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Fangz posted:Tons of examples, but best documented is WW2 Soviet army. And to put another perspective, the average mobile army back in, say, the 30 years war would have a very large number of 'camp followers', who were not just prostitutes but did a lot of actual logistical work.
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Nov 14, 2013 19:44
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DerLeo posted:It probably goes without saying, but naval artillery greatly varies in effect depending on how and where it hits. Lutzow at Jutland took over 20 hits and only sank a day later, while Invincible took a shell in the turret which sparked a flash fire in the magazine, literally snapping the ship in half and leaving six survivors. But in general, naval gunfire is probably less effective at sinking ships than one might imagine - usually if you get sunk by surface fire, you went down to a sudden accident like Invincible or spent hours under fire gradually getting plastered into ineffectiveness and sink later due to flooding and no ability to control it. With regards to Jutland, the British had a training problem, evidently, in that powder hoist doors were often left propped open to increase reload speed, which made them one penetrating hit to the turret away from exploding. A little tidbit about that -- Beatty's flagship at Jutland, the HMS Lion, almost suffered a similar fate, but the turret commander, after receiving a mortal wound when Q turret was hit, got the hoist door closed and ordered the magazine flooded. Without that stroke of luck, battlecruiser squadron and Britain's newest superdreadnought squadron would have been left leaderless steaming straight for the High Seas Fleet. In that case, the Germans might have been able to profit enough out of the confusion to reduce or entirely remove Britain's superiority in capital ships, which would not have boded well for an allied victory in WWI.
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Nov 14, 2013 19:47
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SeanBeansShako posted:I wouldn't say it was wrong, just massively simplified. I'm in a hurry so this'll be brief & stupid but rifle maximum ranges can be misleading - sure, the weapon itself is powerful and accurate enough, but most of actual combat, or hits resulting in casualties, take place at much reduced distances. Also I see veekie didn't mention infantry in particular. Field artillery changed the battlefield more than musket ball, I'd say - you would still desire a bayonet or a sword to go with the latter.
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Nov 14, 2013 19:49
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especially with a scope in the trained hands of a marksman.
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Unluckyimmortal posted:I've always thought it remarkable how ineffective most late battleships were at sinking each other. By my count, only 6 total were destroyed by naval gunfire during and after WWI, and only 2, the Kirishima and the HMS Hood after Jutland. Also, the British seem to be really bad at building battleships that won't explode more or less at random. Was Fuso or Yamashiro sunk by gunfire in Leyte Gulf?
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Nov 14, 2013 19:50
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Fangz posted:In terms of effective range, from personal experience, English longbows seem to be effective in the 100-300m range, depending on wind and elevation. Napoleonic firearms were generally used with most effect at about 100m. Artillery could reach further, of course.
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Nov 14, 2013 19:56
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ArchangeI posted:Was Fuso or Yamashiro sunk by gunfire in Leyte Gulf?
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Nov 14, 2013 19:57
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SeanBeansShako posted:1853 Enfield (Rifled Musket) Mid 19th Century: 2,000 yards. Most of the time you are certain to hit something standing still now.
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Nov 14, 2013 19:58
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Nenonen posted:I'm in a hurry so this'll be brief & stupid but rifle maximum ranges can be misleading - sure, the weapon itself is powerful and accurate enough, but most of actual combat, or hits resulting in casualties, take place at much reduced distances. Yup, with a Lee-Enfield, your only chance of harming someone at 3 kilometers is to have a platoon of guys empty a magazine or two in the direction of the target. That distance is a challenge even for modern match-grade ammunition, even at a known range.
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Nov 14, 2013 19:59
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Unluckyimmortal posted:With regards to Jutland, the British had a training problem, evidently, in that powder hoist doors were often left propped open to increase reload speed, which made them one penetrating hit to the turret away from exploding. A little tidbit about that -- Beatty's flagship at Jutland, the HMS Lion, almost suffered a similar fate, but the turret commander, after receiving a mortal wound when Q turret was hit, got the hoist door closed and ordered the magazine flooded. Without that stroke of luck, battlecruiser squadron and Britain's newest superdreadnought squadron would have been left leaderless steaming straight for the High Seas Fleet. In that case, the Germans might have been able to profit enough out of the confusion to reduce or entirely remove Britain's superiority in capital ships, which would not have boded well for an allied victory in WWI. The other side of this coin was that a turret flash fire did happen to one of the German battlecruisers with nearly-disastrous results. It didn't blow up the whole ship, but it did cause enough damage that the Germans figured out what happened and how to prevent it. That the Lion escaped total destruction possibly may have worked against the Brits because they didn't think anything was wrong with how they were doing things.
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Nov 14, 2013 20:08
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Grand Prize Winner posted:I wonder how much similarity there is between 50FA stories and primary sources. If his stuff survives ~500 years, maybe he'll be another Herodotus. 98% of the insanity he posts is completely believable for all the wrong reasons. I'd love for his writings to define the Cold War for thirtieth century historians. 
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Nov 14, 2013 20:10
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gradenko_2000 posted:The other side of this coin was that a turret flash fire did happen to one of the German battlecruisers with nearly-disastrous results. It didn't blow up the whole ship, but it did cause enough damage that the Germans figured out what happened and how to prevent it. That the Lion escaped total destruction possibly may have worked against the Brits because they didn't think anything was wrong with how they were doing things. I think you might be a little mixed up: the British realized that they had an issue with powder handling after Jutland, which was also where Lion took that near-fatal hit. The other two battlecruisers seemed to be notice enough.
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Nov 14, 2013 20:12
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veekie posted:English longbows would be the upper end of muscle powered ranged then? How about rate of fire? Early firearms took a while between shots, but how did that compare rate wise between musketman, crossbowman and archer? For crossbows, you have to distinguish between the heavy (wind up) type of crossbow, and the lighter belly-pull crossbow. The former would probably require at least 30 seconds of winding. The latter can be reloaded in 5-10 seconds. Muskets seemed to take 20-30 seconds for a reload.
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Nov 14, 2013 20:13
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Unluckyimmortal posted:I believe they were sunk by destroyer torpedoes, and Yamashiro was heavily damaged by battleship fire somewhere along the line. If you look at how Surigao strait played out, it's really pretty difficult to know for certain which element of the USN task force assigned to cover it actually did for any particular ship because the USN's battle plan and force composition was so completely superior to what the Japanese had available. Fuso was destroyer torpedoes, Yamashiro was basically "all of the above, at once".
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Nov 14, 2013 20:15
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Obdicut posted:And to put another perspective, the average mobile army back in, say, the 30 years war would have a very large number of 'camp followers', who were not just prostitutes but did a lot of actual logistical work. The historian John Lynn called what these women did the "plunder economy," and considering that until after the 30 Years' War soldiers made their living not through pay but through plunder, the work of these women in This wasn't some safe position, either; Hagendorf recounts how when his second wife was gleaning in a field outside a besieged city the defenders shot at her, narrowly missing her. (It made perfect sense from their point of view, since gleaning their grain is also a hostile act, and also endangered their lives.) Edit: Also, while women had to dress up as men to join armies, it was routine for women to take part in combat if they were fighting in defense of a besieged city. Absolutely routine. Edit 2: Also, since all drovers are civilian contractors and most civilian jobs have women as well as men in them, we have no idea how many women were involved in the logistical stuff as a matter of course. HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 20:24 on Nov 14, 2013 |
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Nov 14, 2013 20:15
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gradenko_2000 posted:The other side of this coin was that a turret flash fire did happen to one of the German battlecruisers with nearly-disastrous results. It didn't blow up the whole ship, but it did cause enough damage that the Germans figured out what happened and how to prevent it. That the Lion escaped total destruction possibly may have worked against the Brits because they didn't think anything was wrong with how they were doing things. My point with regard to the Lion in particular is that the battlecruiser squadrons as well as 5th Battle Squadron were on an almost literal course for annihilation. I've never been terribly impressed by Beatty versus Jellicoe as a wartime admiral, but Beatty was just a few minutes away from ordering a course change when his flagship failed to explode. If it hadn't failed to explode, a sizeable portion of the Royal Navy was on course to be gobbled up by the entire German fleet, which was the strategic objective every German admiral hoped to accomplish and the thing that kept Jellicoe up at night in cold sweats. Basically, and I really don't think this is overplaying it, true disaster at Jutland could have effectively ended the war in favor of the German Empire virtually overnight. wdarkk posted:Fuso was destroyer torpedoes, Yamashiro was basically "all of the above, at once". In the end, though, my point is that battleships just aren't terribly good at killing each other, if we look at the historical record since the start of WWI, in an unusual parity of armor and firepower. No bid COVID fucked around with this message at 20:19 on Nov 14, 2013 |
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Nov 14, 2013 20:16
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Unluckyimmortal posted:Well, they lost a few other ships in a (possibly, we'll never know because they blew up) very similar way during the battle itself. Is it really that drastic though? If Beatty lost his entire command, that puts the UK down 10 capital ships, but Germany:UK is still 21 (assuming no losses) to 27. It imperils England greatly but at some point the High Seas Fleet would probably have to enter a full engagement, maybe later the same day, and they'd have to win that with a quite considerable margin to beat out the UK's higher rate of construction.
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Nov 14, 2013 20:24
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Nenonen posted:Also I see veekie didn't mention infantry in particular. Field artillery changed the battlefield more than musket ball, I'd say - you would still desire a bayonet or a sword to go with the latter. For some reason I am now imagining somebody mounting a massive bayonet under the barrel of a 18th century artillery piece.
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Nov 14, 2013 20:31
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ArchangeI posted:
There's a significant difference between being a sniper and being a tank loader, for example. Stupid facebook arguments aside, many military jobs require physical strengths that many women (and men, for that matter) don't possess. The USMC has already allowed women to take part in one of their infantry training courses, but so far they've all failed out for physical reasons (inability to complete events or injuries). Contrast that with the USAF, where women have flown combat missions for years. It's more job-dependent than a sweeping gesture of "no girls allowed".
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Nov 14, 2013 20:31
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people explain why women can't fight in wars to a veteran Russian woman sniper.
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DerLeo posted:Is it really that drastic though? If Beatty lost his entire command, that puts the UK down 10 capital ships, but Germany:UK is still 21 (assuming no losses) to 27. It imperils England greatly but at some point the High Seas Fleet would probably have to enter a full engagement, maybe later the same day, and they'd have to win that with a quite considerable margin to beat out the UK's higher rate of construction.
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Nov 14, 2013 20:32
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Godholio posted:There's a significant difference between being a sniper and being a tank loader, for example. Stupid facebook arguments aside, many military jobs require physical strengths that many women (and men, for that matter) don't possess. The USMC has already allowed women to take part in one of their infantry training courses, but so far they've all failed out for physical reasons (inability to complete events or injuries). Contrast that with the USAF, where women have flown combat missions for years. It's more job-dependent than a sweeping gesture of "no girls allowed".
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Nov 14, 2013 20:34
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Godholio posted:98% of the insanity he posts is completely believable for all the wrong reasons. I'd love for his writings to define the Cold War for thirtieth century historians. A guy I knew who was in Vietnam said the most accurate Vietnam movie was Apocalypse Now, not because of historical detail or truth but because it captured the actual insanity of the war. I like to think that 50 Foot Ant's posts have the same relation to the late 80's Army.
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Nov 14, 2013 20:36
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To add to the whole women at war examples, I believe there were female Japanese warrior nuns who were just a deadly as their male counter parts. Not sure the specifics or if this was just limited to Japan. Somebody who knows about it can and hopefully will go into more detail.
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Nov 14, 2013 20:38
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My favourite analogy from the last thread (I think Hegel posted it) was that a 17th century army was like a Gathering of the Juggalos, except stupider and more well-armed. Simply having it in enemy territory was sure to do a lot of damage.SeanBeansShako posted:For some reason I am now imagining somebody mounting a massive bayonet under the barrel of a 18th century artillery piece. 101. I am not allowed to mount a bayonet on a crew-served weapon.
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Nov 14, 2013 20:39
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When did modern military recruit training start. As in full metal jacket, boot camp style?
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Nov 14, 2013 20:46
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AATREK CURES KIDS posted:My favourite analogy from the last thread (I think Hegel posted it) was that a 17th century army was like a Gathering of the Juggalos, except stupider and more well-armed. And I wouldn't be too sure on the "more well armed" part.
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Nov 14, 2013 20:46
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vuk83 posted:When did modern military recruit training start. As in full metal jacket, boot camp style? In history, various fighting forces have had more or less organized training regimes. You'd have to be more specific.
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Nov 14, 2013 20:47
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Obdicut posted:In history, various fighting forces have had more or less organized training regimes. You'd have to be more specific. Didn't that go all the way back to the Roman professional armies?
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Nov 14, 2013 20:50
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veekie posted:Didn't that go all the way back to the Roman professional armies? It went back a lot farther than that, depending on what you mean by 'boot camp'. If someone means 'training meant to turn ordinary civilians into fighters in a short period of time', then I don't really know. If it's just 'highly organized cadre training', then basically since forever.
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Nov 14, 2013 20:52
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Maybe he wants the modern example?
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Nov 14, 2013 20:52
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SeanBeansShako posted:Maybe he wants the modern example? How do you find a modern example of something that's been happening almost continuously for thousands of years? He might as well ask for the modern example of prostitution, or picking fruit.
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Nov 14, 2013 20:57
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The specific, deliberate dehumanization of the kind exhibited in full metal jacket was, iirc, a reaction to Post-WWII research, though.
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Nov 14, 2013 21:00
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I pick my fruit the Roman way. I sacrifice a few goats and soak myself in their warm innards before doing so.
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Nov 14, 2013 21:01
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Godholio posted:How do you find a modern example of something that's been happening almost continuously for thousands of years? He might as well ask for the modern example of prostitution, or picking fruit.
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Nov 14, 2013 21:04
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DerLeo posted:Is it really that drastic though? If Beatty lost his entire command, that puts the UK down 10 capital ships, but Germany:UK is still 21 (assuming no losses) to 27. It imperils England greatly but at some point the High Seas Fleet would probably have to enter a full engagement, maybe later the same day, and they'd have to win that with a quite considerable margin to beat out the UK's higher rate of construction. I don't know about winning the war per se, but without the Battlecruiser Squadron, the High Seas Fleet can pick and choose it's battles almost at will. The morale shift and whatever happens afterwards would be enough to throw things like the blockade and therefore late-war unrestricted submarine warfare into ahistorical paths. Jellicoe definitely comes off as the better commander in Jutland IMO, but he was treated rather unfairly in his time. He never had to win Jutland at all, he just had to make he didn't lose, but Beatty did his damnedest to make even that task difficult.
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Nov 14, 2013 21:05
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gradenko_2000 posted:I don't know about winning the war per se, but without the Battlecruiser Squadron, the High Seas Fleet can pick and choose it's battles almost at will. The morale shift and whatever happens afterwards would be enough to throw things like the blockade and therefore late-war unrestricted submarine warfare into ahistorical paths. The historical lesson here is important too, I think. After a tactical victory and a strategic defeat at Jutland, the High Seas Fleet never sortied again to attempt a general engagement. British superiority kept the entire German surface fleet bottled up for the rest of the war, which was a strong incentive towards submarine warfare. Also, I think the legend/myth of Trafalgar is terribly important -- it amplifies the moral and political impact of victories and defeats at sea. I'd hazard a guess that a disaster at Jutland would have been far more politically painful than the defeat at Gallipoli, for example. Edit, just to add: If there's any good plan after completely destroying enough of the enemy's fleet to remove their numerical advantage, it would be to just head straight back to port. If Hipper and Scheer had managed to destroy Battlecruiser Squadron and maul 5th Battle Squadron, then hosed off back to Wilhelmshaven, the British would be left wondering just what the hell happened, and what's wrong with the bloody ships, while the Germans could make good all their damaged ships and seek a general engagement with numbers even and morale in their favor. No bid COVID fucked around with this message at 21:18 on Nov 14, 2013 |
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Nov 14, 2013 21:14
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gradenko_2000 posted:I don't know about winning the war per se, but without the Battlecruiser Squadron, the High Seas Fleet can pick and choose it's battles almost at will. The morale shift and whatever happens afterwards would be enough to throw things like the blockade and therefore late-war unrestricted submarine warfare into ahistorical paths. Everything else you and unluckyimmortal have said is well taken, but that I have to nitpick on: Room 40 can still read all the German fleet's radio communications, so while the High Seas Fleet can decide whether to sally or not the decision to give battle is going to rest with Britain.
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Nov 14, 2013 21:15
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DerLeo posted:Everything else you and unluckyimmortal have said is well taken, but that I have to nitpick on: Room 40 can still read all the German fleet's radio communications, so while the High Seas Fleet can decide whether to sally or not the decision to give battle is going to rest with Britain.
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Nov 14, 2013 21:23
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Fangz posted:Muskets seemed to take 20-30 seconds for a reload. It's important to understand that good quality muskets were actually fairly accurate within 100-200 yards and could be relied to hit a man-sized target with some actual time to aim them. The firing drills that allowed soldiers to fire this quickly did not allow for aimed fire. This could be seen with the light infantry during the Napoleonic Wars who were not firing in that style and could take time to aim their shots and could be deadly. The French pioneered their mass use and this contributed to some of their early success during the revolutionary period and beyond.
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Nov 14, 2013 21:28
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wdarkk posted:Fuso was destroyer torpedoes, Yamashiro was basically "all of the above, at once". Has anyone found/bothered looking for the wreck of the Fuso? I've always wondered if that split in two and both halves stayed afloat story was true or not.
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Nov 14, 2013 21:29
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Rodrigo Diaz posted:Also, according to Hew Strachan when I spoke to him, any time Keegan talks about Clausewitz or WWI. lmao How is Keegan deficient in regards to WWI?
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Nov 14, 2013 21:40
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