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I think those are training craft, but I might be wrong.
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Nov 23, 2010 12:27
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HeroOfTheRevolution posted:I think those are training craft, but I might be wrong. Nope: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_mustang
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Nov 23, 2010 12:41
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Zorak of Michigan posted:The tank implied a solution but couldn't deliver yet. The machines of 1918 were too slow, too poorly armored, too unreliable, and too hard to control to provide the sort of massive breakthrough required to unhinge the defensive lines of the western front. Instead they generally created local successes and then broke down, ran out of gas, threw a track, etc, and the attack began to peter out. Improving technology eventually solved all those problems, of course. Mechanical reliability is still a problem with tanks, even to this day, but especially in World War II. For example, after the Germans conquered Poland, most of their tanks had to be repaired and refitted to get running again. During a Soviet counterattack in the summer of 1941, the Soviets lost two fifths of their tank strength to mechanical failure. Tanks have an enormous amount of weight and moving parts that are prone to failure, and the less they have to drive, the better, which is one of the limiting factors in 'blitzkrieg'.
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Nov 23, 2010 18:47
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Just found the documentary I mentioned earlier. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttm_vmyuiSo&feature=related 4:25 onwards shows the Creeping Barrage, goto to 7:20 for the debut of the tank (although the whole things worth a watch).
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Nov 23, 2010 19:19
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Grand Prize Winner posted:Agreed. Can you tell us anything about the role of the Ottoman Empire in WWI? It has been a while since I've read anything on this but I'll contribute what I know; I do know that that there have been a couple of very well regarded books about it published very recently (the ridiculously expensive Erickson book is most prominent, plus The Ottoman Army 1914-1918: Disease and Death on the Battlefield work which has gotten a lot of attention as a study on battlefield disease), but I've not read either. The Ottoman's had a really important role in bringing on WWI; in fact, their Balkan campaigns during 1912-1913 very directly set the stage for the Serbian nationalist movements that eventually resulted in the assassination of the Archduke. In a broader sense, they held an enormous amount of influence over trade in the Black and Mediterranean seas, which made them a point of focus to both the Brits and the Russians (and eventually the Germans), and this contributed a lot to the tension that arose between them in the years leading up to the war. Anyway, to preface a bit, the Ottoman Empire was, in my opinion at least, the most powerful and influential empire in the world from the time they took Constantinople until roughly the early 19th century; they didn't really respond well to the changes in the global economy from the industrial revolution, and at the same time a bunch of their imperial territories (especially in Europe) started getting all uppity. This ultimately resulted in the Young Turk Revolution in 1908, which essentially ended absolutism in the Empire. There were several more revolutions/coups throughout the next few years which further undermined Ottoman authority, and their loss in the Italo-Turkish War doomed the Young Turk government and made all their European holdings all uppity. This in turn resulted in the First Balkan War, which was basically the Ottoman European holdings breaking away from Ottoman rule. Anyway, to summarize this, the flashpoint of WWI was a result of Balkan (Serbian) nationalism, and this in turn was a direct result of the decline of the Ottoman Empire. I've heard an interesting argument that if the UK/France had taken more of an interest in supporting the Ottomans rather than undermining them that this Balkan clusterfuck wouldn't have happened and thus WWI would have looked totally different, which is an interesting notion. Now, looking at the eve of WWI, in general, the Ottomans were viewed as a dying empire with a lot of valuable potential colonies, and perhaps most importantly, control of the Dardanelles and Bosphorus. Specifically, the major powers thought the following about the Ottomans: UK: collapsing empire with lucrative holdings in the Mediterranean; responded by "peacefully occupying" some territories and the Ottomans couldn't do anything about it France: didn't really give a poo poo except for a strange interest in Armenia which was driven mostly by Armenian immigrants, and also the Russians hated the Ottomans and they were France's closest ally Germany: wanted a close relationship with the Ottomans as they saw the building of a railway through Turkey and the Persian Gulf region as a key colonial expansion project and also as a way of pissing off Russia Russia: really hated them because they held their Black Sea trade by the nuts and also they had been fighting constantly for 300 years US: completely disinterested, never even bothered to declare war on them Initally the Ottomans couldn't decide whether they wanted to be friends with the Entente or the Germans; honestly they probably would have been better off with the Entente but they liked pissing off the Russians so much (by my count the Russians and the Turks fought 16 separate wars between 1500 and WWI) that they decided the Germans would be better buds. This also gave them a chance to try and regain some territory they had lost to Russia in the Caucasus nearly a century before (Turks never forget) in the event that Russia and Germany threw down, though the Turks actually weren't really itching for another war just yet (they'd just lost a couple in a row and their government and military wasn't particularly stable at the time). This made the Germans happy. From the German perspective, they had gained a very useful ally: the Turks would almost certainly open up another front on the Russians in the event the eastern war broke out; they would strangle Russian trade in the Black Sea, and they ensured Austria's southern flank was secure. The Germans started work on their railroad and started helping the Turks with their navy (the Turks really, really wanted a modern navy) and their army, and the Turks started harrassing Russia almost immediately by restricting traffic out of the Black Sea, among other things (this also made the Germans very happy). The Ottomans also liked the arrangement; they got a European superpower to help them with their military, it looked like they were going to get another chance to tangle with Russia, and all of those stupid uppity Balkan states now had the elephants of Austria-Hungary and Germany to worry about as they continued to try and move towards independence. One of the more amusing episodes of the war kicked off hostilities between the Ottomans and Russia: two German ships that had been given to the Ottomans (but were still captained and crewed by Germans) started shelling a Russian port without any sort of order from the Ottomans. It has been speculated that both the Russians and the Ottomans may have wanted to avoid hostilities, but the Germans kind of forced their hands with this action. Throughout the rest of the war their results were somewhat mixed militarily. In his book, Erickson argues that the Ottoman military was a lot more effective than we give it credit for, but for some reason he didn't examine the Caucusus campaign which was a military disaster on par with anything in history. The Turks did extremely well at Gallipoli, and indeed pretty much everywhere else they fought the western Allies on the subcontinent, but taking on the Russians in the Caucusus they were absolutely slaughted, both by the usually incompetent Russian military and by horribly poor planning that left their armies in the mountains in winter without clothes or food (unsurpisingly most of this army died of disease and exposure). They also did very poorly against the British and friends in Palestine and Iraq, most prominently losing the Arab Revolt in pretty embarassing fashion. Ultimately, they really didn't do a whole lot in the greater context of the war; their campaigns against Russia did next to nothing, they pissed off the British a lot (and got Churchill fired) but ultimately lost most of their territory to the Brits, they contributed comparatively little to the war effort in Europe, and eventually they just decided that killing their own people was easier than killing the enemy. To that end, let's discuss the Armenian Genocide, which continues to be one of the more repugnant and intriguing events in all of history. If you're not familiar with the events, a quick synopsis: after the Ottoman army was destroyed in the Caucusus, Armenians (both Turkish and Russian) started arming themselves to defend against both Russian and Turkish armies who had been fighting across their homeland for almost two years. The Ottomans didn't like this and started actively trying to undermine what they thought was some sort of rebellion/treason by rounding up "threatening persons" (literate people), this eventually turned into a rounding up of every Armenian they could find living in Turkey who were then either shot, burned, gassed, or marched to death, or if they were lucky they were worked to death in exterminatinon camps. Proportionally it was significantly worse than the Holocaust (low-end estimates are half the Armenian population was murdered, most estimates put it at closer to 2/3rds), yet Obama won't call it a genocide because of I don't know. Also, with the fact that Turkey to this day refuses to acknowledge the Ottomans' actions makes me dislike them, a lot. Anyway, to conclude, you could write a dissertation on what happened after the war; I'll keep it short and just note that a lot of the issues we have with territory in the middle east were borne from decisions made in partitioning the Ottoman empire.
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Nov 23, 2010 19:35
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Panzeh posted:Mechanical reliability is still a problem with tanks, even to this day, but especially in World War II. For example, after the Germans conquered Poland, most of their tanks had to be repaired and refitted to get running again. During a Soviet counterattack in the summer of 1941, the Soviets lost two fifths of their tank strength to mechanical failure. Yep, it's just a question of degree and scale. If a tank formation can attack until you've secured a breakthrough and have relieved the armored spearhead with infantry, you have a viable weapon. If enough tanks break down while the tanks are still on the front line, you have a problem. I seem to recall that this contributed mightily to Allied unreadiness during the Battle of the Bulge. When they say "this was a quiet sector and the troops weren't ready," it doesn't mean the troops were idiots who didn't post sentries. It means (among other things) that equipment badly in need of an overhaul was sent to such supposedly-quiet areas where they'd have more time to do maintenance. It's a great plan until you hear enemy panzers and your own tank's transmission is a few yards aware from the tank.
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Nov 23, 2010 19:53
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BeigeJacket posted:How much did the introduction of the tank affect the nature of the war? There was a BBC drama-documentary about the sommme a while back which posited that 'massed' tanks and the creeping barrage (which you disparaged in your previous post) were game-changing and effective devlopments after British command were forced to change their tactics. I'm of the opinion that tanks really did not alter much at all in the first war. The main reasons for this have been touched on (mechanical reliability, unbeliveably awful to operate, etc); another key point is that they were simply not used effectively. Armor is most effective when it is allowed to move quickly into rear areas while supported by equally mobile infantry; armor as it was used in WWI was more like a semi mobile land battleship that plodded along with dismounted infantry. More than anything they were just used as sort of portable fire support, which can be accomplished just as easily by a light machine gun and light mortar section. In addition, moving as slow as they did eventually made the British tanks horribly vulnerable (their armor was really quite thin and once the Germans figured this out their attrition rate was very high). As for the creeping barrage, if it was executed well it could work fine as a suppressive element, but it really wasn't because of the "creeping" part: the important factor was timing the barrage with the attack of the infantry. This could be accomplished just as easily with a concentrated barrage on a single point, and without the unintended effects of warning the enemy of an impending attack.
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Nov 23, 2010 21:38
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bewbies posted:The evolved infiltration tactics that the Germans very nearly won the war with went something like this: I often find that there is a tendency to overrate German achievements in connection with the territorial gains they achieved in March 1918. Putting aside the fact that these operations did not bring victory, that the Ludendorff offensives left the German army in a worse position strategically than it had been in at the beginning of the year, and that the Germans were only able to retrain a small part of their formations in the new stormtrooper doctrine, these tactics were also unable to significantly negate the defender's firepower advantage and were therefore doomed to fail. I think Holger Herwig's comment that the attack on 21 March was more of a gambler's desperate last throw of the dice that a well conceived and integrated operation that had any chance at victory is the most accurate assessment. The storm troopers relied on mass, manoeuvre and portable firepower to negotiate the enemy's defences. However, the German army of 1918 did not have the technical sophistication, equipment and training to neutralize British defensive strength completely through these means. Furthermore, the German gunners were particularly deficient at counter-battery fire and were not nearly as adept as the British at locating and neutralizing the enemy's artillery. The gains against Gough's Fifth Army in March were indeed large, and did cause tremendous concern among the Allied leaders, but once the situation stabilized they also became meaningless as the Germans had struck against an overextended defender protecting a strategically unimportant zone. The real test of the new German tactics came in Flanders in April when they made a similar effort against the much stronger British defences that guarded the channel ports. Then the inability of the Germans to master British firepower soon resulted in the collapse of the attack, its failure revealed the feebleness of their bid for victory. Historians are therefore wrong to give too much credit to German tactical genius and overlook British accomplishments, especially if, by comparison, one considers how easily the British Commonwealth forces penetrated the Hundenburg Line- the strongest defensive position on the western front- and within a few hours made the position untenable for the Germans
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Nov 23, 2010 23:36
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Did British politicians actually care about Belgian neutrality, or was it a fake outrage to rile up the public? Would Britain have joined the war eventually anyway? What exactly would Germany have done if they had knocked out France in a few weeks or months? also this: http://angusmcleod.deviantart.com/art/World-War-One-Simple-Version-128505446 OctaviusBeaver fucked around with this message at 02:30 on Nov 24, 2010 |
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Nov 24, 2010 02:26
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MagneticWombats posted:Can you talk more about the evolution from lines to smaller group infantry tactics? Until the mid-19th century firearms were too inaccurate and slow to reload to be efficiently used by individuals or even small groups. Muskets were ineffective against point targets (e.g. a single man), only against area targets (e.g. a bunch of men). The only way to reliably inflict casualties on the enemy was to put large numbers of bullets into an area quickly, which given the technology, was only possible by mass numbers of musketeers formed up in close order. Close order drill also allowed large groups of men to be efficiently commanded by primitive means (flags, fifes, drums, and officers leading from the front), to keep up a higher rate of fire through firing by ranks, to resist cavalry by presenting a solid wall of bayonets, and to apply their numbers more effectively if the battle turned to melee. This picture began to change in the mid-19th century, with the adoption of muzzle-loading rifles and the conical Minie ball. An individual rifleman in the American Civil War could hit a point target as far as 300 yards with the standard-issue rifle, though I don't know how many men could be relied on to do so. This made each man much more lethal, but his weapon fired no faster, and methods of command were still largely unchanged. Thus infantry still ordered themselves in lines and shot eachother up, though in the ACW they were apt to rapidly inflict severe casualties and assaulting prepared positions became much more difficult than in the Napoleonic Wars. In a bad situation Civil War rifle work could chew up a regiment with astonishing speed. The real quantum leap, however, came a bit later with breach-loading rifles, particularly the French Chassepot. The Chassepot could fire 7 to 9 shots per minute rather than the 1 or 2 available to muzzle-loading rifles, and the rifleman could reload from a prone position if necessary. It also improved over contemporary breach-loaders by firing a small bullet at a higher velocity, improving its range. In theory, the Chassepot could engage targets at 1300 yards. In practice few people can hit a man-sized target at more than 300 yards, but the potential is still there. This meant that a well-trained soldier could fire on anything within his probably line of sight, making mass formations to concentrate firepower unnecessary. They were in fact a liability, because if a man on the battlefield presented an easily visible point target, he could be targeted by rapid-firing and accurate rifle fire from all over the battlefield. A group of men was even worse off. Still, French techniques of commanding infantry had not advanced to the point where these weapons could be used to their full potential. Ironically the Prussians were ahead in this regard, in spite of their more primitive weapons. After their defeats in the Napoleonic Wars the Prussians had realized that in order to compete militarily with more populous states, they had to field a larger proportion of their population. This led to the creation of the first modern military reserve system, in which men of military age were required to serve a short term in the military before returning to civilian life, until time of war, in which case they were called back up. This flew in the face of popular military theory, which held that only professional forces with discipline and elan maintained by constant drill and service could be effective on the battlefield. Forces would slug it out before closing to settle the fight with bayonets. Prussian reservists would not have the training or morale to survive this kind of engagement. This is in fact one major reason that the lessons of attritional warfare from the American Civil War were not retained, because the armies that fought in the ACW were unprofessional mass armies of hastily trained volunteers and conscripts. To compensate for the supposed deficiencies of their forces, the Prussians developed tactics that relied on maneuver and superior numbers rather than discipline and elan. Columns of Prussian soldiers moved independently to envelop enemy strongpoints, which would be surrounded and then reduced with the aid of breach-loading artillery (described below). Most battles unfolded with the French troops fixed and immobile while the rapidly moving Prussians outmaneuvered and destroyed them. When the Prussians were caught in a situation that favored the Chassepot's advantages, they took serious casualties, but the balance favored them heavily. The lethality of the battlefield reached an apogee in WWI. Magazine-fed bolt action rifles in common issue could fire 15-20 rounds per minute, accurate and lethal to 1000 yards (though in practice such ranges are mostly impractical). Defensive positions were equipped with machineguns with similar range and accuracy that could fire continuously. Artillery had become extremely lethal. Basically if you could be seen by the enemy, you would most likely be killed immediately, and the weapons in action could kill a group of dozens of men in seconds if they were assembled together. Cover and concealment were of paramount importance, and survival on the battlefield depended on each infantryman being able to operate autonomously as part of his unit. Training and doctrine had not exactly caught up to this reality, however, and officers didn't quite know how they would command dispersed groups of men. For the Somme offensive, the British soldiers were trained to advance in line at a specific rate of speed, so they could keep order and stay just behind the barrage. As bewbies explained, infiltration tactics developed to solve the problem of newly lethal weapons. Soldiers were organized into smaller fireteams, the members of which operated together but autonomously, so as not to present a single target. Soldiers had to be trained to work as an integral unit, but with individual initiative to seek cover and exploit opportunities. quote:And the changes in the use of artillery? Artillery advanced continuously during the 19th century. From the smoothbore field guns of the Napoleonic Wars, by midcentury armies were deploying rifled guns which could be fired quite accurately. They were still muzzle-loading, however, which meant they had a low rate of fire. The Krupp company in Prussia developed steel breach loading artillery by the Franco-Prussian war, which could fire more quickly, more accurately, and to a much longer range than its muzzle-loading predecessors. This artillery superiority played a major role in the Prussian victory, because their artillery could inflict mass damage from outside the range of French retaliation. In the couple decades before WWI, guns had sufficient range for indirect fire--basically shooting at a high trajectory to arc over obstacles and hit targets the gunner could not directly observe--and militaries developed training and doctrine for it. This allowed guns to be fired from behind cover, and to hit people at long range who were behind their own cover. Improved shells were also developed. Things like high explosive shells, shrapnel rounds timed to detonate over the enemy's head to shower him with lethal fragments, etc. More than anything else, artillery made movement in the open suicidal. The big change from WWI was that from that point on firepower totally controlled the battlefield space. Movement exposes soldiers to enemy fire, unless something is done to suppress the enemy's firepower--typically this entails using your own firepower to dissuade him from exposing himself by shooting at you. A squad moving 20 feet across a street in the face of enemy opposition could require hundreds of bullets to be fired to suppress the enemy, to survive even that little hop. You fire at the enemy to suppress him until he can't stop you maneuvering into a position from which he can be destroyed. quote:Basically the stuff that takes us from Napoleon to World War I if possible. I know stuff like the needle gun were important but when did people realize that "welp, now that we can shoot really fast and accurately maybe we DON'T need to be in a line!". As I said, a big factor in this was officers not knowing how they would command men if they were dispersed around a battlefield and couldn't see their officers or each other. At first they hoped to retain the system of junior officers leading groups of men from the front, by so overwhelming the enemy with shelling that he couldn't retaliate, but it didn't work. It was well into WWI before it was discovered that it was no longer possible to do it that way, and soldiers simply had to be trained for individual initiative. It is actually pretty hard to adapt to a completely new military paradigm, and the effectiveness of the Germans in WWI had a lot to do with the fact that they had a seasoned and innovative general staff and their doctrine even before the war was built around heavy firepower. They were better positioned than their enemies to adapt. quote:You also mentioned that modern artillery was the biggest new factor in WWI so how was it used more differently? Massive indirect fire. Say you launched an infantry attack on the enemy trench. The enemy could telegraph back and tell and an artillery battery five miles away behind a hill what was happening, and the gunners dial in the range and fill the entire pasture containing your unit with bits of metal whizzing around like supersonic razorblades. Also the huge number of shells produced by coordinated industrial action allowed armies to do crazy stuff like making parts of France look like the moon with HE shells. Your attack can only even dream about success if it's preceded by an artillery bombardment of its own to suppress the enemy, cut their telegraph cable to prevent them calling in the guns, and possibly even shooting at the enemy battery to suppress it directly (if you're lucky enough to know where it is). Artillery completely dominated the battlefield in WWI. Nobody moved without a pile of shells being fired, and it generated by far the most casualties.
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Nov 24, 2010 06:54
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Hiridion posted:I often find that there is a tendency to overrate German achievements in connection with the territorial gains they achieved in March 1918. Putting aside the fact that these operations did not bring victory, that the Ludendorff offensives left the German army in a worse position strategically than it had been in at the beginning of the year, and that the Germans were only able to retrain a small part of their formations in the new stormtrooper doctrine, these tactics were also unable to significantly negate the defender's firepower advantage and were therefore doomed to fail. I think Holger Herwig's comment that the attack on 21 March was more of a gambler's desperate last throw of the dice that a well conceived and integrated operation that had any chance at victory is the most accurate assessment.
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Nov 24, 2010 09:28
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bewbies posted:This in turn resulted in the First Balkan War, which was basically the Ottoman European holdings breaking away from Ottoman rule. Well, it was more about former Ottoman holdings trying to break away what little the Ottomans had left in the Balkans, specifically Macedonia and Thrace. It was also about Bulgaria trying to flex its muscles as a potential great power in the region, as well as trying to free poor oppressed Macedonians who they considered to be ethnically Bulgarian from the Turkish yoke, having been drawn into the conflict by the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization, a Bulgarian insurgent and terrorist organization dedicated to freeing Macedonia (and the subject of my current Fulbright research) whose cadres were organized on a similar line and tactics were very similar to AQ/Taliban in Afghanistan. Then Bulgaria bit off more they could chew and attacking all their former allies to try to gain all of Macedonia rather than the small part they got, and instead losing all of Thrace and Macedonia to the Turks, Greeks, and Serbs and all northern territory south to the Danube to Romania. They did, however, win a whole lot of hate. They already hated the Turks for being 'under the yoke' (this is the first phrase Bulgarians learn to say) for 500 years and claimed that if that had not happened they would have been the most advanced nation in Europe. Then they got to add hatred of Macedonians (well, less hate and more patronization), Romanians, Greeks, and Serbs to their list of people they didn't like. Plus, of course, the gypsies and Jews. And it was all their own fault, but I guess you need someone (everyone) to blame. Bulgaria is the ultimate  nation.
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Nov 24, 2010 11:40
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So I've read a goodly amount of this thread (which is very awesome) but haven't seen anything really on Vietnam. Or rather Indo-China. That's right, I don't really care about the US going in and Apocalypse Now, I find the French conflict there really interesting. Partly because there seemed to be a much greater effort to involve the Vietnamese themselves, viewing the conflict as an insurgency against the colonial government rather than one between different nations, and partly because it just doesn't get that much attention. Oh and because of Dien Bien Phu, which saw one of the largest, and also the last, combat air drops. It also featured (I believe) the last time a Western artillery commander ordered barrels lowered to fire and stuff like commanders calling strikes on their own position as they're over run. From the point of view of war porn there was a lot of amazing stuff in the battle, from the point of view of more interesting stuff it seemed like a fascinating attempt at embracing defence as offence as well as conflict between differently experienced commanders. Supposedly the paratroop officers staged a coup during the battle, taking command from the Armoured colonel who simply wasn't experienced in directing and utilising small forces and static defence. It's also fascinating to me because it featured a total reversal of what many would expect of battles featuring colonial armies and 'insurgents'. The French maintained great mobility with the base and frequently engaged in hit and run tactics as well as being hugely outnumbered. The Vietnamese in contrast used numbers as much as they could and largely engaged in huge set piece assaults they had drilled a few times prior. I suppose my question regarding the conflict is how the French philosophy of facing the enemy by creating strategic bases they would have to assault was regarded. Was Dien Bien Phu a tactical and strategic failure? That is, while they lost, the victory came at an enormous cost to the Vietnamese. Aside from the political fallout was it really ever likely to be a viable and successful tactic? Or did the French simply choose very poorly (a site surrounded by mountains that the Vietnamese were able to use to set up artillery) and sabotage a workable strategy? The final question is really how the whole thing reflects on the image of the French military. The battle was incredibly hard fought and saw enormous sacrifice and bravery (there were a number of jumps, and far more volunteers that didn't get to jump, after most lines of supply had been blocked and it was clear the battle was going to be lost) but all people really seem to know of the battle is pictures of French soldiers surrendering from their fox holes. Why have the French got that whole surrender monkey reputation?
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Nov 24, 2010 12:46
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EvanSchenck posted:Defensive positions were equipped with machineguns with similar range and accuracy that could fire continuously. It always phases me a little to realize that "continuously" is not an exaggeration. Wikipedia says "Ian V. Hogg, in Weapons & War Machines, describes an action that took place in August, 1916, during which the British Army's 100th Company of the Machine Gun Corps fired their ten Vickers guns continuously for twelve hours. They fired a million rounds between them, using 100 new barrels, without a single breakdown." I always thought of the machine gun as a feature of modern warfare, but Maxim had nearly perfected it in 1883. For static warfare, all advances since have been in small increments. Mobile warfare requires a whole different type of weapon, though, which the Germans nearly perfected with the MG42. MrNemo posted:I suppose my question regarding the conflict is how the French philosophy of facing the enemy by creating strategic bases they would have to assault was regarded. Was Dien Bien Phu a tactical and strategic failure? That is, while they lost, the victory came at an enormous cost to the Vietnamese. Aside from the political fallout was it really ever likely to be a viable and successful tactic? Or did the French simply choose very poorly (a site surrounded by mountains that the Vietnamese were able to use to set up artillery) and sabotage a workable strategy?... Why have the French got that whole surrender monkey reputation? In WWII the French used the Dyle plan, which would have been very successful had the Germans obligingly attacked where the French expected. When the Germans failed to do so, they never formed a new coherent plan for the defense of their nation. Individual units fought bravely, but absent a viable strategy, they could not win. In their Vietnam war, the French had ... no viable strategy for defeating the Viet Minh. As with the US when we got involved, they failed to understand that the Vietnamese will to unify their nation greatly exceeded any Western power's will to be there. Again, individual units fought bravely and well, and again, their sacrifice was squandered. I'd be a surrender monkey myself if I knew that my high command's approach to military-political strategy could be be summarized by the proverbial Gallic shrug.
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Nov 24, 2010 16:27
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bewbies posted:To that end, let's discuss the Armenian Genocide, which continues to be one of the more repugnant and intriguing events in all of history. If you're not familiar with the events, a quick synopsis: after the Ottoman army was destroyed in the Caucusus, Armenians (both Turkish and Russian) started arming themselves to defend against both Russian and Turkish armies who had been fighting across their homeland for almost two years. The Ottomans didn't like this and started actively trying to undermine what they thought was some sort of rebellion/treason by rounding up "threatening persons" (literate people), this eventually turned into a rounding up of every Armenian they could find living in Turkey who were then either shot, burned, gassed, or marched to death, or if they were lucky they were worked to death in exterminatinon camps. Proportionally it was significantly worse than the Holocaust (low-end estimates are half the Armenian population was murdered, most estimates put it at closer to 2/3rds), yet Obama won't call it a genocide because of I don't know. Also, with the fact that Turkey to this day refuses to acknowledge the Ottomans' actions makes me dislike them, a lot. Turkey got a clean sheet in signing of the Lausanne Treaty in 1923. It was agreed that the new Republic of Turkey is not responsible for the crimes of the Ottoman Empire. So, legally speaking Turkey is of the hook, as they are not responsible for anything that the Ottomans did. Turkey should not have problem discussing the Armenian genocide as it is not their doings and they are not responsible. Contrary to this assumption, modern Turkey has declined to discuss about the incident and has refused to call it a genocide. Unofficially and often in public academic discussion the Armenian genocide is acknowledged, but the issue has become entangled with ultranationalistic tendencies. If you try to start a discussion about the genocide, you will be labeled as an antiturkish unpatriotic traitor. Even the academic scholars in Turkey, who have acknowledged the Armenian genocide, wonder why the issue gets some attention, as the Lausanne treaty has already annulled the Turkish responsibility and there are other genocides going on all the time around the world.
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Nov 24, 2010 21:51
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Wouldn't it be great if you could brutally murder someone in cold blood then head down to the county courthouse to change your name and in doing so have all sins forgiven? I think most rational people think its pretty egregious that Turkey doesn't acknowledge what happened at all. Lausanne even gives them an out, a 'hey that was the Ottomans, not us!' But they never took it. Legal speak in this case doesn't matter, not to the Armenian government nor to world public opinion. And the 'there are other genocides' argument is pretty bad considering how it was precedent that was set for ignoring genocides in the first place. HeroOfTheRevolution fucked around with this message at 02:31 on Nov 25, 2010 |
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Nov 25, 2010 02:29
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How much was the superiority of the USA at the end of WW2 the result of pure economic/resources availability/manpower/strategic location and how much of brilliant scientists/engineers, great generals/admirals, and innovative doctrines/tactics?
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Nov 25, 2010 04:23
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Has anyone read the compilation book "The Collected What If"? http://www.amazon.com/Collected-What-If-Robert-Cowley/dp/B001G7RBAS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1290655797&sr=8-1 It has been in the bargain section in Borders for many months and it looks interesting. But how much of it is just arm chair general bullshit?
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Nov 25, 2010 04:31
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:Has anyone read the compilation book "The Collected What If"? I have the first one and it is complete crap. Totally unrealistic bullshit. I remember one of them was about how if Winston Churchill had been killed by getting hit by a car the Germans would have won in Europe and then they would invade South America and the US would have to fight them there.
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Nov 25, 2010 07:19
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:Has anyone read the compilation book "The Collected What If"? I picked it up in the bargains section at Borders looking for a read on an airplane. It was interesting, if mostly fanciful. Some of them are pretty ridiculous, but ones that deal with just localized events are pretty interesting. For example, what would happen if Eisenhower had insisted on a blitz to Berlin to beat the Soviets there rather than advancing along a broad front. Most of them are written by academics, several of them pretty well-regarded names in the field. It's worth picking up for a light history read, occasionally there's bits of little-known history before they start throwing the counterfactual around, which is where it's entertaining more than educational
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Nov 25, 2010 09:44
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HeroOfTheRevolution posted:Wouldn't it be great if you could brutally murder someone in cold blood then head down to the county courthouse to change your name and in doing so have all sins forgiven? Given that the people who ended up governing the Republic were not at all aligned with or related to the people who governed the Ottomans, I don't see how your comparison is relevant.
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Nov 25, 2010 13:30
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HeroOfTheRevolution posted:I picked it up in the bargains section at Borders looking for a read on an airplane. It was interesting, if mostly fanciful. Some of them are pretty ridiculous, but ones that deal with just localized events are pretty interesting. For example, what would happen if Eisenhower had insisted on a blitz to Berlin to beat the Soviets there rather than advancing along a broad front. The Berlin one was written by Caleb Carr. I find his reasoning specious.
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Nov 25, 2010 15:19
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OperaMouse posted:How much was the superiority of the USA at the end of WW2 the result of pure economic/resources availability/manpower/strategic location and how much of brilliant scientists/engineers, great generals/admirals, and innovative doctrines/tactics? Approximately 57,3% and 43,7%, respectively.
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Nov 25, 2010 16:56
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QuentinCompson posted:Given that the people who ended up governing the Republic were not at all aligned with or related to the people who governed the Ottomans, I don't see how your comparison is relevant. You're, to a point, barking up the wrong tree. I'm going to speak from the position of ignoring the involvement of Şükrü Kaya in the genocide and the government of the republic, since that is not the real issue. Just because a few of the key architects were assassinated or ousted doesn't mean all the menials, the concentration camp commanders, etc. suffered the same fate. They were mostly soldiers, and many of them survived to live regular lives in the republic. The Turks being as nationalistic as they are, have a real problem acknowledging that their parents, their grandparents, were involved in such a hideous act. Hell, the Erzurum massacre not only involved soldiers but had popular involvement as well. The comparison is wholly relevant. As an aside the Russian Imperial Army was actually a pretty decent fighting force at a few points in the war, and consistently in the Caucasus. Not German quality but not too shabby. I'll write more about this at a later date. Rodrigo Diaz fucked around with this message at 17:10 on Nov 25, 2010 |
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Nov 25, 2010 17:05
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OperaMouse posted:How much was the superiority of the USA at the end of WW2 the result of pure economic/resources availability/manpower/strategic location and how much of brilliant scientists/engineers, great generals/admirals, and innovative doctrines/tactics? What kind of answer could this possibly have? All those factors are hopelessly intertwined. Without resources, even the most brilliant engineer can't move beyond the tinkering stage. Without the right people, all our enormous resources might as well have been put to use building Curtiss Jennies. Jimmy Thach invented his eponymous aerial combat maneuver to suit the needs of Wildcat pilots. If his squadron had gone to war with F4Bs, he'd just be another name on a list of dead pilots.
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Nov 25, 2010 17:44
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QuentinCompson posted:Given that the people who ended up governing the Republic were not at all aligned with or related to the people who governed the Ottomans, I don't see how your comparison is relevant. While Rodrigo Diaz succinctly covered the rest of the argument, I'll just add that there was a large window where the Turkish Republic and Ataturk could have acknowledged the genocide and even have used it as a convincing tool, saying it was an Ottoman atrocity and not a Turkish one. That time is past. That they even refuse to officially acknowledge that it happened - despite not having any legal responsibility for it - is a very visible black mark in the eyes of the court of public opinion and in the eyes of the Armenian government. No nation is perfect (and the Turkish Republic has otherwise had a mostly benevolent history), but most have at least owned up to their mistakes or those of their predecessors.
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Nov 25, 2010 18:11
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Zorak of Michigan posted:What kind of answer could this possibly have? All those factors are hopelessly intertwined. Without resources, even the most brilliant engineer can't move beyond the tinkering stage. Without the right people, all our enormous resources might as well have been put to use building Curtiss Jennies. Jimmy Thach invented his eponymous aerial combat maneuver to suit the needs of Wildcat pilots. If his squadron had gone to war with F4Bs, he'd just be another name on a list of dead pilots. How much of Superman's powers were the result of the yellow Sun, and how much were the result of his being born on Krypton?
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Nov 26, 2010 03:05
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Godholio posted:How much of Superman's powers were the result of the yellow Sun, and how much were the result of his being born on Krypton? The US army didn't awe the rest of the world with their high quality tank German panzer by throwing 50 000 Sherman tanks at them. The pure quanitity of materiel produced and the ability to support forces all over the globe thanks to an untouched industrial base was a great advantage for the US.
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Nov 26, 2010 06:28
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lilljonas posted:The US army didn't awe the rest of the world with their high quality tank German panzer by throwing 50 000 Sherman tanks at them. The pure quanitity of materiel produced and the ability to support forces all over the globe thanks to an untouched industrial base was a great advantage for the US. Most American equipment in 1943 and beyond compared quite well to foreign equivalents. Sadly the US entered the war with a misconceived philosophy of tank employment and took far to long to realize that the Russo-German arms race had shrunk the useful lifetime of any given tank model to about eighteen months. So, while our armored tactics may have boiled down to spamming the enemy with Shermans, we also deployed an outstanding battle rifle, excellent artillery, top quality radios, good aircraft in all roles, and good ship designs in almost roles. Then we built all of the above in quantities so extreme that Hitler dismissed all estimates of American industrial power as obvious lies. Given that the M26 didn't absolutely suck or anything, it's likely that we could have deployed a much more useful tank as well, had the need been understood earlier. The downside of being able to build tanks in the tens of thousands is that you can't retool all those factories overnight.
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Nov 26, 2010 07:23
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Not sure if this is more to do with politics than military, but what do you know about the evolution into modern military flight technology? Unless it's just Canadian propaganda, the Avro Arrow was the first plane incorporating the modern triangle-shaped plane. What was the situation in aviation technology at the time, and how would this plane have fared in combat against other common aircraft of its time?
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Nov 26, 2010 08:36
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lilljonas posted:The US army didn't awe the rest of the world with their high quality tank German panzer by throwing 50 000 Sherman tanks at them. The pure quanitity of materiel produced and the ability to support forces all over the globe thanks to an untouched industrial base was a great advantage for the US. Not all German tanks were 'high quality panzers' -- the Germans were not magical tank elves or something, and in fact all medium tanks were roughly similar, most combatants having made the same decisions about tradeoffs between gun, armor, and speed. (Dimitri Loza, who commanded Shermans in the Red Army, had nothing but praise for the Sherman.) The Panther, which some classify as a medium tank, was as heavy as the M26 Pershing, and much heavier than the Sherman. While it is true that the Sherman tank was outmatched by (for example) the Tiger, it is important to remember that tank-on-tank combat was comparatively rare in the ETO. It was far more common for tanks to be used to support infantry. Given that one M26 Pershing took up the space of 2 M4 Shermans, it is possible that more Pershings could have been developed and shipped to Europe, but many more infantrymen would have died.
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Nov 26, 2010 15:17
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ungaungaunga posted:Not sure if this is more to do with politics than military, but what do you know about the evolution into modern military flight technology? Unless it's just Canadian propaganda, the Avro Arrow was the first plane incorporating the modern triangle-shaped plane. What was the situation in aviation technology at the time, and how would this plane have fared in combat against other common aircraft of its time? The Arrow wasn't the first plane with a Delta wing, I think the Germans before and during WWII had a couple experimental aircraft with Delta wings and the U.S introduced the F-102 Delta Dagger in 1956. The Arrow was designed to intercept Soviet bombers at high altitude before they came in range of the populated parts of North America. It needed to be fast in a straight line and capable of getting to high altitudes very quickly which it was exceptionally good at. However in a dogfight against a dedicated fighter it would've been an easy target as the Delta wing had a high amount of drag at low altitudes and when performing maneuvers. The Arrow was a pretty amazing airplane and it sucks that it didn't really see the light of day, however with the Sputnik and the fact the Soviets were well on their way to ballistic missiles I don't know that Canada needed an interceptor that cost $3-5 million per plane.
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Nov 26, 2010 21:09
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Comrade_Robot posted:Not all German tanks were 'high quality panzers' -- the Germans were not magical tank elves or something, and in fact all medium tanks were roughly similar, most combatants having made the same decisions about tradeoffs between gun, armor, and speed. (Dimitri Loza, who commanded Shermans in the Red Army, had nothing but praise for the Sherman.) The Panther, which some classify as a medium tank, was as heavy as the M26 Pershing, and much heavier than the Sherman. There is that quip about the first rule of gun fighting - have a gun. The Panther may have been better on paper, but the few that were built spent most of the time on the side of the road waiting for repairs or fuel. The net result was that the average German soldier went into battle equipped with exactly 0 Panthers and maybe an assault gun if he was lucky, while the average American came to the fight with enough Shermans to blot out the sun.
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Nov 27, 2010 04:32
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Throatwarbler posted:There is that quip about the first rule of gun fighting - have a gun. The Panther may have been better on paper, but the few that were built spent most of the time on the side of the road waiting for repairs or fuel. The net result was that the average German soldier went into battle equipped with exactly 0 Panthers and maybe an assault gun if he was lucky, while the average American came to the fight with enough Shermans to blot out the sun. I may be completely wrong here, but I got the impression that part of the Sherman's success vis-a-vis the heavier German Panthers and King Tigers was that the battleground in Western Europe was much more favorable to more light tanks than fewer heavy ones. Hitler seemed obsessed with creating tanks to match the Russians, without realizing that those same tanks would have most of their advantages of heavy armor and powerful guns negated in the close quarters of French towns and fields. A Panther in the wide plains of central and eastern Europe could take on many Shermans at a distance, but could never defend its flanks and rear alone in confined spaces. All the armor in the world can't help you when there's always another Sherman or bazooka-man waiting behind every corner to plink your engine while you're trying to draw a bead on the target to your front. It's very similar to the reasons the US patrols Basra or Kabul in Bradleys instead of Abrahms.
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Nov 27, 2010 11:49
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5inc posted:I may be completely wrong here, but I got the impression that part of the Sherman's success vis-a-vis the heavier German Panthers and King Tigers was that the battleground in Western Europe was much more favorable to more light tanks than fewer heavy ones. Hitler seemed obsessed with creating tanks to match the Russians, without realizing that those same tanks would have most of their advantages of heavy armor and powerful guns negated in the close quarters of French towns and fields. A Panther in the wide plains of central and eastern Europe could take on many Shermans at a distance, but could never defend its flanks and rear alone in confined spaces. All the armor in the world can't help you when there's always another Sherman or bazooka-man waiting behind every corner to plink your engine while you're trying to draw a bead on the target to your front. It's very similar to the reasons the US patrols Basra or Kabul in Bradleys instead of Abrahms. Not really, any armoured vehicle is not going to fare well in city blocks, where its mobility is restricted and is vulnerable to attack from infantry anti-tank weapons, shermans faced this exact problem as well, and they won because there were far more of them. Also, I don't see your latter point, Abrams and Bradleys are two completely different types of armoured vehicle used for different roles. An Abrams being a main battle tank, while Bradleys are armoured personnel carriers, and the US have been fielding Abrams tanks in Iraq for years, since they offer a higher level of protection and firepower than any other armoured vehicle.
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Nov 27, 2010 12:18
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5inc posted:I may be completely wrong here, but I got the impression that part of the Sherman's success vis-a-vis the heavier German Panthers and King Tigers was that the battleground in Western Europe was much more favorable to more light tanks than fewer heavy ones. Hitler seemed obsessed with creating tanks to match the Russians, without realizing that those same tanks would have most of their advantages of heavy armor and powerful guns negated in the close quarters of French towns and fields. A Panther in the wide plains of central and eastern Europe could take on many Shermans at a distance, but could never defend its flanks and rear alone in confined spaces. All the armor in the world can't help you when there's always another Sherman or bazooka-man waiting behind every corner to plink your engine while you're trying to draw a bead on the target to your front. It's very similar to the reasons the US patrols Basra or Kabul in Bradleys instead of Abrahms. This is also pretty true, and most tank combat was determined more by who was able to acquire and engage first rather than what tank was used. It's pretty telling that the US Army was far more interested in trying to replace the Stuart than the Sherman. Stuarts were still a very significant part of the tank force into 1945, and were not really adequate for that period. Its replacement did see service in the war, though. On a side note, the Panther had really weak side and rear armor on both the turret and the hull to save weight. Also, by 1944, the German infantry division was no longer a serious fighting force. No longer getting replacements, and heavily stripped down even at the TO&E, they couldn't be relied upon to hold a position or support an attack. This was the German response to manpower issues that plagued almost all of the armies, and when you're at the stage in the war where you're on the defensive, it really hurts. The strength of the army by then was in its Panzer and Panzer-grenadier divisions. Also, the panzer-grenadier divisions rarely had half-tracks available for infantry transport, because the Germans didn't produce a lot of half-tracks and they primarily used them for various specialized purposes. However, they did actually receive replacements and had some armor, which is a step up from the average volksgrenadier or infantry division(Volksgrenadier divisions weren't specifically militia-type formations, just what newly-formed infantry divisions were called late in 1944). As a point of comparison, the Soviets got manpower for their offensives by stripping quiet sectors of their 'rifle' strength, taking away line battalions and leaving the support battalions in place as 'fortified areas'. The US chose deliberately to field fewer divisions, as such the US had larger divisions(with more support assets. A US infantry division usually had a tank battalion and tank destroyer company available to it, for example). When they were in need of manpower, they could strip their copious support assets to replace line strength. After all, there wasn't much of a need for the AA gunners in late 1944 when the Luftwaffe is almost absent.
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Nov 27, 2010 12:22
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5inc posted:I may be completely wrong here, but I got the impression that part of the Sherman's success vis-a-vis the heavier German Panthers and King Tigers was that the battleground in Western Europe was much more favorable to more light tanks than fewer heavy ones. Hitler seemed obsessed with creating tanks to match the Russians, without realizing that those same tanks would have most of their advantages of heavy armor and powerful guns negated in the close quarters of French towns and fields. A Panther in the wide plains of central and eastern Europe could take on many Shermans at a distance, but could never defend its flanks and rear alone in confined spaces. All the armor in the world can't help you when there's always another Sherman or bazooka-man waiting behind every corner to plink your engine while you're trying to draw a bead on the target to your front. It's very similar to the reasons the US patrols Basra or Kabul in Bradleys instead of Abrahms. Firstly, it is true that Hitler cared mostly about beating the Russians and for a long time viewed the western ETO as mostly an irrelevant distraction. However, in no way was the fact that German tanks were better armed and armored anything but an advantage for the Germans, no matter what other shortcomings afflicted them. There was no real "success" of the Shermans versus German tanks in Europe. In a way, the Western Allies won in Normandy despite the Sherman, not thanks to it; while having a reliable and easily maintained tank available in very large numbers was a huge advantage as such, they'd have done even better with a similar yet better armed tank. The British had the right idea with the Firefly variant of the Sherman, and the tank served well in many wars following WW2, but the early Sherman tank was simply inadequate in combat with German armor. Of course, the Allies were aware of this (although they hadn't expected to run into the number of Panthers and Tigers that they did), which is why the doctrine was to use tanks for infantry support and tank destroyers against tanks. This turned out to be less practical than simply having a tank that was good enough to kill the enemy tanks as well as provide support, which is why that doctrine was abandoned. The problem for the Germans in France wasn't that their tanks were inferior to the Allied tanks - they weren't. The problem, as has been said already, was that even though a Panther or Tiger or even Pz4 would beat any one standard Sherman in most situations, there were a lot more Sherman tanks than German tanks, and the Germans were also limited by fuel, lack of training, lack of mobility due to Allied air superiority, maintenance problems etc. Also, there's lots of open ground in Western Europe, and there were plenty of long-range engagements.
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Nov 27, 2010 12:26
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Alekanderu posted:There was no real "success" of the Shermans versus German tanks in Europe. In a way, the Western Allies won in Normandy despite the Sherman, not thanks to it; while having a reliable and easily maintained tank available in very large numbers was a huge advantage as such, they'd have done even better with a similar yet better armed tank. The British had the right idea with the Firefly variant of the Sherman, and the tank served well in many wars following WW2, but the early Sherman tank was simply inadequate in combat with German armor. Well ... technically when the Sherman was first introduced in North Africa, it was superior to anything the Germans or British were fielding at the time, with thicker armor and a heavier gun than anything else, with its 75mm cannon. While the 76mm armed Sherman was introduced later, commanders argued to keep the 75mm armed Sherman, as it was much better for infantry support: it fired considerably more rapidly, and had a better HE shell. An HE shell was not even available for the Sherman Firefly until later in the war. There simply were not many German tanks left towards the end of the war. It's worth noting that no country really managed to design a really reliable heavy tank; while the Sherman was considered quite reliable, the M26 Pershing faced teething troubles in Korea. In the Battle of the Bulge, the Germans kept their King Tigers in the rear of the formation, to avoid blocking the roads when they would inevitably break down.
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Nov 27, 2010 13:09
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MakaVillian posted:The Arrow was a pretty amazing airplane and it sucks that it didn't really see the light of day, however with the Sputnik and the fact the Soviets were well on their way to ballistic missiles I don't know that Canada needed an interceptor that cost $3-5 million per plane. $3-5 million per plane is a lot better than the $164 million or so we spent on the BOMARC missiles as a replacement for the Arrow. And 30 000 estimated jobs lost (15 000 from Avro, 15 000 in side industries). And $3-5 million per plane isn't that bad when that money is supporting domestic industry and research. Plus the BOMARC was phased out 8 years after it was introduced.
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Nov 27, 2010 16:55
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Gully Foyle posted:Plus the BOMARC was phased out 8 years after it was introduced. I doubt the Arrow would have lasted longer. Interceptors aren't much use against ballistic missiles.
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Nov 27, 2010 17:23
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