Thomamelas posted:

There there a particular war you have interest in? Different wars and even different theaters in a war may result in different experiences. If you're trying to get a feel for the day to day experience of war, then memoirs will be the way to go. Poilu is a thread favorite. There are collections like The Unwomanly Face of War which is about the experience of Soviet women serving on the front lines in WWII. Generation Kill was written by a reported embedded with a Marine unit during the invasion of Iraq.

Cyrano4747 posted:

That's the Battle of Hougoumont. You'll also see it called an "action" a "defense" etc. The tl;dr is that it was the focal point of the attacks on the British right flank. It was a chateau that wellington used to anchor that side of his line by basically turning it into a little fort. You couldn't attack the center without taking fire from the chateau, and assaulting the chateau would be a loving chore.

In the end, the French assaulted it with the idea of drawing Wellington's reinforcements there and then hitting his left flank. It was a grinding bloodbath for most of the day, including poo poo like French assault teams breaching the walls wielding axes, the british locking the door behind them, and then being exterminated in brutal hand to hand fighting. Reading accounts of it sounds more like something out of Verdun than anything else.

Tulip posted:

Depends on your notion of "most" and "mainstream."

Saint Celestine posted:

Which allies specifically? An SS man would not be having a good time on the Eastern front.

Alchenar posted:

Also it was assumed to take two years to gear up manufacturing and produce the war material necessary to defeat Germany on the ground, as well as train up the divisions that would do the work.

By 1938 it is the correct war plan because it is the only viable option. I disagree that planners were complacent about the fall of Poland, plently of contemporary accounts from British and French army officers make it plain that they know they aren't 'fighting fit' and the Germans are and that this is a massive problem for them. You probably have to go all the way back to 1933 and have Britain/France match German rearmament step-for-step for a different plan to make sense.

Weka posted:

When did the USA's military change it's policy of not torturing prisoners for information?

Weka posted:

I'm pretty sure they would have tortured the heck out of nazis if they thought it would get results, I'm coming at this from the angle of accepted best practice for gaining information.

fartknocker posted:

Don’t forget the M1 Carbine and M1 Submachine Gun!

For insane numbering schemes, some the Air Corps/Navy ones for aircraft are just when you are first trying to learn some stuff.

Alchenar posted:

Yeah the problem with Vietnam was the same as in Afghanistan - if your war goal is to prop up a client regime and the client regime knows this, it has very little incentive to reform. In fact it often has negative incentives to never become able to stand on it's own feet because then your subsidies might go away.

Terrifying Effigies posted:

MikeCrotch posted:

Fun fact: a very real and dangerous risk of recumbent bicycles is "thigh suck"