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Nenonen posted:So apparently Heinrich Himmler's lost wartime diaries have been found and Bild is publishing excerpts. They will be published in book form next year, but we already know from his notes that: 
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Aug 2, 2016 17:43
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HEY GAL posted:i think it's the second but with the caveat that since executions are carried out at the discretion of the oberst you can appeal and get a pardon (and according to some of my friends, many soldiers do). so it's not automatic but can happen "at any time" that's interesting. you've said before how executioners are dishonorable, and i assume execution by one is extremely dishonorable? more so than the actual crime that was committed. do you know if crime in general is dishonorable? i assume it's not, if disputes to preserve honor are themselves often illegal. is it generally more-so the punishment for a crime that dishonors someone?
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Aug 2, 2016 17:44
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Dick Trauma posted:I've seen a few references to tank destroyers. Did I miss some sort of tank vs. tank destroyer pissing contest in the last thread? Careful, some posters here have PTSD regarding that.
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Aug 2, 2016 17:46
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HEY GAL posted:still though, you're just fine and nice while if some people i won't name try to negotiate a ceasefire with Saxony they get halberded to death, i see how it is Look at Bavaria's conduct during the Napoleonic wars, opportunism is the way of my people
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Aug 2, 2016 17:51
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Monocled Falcon posted:I want to troll some wehraboos: buy one of those fancy model kits for some obscure nazi tank and paint it up as captured by the Soviets. This thing, not captured so much as "original Soviet markings", and a datacard with the details of this one. You can always reverse this as well. my dad posted:military-historical complex Zamboni Apocalypse fucked around with this message at 17:54 on Aug 2, 2016 |
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Aug 2, 2016 17:52
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Taerkar posted:Careful, some posters here have PTSD regarding that. I'm afraid I skipped... 20,000 posts. Maybe we can talk about something less controversial. What's the oldest mobile equipment still in use by the U.S. military, even if it's just the chassis supporting more modern hardware?
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Aug 2, 2016 17:56
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Nenonen posted:
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Aug 2, 2016 17:58
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Dick Trauma posted:I'm afraid I skipped... 20,000 posts. Probably the venerable m2 machine gun Well technically the USS Constitution.
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Aug 2, 2016 18:00
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Cyrano4747 posted:Probably the venerable m2 machine gun Oh sorry I meant vehicular, wheels, wings, tracks, you name it. Ma Deuce should be renamed to Great Grandma Deuce by now.
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Aug 2, 2016 18:01
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I think the M35 truck has the B-52 beat by a few years. I can't think of anything older than that off the top of my head.
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Aug 2, 2016 18:07
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HEY GAL posted:Feudal ties and old ways of calling up armies are definitely a thing. I now think there's more continuity between the late middle ages and the early modern period than I used to. But this is complicated by the part where all these guys are reading stories about the middle ages, almost as much as they will in the 19th century. Fun English Civil War version of this is when Charles I first gathered his army for the English Civil War, he used a two century old method of doing it - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commission_of_array Of course he kind of had to, since the modern way of raising an army was with an Act of Parliament, and Parliament is exactly who he intended to attack with his army. See also stuff like relying on ship money before the war since he couldn't have Parliament legislate him some taxes - having old fashioned but still legal stuff like this on the books was the only way he could even claim to be acting in a normal, constitutional (as far as that's a thing in England) way. It does kind of make me wonder what old laws would be busted out if something like that happened again now, but hopefully even Brexit won't wreck the country that badly.
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Aug 2, 2016 18:13
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Cyrano4747 posted:Probably the venerable m2 machine gun Royal Navy still got you beat - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Victory (Granted, your one still floats, which is pretty awesome)
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Aug 2, 2016 18:14
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shallowj posted:that's interesting. you've said before how executioners are dishonorable, and i assume execution by one is extremely dishonorable? more so than the actual crime that was committed. do you know if crime in general is dishonorable? i assume it's not, if disputes to preserve honor are themselves often illegal. is it generally more-so the punishment for a crime that dishonors someone? It's not necessarily being killed by an executioners that is dishonourable, it's more the way of execution applied. Beheading was way better than being hanged, for example, and that is why nobles have the right to the former except when they've really hosed up, then they get sometimes hanged with a silk rope (or even depending on the magnitude of their crime, even worse, i.e. like a commoner). Different crimes call for different execution methods, too: the Constitutio Criminalis Carolina from 1532 doles out eight different methods of execution (burning, beheading, quartering, the breaking wheel, drowning, impaling and burying alive) and also gives the possibility of culprits being dragged to the execution site by horses or tortured with red-hot pincers beforehand. This is all depending not only on the variety of the crime, but also the severity of it, and sometimes it seems that there were also mystical and allegorical reasons for which punishment was called for which crime. Crime in general is not dishonourable, but acting contrary to what is expected of you by society is. Depending on how you were executed this could mean posthumous dishonourment too, but this was more directed against your surviving family who would have to deal with the fallour, not you - being drawn-and-quartered for example was an extremely severe method of punishment normally reserved for high treason, but in most cases you'd get killed beforehand: it's not you experiencing as much pain as possible that's the important part of it, but the public display of your body being ripped apart by horses and the body parts then being dragged around for a bit, which again means your honour being publicly shattered.
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Aug 2, 2016 18:15
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Jobbo_Fett posted:"The Panzer II's main combat drawback was Still he does at least admit the T-34-85 also deserves to be called the best medium tank of WW2. Even if it should share the crown with the Easy Eight and not the Panther.
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Aug 2, 2016 18:33
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bewbies posted:I think the M35 truck has the B-52 beat by a few years. I can't think of anything older than that off the top of my head. Is the M35 definitely still in use? All I can find for it is the Wikipedia page, which says it's been replaced, and military surplus sites.
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Aug 2, 2016 18:40
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The B-52s still in use are the ones from the end of the production line though. The ones from the 50s are long since retired.
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Aug 2, 2016 18:46
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Rodrigo Diaz posted:Is the M35 definitely still in use? All I can find for it is the Wikipedia page, which says it's been replaced, and military surplus sites. yeah, they're all over in the National Guard still. And there's still a handful of them lingering around the active force in really niche areas like shop trucks and so on I was actually signed for a couple of them like 10 years ago and they were dated back to the early 60s. I did not really feel any pressing need to maintain them properly
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Aug 2, 2016 18:50
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Nenonen posted:So apparently Heinrich Himmler's lost wartime diaries have been found and Bild is publishing excerpts. They will be published in book form next year, but we already know from his notes that: I guess he didn't want to lose any credit if they succeeded, and if they failed he could just commit suicide. Someone dug up a bunch of info on the M551 program for me, and it's got me curious. Since it shared some technology and armament with the MBT-70, there are definitely times where observations of the shortcomings of the Sheridan created delays in the MBT program. I'm currently trying to find some information on the MBT-70 program, hopefully with a good amount of information on how German and American development teams communicated with each other. Does anyone have any good information on where to start? The only thing I've really read on the MBT-70 are the few cases in which Hunnicutt mentioned it.
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Aug 2, 2016 19:03
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P-Mack posted:So I'm playing HOI4 as France, and this game is making me think that the Maginot line was actually cool and good. Am I wrong? It did exactly what it was meant to do, which was to force the Germans to not attack directly across the border. As for missing the Ardennes, the forest was considered more or less impassable, since attempts to go through it had been made in WW1 and ended in disaster. And, to be fair, it was pretty impassable; they created what was at the time (maybe still is?) the world's largest traffic jam trying to get everything through the few good routes that were available, and it took something like two weeks for everyone to get through.
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Aug 2, 2016 19:21
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feedmegin posted:Royal Navy still got you beat - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Victory I did a tour of the constitution a couple years ago and all I have to say is that being a tall sailor back then must have sucked dick. Actually, pretty much everything about being a non-officer on one of those ships seems pretty hellish. Tall ships are far more romantic on the outside, I think.
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Aug 2, 2016 19:29
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HEY GAL posted:do your generals and colonels have personal bodyguards? because my high officers are loving surrounded by otherwise redundant dudes in really spiffy outfits, sometimes entire companies of them not the same way. the colors have their own fancy guards (company of Grenadiers in fancy hats, senior noncoms with polearms, a scared shitless 14 year old with a dirk) but generals just have a cloud of officers around them first ones are staff officers, who are usually pressed in to taking over commands when poo poo goes bad - eg Chef de Batallion with a staff job suddenly is now your chef de batallion of a regiment of the line because the old chef and his XO got killed, or the current chef ain't getting it done. also the same kind of guys you described but now the bossman just is like "go tell this guy to do this thing" and they go off and do it, rather than only standing around. then their servants (batman, grooms, etc) serve as bodyguards in addition to their real jobs.
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Aug 2, 2016 19:32
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spectralent posted:It did exactly what it was meant to do, which was to force the Germans to not attack directly across the border. As for missing the Ardennes, the forest was considered more or less impassable, since attempts to go through it had been made in WW1 and ended in disaster. And, to be fair, it was pretty impassable; they created what was at the time (maybe still is?) the world's largest traffic jam trying to get everything through the few good routes that were available, and it took something like two weeks for everyone to get through. We're the French just totally in the dark while this traffic jam was developing? What stopped them from loving the Germans up before they got themselves through the forest and sorted out on the other side?
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Aug 2, 2016 19:32
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:These are really good but guys would mostly not have looked like that at any point in time unless they were in barracks. Uniforms were a mishmash of looted poo poo that you liked better. You probably kept your headgear, the coat, and that's about it. Stuff wears out fast. Amusingly, they are improvising with a lot of 2nd Empire uniform stuff in those photographs.
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Aug 2, 2016 19:38
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P-Mack posted:We're the French just totally in the dark while this traffic jam was developing? What stopped them from loving the Germans up before they got themselves through the forest and sorted out on the other side? My memory of it was that they were aware of it, but for one a huge fuckoff forest gives you loads of places to keep out of the eyes of recon, so they didn't realise just how much was coming through the obvious logistical nightmare, were reluctant to commit their own men to a logistical nightmare, and had trouble hitting it via air so close to germany's border where their air-force could intercept them (I think they lost something like 50 planes trying to bomb the trail). EDIT: Oh, and equally the German airforce had good local air superiority; there were reinforcements moving to meet what was assumed to be a relatively small force when they left, but they were moving very slowly, mostly at night, to avoid luftwaffe attack. spectralent fucked around with this message at 19:46 on Aug 2, 2016 |
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Aug 2, 2016 19:43
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feedmegin posted:Royal Navy still got you beat - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Victory  quote:HMS Victory, officially, has a surprisingly large crew complement, though visitors are unlikely to see any naval personnel. It is a legacy of naval legislation that all naval ratings and officers must be assigned to a ship (which may include a shore establishment – still regarded as Her Majesty's Ships by the navy). Any navy person allocated to work in a non-HMS location (such as the Ministry of Defence in London) is recorded as being a member of the crew of HMS Victory. Also I saw constitution sale in the late 90s after her restoration. It was loving amazing.
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Aug 2, 2016 19:43
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spectralent posted:My memory of it was that they were aware of it, but for one a huge fuckoff forest gives you loads of places to keep out of the eyes of recon, so they didn't realise just how much was coming through the obvious logistical nightmare, were reluctant to commit their own men to a logistical nightmare, and had trouble hitting it via air so close to germany's border where their air-force could intercept them (I think they lost something like 50 planes trying to bomb the trail). It also didn't help that the French suffered horrible losses in 1914 when they threw an army through the same place to try to turn the German southern flank. They had good reasons for not wanting that fight, they just didn't grasp that that wa ms where the killing blow was coming from.
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Aug 2, 2016 19:45
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Also, I too am intirugued at this black powder communicate via e-mail game project Grey Hunter.
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Aug 2, 2016 19:48
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SeanBeansShako posted:Also, I too am intirugued at this black powder communicate via e-mail game project Grey Hunter. the miniatures game? only if our little dudes really exist on a table somewhere and Grey Hunter takes pictures of them every so often
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Aug 2, 2016 19:56
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HEY GAL posted:the miniatures game? only if our little dudes really exist on a table somewhere and Grey Hunter takes pictures of them every so often But doesn't show anyone until the end at which point we see why half the army marched off a cliff.
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Aug 2, 2016 19:57
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spectralent posted:But doesn't show anyone until the end at which point we see why half the army marched off a cliff.
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Aug 2, 2016 20:00
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HEY GAL posted:what's wrong with our bloody little resin dudes today quote:grey hunter Seems like you already answered your own question! I kid I kid
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Aug 2, 2016 20:03
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oh gently caress, i got the quote wrong
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Aug 2, 2016 20:05
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also the same company makes pike and shotte
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Aug 2, 2016 20:06
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HEY GAL posted:also the same company makes pike and shotte Pyke and schottte Pyekë nde sczhœdtze
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Aug 2, 2016 20:10
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So uh, what is happening to the on going stuff still being worked on like the Taiping/Polish Soviet War and a few other mega post projects goons in the last thread were doing? they going to keep going and repost the older stuff when they are done?
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Aug 2, 2016 20:11
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Let's consider the French perspective. The plan of battle is to push French assets forward to the Dyle line as the Belgian frontier fortifications delay the Germans, and to link up with the Dutch in Zeeland. The starting point is the French border. The goal is to have a defensive line that is roughly anchored in the north on the Waal or Hollandsdiep, coming south through prepared defenses in the Gembloux Gap (big flat bit in the middle of belgium) and anchoring on the south at the top of the Maginot line near Sedan. Gembloux represents the biggest risk since it has few natural terrain features to aid the defender, and was the axis of offense in WWI. The Allied warplan was to engage the Germans from a series of defensive positions moving from East to West through the Gembloux gap with a majority of the heavy assets of the Allied armies to blunt the German offensive and stall it somewhere in front of Namur and Belgium, ideally. The war kicks off. French armies move forward in the north towards the Gembloux gap. The planned movements were largely achieved, but due to the short resistance of the fortresses along the frontier the advancing Allied formations did not have time to prepare defenses or reach their objectives in all areas before being attacked by the Germans. The best Allied formation (1st French Army) is now being heavily engaged by the German Army Group B - see the Battle of Hannut and the Battle of the Gembloux Gap. All things equal, the French are doing OK. 1st Army withdraws after an extensive delaying fight for Hannut, but is in pretty good shape and has given the Germans a fairly bloody nose. The French are fighting the battle they want. 7th Army (the 2nd best Allied formation) is pushed north to Breda and leading elements cross the Waal to engage the Germans The plan is being executed, 1st Army is still strongly in contact with Army Group B and fighting a strong defensive action between Gembloux and Wavre, and the link up with the Dutch has been achieved. However, the engagement of 1st Army means that it's unable to reorient to support formations further south when the Germans launch a heavy (primary) offensive on an axis from roughly Arlon to Sedan. The French aren't sure this is anything beyond a spoiling attack to draw 1st army south off of Army Group B, and anyway, 1st army is too heavily engaged to pivot away from Army Group B. By the time they figure out that the Ardennes is the primary offensive, X Corps (local reserve, two front-line infantry divisions, two recon formations and an independent heavy tank battalion) are committed to a sharp fight around Sedan and Stonne, but there's no way that they can retake the key positions from the Germans who have arrived in strength, who are then able to exploit. The French try to pull 7th Army down from Breda, but at this point driving a couple hundred kilometers back and forth means that the serious offensive power of the armored divisions of the cavalry is non-operational. The only real issue for the Germans in taking Sedan in terms of traffic congestion was the inability to get artillery or artillery shells forward. Exploration was another matter, but once you're across the Meuse, it's over. Things that might have been decisive in favor of the Allies: 1. Not attempting to defend the Netherlands. Probably politically untenable, could potentially be decisive. 2. Not relying on the Gembloux Gap defenses. The original battle plan was to retreat basically to the French-Belgian frontier; this was politically untenable as well but possibly decisive. 3. Better deployment of armored assets. 1 DLM as part of 7th army lost almost all their tanks without being seriously engaged due to operational losses. Those two formations plus a couple other front-line infantry divisions have a chance of retaking Stonne, at least, where the French can command high ground above Sedan and the river, but there was no way that these forces would be deployed in a sector that wasn't very suited to armored warfare. Plus, if you lose in the center of Belgium and Calais, it doesn't matter what happens in the Ardennes. 4. A better mobilization plan. The forces covering Sedan were under strength and disorganized due to reshuffling of assets. If they had been in place since the start of the war, training to fight on that terrain, it might have made a difference, but probably would not be decisive unless more assets than X Corps were available to immediately counterattack. 5. German battle plans were captured and ignored, nice work. Could have been decisive at least in earlier identification of Sedan as the main axis of offensive.
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Aug 2, 2016 20:13
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P-Mack posted:Pyke and schottte
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Aug 2, 2016 20:14
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SeanBeansShako posted:Amusingly, they are improvising with a lot of 2nd Empire uniform stuff in those photographs. The Hussar didn't look right but I don't pretend to be a clothes guy.
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Aug 2, 2016 20:14
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SeanBeansShako posted:So uh, what is happening to the on going stuff still being worked on like the Taiping/Polish Soviet War and a few other mega post projects goons in the last thread were doing? they going to keep going and repost the older stuff when they are done? Yeah, I just need to check whether the thread getting goldmined broke the links to older posts. Other then that I should be able to pick it up and get moving again. Gonna start talking about the Shanghai Foreign Arms Corp and the start of western intervention against the Taiping.
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Aug 2, 2016 20:15
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Warlord Games have you covered from Biblical warfare (and earlier) to pikes to WWII and even far future. Near future, too, if you count Judge Dredd.
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Aug 2, 2016 20:16
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