Military History Mk. III: One that I know of is an archaic word for dick, another is

The Something Awful Forums > Archives > Comedy Goldmine > Military History Mk. III: One that I know of is an archaic word for dick, another is

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Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

Splode posted:

That is a scary needle.

I'll talk! Whatever you want, just get that thing away from me

Going back to nukes for a second; I promise I'm not asking this as a politically loaded question, I mean it solely as a military one: is there, in the year 2017, any real benefit for the USA or Russia to build any more nukes?

My armchair understanding is that our (America) current nuclear arsenal is big enough to destroy the world on its own in the event of full scale nuclear war; I'm having a hard time figuring out the benefit of "we should build more". If there is a full scale nuclear war, I feel like "we didn't have enough nukes" would be low on the scale of problems in the post mortem, which would be conducted by ghouls from fallout

# ¿ Jan 13, 2017 16:40

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# ¿ May 17, 2024 06:46

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

I don't even want to see the kind of needle you'd need to save your life from a double canister shot

# ¿ Jan 14, 2017 18:41

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

bewbies posted:

service the targets

Now that's a heck of a euphemism

# ¿ Jan 18, 2017 20:54

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

Vincent Van Goatse posted:

For all the deserved mocking that Japanese firearm design gets, they managed to do something very uniquely clever with hand grenades. During the 1930s they decided to redesign all their grenades so they could be thrown or fired from a small mortar that was issued out to either squad or platoon level. This meant that every squad/platoon had their own artillery support, albeit in a very limited form. It worked wonders for them early in the war because defenders suddenly had explosives falling on them while they were fighting what they took for just lightly-armed infantry.

These grenade launchers worked for the Japanese even after they fell into allied hands, because American intelligence hosed up the translation of their name, calling them "Knee Mortars". Marines and G.I.s who captured them assumed that meant they were fired by bracing them against their upper legs. It took dozens of shattered thighs until a correction was issued. They were called "Knee Mortars" because they were carried strapped to the knee when not in combat.

Why would it take more than one shattered thigh to learn this?

# ¿ Jan 20, 2017 16:23

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

Seems like, if nothing else, trying to aim a mortar while balancing it on your leg would be...imprecise? Isn't aiming a mortar something that involves math, and dials, and maybe grid locations? Or are mortars generally used for engagements that are close-range enough that you can kind of eyeball it?

# ¿ Jan 20, 2017 18:06

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

OwlFancier posted:

It's... weird to think that there's an entire nation of people who can do videogame-bad-guy voices whenever they want to.

At least I assume I'm looking at a relatively representative sample of German accents there, I suppose I could be listening to a room full of people from the German equivalent of Somerset.

Vincent Van Goatse posted:

It was probably quite literal.

I used to bullseye those in my T-16 back home.

# ¿ Jan 21, 2017 05:23

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

MikeCrotch posted:

There are quotes concerning Rommel before D-Day, where he would go personally round each of the beaches and check that the soldiers were laying as much barbed wire and obstacles as possible by checking how scratched their hands were

I think it's fair to say that Rommel was a pretty good divisional commander who in particular excelled in pursuit, exploitation and maneuver at the expense of putting a lot of stress on his logistics. I think once he got elevated above that level he was somewhat out of his depth, particularly in terms of the defence of the Channel coast. He bet the house on throwing the allies back into the sea right on the beach instead of defending in depth which turned out to be a really bad idea.

I know this question is gay black hitler territory, but do you think that the Germans really had a shot at stopping the allies in the west either way? Obviously Rommel's idea didn't work but I'm wondering if they had any hope any other way. It seems like they were pretty doomed by then and the western allies were raring to go.

And if you'll allow me to go into even gayer, blacker, hitler territory, I've always wondered what would have happened if d-day had failed or just never happened. In America we always learn that d-day was ~~the turning point~~ of the war, when brave America and co arrived to defeat the nazi menace but it seems to me that by June 1944, Germany was already losing pretty handily on the eastern front. Obviously having a second front helped speed that losing process up considerably and I don't mean to diminish the service of anyone who fought, but I feel like even without d-day, the soviets would have probably still won eventually. But I'm not a historian, or a time traveler, and haven't really researched that question too deeply.

# ¿ Jan 23, 2017 18:32

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

Fangz posted:

I think the point that this turns into a gay black hitler is that we're handwaving the question of "how did D-Day fail" because the question will depend on that. We're acting as if the invasion force collectively tripped flat on their face, when realistically the nazis would have taken losses repelling the invasion, and the allies will be trying again. (Like, does the scheduled invasion in southern France still happen?)

Yeah I don't really have an answer to that unfortunately. Just wondering about the hypothetical situation where, for ~~reasons~~ the Allies never do anything more in the west beyond strategic bombing and getting stuck in the mountains in Italy and the USSR has to finish the land war on its own. Maybe western europe has really bad weather over the channel for 10 years straight, I dunno.

Was Germany ever close to getting the atomic bomb? I guess is if they had that, then it might give the soviets a hard time limit, but literally of my knowledge about german nuclear weapons comes from video games (and not even very good ones) so I don't dare make a statement about how plausible that situation is.

# ¿ Jan 24, 2017 17:37

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

Miles Vorkosigan posted:

There's a great exchange recorded in The Making of the Atomic Bomb where Bohr and Teller are discussing uranium separation and Bohr insists "it can never be done unless you turn the United States into one huge factory." Several years later Bohr comes to America and Teller is supposed to brief him on the Manhattan Project. Bohr interrupts him and says "You see, I told you it couldn't be done without turning the whole country into a factory. You have done just that."

Of course this is all as recalled by Teller, who was a bit of a dramatist

We used to make things in this country...

# ¿ Jan 24, 2017 21:27

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

How much of a soldier's life on campaign is spent with diarrhea, would you estimate? Are modern rations designed to help keep things running smoothly down there, or is it still just misery all the time always?

I dunno if that's the gooniest question to ever get asked in this thread, but I bet it's close

# ¿ Jan 26, 2017 03:56

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

I like how d-day just kind of happens without him bothering to mention it at all. And also how short the "someone tried to kill hitler. He's fine though" entry is. It's a very...unique perspective of a major period of human history

Thanks for sharing the diaries!

# ¿ Jan 27, 2017 16:24

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

I was killing time in a bookstore and almost bought a copy of a world lit only by fire but i balked at the last minute

# ¿ Jan 28, 2017 01:30

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

I think my favorite thing about this thread is when someone starts expounding on a topic, and I go to google it for more information, only to find that there isn't any (or at least not very much), because it's practically (or maybe even just is) original research.

# ¿ Jan 31, 2017 01:29

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

chitoryu12 posted:

I was browsing The Chow Line, a Facebook page that makes reproduction US military rations and other items, and they had this picture from WW1.

This doesn't seem like a very sanitary way to distribute bread.

Sounds like the same thing as ship biscuit. Just one more great thing about being a soldier in wwi I guess

# ¿ Jan 31, 2017 16:24

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

HEY GAIL posted:

i would go there

To come, and see, sure, but conquer?

# ¿ Feb 2, 2017 15:45

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

Phanatic posted:

Just the tip.

I think I fought that in a final fantasy game

# ¿ Feb 10, 2017 20:20

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

OwlFancier posted:

You can choose between Bismarck or Friedrich.

I can't help but imagine him making this noise.

I was thinking more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AA7Ub1c2cI

# ¿ Feb 11, 2017 01:18

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

Tevery Best posted:

When on a state visit to Poland in 1972, Fidel fell ill at some point and rumours spread he died. To counteract those, he played a basketball showmatch against Polish team Wisla Krakow.

L
A
T
E
R
S

# ¿ Feb 12, 2017 22:24

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

Ensign Expendable posted:

They had all sorts of experimental cool poo poo like teletanks.

I thought teleportation was more of an allied thing

# ¿ Feb 27, 2017 17:08

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

Nebakenezzer posted:

But does this apply in Mexico? After all, the Mexicans are gonna pay for that war

Freudian slip?

# ¿ Mar 2, 2017 16:58

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

OwlFancier posted:

He looks like a big melty baby.

He looks like someone I'd try very hard to avoid eye contact with at a pub

# ¿ Mar 2, 2017 19:58

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

aphid_licker posted:

Wish modern fascists would get more into racing airplanes and graphic design and less into internet comments and cartoon frogs

Hitler would be wayyyy the gently caress into Twitter tho. So loving into it. Mein Kampf would make a sick 700-part tweet chain.

Would hitler like anime?

# ¿ Mar 3, 2017 00:06

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

OwlFancier posted:

I think if he had been born 20 years ago hitler would spend literally all his time watching anime and tweeting.

Anime saves lives

# ¿ Mar 3, 2017 00:18

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

HEY GAIL posted:

yeah they do. people groom them over the internet like ISIS does. white supremacists have been recruiting on 4chan and reddit for a decade and now look where we are

and yet owning people on twitter doesn't change anything

hardly seems fair

# ¿ Mar 3, 2017 04:31

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

HEY GAIL posted:

imagine having the ability to cyberbully hitler thoe
he'd get so worked up

edit: for some reason, i imagine stalin would be immune to twitter owns

I don't think stalin would use twitter personally, he'd have interns for that

and that would be a really scary job

# ¿ Mar 3, 2017 04:51

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

golden bubble posted:

What is it with racially-charged slavery where the only response to full abolition is to try to create racial slavery 2.0?

Haters gon hate

# ¿ Mar 7, 2017 17:52

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

evil_bunnY posted:

Urgh.

Whoever wins gets to call the other a traitor to the crown and lop their head off, that's kinda how that poo poo works.

That would make keeping the monarchy around worth it imo

# ¿ Mar 9, 2017 16:26

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

MikeCrotch posted:

Nah, slave labour was an incredibly important part of the wartime Nazi economy and is one of the major things, along with stolen capital from both German Jews and later, France and the Low Countries, that really allowed them to keep going for as long as they did.

The most obvious example was in mining, where slave labour was used extensively. However, for a number of reasons foreign slaves were not fed enough and thus could not do such a heavy physical task properly, a problem recognised by Nazi overseers of mining operations. The overseers regularly wrote to their superiors asking for more rations so they could get more productivity out of the captured workers, but the response was invariably "Well work them harder then." The Nazis shot themselves in the foot in a lot of ways like this, by virtue of just being the Nazis.

And yet we still have nazis :sigh:

# ¿ Mar 9, 2017 21:54

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

SlothfulCobra posted:

If the South had managed to borrow money during the war, would the Union be obligated to pay the debt after it was over?

I think the British actually tried to do that, didn't they? I seem to remember a post in this thread about some government (I think it was the UK) trying to collect a confederate debt from the union after the war and getting laughed out of...whatever building they were in. Unless they sent a telegram or something, then I guess they could have stayed where they were.

# ¿ Mar 9, 2017 23:35

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

Trin Tragula posted:

It is relatively easy to use artillery (so long as you have enough of it, and more to the point, enough shells) to reduce a small village to rubble. It is extremely difficult to be sure of killing and suppressing everyone in the village, and it is also extremely difficult to remove the village from the map entirely; there is a months-long period in which the village is nothing but rubble, but the rubble is still very useful to the defenders.

That reminded me of Montecassino, a prime example of rubble being useful to the defenders, and when I looked it up I found that the details (if true, I didn't dig deeper than wikipedia which I know is bad but I am lazy right now) are even more horrifying than I thought:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monte_Cassino#Modern_history

quote:

During the Battle of Monte Cassino in the Italian Campaign of World War II (January�May 1944) the Abbey made up one section of the 161-kilometre (100-mile) Gustav Line, a German defensive line designed to hold the Allied troops from advancing any farther into Italy. The Gustav Line stretched from the Tyrrhenian to the Adriatic coast and the monastery was erroneously thought to be one of the key strongholds, with Monte Cassino itself overlooking Highway 6 and blocking the path to Rome. On 15 February 1944 the abbey was almost completely destroyed in a series of heavy American-led air raids. The Commander-in-Chief Allied Armies in Italy, General Sir Harold Alexander of the British army ordered the bombing. The bombing was conducted because many reports from the British commanders of the Indian troops on the ground suggested that Germans were occupying the monastery, and it was considered a key observational post by all those who were fighting in the field.[9] However, during the bombing no Germans were present in the abbey. Subsequent investigations have since confirmed that the only people killed in the monastery by the bombing were 230 Italian civilians seeking refuge there.[10] Only after the bombing were the ruins of the monastery occupied by German Fallschirmj�ger (paratroopers) of the 1st Parachute Division, because the ruins provided excellent defensive cover, aiding them in their defence.[11]

# ¿ Mar 10, 2017 01:10

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

HEY GAIL posted:

https://www.amazon.com/Dresden-Tuesday-February-13-1945/dp/0060006773

taylor argues that it was a legitimate military target, although extraordinarily beautiful. the east german dude who supervised the burials estimates about 25 thousand dead; the official number of registered burials was 21,271; taylor estimates somewhere between 20 thousand and 40 thousand.

higher numbers are propaganda, either goebbels or david irving.

I once wrote an article about Dresden (I work for a travel company and we sometimes do history/fluff articles about the destinations we go to) and in my haste/laziness i accidentally almost included nazi propaganda. I was being uncareful with my sources and I wrote a line that was something like "casualty estimates ranged from 20,000 to 100,000" (I forget the actual numbers but something like that).

Fortunately we had the good sense to run the article by an actual German person before putting it out and he very very politely pointed out that only nazis put the estimates that high.

I learned a lot that day. Fortunately I didn't mention anything about any strafing, i don't think.

Ainsley McTree fucked around with this message at 16:44 on Mar 10, 2017

# ¿ Mar 10, 2017 16:26

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

steinrokkan posted:

Interestingly the idea that 100k+ people died in Dresden appears also in Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five. It's a very ancient and common misconception, picked up even outside Nazi apologia.

Yeah I'm sure I would've noticed if I pulled it from like "stormwar.jew" or something obviously affiliated with nazis. More likely I got it from a source that was also innocently being uncareful with its information.

# ¿ Mar 10, 2017 17:14

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

Vincent Van Goatse posted:

Also, Vonnegut was actually there for the bombing of Dresden.

True, and not to diminish his experience, but it doesn't mean he would know the total number of deaths firsthand.

# ¿ Mar 10, 2017 19:06

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

Ensign Expendable posted:

I wonder if goon basements will one day be a valuable source of historical anime figurines and meticulously preserved Magic cards.

*going over discarded food wrappers*

Truly inspiring that a family of four could share such a small space

# ¿ Mar 10, 2017 22:33

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

Pontius Pilate posted:

My dad had this poster among his various USN antiques:

p sure it's what made me gay

Is it not homoerotic on purpose? Looking back on the 1940s is so weird now

PittTheElder posted:

The exact thing I was going to post.

I wasn't going to post it but I definitely think of it every time someone mentions zinc (which honestly is rare)

# ¿ Mar 11, 2017 01:12

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

HEY GAIL posted:

if you like the art i post every now and then go to the Prado, most of it is there

edit: and in person, Las Lanzas is extremely large

I never considered myself a big art fan but I fell in love with the prado and walked around in there until my feet hurt, you simply must go there

Las Meninas is like, the freebird of the prado but you really do have to see it

# ¿ Mar 13, 2017 05:13

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

HEY GAIL posted:

it is so good, las meninas. to think about which way all the glances in that painting are going will do your mind in

The real question, the one the :airquote:

experts

are afraid to ask is, what's the dog looking at

# ¿ Mar 13, 2017 05:26

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

Cyrano4747 posted:

Doesn't matter either way, in the end it was the Soviets doing the vast bulk of the fighting and dying anyways.

All getting the US in was ensure that France wouldn't become an SSR.

And then they go socialist on us anyway, the ingrates :argh:

# ¿ Mar 23, 2017 18:58

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# ¿ May 17, 2024 06:46

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

Maybe there won't be a next war

# ¿ Mar 23, 2017 19:38

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