserves to get ripped.

Over in the medieval history thread Hegel did an excellent job of demolishing his thoughts on pikes. He really embodies the bad aspects of reenactors, specifically the notion that what they do is perfect historical reconstruction. Therefore if something works for them it must have been how they did it in the past. Primary sources? Who needs em?! I've been there, maaaaan.

The schola gladiatoria guy seems fine though. Railtus, the medieval history OP, would have a stronger opinion since medieval & renaissance martial arts are his focus.

That's kind of the thing he's aiming for I think. He seems to be deliberately evoking the D&D "weapons expert" stereotype and trying to encourage people to pick apart his ideas, but I admit I'm possibly being charitable where I shouldn't. The pike video you mention is one of those points that I find difficult to believe he is raising seriously as opposed to Socratic method via youtube. Either way, he gets people thinking about the subject he raises and it's fun watching him getting annoyed about stuff in that british accent.

TL;DR: really I should stay out of this thread after bedtime when I'm inclined to think "good enough" and just leave a point.

a travelling HEGEL posted:

And, of course, the drawings of the important eyewitness and chronicler Onfim of Novgorod

That is just so :3:

# ¿ Nov 26, 2013 18:35

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

^^^^
That looks like a nightmare to take.

a travelling HEGEL posted:

What are you talking about, he is a mighty warrior.

I hope he's not reading this :ohdear:

# ¿ Nov 26, 2013 19:41

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Just to be clear, we're worrying about Onfim, noted sage, scholar, chronicler of noted events and warrior without peer, reading the thread, not Lindybeige, Englishman who has opinions on the internet.

# ¿ Nov 26, 2013 19:52

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

gradenko_2000 posted:

The description of the final Red Army assault on Berlin definitely made me go "Holy poo poo what a waste"

The rumoured reason for the Western Allied assault around to the south and into Austria to avoid it makes a lot of sense, assuming the figure thrown around of "one million casualties" was actually calculated pre-Soviet assault.

# ¿ Nov 27, 2013 01:56

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Alchenar posted:

No, Eisenhower and the rest of the Allied high command genuinely believed the Alpine Redoubt was A Thing.

Also the moment it became clear that the Germans weren't just going to collapse in the West and allow the Allies through, there was very little enthusiasm for pushing past the boundaries of the agreed occupation zones.

I'm going to have to re-read it to be sure, but I think the source I got this from is Ike himself. My memory of it is shakey as hell so take this with a big pinch of salt, but in his report to Congress he does mention not wanting to cross into the Soviet occupation zone specifically to avoid having to help take Berlin only to later hand it over.

Speaking of book recommendations earlier, this is actually a fun read. Very clear and it's a primary source, so anyone seriously interested in the ETO should check it out. Also dirt cheap.

# ¿ Nov 27, 2013 02:09

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Raenir Salazar posted:

Sun Tzu is to war what Machiavelli is to politics, both authors hated their subject matter which I think makes them especially important when considered with more modern writings. Modern writings that I highly suspect lack the same level of contempt.

Bear in mind that authorship of the Art of War is disputed, and some people claim that the anti-war stuff was added later by someone trying to somehow discourage war. No idea how widespread this belief is, but my copy of it spends more time talking about that than it does on the actual text.

# ¿ Nov 27, 2013 02:27

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

a travelling HEGEL posted:

He didn't post it, but he told me where I could find it.

This is a clear case of failure to stab a dude in the face. I love how the local viking re-enacters don't do this at all and my friend who is involved regularly ends up having no skin on his hands from the spear-fencing. Because they are all crazy.

# ¿ Nov 27, 2013 20:26

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

a travelling HEGEL posted:

I like you, and I like your friend.

Look at the space between these dudes: The image is crude, of course, but we can see that it's pretty wide.

To be fair, he is doing full shieldwall stuff usually and the majority of the group (the Fingal Living History Society) seem to be drunk, insane or both at the same time. I should get him to post here actually, since he is a goon.

# ¿ Nov 28, 2013 00:01

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Fangz posted:

My opinion on Patton is always that he's the sort of commander that if his plans worked, then history would sing his praises, and if it failed, history would condemn him as the biggest idiot ever. I think he took too many risks given what the allied national priority was.

This is a very nice way of saying that he was an egotist who had a knack of attacking unoccupied positions and getting men killed anyway. But it's fine, because he was trying to save his son-in-law from a POW camp, right?

"Fixed fortifications are a monument to the stupidity of man." - gets stuck at Metz for three months. Patton in a nutshell.

# ¿ Nov 28, 2013 16:13

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

a travelling HEGEL posted:

Anyone who's educated in military matters who can think about fortresses without being awed by the intellectual work that went into them has mind problems. Is the 20th century so different from all earlier periods, or is he just wrong?

He's just wrong via oversimplification. He doesn't appear to truly appreciate what it is a fortress actually does and assumes that enough aggressiveness will overcome it regardless of location, purpose etc. Metz is just a great example, because even the German commander didn't know why he was trying to take it instead of going around and leaving a token force to keep it bottled. On the other hand, he does clearly display an understanding that when on the defensive an ability to move in reaction to the enemy is vital for warfare of the period (see Africa), so why he decided to waste time and lives there is a mystery to me.

# ¿ Nov 28, 2013 21:49

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Fangz posted:

That is all well and good if you have those toys, and plenty of time to use them, but that is not always the case.

As has been demonstrated by both sides during WWII, sometimes having the toys AND the time still wasn't a guarantee of success. Stalingrad, Leningrad and Metz could theoretically just been pounded flat but none were.

# ¿ Nov 28, 2013 22:35

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Flesnolk posted:

How were fortresses at all useful in the age of things like tanks, air power, explosives and reliable artillery? It seems at first stab that holing up in a fortress is completely stupid against any army worth the name by the time things have advanced to WW2-level tech.

Edit: The answer on last page seems to be "they weren't, unless you happened to not have air power, artillery, etc." Welp.

Images lifted from Wikipedia, this is German aerial reconnaissance of Fort Douaumont.

Before the battle of Verdun:

After:

This is after the French were pushed out early on in the battle of Verdun, and then the Germans forced out after another full year. If you take a look at it today, the majority of the actual structure is still there and still solid. It was taken back by storming it with three infantry divisions, co-incidentally while the Germans were evacuating it anyway after someone set off one of the magazines by accident. The number of French soldiers that died trying to take it back was numbered in the tens of thousands, and it was under 16" gun bombardment for a few days, after more than a million smaller artillery shells were fired at it. In the end it fell to a cooking fire that got out of hand. Think about that for a while.

# ¿ Nov 29, 2013 02:26

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Slavvy posted:

I wonder at the accuracy of these figures, I remember reading that the soviet method of testing armour effectiveness was...less than scientific. They would repeatedly shoot the same tank using multiple munitions, which would weaken the armour and skew the results. Also 'destroyed' could just mean disabled and ditched by the crew, or ditched and not recovered by enemy forces in time, or ditched then destroyed by heavier weapons.

This is true. I've seen claims that every German tank lost at Prokhorovka was back in service within a week. Of course, I've also seen claims that the Germans lost "dozens" of Tigers there, whereas they actually only lost one out of the four that were present. Conversely, the two Panzer I that happened to be there made it through fine.

# ¿ Dec 2, 2013 07:09

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Osprey books seem to have a reputation as being awesome amongst wargamers, but I suspect that's due to lots of pictures and maps more than the quality of the text having bought a few over the years.

# ¿ Dec 2, 2013 19:37

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

LeadSled posted:

I've been on a book binge lately, and having burned myself out on the second world war was wondering if anyone had recommendations for books on WW1. My knowledge of that conflict doesn't extend much beyond trenches and mass slaughter, and it can't be much more depressing than Beevor's Stalingrad.

Oh to be starting on that wonderful journey again...

# ¿ Dec 3, 2013 04:30

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

I googled it, but it's a FN FNC, not a Minimi. The Minimi is a LMG which would make sense to be heavy.

Regarding the sabre, there's a thing known as "fencer's wrist" where the muscles on the bottom of the arm just behind the wrist joint will be rather obviously bulging out of the line of the arm from waving swords around. This happens with modern light olympic blades, so with a full-weight weapon it'd be even more pronounced.

# ¿ Dec 3, 2013 21:23

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Apparently north and south still don't like each other very much. I saw some demonstration about how the filthy southerners are a drain on the booming northern economy or some such about seven or eight years ago when I was on holidays in Venice.

# ¿ Dec 3, 2013 21:55

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

a travelling HEGEL posted:

It's true: southern Italy is one of the poorest places in the EU. Why it is so poor is, however, never discussed in the North.

What I've been told is that Marshall Aid was funnelled north and used to rebuild industry while the south was just kept agricultural for <reasons> but I suspect the sources had a reason for wanting me to hear that version.

# ¿ Dec 3, 2013 22:04

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Alchenar posted:

He cared about getting his logistics right. That isn't sexy and it doesn't get him the propaganda love that the traditionally overrated generals get but it means he wins battles. He's slow and deliberate, but given the allied armies were made up of people who weren't generally willing to risk their necks that much he makes the best of what he's given. He's fighting an industrial war where his side has all the advantages, so he fights in a way that low-risk and leverages his material advantages to the full. The one time he doesn't do that it's a failure.

To expand on this, he was also very VERY concerned with getting the average Tommy home safe since the threat of having Britain collapse post-war via a low birthrate was a real issue. To be fair to him though, he did TRY to make sure he had the logistics for Market Garden, but Bradley decided to tell Patton to ignore specific instructions from Ike and keep pushing, getting himself stuck out in the arse-end of nowhere surrounded and in need of supply. Where did that supply come from? If you guessed "poo poo earmarked for Monty" then you'd be right. That said, the problem with the plan wasn't inherently the supply end of things, it was more how his subcommanders also decided to ignore it and do their own thing on the ground. Whether or not the bridgehead over the Rhine was going to be held or lost is going into pure speculation, so the plan might still have come apart due to logistics in the long-term.

gradenko_2000 posted:

In that context, how bad of a miss was it for his failing to close his part of the Falaise pocket?

A pretty big one, given that Patton had managed to swing around the whole way behind it.

# ¿ Dec 4, 2013 19:10

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Alchenar posted:

Lots of stuff went wrong with Market Garden that didn't necessarily have to go wrong at all, but the premise of the plan was still 'the Germans are beaten and won't try to fight back'.

In the grand scheme of things supply was actually the problem because as Monty admitted post-war, it would have been far better to focus on clearing the Scheldt and opening Antwerp for business. Then there would have been supplies for everyone.

That's the thing though, were it to have gone as scheduled the Germans wouldn't have fought back in any significant way. All the actual organisation and heavy fighting happened long after D+3, at which point the delay caused in the 82nd's area held up the whole show and caused operational failure. Taking a step back the plan was itself stupid as contextually it didn't fit with the rest of the operations in the ETO and would possibly have resulted in the spearhead being cut off on a later date anyway, but again that's speculating on things that might have happened down the line of previous "if". A lot is made of Monty's idea that Ike would see the wisdom of his "narrow thrust" approach after taking the Rhine crossing and thus skip all that silly "broad front" stuff and thus the Market Garden corridor would become the main focus of effort for the theatre, which is possible but again down that same line. Would it have been successfully held and exploited with a full devotion of supply and effort? We'll never know, it wasn't taken to begin with.

# ¿ Dec 4, 2013 20:29

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Flesnolk posted:

From a couple pages ago, but is there anything that is useful cover against a good bullet? It seems like any round worth firing will go through effectively anything to get at you.

Lots of stuff. The question you're asking is more "what gives good cover, but leaves good visibility AND is either easily moved around or found on the battlefield?" though.

The answer to that question is: dirt, and stuff to put dirt in.

# ¿ Dec 4, 2013 21:12

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

It's about increasing the duration of the impact, so the soft bag moves inwards with the bullet and then the sand slowly shuffles out of the way rather than presenting a target to crack while staying in contact with the projectile the whole time until it has fully passed and thus drawing energy away from it and pushing it out into the surrounding material. People who have a better grounding in physics than I do will explain it better, but it's basically the same principle as trying to shoot through lots of phone books in a line. Eventually, way before max effective range, sheer friction will stop the bullet.

# ¿ Dec 4, 2013 21:43

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Slavvy posted:

On a broader WW2 note, why did the germans just...not give up? It seems that when the advantage is so overwhelming and you're being pressed from both sides, why not just surrender unconditionally to the western allies so the soviets don't end up with half your country? Why bother fighting right to the very end?

This is a very complex question. It has a lot to do with the Allies not wanting to accept any surrender that was conditional (such as to only one side would be) and a lot to do with how the mechanisms of state were arranged to prevent low-level consideration of surrender or rebellion. I'm still slogging through "The End" by Ian Kershaw (and I say slogging because he repeats himself an awful lot and isn't exactly a good writer) so I can't really recommend it as a book, but it does at least give you an idea of the mentality of the apparatus of control from Valkyrie onwards.

# ¿ Dec 4, 2013 23:27

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

a travelling HEGEL posted:

In re: mercenarychat, I am laughing forever because I both love and hate the human condition, for the exact same reason.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDWB_4eEnCk

Incidentally, I know for a fact that von Frundsberg advertised, and a bunch of the other big names as well.

Edit: But why did the commercial make the vicarious participant (this thread's members irl ) look like such a dingus? He could be a younger Bruce Campbell. I mean, we all know what kind of person'll be buying this, but you don't have to telegraph the fact.

What I love is that he dives behind a chair, thus making the Kinect lose track of him, pause the game and ask to reacquire him..... Oh Xbox, you are so crappy :allears:

# ¿ Dec 5, 2013 01:18

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

No, I spent a year working support for that shitpile and came out of it with PTSD and a renewed despair for the future.

# ¿ Dec 5, 2013 01:29

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

I'm done venting about it. It at least gave me some motivation to get off my rear end and try get some certs under my belt so I can hope to get a job that doesn't totally suck at some stage.

Ironically, it did actually pay well though.

Back on track, yes, that game just looks like a great way to do all the kinds of moving that FPS nerds love to do. The idea of a PMC selling merchandise is somehow really disturbing though.

# ¿ Dec 5, 2013 01:39

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

a travelling HEGEL posted:

On the contrary, the point of this thread is to get as many different people talking about as many different things as possible.

Besides, as far as I can tell most people in this thread focus on modern stuff.

It's just more interesting :colbert:

in that we have more easily-accessible detail to argue about.

# ¿ Dec 5, 2013 17:28

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

a travelling HEGEL posted:

And then everybody stood up and clapped.

And that King of Denmark grew up to be....

But seriously, that's an awesome collection of documents. Looks almost like an Osprey in layout, is it?

# ¿ Dec 6, 2013 00:43

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

^^^^
A few of my friends with history degrees like to wargame his stuff for the sheer silliness value of putting utterly unrelated things on the table.

AATREK CURES KIDS posted:

Who wins in a fight, a single M1 or 16 Shermans? My money's on the M1 because it has better aim, maneuverability, and it would take a lot of hits or a lucky shot to incapacitate it.

What kind of Sherman? M4? M4AN? M4ANE8 M50? M51? The Sherman got a lot of use post-war, and the Israelis pushed that thing to the limit and then defined new limits for it. VVSS or HVSS suspension? Highly relevant to how accurately they can fire on the move.

# ¿ Dec 7, 2013 00:05

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

^^^^
Not quite EFB, since I saw it, but gently caress you for being faster :colbert:

Davin Valkri posted:

Someone talk to Xenocides in the Let's Play thread. He had a game about Allied WWII Pacific submarine options that included a joke "Seawolf" counter. Played a few turns with it, ripped the IJN and its merchants a new one.

Don't forget the Nimitz class carrier that went back in time and almost stopped Pearl Harbour, as attested to in that fine historical document, The Final Countdown.

# ¿ Dec 7, 2013 00:33

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Hogge Wild posted:

Can a Polish Hussar achieve a take off if you put him on a conveyor belt?

This is one those glorious myths. Like that facebook post floating around of the girl who got stuck on the escalator when the power went out.

# ¿ Dec 7, 2013 05:02

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

InspectorBloor posted:

Context and all that. Do you know any martial art, where it's encouraged to act lazy?

Tai-Chi actually, to a point. There's a lot about letting your opponent support your weight, but in the right way at the right time and for just long enough to break their structure so you can move them. Refered to as "sinking" though.

Pornographic Memory posted:

Yeah but that's an artillery vehicle, essentially, that isn't really meant to be shot at, whereas a tank that can't withstand small arms fire is pretty much retarded, since then what's the point of putting the rockets on a tank instead of just a truck or half track?

They're refered to as "Stuka zu Fuss". They were theoretically going to replace in the relevant units Nebelwerfers by being more mobile but the rocket weight was so drat high that they were mostly ineffective. I know, big surprise right? I have seen claims that they are supposed to be removed and assembled together and attached to a little support stand to fire off in a ripple pattern, but I also can't find a single picture of them being used as described (but can find fucktons of firing them from the side of halftracks). I'm not qualified to say if this is because some dude made it up in the 40's and the rumour stuck or if the Panzergrenadiers in question couldn't be arsed hauling the things off the conveniently rotating mounts. They were also mounted on captured allied halftracks, tankettes and light tanks.

But to be fair, they also had mad poo poo on the allied side like the Shermans mounting Tulip and Calliope rockets, and the Matilda Hedgehog which is just precious. And by "mad" I mean :black101:

as gently caress.

# ¿ Dec 8, 2013 05:44

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# ¿ Apr 30, 2024 00:01

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Grand Prize Winner posted:

Wait, that's WWI? The hats scream ACW to me.

This is one of my favourite pictures from WWI:

# ¿ Dec 10, 2013 16:53

The Something Awful Forums > Archives > Comedy Goldmine > Ask Us About Military History: Remove Balls To Fire Blanks

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