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 I guess I never realized that the CSA fought that whole war on behalf of this one guy.
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Dec 2, 2020 22:14
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:For weeks at a time, I think you're looking at Flower-class corvettes or similar ships. You know you're a badass when you go to war in a boat named HMS Candytuft.
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Dec 2, 2020 22:15
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zoux posted:
zoux posted:was killed at the Battle of Franklin on November 30, 1864 
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Dec 2, 2020 22:16
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:PT boats aren't "weeks at a time", they're meant to operate from a nearby base and can't operate independently for long. I seem to recall that they occasionally got towed to operational areas by bigger boats with more endurance, because of their limited fuel storage. Hmm, I think a corvette or destroyer's endurance would be more 'a week' than 'weeks'. If we are talking closer to a month of operating before returning to base then we are talking about a cruiser. But otherwise, we're talking about Submarines! The 1000 ton XI type U boat could do tours of around 90 days.
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Dec 2, 2020 22:21
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Acebuckeye13 posted:Dangerously close to modern politics but! The core problem with the occupations of the American occupations of both Afghanistan and Iraq was that both were launched with little consideration for what would come after. It was expected by a lot of high-ranking people in the administration that overwhelming US firepower would be able to eradicate all armed opposition in the early days of the war, thus allowing the US to set up a friendly democratic (give or take) government and skedaddle shortly thereafter, like larger-scale versions of the invasions of Grenada and Panama during the Reagan and H.W. Bush administrations. But, as the people planning these invasions and occupations were criminally shortsighted idiots, everything went wrong— In his book Fiasco, Thomas Ricks mentions that planning for the Iraqi occupation was hindered by the Bush Administration's decision, in the leadup to war, to take the public position that war was a last resort if Iraq didn't cooperate with WMD inspections. There had been a joint State/Defense committee to study requirements for post-war occupation, but when the higher ups found out about it, they shut it down, concerned it would affect the American coalition building effort, public support for the invasion, and American international reputation if anything about it leaked.
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Dec 2, 2020 22:27
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Epicurius posted:In his book Fiasco, Thomas Ricks mentions that planning for the Iraqi occupation was hindered by the Bush Administration's decision, in the leadup to war, to take the public position that war was a last resort if Iraq didn't cooperate with WMD inspections. There had been a joint State/Defense committee to study requirements for post-war occupation, but when the higher ups found out about it, they shut it down, concerned it would affect the American coalition building effort, public support for the invasion, and American international reputation if anything about it leaked. The book COBRA II also talks about this, noting that Rumsfeld continually returned the invasion plan to military planners because he wanted smaller troop footprints, in part to help prove his "Rumsfeld doctrine". One of the on the shelf war plans originally estimated a 380,000 troop requirement. At one point Gen Franks was encouraged by Rumsfeld to receive a brief on a plan that recommended an invasion force of 340 tanks and 400 bradleys, with 15,000 light infantry to be brought in after for stability operations.
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Dec 2, 2020 23:17
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FastestGunAlive posted:At one point Gen Franks was encouraged by Rumsfeld to receive a brief on a plan that recommended an invasion force of 340 tanks and 400 bradleys, with 15,000 light infantry to be brought in after for stability operations. Now theres a counterfactual I am fascinated by, what does that even look like? Like do you have a link to the plan itself I can read?
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Dec 2, 2020 23:51
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Epicurius posted:In his book Fiasco, Thomas Ricks mentions that planning for the Iraqi occupation was hindered by the Bush Administration's decision, in the leadup to war, to take the public position that war was a last resort if Iraq didn't cooperate with WMD inspections. There had been a joint State/Defense committee to study requirements for post-war occupation, but when the higher ups found out about it, they shut it down, concerned it would affect the American coalition building effort, public support for the invasion, and American international reputation if anything about it leaked. 
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Dec 2, 2020 23:59
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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TaurusTorus posted:Now theres a counterfactual I am fascinated by, what does that even look like? Like do you have a link to the plan itself I can read? I only know of it mentioned for a few pages (37-41) in Cobra II and I haven't gone looking for alternate sources, to be honest. To summarize what's in the book: Newt Gingrich was introduced to Doug Macgregor (who had fought at the Battle of 73 Eastings in the Gulf War). In 2001 he was working at the Pentagon and was introduced to Gingrich through a retired admiral. Gingrich asked Macgregor to brief a plan he could show to Rumsfeld, who then sent it to Franks and told him to meet with Macgregor in Jan 2002. Franks was pretty dismissive of the plan and did not meet with Macgregor again but I think the incident speaks to Rumsfeld's biases.
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Dec 3, 2020 00:03
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Alchenar posted:Hmm, I think a corvette or destroyer's endurance would be more 'a week' than 'weeks'. If we are talking closer to a month of operating before returning to base then we are talking about a cruiser. Seems like close to a month was pretty common with Flower Class Corvettes. This is a pretty good memoir of the time on one: https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/75/a5203775.shtml In the end destroyers and corvettes have to do escort work, and if the big ships are staying out at sea, then you are too! I know that destroyers were often resupplied from larger ships with fresh stuff from their big refrigerators. Flower class were mostly convoys though (and slow convoys at that) so they just had to subsist on tea and biscuits and canned meat after the first few days.
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Dec 3, 2020 00:04
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Alchenar posted:Hmm, I think a corvette or destroyer's endurance would be more 'a week' than 'weeks'. If we are talking closer to a month of operating before returning to base then we are talking about a cruiser. Corvettes would escort a convoy across the Atlantic, which would take (roughly) two weeks. They'd also spend time marshalling the convoy and such; "weeks" was common. I am, coincidentally, working on a Flower class for a wargame; I still need to tidy it up a bit and weather it: 
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Dec 3, 2020 00:16
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The best option would have been to leave Saddam in place. He wasn't doing anything, he was basically checked out after the twin shocks of the Iran-Iraq and the first Gulf War. And Saddam thought 9/11 was an opportunity to get into the good graces of the US again, just help do America's dirty work torturing and murdering Islamist fanatics, like what he did in the Iran-Iraq war. After all, Saddam had obviously not had any knowledge or involvement in 9/11, all those hijackers were Saudis. Oops.
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Dec 3, 2020 00:18
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Epicurius posted:In his book Fiasco, Thomas Ricks mentions that planning for the Iraqi occupation was hindered by the Bush Administration's decision, in the leadup to war, to take the public position that war was a last resort if Iraq didn't cooperate with WMD inspections. There had been a joint State/Defense committee to study requirements for post-war occupation, but when the higher ups found out about it, they shut it down, concerned it would affect the American coalition building effort, public support for the invasion, and American international reputation if anything about it leaked. I think Tony Zinni in Battle Ready also speaks about this.
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Dec 3, 2020 00:27
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:PT boats aren't "weeks at a time", they're meant to operate from a nearby base and can't operate independently for long. I seem to recall that they occasionally got towed to operational areas by bigger boats with more endurance, because of their limited fuel storage. Since I'm not sure what SlothfulCobra's objective is, PT boats do highlight a particular way of dealing with that issue, which is that sometimes this bases were not build on land but were instead tenders. So a group of boats would go out somewhere with a tender and operate like a squad, returning to the tender fuel, parts, food, and service. Need to move the base? Either load the boats on the tender if it was built for that OR drive boats along with the tender to the next staging position. This let them operate from a forward position (usually at land still so they could spread out and also be covered) for months at a time, but still couldn't stay underway for long periods of time. I believe it's Buckeley's book that described how they would build plans for bases that were in kits (kind of a precursor to shipping container prefab base components) or via an appropriately equipped tender. piL fucked around with this message at 00:53 on Dec 3, 2020 |
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Dec 3, 2020 00:50
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Cessna posted:You say this like it's a bad thing. Somebody please calculate the throw weight of this, maybe it beats the B-36
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Dec 3, 2020 02:11
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piL posted:Since I'm not sure what SlothfulCobra's objective is, PT boats do highlight a particular way of dealing with that issue, which is that sometimes this bases were not build on land but were instead tenders. So a group of boats would go out somewhere with a tender and operate like a squad, returning to the tender fuel, parts, food, and service. It's interesting because this is basically how early torpedo boats and torpedo boat destroyers also worked. There's a pretty hard minimum size for a vessel to be usefully autonomous. Destroyers outgrew that.
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Dec 3, 2020 02:45
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Phobophilia posted:The best option would have been to leave Saddam in place. He wasn't doing anything, he was basically checked out after the twin shocks of the Iran-Iraq and the first Gulf War. And Saddam thought 9/11 was an opportunity to get into the good graces of the US again, just help do America's dirty work torturing and murdering Islamist fanatics, like what he did in the Iran-Iraq war. After all, Saddam had obviously not had any knowledge or involvement in 9/11, all those hijackers were Saudis. I mean honestly almost any other decision (except invading Iran instead) would have been a better idea than what we did.
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Dec 3, 2020 03:06
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Nebakenezzer posted:Somebody please calculate the throw weight of this, maybe it beats the B-36 The YB-40 was a heavily armed modification of the standard B-17 used before the North American P-51 Mustang, an effective long-range fighter, became available to act as escort. Additional armament included an additional dorsal turret in the radio room, a remotely operated and fired Bendix-built "chin turret" directly below the bombardier's accommodation, and twin .50 in (12.7 mm) guns in each of the waist positions. The ammunition load was over 11,000 rounds. All of these modifications made the YB-40 well over 10,000 lb (4,500 kg) heavier than a fully loaded B-17F. M2 Brownings in a YB-40: 2x Tail 2x Left Waist 2x Right Waist 2x Belly Turret 2x Aft Dorsal Turret 2x Fore Dorsal Turret 2x Chin Turret 2x Cheek guns So whatever the value is for 1 M2 Browning and then x18
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Dec 3, 2020 03:47
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piL posted:Since I'm not sure what SlothfulCobra's objective is, PT boats do highlight a particular way of dealing with that issue, which is that sometimes this bases were not build on land but were instead tenders. So a group of boats would go out somewhere with a tender and operate like a squad, returning to the tender fuel, parts, food, and service. I've been trying to design spaceships for a story I'm writing, so learning about how real-world ships laid out their floorplans helps me figure out things. Especially when I'm trying to figure out the lower end of things for an underpowered group that only has access to some small, salvaged military ships or converted civilian vehicles. I guess as well as what sort of threats they would be able to take on. I guess weeks at a time might be a bit much, but there's the basic idea of being able to live on them as opposed to just having a couple seats to sit in like it's a car.
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Dec 3, 2020 04:28
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SlothfulCobra posted:I've been trying to design spaceships for a story I'm writing, so learning about how real-world ships laid out their floorplans helps me figure out things. Especially when I'm trying to figure out the lower end of things for an underpowered group that only has access to some small, salvaged military ships or converted civilian vehicles. I guess as well as what sort of threats they would be able to take on. Thats what I kind of figured based on the way you asked it which is why I thought the tender example would be useful. FAO.org has technical drawings for 15m and 21m fishing boats that might also be beneficial.
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Dec 3, 2020 04:54
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You can totally live in the seat of a car, and in that vein, what's the maximum length of time the seals or other special forces types might have had a PBR or PCF out for in Vietnam? Or is that disqualified because they presumably pulled over on a river bank?
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Dec 3, 2020 05:05
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SlothfulCobra posted:I've been trying to design spaceships for a story I'm writing, so learning about how real-world ships laid out their floorplans helps me figure out things. Especially when I'm trying to figure out the lower end of things for an underpowered group that only has access to some small, salvaged military ships or converted civilian vehicles. I guess as well as what sort of threats they would be able to take on. You might also look up the schematics of seaplanes, like the Short Sunderland and so on.
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Dec 3, 2020 05:07
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piL posted:Since I'm not sure what SlothfulCobra's objective is, PT boats do highlight a particular way of dealing with that issue, which is that sometimes this bases were not build on land but were instead tenders. So a group of boats would go out somewhere with a tender and operate like a squad, returning to the tender fuel, parts, food, and service. The routine of British MTBs operating in the English Channel was night patrols - go out at sunset, return at dawn. Although they could theoretically stay out longer, they didn't.
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Dec 3, 2020 06:22
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Phobophilia posted:The best option would have been to leave Saddam in place. He wasn't doing anything, he was basically checked out after the twin shocks of the Iran-Iraq and the first Gulf War. And Saddam thought 9/11 was an opportunity to get into the good graces of the US again, just help do America's dirty work torturing and murdering Islamist fanatics, like what he did in the Iran-Iraq war. After all, Saddam had obviously not had any knowledge or involvement in 9/11, all those hijackers were Saudis. "He shuddunataken a shot at my daddy." Didn't Canada export some people to Syria for the express purpose of torturing them?
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Dec 3, 2020 10:17
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Arbite posted:"He shuddunataken a shot at my daddy." probably every member of the coalition did
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Dec 3, 2020 10:31
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Arbite posted:"He shuddunataken a shot at my daddy." Worse, alberta
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Dec 3, 2020 10:51
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Weka posted:You can totally live in the seat of a car, and in that vein, what's the maximum length of time the seals or other special forces types might have had a PBR or PCF out for in Vietnam? Or is that disqualified because they presumably pulled over on a river bank? what are pbr and pcf?
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Dec 3, 2020 13:35
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ChubbyChecker posted:what are pbr and pcf? Patrol Boat River and Patrol Craft Fast, brown water boats used in Vietnam.
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Dec 3, 2020 13:40
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Schadenboner posted:Patrol Boat River and Patrol Craft Fast, brown water boats used in Vietnam. 
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Dec 3, 2020 13:46
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Arbite posted:"He shuddunataken a shot at my daddy." Invading Iraq was the goal of the hawks in the Bush administration from day one. There was apparently a pretty big rift between Rice and Powell, who wanted to stay out of it, and Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, who wanted to fully implement the Iraq Liberation Act and invade Iraq and depose Saddam Hussein. (The latter three were signatories to the charter of the Project for the New American Century, which was like the Neocon Manifesto). Anyway it wasn't looking like it was going to happen and then 9/11 occurred and they instantly seized upon that as a cassus belli against Iraq quote:With the intelligence all pointing toward bin Laden, Rumsfeld ordered the military to begin working on strike plans. And at 2:40 p.m., the notes quote Rumsfeld as saying he wanted "best info fast. Judge whether good enough hit S.H." – meaning Saddam Hussein – "at same time. Not only UBL" – the initials used to identify Osama bin Laden. I was in college then, though I was an insouciant both-parties-are-the-same-maaan libertarian-leaning Nader-voting moron, but I can recall news reports that the Bush admin's foreign policy was moribund and commentators were wondering if the admin was going to be a failure in that regard and then well, 9/11. As far as Bush's motivation being related to the attempt on his dad or wanting to outdo his dad by deposing Saddam, I don't know but it'd would be hard to imagine that it didn't somehow figure into it. I mean if some guy tried to kill my dad I'd probably want to invade his country and depose him if I had the resources and a UN resolution telling me I could.
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Dec 3, 2020 16:10
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Did Saddam actually make a real attempt at assassination or is that just a talking point?
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Dec 3, 2020 16:36
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wdarkk posted:Did Saddam actually make a real attempt at assassination or is that just a talking point? Link. So, maybe, maybe not. (Probably not.) Cessna fucked around with this message at 16:57 on Dec 3, 2020 |
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Dec 3, 2020 16:46
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:I seem to recall that they occasionally got towed to operational areas by bigger boats with more endurance, because of their limited fuel storage. Patrol boat tenders were a thing, yes. Also because patrol boats typically carried a torpedo or two, at least for the Americans intended for night attacks against warships or other opportunistic strikes, and they could only physically carry the one or two, so tenders carried reloads.
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Dec 3, 2020 16:47
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wdarkk posted:Did Saddam actually make a real attempt at assassination or is that just a talking point? the initial claims of the Kuwaitis as reported by the FBI and CIA was enough to get Clinton to launch a strike on Iraq in 1993 in retaliation for simply having attempted it, but later examination of the case points to "was probably a fabrication by the Kuwaitis"
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Dec 3, 2020 16:50
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gradenko_2000 posted:the initial claims of the Kuwaitis as reported by the FBI and CIA was enough to get Clinton to launch a strike on Iraq in 1993 in retaliation for simply having attempted it, but later examination of the case points to "was probably a fabrication by the Kuwaitis" The Kuwaitis were really good at waving the bloody shirt in front of Congress to get the US to act on their behalf.
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Dec 3, 2020 17:18
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So Black Hitler has existed all this time Namibia: Man named after Adolf Hitler wins local election https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-55173605
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Dec 3, 2020 18:43
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SlothfulCobra posted:What is the smallest military boat that would be meant for a crew to be on long-term for weeks at a time? I'm trying to get my head around the smaller end of independent vehicles. I found an interesting diagram of a PT boat, and I'm interested if there's anything else really small. I've read about harbour defence motor launches making some long runs, and apparently the things were used as escorts off Africa. Which must have been Interesting. I'm not sure they'd manage weeks though.
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Dec 3, 2020 18:53
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Solaris 2.0 posted:So Black Hitler has existed all this time I don't suppose we know this man's sexual orientation?
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Dec 3, 2020 18:56
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Uncle Enzo posted:I don't suppose we know this man's sexual orientation? More important questions: Does he like dogs, and what is his stance on taking drugs?
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Dec 3, 2020 19:05
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Solaris 2.0 posted:So Black Hitler has existed all this time I feel like Peru was just playing Cold War madlibs in the 80s. Meet Vladimiro Lenin Ilich Montesinos Torres, raised by Communist parents, trained at the School of the Americas, worked with the CIA, ran guns to the FARC, and was the head of Peru's intelligence service under President Fujimori.
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Dec 3, 2020 19:10
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