|
Raenir Salazar posted:What if that Sherman was a klan member who defected? Heeresgruppe Süd wird wieder steigen!
|
#
¿
Aug 2, 2016 01:06
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 16:34 |
|
|
PittTheElder posted:
Might not have mattered, as everything of worth was meant to be inside the turret pod. Still looks like a bad sci-fi show prop.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 2, 2016 02:24
|
|
Dat shot trap.
|
So apparently Heinrich Himmler's lost wartime diaries have been found and Bild is publishing excerpts. They will be published in book form next year, but we already know from his notes that: A) Himmler was having a lunch in Buchenwald when he gave orders to the SS to train dogs to tear Jews into pieces. (What a work ethic he had, most would finish their meal before resuming work.) B) When Himmler was following a massacre in Minsk he nearly fainted. He almost did the same another time when an executed Jew's brain splattered onto his coat. (Yet people called him insensitive!) Why would you even keep a diary of your role in carrying out a genocide, down to little details, when at the same time you tried to hide it from the public?
|
|
#
¿
Aug 2, 2016 17:17
|
|
|
HEY GAL posted:let's hope this doesn't become another Hitler's diaries thing sure they'll be more stern this time!
|
|
#
¿
Aug 2, 2016 22:48
|
|
|
Ataxerxes posted:The book is titled: Y'all should know that Mr. Lemminkäinen was a real Casanova who stole the beautiful Kyllikki of Saari as his wife. Kyllikki promised not to go to the village to party, and in return Lemminkäinen promised not to go to war. Kyllikki, that slut, however went to the village and then got murdered, only to return as "Nyrkki-Kyllikki", a ghost who comforts all lonely men. Then Lemminkäinen went onto quests and died, and her mother had to sew him together from body parts like some Frankenstein's monster. Finally he settled down and started a construction company that was involved in cartels and stuff. Or... well, actually what I meant to say is Lemminkäinen was his nom de plume, his real name was Janne Jernvall. Jernvall meaning Iron Wall is quite fitting soldier's name, I think. Better than Loverguy, anyways. SeanBeansShako posted:I like the board game/cards the Napoleonic era soldier has on him. I'm the morning star in 1916. Nenonen fucked around with this message at 00:05 on Aug 4, 2016 |
|
#
¿
Aug 4, 2016 00:01
|
|
|
re: radios, it's again a broad question but here's a broad answer. Americans had lots of radios, everyone else not so much. In later stages of WW2 you could expect handie talkies to be found at platoon level all over the US organization. The range of it wasn't great, but sufficient for below company communicating. They also had more portable wireless sets at other levels. Commonwealth I don't know, presumably a little better than most combatants thanks to L&L. Finnish army, like most others, relied heavily on field telephones. This had disadvantages, but also some advantages due to which landlines are still used when radio silence is necessary. Portable radios were largely reserved for mobile forward observers (artillery general V.P. Nenonen playing an important role in developing this capability, again) and long range patrols. The first patrol radio, Kyynel (Teardrop) was just a transmitter, which was then joined with a separate receiver unit, Töpö. The patrols would listen for special messages read at pre-defined times on Finnish Broadcasting Company's channel and send their own coded reports in Morse. Finland was advanced in radio intelligence during WW2, and when these long range patrols were being chased by Soviet security forces the GHQ could sometimes give them real time details on the movements of their pursuers. Soviet radio discipline was pretty lax outside maskirovka operations ordered by higher ups, from what I have learned.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 4, 2016 15:03
|
|
|
old perv
|
|
#
¿
Aug 4, 2016 18:53
|
|
|
Polyakov posted:That gentleman is talking crap, it's really really hard to create enough overpressure to do real damage outside of an enclosed space without using a large bomb. People don't die from grenade overpressure in open spaces but from fragmentation, and the explosive force of those is much more than the effect of a cannon round passing by, otherwise you'd see more ground effect along their flight path. Hell you don't see honest to God tank rounds doing much other than kicking up dust on a miss. The muzzle blast of any large gun, like those on main battle tanks, however will gently caress you up. Other than that, I'm sure that soldiers still believe in black magic, there's no other explanation to +5 HMG of Near Miss Death and such crap.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 5, 2016 08:50
|
|
|
feedmegin posted:I somehow doubt they'd actually be running the Ferris wheel. You keep speeding up until it becomes a Tommy sling.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 5, 2016 15:06
|
|
|
Nebakenezzer posted:If you define "good" as having the heaviest armored vehicle ever deployed, hell yeah, eat poo poo Jadgtiger Armoured trains and warships are vehicles, dear  Vegetable posted:Was there ever a battle where people on horseback beat the poo poo out of people in tanks? Training a horse to not panic when you launch an ATGM from the saddle would be rad (read: cruelty to the poor animal). I guess it would have to be a fire and forget weapon like Javelin or Spike, no horse would stay still long enough for you to guide the missile to the target.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 5, 2016 19:37
|
|
|
Zamboni Apocalypse posted:gently caress, how many are you gonna be able to airlift per plane? Or y'all just going to kick back and wait for sealift? It doesn't seem to affect airliftability because it's not expected to fight enemy tanks as it rolls off the ramp of a Hercules. All the extra weight is added on only when it's needed.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 5, 2016 20:00
|
|
|
OwlFancier posted:If ATGMs continue to advance and proliferate you're going to either need lasers to shoot them down or be very careful how you field your tanks. I'd also expect to see a trend away from big heavy tanks towards lighter vehicles, similar to what happened with navies. You don't need a frickin' laser to shoot down a missile, Soviets were already using the technology in 1980's and active protection systems have developed a lot from there. T-14 is an interesting opening for the next generation, it has an unmanned turret and the crew is isolated in its own smaller but better protected "capsule". Because a smaller volume is covered with the best armour, it weighs a lot less than if you applied the same armour to turret and engine compartments. So the tank is not undefeatable but in theory crew survivability is much better than T-90 which weighs almost the same. Remains to be seen how much of a difference it makes in the battlefield.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 5, 2016 20:13
|
|
|
Stryker MGS already has an unmanned turret, so I suppose even the US have seen the light/worship the devil.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 6, 2016 10:01
|
|
|
Jobbo_Fett posted:And then why would you use the shitter when 4 of your friends' corpses are all laying face-down in their own poo poo? Well you do need to bury them, duh. Think before you post.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 8, 2016 02:45
|
|
|
Jobbo_Fett posted:As if the morning artillery barrage won't do that for you for free! But you still need to poo poo somewhere, might as well kill two flies at once. Well, not literally.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 8, 2016 02:56
|
|
|
MikeCrotch posted:I assumed people were talking about Murat demanding the firing squad shoot him in the heart so they wouldn't mess up his face At first I read that as Marat and was    Marat's death mask, cast by one Marie Tussaud.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 9, 2016 14:58
|
|
|
Ensign Expendable posted:But yeah, RE: immobilized tank against infantry: once they're swarming all over your tank, you're screwed. The proper way to do it is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0fqTVyj8iQ In German front you throw satchel charge at tank. In Finnish front - tank throw satchel charge at you!
|
|
#
¿
Aug 9, 2016 18:55
|
|
|
Molentik posted:Its more the lack of a seperate apartment for the engine than the lack of exhaust pipes. Which in turn is because the crew needed to be constantly adjusting gears and fixing the engine. Things were, shall we say, primitive: quote:Steering was difficult, controlled by varying the speed of the two tracks. Four of the crew, two drivers (one of whom also acted as commander; he operated the brakes, the other the primary gearbox) and two "gearsmen" (one for the secondary gears of each track) were needed to control direction and speed, the latter never more than a walking pace. As the noise inside was deafening, the driver, after setting the primary gear box, communicated with the gearsmen with hand signals, first getting their attention by hitting the engine block with a heavy spanner. For slight turns, the driver could use the steering tail: an enormous contraption dragged behind the tank consisting of two large wheels, each of which could be blocked by pulling a steel cable causing the whole vehicle to slide in the same direction. If the engine stalled, the gearsmen would use the starting handle – a large crank between the engine and the gearbox. Many of these vehicles broke down in the heat of battle making them an easy target for German gunners. I love the idea of using carrier pigeons for tank communications, but I fear it really was done for the same reason that miners used canaries...
|
|
#
¿
Aug 10, 2016 01:23
|
|
|
I'm just saddened that Germans never completed the Großkampfwagen. I'm sure it would have changed the course of the war had the army not been stabbed in the back!quote:The vehicle originally weighed 165 tons but this was reduced to a more practicable 120 tons by shortening the length. The huge size and mass of the K-Wagen made it impossible to transport, so it was decided that it would be split into sections for transport by rail, to be reassembled behind the front line near where it was to be used. quote:originally weighed 165 tons but this was reduced to a more practicable 120 tons quote:more practicable 120 tons  quote:The K-Wagen was to be armed with four 77 mm fortress guns and seven MG08 machine guns and had a crew of 27: a commander, two drivers, a signaler, an artillery officer, 12 artillery men, eight machine gunners and two mechanics. At the beginning of the project the incorporation of flamethrowers was considered but later rejected.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 10, 2016 01:41
|
|
|
Arquinsiel posted:The little gas masks would be adorable though 
|
|
#
¿
Aug 10, 2016 01:49
|
|
|
Nebakenezzer posted:PS> I know I've already said it in this thread, but I love how people latched onto the idea of super-mega-tanks the instant they came up with the idea of tanks  It would take some time for tank designers to understand the benefits of sloped glacis again... As for Churchill, it had the advantage of being roomy enough to allow for lots of different solutions. The first versions had a howitzer in the hull, but this went out of fashion really quick. Unfortunately the Brits couldn't come up with what they wanted from the tank, so they put high velocity 57mm tank killers, medium velocity 75mm multipurpose guns and low velocity 95mm infantry killers on them, probably on random basis, hoping that at least one version would succeed. What a weird design philosophy. Nenonen fucked around with this message at 20:54 on Aug 10, 2016 |
|
#
¿
Aug 10, 2016 20:41
|
|
|
Ensign Expendable posted:Berlin was rich with old stone houses supplemented by pretty serious barricades. 76 mm and even 85 mm guns weren't enough to blast through them. Tall stone buildings also create lots of blind spots that artillery can't hit from a long range because the shells are likely to hit buildings in the way (which are also occupied by your infantry, so you really don't want to hit them), meanwhile plunging howitzer or mortar fire is not going to do much beyond the attic and upper floors. And once you close in to fight street for street, block for block, your infantry is going to be constantly danger close to the enemy so direct fire is the best option for fire support.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 11, 2016 22:19
|
|
|
spectralent posted:That reminds me: Does the concept of pure infantry exist anymore? I'm aware infantry do still train to march and actually do marches (especially in asymmetric war where stuff like "the people we need you to attack are up this mountain, which is impassable to vehicles" happens), but if WW3 ever kicked off and there was peer-state tier conflicts going on, do we have any militaries that still envisage a significant role to walking, or is a BMP or M113 or whatever basically assumed to be standard for modern infantry? Yes, even the US Army has light infantry units. Eg. out of the active 30 Brigade Combat Teams 9 are Armored BCT's (ie. Bradleys) and 7 are Stryker BCT's, the rest are plain infantry or airborne/air assault infantry. Of course they have trucks for moving around and hauling supplies and heavy equipment, but in combat they move by foot. There's little point in mechanizing all of your infantry, the bulk of which is going to be positioned to guard flanks, supply lines etc. Infantry fighting vehicles are too loving expensive to just have gathering rust. Also from an organizational point of view, it's far less restricting when you don't need to plan your squads based on how they will fit into a Bradley or BMP. Then there's specialized branches like mountain infantry etc. which operate in areas where roads are not a thing.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 12, 2016 00:24
|
|
|
Slim Jim Pickens posted:Cruiser tanks were never validated. Where on Earth were tanks raiding? Every single cruiser tank was a failure, and the Cromwell is just a medium tank with a really good engine (And some weird archaic design choices). To be fair, Soviets had also believed that their Bistro Tanks could run through the entire strategic depth of the enemy front and crush or run circles around everything stepping in their way. But they were smart enough to drop the concept much sooner than Brits did - but this can be attributed to them actually having their equivalent of Cromwell already in mass production (it also helped that most of the ~4000 Betkas were lost in 1941). Sending 'volunteers' to fight in foreign civil wars and having little brawls with your neighbours clearly helps you to stay ahead in war technology, Russians knew it then and they know it today! 
|
|
#
¿
Aug 12, 2016 01:07
|
|
|
Jobbo_Fett posted:But infantry tanks were essentially just "Breakthrough" tanks ala Tiger I, KV-1 under a new, exciting coat of paint The idea isn't dumb, because that's what the Germans were doing for quite some time! And the Brits had plenty of Bren carrier lying around to transport infantry, so the problem isn't with infantry not being there with them. Mmmm, not really... infantry tank comes from a philosophy that may result in something that resembles a heavy tank, but it's not the same thing. T-26 and H35 were infantry tanks. So was Matilda, even if it was heavier armoured. Matilda II's 2 pounder with no HE shell at all made it ineffective against fortified positions and it wasn't particularly hot against tanks either. But KV was specifically chosen due to experiences of fighting against fortified positions in Winter War where the thinly armoured T-28 medium hadn't quite cut the mustard. With its higher velocity 76.2mm gun it could perform roles that its predecessors couldn't: T-35 had carried high velocity 45mm guns for dealing with tanks and a low velocity 76.2mm gun to lob HE. At the same time KV had better mobility than Matilda, Valentine or Churchill. Tiger OTOH was never intended to be an infantry tank, a role which was filled by StuGs. It was always destined to be a solution to Heer's pressing T-34/KV problem: a tank protected from the Russian 76.2mm gun at most ranges and capable of killing T-34/KV at most ranges. Incidentally the 88mm gun was also effective against soft targets and bunkers and the heavy weight slowed the vehicle down quite a bit, but this doesn't mean that it was designed from the same perspective as Valentines or Churchills were. Essentially classifications are artificial and a matter of doctrinal taste, eg. Germans considered Panther a medium tank because it filled the boots formerly worn by Pz-III/IV, while Soviets classified it as a heavy tank because of its battle weight. Both are justified. But calling it a cavalry tank just because it could go as fast as a Crusader would miss the point by a wide margin.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 12, 2016 12:41
|
|
|
Jobbo_Fett posted:That doesn't change the fact that the Matildas and other Infantry tanks were designed to support infantry in order to break through lines of defense, which is the whole point of "Breakthrough" tanks. Whether or not they were suitably capable is not the matter at hand. Their doctrines seem to have the same general concept of Blitzkrieg, but they failed when it came to using it because of inadequate equipment while trying to use the same tactic on those who pioneered it, and against Rommel who 'mastered' it. (Since you're not doing much Blitzkrieging in 1944 Europe.) In that case we may call any tank or tankette a breakthrough tank as long as it can follow infantry and carries any type of peashooter. Shouldn't there be some deeper similarities in design and purpose, such as a large caliber gun that can clear fortified positions? With its armament Matilda II was completely incapable of performing one of the primary tasks that you would expect from a heavy breakthrough tank.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 12, 2016 14:16
|
|
|
feedmegin posted:So I'm envisioning a unit mounted on frigging John Deeres, 18 wheelers and yellow schoolbuses going into action. Is, uh, that really what they do? It seems a bit...rustic. Our very own Valmet tractors, the same state company that created the Finnish assault rifle RK-62. This was a experiment on having 4x4 drive, dubbed 'Homotin' by conscripts. You might catch the meaning.  It evolved over time...  This one has been converted to a halftrack, pulling some munitions. Under other circumstances it might be towing an anti-tank platoon with their recoilless rifles or a rifle platoon. Notice the riders still have Suomi SMGs, old Mosin Nagants and SMGs were the mainstay of Finnish infantry, especially reservists, for a long time. 
|
|
#
¿
Aug 12, 2016 22:26
|
|
|
spectralent posted:What relevance to military service could this possibly have? IANAP but I've heard that the test includes some confusing questions just to throw you off. The same questions show up several times worded slightly differently and they look if you're being consistent. There is also a time limit so you can't stop to think for too long.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 13, 2016 18:13
|
|
|
I love the air watch guy's soldierly stance, he's alert and ready to shoot a Spetsnaz guy popping up from the bushes any second!
|
|
#
¿
Aug 14, 2016 12:51
|
|
|
P-Mack posted:Speaking of castles, I just found out about this pretty cool experimental archaeology project. On that note, http://www.puntarikoskenlinna.com/?p=etusivu   A Finnish physics professor decided to build a 'medieval' castle, and by golly he did it. There's even a medieval guillotine...  
|
|
#
¿
Aug 15, 2016 18:22
|
|
|
I don't think these guys are very good at tactics if they allow their machine gun nest to be approached by the enemy from multiple directions at a flamethrower's range.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 15, 2016 18:24
|
|
|
Fangz posted:Interesting that he doesn't get body armour. Is that significant? Metal armour is bulky is hell, and then ROKS flamethrower weighs some 26 kilos filled up. Also the plates are as thick as your helmet so they only protect against pistol caliber bullets and some shrapnel, it's not going to save you from being cut into two by a MG-42.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 15, 2016 19:46
|
|
|
FAUXTON posted:Aren't the incendiary fuel/propellant under pressure? Or is there some kind of pumping mechanism in the middle to werf the flammen, as it were? Or was it just a thing where the fuel came leaking out when shot and the guy just risked lighting himself up? The fuel tank is pressurized by a nitrogen tank, but a hole in the fuel tank would just spring a leak or two and the pressure would be gone in seconds with some fuel sprayed to the vicinity. The worst case scenario is the operator & terrain around him catches fire. P.S. does anyone else think it's a pity that gunpowder became a thing before manportable flamethrowers? Just imagine - flamethrower cavalry charging a pike column!! Nenonen fucked around with this message at 21:39 on Aug 15, 2016 |
|
#
¿
Aug 15, 2016 21:11
|
|
|
Cyrano4747 posted:It also doesn't help that the US has to worry about half naked burned up little girls running past a news crew. I'm pretty sure no one besides us who is actually in the habit of projecting force internationally gives two solid fucks about the media the way we do. Flamethrowers were used to clear entrenched positions where civilians are of no concern. If civilian casualties were an issue then indiscriminate air bombing would be banned, but obviously that is not the case. Besides, practically no one is using flamethrowers any longer. If they still were of even the slightest practical value then you'd bet someone would be employing them right now in Syria where even chemical weapons are used and where fighters are intentionally blowing themselves up.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 16, 2016 08:45
|
|
|
SeanBeansShako posted:I wonder what TV programs these kinds of guys would have made/liked? Imagine Henry VIII visiting the Jerry Springer show.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 16, 2016 18:48
|
|
|
MrMojok posted:Do historians seriously study whether some fellow could get it up or not? No, I'm sure it amuses them greatly.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 16, 2016 23:02
|
|
|
MikeCrotch posted:At one point he hears about a French army moving from Paris towards Sedan, putting themselves in ideal position to be cut off from their supply line by the Prussians. He thinks this must be a ruse and issues no orders until the next day when he gets confirmation of the maneuver by reading about it in a French newspaper. Ceci n'est pas une maskirovka.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 18, 2016 13:55
|
|
|
A warring democracy needs its cheques and (bank) balances.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 18, 2016 22:01
|
|
|
Hogge Wild posted:Gebirgsjägers in Finland at least used them. Maybe it was more of a thing for them, and rest of the troops used draught horses? Mountain guns also were designed to be carried on trails by pack animals or men by splitting them into parts, and mules are great for this because they're sure footed and can carry as much as a horse. Horses are still better if you have actual roads, I gather, and you really need roads for heavy artillery.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 19, 2016 12:11
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 16:34 |
|
|
Disinterested posted:Stahel uses a line from Glantz about the USSR and Germany being two prizefighters who punch eachother to blindness and exhaustion. I thought it was that bootleg wodka they stole from the Poles 
|
|
#
¿
Aug 19, 2016 21:48
|
|