Nebakenezzer posted:

Destroyers: Fast, heavily armed, zero armor. Originally invented to protect dreadnoughts against newly invented torpedo boats, they branched out into protecting against submarines, aircraft, and generally screening larger ships, as well as getting torpedoes for sinking larger ships.

feedmegin posted:

Also, they didn't go out of fashion for long. By the American Civil War it wasn't at all unusual for cav to be packing like 4 pistols. Check out this chap for instance.

Nebakenezzer posted:

So ships that could keep up with the fleet but were fast/small enough to waste trash mobs of PT boats?

HEY GUNS posted:

The heart of any charge; what if arm blanche but big; looks like the things people do at tournaments

Koramei posted:

I understand the fascination around the only military use of nuclear weapons, but the way the bombings have so often framed Imperial Japan as though they were victims is so frustrating.

Alchenar posted:

I just don't see how the A-bomb conversation is separable from the strategic bombing context. Once you're 5 years deep into a war in which everyone has committed to the idea that aerial bombing of cities is a thing and you are nightly throwing out thousands of aircrew with a 5% attrition rate per mission, I don't think someone responsible for all of that can justify not using the bomb once it's available.

SlothfulCobra posted:

Isn't there still a sort of need to maintain the uniquely impressive scale of the nuclear bombs for the sake of averting their usage in modern war?

Suntan Boy posted:

Military ERs are always a special flavor of batshit, in a medical field rife with WTF stories.

My patient one night was brought in from the field by their medic, complaining of abdominal pain for 2 days, and unable to poo poo for 3. He looked ok, other than clearly being profoundly uncomfortable. The medic had tried a short regimen of stool softeners, to no avail, and their aid station had given him a bottle of magnesium citrate to chug, which just made it hurt more. Even when he was alone in the room with one of the staff, dude didn't let on that he knew exactly what the problem was, and it wasn't the steady diet of MREs and dehydration.

"Belly hurts, can't poo poo" isn't particularly unusual for Joe, but it does warrant an x-ray as a matter of course. Woke up the tech, who wheeled the patient off to do their thing. After they came back, the tech pulls us off to the side.

"He's got a dildo or something stuck up there, but it's weird; I can't see any batteries or plastic. Here, take a look."

Gathered around the computer, we start trying to figure out the object jammed in this man's rectum. Completely opaque, so probably metal or ceramic... north end has a blunt taper... measures about 40mm by 45mm...

"Oh gently caress," one of my newbie medics breathed. "That's a 203 round."

"Oh gently caress," the rest of the army folks in the room agreed. "It's a launched grenade," I explained to to nonplussed doctor. After a moment's consideration, "Oh gently caress."

To his credit, the doctor did not stride back into that patient's room like his rear end in a top hat had just tried to vacuum up a chair cushion. He did scoot out of there with a quickness once he'd confirmed what it was, and that there was no way he'd be able to get it out right there. A flurry of phone calls followed: the doctor with the surgeon, the charge nurse with several levels of department and hospital leadership, and myself with EOD. Every conversation went pretty much the same: sleepy disbelief, laughter, "oh poo poo, I/we'll be right there". Fortunately, he was the only patient in the entire building, so evacuating everyone amounted to half a dozen disgruntled staff in the parking lot in the middle of the night.

After some uneventful waiting, the EOD and surgical teams arrived, wheeled dude to the operating room, and got to work. It was reportedly asses-to-elbows with both groups in there at the same time, but they got the round out mostly without incident. "Mostly", because dude's bowels had been corked for 3 days, and all those MREs suddenly had an exit route; the immediate aftermath was best described as "chocolate mousse fired from a blunderbuss". The round was whisked away by the EOD crew, and dude was quietly disappeared after a brief stint in the recovery ward. No idea what happened to either one of them, sadly.

NTC was a weird place.

Fangz posted:

If it's 40x45, does that mean that the casing wasn't included? Was it a dummy round, ultimately?

White Coke posted:

Wasn't the US planning to air drop herbicide on Japan to destroy their rice crops?

Stairmaster posted:

instead of watching the two hour prageru youtube video you should watch literally anything else

The Lone Badger posted:

When a unit is described as 'mechanised infantry', does that literally mean "APCs for everyone!" or just that there's a bunch of trucks organic to the unit?

White Coke posted:

If the Soviet Union wanted to it could prop up Germany for awhile, at least regarding raw materials. Then you have the possibility that the Soviets will be dragged into the war directly. The French considered bombing the Baku oilfields but the British shot that idea down.

HEY GUNS posted:

My left ear will probably always hurt because of some officer in reenacting who placed my batallion wrong

SeanBeansShako posted:

*roundshot takes off a mans legs, right next to him in the now open file*

'Look at this pussy rear end bitch complaining about no legs!'

HEY GUNS posted:

Did the whole placing of batallions on a field for set battle part not tip you off?

Elendil004 posted:

Are there any good write ups from the girls who broadcast as Tokyo Rose? We're they native Japanese? Japanese Americans? Where did they broadcast from? Who passed them the propaganda?

Platystemon posted:

PittTheElder posted:

Were any non-British warships lost to catastrophic magazine detonations in the WW1 to say, present day time frame?

GotLag posted:

Pump CO2 into the atmosphere until they stop

GotLag posted:

Stalin? Can't think of any others.

Gaius Marius posted:

Bill o Reilly is also a published historical author. I'm not saying Duncan isn't fine. But I am saying being published means nothing

Mystic Mongol posted:

So, my neighbor is a 99 year old WW2 vet from England. He was the navigator for an Avro Lancaster heavy bomber... he started as a mechanic, because only gentlemen flew, and then the war used up all their gentlemen and he was promoted into action. The Lancaster had a wingspan of 102', and he was involved in the world's first night bombing campaigns... as hundreds of planes from across Europe would converge on a location within a three minute window and just bomb it to rubble, taking note of any V2 missiles they saw heading the other way and reporting the headings for the DH Mosquitos to fly back in the morning and try to find the trucks the missiles were launched from.

After the war was over, his neighborhood in the East End of London had been largely demolished. Along with the way that Bomber Crew were not treated quite as heroically as the rest of the soldiers, what with all the bombing they did, he moved with his wife, who invaded France as a radio operator, to America to start a new life.

In the 80s he gave a statement to PBS about his experiences, which drew attention from the neighborhood. He wound up giving presentations about the war from living rooms across the city. Through the 80s and 90s he spoke to individuals, small parties, and classrooms about being a bomber pilot. But around 2000 interest dried up--he says a sheet fell across America, and the youth of today are not interested in the war the way the youth of the previous generation were.

I've offered to record him doing his presentation in the basement, to share online with basically anyone interested. I never thought it would be a breakout viral hit or anything, but that his story is interesting and worth preserving, before this century old man who insists on shoveling his own sidewalk takes a final trip. He, however, worries that no one would be interested, and that it would be a waste of time and energy for both of us. Certainly, opinions on the English bombing campaign over Europe were never overwhelmingly positive.

So my question is, given that he's old enough that he doesn't give a presentation as sharply as he used to, and I'm not a film student and will be recording on an iPad, are his concerns accurate? Would people be interested in hearing what he has to say about his experiences during and after the war? I'd cut any dead air but the final result would be pretty rough.

Ugly In The Morning posted:

Anyone got questions I should ask my grandfather about the Korean War when I see him this weekend?

Ugly In The Morning posted:

He was a clerk who never really saw combat and that’s part of why he never talked about it.

White Coke posted:

If they had just lost to the Soviets and allowed them to link up with the German revolutionaries then the Holocaust would have never happened. Arguably all of the evils of the world since WW1 are the fault of the Polish people.

Pryor on Fire posted:

Do you really need to apologize for joking that poland was the actual cause of all the 20th century's problems in the history thread, are people truly that loving dense? Will I get probed for making a joke about the Boeing 737 crashing in the aviation thread because that's next on my agenda this morning

Xiahou Dun posted:

If we ignore the "male" part of this cause gender roles are icky and dumb, this makes total sense.

Cessna posted:

The "jerry can" has already been mentioned.

The MG-42 was a good machinegun.

The Panzer IV wasn't great, but it was adaptable.

The high boots, mentioned above, are solid (but an older design).

The "potato masher" handle for the hand grenade was good, in that it let the thrower throw it further. (The US Army considered copying the design, but when they tested it it turned out to be less effective in American hands. Why? Because most American kids played baseball in the 30s and were more familiar with throwing ball-style objects.)

The camouflage patterns used by the SS on their zeltbahn (shelter sections)/helmet covers/smocks - not the construction of the items themselves, just the colors chosen and the patterns - are good for hiding stuff, even if they're too complicated for effective manufacture.

The "Dot 44"/"Pea Dot" camouflage uniform introduced late in the war was decent, a presage of modern camouflage uniforms. It still had unnecessary vestiges of earlier uniforms, but it wasn't terrible.

That's about it.

Ensign Expendable posted:

Just imagine the spine damage from wearing all those medals.

Cessna posted:

It was - I'm just showing that people have been making that sort of comparison for a while now.


Oh, it's ridiculous.

But that's what you get when you look at things like a gamer and only compare the stats like "penetration" and "armor thickness/front." These sorts of things are easily quantified and are important for games, so that's what is often focused on.

Jobbo_Fett posted:

That's late-war Panthers, no?

Nebakenezzer posted:

Attention: Jobbo_Fett, bewbies, Balloon Fish

There's a newish book on the development of aero piston engines before and during WW2, looks good: http://falkeeins.blogspot.com/2020/12/the-secret-horsepower-race-by-calum.html

Nenonen posted:

Ships don't move anywhere if you don't let some fire meet with fuel. Occasionally you will also want to 'fire' your explosives, but in a controlled manner.

Ensign Expendable posted:

Whoops, seems I missed two weeks worth of updates:

Allies view of the Maus
Winter and swamp tracks

Queue: ...

Gort posted:

luckily not in firefighting capabilities