Military Pictures and Youtube Thread - I'm a Tomcat guy and a homo

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Internet VFW > Military Pictures and Youtube Thread - I'm a Tomcat guy and a homo

Zeroisanumber: Oct 23, 2010; Nap Ghost

The Zumwalt has finally left the Bath Iron Works for sea trials. I imagine that exceeding design specs by touching the water and being out in the sun means it will be in drydock for the next two years.

# ¿ Dec 7, 2015 19:34

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 14:28

Zeroisanumber: Oct 23, 2010; Nap Ghost

Someone's going to have to admit that they have a subscription to GQ.

# ¿ Dec 8, 2015 17:33

Zeroisanumber: Oct 23, 2010; Nap Ghost

monkeytennis posted:

This is the bit for me. Why the gently caress aren't they learning and adapting their tactics??

Probably incompetent tankers paired with incompetent, badly-trained conscripts who are led by NCOs that have their jobs based more on being Alawite than competent. The latest effort by the SAA to retake areas in the south was bloody as gently caress and resulted in fairly marginal gains.

# ¿ Dec 14, 2015 20:38

Zeroisanumber: Oct 23, 2010; Nap Ghost

ded posted:

To put that into perspective, anything older than an Akula is mostly a hunk of poo poo. Victor III is okay but its pretty much like one of our 637 class boats. The rest of the boats on that list were very old as poo poo and noisy nuke boats. Also all of the diesel boats older than the Kilo are pretty much all garbage as well.

edit : also the Oscar II is a pretty capable boat in the SSGN category.

Friend of mine is a nuke. I asked him about Russian subs once and all that he said about them was that they were "very detectable" which is probably the worst insult a sub guy can level.

# ¿ Dec 16, 2015 23:45

Zeroisanumber: Oct 23, 2010; Nap Ghost

# ¿ Dec 31, 2015 03:50

Zeroisanumber: Oct 23, 2010; Nap Ghost

Munnin The Crab posted:

As far as I understand it, to generate the all the steam required for a steam catapult you pretty much need a nuclear reactor. And electromagnetic catapults are super new and mindbogglingly expensive.

And they fail a lot. IIRC, steam catapults fail at a rate of 1/1000 and the new magnetic catapults are like 1/70. Par for the course for a new technology, but it doesn't make me feel all that good about the new Jerry-class carriers.

# ¿ Dec 31, 2015 08:26

Zeroisanumber: Oct 23, 2010; Nap Ghost

Godholio posted:

Good thing it's all documented by the people involved, but nobody wants to read Guderian or Manheim. Lucky for you, I've got a 30 page paper on this.

Blitzkrieg was a tactic, not a strategy. Basically tanks were expected to exploit breakthroughs in a way that trench-bound infantry simply hadn't been able to do in WWI. This notion actually came from British and French officers, not even Germans. But von Seeckt was smart; he reorganized the military, scattered officers to all the major powers as attaches so Germany was able to learn about armor right alongside despite being about two years behind, and where Britain assigned one dude (Lt B.H. Liddell Hart, actually), he had over 500 personnel studying and pulling lessons learned from the previous war. One of the big lessons was from France in 1917: they kept their tanks pinned to the speed of the infantry advance and lost numerous opportunities to turn a small gap in the German line into a massive breakthrough. Mobility was key, even for infantry. Germany implemented small-unit tactics and organization that would be recognizable today. The overarching goal was "fire and maneuver" for both infantry and armor.

The Polish army was based on outdated French doctrine (France REALLY stagnated after WWI) that was essentially fixed point defense, and they were completely unwilling to make use of terrain to shorten their lines. They spread their positions out over an 1100 mile front rather than drawing back to one about 350 miles with rivers and other terrain that might have actually stopped the Germans. When the tanks broke through the front, Poland had basically nothing to stop them from ravaging behind the lines (the Luftwaffe was also going batshit all over Poland, which had basically no air defense).

The Maginot Line was an excellent defensive network; yeah I said it. But French doctrine following WWI was atrocious. Imagine the most static battle plan you can, then hammer it home with French arrogance and stubbornness. The centerpiece was loving artillery. "The attack is bringing fire forward. The defense is fire that stops." Pin the enemy in place and drop shells on him until he dies/surrenders. loving ridiculous. Anyway they didn't think an army could effectively maneuver through the forests of the Low Countries, so they left that area virtually undefended. If you look at a map, you'll see why this is a pretty massive risk. Germany plowed right through the loving trees without even slowing down, basically pulling an end-around against the Maginot Line and bypassing it completely. They came out of the woods with a clear and undefended look at Paris with most of the French army at least 2 days away to the southeast.

tl;dr: Blitzkrieg is a badass name for using motorized vehicles to exploit and expand minor breakthroughs and bypass poorly-placed static defenses. It's not a strategy, it's a tactic.

Wasn't the original French plan to build the Maginot Line straight through Belgium to the coast, but the Belgians told them to gently caress right off?

# ¿ Jan 3, 2016 06:47

Zeroisanumber: Oct 23, 2010; Nap Ghost

Mike-o posted:

This is why you assign the SAW to your big (or short) assholes/rednecks and put them at the front of your stack every time.

That was my cousin. 6'7" and fairly built, but dumb as a box of hammers. When his unit was working at a checkpoint, they'd load him up with extra armor and a SAW and make him stop cars. With his Oakleys on he looked like a cross between a heavily armed vending machine and some kind of redneck cyborg.

# ¿ Jan 12, 2016 23:54

Zeroisanumber: Oct 23, 2010; Nap Ghost

Dingleberry posted:

Yet it sounds like both boats were let loose today under their own power...

"U.S. officials have said that there were no signs that the incident was a hostile one, and have not cited a specific cause for the boat straying into Iranian waters."

No hostility eh?

WTF?

I mean two RIV-UR-REEN comman-doh boats got captured by lightly armed patrol boats. I wonder what related ROE exists that allows you to get captured when you've got a full load out of .50's, mini-guns, small arms... Prolly didn't have ammo, or just panicked and didn't know what to do.

Maybe nobody wanted to die? :shrug:

Zeroisanumber fucked around with this message at 04:57 on Jan 14, 2016

# ¿ Jan 14, 2016 04:54

Zeroisanumber: Oct 23, 2010; Nap Ghost

holocaust bloopers posted:

Malort has a presence outside of Chicago?

Un-loving-fortunately.

poo poo tastes like wino vomit.

# ¿ Jan 31, 2016 02:50

Zeroisanumber: Oct 23, 2010; Nap Ghost

Nostalgia4Dicks posted:

There's no way that dude lived, right?

Assuming that the neurons in his brain aren't lightly whipped, his lungs probably both popped like balloons.

# ¿ Feb 4, 2016 23:15

Zeroisanumber: Oct 23, 2010; Nap Ghost

Not really military, but...

# ¿ Feb 11, 2016 20:11

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 14:28

Zeroisanumber: Oct 23, 2010; Nap Ghost

holocaust bloopers posted:

Imagine if everyone had iphone 6's during WW2

MacAuliffe's famous response to the German surrender demand would've been followed by every soldier in the 101st sending a picture of their ballbag to #realvonluttwitz.

# ¿ Feb 16, 2016 07:10

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