Milhist Thread: Ok, so get this: we name the army groups 1, 2 and 4...

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Milhist Thread: Ok, so get this: we name the army groups 1, 2 and 4...

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Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

Hello new thread!
Didn't catch up with the old one and this was probably covered but did we have a discussion of the recent military history of Ethiopia? I was curious what the current conflict looks like and why it's apparently due to something dating back to the civil war.

# ¿ Dec 6, 2020 23:35

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 12:11

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

Panzeh posted:

The US even experimented with having the HQ element of an armored cavalry squadron in Vietnam be airmobile to allow maximum flexibility in its positioning during dispersed operations.

That's pretty interesting what did it involve?

# ¿ Dec 9, 2020 02:37

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

Does anyone have good reading on the First Congo war? I'm mostly curious how all the various players got mixed up with it.

# ¿ Dec 15, 2020 02:15

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

poisonpill posted:

Why do so many African armies still have huge airborne contingents? Geography?

Re to this: Who has the most competent army in sub Saharan Africa?

# ¿ Dec 16, 2020 17:27

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

SlothfulCobra posted:

Was the Maginot Line socially disruptive at all? Any local communities get disrupted or something like that?

And did they find any uses for the facilities after the war?

Didn't the french reoccupy for it a while?
Also I know they rebuilt and reused one of the bunkers and a nuclear command bunker.

# ¿ Dec 17, 2020 03:49

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

I remember reading that the french were hesitant to launch air attacks into Germany. Were their bombers bad or did they fear reprisal/high losses?

# ¿ Dec 18, 2020 02:51

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

Tangential to WWI does anyone have good reading about the Balkan wars before it?

# ¿ Dec 18, 2020 22:33

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

Platystemon posted:

There were Gyrojets.

The gun is a dumb tube with a trigger and a barrel only good enough to get the projectile going in the right direction.

The projectile is a small rocket that propels and spins itself.

Gyrojets are genuinely one of my favorite weird guns because they are excellent fodder for scifi weapons.

# ¿ Dec 24, 2020 21:00

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

I mean like if they actually stopped the boats that would have probably been it except maybe some "gently caress you" revenge bombings or something.
Thatchers government falls almost certainly and maybe Labour gets a turn in government before Major or whoever claws their back to the top. I doubt that the Junta actually lasts much longer than in reality especially if the UN or US intervenes and makes them look weak. I also don't think it would result in like the UK getting ejected from NATO but it would almost certainly have an effect on all future ship designs to deal with Anti-ship missiles.

# ¿ Dec 30, 2020 17:08

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

Acebuckeye13 posted:

The US likely wouldn't have let Britain lose the war. Though the US was ostensibly neutral, had Britain lost a carrier the US was prepared to give them an older US ship to replace it.

Oh wow that's crazy.

# ¿ Dec 30, 2020 17:15

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

Polyakov posted:

Whens the last time that there was any major naval combat involving a major naval power post WW2? (Or even post WW1 to be honest). Even in those where navies were fighting inferior ones they still took losses.

Argentina is stretching itself to attack the task force as it is, the falklands are not actually that close to Argentina. It realistically only has one way of preventing the UK doing what it wants and that is air attack. Its navy would get utterly demolished by SSN's if it tried to actually seek a surface action. Its not really a question of a bit more organisation it requires some serious altering.

The Falkland islands task force was around 120 ships. 60 RN, 60 civillian, the argentines would sink 7 of those and damage several more. To call that "most of" is deeply misleading (6 of around the 40 or so combat ships that were in the area were sunk (of which 2 are landing and support so not directly combat ships)). These losses are mainly focused around the Battle of San Carlos and various attacks en route using their 100 or so planes that has the range. Their operations tempo was as high as it could be attacking the RN enroute, and it had failed to make a good dent to the point where you have the battle of san Carlos. We can talk about what if they had hit a carrier sure, but thats not really likely to happen, the reason Sheffield got hit is its doing radar pickets to stop that happening, theres a lot of ground they need to cover and not get shot down to get within range of a CV which gives them an extremely high risk of getting harriered. Radar pickets by definition are not well covered by the CAP, they are there to make sure the CAP can hit the plane before it hits the important ship. Even if a carrier does get hit theres no guarantee its going to go down, Exocet is quite a light missile.

By the end of the battle of San Carlos the argentinians are out of Exocets and are having to do super low runs with dumb bombs (admittedly with some degree of success). However they have lost around a quarter of their airforce doing this because going in for a bomb attack on a modern ship is very dangerous, the RN cant deal that well with exocet attack but it can deal perfectly adequately with you having to physically drop something on them, Argentina are also suffering the usual attrition to maintainance that you get in a war as well as those being physically shot down.

The reason they are having problems with their bombs detonating is that they are having to go in super low to lose themselves in radar clutter so they dont get picked off by harriers or missiles at range, they cant go higher without suffering unsustainable air losses so the dud rate of the bombs is not really a changeable quantity.

Once we get on the island in general, Argentina cannot sustain its garrison at all, its ships cant make it past the RN's submarines even if the surface fleet isnt there. Their troops are cold, miserable and alone and really dont want to fight. If the UK gets any significant force ashore then its over for Galtieri, about half the attacks made by the UK was against the numerical odds with the rest being around parity and the Argentines generally speaking crumbled in relatively short order because their morale was gofawful. Even with the loss of more ships at San Carlos the soldiers are still there, there are more on the way (further major landings will take place over the ensuing weeks) and more support ships not in the immediate area and even if you destroy enough of the logistical tail to make a long term campaign on the Falklands difficult the Argentine army only has a couple of weeks of resistance left anyway.

Though to address your question more directly, one thing we see is intense development and deployment of CIWS like Phalanx leading to things like CRAM etc. People were aware of the danger of AShM's but it brought it into sharp focus that you cant just rely on long range missiles to stop them. There were various implications for the defence of the island itself of course but the major thing was underlining the severe danger of missiles to ships. (Backed up by later the same decade the tanker war).

A good post.
Was it possible for the Argentinians to sink the Invincible or Hermes at all?

# ¿ Dec 30, 2020 18:20

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

FrangibleCover posted:

a good post

So it really was a forgone conclusion?

# ¿ Dec 30, 2020 19:16

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

Tulip posted:

good post

this was very informative thank you!

# ¿ Jan 13, 2021 03:48

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

It still amazes me how much of a clown shoes operation Italian war industry was.

# ¿ Jan 18, 2021 17:22

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

Anyone have a good overview of the gyrojet rifle?

# ¿ Jan 20, 2021 03:58

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

Class Warcraft posted:

Yeah, I've listened to Revolutions, Dan Carlin, & History on Fire. I was hoping there was some up-and-comer or lesser-known podcast/video series/or audiobook out there.

If you want to you could also skip ahead to the history of the 20th century podcast which also goes into an ok level of detail into the early conflicts of the 20th century.

# ¿ Jan 22, 2021 04:09

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

Solaris 2.0 posted:

the original plan the German high command came up with for France was for half a million casualties to push the French to the Somme. Stalemate. Then in two years a final big push to Paris

From Wikipedia but not sure about the sourcing

I have no idea if the German population would find this acceptable. Also from reading Wages of Destruction I don’t know if the German economy could support a WWI style stalemate + blockade.

Having just finished that book I would further argue that Germany got insanely lucky that A: Stalin did not concentrate his attack on army group center during the winter counter offensive in 1942, B: that they were able to evacuate their troops from Sicily and bottle the allies in Italy after quickly occupying it and C: that the allies switched targets from the Ruhr to the Berlin area allowing them to stabilize and partially rebuild industry.

# ¿ Feb 4, 2021 02:12

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

Polyakov posted:

I mean in that situation it also assumes that german revanchist or expansionist attitude is only based in hitler, it was a sentiment held much more beyond just the one man and it would require hitler having the political capital and will to actively push against that sentiment from elsewhere.

Right taking other peoples poo poo was considered good politics by many politicians and generals in Germany and the thought was that increasing the average size of a farm plot would improve social stability in Germany.

# ¿ Feb 4, 2021 19:36

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

Nessus posted:

Adolf Hitler: Strong advocate of land reform

Well not him but a bunch of his guys under him like Backe where they plotted out exactly how they were gonna hand out all that land they were gonna conquer in the USSR and hand it out to all the good loyal Germans. You know instead of like using tractors or something because that would get in the way of having glistening Germans for propaganda or whatever. That previous post wasn't worded that well.

Lawman 0 fucked around with this message at 05:18 on Feb 5, 2021

# ¿ Feb 5, 2021 05:16

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

Xiahou Dun posted:

I guess on the most literal level he was, it's just that he was mostly advocating reforming other people's lands to be German (and reforming the people into corpses).

It's like if you said "Ted Bundy had a way with women," that'd also be true but you're leaving a giant false impression there about what that "way" was.

I mean fundamentally that agrarian impulse matters because it was part of the reason that Hitler ordered the thrust into Ukraine instead of driving towards Moscow.

# ¿ Feb 5, 2021 15:18

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

Honestly if I were fighting a dragon or something I would probably try and invent a wide angle Hwacha or organ gun and aim it st the sky.

# ¿ Feb 7, 2021 21:49

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

One of the striking things about Wages of Destruction and other narratives that reach the end of the war is the raw amount of copium the Nazi High Command and leadership were huffing. Like Speer constantly is like "oh we can still continue the war for "x" number of months/weeks and a bunch of the generals are convinced that the Soviets and Western allies will come to blows anyday now. But otoh at that point almost everyone was true believers as a bunch of the guys who knew the war was lost (after either the failure of Barbarossa or interestingly the devastating bombing of the Ruhr Valley) had already offed themselves.

# ¿ Feb 17, 2021 15:12

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

Like in some ways Japan could rationally assume that they would at least be able to inflict massive losses on a Soviet/American invasion of the home islands (since they figured out the landing sites) but Germany really was fully delusional.

# ¿ Feb 17, 2021 15:15

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

Alchenar posted:

In particular the late war superweapon stuff looks exactly like you'd expect a weapon that's been designed years-ahead-of-time because you are desperately trying to produce an ace up the sleeve for your wartime leaders and also you are missing all the raw material you'd need to make it properly and also a lot of the parts are being made by slaves.

By the end everything looks like a cobbled together first draft design because that's what they were.

Everyone should watch downfall btw.

# ¿ Feb 17, 2021 18:27

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

Weka posted:

IMO Hitler's doctor did more to stop the nazis than anyone.

Genuinely incredible quackery combined with stripping every medical cabinet in germany for the goods.

# ¿ Feb 27, 2021 23:15

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

Does anyone have a link to those Iran-Iraq war effort posts? They were last thread right?
Edit: Found one
https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3785167&pagenumber=542&perpage=40&userid=0#post474849107

Lawman 0 fucked around with this message at 03:49 on Mar 5, 2021

# ¿ Mar 5, 2021 03:27

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

Neophyte posted:

The US invades and occupies Spain to use as a base of operations.

Honestly that probably wouldn't be too hard.

# ¿ Mar 10, 2021 03:46

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

P-Mack posted:

I mean, the military situation for the KMT was completely and utterly hopeless, so it's not completely unreasonable to think that something like Wang Jingwei's defection could have had more internal support than it historically did. Now what this theoretical functional Reorganized government that is sufficiently stable and aligned with Japanese interests that they can meaningfully withdraw their occupying forces actually looks like, I don't know, and I don't think they did either.

It still amazes that they actually managed to hold on honestly.

# ¿ Mar 10, 2021 17:17

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

Grumio posted:

Thanks for this write up. The Wages of Destruction II: Showa edition would make for a very interesting read

*astronaut meme voice* it was all about lacking oil?

# ¿ Mar 10, 2021 22:37

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

Hey what can you guys tell me medieval irish warfare before the English conquest? Was it particularly small scale? Did it involve way more people than you expected? Also did the Irish get mixed up in continental politics at all?

# ¿ Mar 11, 2021 23:43

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

Iirc isn't it a very unflattering portrayal of Mattis?

# ¿ Mar 22, 2021 04:16

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

So what got the most stuka kills then?

# ¿ Mar 24, 2021 00:49

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

Did the italians have a plan to try and block the Suez canal in ww2?

# ¿ Mar 27, 2021 20:45

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

Could the central powers done anything after the capitulation of Russia in ww1 to change the outcome of the war?

# ¿ Apr 2, 2021 17:52

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

PittTheElder posted:

Probably not. By that point America is in the war meaning the Western powers will have the manpower to grind Germany down sooner or later, the blockade is proving ruinous, the Ottomans are on the ropes, and Austria-Hungary has been barely keeping it together for two years.

The big counterfactuals at that point are "could the Spring Offensive have worked?" and "could they have beaten the blockade by pulling more resources out of former Russian territory?" The consensus on both of those seems to be no.

A negotiated end to the war is likewise implausible, the domestic political cost of not winning the war was so high that no major power could really consider it.

I mean I was looking at the Battle of Caporetto and going "I guess they could have knocked out Italy?"
Edit: Honestly I remember reading stuff about the eastern occupation and it seemed like a general net drain on the central powers and it amazes me that they didn't learn anything from it.

Lawman 0 fucked around with this message at 18:29 on Apr 2, 2021

# ¿ Apr 2, 2021 18:25

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

PittTheElder posted:

Sort of. Each of the Central Powers knew they had lost (despite the Stab in the Back meme in the post-war), and the treaties essentially are the Allies dictating terms to the Central Powers. The peace conferences were more a negotiation between the victors than a negotiation with the defeated.

Maybe, but it's unlikely. British and French troops had a whole other defensive line behind the Italian one that stopped the Austro-German offensive. And even if they do there's now a French army storming up through Serbia.

And yeah the experience of trying to get stuff out of food massively shapes the German occupation during WW2. It gets talked about a bunch, though I don't actually remember many of the details.

Ok well I got my timeline mixed up then.

# ¿ Apr 2, 2021 19:27

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

Neophyte posted:

Y'all should stop making repetitive jokes and talk about actual milhist like the Battle of the Isonzo.

Hey so serious question (don't laugh) why didn't Italy try and force a crossing of the Adriatic instead?

# ¿ Apr 23, 2021 13:45

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

I was genuinely unaware that the Japanese had proper landing boats.

# ¿ Apr 23, 2021 23:26

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

SlothfulCobra posted:

I think sometimes people focus too much on the Spanish having guns and not enough on how they had armor that obsidian blades would just chip on, or horses (at least, sometimes) to give individual men way more mobility than anyone in the New World had ever dealt with before.

The technological advantage still wasn't the only thing the Spaniards had going for them, but what technological advantages they were.

Right because we have descriptions of their obsidian blades decapitating horses but having a hard time piercing the armor unless they got into an exposed point. Also I would count crossbows as another advantage especially because presumably it would be easier to make new quarrels.

# ¿ May 15, 2021 17:23

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 12:11

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

Didn't the Inca have metal maces?

# ¿ May 16, 2021 01:20

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Milhist Thread: Ok, so get this: we name the army groups 1, 2 and 4...

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