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Dwanyelle posted:When did regular soldiers make the switch from smoothbore muskets to rifled firearms? here , more or less. Note that's still muzzle loaded.
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Aug 21, 2019 15:27
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Greggster posted:But I think the most important question is... Jobbo_Fett posted:Torpedo Boats, surely. Both submarines and torpedo boats were designed for one job, and they did that job well enough, and they weren't good for other jobs. There will be no heated discussions about submarine doctrine or torpedo boat doctrine like there might be about tank destroyer doctrine, because they quite obviously were useful in their designed role. Maybe an exception could be made for some unique subs, like cruiser submarines, but those were rare to begin with unlike US tank destroyers. Early torpedo boats were actually seen as such a huge nuisance that a new class of ships evolved to protect capital ships from them, which were called torpedo boat destroyers. But as these boats grew in size they were fitted with torpedos themselves, and then in turn started being used as convoy escorts against submarines. Therefore my nominee for the marine equivalent to tank destroyers are... destroyers. Nobody knows what their purpose is and therefore they get used for all purposes.
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Aug 21, 2019 15:32
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To be fair they put torpedoes on everything for a bit. Predreadnought battleships often had them.
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Aug 21, 2019 15:33
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Greggster posted:But I think the most important question is... Battlecruisers. Take an armored weapon system and reduce it's armor in an attempt to make it faster. Then make it get into fights against the original armored weapon systems where it suffers from a lack of armor.
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Aug 21, 2019 15:35
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FAUXTON posted:Modern Berserkers The Truth of Wotjek, Revealed at Last
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Aug 21, 2019 15:40
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I think the technical term for this is "a train", though?
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Aug 21, 2019 16:14
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Recent history but NYT snagged DN's Valerie Insinna to write a comprehensive history on the development of the F-35. Nothing really new in there for AIRPOWER thread regulars, but it's a good synopsis of the whole thing and where it's going. Here's the thrust of the article:quote:“This is going to be the first fighter jet produced in the thousands for a very long time,” said Richard Aboulafia, an aerospace analyst with the Teal Group. “None of this is stoppable. It will be remembered, as the smoke clears, as something that worked far better than critics thought it would, but something you’d never, ever want to do again.”
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Aug 21, 2019 16:25
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I think that's probably the best summation of the project that I've ever seen printed.
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Aug 21, 2019 16:26
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Greggster posted:But I think the most important question is... those royal navy ships that were like light cruiser size with battleship turrets haphazardly welded on top. talk about punching above your weight
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Aug 21, 2019 17:04
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bewbies posted:those royal navy ships that were like light cruiser size with battleship turrets haphazardly welded on top. talk about punching above your weight Some of them firing heavier shells than the Yamato! Given they were very specifically for shore bombardment though that's not too bad an idea, they're not supposed to be facing off with the High Seas Fleet.
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Aug 21, 2019 17:19
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zoux posted:Recent history but NYT snagged DN's Valerie Insinna to write a comprehensive history on the development of the F-35. Nothing really new in there for AIRPOWER thread regulars, but it's a good synopsis of the whole thing and where it's going. Here's the thrust of the article: This is a fantastic article. I worked for years in a different part of the DoD that was collectively even more expensive than the F-35, with a lot of the same political/strategic issues at play, but with programs that took a very different approach to development. 20 years down the line, I still don't know who was right...the revolutionary from-scratch catch-all system, or the unexciting incrementally updated legacy system. This is the kind of thing our progeny will have to figure out I guess. Also it makes me ponder the difficulties of a major acquisition effort in the social media age....the F-35 isn't even in the top 25 of worst run or most wasteful American weapons programs, let alone the worldwide list, but I don't think any system has received more scrutiny. bewbies fucked around with this message at 17:24 on Aug 21, 2019 |
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Aug 21, 2019 17:22
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https://mobile.twitter.com/simongerman600/status/1163859495522635776 St Louis as Stalingrad certainly tracks
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Aug 21, 2019 17:35
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feedmegin posted:To be fair they put torpedoes on everything for a bit. Predreadnought battleships often had them. There were Battleships in the teens that had torpedo tubes since it was the most reliable way to actually sink something. It just might be after the target was shot up enough.
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Aug 21, 2019 17:35
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bewbies posted:those royal navy ships that were like light cruiser size with battleship turrets haphazardly welded on top. talk about punching above your weight The monitors?  Don't mind me, I'll just be flexing my biceps over in the corner.
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Aug 21, 2019 18:00
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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The whole discussion about (battle)cruisers actually has me wondering: How common/successful/important was commerce raiding by surface vessels, especially compared to submarines? Especially for WWII the focus in pop history on this topic seems to be all subs all the time, but presumably cruisers must have had an effect as well.
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Aug 21, 2019 18:25
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The Graf Spee was a Deutschland-class cruiser that did a lot of commerce raiding early in WW2. My impression though is that surface ships were significantly more vulnerable -- they couldn't hide from aircraft, which made it more feasible for a counter force to hunt them down, or engage them with destroyer escorts. Subs had a much easier time getting the drop on convoys and then hiding from the resulting counterattacks. I guess it's possible that surface ships could discourage the other side from sending any civilian ships at all through the area the ships are in, sort of a secondary effect to a fleet in being. I don't know how much the disposition of ships affected shipping lanes though, and the impact on supply lines would be rather hard to measure.
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Aug 21, 2019 18:59
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Commerce raiding by surface vessels is very important not because it happened a lot but because the whole idea of the fleet in being is ultimately based on the threat of it.
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Aug 21, 2019 19:03
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Man Acasta almost became a legend during Op Juno.Timmy Age 6 posted:That trend didn’t end with the treaty days! Party in the front, parking out back aphid_licker fucked around with this message at 19:31 on Aug 21, 2019 |
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Aug 21, 2019 19:07
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:What two-letter abbreviation should I invent for submersible cruisers (like the Surcouf), submersible aircraft carriers, and flying battleships? I'm thinking SC, SV, and VB respectively. USN practice is SSN, SSBN, etc. So you'd want SSC and SSV for subs. We used ZR for rigid LTA and ZRS for the aircraft-carrying Akrons. Nenonen posted:Early torpedo boats were actually seen as such a huge nuisance that a new class of ships evolved to protect capital ships from them, which were called torpedo boat destroyers. But as these boats grew in size they were fitted with torpedos themselves, and then in turn started being used as convoy escorts against submarines. Therefore my nominee for the marine equivalent to tank destroyers are... destroyers. Nobody knows what their purpose is and therefore they get used for all purposes. In the 1950s the Royal Navy adopted Destroyer for multi-purposes warship capable of fleet speeds, with Sloop becoming the term for a slower multi-role vessel. Fangz posted:Commerce raiding by surface vessels is very important not because it happened a lot but because the whole idea of the fleet in being is ultimately based on the threat of it. Trade protection drove the RN leadership nuts. It was their primary task, given that they were a maritime empire. They had vast reserves of military and economic might overseas, plus all the trade carried in British hulls. At one point the Admiralty was estimating a high of 70 cruisers to guarantee open sea lanes. Needless to say, that would be amazingly expensive. During treaty negotiations between wars the RN was pushing hard for limits on numbers or sizes of cruisers - the fewer enemy cruisers there were, the fewer they'd need to protect trade. Norman Friedman's two books on British Cruisers have extensive discussions on trade protection strategy as it evolved from 1890 to the 1930s. mllaneza fucked around with this message at 19:45 on Aug 21, 2019 |
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Aug 21, 2019 19:29
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mllaneza posted:USN practice is SSN, SSBN, etc. So you'd want SSC and SSV for subs. We used ZR for rigid LTA and ZRS for the aircraft-carrying Akrons. Thanks! I guess "ZR" means "zeppelin, rigid"? Never mind that zeppelins are rigid by definition. I'm thinking more Space Battleship Yamato for the flying battleship though -- taking a full-size (or larger!) battleship hull and getting it into the air by brute force and technomagic. ZB (zeppelin, battle) or ZRB wouldn't be that unreasonable of a classification though. Or maybe ZA, for attack. I guess it doesn't matter much; this is a pretty ridiculous scenario to begin with.
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Aug 21, 2019 19:46
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As a latecomer to designation schemes, which already used A in the first letter for auxiliary (and A in a second place for subtype only really goes with armored or later heavy cruisers), planes generally get the V code, so a cruiser roled ship with planes would be a CV. Similarly plane squadrons got V designations, such as VF, VS, VB and VT (so fighters, scouts, bombers and torpedoes respectively), so some sort of V designation would make a lot of sense for heavier than air craft no matter the designation. Perhaps VA for armored aircraft, VV for homeships, and so on down the line.FrangibleCover posted:There is another way of making a battlecruiser, which is to skimp on guns in favour of speed. This can be seen in German battlecruisers generally, which had only a couple of inches less armour than equivalent battleships but had a turret fewer. I should also point out that the Battlecruiser concept has been obsoleted by the 1940s by the Fast Battleship, which is a battleship that can achieve battlecruiser speeds without sacrificing anything due to the advance of technology and the fact that it's prohibitively expensive to get a large ship to do much more than 30 knots. If I remember the rule of thumb right, and I'm no naval architect, you need to double your horsepower for each knot above 30 of speed. There is the argument that fast battleships are very much alike battlecruisers, though they have the entire treaty period's advances to cash into being able to handily dunk on even the most recent existing battleships. As an example the US considered some heavily armed and armored designs for the North Carolinas, but decided that the Nagatos posed a serious threat to any independent fleet detachments with their estimated speed of 27 knots, which led towards them choosing a less heavily armored design. The follow up South Dakotas used some really badass design tricks and a willingness to make a deeply uncomfortable ship to live in to bring armor up to spec to make a kind of balanced design. The Iowas then added 10k tons to add about 6 knots of speed to that armor scheme and make a very trivial enhancement to the main battery (incidentally adding enough length to make them more habitable because the two ways you turn weight into speed is to add engine power or add hull length). Throughout this whole process, there's a really big priority on speed. The other time fast battleships come up as a concept is when the Queen Elizabeths cashed in all the gains from going to oil propulsion from coal on pairing a contemporary battleship armor and armament with a contemporary battlecruiser's speed. Taerkar posted:There were Battleships in the teens that had torpedo tubes since it was the most reliable way to actually sink something. It just might be after the target was shot up enough. Also because up until pretty much right around WWI torpedo maximum range was tracking decently with main gun effective range and thus assumed range for effective gunnery engagements, which meant that torpedoes could be fired by the battle line to disrupt and potentially damage the enemy battle line. xthetenth fucked around with this message at 20:11 on Aug 21, 2019 |
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Aug 21, 2019 20:06
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That mention of going from coal to oil reminds me -- how were coal-fired boilers fed? Was it a bunch of dudes with shovels or did they have some kind of mechanical process? Like, a hopper that would get gravity-fed chunks of coal, which then get dumped into the fires? The idea of shovel-loading coal to drive these gigantic machines really tickles my fancy, for some reason.
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Aug 21, 2019 20:10
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:That mention of going from coal to oil reminds me -- how were coal-fired boilers fed? Was it a bunch of dudes with shovels or did they have some kind of mechanical process? Like, a hopper that would get gravity-fed chunks of coal, which then get dumped into the fires?  Pictured: guys getting exactly what they signed up for
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Aug 21, 2019 20:12
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:That mention of going from coal to oil reminds me -- how were coal-fired boilers fed? Was it a bunch of dudes with shovels or did they have some kind of mechanical process? Like, a hopper that would get gravity-fed chunks of coal, which then get dumped into the fires? This was a deeply unpleasant job and had enough men that they frequently had parallel rank names for their specialty.
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Aug 21, 2019 20:14
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also coal shovelers getting tired was a literal reason why ships would slow down after a long period at high speed Titanic was propelled by a bunch of Irishmen with shovels
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Aug 21, 2019 20:17
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Wow, it was actual shovels. Man. That's amazing and also I would never in a million years want that job. I bet those shovel rooms caught on fire and/or exploded periodically, too. All that coal dust in the air...
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Aug 21, 2019 20:19
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zoux posted:https://mobile.twitter.com/simongerman600/status/1163859495522635776 STLingrad  Louisville as Kursk is neat.
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Aug 21, 2019 20:19
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Re: hull classification, Wikipedia has a good list of ones the USN and RN have used: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hull_classification_symbolTooMuchAbstraction posted:Wow, it was actual shovels. Man. That's amazing and also I would never in a million years want that job. I bet those shovel rooms caught on fire and/or exploded periodically, too. All that coal dust in the air... Yeah, and restocking them was a hassle too. Moving to oil based power was a game changer.
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Aug 21, 2019 20:31
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:Wow, it was actual shovels. Man. That's amazing and also I would never in a million years want that job. I bet those shovel rooms caught on fire and/or exploded periodically, too. All that coal dust in the air... Pretty much. It's what sank the Maine
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Aug 21, 2019 20:35
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:Wow, it was actual shovels. Man. That's amazing and also I would never in a million years want that job. I bet those shovel rooms caught on fire and/or exploded periodically, too. All that coal dust in the air... If your ship got hit in the engine room there's a good chance of steam escaping and poaching people to death.
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Aug 21, 2019 20:36
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PittTheElder posted:Re: hull classification, Wikipedia has a good list of ones the USN and RN have used: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hull_classification_symbol Coaling was a major hassle no doubt: 
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Aug 21, 2019 20:38
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:Wow, it was actual shovels. Man. That's amazing and also I would never in a million years want that job. I bet those shovel rooms caught on fire and/or exploded periodically, too. All that coal dust in the air... Lots of bad stuff happened to people in boiler rooms under fire 
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Aug 21, 2019 20:59
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zoux posted:“None of this is stoppable. It will be remembered, as the smoke clears, as something that worked far better than critics thought it would, but something you’d never, ever want to do again.”
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Aug 21, 2019 21:12
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It's important to note that every naval war pre-WW1 consisted of enormous amounts of commerce raiding by cruisers (or ship doing 'cruising') while the battlefleets stared each other down in blockades. The problem is that once you need coal in order to steam anywhere and the telegraph is widespread, the ocean gets very small very quickly.
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Aug 21, 2019 21:14
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fat bossy gerbil posted:I’m looking for a good winter coat and I thought maybe something milsurp would be cheap and effective but I don’t know what’s good and what’s not. Someone who knows field dress got any recommendations? If you can get your hands on an afghanka they're good. The removable winter liner makes it good for cold or mild weather but is best in dry conditions as it's not very waterproof apart from the hood and a couple of inner pockets.
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Aug 21, 2019 21:31
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:Wow, it was actual shovels. Man. That's amazing and also I would never in a million years want that job. I bet those shovel rooms caught on fire and/or exploded periodically, too. All that coal dust in the air... the guys were called the Black Gang for a reason and it wasn't African heritage
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Aug 21, 2019 21:40
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:the guys were called the Black Gang for a reason and it wasn't African heritage Gonna need you in your dress whites 10 minutes after your shift for inspection.
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Aug 21, 2019 22:14
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zoux posted:https://mobile.twitter.com/simongerman600/status/1163859495522635776 some of the comments by people who missed the point entirely are incredible
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Aug 21, 2019 22:21
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PittTheElder posted:Re: hull classification, Wikipedia has a good list of ones the USN and RN have used: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hull_classification_symbol As the picture up-thread shows, coaling ship was a horrifically dirty and arduous process which basically required the entire ship's company do nothing but heave coal for 24 hours or more, and then spend a similar amount of time cleaning and repainting the ship afterwards. In the RN coaling ship was one of the very few exceptions to the rule that officers shouldn't (and wouldn't) perform manual labour - junior officers were expected to work with their men rather than merely oversee them, so important and yet so labour-intensive was the whole business. Slow-burning fires in the coal bunkers were a fact of life, caused by damp, constantly-compressed coal. They were so routine that (famously) the Titanic set out on her one and only voyage with one of her coal bunkers merrily smouldering away and it was considered entirely unremarkable by both her crew and the Board of Trade inspectors. Which it was. There were plenty of attempts to automate/mechanise stoking - as mentioned it was one of the limiting factors on ship performance as your stokers could only work hard enough to keep up with the demand for steam for so long. But while mechanical stokers were successfully implemented on railways and stationary plant on land, it was simply too skilled a job to replicate with a simple machine. It wasn't just a case of shovelling coal onto a fire. The amount of coal, and the rhythm and frequency you add the coal to the furnace, has to be judged so you're keeping up with the steam demand but not over-doing it so the safety valves blow off, wasting water, fuel and steam. You have to fling the coal onto the right spot on the fire grate so it's evenly covered to a very specific depth - too much coal and it won't burn properly, too little and you'll get air gaps in the firebed, letting cold air into the furnace and reducing efficiency. Most marine boilers have two, three or four furnaces each and so each furnace needs to be tended individually at exactly the right time. Really big boilers would be double ended, with a furnaces at each end and the rhythm was key as if the fire doors at both ends of the same flue were opened simultaneously you'd get a lethal flashback as the draught reversed. On top of that you have to heave this coal into exactly the right spot, at exactly the right time while also dealing with the rolling/pitching action of the ship in a seaway. Stokers would judge the movement of the ship and use it to help fling the coal off the shovel. As well as the stokers you had an army of trimmers whose job it was to actually bring the coal from the bunkers to the stokehold floor, so the stokers only had to shovel coal from their feet to the furnace. The trimmers also had to keep the coal in the bunkers stable so it didn't slide or tumble as it was used up and the ship moved. Contrast that with oil firing, which can be refuelled by half a dozen men handling a hose and plugging it into a deck fitting and letting a mechanical pump actually transfer the fuel. Shovelling coal is replaced by a pressurised feed of oil to a spray nozzle in each furnace which can be adjusted by turning a valve. An oil-fired ship only needs around a sixth of the engine room crew as an equivalent coal-fired one. Instead of a dozen or so men per boiler room you only need a couple and they'll be mostly standing around monitoring gauges and making occasional adjustments rather than back-breaking hard graft. If more steam is needed, you just open up the fuel nozzles and pump more fuel onto the fire, which can be done for as long as the fuel lasts. Plus fuel oil has more energy per ton than coal, fills 100 per cent of any given bunker space, is 'self-trimming' (it finds its own level) and, because it can be pumped, can be stored in hull spaces that aren't accessible to people, allowing more of it to be carried onboard each ship. Combine that with the advent of marine steam turbines, which can run at full speed essentially indefinitely because they constantly rotate in a single direction, while the old reciprocating steam engines with their up/down, round/round, in/out flailing mechanical parts and lubrication relying on oil dripping down bits of cotton wick would literally shake themselves to bits after a few hours of running flat-out, and you can see why it was such an advance for naval tactics and made things like battlecruisers and fast battleships possible.
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Aug 21, 2019 22:22
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As an effort to get more energy out of the process, many coal ships were outfitted by sprayers that would spray fuel oil on to the bed of coals. In addition, coal was more economical and importantly more readily available across the globe, so some ships had mixed propulsion as well. Idea was to cruise on cheap and readily available coal and add in the oil when you needed the power.
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Aug 21, 2019 22:26
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