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I recently read Hitler's Pre-Emptive War: The Battle for Norway, 1940. It was very interesting. The Germans were very lucky to get away with it, despite the incompetence of the Brits, or lack of interwar preparations by Norwegian government. Even on 9th of April after getting reports of German naval forces repulsed outside Oslo, the mobilization plan their government opted for was that of notifying everyone by.... mail (there existed other, faster plans for it, using radios etc.). Soon enough the Germans had captured all the major population centers and supply depots. Northern area was better prepared because of recently ended Winter War (to avoid the conflict from overspilling across the border), but even there the small German force captured their biggest supply depot, which was guarded by a platoon-sized force. But there's so many more details.
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| # ? Mar 17, 2012 08:50 |
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| # ? May 21, 2013 10:20 |
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space pope posted:This is one of my favorite propaganda posters from "Stalin's Guerrillas" - it's two pictures, the first is a train moving on some rail tracks with the text:
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| # ? Mar 17, 2012 13:33 |
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I'll see if I can scan it. It's actually a two-part poster. Below it, there's a picture of a plane taking off and then crashing. I don't know what the text says but I assume something similar because the author didn't translate it.
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| # ? Mar 19, 2012 00:31 |
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"Pilots, don't forget to check your fuel levels before take-off"
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| # ? Mar 19, 2012 05:01 |
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Anyone got any insight into dromedary cavalry? e: And feel free to sperg away with technical details Frostwerks fucked around with this message at Mar 20, 2012 around 03:21 |
| # ? Mar 19, 2012 23:48 |
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Can I get a run down on the Early Islamic armies? I'm talking defense of Medina/taking of Mecca, conquest of Persia, and their North African expansions mostly. Equipment, organization, training and recruitment, important wins/losses that didn't make it to general knowledge, adaptations to new recruits/enemies etc. all appreciated.
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| # ? Mar 20, 2012 03:39 |
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^^^^I can handle thatFrostwerks posted:Anyone got any insight into dromedary cavalry? Camels were basically used as infantry cavalry, ancient arabs, and early islamic military used them for transport, infantry would dismount before engaging in combat. I have never heard of them used in cavalry charges at all. There was a variant of camel bred for speed, but was much more fragile than the normal camel, these were apparently used for mounted archery. In india the mughals developed camels with cannons on them, also the hindus of northern india also used them as "dragoons" inspired by egyptian "zunbaraki" camel riders [zunbarak were some sort of gunpowder based rifle, but i forgot if its unique or just another name for a gun], it was a pretty stylish "charge" with rifles, but wasn't really effective. @ The JJ: Its a pretty long story but i'll try and shorten it, early islamic arab military hadn't had much organization, during the defense of medina the only person who had much combat experience was the prophets companion Salman al Farsi, to avoid the same fate that happened at Uhud, Salman suggested a trench be built to fight off Al Ahzab (Confederates), who were an alliance of Meccans and other arab tribes. Trenches were effective cavalry traps, due to two things, 1) middle eastern cavalry charges weren't couched but over the shoulder, 2) they couldn't reach at someone dug in deep, whereas the troops dug in the trench would poke at the cavalry above [another useful reference for the effectivness of trenches is Yu Feis battle with the Jurchen]. After the trench many notable people converted to islam and that was that, the taking of Mecca was mostly bloodless, with only Khalid bin al Walids unit engaging a southern meccan garrison. During the arab conquests of the northern arabian peninsula Khalid bin al Walid reorganised the army into military divisions called Kardus [Plural is Karadees], archers would be on the left flank, infantry in the center, and cavalry would be on the right, a forward unit of cavalry as scouting and a Sariya "Vanguard" usually Khalid and his cavalry in the front. Most infantry were combat archers, due to the nature of warfare in the middle east, this is apparently an emulation of byzantine or sassanian warfare, too much flat terrain made cavalry ideal, and when your cavalry weren't of the same quality your enemy cavalry has you resorted to troops who would be trained to pick off mounted archers. Equipment was fairly light for most troops, this also goes for sassanian and byzantine troops, of the latter only the sassanians had heavy cavalry as well, both arabs and byzantines had light cavalry. Combat archers were the best equipped, typically meant to deal with infantry and cavalry, they had chainmail, helmets, bows (shortbows) and swords. Arab swords at this time were copies of sassanian swords, that were copies of byzantine swords, straight and double edged. Most of the army were sedentary [called Hadhar, "civilized", quotes not meant disparagingly but rather to contrast] and Beduins (nomads), the latter usually provided their own equipment and were of varying quality. there was no standardization, every fighter was to buy his own equipment, and according to ibn khalduns muqadimma, they encouraged merchants to volunteer in funding the army by promising them heaven to them and 7 members of their family, well until the Abbassids who would introduce a much more professional salary system. Most important victories were Yarmouk in Syria and al Qadissiya in Iraq, for Yarmouk the byzantines were in political turmoil at the time and had rebellion on their hands in north africa so their only forces were from Anatolia, Armenia, and their arab allies in syria [The Ghassanids] although the byzantines initially opted for a divide and conquer tactic with their corps taking on the arab army piece meal, the uncertainty of the armenians and the ghassanids ultimately drove them to engage in a stand up fight, which apparently unsurprisingly to Heraclius they lost. Al Qaddissiyas story was a bit more complex, the arabs having conquered al Hira (the capital of iraq during that time) were content with their conquest however the Sassanids weren't taking their defeat very well mobilized a force to drive the arabs out of iraq, supported by elephants, and forces from Iran proper they managed to overturn the arab victory and drive them out of the capital, this event lead Caliph Umar to organize a military campaign to deal with the Sassanids once and for all. The arabs mobilized a force but had the same problem they had with the battle of the bridge, and that was the elephants, To deal with them the arabs employed an expert whose name escapes me for now that suggested stabbing the elephants in the eyes via spears or other pointy objects like javelins, this tactic apparently worked and the routing elephants trampled the sassanian forces which broke their lines, the fighting would last for three days before the sassanians learn of their commanders death where they call a general retreat, there wouldn't be a serious military attempt until nahavind which they also lost ending the sassanid empire. Its getting late here so i hope this was helpful, if you have any questions i'll be happy to answer them. My next post will be a continuation of the rashidun conquests and the ummayad and abbassid expansions.
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| # ? Mar 22, 2012 04:38 |
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Annnnnnnd way more effort than I was expecting. Awesome.
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| # ? Mar 22, 2012 04:59 |
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I wouldn't say the easy muslim forces were combat inexperienced. Mohamed organized a lot of razias, raids, against Meccan trade convoys and garrisons. The crushing victories he had over the Meccans were the result of pissed off Meccans rushing out to try to stop him from looting all his convoys. Looking forward to your next post Fizzil. I wanted to respond to JJ but i haven't touched Islam for half a year or so and i didn't want to spread misinformation. Thanks for the great post 
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| # ? Mar 22, 2012 12:53 |
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During the Siege of Kusong fortress in 1231 the Mongols boiled down prisoners into fat and used the fat to build terrifying fire bombs which they launched over the walls with catapults. Did the Mongols use this tactic anywhere else?
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| # ? Mar 22, 2012 13:33 |
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Whats the source on that though?
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| # ? Mar 22, 2012 14:57 |
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Yah the evidence is fairly thin, that's why I asked. From a brief search I couldn't find another instance of it happening anywhere else but it doesn't seem too far fetched considering their well documented use of human shields and building piles of skulls. I'm just wondering if this happened anywhere else. I get the feeling that maybe a bunch of bored Mongols decided to make a single bomb containing some human fat and then it got turned into a legendary story. I've read it in a bunch of secondary sources, but they are all based on the Annals of the Goryeo Dynasty.
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| # ? Mar 22, 2012 15:21 |
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Napoleonic Wars, The French Empires allies (Batvians, Poles, Italians...) what was their main goal for fighting for Napoleon and his army and what was the end result of them after Napoleon was shipped from Europe?
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| # ? Mar 22, 2012 15:25 |
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For Italians and Poles i guess the main reason is the hope that Napoleon kept his ideals of each nationality having their nation. Italy and Poland were subjects of foreigns powers and by helping Napoleon topple them they could probably create their own nation state independent from Austrian or Russian influence. The movement of Italian Unification that happened in the 19th century can be argued to be the direct result of Napoleon's urge of national uprising against their foreign overlords. The Poles kept on fighting for their own independence until the end of the first World War. As for what happened to soldiers that fought with Napoleon that's an answer someone else will have to give you. They probably died in Russia like everyone else 
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| # ? Mar 23, 2012 01:20 |
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Just finished reading the whole thread and I think something's that been missing is the Crusades. Could anyone elaborate on them ,especially from the muslim's point of view and Saladin?
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| # ? Mar 23, 2012 19:03 |
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Syncopated posted:Just finished reading the whole thread and I think something's that been missing is the Crusades. Could anyone elaborate on them ,especially from the muslim's point of view and Saladin? It's too late at night for me to write something long, but my teenage brain was really blown when I first realized that the Crusading centuries saw almost as much fighting inbetween the Christian and Muslim parts as between each other! Muslims teaming up with Franks to knock off competing Muslim rulers and vice versa. Or even setting up deals with the Mongols, because why not? The Outremer was so weird and complicated.
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| # ? Mar 23, 2012 21:09 |
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Syncopated posted:Just finished reading the whole thread and I think something's that been missing is the Crusades. Could anyone elaborate on them ,especially from the muslim's point of view and Saladin? The Crusades Through Arab Eyes is a great (though short) read. It talks more about the social and political aspects of the Crusades. The author believes (and I agree) that the Crusades were a turning point in Muslim history. The Arab leaders in Baghdad largely ignored the Crusaders while Turkish, Kurdish and Mameluke leaders ultimately pushed the Crusaders back to Europe. This was largely due to geography (Arab leaders were protected by the vast Arabian desert, while Turks bore the brunt of the fighting and Mamelukes suffered in Egypt). The course of the Crusades led to the rise of the Mameluke and, much later, Ottoman Empires. That in turn led to Turks, not Arabs, becoming the standard bearers of Islam all the way up to the 20th century.
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| # ? Mar 23, 2012 22:18 |
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lilljonas posted:It's too late at night for me to write something long, but my teenage brain was really blown when I first realized that the Crusading centuries saw almost as much fighting inbetween the Christian and Muslim parts as between each other! Muslims teaming up with Franks to knock off competing Muslim rulers and vice versa. Or even setting up deals with the Mongols, because why not? The Outremer was so weird and complicated. It becomes even funnier when you see Ottoman Sultans defending the French Crown and demanding the release of the imprisoned French king. When political interests are at stake religion was throw to the sidelines quite quickly. Bagheera posted:The Crusades Through Arab Eyes is a great (though short) read. It talks more about the social and political aspects of the Crusades. The Abassid Caliphate was really weakened by the point the Crusades started, relying almost completely from the kindness of the Turkish to maintain their own survival. There was no Arab resistance because ,quite simply, there wasn't a decent Arab state that could bring the fight to the Crusading States. That statement also ignores the fact that the Turks defeated the Romans by themselves. The Arab hegemony had long been extinguished, specially when the Caliphs themselves abandoned the use of the traditional forces to adopt slave armies and Turkish forces. This change had already started with the Omiad's central power being in Damascus so by the time the Persian-led Abbassids reached power the Arabs had attained a very secondary role in Muslim expansionism. Don't forget that while a good portion of Arabs participated in the Iberian conquest the majority of the forces were Berbers and other African peoples.
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| # ? Mar 23, 2012 22:34 |
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Mans posted:It becomes even funnier when you see Ottoman Sultans defending the French Crown and demanding the release of the imprisoned French king. When political interests are at stake religion was throw to the sidelines quite quickly. To what do you refer? I don't recall this happening any time when people actually crusaded in a serious way, i.e. before the 15th century.
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| # ? Mar 24, 2012 15:46 |
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Rodrigo Diaz posted:To what do you refer? I don't recall this happening any time when people actually crusaded in a serious way, i.e. before the 15th century. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco-Ottoman_alliance I'm guessing he is referring to this, not sure when that event happened though.
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| # ? Mar 24, 2012 16:42 |
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Mans posted:two posts Thanks , i'd like to address two of your posts. I think you meant Ghazwa, it literally meant "Raid" but its gained some holy reverence that its only applied to battles the prophet commanded. Combat experience was pretty natural to alot of people, but the thing is muhammeds group were literally the poor and down trodden, not many of the meccan nobility joined him, except abu bakr. Only after the trench would many tribes ally with him.Also about the abassids, they had a hereditary system where a concubines son would be caliph, i forgot what its called though. Abassid Caliph al Mu'tasim Billah was half turkish, and introduced turkish mercenary troops to the military, who quickly overtook the arabs in all military action, particularly because the turks lived a nomadic lifestyle and literally required less logistics than the sedentary arabs, they also introduced dogfighting which most everyone adopted pretty quickly. I'm gonna have to delay the talk about north africa a little and touch on some army compositions on the sassanids and how the arabs dealt with some of them, i need to look for the yarmouk campaign book to get into more detail about the byzantines. In 6th and 7th centuries for some reason or another the byzantines didn't field any cataphract cavalry, and would remain the case until the 8th century, but the sassanids maintained them. To adapt to these, the arabs initially employed teams of two men to take down the rider, lassos and hooked spears were used, also harassment by arab cavalry who also utilized caltrops. Elephants were a problem too, the sassanians only brought to bear when they mobilized their military after their arab allies and the local garrisons fell, The Battle of the Bridge was the first real taste of an actually mobilized sassanid military force from Iran so some new technology showed up. Arabs spoke of heated chained hooks used by the sassanians to fend off troops assaulting via ladder at one battle, which prompted the arabs to find an alternative to the besieged town via a turncoat who led a unit through the cities sewers to have the gates opened. Crossbows were used too, well the eastern asian kind, i know the romans developed miniature ballistas but these aren't crossbows alright  , the sassanian aligned arabs were known as the Muntherids (Banu Munthr, their fame came from the battle of callinicum where an alliance of persians, kurds and arabs defeated the byzantines, and the ghassanids under the command of famous general Belisarius) and its known they at least employed barded horses, although not to the same quality as their masters cavalry corps.This concludes this tiny post for now, if you have any questions please don't hesitate. Also would like to inquire about something, how good are osprey publications? in general? and david nicolle specifically? Fizzil fucked around with this message at Mar 24, 2012 around 20:44 |
| # ? Mar 24, 2012 18:23 |
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Yes, the Ghazwa, the razia is the Iberian equivalent, sorry for that mis-type. The Caliphs also were really adverse to city warfare. A lot of ancient walls were destroyed during the Omiad and Abassid times to avoid sieges. The logic was that inside the state there was no reason for the people to have walls and there would also be no need for walls because no foreigner could touch us  That logic was really biased though, while the Abassids made sure a lot of defensive structures in Syria were destroyed (go figure!), they made sure to build TWO walls to defend Bagdad and another two (?) in Samara. nothing to seehere posted:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco-Ottoman_alliance I think i misread it. Yes i was referring to the period of the Italian Wars, but it seems that Francis got off jail by his own schemes, could've swore Suleyman pressured Charles V. Even so, it's interesting to see Nice's churches being turned into mosques to accommodate Barbarossa.
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| # ? Mar 24, 2012 21:18 |
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Mans posted:I think i misread it. Yes i was referring to the period of the Italian Wars, but it seems that Francis got off jail by his own schemes, could've swore Suleyman pressured Charles V. Even so, it's interesting to see Nice's churches being turned into mosques to accommodate Barbarossa. Even if this were true, this is well after Crusading in any real sense had ended, so your point is inapplicable. Smirking about politics' primacy over religion is pretty much false when it comes to the crusades, especially the First Crusade.
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| # ? Mar 24, 2012 21:30 |
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Ah, i missed the "crusader centuries" part! If that's the case then i'll use my smirking to point to the Iberian peninsula, where the difference between and ally and enemy were uncertain and relations changed from night to day. Taifas allied themselves to Christian states, Christian states went for each other's throats and all around confusion was normal. Nominally only two Empires existed in Medieval times, the Holy Roman Empire and the Bizantine Empire. That didn't stop Castille, Leon and even Navarre from declaring themselves emperors of Spain. The strict need of Papal blessing to crown a state kingdom status didn't also stop Afonso from going ahead and "letting" himself be declared king of Portugal. Meanwhile the threat of Muslim North African forces was at times so great that MUSLIM Taifas begged from Christian help, hell, the taifa of Badajoz pretty much gave half of Portugal to the then Portucalense county. There was also attempts at calling crusades against other Christian states and peace agreements that would be broken in less than a year when that factions' king would personally attack a border castle. Also, some disputes could be solved by jousts  It was a crazy time, but then i guess all of Medieval Europe was a bit crazy back then.
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| # ? Mar 24, 2012 23:19 |
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Mans posted:Yes, the Ghazwa, the razia is the Iberian equivalent, sorry for that mis-type. Not only the ummayads and abassids, but also saladin during the crusades. The very first thing he had done to jerusalem was strip it off its walls, he was probably sick of sieges which almost always held out against him. Reynalds castle, Damascus (which he took via negotiations), and the siege of jerusalem itself. Rodrigo Diaz posted:Even if this were true, this is well after Crusading in any real sense had ended, so your point is inapplicable. Smirking about politics' primacy over religion is pretty much false when it comes to the crusades, especially the First Crusade. There were some temporary alliances during the crusades, one fatimid-crusader alliance to take down saladins army, although the crusaders called it off because the fatimid army routed before they arrived. I need to look up the other one, it was a mameluke double agent who fed both sides wrong information until he was so unreliable he started feeding them true information that no one acted on but i can't remember where i read that even. Fizzil fucked around with this message at Mar 25, 2012 around 03:23 |
| # ? Mar 25, 2012 03:17 |
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What were the main innovations, tactics and strategy-wise, from the USSR in WWII?
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| # ? Mar 25, 2012 16:21 |
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DerLeo posted:What were the main innovations, tactics and strategy-wise, from the USSR in WWII? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_deep_battle
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| # ? Mar 25, 2012 16:23 |
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Rodrigo Diaz posted:Even if this were true, this is well after Crusading in any real sense had ended, so your point is inapplicable. Smirking about politics' primacy over religion is pretty much false when it comes to the crusades, especially the First Crusade. There are a bunch of examples where local politics trumped religion. Bohemond I of Antioch, the original crusader, allied with local muslims and took on Byzantium, only to have Venice come in with the Byzantines and revoke his independence. Or when Baldwin II of Edessa was captured in battle, his catholic regent refused to go through the motions to negotiate. What ended up happening was a weird 5 way war/negotiation between the regent (backed by some crusader states), Arabs, Byzantines, Turks, and Kurds. Alliances were changing all the time, and Baldwin got released and became king of Jersualem a bit while later. And the alliances between Crusaders, Fatamids, and Seljuks remind me of the medieval Italian states. Never a dull moment in Outremer.
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| # ? Mar 25, 2012 22:47 |
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Is there any other battle of campaign with information has been so badly fluffed up and conflicted by the winners, losers and patriotic Historians as Waterloo?
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| # ? Mar 26, 2012 00:06 |
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SeanBeansShako posted:Is there any other battle of campaign with information has been so badly fluffed up and conflicted by the winners, losers and patriotic Historians as Waterloo? The American Civil War.
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| # ? Mar 26, 2012 00:20 |
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Just about any battle ever fought. WW2 East Front is a fine example: Soviet history writing was highly politicized, western historiography of it was based on the accounts of German generals and further biased because of cold war sentiments, and many German archival sources had been destroyed in the war and Soviet archives were secret.
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| # ? Mar 26, 2012 00:29 |
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SeanBeansShako posted:Is there any other battle or campaign with information that has been so badly fluffed up and conflicted by the winners, losers and patriotic Historians as Waterloo? Historically it was the first time Australia had fought independently from Britain under the ANZAC group so popular thinking has created this odd idea that the country was "formed" in the fields of WWI despite becoming a federation a decade earlier. This was easily paired with the idyllic notion that the country was innocent and young as were the troops heading over. The modern propaganda for the whole Anzac spirit has gotten pretty insane to the point where former PM John Howard once suggested that Anzac cove be claimed as part of Australia due to the amount of Australians killed there. Nowadays many kids flock there for the rock concerts as some sort of warped pilgrimage as they're told it's a very important day, but not really sure why.
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| # ? Mar 26, 2012 01:38 |
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SeanBeansShako posted:Is there any other battle of campaign with information has been so badly fluffed up and conflicted by the winners, losers and patriotic Historians as Waterloo? The battle of Kadesh
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| # ? Mar 26, 2012 02:09 |
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:The American Civil War. The ultimate inversion of the trope that winners always dictate the history of a war. The "Lost Cause" myth is very widespread in American views of the war, even outside the South.
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| # ? Mar 26, 2012 03:24 |
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:The American Civil War. Mostly only amongst Southerners though. My fellow southerners love to tell people how Robert E. Lee is the greatest general that has ever lived. Which is unfortunate because Grant and Sherman did far more for the United States than Lee ever did. The United States as we know it likely wouldn't exist without them. Many people think of Grant as a drunk and a butcher and Sherman as a war criminal. If only people would stop and think what the world would be like if the Confederacy was still around, or maybe read a few unbiased books about the American Civil War. edit: It's pretty sad, even many northerners get roped into the hero worship of Robert E. Lee. It's ridiculous. And I don't know why anyone is surprised that Grant suffered heavy losses against Lee, Grant was on the offensive. Mustang fucked around with this message at Mar 26, 2012 around 04:21 |
| # ? Mar 26, 2012 04:14 |
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How much truth is there in the claim that Robert Lee was actually only kind of sub-par general with a lot of charisma, held up by James Longstreet and Stonewall Jackson when it came to tactics and strategy?
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| # ? Mar 26, 2012 12:12 |
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DarkCrawler posted:How much truth is there in the claim that Robert Lee was actually only kind of sub-par general with a lot of charisma, held up by James Longstreet and Stonewall Jackson when it came to tactics and strategy? It depends where you are moving the bar to and from. He wasn't some Godlike Alexander, but he definitely wasn't sub-par. He relied heavily on putting his subordinates in the right place at the right time, but that's what good Generals do. Time and again he set up Longstreet and Jackson to perform a backhand blow and time and again they delivered for him. Lee's fantastic successes broadly relied on two factors; fantastic scouting and intelligence gathering (aided by fighting on his own soil) and a series of Union blunders and mistakes which he was able to spot and capitalise on (due to the aforementioned intelligence gathering). Where he wasn't able to rely on those two (ie. the Gettysburg campaign) he was beaten. When Grant took over in the East and the Union army stopped abandoning the field every time it took a kicking then he was beaten. But those were factors largely beyond his control.
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| # ? Mar 26, 2012 12:57 |
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Don't get me wrong, Lee was a great tactician, but he was not at all a strategist, and he fought for one of the worst causes in human history. His only concern was Virginia, and fortunately for the Confederates Virginia bordered the Union and Washington, D.C. And it helped that every general the Union sent against Lee was mediocre at best until Grant took over in the east. And of course Lee's defeat at Gettysburg by Meade. There's a short pamphlet/book written from an outsiders perspective by a British general and WWI veteran named J.F.C Fuller that compares Grant and Lee. I don't have it with me right now and don't remember the title but I'll try to find it tomorrow if anyone is interested. He also wrote The Generalship of Ulysses S. Grant which is a great analysis of Grant as both a man and a general.
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| # ? Mar 26, 2012 14:30 |
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So was Grant truly the best general of the Union, then? Or the best general of the war? His he dominates the mentions of Union generals(at least for me as a foreigner) while there seem to be more mentions of different Confederate generals. Sherman comes up in Atlanta which was a beautiful as a campaign of strategic destruction but he was pretty much unopposed during it, right?
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| # ? Mar 26, 2012 19:14 |
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| # ? May 21, 2013 10:20 |
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DarkCrawler posted:So was Grant truly the best general of the Union, then? Or the best general of the war? His he dominates the mentions of Union generals(at least for me as a foreigner) while there seem to be more mentions of different Confederate generals. Sherman comes up in Atlanta which was a beautiful as a campaign of strategic destruction but he was pretty much unopposed during it, right? Sherman was unopposed in the march to the sea because he destroyed in detail the forces opposing him.
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| # ? Mar 26, 2012 19:21 |
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