|
Copernic posted:Where do I find a good introduction -- preferably a book - to military tactics and strategy? Either small squad or large-scale. In a military history thread, this is a very rather vague question - ie. are you talking about Greek hoplite tactics or Mutually Assured Destruction strategies? Also, naval tactics differ vastly from land and air tactics. For instance, naval tactics and strategies changed many times from 1700's to late 1900's. This was fuelled by huge inventions. First, due to transition from sail to steam power, which resulted in faster and heavier ships but which also required coal supplies ever so often. Second, due to invention of radios, which made it possible for high sea navies to transfer intelligence without much delay. Third, the invention of naval aviation, and radar, both of which allowed for fleets to locate (and even attack!) enemy ships beyond horizon for the first time in history. Then we get to nuclear power, missiles and all the post-WW2 stuff. Some of these inventions have had a greater effect on tactics, some on strategies, but all in all it's hard to explain them in a catch-all manner. But there are many books that help you to get started, at the very least. John Keegan's 'History of Warfare', among others, should help a beginner to understand some bits of how warfare has evolved over the millennia. Even if Keegan does have a tendency to drone on and on about Clausewitz's follies while seemingly missing von C.'s point. Kemper Boyd posted:Actually, by the time peace was made in March 1940, the Finnish Army was in a completely untenable position since the main line defense line had been breached in the Russian offensive during February. The main reason why Stalin agreed to peace with almost the original terms was the fact that in his mind, the Allied countries might just decide to get involved which certainly would not benefit him. That, and probably also the fact that the ridiculously unrealistic initial plan had been to take over the place in couple of weeks. At that point the war was finally heading to a favourable direction, but the war was costing a fortune compared to what it was supposed to be, the Red Army needed to be restructured based on the lessons while Germany was still engaged in a war with France and Britain, and there was no guarantee that the Finnish government would surrender, rather than carrying on a prolonged guerrilla war in the forests. Certainly it had become clear that the puppet government consisting of exiled Finnish communists had no popular support. Stalin wasn't the kind of gambler that Hitler was - if he couldn't be sure of winning a fight, he'd rather wait for conditions to change, like in how he slowly but steadily eliminated his opponents in the Party until he could banish or execute all the rest. In Finland's case it was better to wait and maybe try again in late 1940, but by then Germany had defeated France and was now acting prickish toward Soviet Union's intentions. Nenonen fucked around with this message at 21:04 on Oct 8, 2010 |
#
¿
Oct 8, 2010 20:35
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 16, 2024 06:54 |
|
|
Panzeh posted:Poland, despite its numerical inferiority, was hampered by the belief that the Germans might just take part of Poland and settle with the Allies for it, thusly they deployed heavily along their frontier, which made them very vulnerable to encirclement. Had they deployed along the more defensible river lines, they might have been able to hang on longer. Very seldom do generals get to make such decisions based solely on what is doctrinally sound. Rather, political requirements often override such considerations; eg. logically Greece should have concentrated all their efforts on defending on narrow front the few approaches to Athens in 1941, but this would have meant abandoning the second largest city, Thessaloniki. It is extremely hard to justify such decisions to your people without either letting defeatism creep into their minds ("war is lost, we can't even defend our borders anymore!") or becoming vulnerable to political attacks.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 9, 2010 14:08
|
|
|
sos posted:The Commonwealth and its Allies were fighting the Germans in Africa, Italy etc before the Normandy invasion. It's not like they were sitting around doing nothing until 1944. But to be fair, so were the US - starting with Operation Torch in November 1942. However, the amount of troops in North Africa was low due to logistical issues and low strategic significance, so it doesn't quite compare to the meat grinder of the eastern front, or even the battles in Normandy and Ardennes. Eg. in the second battle of El Alamein, Germans and Italians numbered 116,000 men in total, and casualties were over 30,000. At about the same time, in the battle of Stalingrad the German losses were 750,000 casualties and 91,000 captured!!! But Britain (and her Commonwealth allies) and France certainly did fight even before USSR or USA were pulled into the war. Eg. in the Battle of France, Germany lost over 155,000 men dead, wounded or missing, and these were healthy young men and properly trained before the war, not some undernourished Russian POW's pressed into service like could be found in Normandy in 1944 or Volksturm grandpas defending their hometowns in 1945. All in all, pissing contests are fruitless. Some countries had more men and material than others, some countries were forced to fight from the start while some others were in no hurry to get in.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 11, 2010 15:39
|
|
|
Accuracy is not so much of an issue when you're blasting at a tight multi-rank formation of spearmen - and a single musket bullet could, with a hefty doze of luck, incapacitate more than one of them! Then again, AK-47's they weren't.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 16, 2010 00:02
|
|
|
Basically, in all of those countries the likely alternative to a right-wing junta would have been a total communist takeover and sliding into the Soviet bloc, at least as far as CIA saw the situation. USA also had contingency plans for a military takeover of Italy in case the communists would have won in elections.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 16, 2010 10:59
|
|
|
Zorak of Michigan posted:They were great guns for marching soldiers, exactly as if they were most interested in the operational aspect of maneuver warfare than the tedious questions of supplying it. They knew perfectly well that they couldn't properly supply the troops during the invasion of Russia due to the difference in rail gauge, but they invaded anyway and figured that if they killed or captured enough Russians, everything would work out. If that's not a casual attitude toward logistics, what is? bewbies posted:They'd have a bit more firepower and the body armor and night vision would be nice additions, but the really decisive differences between now and then is C4I and fires, which I'm guessing isn't present in your hypothetical. But artillery would still be almost as deadly as ever, and a single infantry battalion wouldn't stay combat effective for long in a battle like Kursk. The body armor would save lives, but heavy artillery drumfire would still cause losses. Nenonen fucked around with this message at 22:01 on Dec 5, 2010 |
|
#
¿
Dec 5, 2010 21:45
|
|
|
Zorak of Michigan posted:The biggest problem for the Germans in the East was the difference in railway gauge, which meant that no German equipment could be used in conquered territory. Obviously that problem would not exist for the enemy. That's a bit of a misrepresentation; the railways could be converted, the problem was that this didn't happen at the rate expected or needed. But it's not true that the same didn't exist for Soviets: they suffered from the same problem when attacking westward. Besides, you are not giving enough consideration to something crucial: logistic plans work only as far as they are based on a realistic general plan. German plan for Operation Barbarossa was to defeat Red Army in a couple of months, which they effectively did. Only to realize that Kremlin hadn't capitulated but had formed new armies to defend the heartlands. Germans weren't ignorant of logistics, they were ignorant of their enemy. In other campaigns where they estimated the length of the campaign better, logistics worked. It would have been quite impossible to wage war all over Europe otherwise. Western Allies had none of the problems that Germans had in the east, yet they still totally ran out of steam in the Autumn of 1944. Is that also a case of being casual toward logistics? I highly doubt so.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 6, 2010 10:20
|
|
|
Admiral Snackbar posted:In contrast to Rommel, the first step the Allies took after landing in Normandy was to secure a deep-water port (Cherbourg) and artificially increase its capacity through the use of the Mulberry Harbor. quote:Landing directly on to the open beaches, in the coming weeks the Americans were to achieve daily delivery totals which exceeded those made through the elaborate machinery of the artificial port. ... By June 29th their [the Brits' at the Mulberry B] deliveries reached the record total of 11,000 tons; but in the same week the Americans were receiving 7,000 tons a day at Utah and 13,500 tons at Omaha, respectively 124 and 115 per cent of planned capacity. Mulberries were an impressive sight, but they did little by themselves to solve the challenges of supplying over a million men. One might even say that they were a typical example of the kind of British over-engineering that Churchill loved ever so much and Americans were skeptical of, but that would be a cheap shot. Incidentally, Germans too had similar plans for an artificial harbor for the invasion of England, but that never came to be...
|
|
#
¿
Dec 8, 2010 00:09
|
|
|
Boiled Water posted:Do you have any other examples of British over-engineering? Germany had a lot of logistical problems of being a mediocre industrial power compared to the two giants it was trying to fight. This meant that its supply chain was burdened by various burglarized Czech, French and Russian weapons and vehicles. Eg. there weren't enough trucks in the army, so a lot were appropriated from civilians, resulting in dozens of different incompatible truck designs that needed their own spare parts. Compare this to the far more motorized Allied armies that had very standardized trucks. The same went on throughout the German arsenal. For small countries like Finland this was par course, eg. Finnish artillery used Imperial Russian, Soviet, Finnish, Swedish, British, French, US, Austrian, German, Belgian, Japanese, Polish and Czech guns. Beggars can't be choosers.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 8, 2010 09:23
|
|
|
Rommel1896 posted:In that comic book (which was as hilarious as it was depressing) it says to never load more than 20 rounds into a magazine. Why?
|
|
#
¿
Dec 12, 2010 19:03
|
|
|
Veins McGee posted:M16 magazines in Vietnam were 20rd instead of the 30rd like are used today. Ah, I didn't know that 30 round magazines are used today, so I didn't even find that strange.  However, I think this is soon becoming a gun thread, not military history thread. Umm... how was Napoleon's army's supply organized in the 1812 Russian adventure? Did they get resupplied for gunpowder during the campaign, or did they carry all their gunpowder supplies with them? I'm wondering of how did they calculate the needs for operations like that, when you could hardly predict how many battles you would fight on your way to Moscow. The Swedes had great problems with their gunpowder at Poltava, and it was impossible to get supplies from home at that time. Did the French plan any better in this respect?
|
|
#
¿
Dec 12, 2010 19:50
|
|
|
Revolvyerom posted:What would be considered the greatest technological underdog victory in a battle? Where one side used gear far more behind the development curve of their peers to unquestionably defeat their opponent, than had been done before or since?
|
|
#
¿
Dec 12, 2010 20:08
|
|
|
lilljonas posted:The Gurkha soldiers gained quite the reputation by slaughtering tons of Japanese for the British in the South-Asian jungles using only their knives, since guns would just make a lot of noise. I don't know if that counts since they did have access to more advanced technology, they just chose to not use it.  Unless you mean that someone stabbing a night guard in the back counts as a 'battle', but then I'm sure there are people who killed armed men with their bare hands. edit: but in the end, the original question really is unanswerable. How do you define the size of technological gap? Was the gap between Aztecs and Spaniards smaller or greater than the gap between Taliban and US military is? Aztecs didn't have steel or gunpowder, but the Taliban don't have cruise missiles, modern tanks, all-weather aircraft and bullet proof vests. Nenonen fucked around with this message at 21:27 on Dec 12, 2010 |
|
#
¿
Dec 12, 2010 21:07
|
|
|
Rabhadh posted:This is pretty much a :milgoonsay:, I love the century Then answer my earlier question regarding the logistical planning for Napoleon's campaign in Russia, damnit! How did the armies ensure that they wouldn't run out of gunpowder just prior to the decisive battle on long campaigns like that? Or could Nappy expect to receive supplies to Moscow if need be? Or did they just go in and hope for the best, like Napoleon did in Egypt? P.S. pre:___^____ / / 卐______\ /_/[ .]-[ .] (_______O__) Just barely, there's very little difference between Seven Years War, American Independence War and Napoleonic Wars as far as armies functioned. But feel free to present a counter argument! VVVV Nenonen fucked around with this message at 17:40 on Dec 13, 2010 |
|
#
¿
Dec 13, 2010 17:23
|
|
|
lilljonas posted:"and have the most amazing hockey team ever imagined!"  But let's hypothetize this 'seriously': what would have followed if Peter hadn't won decisively in Poltava? If either A) the battle had been inconclusive, B) Swedish victory with Peter getting away, or C) the Swedish army had captured or killed Peter? Peter was absolutely defeated in Narva, but he still managed to form a new army. Could he have recovered from another loss or was Sweden really that close to winning the whole war?
|
|
#
¿
Dec 16, 2010 19:36
|
|
|
Hermann Göring had 22 confirmed kills as a WW1 fighter pilot; compare this to US WW1 top ace Eddie Rickenbacker, who had 26 confirmed kills. Clearly he was good at something. Just not as a military mastermind.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 18, 2010 13:46
|
|
|
SagatPunisherFanFic posted:OK, Roman legions! As far as I know Rome managed to take over so much stuff because, in part, they had that great army. The organisation and equipment they had let them get away with 10,000 Romans fighting 100,000 barbarians, and to do so reliably. I'm no expert on legions, but legions needed a lot of training to function well, meaning it was expensive - you had to keep a legionnaire fed and paid for a long time before he was going to be of use, assuming that he didn't die of disease before that. Since Rome had expanded in every direction, there weren't as many legions in all the hotspots as would have been needed to keep the Germanic tribes away, and the Roman economy would not afford raising new legions, so it was cheaper to recruit barbarians to participate in defense. But I don't think that legions went obsolete all of a sudden, Byzanth used them for some time afterward. quote:Let's say this is around Joan of Arc's time. So question two! Were armies in those times actually just made of masses of peasants? Masses of peasants were hard to control and would run away as soon as they saw enemy kniggets looking at them, unless they were led by exceptionally charismatic leaders (such as Jeanne d'Arc). Armies need discipline, and discipline takes training. Being a soldier was a lifetime job, usually not a very long lifetime, though.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 22, 2010 07:56
|
|
|
Chade Johnson posted:From what I've read about the 2008 Russo-Georgian war, the Georgians walked right into a trap. The Russians apparently had a ton of men and equipment ready to roll into South Ossetia and Abkhazia, as well as Georgia proper, at a moments notice. I don't think they started it but they were definitely very prepared. It would be strange if they didn't have a ton of troops in the region, considering the ever volatile situation both in North and South Caucasus, and friction with Ukraine. To call it a trap would imply that Russians intentionally tried to make the situation seem like Georgia could easily take the break-away provinces, and I don't remember any signs of Russia going to watch from aside prior to the war. What I've wondered is that if Russians had just one supply tunnel that they used for their operations in South Ossetia, why didn't Georgian military try to do something to block that bottleneck?
|
|
#
¿
Jan 3, 2011 19:48
|
|
|
GyverMac posted:If the ball was not the calibre of the smoothbore barrel, or was not properly "stuffed" it would be propelled at an uneven angle from the get-go and "bounce" inside the barrel. Ofc i do not mean rubber ball random bounce, but "ricochet" erratically off the sides of the barrel. Like so: Wouldn't ricocheting off the sides of a round barrel take more energy than rolling along the walls in a spiral-like fashion?
|
|
#
¿
Jan 6, 2011 12:35
|
|
|
Panzeh posted:As to the use of tank destroyers, assault guns, and regular tanks, it really depended on the nation. The Germans, for example, used StuG IIIGs, ostensibly assault guns/tank destroyers(kind of a facetious distinction), in an infantry support role, since they were assigned to the artillery, and they could engage both armor and infantry reasonably well. That, and Germany did not have a lot of tanks available during that period. The StuG began as a humble 75L/24-armed weapon platform, suitable for pounding entrenched enemies but of no use against medium tanks. After the invasion of Russia Germans realized they needed better armed AFV's, and Panzer IV was the only operational tank that could be fitted with the heavier 75L/43 (later, L/48) gun in its turret. Therefore the Panzer III based StuG's were upgunned to bring more firepower to face the KV's and T-34's. I think it's fair to say that after they were fitted with high velocity guns, they became tank destroyers by nature and assault guns in name only. StuH42 with its 105mm howitzer was more true to the name. The US tank destroyer doctrine was unrealistic. Eg. in Normandy most German Panzer divisions were facing the Brits in the more open fields around Caen, leaving US M-10 TD battalions useless. As a result, they were given tasks that were supposed to fall on tanks, like infantry support. Meanwhile, when tanks encountered Panzers, they couldn't just retreat and call TD's to deal with them. The M-10 was also slow and had a terribly slow, hand-cranked turret, limiting its tactical usability. The later M-18 Hellcat was far superior in speed, and while this came at the cost of lighter armour, it was a more successful design. Nevertheless, the days of dedicated Tank Destroyers were soon over. Nenonen fucked around with this message at 17:24 on Jan 26, 2011 |
|
#
¿
Jan 26, 2011 17:12
|
|
|
iv46vi posted:Could you kind sirs ease up on the use of military jargon, especially when discussing modern military? I like this thread a lot, but when you start throwing more than one abbreviation like "AFV" per sentence without explaining it, my little commoner's brain hurts. [/rant] The gun naming convention like 75 L/43 means 75mm gun with barrel length 43 times caliber. So a 75 L/48 is twice as long as 75 L/24. The longer gun usually also has a higher muzzle velocity, which also results in more kinetic energy and therefore penetration capability, other things being equal. Unless the shell shatters...
|
|
#
¿
Jan 26, 2011 20:20
|
|
|
Boiled Water posted:What does the future hold for battalions of armor? We have had tanks for almost a century now, and during all that time counter-measures have been developed to deter their threat, with varying degrees of success. WW1 tanks came -> Anti-Tank Rifles were developed. Ordinary infantry guns could knock them out with direct fire. After the war, a little heavier tanks were built. Specialized anti-tank guns were acquired to deter their threat, their calibres quickly rose from 20-25mm to 37-45mm prior to war. During the war, tank armour plates soon got thicker and thicker, and ATG's tried to follow this development. First to 50-57mm, then 75-76mm and in no time 88-128mm was deemed necessary to knock out the heaviest armour. But these guns were already as heavy as smaller tanks, and required big vehicles to pull them around. The other way was to penetrate armour not with kinetic energy but with a shaped charge. A shaped charge or hollow charge or HEAT (High Explosive Anti Tank) could be shot at lower velocities, meaning it didn't need a huge fricking gun: a shoulder-launched rocket or a light weight recoilless rifle was enough. Eg. Bazooka, Panzerschreck, Panzerfaust, PIAT. This gave infantry its teeth back, but low velocity rocket launchers had a limited range: a tank could lay accurate gun fire at 2km, but a Bazooka might hit something at 200 meters if there wasn't much wind. To give the shaped charges more reach, Anti-Tank Guided Missiles (ATGM) were developed. These could engage tanks at ranges where they wouldn't even be able to return effective fire! However, the first generation ATGM's were slow and hard to steer, so well-trained tankers could avoid them with well-executed maneuvers. Later ATGM's were far more dangerous. Explosive Reactive Armor (ERA) was invented to counter the shaped charge with a counter-explosion; then someone came up with the idea of placing TWO shaped charges in tandem to counter ERA. After laser-guided missiles became common, laser jamming systems were developed. The most recent generation of ATGM's utilizes methods that seem to be hard to counter. Take Javelin, for instance. It is a fire-and-forget weapon, meaning that once it is shot, distracting or killing the operator won't do anything to help the target unlike with earlier generation missiles. It can also be used for top attack, meaning that the weakest side of the tank will be hit, most likely resulting in penetration. The Gil/EuroSpike can also be guided via an optic fiber so you can fire it from behind a hill and acquire a target during the flight, giving the enemy even less of a chance for taking cover. But there are possible counter-measures, naturally. The most interesting of all counter measure systems are the 'hard-kill' systems, such as the Russian ARENA. These detect the missile eg. with a radar, calculate its flight path and then fire projectiles to destroy the missile. Of course it's a bit dangerous if there is infantry nearby, but then, it also sucks if the tanks supporting infantry advance blow up. No idea how effective it'd be in a real war, though. Another option is an 'energy field' that somehow renders a shaped charge ineffective - this option has apparently been successfully tested too, but it's not yet in use anywhere. Now, as to what will be the future of armoured troops, it's important to realize that 1st world armies seldom fight wars with other 1st world armies (I'm including Russia in 1st world here), and less developed countries often need their armed forces mainly against their neighbours and to suppress internal conflicts. It could take a long time before anything really happens here. Taliban guerrillas and the like aren't going to acquire top-attack ATGM's or Predator UAV's any time soon, so tanks will be useful against them. But I do believe that over time the need for heavy main battle tanks like Abrams or T-90 diminishes. Future AFV's will be crammed with counter-measures or they will operate under the umbrella of vehicles that provide an umbrella of such protection for them, that's for sure.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 26, 2011 21:30
|
|
|
Puukko naamassa posted:By the way, according to the obituary, he was killed on 9th of October 1944, and by that time Finland was already at war with Germany, though judging by the place of death (which is in Pechenga/Petsamo) he did indeed die fighting Soviets and not Finns.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 26, 2011 23:45
|
|
|
Revolvyerom posted:Where can I find more information about this? In the internet...  Check here.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 27, 2011 09:40
|
|
|
Comrade_Robot posted:If by 'tank destroyer' you mean a tracked vehicle with light armor and a large main gun, the Soviets fielded an enormous number of the SU-76, as well as the ZiS 30 and the SU-85. The Germans fielded the Panzerjager I, a bunch of Marders, Hetzers and Nashorns. This is a totally different thing. What Soviets and Germans did was out of necessity - they needed more AFV's than they could build proper tanks, so they built turretless tank destroyers. The leading theorists in the two dictatorship swore by general purpose tanks - not that their pre-war designs necessarily reflected this except for T-34 and KV-1, but there was no such systematic separation of AFV's that would kill tanks (TD's) and AFV's that would breach enemy infantry lines and push through (tanks) as there was for the US. Soviet pre-war system was based on two main types, the infantry tank (T-26) that would support infantry and the cavalry tank (BT-5 and 7) that would exploit breakthroughs. Medium tanks T-28 and T-35 would be used in breaking through fortified lines. T-26 and BT's had a 45mm gun (equivalent of the German 37mm gun against armour) and the medium tanks a 76.2mm low velocity gun that wasn't any better. But during that period it was considered to be sufficient. In the Finnish Winter War Soviets realized that the very light T-26 and BT-5 didn't have enough protection, as 37mm ATG's had become the standard. The 45mm gun wasn't sufficient either. This resulted in the KV and, I think, affected the development of the T-34. The designing of the latter had already started in 1939 but the Winter War experience must have had some role in its final form when its production started. But between this and 1941 when Germany invaded Russia, only a handful of KV's and less than a thousand T-34's had been built - about half of Red Army's 20,000 strong tank force was made of T-26's and most of the rest was BT's. Because it was easier to build a 76.2mm gun and put it on a light tank chassis, this was done to beef up the AFV force. Not because Soviet generals wanted tank destroyers but because there was nothing better available. The German experience was kind of similar, except that they had to have a crash program in the 1930's to have any kind of Panzer force by 1939 due to the Versailles limitations that were fully chucked aside only as Hitler rose to power. As a result, German tank force for the invasion of Poland* was as follows: Panzer I (MG) 973 Panzer II (20mm) 1220 Panzer III (37mm) 87 Panzer IV (short 75mm) 198 Czech tanks (37mm) about 160 ...yeah, nothing too spectacular. Again, just like the Soviets, German generals didn't think that a division to tanks and TD's was desirable. But Panzers that could knock out KV's couldn't be built in sufficient numbers, so Panzerjägers and Jagdpanzers were built to complement them. In contrast, the US doctrine dictated that TANKS DON'T FIGHT TANKS. *source: https://www.achtungpanzer.com quote:Postwar, the Americans fielded the M50 Ontos. If you include anti-tank guided missiles, the concept of a thin-skinned heavily armed vehicle is extremely prevalent, even today. Someone might wonder what 'main battle tank' means. In WW2, armies used a wide array of specialized armoured fighting vehicles: close support tanks that would support infantry with direct gun fire, tank destroyers that would engage enemy tanks, assault howitzers that would pound enemy fortifications with heavy fire etc. Then there was a separation between light, medium and heavy tanks, where light and medium tanks were fast and ideal for exploitation, while the heavy tanks could withstand enemy anti-tank fire. But toward the end of WW2, tank designing moved more toward a compromise design that could sufficiently fill all those roles. Eg. a Panther was heavily armoured (at least from the front), could knock out any enemy tank, was also good against infantry, and was very mobile. After the war the great powers invested in Heavy Tanks for a while, but then realized that MBT was the way to go. Nenonen fucked around with this message at 17:40 on Jan 29, 2011 |
|
#
¿
Jan 29, 2011 17:26
|
|
|
Comrade_Robot posted:Really? So the Pz III and the Pz IV had the same role at the beginning of the war? Basically, yes. Of course, their capabilities differed, and ideally their roles too. They were still medium tanks, though, and were supposed to do a medium tank's job. Tanks were seldom met early in the WW2 (medium tanks even rarer), and when they were encountered, division commanders usually couldn't afford the luxury of re-organizing their tank unit deployment solely on the basis of which model has the better gun. It is worth remembering that in 1939-1940, medium and heavy tanks (Matilda II, Char D2, Char B2, Somua S35) were still rare on both sides. quote:The quote I was responding to was that the Soviets and Germans never entertained the idea of tank destroyers, which is demonstrably false. Seems like you mis-read it. He was specifically talking about the US tank destroyer doctrine. Here: The clearest indication of the real utility of American-style Tank Destroyer *doctrine* is that the Soviets and Germans (who actually engaged in large-scale armored warfare) never entertained the idea, and moreover the concept completely disappeared after the war even in American usage. If you ignore the word 'doctrine', the sentence gets the meaning that you were thinking of, but it's not really EvanSchenk's purpose I think. It's not very clearly spelled out, though. It's also worthwhile to notice that US tank destroyers were more akin to open-top tanks with revolving turrets, whereas Soviet and German tank destroyers had no turrets and many didn't even have coaxial (or any other) machineguns! quote:Really? If US doctrine dictated that tanks never fought tanks, then why were tanks given armor piercing shells? Doctrines aren't exactly road maps to victory that can be followed at all times. It just means that in strategic and operational planning leaders should try to use correct forces for correct missions, but if anyway tanks encounter tanks then of course they must have some means for dealing with them, even if insufficient at times - eg. M5 Stuarts in 1944 with their 37mm guns could not be expected to counter medium tanks. Tank destroyers were also given HE shells, even though they were meant to exist primarily for their titular purpose. This is nothing unusual: even anti-aircraft guns were given armour piercing ammunition so that they could be pressed into anti-tank role if an urgent need arose. Have you read Roman Jarymowycz's "Tank Tactics, From Normandy to Lorraine"? I find it enlighting on the issue of how US tank doctrine evolved from WWI to 1944. It also compares the US, British, French, Canadian, German and Soviet doctrinal paths.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 29, 2011 20:49
|
|
|
NightGyr posted:Turkey has had this sort of thing happen repeatedly. Government gets corrupt, country falls into chaos, military takes over for a few years, democracy is restored, repeat. Turkey is a poor example here given how the army has been keeping their finger in the politics, and at least the threat of coup has always been there. A more ideal example would be the Portuguese Carnation Revolution of 1974, when the Salazarian dictatorship was overthrown by leftist officers, leading into a stable democracy. It's not often that such coups work, though. I guess the Romanian revolution could be given as an example - in the end, the army refused to oppose the demonstrators. The way the Soviet forces in Moscow supported Yeltsin (rather than the conservatives who had detained Gorbachev) in 1991 is another one, although not as straightforward.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 30, 2011 01:20
|
|
|
Grand Prize Winner posted:What's the operational difference between, say, a light machine gun, a squad automatic, a medium MG, and a heavy MG? The definitions vary from army to army. Generally speaking, a light machinegun is operated by one or two men in a rifle squad and is usually fired from a bipod. Sometimes it uses assault rifle ammunition to be compatible with the rest of the squad, sometimes full rifle cartridges. Squad Automatic Weapon is a US typification, and there is a significant overlap with the former. Brits call theirs as Light Support Weapon, so there isn't much of a standard in that sense. I think its utility comes when a squad or platoon might have two types of light machineguns, like M249 and M60, to avoid confusion. I don't consider SAW as a real meaningful classification, it is more of a name of convenience. I would find it more useful if it was used only for weapons such as RPK which is a Kalashnikov assault rifle with a bigger magazine and longer barrel. Medium machinegun uses rifle cartridges and is usually operated from a tripod, although sometimes can also be used on a bipod. It requires a small team to operate and to carry the tripod and ammo. Heavy machinegun is like MMG but usually has a heavier caliber, like .50 cal or 14.5mm. They are heavy pieces and not easy to lug around in a battlefield; on the other hand, weight makes them more stable and hence accurate at longer ranges. They also have bigger oomph, which makes them effective against (some) helicopters and light armoured vehicles.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 30, 2011 14:35
|
|
|
Acebuckeye13 posted:-What exactly WAS the Crimean War? I hear about it a lot, but I have no idea what actually happened. Why the hell was Britain fighting in Russia? Britain was interested in maintaining a status quo in Europe, since she was the dominant sea power at the time already and didn't need more competitors. Russia, on the other hand, wanted to divide the Ottoman empire and make Constantinople part of the Russian empire, along with Slavic parts of the Balkans if possible. This would make the Black Sea their inland sea and allow access to Mediterranean and Atlantic - a good thing for Russian navy and merchant fleet, as the Baltic Sea froze during winters. Turkey had proved to be fragile in the previous wars, and Britain and France couldn't accept Russian expansion, so they went to support the Turks. To neutralize Russian naval threat in the Black Sea, Russia's main naval base, Sevastopol, was besieged. Crimean War is a misleading title, as the war was not only fought in the peninsula but also in present day Romania, Caucasus Black Sea region in general, Baltic Sea and White Sea. Even more confusingly, in Finland we traditionally called it the Åland War because the French and British allied fleet attacked and pillaged the Russian Bomarsund fortress being built in the Åland islands at the time. They also attacked many Finnish coastal towns, including Helsinki, but the latter assault failed in fully knocking out the sea fortress there. The results of the Crimean War can still be seen in Åland: the peace accords forbid any fortifications there during peace time, and this demilitarization was continued in WW2 peace accords.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 1, 2011 08:00
|
|
|
KurdtLives posted:That was awesome. Submachine guns first became common in 1918, but they were considered to be more of a trench warfare weapon, like tanks, so their use remained marginal for most of 1920's and 1930's. During WW2 their usefulness was recognized, especially by Soviets who had hardly any SMG's in the army in 1939 but had built millions of them by the end of war. The way the SMG's were treated depended on the army, and also on the SMG's themselves. Eg. a cheap gun like Sten made of stamped steel parts could be given as a side arm for truckers and such. In Finland, the Suomi SMG was also practically a LMG replacement: it was still accurate at 300 meters, and in Finnish forests that was enough. In a 1939 Finnish rifle platoon, two squads had 9 rifles and 1 SMG, while two squads had 6 rifles and 1 LMG. By 1944 this had changed so that each squad was supposed to have 1 LMG, 2 SMG's and 6 rifles. During assaults and breakthroughs, all SMG soldiers from the company could be put together to lead the attack.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 3, 2011 10:57
|
|
|
What does a 'flagship' mean today? Back in the day when it took weeks or months to send a message to your fleet, it was the ship where the fleet's admiral kept his staff. But today the admiral might as well be located in a ground base, or an airplane. Yet some navies still call some of their ships as flagships. Eg. FNS Pohjanmaa is the Finnish flagship, yet I struggle at seeing the situation where the admiral of the Finnish Navy and his entire staff would be stationed onboard a minelayer ship in a real war situation.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 4, 2011 21:27
|
|
|
gohuskies posted:But the doctrinal role of "something specialized at setting ambushes for enemy tanks" didn't go away, the platform changed from an AFV to man-carried or a helicopter (or a TOW Humvee, more recently). Having something with that specialization is a good thing. The TD wasn't fatally flawed because it fulfilled its doctrinal role, and its doctrinal role is an important one which still needs to be filled by something. But that has no direct relevance to the historical doctrine. It's like saying that since tactical bombers are still used, the Japanese kamikaze tactic has survived to this day. The US TD doctrine was an anti-thesis of everything that modern (or contemporary German and Soviet) combined arms doctrines are made of: it was based on the belief that maneuver warfare led by massed armour was ineffective, despite of the events in Europe in 1939-41. A US army report from 1942 stated that the TD doctrine was "a fundamentally flawed set of principles" and another stated that "the Doctrine of having TDs chase tanks is absurd." Conclusions from Tunisia also included that "the tank destroyer was not a practical tactical concept" while praising Sherman as the best tank on the battlefield. Army Ground Forces commander Lesley McNair, responsible for the TD doctrine, ignored all of this and remained opposed to developing heavy tanks such as Pershing. He was also the director of the Louisiana Maneuvers of 1941 that lead to the doctrine in the first place. Officers of the Armored Force thought that the rules of maneuvers had been rigged to bring the results that McNair wanted. Roman Jarymowycz posted:The Tank Destroyer Force and its doctrine grew to a position of eminence second only to that of the Armored Force. The vast resources spent in assembling and training the Tank Destroyer Force formations plus the hundreds of millions spent on developing a series of tracked tank destroyers (M10, M18 Hellcat, and the M36 Jackson) represented the danger of powerful lobbyists pushing a wrong doctrine into an inappropriately powerful position. The essence of the tank destroyer doctrine (massed guns kill tanks) was correct. Its flaw was rooted in simple branch competition. The same sort of tribal shortsightedness that cost the cavalry a formidable place in the military history of World War II, nearly trumped the Armored Force off the tactical table. In fact, guns do kill tanks, but not as artillery - rather, as powerful, high-velocity armament mounted in well-armored, tracked main battle tanks. As a bit of trivia, McNair was also the highest ranking American to be killed in Europe during WW2 (the other highest ranking US officer died in Okinawa, they both were Lieutenant Generals at the time). He was killed in USAAF bombings in Normandy at the start of Operation Cobra. Oops.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 5, 2011 21:20
|
|
|
EvanSchenck posted:*stuff about Fulda* This is true. I also think it's mentioned so often because Northern Germany was the responsibility of British Army of the Rhine (BAOR). Americans got (and still get) a bigger hard on from theorizing about Communist invasion than the Brits did, so the geographic features in the US sectors have become heavily emphasized. Thank Tom Clancy et al! I wonder how the view of Soviet generals differed or converged with those views. Speaking of tank destroyers once more, one post-war design that heavily resembles the original idea of US tank destroyers as light, fast tracked turreted vehicles with a big gun is the French AMX-13. It was designed in 1946 and the first prototype was ready in 1948. It has many interesting features. First of all, she was the first tank using an auto-loader, thus reducing the crew to just three men and allowing a compact turret design. The other unique feature is the way the gun is elevated/depressed. Normally a gun moves inside the turret. As the gun breach is very big, it requires a roomy turret if you don't want to leave large 'dead zones'. The other issue is the auto-loader, as it might require the gun to be positioned in a certain elevation angle to activate. AMX-13 avoids both of these issues by having the gun fixed in the turret. Yep, the gun doesn't tilt - the TURRET does.  The same design was used also for the Austrian SK-105 Kürassier tank destroyer.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJGe21it-vo The original AMX-13 was equipped with a 75mm gun, which later was upgraded to 90mm and 105mm gun is also used today. Some claim that the original gun design was based on Panther's 75mm Kwk42 L/70, though I don't know how much truth there is to this. Anyway, when the new state of Israel was shopping for tanks in early 1950's they bought some AMX-13's but also acquired extra guns, then fitted these in old M4 Shermans. Voilá, the M-50 "Super Sherman" was born!  You can see an AMX-13 in the back with its turret fully elevated. Meanwhile, Israel's main enemy Egypt had also something very similar... M4 Shermans with the entire AMX-13 turret fitted! French neutrality at its best...  Behind it, you can see a Syrian PzKpfw IV that was captured during the Six Day War of 1967. Nenonen fucked around with this message at 14:35 on Feb 6, 2011 |
|
#
¿
Feb 6, 2011 14:24
|
|
|
Shimrra Jamaane posted:Can someone give me a brief rundown on what Austria Hungary did in WWI besides just simply get its rear end kicked? It resulted in "The Good Soldier Svejk", so overall it was all good. Jaroslav Hasek himself was captured by Russians, and became a bit of a communist, I think. But many of his countrymen weren't as favorable with the Bolshevik revolution, resulting in the Czech legion controlling half of Russia (ie. mostly Siberia) as they wanted to get back to the newly formed Czechoslovakia but the communists wanted to disarm them. Technically not WWI, but important part of the aftermath! Nenonen fucked around with this message at 03:42 on Feb 9, 2011 |
|
#
¿
Feb 9, 2011 03:37
|
|
|
Phyzzle posted:Short answer: the Romans worshiped them, and so the first large professional armies Europe had seen were carrying eagle symbols. Western culture would be so much more interesting looking if we had taken the Greek  phallos worshipping instead. Then we wouldn't have to speculate about phallic symbology in military propaganda etc.
|
|
#
¿
May 23, 2011 22:31
|
|
|
zokie posted:Are you claiming Sure they are, but it's hidden under a cloak of symbology. So we are getting this  rather than this  (Japanese Buddhist festival; more photos here: http://myproblogger.blogspot.com/2007/03/japanese-penis-festival-part-1.html )
|
|
#
¿
May 24, 2011 00:32
|
|
s aren't worshiped in the military? 
|
swagger like us posted:I'd imagine in that scenario it would work with the most senior or competent person would take over. For example, if 10 guys got together and they needed a leader and one of them happened to be a trained section commander, then he would naturally take over. If there were two then it wouldn't take much to coordinate between eachother to be like, hey, you're in charge. Or, like Major Hans von Luck did (according to his own tale, anyway) in Normandy when a Luftwaffe flak battery commander refused to take his orders to turn the anti-aircraft guns down to destroy British tanks breaking through, pull his pistol and make an offer that cannot be refused.
|
|
#
¿
May 28, 2011 23:28
|
|
|
Pyle posted:BMPs... Armored Personnel Carriers.  Infantry Fighting Vehicles
|
|
#
¿
May 30, 2011 21:38
|
|
|
Ensign Expendable posted:There are still T-55s and T-72s in service? A modernized T-55 is still a useful workhorse for infantry support when engaging MBT's is not expected, like in Chechnya. Improved fire control systems, ATGM's fired from the gun barrel, Kontakt ERA, better engine, modern night vision etc. help to extend their life time, with small cost compared to renewing the entire tank arsenal.
|
|
#
¿
May 31, 2011 10:56
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 16, 2024 06:54 |
|
|
The question is almost as practical as asking how many angels can fit on the head of a needle. Even a BMP-1 could defeat a WW2 Tiger II due to its ATGM's, not to mention mobility, smaller size and other factors that make it harder to hit. If it ran out of missiles, the 73mm HEAT rockets its main gun fires would still be able to take any WW2 tank out albeit at shorter distance. So if a 1960's IFV can do that, the only limitation a 21st century MBT would have is limited main gun ammunition. Even the most modern MBTs can be defeated, but usually the crew walks away on their own feet which is considered to be a great benefit compared to WW2 Shermans. It's easier to build replacement tanks than it is to find veteran crewmen.
|
|
#
¿
May 31, 2011 15:54
|
|