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Oxford Comma
Jun 26, 2011
Oxford Comma: Hey guys I want a cool big dog to show off! I want it to be ~special~ like Thor but more couch potato-like because I got babbies in the house!
Everybody: GET A LAB.
Oxford Comma: OK! (gets a a pit/catahoula mix)

Mr. Sunshine posted:

Switching to a professional army lowers the quality of available soldiers, further alienates the army from the rest of society, costs insane amounts of money and (in my opinion) will not work for Sweden in the long run.

So why did Sweden switch, then?

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Mr. Sunshine
May 15, 2008

This is a scrunt that has been in space too long and become a Lunt (Long Scrunt)

Fun Shoe

Oxford Comma posted:

So why did Sweden switch, then?

Because conscription in the shape it had taken couldn't survive for long either. Since the downsizing of the 90s and early 00s we were only calling up something like 15% of the eligible man force for conscription, and it's really loving hard to motivate to someone who really doesn't want to spend a year in Norrland why they have to go when you're turning away hundreds of people who do want to. The system ran more smoothly when everyone had to serve.

E: It was basically an ideological move. The right, and the right-wing of the Social Democrats, wanted to move to a professional army since conscription didn't fit well with respecting the right of the individual and all that jazz. The left wanted to keep it as well as expand conscription to include women, in the name of ensuring an army of and by the people.

Mr. Sunshine fucked around with this message at 22:57 on Nov 26, 2011

Grand Prize Winner
Feb 19, 2007


Mr. Sunshine posted:

E: It was basically an ideological move. The right, and the right-wing of the Social Democrats, wanted to move to a professional army since conscription didn't fit well with respecting the right of the individual and all that jazz. The left wanted to keep it as well as expand conscription to include women, in the name of ensuring an army of and by the people.

The idea of conscription being a tool for social justice never occurred to this American. Over here our left wing is deeply and almost universally opposed to anything resembling conscription (the draft, as we call it in the states).

Graviton v2
Mar 2, 2007

by angerbeet

Grand Prize Winner posted:

The idea of conscription being a tool for social justice never occurred to this American. Over here our left wing is deeply and almost universally opposed to anything resembling conscription (the draft, as we call it in the states).
I think as well conscripts in the Sweden are used as labour for social projects when not at war, would that be right Mr. Sunshine?

That would be cool with me, thats national service.

OctaviusBeaver
Apr 30, 2009

Say what now?

Graviton v2 posted:

I think as well conscripts in the Sweden are used as labour for social projects when not at war, would that be right Mr. Sunshine?

That would be cool with me, thats national service.

Sounds kind of like slavery though, taking people by force and using them for public works for a menial salary. I suppose it wouldn't be worse than doing it for military purposes, though back in the day I think you could argue that it was a necessary evil to fight off the Reds.


Anyway, were the generals of the Western Allies worse at using tanks than the Germans or was it just different circumstances? The Germans were able to invade France and use armor to make rapid, deep penetrations and force a surrender. After Overlord the Allies seemed to just push forward on a broad front without really taking any risks.

I realize that they had supply problems because they lacked good harbors until later, but they did have enough fuel to try Market Garden. Market Garden just seems ill-conceived in the first place because it relies on every step in a complex plan going exactly as expected with no room for error. Surely there was some way they could have ended the war before winter given what a terrible state the Germans were in after the Normandy campaign.

Mr. Sunshine
May 15, 2008

This is a scrunt that has been in space too long and become a Lunt (Long Scrunt)

Fun Shoe

Graviton v2 posted:

I think as well conscripts in the Sweden are used as labour for social projects when not at war, would that be right Mr. Sunshine?

That would be cool with me, thats national service.

Well, yes and no. If you didn't want to do armed service it was possible to do civilian service instead. Then you could serve as all sorts of things - fireman, powerplant worker etc. I'm not quite sure how it worked in practice, but in theory it gave you a civilian competence for future jobs. I know a guy who served as an airport fireman, and is now a civilian aviator.

As for "social projects", no, it wasn't like you could take a company of conscripts and have them build roads and stuff. However, in times of crisis you could take the conscripts and have them help out in civilian society. When I did my service there was severe flooding around the city of Arvika, so military units were sent on a rotating schedule to help out. We spent a week patrolling evacuated areas (to protect against looters), going out in boats to check that the dams around electrical stations held, controlling traffic and so on.

Now, I'm pretty sure that the professional army will do the whole "support to civilian society" thing too, but they'll get regular pay as well as overtime. Us conscripts did it for the same ten bucks a day we got normally.

E: It's not that a professional army is inherently better or worse than a conscript one. It's just that the Swedish army since going professional A) won't get enough soldiers, cause the pay is poo poo, and B) can't actually in the long run afford even that lovely pay. I mean, how the hell do they expect to stay in the black when they're now paying at least ten times more for each soldier, on the same or less budget?

Mr. Sunshine fucked around with this message at 00:28 on Nov 27, 2011

Oxford Comma
Jun 26, 2011
Oxford Comma: Hey guys I want a cool big dog to show off! I want it to be ~special~ like Thor but more couch potato-like because I got babbies in the house!
Everybody: GET A LAB.
Oxford Comma: OK! (gets a a pit/catahoula mix)

Grand Prize Winner posted:

The idea of conscription being a tool for social justice never occurred to this American. Over here our left wing is deeply and almost universally opposed to anything resembling conscription (the draft, as we call it in the states).

I think a lot of this has to due when the children of the wealthy were able to avoid military service.

Konstantin
Jun 20, 2005
And the Lord said, "Look, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.
I would say Israel has a reasonably professional conscript force that doesn't have many of the problems other conscript armies have. Of course, a lot of this is due to the fact that they have the resources needed to properly equip and train their troops, plus they actually need a large army relative to their population due to their geopolitical situation.

Graviton v2
Mar 2, 2007

by angerbeet

Mr. Sunshine posted:

We spent a week patrolling evacuated areas (to protect against looters), going out in boats to check that the dams around electrical stations held, controlling traffic and so on.
(clarification on below, not talking about war, talking about national service)

I'm assuming you are finished you're service now but; in retrospect do you think it did you wrong or right?

Do you think it made you a better person? Are you proud of the poo poo you did? Did you get experience helpful for job apps?

If the answer to all those is no then I withdraw any arg on the subject.

Personally as I stand now id vote it in straight away in my country (UK), not for war but for public service.

gradenko_2000
Oct 5, 2010

HELL SERPENT
Lipstick Apathy

OctaviusBeaver posted:

Anyway, were the generals of the Western Allies worse at using tanks than the Germans or was it just different circumstances? The Germans were able to invade France and use armor to make rapid, deep penetrations and force a surrender. After Overlord the Allies seemed to just push forward on a broad front without really taking any risks.

I realize that they had supply problems because they lacked good harbors until later, but they did have enough fuel to try Market Garden. Market Garden just seems ill-conceived in the first place because it relies on every step in a complex plan going exactly as expected with no room for error. Surely there was some way they could have ended the war before winter given what a terrible state the Germans were in after the Normandy campaign.
I'm no expert, but I have read that the lack of any dramatic breakthroughs during the West Front campaigns was due to doctrinal differences* between the Allies and the Axis, as well as logistical and force-allocation limitations.

That is, the Allies simply didn't use tanks the same way that the Germans did, insofar as identifying a weak-spot in the line, creating a gap and pouring armor through it. As well, squabbling between commanders such as Patton and Montgomery meant that Eisenhower had to split his forces to appease both, which meant a lack of sufficient forces needed for the schwerpunkt.

As for Market-Garden, I have read that one of the reasons for trying to attempt it was due to a large number of paratroopers being trained up, but without being used. They drew up the plan because they needed to show that they didn't go through ordering all those transport planes and sewing all those parachutes for nothing.

Again, nowhere near an expert, so take my post with a grain of salt.

* German operational doctrine has been (perhaps overly simplistically) described as picking a spot in the line, breaking through it, and sending the tanks across the gap. In contrast, Soviet operational doctrine has the first echelon attack all across the line, wait for one section to crumble under the assault, and send the second echelon across the gap. I don't really know how American and British doctrine measures up though, apart from the fact that the US had relatively great artillery support and placed emphasis upon it. Only the Finns come close at coordinating tubes.

gradenko_2000 fucked around with this message at 03:40 on Nov 27, 2011

Panzeh
Nov 27, 2006

"..The high ground"

gradenko_2000 posted:

I'm no expert, but I have read that the lack of any dramatic breakthroughs during the West Front campaigns was due to doctrinal differences* between the Allies and the Axis, as well as logistical and force-allocation limitations.

That is, the Allies simply didn't use tanks the same way that the Germans did, insofar as identifying a weak-spot in the line, creating a gap and pouring armor through it. As well, squabbling between commanders such as Patton and Montgomery meant that Eisenhower had to split his forces to appease both, which meant a lack of sufficient forces needed for the schwerpunkt.

As for Market-Garden, I have read that one of the reasons for trying to attempt it was due to a large number of paratroopers being trained up, but without being used. They drew up the plan because they needed to show that they didn't go through ordering all those transport planes and sewing all those parachutes for nothing.

Again, nowhere near an expert, so take my post with a grain of salt.

* German operational doctrine has been (perhaps overly simplistically) described as picking a spot in the line, breaking through it, and sending the tanks across the gap. In contrast, Soviet operational doctrine has the first echelon attack all across the line, wait for one section to crumble under the assault, and send the second echelon across the gap. I don't really know how American and British doctrine measures up though, apart from the fact that the US had relatively great artillery support and placed emphasis upon it. Only the Finns come close at coordinating tubes.


It's important to understand that once the Allies got out of Normandy, they did get their breakthrough. They crossed France very quickly, making it to the German border and through much of Belgium. The problem was that the Germans finally put together a defense and the Allies were stretched to their limit logistically. Without Antwerp or any of the channel ports(most of these had German garrisons that held out for quite a while), there would be no fast attack into Germany.

The US, operationally, had tanks in both armored divisions and independent tank battalions which went with the infantry. This gave most of the army "breakthrough" ability. They were more motorized than the German army ever was, but when the fuel came short their trucks ended up hauling supplies from the Channel and they moved on foot.

Even without this, armies of 1944 were a lot more resistant to the big armored breakthroughs than they were in 1940. The French infantry divisions were inadequate to the task of holding off focused armored attacks, whereas US infantry divisions could typically do quite a bit more(though they were huge by comparison).

Grand Prize Winner
Feb 19, 2007


gradenko_2000 posted:

Only the Finns come close [to the US] at coordinating tubes.

The Finns? How'd they come close? Better C3 training? Better comm equipment?

By the by, the impression that I'm getting from this thread is that the US had the best electronics suite of all the WWII belligerents. T/F?

gohuskies
Oct 23, 2010

I spend a lot of time making posts to justify why I'm not a self centered shithead that just wants to act like COVID isn't a thing.

Grand Prize Winner posted:

The Finns? How'd they come close? Better C3 training? Better comm equipment?

By the by, the impression that I'm getting from this thread is that the US had the best electronics suite of all the WWII belligerents. T/F?

Unbelievably true. As true as is possible. The US had an electronic advantage nearly everywhere it was possible to - putting radar on all sorts of things including artillery shells, better comms, better sigint, better everything. Off the top of my head, I can't think of any electronic warfare arena wherein the US was bested in WWII except Brits being better at crypto. I don't know where gradenko gets his cite on the Finns being good at coordinating tubes but I suspect it is a combination of the Finns not having many tubes to coordinate, making it an easier job, and Finns being lionized as supersoldiers since Winter War histories came out with Finns kicking rear end all sorts of ways. I would love to be proven wrong but I haven't seen sources on the Finns and tube coordination. Edit: re: Finns: there you go.

gohuskies fucked around with this message at 05:18 on Nov 27, 2011

gradenko_2000
Oct 5, 2010

HELL SERPENT
Lipstick Apathy

Grand Prize Winner posted:

The Finns? How'd they come close? Better C3 training? Better comm equipment?

Mostly the latter - after the Winter War and during the Continuation War they managed to get enough radio equipment to form networks, which allowed Fire Observation teams to direct/coordinate the shots of as many guns as they needed (and were in ranged). They also used a lot of pre-plotting to redirect fire quickly, and knowledge of the pre-plotted targets was passed all the way down to the platoon level.

Another key part of their pre-plotting was a calculation tool called the "korjausmuunnin" - it would be placed on the map such that it would form a triangle, with one corner being the shooting battery, the other corner being the position of the FO directing the fire, and the third corner being the target itself. The tool allowed the FO to divorce himself from having to do the firing calculations (in fact, if the tubes missed, instead of correcting the fire by degrees, he would instead call out the correction in meters, as in "right 200") - he wouldn't even need to know which guns in particular he was directing, and that kind of flexibility gave way to simply letting the FO command as many guns as was available, instead of relying on dedicated artillery battalions for your particular formation.

In contrast, the Red Army wasn't nearly as quick in directing their fire, although they did have many more tubes to line up, and their Close Air Support was more flexible.

To cite a source, this page has some info on Finnish artillery, although I acknowledge that it may be biased.

gradenko_2000 fucked around with this message at 05:29 on Nov 27, 2011

Nenonen
Oct 22, 2009

Mulla on aina kolkyt donaa taskussa

gohuskies posted:

I don't know where gradenko gets his cite on the Finns being good at coordinating tubes but I suspect it is a combination of the Finns not having many tubes to coordinate, making it an easier job

It's more like the opposite of that. The problem was that when you had only a fraction of the guns Soviets had (not only that, but they also were of dozens of types) and shell stockpiles were far more restricted, you had to make the best use of them. Instead of one FO monopolizing on one section, battery or battalion, one FO could call in fire from several elements within range in very short time without making sweat. The often cited 'record' is when in the battles of summer 1944 one FO had access to 21 artillery battalions and one heavy battery, about 250 tubes. That didn't happen without doctrinal innovations.

gradenko_2000 posted:

To cite a source, this page has some info on Finnish artillery, although I acknowledge that it may be biased.

Winterwar.com is an objective and well sourced site, in my experience - a rarity in many ways. However, eg. the Correction Converter was only inventend in 1943 so a Winter War site is not going to give a full picture of what it had become by the end of WW2.

zokie
Feb 13, 2006

Out of many, Sweden

Grand Prize Winner posted:

The idea of conscription being a tool for social justice never occurred to this American. Over here our left wing is deeply and almost universally opposed to anything resembling conscription (the draft, as we call it in the states).

Conscription is the very basis of democracy, or rather used to be. The first modern system of conscription was created by revolutionary France, but maybe it could be argued that the 2nd amendment could be seen as something similiar.

The idea is simply: If you want to vote and participate in ruling our country you better be ready to defend it! When Sweden adopted universal (male) sufferage in the eary nineties they wrote:
One man, one gun, one vote! on their placards.

But we have long since left the idea of it being the responsibly of every (male) citizen to defend its country.

gohuskies
Oct 23, 2010

I spend a lot of time making posts to justify why I'm not a self centered shithead that just wants to act like COVID isn't a thing.

gradenko_2000 posted:

Mostly the latter - after the Winter War and during the Continuation War they managed to get enough radio equipment to form networks, which allowed Fire Observation teams to direct/coordinate the shots of as many guns as they needed (and were in ranged). They also used a lot of pre-plotting to redirect fire quickly, and knowledge of the pre-plotted targets was passed all the way down to the platoon level.

Another key part of their pre-plotting was a calculation tool called the "korjausmuunnin" - it would be placed on the map such that it would form a triangle, with one corner being the shooting battery, the other corner being the position of the FO directing the fire, and the third corner being the target itself. The tool allowed the FO to divorce himself from having to do the firing calculations (in fact, if the tubes missed, instead of correcting the fire by degrees, he would instead call out the correction in meters, as in "right 200") - he wouldn't even need to know which guns in particular he was directing, and that kind of flexibility gave way to simply letting the FO command as many guns as was available, instead of relying on dedicated artillery battalions for your particular formation.

In contrast, the Red Army wasn't nearly as quick in directing their fire, although they did have many more tubes to line up, and their Close Air Support was more flexible.

To cite a source, this page has some info on Finnish artillery, although I acknowledge that it may be biased.

Yeah, I wasn't calling you out or anything when I said "I haven't seen a cite on that", just that I hadn't heard anything about the Finns being particularly good at artillery. Interesting info.

lilljonas
May 6, 2007

We got crabs? We got crabs!

zokie posted:

Conscription is the very basis of democracy, or rather used to be. The first modern system of conscription was created by revolutionary France, but maybe it could be argued that the 2nd amendment could be seen as something similiar.

The idea is simply: If you want to vote and participate in ruling our country you better be ready to defend it! When Sweden adopted universal (male) sufferage in the eary nineties they wrote:
One man, one gun, one vote! on their placards.

But we have long since left the idea of it being the responsibly of every (male) citizen to defend its country.

It's also a sort of safeguard against one political faction taking control of the army. If everyone has to serve, you don't get a situation such as a disproportional number of rightwing extremists, a group who often dream of making a military coup, enroll in the army. It also safeguards against a socioeconomic unfairness as in the US, where a sociopolitical group that almost never have relatives enrolled in the army can call for a war where mostly the poor and disenfranchised will sign up because of economic pressure, and risk being killed. The decision to go to war is simply more fair if everyone have to take similar consequences of it.

Now, this means that conscription is something that I agree on as an idea, but frankly doesn't work that well in Sweden once the Wall was torn down and we didn't need hundreds of thousands of snotnosed 18-yearolds sitting in the forests all day. When I did my service there was less than 15% who needed to do it, and it meant that us who did have to do the shittier, colder service had quite low morale. It is difficult to come to terms with spending 10 months in the equivalent of Alaska for 10 dollars/day when the rest of your friends are getting jobs or starting university. If you had a solution where everyone either had to do military service or spend the same time doing services for the community for the same salary it would work, but that would be too communist to be accepted in the 21th century Sweden.

To tie this into military history, it shows how conscription as an idea is born from democratic ideals rather than military innovations, but the Napoleonic Wars showed just how enormously powerful it was. Napoleon could raise new armies at a pace that made his enemies panic, and he managed to slap other countries around for so long that pretty much everyone followed suit to some degree. But today it is very expensive to maintain a true conscription, and so only countries that truly have a need for a constant standing army can successfully convince their own populations to spend money on it. Countries like Israel and both Koreas.

Alchenar
Apr 9, 2008

lilljonas posted:

It's also a sort of safeguard against one political faction taking control of the army. If everyone has to serve, you don't get a situation such as a disproportional number of rightwing extremists, a group who often dream of making a military coup, enroll in the army.

No, those extremists still enroll in the army, except they take professional commissions (you'll still need those) and now have a vast amount of power. You also just started a program of desensitisation to absolute authority of the entire population by putting them through 2-3 years of military discipline.

There's a reason authoritarian regimes love conscription.

Mr. Sunshine
May 15, 2008

This is a scrunt that has been in space too long and become a Lunt (Long Scrunt)

Fun Shoe

Graviton v2 posted:

I'm assuming you are finished you're service now but; in retrospect do you think it did you wrong or right?

Do you think it made you a better person? Are you proud of the poo poo you did? Did you get experience helpful for job apps?
Yes, I finished my service back in 2001. I believe it did me good. I learnt to work in a group, I learnt to endure physical hardships, and I learnt valuable leadership skills.

As for being "proud", well, it's not like I spent a year in the trenches. We spent the year training and studying. The only "live" tasks we had were helping with that flooding, and twice guarding the royal palace for three days at a time. The service was interesting and I'm glad to have done it, but "pride" seems like a weird word for it. You gotta realize that I'm from Sweden, where words like "patriotism" and "proud of your country" are solely the domain of racists and neo-nazis.

Starsnostars
Jan 17, 2009

The Master of Magnetism
Was there any international backlash against the British invasion of Iceland in 1940?

GyverMac
Aug 3, 2006
My posting is like I Love Lucy without the funny bits. Basically, WAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAHHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Mr. Sunshine posted:

but "pride" seems like a weird word for it. You gotta realize that I'm from Sweden, where words like "patriotism" and "proud of your country" are solely the domain of racists and neo-nazis.

As your brother from another mother (norwegian) I find it surprising you claim its THAT bad in Sweden. Just this summer i was participating in a joint exercize with the swedish national guard in Malmų and the impression i got was that they were people who were genuinely motivated because of normal patriotism, and not in a neo-nazi/gun-nut creepy kind of way.

Nenonen
Oct 22, 2009

Mulla on aina kolkyt donaa taskussa

Starsnostars posted:

Was there any international backlash against the British invasion of Iceland in 1940?

Germany probably condemned it as an unprovoked barbaric act of cynical imperialism against a peaceful nation, or something. Does that count?

Mr. Sunshine
May 15, 2008

This is a scrunt that has been in space too long and become a Lunt (Long Scrunt)

Fun Shoe

GyverMac posted:

As your brother from another mother (norwegian) I find it surprising you claim its THAT bad in Sweden. Just this summer i was participating in a joint exercize with the swedish national guard in Malmų and the impression i got was that they were people who were genuinely motivated because of normal patriotism, and not in a neo-nazi/gun-nut creepy kind of way.

Well, perhaps, but outright calling yourself a patriot in Sweden is codeword for "I want to kick out all the filthy muslims". I'm not saying that Swedes can't be proud of their country, just that "patriotism" is a dirty word (incidentally, so is "capitalism").

SeanBeansShako
Nov 20, 2009

Now the Drums beat up again,
For all true Soldier Gentlemen.
In Europe, it is called Jingoism tainted by 19th century Imperialism and later Nationalism.

It seems too tainted sadly, I'm usually more proud of the Scientific and Social achivements of my nation really. We did kick arse in some sense a few hundred years ago but hell we invented loving Television and Radar too.

Also, the National Service question is a weird one in the United Kingdom. But as a young British male in his twenties I'd give it a go.

As long as they keep all the dickheads away from the Military arm.

Mans
Sep 14, 2011

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
I just don't see the point is losing one work or study year of my life to learn how to die in case of war. At least here in western europe were we don't really need a massive number of trained civilians ready for war.

Oxford Comma
Jun 26, 2011
Oxford Comma: Hey guys I want a cool big dog to show off! I want it to be ~special~ like Thor but more couch potato-like because I got babbies in the house!
Everybody: GET A LAB.
Oxford Comma: OK! (gets a a pit/catahoula mix)

zokie posted:

The idea is simply: If you want to vote and participate in ruling our country you better be ready to defend it!

SERVICE GUARANTEES CITIZENSHIP! WOULD YOU LIKE TO KNOW MORE?

gradenko_2000
Oct 5, 2010

HELL SERPENT
Lipstick Apathy

gohuskies posted:

Yeah, I wasn't calling you out or anything when I said "I haven't seen a cite on that", just that I hadn't heard anything about the Finns being particularly good at artillery. Interesting info.

Hey, no worries :) It was as much to cover my own rear end as anything else, since I don't have the OP's credentials.

Glah
Jun 21, 2005

Oxford Comma posted:

SERVICE GUARANTEES CITIZENSHIP! WOULD YOU LIKE TO KNOW MORE?

TAXATION IS SLAVERY! is the other side of the argument. Coming from a country that has a mandatory conscription and civil service it is no surprise that more and more arguments against it are coming from libertarian circles. It is all about how you see the relationship between individul and society.

In theory I don't have anything against it. Part of building and maintaining a functioning society is sharing the risks and working towards common goals. Welfare state is a good example of this, where with high taxes and governmental interventions we try to level the playing field within the society and try to maintain sufficient social safety nets and solidarity. I see that the national service is just a logical continuation of this thought, sharing the risks and ensuring the protection of society against outside threaths. This is especially important for small neutral countries that really don't have any other way of organizing sufficient and cost-effective defence.

Now, this doesn't mean that the system is perfect or it isn't in need of reforms. For example in Finland it is debatable how effective a reserve of 350 000 personel with the current military budget really is. Modern military technology is expensive and there is only so much you can do in modern battlefield with soldiers who for example have limited ability to operate in night time. So the size of reserve is most likely going to be reduced, as is the number of biannual conscripts. At the same time I would like to see reforms in civil service, instead of just offering free labour there should be more emphasis on civil crisis managment, like disaster relief etc.

duckmaster
Sep 13, 2004
Mr and Mrs Duck go and stay in a nice hotel.

One night they call room service for some condoms as things are heating up.

The guy arrives and says "do you want me to put it on your bill"

Mr Duck says "what kind of pervert do you think I am?!

QUACK QUACK

zokie posted:

Conscription is the very basis of democracy, or rather used to be. The first modern system of conscription was created by revolutionary France

France had conscription for hundreds of years, in the form of a feudal ballot system. The revolutionary government expanded this system upon taking power. The levee en mass, what I assume you mean when you say "modern conscription" was created by the dictatorial government of the Committee for Public Safety to put down counter-revolution, particularly in the Vendee (where up to quarter of a million Frenchmen died).

The conscripted French army was used as tool by a violent and repressive autocracy to maintain its control over the people; it has absolutely nothing to do with democracy.

Mustang
Jun 18, 2006

“We don’t really know where this goes — and I’m not sure we really care.”

lilljonas posted:

It's also a sort of safeguard against one political faction taking control of the army. If everyone has to serve, you don't get a situation such as a disproportional number of rightwing extremists, a group who often dream of making a military coup, enroll in the army. It also safeguards against a socioeconomic unfairness as in the US, where a sociopolitical group that almost never have relatives enrolled in the army can call for a war where mostly the poor and disenfranchised will sign up because of economic pressure, and risk being killed. The decision to go to war is simply more fair if everyone have to take similar consequences of it.

Actually the majority of recruits in the US military come from middle class backgrounds and are more highly educated than the average American. We don't have to worry about military coups by rightwing extremists over here either.

The Republican candidate from the previous election, John McCain, has 2 kids in the military that have been deployed, though I don't know the specifics of their careers. Though they don't join up in nearly as many numbers as the middle class, there's a few from the upper classes.

I do agree that we need to use our military with some restraint, Invading Iraq was a horrible idea.

Mustang fucked around with this message at 21:16 on Nov 27, 2011

Lovely Joe Stalin
Jun 12, 2007

Our Lovely Wang
At the moment yeah, but I would say that the dramatically increasing influence of truly scary fundamentalist religious zealots within the US military is, if unchecked, something to worry about further down the line.

Mustang
Jun 18, 2006

“We don’t really know where this goes — and I’m not sure we really care.”
Are you an American? Can't say I've run into too many people like that in the military, though they do exist.

Lovely Joe Stalin
Jun 12, 2007

Our Lovely Wang
No I'm not American so my knowledge is from reading articles over the years. There was some really interesting stuff about it in D&D relatively recently.

Essentially there seems to be a growing movement to push the rank and file into attending fundamentalist Christian services in the guise of morale building exercises, with extra privileges for those attending not extended those who do not. Also holiday retreats for officers, at fundamentalist camps where attendance at services, and being Christian, are mandatory. Camps which will not hire non-Christian staff.
There have been stories coming out of the US Air Force in particular for years now as well. Agnostics, atheists and other non-Christian officer cadets being bullied, punished and ostracised for not being Christians.

I'm not saying it's going to be a problem in the next few years or even the next few generations, but it really is quite a scary thing to have growing inside a supposedly (and legally obligated to be) secular military.

vains
May 26, 2004

A Big Ten institution offering distance education catering to adult learners

Rapey Joe Stalin posted:

No I'm not American so my knowledge is from reading articles over the years. There was some really interesting stuff about it in D&D relatively recently.

Essentially there seems to be a growing movement to push the rank and file into attending fundamentalist Christian services in the guise of morale building exercises, with extra privileges for those attending not extended those who do not. Also holiday retreats for officers, at fundamentalist camps where attendance at services, and being Christian, are mandatory. Camps which will not hire non-Christian staff.
There have been stories coming out of the US Air Force in particular for years now as well. Agnostics, atheists and other non-Christian officer cadets being bullied, punished and ostracised for not being Christians.

I'm not saying it's going to be a problem in the next few years or even the next few generations, but it really is quite a scary thing to have growing inside a supposedly (and legally obligated to be) secular military.

D&D is a bit of an echo chamber at times. The incentive to write sensational stories in the media, etc.

I'm not saying that it doesn't happen because it has been documented to occur(people distributing Bibles in Iraq/Afghan, issues at the AFA) but that a distinct favoritism/whatever term you want to use is not the experience of the majority of US troops.

Nenonen
Oct 22, 2009

Mulla on aina kolkyt donaa taskussa
Thread taken over by political discussion over XYZ. Exterminate.

Dear Military History Experts, is the following claim true, and why?

Rodrigo Diaz
Apr 16, 2007

Knights who are at the wars eat their bread in sorrow;
their ease is weariness and sweat;
they have one good day after many bad

Nenonen posted:


Dear Military History Experts, is the following claim true, and why?



Yes, but only in the sense that it was dishonourable to stay at home. The zeppelin attacks killed, both numerically and taken as a percentage, a pitifully small number compared to those who died from artillery and bullets.

Mr. Sunshine
May 15, 2008

This is a scrunt that has been in space too long and become a Lunt (Long Scrunt)

Fun Shoe
Seeing as how there were more British casualties in the first half hour of the Somme offensive than in three years worth of Zeppelin bombings - no.

SeanBeansShako
Nov 20, 2009

Now the Drums beat up again,
For all true Soldier Gentlemen.
The only thing more horribly sad than the results for the The Somme was the high expectations that it would be the break through offensive.

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Contingency Plan
Nov 23, 2007

I'd like to know more about Scotland's navy. Were they ever a naval power? Was their fleet ever a match for England's?

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