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OctaviusBeaver posted:My rep does meet and greets once or twice a year for people who want to apply to one of the service academies so they can get a nomination. I just assumed they all do that but maybe not. The Westpoint website makes it sound like you can just write them a letter and ask for a nomination. I bet most aren't too picky about it since it's free good will. It depends on where you are. I was one of only two people applying to Annapolis from my (rather large) high school in a city notorious for anti-war activism. My nomination came from a single letter to my congressman; who only gets ten a year. If I'd done a rewrite on my application essay I'd have gone from having government cheese being an important source of protein to the Naval Academy in just 5 years.
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Feb 18, 2021 02:44
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It was the model section at the local hardware store that got me. First a US destroyer with a kamikaze attack for the box art. As my first model it's no surprise that it ended up looking like it had been hit by a few. Then a bright green P-47 with an awful lot of glue showing... So I started reading everything the library had about ships and planes and basically never stopped.
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Mar 3, 2021 02:14
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Gaius Marius posted:Wait did the ramming ships not get mentioned yer, like the HMS Polyphemus. Some insane brit decides to go back to Ancient warfare and arm modern ships with rams, pure lunacy. Most famously depicted owning some martians at the end of War of the Worlds. The War of the Worlds ship was HMS Thunderchild, a torpedo ram that, as described by Wells, did not match anything on the actual Royal Navy's rolls. Drachinifell did a good video on what she might actually have been given RN design development at the time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQBund8uLmo mllaneza fucked around with this message at 08:14 on Mar 3, 2021 |
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Mar 3, 2021 08:10
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Pryor on Fire posted:This guy is just getting better and better at making these videos Yeah, that's good stuff. The USN has never shown itself better than in accepting a Pell mell battle on the 13th, and then two days later committing fast battleships at terrible risk. These two fights are in large part why the USN suffered more casualties than the USMC at Guadalcanal.
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Mar 8, 2021 00:05
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Slim Jim Pickens posted:Because they were shortest, and during the Winter, they were reasonably safe. Summer convoys were cancelled after PQ 17. Arctic convoys also deliver very close to Leningrad and Moscow. Those supplies were more readily available than those that went to any other port of entry.
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Mar 19, 2021 01:45
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Count Roland posted:Just use a cruise missile. In the Colder War timeline we developed MK PLUTO for that. Many megatons pointed right at ol' tentacle face. Didn't work, more's the pity.
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Apr 12, 2021 18:09
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skooma512 posted:Anybody know a podcast or a shortish book on the WW2 North Africa campaign? It's a blind spot for me since I don't really know what happened out there other than mostly the names of the major figures and battles. I've been watching Armchair Historian lately, he doesn't seem chuddy or wildly wrong in his overviews (and I'm glad to know if he's either). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeHo-3Klmx0
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May 22, 2021 19:36
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Fangz posted:Drach has an interview up with Jon "Shattered" Parshall That's a good interview overall, and Parshall also drops some shade over Guadalcanal-related shenanigans. He also says he's writing a book on 1942 and has been for 11 years. He'd better finishes, because I'll raise his shade and bind it to a typewriter to get it finished if I have to. e. LRADIKAL posted:Checking the Wikipedia, my first question would be how effected the New Jersey really was, firing a few dozen big shells at a time. Could it have been accurate? As I recall, it would have been using the analog FCS. Analog FCS with radar input could get first salvo straddles at 20+ miles. They we shockingly sophisticated pieces of equipment. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HoSh3n3CaI mllaneza fucked around with this message at 08:41 on May 28, 2021 |
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May 28, 2021 08:36
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Did someone say first-hand accounts of life aboard warships ? Let me check my shelves.... Subchaser by Stafford is the story of a young officer commanding a very small ship from early days patrolling Florida and the Caribbean, through Torch and Sicily. https://smile.amazon.com/Subchaser-Bluejacket-Paperbacks-Edward-Stafford-ebook/dp/B009SC1RZ8 Motor Gunboat 658 by Reynolds covers his years on the 658 boat (a Fairmile D class gunboat) in the Med as second officer and then CO. https://smile.amazon.com/Cassell-Military-Classics-Gunboat-Mediterranean/dp/0304361836 Stand By For Action by Donald covers his time in Sloops and Destroyers from Norway to Normandy. https://smile.amazon.com/Stand-Action-Memoirs-Small-Commander-ebook/dp/B00SS5XKXS Tin Can Sailor by Calhoun is the memoir of an officer on USS Sterrett, including at the big brawls around Guadalcanal. https://smile.amazon.com/Tin-Can-Sailor-1939-1945-Bluejacket-ebook/dp/B00H6UODQO/ Ship of Ghosts is a history of the USS Houston from her prre-war life as Roosevelt's yacht to her loss in the SW Pacific in early 1942. The narrative follows the crew into captivity and forced labor on a railroad in Burma. https://smile.amazon.com/Ship-Ghosts-Houston-Legendary-Survivors-ebook/dp/B000UZQIJC/
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Jun 7, 2021 22:04
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gohuskies posted:Japanese Destroyer Captain is another memoir that's at leadership level, not so much a seaman's experience, but it's excellent. This is a really solid recommendation and I only missed it out because my copy isn't shelved with the other ones I pulled out. Get this one close to first.
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Jun 8, 2021 23:10
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Kaiser Schnitzel posted:Also almost a million sold to the North-how did that work? Very well until local Army officials started cracking down on the trade. Grant pissed off a lot of people with some remarkably stupid restrictions, but he made his real enemies by stopping the cotton trade along the rivers in his district out West early in the war. On the oceanic trade, you'd think the incoming blockade runners would be loaded to the gunwales with war material, and on government blockade runners they were. The private ships loaded luxury goods that paid a higher price per ton than boring stuff like rifles and machine tools. The war may have set brother against brother, but trading partner is an altogether stronger bond in practice.
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Jun 15, 2021 01:46
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Cythereal posted:The Zero was also pretty lightly armed for an air superiority fighter of the time. Zeroes were very effective against the more lightly built planes of the war, but often struggled to inflict meaningful damage on bombers, Hellcats, and other heavier aircraft. Specifically, 2x7.7mm and 2x20mm. And that's not as much as it looks like, the IJN 20mm was relatively low velocity and had absurdly low amount of ammo - 60 rounds over gun. That is not a lot of punch when shooting at American carrier aircraft. They made up for it with highly skilled pilots able to exploit the Zero's maneuverability to set up good shots. With a good marksman at the controls, aiming at vulnerable points, they could rack up kills. Taking snapshots in a furball would run the guns dry quickly. The A6M3 got 12.7s in place of the 7.7s and a better 20mm with more ammo, but USN aircraft were getting tougher. Coming the other way, the F4F-3 had 4x .50 with 34 seconds of fire. That's enough to take any shot you can get on a Zero, or for multiple firing passes on a bomber formation - how do you get 5 kills in one sortie against multi-engine aircraft ? Be shooting at a bomber without self-sealing tanks and have enough ammo for multiple bursts at each target. The F4F-4 was going to be used for Lend Lease as well as domestic use, and the British insisted on 6 .50 cal. Against German planes the extra firepower made sense, but that cut the ammunition to 19 seconds of fire, which USN pilots hated since they were shooting flammable, unarmored targets.
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Jun 19, 2021 19:51
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ElBrak posted:Does anyone know any books that cover the design and building of the early American Cruisers and Pre-Dreadnaught Battleships? Norman Friedman, ElBrak. ElBrak, Norman Friedman. You'll like Norman. Norman likes to camp out in the USN or RN archives and pore through handwritten records in exhaustive details in order to write a paragraph about how the Admiralty dithered for three weeks on 50 tons of improvements to the Orion class superdreadnoughts. https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/168247626X/ https://smile.amazon.com/U-S-Battleships-Illustrated-Design-History/dp/1591142474/ You'd have to go to the archives to do better. e. Do a name search, he's got a few titles for under $5 for the Kindle edition; WW1 weapons, British submarines and so on. mllaneza fucked around with this message at 06:41 on Jun 26, 2021 |
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Jun 26, 2021 06:37
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Arbite posted:Certainly his thoughts on the bomb at the end are quite interesting considering his history on and imminent return to the front lines. If asked to chose between "terrible things happen to Japanese cities" and "I have to go back out in the loving jungle" I'm picking the one where I don't have to go back out in the loving jungle.
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Jul 3, 2021 16:11
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feedmegin posted:Thats assuming a blockade when the actual plan was Operation Downfall, the amphibious invasion of Japan inch by inch. That would have killed God knows who many on both sides plus the aforementioned starvation and blockade etc. And Operation Starvation kicked off on March 27, 1945 with the first of tens of thousands of naval mines shutting down Japan's seaborne trade. Japan was a net importer of food, millions were on a course to starvation. Downfall wasn't going to end the war with the first invasion. The Olympic landings in November 1945 were "merely" the preliminary assault to seize air bases to support Coronet in March 1946. By then Japan wouldn't have much civilian population left, and the soldiers would be hungry. e. What Polyakov said. mllaneza fucked around with this message at 09:58 on Jul 4, 2021 |
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Jul 4, 2021 09:51
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Cessna posted:It's about as perfect of a weapon as you can get, just a solid block of metal with few moving parts that doesn't jam and throws big bullets downrange. The M-2 is a really sweet piece of engineering, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmLnwiJRr78
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Jul 12, 2021 04:53
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baaderbrains posted:Hi thread, can anyone give me a good book recommendation for Operation Hailstone/Truk Lagoon? There's not a lot to say about one hammer blow with overwhelming force, but this covers the whole period including Hailstone: https://www.navyhistory.org/2017/01/book-review-the-fleet-at-flood-tide-america-at-total-war-in-the-pacific-1944-1945/
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Aug 5, 2021 20:09
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MikeCrotch posted:I've seen a bunch of stuff online about Toll fans really hating Hornfischer for some reason (basically calling Hornfischer a hack) and I have never been able to get to the bottom of it Hornfischer writes approachable narratives that both laymen and enthusiasts can appreciate. It's the sin of popularity. That, and Last Stand of the tin can sailors probably sold more copies than everything Toll has written combined.
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Aug 6, 2021 17:40
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SerCypher posted:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Macedonian Macedonian doesn't count. It's offset by ex-USS HMS President; the RN later gave the name to a new-construction hull, so arguably they're up one on the exchange.
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Aug 30, 2021 16:14
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:Confederate general or politician of choice. Everywhere south of the Mason-Dixon line should be dotted with John Brown Middle Schools.
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Sep 1, 2021 17:23
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fat bossy gerbil posted:Any good WW2 podcasts? Preferably eastern front but I’ll take anything. I've been following World War 2 on YouTube. They do about 20 minutes a week, with maps down to the divisional level which makes following the Eastern Front stuff a lot easier. They also did a series of videos covering 1919-1939, social and political history. And a good series on crimes against humanity. https://www.youtube.com/c/WorldWarTwo Barbarossa kicks off here, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXZHX6oB_4w
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Sep 21, 2021 18:12
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Owlkill posted:Just wanted to flag that the ebook edition of Poilu, the memoirs of thread favourite Poor Bloody Infantryman and malcontent French WW1 veteran Louis Barthas, is currently £1.99 on Amazon UK. US Amazon too, https://smile.amazon.com/Poilu-Notebooks-Corporal-Barrelmaker-1914-1918-ebook/dp/B00IPJGW82/
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Sep 25, 2021 06:42
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Oysters Autobio posted:Anyone have some good reading recommendations that's a good critique of MacNamara-era DoD's planning/operations systems and theories (the "whiz kids", RAND corporation, game theory etc.)? If too specific, any interesting overview or critique of Cold War psychology / game theory / technocratic rationalism that was so prevalent (ala Adam Curtis' documentary in Pandora's Box) in that era? We did the book "Technowar"a few months ago, so by rotation my next recommendation would be the Fog of War documentary where you can hear it from McNamara himself.
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Oct 25, 2021 06:44
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StrixNebulosa posted:
Two books here, Shattered Sword is the now-standard story of Midway, and explains a great deal about how carrier forces fought during the war. Excellent book, lots of detail drawn directly from Japanese records salvaged from burning carriers. Two Ocean War. This is an excerpt of the official history of the US Navy and covers the Atlantic as well as the Pacific. Morison was a history professor who asked Roosevelt for a navy commission so he could go to sea and then tell the story with a sailor's perspective; he ended up being the Washington's gunnery officer relieving the one who'd sunk the Kirishima and got the real story, at sea, from the crew that did the job. The one disservice this book will do you is that it was published before our codebreaking efforts were declassified. Just figure that any time it looks like the Allies made a lucky guess, we were reading the other side's mail. Shattered Sword will give you some coverage anyway, Station Hypo played a big part in our win at Midway. If anyone knows a better naval history of the war, I'm all ears.
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Nov 13, 2021 18:01
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Solaris 2.0 posted:I would love a show that focused on a single naval ship and it's crew like the USS Enterprise. It would allow for a cohesive narrative that spans the entirety of the war years. Some of the US destroyers saw a lot of action, USS Sterett was in acouple of the night actions in the Solomons, including the Friday the 13th melee. She ended the war under repair from Kamikaze damage. There's a good book by Calhoun, Tin Can Sailor, so the narrative has already been laid down.
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Nov 16, 2021 21:25
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gohuskies posted:You're likely thinking of Washington vs Kirishima at 2nd Guadalcanal. The Helena got first round straddles I believe twice. US radar fire control was good enough that they could see the splashes, which is just uncanny.
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Dec 10, 2021 03:21
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:US tank movie is a country ballad about 9/11, russian tank movie is Sabaton. Speaking of Sabaton, they have a partnership with the World War Two in Realtime people to give background on the subject of the songs, https://www.youtube.com/c/SabatonHistory Good stuff.
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Dec 11, 2021 22:45
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gohuskies posted:Australians had a similar sort of situation at the beginning of WW2. You could join the regular army and be sent overseas, or you could join (and later, be conscripted into) the militia for the defense of Australia. Many militia members who expected to be on homeland defense and not to leave Australia were quite surprised to learn that New Guinea, Port Moresby, and the Kokoda track counted as "Australia" for the purposes of where they'd be deployed. A short and a long look at the Kokoda campaign. tl;dw I hope your cardio is good, you're fighting up and over a mountain range with no roads. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEIkBfqE-Ok https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpoZvxbJzrk
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Dec 18, 2021 06:17
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LRADIKAL posted:Thanks for the thread suggestions, but I wanted "this thread" kind of recommendations. We don't have to derail on these games anymore if it's too far off topic. For a "cover game" at the platoon or company scale instead of squad, try the Close Combat series. You manage teams, MG teams, and other elements in real time. Your best entry point is the one on Market Garden, which is $3 on GOG right now. These are viscously tactical games, get used to the screams of your killed and wounded soldiers; I eventually had to give up playing them near bedtime because the ambient sound was that realistic. https://www.gog.com/game/close_combat_2_a_bridge_too_far
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Dec 29, 2021 18:12
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Nothingtoseehere posted:Is this why "Dr" is a formal title, like "Sir" or "Lord" is aswell? because the granting of a titled form of address is a mark of respect compared to the common man? Not the origin of the phrase "a gentleman and a scholar", but I'd say they're closely related - you'd have th best chance at an education with an aristocratic background.
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Jan 9, 2022 23:16
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:they mostly didn't want anyone else to have them either. That, and their eventual scrap value would have been much higher if they'd been towed to a real port and sold there instead of "as is" in the rear end end of the Home Islands with no industrial support. THs site, http://www.scapaflowwrecks.com/history/salvage.php, suggests a profit of 50,000 pounds per battleship. That's not huge, but towing is cheaper than raising.
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Jan 17, 2022 22:38
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Cyrano4747 posted:Holy poo poo the runes are right there on the collar. The description on the catalog page very clearly says "SS", so anyone with one of those knew what they were ordering. And then there's a 442nd Infantry outfit on the same row as the 44 dot pattern. And Mussolini's dress uniform on the next. loving whiplash on the page.
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Jan 19, 2022 19:04
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Comstar posted:Everyone makes fun of the French tanks...but over half the German Panzer's involved had 1-2 man turrets as well, and they never get criticized at the same level. Speaking of 1-man turrets, goddamn the R35 had a bad turret. The cupola doesn't have a handle to rotate it, your commanders helmet fits into a notch and it turns with his head. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veljLNEGWZM
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Feb 3, 2022 19:02
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Beardless posted:He usually does, and he especially likes to discuss track tensioning. The Chieftain drove M1s and usually spends some quality time with the suspension and tensioning arrangements of anything he covers. He even drives the S-tank when he gets to that one. This is a really well-thought out tank. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOn6QrN6pCA Three parts !
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Feb 4, 2022 18:47
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Vahakyla posted:I presume Destroyer Escorts with into the "frigate" umbrella. Correct ! The USN DE did the job the RN would give to a frigate.
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Feb 9, 2022 04:21
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Urcinius posted:And the realized potentials: The Wasp twice ran a deckload of Spitfires to Malta. The first one was parked basically in the open and wiped out by bombing in about a day. After much screaming at the idiots who made "arrangements" to receive the new fighters, the second wave went right into proper secured areas and sustained the defense for some time. I mean, how pissed would the command staff be ? How pissed would everyone involved be if a couple of dozen top of the line fighters get delivered to a beleaguered outpost and then all destroyed before they fly a single combat sortie ? In the list of all-time military fuckups, that has to be very close to the top. Channeling Indy Neidel from WW2 in Realtime: "So you got the new fighters ? That's great !" "Uh huh, we know you need more but those should hold you for a few weeks." "They're all what ?" "How ?!?" "Bombed and strafed ? Didn't anybody there think that might happen ?" "No ?!?!"
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Feb 10, 2022 10:12
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Verdun was a patch of defensible terrain between the German border and Paris that was then heavily fortified. That fortress system ended up anchoring a 90 degree bend in the French lines. Get you some good maps, you'll see that it had everything the defender could want; hills for high ground, rivers as obstacles, and open plains as killing grounds. Then they stripped it of men and guns to stiffen the rest of the line and lost important pieces of the fortifications to scouting parties. Look up Fort Doaumont for the best example; a completely modern fort with great observation arcs and modern guns on disappearing carriages lost the first time the enemy scouted it because it wasn't being actively defended by its insufficient garrison. Back then, if you couldn't do it with a bayonet charge, the French Army wasn't interested in doing it. The worst failing was the shockingly insufficient logistical network. A defensive system meant to be fought by tens or hundreds of thousands of troops was fed by a single track railway and a two-lane basically dirt road. See above re: bayonets. One of the biggest WTF moments in the history of warfare was had by General Petain when he was asked to look over the state of the defenses at Verdun. He made his reputation by getting the defenses into something vaguely defensible before the Germans drove the advanced lines back on the forts, and then, yeah, shoveling men and artillery ammunition into the furnace.
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Feb 20, 2022 10:44
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Zorak of Michigan posted:None of those things are incompatible with being a total rear end in a top hat. Case study here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFJx8Z1eyzM StandardVC10 posted:2. What would be some good reading to learn more about the Mississippi River campaigns / siege of Vicksburg during the American Civil War? I know the broad strokes, but it's a little difficult to visualize who was actually doing what, where, and what the capabilities of the armies actually were. I like Catton's series on Grant: two volumes, well-written, lots of good detail, probably Catton's best scholarship. Grant Moves South covers from his taking command of the 21st Illinois Volunteer Infantry through Vicksburg. Grant Takes Command deals with his time with the Army of the Potomac all the way to the finish. https://www.amazon.com/U-S-Grant-Civil-Command-ebook/dp/B01GUO7CI2
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Mar 14, 2022 04:46
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zoux posted:I've posted an excerpt before in one of these threads, but the IJN wargaming out Midway as told by Tully in Shattered Sword is truly insane. Zimm covers that in his book on Pearl Harbor., it wasn't that bad. Tully has a common misconception that a military wargame is in any way competitive. The IJN's game on Midway was intended to get all the commanders and their staffs together to run through the actual plan as it then was, with some random and hidden elements to keep it from being completely predictable and add some 'realistic' friction. The big complaint is about putting the sunken carrier back in the game. Well of course they did, the command staff of those units have to practice the rest of the plan. That's the whole reason they showed up. I'm not saying there's no value in wargames where Kido Butai would have to try and complete the mission down two CVs, but that's not the sort of thing you have the entire leadership of the fleet spend two days on (with a carrier division's worth of senior officers sitting idly by). You give the task to some junior officers to fight it out a few times and write up some lessons learned.
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Apr 26, 2022 19:48
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