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Tulip posted:I thought that the "declaration of war was for ceremonial/spiritual/legal purposes" was always what was meant, going back to Plutarch.
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Jan 7, 2021 20:43
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Panzeh posted:I believe there was a Roman estate management text that suggested that slaves be pushed as hard as possible then changed out every two years Written by Cato the Elder! He suggested that once they were too weak to work, you try to sell them to some other chump if possible, and stop feeding them if not. Also re: Sparta, IIRC the land is owned by the family but the slaves are owned by the state, so if they die you can just order up some new ones by sucking up to the kings. sullat fucked around with this message at 23:23 on Jan 7, 2021 |
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Jan 7, 2021 23:15
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From what I've read it wasn't that the Spartans were going around actively killing Helots, aside from maybe the Crypteia, but that they could kill Helots they thought were being suspicious, which were generally the ones who weren't working.
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Jan 8, 2021 03:34
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Tulip posted:I thought that the "declaration of war was for ceremonial/spiritual/legal purposes" was always what was meant, going back to Plutarch. It's not like they had a quota and you don't have to kill many to instill fear into a population. The actual spartan citizens was 5% of the total population of sparta so it would be a full time killing job to make a noticeable dent in the helot population. Not that it's any comfort to the helots.
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Jan 8, 2021 14:01
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So, it's gonna be a while till I'll have enough time and mental energy to finish my effort-posts on how Finland came to be. I dun hosed up and agreed to teach some extra courses, and the next few months are gonna be a bit tough. I can make no promises if and when I find time to do it, but I swear I'll get it done eventually. Sorry about that.
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Jan 8, 2021 15:30
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One curious result of the spartans being so obsessed with dying in battle was that spartan women inherited a lot of land. I've read that historians estimates that spartan women owned 40%of the land.
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Jan 8, 2021 18:27
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sullat posted:Written by Cato the Elder! He suggested that once they were too weak to work, you try to sell them to some other chump if possible, and stop feeding them if not. Were the slaves specifically the remit of the kings? Otherwise you would be more likely to be sucking up to the ephors. Weka fucked around with this message at 21:59 on Jan 8, 2021 |
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Jan 8, 2021 21:49
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Was the Spartan system chattel slavery
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Jan 8, 2021 22:04
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I don't know how freely they could trade Helots around, but they did have a caste system that developed because they weren't producing enough Spartiates. One of the problems was that there were ways for Spartiates to drop out of that status but no ways to be promoted into it, and if one member of a family was so disgraced it'd affect the marriage prospects of their relatives. So in between the Spartiates and Helots there were people born from mixed relationships, or descended from them, as well as resident non-citizens. These groups performed economic and military functions that the Spartiates didn't, or couldn't do. I think the demographic problems got so bad that they eventually started freeing Helots who performed military service.
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Jan 8, 2021 22:26
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zoux posted:Was the Spartan system chattel slavery Not technically I guess if they're owned by the state. E: this applies to helots. There is apparently some debate as to whether spartiates had regular chattel slaves as well. Weka fucked around with this message at 22:43 on Jan 8, 2021 |
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Jan 8, 2021 22:40
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I'm going to dig up a few things from a few weeks ago as I'm catching up here, like a huge rear end in a top hat:Cessna posted:
When it came time to create an East German army the SEP was very conscious of the fact they wanted to distance themselves from the Soviet Union. So instead of taking their military traditions from the RKKA, they decided to draw on existing pre-Wehrmacht German traditions. Like the Reichsheer. Who look like, well, this:  Yeah turns out the Nazis also really liked drawing on German military traditions. Who knew. (Edit: the early 56-pattern NVA parade uniforms used the tall collars with litzen, while the later 74-pattern parade uniform is more like the Bundeswehr with the the litzen on the lapels.) White Coke posted:Why do tanks have smoothbore guns? Cessna posted:Because muzzle velocities have gone up so much that today's projectiles will quickly wear out or damage rifling. Instead, projectiles are spun by fins. The projectiles aren't spun at all: the modern projectiles you want to optimize performance for are HEAT and APFSDS, which are both adversely affected by spinning. HEAT, as other mentioned, has degraded penetration performance when spun, while APFSDS is a long rod, and long rods are incredibly difficult to keep stable when spun (whereas it works fine on wide, stubby shells). Using fins to stabilize unspun projectiles is genuinely better than spin-stabilization with HEAT and long rod penetrators. (As for wear, apparently the British rifled L30 gun actually had less wear than a comparable smoothbore gun, though I've not yet been able to figure out why.) SlothfulCobra posted:I wonder if Scandinavia would've suffered less overall if they held down a united front against the Germans. The invasion of Norway was in many ways a ridiculous gamble. The invasion called for a massive diversion of forces, Denmark was captured as a staging area for aircraft, and much of the invasion force was sent to Norway on one-way tickets. Paratroopers had to capture airfields so their transports and air cover wouldn't end up ditching into a nearby mountain. The Norwegian government has been raked over the coals for their weak attempts at mobilization, but another 24 hours of delay (from, say, the Danes surrendering a little later) to the German plans might have (in a Gay Black Nygaardsvold way) resulted in the Germans, instead of running into an barely partially mobilized force in disarray, running into a prepared and mobilized force. LatwPIAT fucked around with this message at 00:44 on Jan 9, 2021 |
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Jan 9, 2021 00:37
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zoux posted:Was the Spartan system chattel slavery Helots definitely weren't, but the Spartans kept other slaves
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Jan 9, 2021 00:49
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LatwPIAT posted:The invasion of Norway was in many ways a ridiculous gamble. The invasion called for a massive diversion of forces, Denmark was captured as a staging area for aircraft, and much of the invasion force was sent to Norway on one-way tickets. Paratroopers had to capture airfields so their transports and air cover wouldn't end up ditching into a nearby mountain. The Norwegian government has been raked over the coals for their weak attempts at mobilization, but another 24 hours of delay (from, say, the Danes surrendering a little later) to the German plans might have (in a Gay Black Nygaardsvold way) resulted in the Germans, instead of running into an barely partially mobilized force in disarray, running into a prepared and mobilized force. Not to mention that the British invasion of the Norwegian coast got delayed by a few days wich let the Germans get there first. If they had run into British troops already on the shore and possibly engaging Norwegian forces, the result would have been ... Messy ( not to mention the possibility of the Brit force being slightly less delayed and both forces trying to land at the same place at the same time. The word clusterfuck springs to mind) Arban fucked around with this message at 03:03 on Jan 9, 2021 |
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Jan 9, 2021 01:35
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LatwPIAT posted:I'm going to dig up a few things from a few weeks ago as I'm catching up here, like a huge rear end in a top hat How dare you bring up old things in the history thread.
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Jan 9, 2021 02:52
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Arban posted:Not to mention that the British invasion of the Norwegian coast got delayed by a few days wich let the Germans get there first. If they had run into British troops already on the shore and possibly engaging Norwegian forces, the result would have been ... Messy ( not to mention the possibility of the Brit force being slightly less delayed and both forces trying to land at the same place at the same time. The word clusterfuck springs to mind) A three way Britain vs Norway vs Germany battle really should have been a Battlefield V map.
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Jan 9, 2021 03:45
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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Jobbo_Fett posted:It was a constant thing throughout the war but not much use or value. The main benefit would be to land stricken aircraft in Soviet areas to prevent capture or death at German or local hands. Say you bomb Berlin in a B-17 by later 1944, you're better off continuing to Russia if the state of your aircraft is that bad. Otherwise you try to ditch in Sweden, Switzerland, or friendly lines. What happened to pilots that landed in switzerland? Imprisoned I guess? Did it happen to both sides ie could their be both axis and allied airmen in a swiss pow camp
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Jan 9, 2021 06:48
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Milo and POTUS posted:What happened to pilots that landed in switzerland? Imprisoned I guess? Did it happen to both sides ie could their be both axis and allied airmen in a swiss pow camp Anyone landing in a neutral country was interned and potentially traded for resources/aid/etc, or casually 'escaped' to fight again. Depends on the side and country they landed in. Not sure about what happened if/when two opposite sides were in the same camp/prison. I assume they just wouldn't do it to begin with but I can't say I've read anything on the topic, much less heard of any book that covers it. The likelyhood seems low for both sides to be in Switzerland, if only because they defended their air space and the Germans/Italians didn't fly into it very often, from what I recall. Whereas an Allied bomber would purposefully go to Switzerland if it was their best bet at staying alive/not being captured. Sure, you might still be imprisoned, but at least its not German jailors.
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Jan 9, 2021 07:04
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Milo and POTUS posted:What happened to pilots that landed in switzerland? Imprisoned I guess? Did it happen to both sides ie could their be both axis and allied airmen in a swiss pow camp Internees were held until the end of the war. Mark Felton did a short video on the incidents between the US and the Swiss, and while it doesn't mention what happened to German personnel he does bring up the case of a plane forced down with advanced radar, that was destroyed under German supervision in exchange for a shipment of Me-109s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FILxoQyKzDg Jobbo_Fett posted:Sure, you might still be imprisoned, but at least its not German jailors. They could still be pretty unpleasant (one of the camps was run by a Swiss Nazi): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wauwilermoos_internment_camp#Conditions,_human_rights_violations,_and_inspections GotLag fucked around with this message at 07:17 on Jan 9, 2021 |
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Jan 9, 2021 07:11
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GotLag posted:Internees were held until the end of the war. loving hell.
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Jan 9, 2021 07:31
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Milhist Thread - Hate is indifferent
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Jan 9, 2021 07:32
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Are any FUSAG newsreels known to still exist?
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Jan 9, 2021 11:24
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Jobbo_Fett posted:Anyone landing in a neutral country was interned and potentially traded for resources/aid/etc, or casually 'escaped' to fight again. Depends on the side and country they landed in. The Allied bombers also flew to Switzerland because the lit Swiss cities were easier to find, and a few of them were bombed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial_incidents_in_Switzerland_in_World_War_II
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Jan 9, 2021 12:28
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Jobbo_Fett posted:Anyone landing in a neutral country was interned and potentially traded for resources/aid/etc, or casually 'escaped' to fight again. Depends on the side and country they landed in.
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Jan 9, 2021 13:16
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Warden posted:So, it's gonna be a while till I'll have enough time and mental energy to finish my effort-posts on how Finland came to be. I dun hosed up and agreed to teach some extra courses, and the next few months are gonna be a bit tough. I can make no promises if and when I find time to do it, but I swear I'll get it done eventually. Sorry about that. It's been really interesting! I love this thread for teaching me a lot about conflicts and historical events I've never heard of.
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Jan 9, 2021 16:03
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LatwPIAT posted:The projectiles aren't spun at all: the modern projectiles you want to optimize performance for are HEAT and APFSDS, which are both adversely affected by spinning. No, sorry - that's incorrect. APFSDS rounds are still spun, they just aren't spun as fast as a rifled round. I can see if I can find some old gunnery manuals in my garage, but in the meantime, from Wikipedia: quote:The spin from standard rifling decreases the performance of these rounds (rifling diverts some of the linear kinetic energy to rotational kinetic energy, thus decreasing the round's velocity and impact energy), and very high rotation on a fin-stabilized projectile can dramatically increase aerodynamic drag, further reducing impact velocity. For these reasons, APFSDS projectiles are generally fired from smoothbore guns, a practice that has been taken up for tank guns by China, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, France, Germany, Pakistan, Turkey, Russia, and the United States. Nevertheless, in the early development of APFSDS ammunition, existing rifled barrel cannons were used, (and are still in use), such as the 105 mm M68 cannon mounted on the M60A3 main battle tank or the British 120 mm Royal Ordnance L30 of the Challenger 2 tank. To reduce the spin rate when using a rifled barrel, a "slip obturator", (slip obturation ring), is incorporated that allows the high pressure propellant gasses to seal, yet not transfer the total spin rate of the rifling into the projectile. The projectile still exits the barrel with some residual spinning, but at an acceptably low rate. In addition, some spin rate is beneficial to a fin-stabilized projectile, averaging out aerodynamic imbalances and improving accuracy. Even smooth-bore fired APFSDS projectiles incorporate fins that are slightly canted to provide some spin rate during flight; and very low twist rifled barrels have also been developed for the express purpose of firing APFSDS ammunition. Bolding mine. Cessna fucked around with this message at 21:47 on Jan 9, 2021 |
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Jan 9, 2021 21:41
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Jobbo_Fett posted:Anyone landing in a neutral country was interned and potentially traded for resources/aid/etc, or casually 'escaped' to fight again. Depends on the side and country they landed in. Uh, this might not have been as good idea as you would think. Warning, the Wiki link below contains descriptions of human rights abuses that you might not want to read if you are in a sensitive mood, suffice it to say that the camp was led by a sadistic Nazi. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wauwilermoos_internment_camp#Conditions,_human_rights_violations,_and_inspections quote:Wauwilermoos housed military internees of various nations, including England, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Poland, Russia, Yugoslavia, and the USA.
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Jan 10, 2021 00:23
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Cessna posted:No, sorry - that's incorrect. Thanks, actually some stuff in there I didn't know. So the full answer is really something more like: "Modern performance-optimized APFSDS and HEAT is adversely affected by the high spin rates typically imparted by rifled barrels. To reduce the spin rates to non-detrimental levels, smoothbore barrels are used to remove spin entirely and a very small amount of spin is then added back through spin-inducing fins."
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Jan 10, 2021 02:57
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LatwPIAT posted:"Modern performance-optimized APFSDS and HEAT is adversely affected by the high spin rates typically imparted by rifled barrels. To reduce the spin rates to non-detrimental levels, smoothbore barrels are used to remove spin entirely and a very small amount of spin is then added back through spin-inducing fins." As I said in my initial post: Cessna posted:Because muzzle velocities have gone up so much that today's projectiles will quickly wear out or damage rifling. Instead, projectiles are spun by fins.
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Jan 10, 2021 06:27
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Cessna posted:As I said in my initial post: Which is critically incomplete: the need for modern high-end projectiles to be spun at low rather than high rates was instrumental in making smoothbore barrels a worthwhile endeavour. They're not made smoothbore because the projectiles can be spun by their fins instead of by rifling (thus alleviating the need for rifling, allowing a low-cost solution to be applied), but made smoothbore precisely to avoid spinning the projectiles too much (thus making the low-cost solution also the best one). This might seem a terribly nitpicky distinction but I stand by making it this staunchly because this kind of detail understanding is very important when getting into the weeds of the technical side of tanks and ballistics.
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Jan 10, 2021 07:25
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PeterCat posted:Here's a WWII US Army training film covering tank driving. Of particular interest to me is the starting of the diesel engine. Apparently it was done with a shotgun shell, as seen at 10:48. cool videos!
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Jan 10, 2021 13:21
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Nessus posted:This reminds me of the Irish policy regarding downed pilots, which was, broadly, that if they were on a non-combatant mission they would be released, and if they were on a combatant mission they would be interned. This was considerably easier to do for Allied pilots, since they could claim to have gotten lost or perhaps be ferrying planes. This was much harder for the Germans, and so a number of German pilots were hosted (and the Germans were billed). And while we're on Irish military history, courtesy of someone on Facebook: the Irish Air Corps Apprentice mechanics class of 1970.  Apparently this was taken on their second day at Baldonnel, and not everybody had figured out what cap badges were for. My dad is in the front row, and I am relentlessly giving him poo poo for letting his class look so sloppy.
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Jan 10, 2021 22:41
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LatwPIAT posted:Which is critically incomplete: FFS. You come in and try to correct me, but what you said is wrong. No, I didn't cover everything in my initial post, but it was a message board post and what I said was correct - unlike your "correction." Can you just stop responding to me, please? LatwPIAT posted:This might seem a terribly nitpicky distinction but I stand by making it this staunchly because this kind of detail understanding is very important when getting into the weeds of the technical side of tanks and ballistics. If you insist on nitpicking, please be correct when you do so. Better yet, please stop. Edit: Sorry to be pissy about this, but this seems to happen a lot. I'm always up to talk, but "but actually" corrections that are wrong are really annoying. Cessna fucked around with this message at 02:37 on Jan 11, 2021 |
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Jan 10, 2021 23:33
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I hate to get in the middle of this argument, but it's aroused my curiosity. Did they realize that having some spin was beneficial to fin stabilized rounds after they started switching to smoothbores, or was it something they realized before switching, hence those attachments to make them spin less in rifled barrels, and they just switched to smoothbore barrels firing fins with slight angles later to save on cost?
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Jan 11, 2021 07:22
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HEAT doesn't like spinning at all, and I believe HEAT was the dominant antitank round until composite armour started making it less effective and APFSDS overtook it.
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Jan 11, 2021 07:29
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White Coke posted:I hate to get in the middle of this argument, but it's aroused my curiosity. Did they realize that having some spin was beneficial to fin stabilized rounds after they started switching to smoothbores, or was it something they realized before switching, hence those attachments to make them spin less in rifled barrels, and they just switched to smoothbore barrels firing fins with slight angles later to save on cost? Having some spin being good is somewhat obvious, gyroscopic stabilization is the whole point of rifling to begin with; it seems all but certain any gun/projectile designer would have been aware of this.
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Jan 11, 2021 07:39
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White Coke posted:I hate to get in the middle of this argument, but it's aroused my curiosity. Did they realize that having some spin was beneficial to fin stabilized rounds after they started switching to smoothbores, or was it something they realized before switching, hence those attachments to make them spin less in rifled barrels, and they just switched to smoothbore barrels firing fins with slight angles later to save on cost? The switch from rifled to smoothbore barrels was a slow and gradual process (I'm pretty sure there's still countries that have the majority of their tanks use rifled barrels) but it seems that by the time it happened it was known that you wanted some spin. I've just skimmed a 1966 text, Design For Control Of Projectile Flight Characteristics, from the US Army Material Command, that notes as a matter of fact that completely getting rid of spin is both undesirable and almost impossible. This might possibly have been a late realization coming out of some experiences with the abominable 152 mm gun on the M551 Sheridan, but as far as I can tell it's some fairly simple aerodynamic principles at work and the article seems to treat it as fairly old hat. I also can't speak to the exact course of events in the development of modern smoothbore guns in the Soviet Union for the T-64, but it follows that if it's basically impossible to completely remove spin on a projectile that the Soviet Union would have made their first smoothbore gun knowing they'd have to put up with a little spin. PittTheElder posted:Having some spin being good is somewhat obvious, gyroscopic stabilization is the whole point of rifling to begin with; it seems all but certain any gun/projectile designer would have been aware of this. Slow spin is good for fin-stabilized projectiles for entirely different reasons than fast spin is good for spin-stabilized projectiles, though. Fin-stabilized projectiles are already stable, but are spun to average out slight imperfections in the fins that cause excessive drift.
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Jan 11, 2021 08:25
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Soviet HEAT grenades Queue: T-34-85M, Myths of Soviet tank building: interbellum tanks, Light Tank M24, German anti-tank rifles, PT-76 modernizations, ISU-122 front line impressions, German additional tank protection (zimmerit, schurzen, track links), Winter and swamp tracks, Paper light tank destroyers, Allied intel on the Maus , Summary of French interbellum tank development, Medium Tank T20, Medium Tank T23, Myths of Soviet tank building, GMC M10, Tiger II predecessors, Pz.Kpfw.IV Ausf.H-J,IS-6, SU-101/SU-102/Uralmash-1, Centurion Mk.I, SU-100 front line impressions, IS-2 front line impressions, Myths of Soviet tank building: early Great Patriotic War, Influence of the T-34 on German tank building, Medium Tank T25, Heavy Tank T26/T26E1/T26E3, Career of Harry Knox, GMC M36, Geschützwagen Tiger für 17cm K72 (Sf), Early Early Soviet tank development (MS-1, AN Teplokhod), Career of Semyon Aleksandrovich Ginzburg, AT-1, Object 140, SU-76 frontline impressions, Creation of the IS-3, IS-6, SU-5, Myths of Soviet tank building: 1943-44, IS-2 post-war modifications, Myths of Soviet tank building: end of the Great Patriotic War, Medium Tank T6, RPG-1, Lahti L-39, T-80 T-62 T-64 T-72A comparative trials, American tank building plans post-war, German tanks for 1946, HMC M7 Priest, GMC M12, GMC M40/M43, ISU-152, AMR 35 ZT, Soviet post-war tank building plans, T-100Y and SU-14-1, Object 430, Pz.Kpfw.35(t), T-60 tanks in combat, SU-76M modernizations, Panhard 178, 15 cm sFH 13/1 (Sf), 43M Zrínyi Available for request (others' articles):  Shashmurin's career BT-7M/A-8 trials Voroshilovets tractor trials T-55 underwater driving equipment  Light Tank T37 Light Tank T41 Medium Tank M46 Modernization of the M48 to the M60 standard  Pre-war and early war British tank building  Oerlikon and Solothurn anti-tank rifles German tank building trends at the end of WW2 Pz.Kpfw.III/IV Evolution of German tank observation devices E-50 and E-75 development NEW Ensign Expendable fucked around with this message at 15:22 on Jan 11, 2021 |
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Jan 11, 2021 15:12
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While we're talking about APFSDS properties out of the muzzle, apparently one of the interesting features of modern fin rounds is that they're wobbly when they come out of the barrel and need some time to straighten out. This means that at very short ranges they'll impact armour at a slight angle to their direction of flight, which is bad for them, so your greatest effective penetration is actually out at a hundred or a couple of hundred metres from the muzzle. Hegel, did your guys do penetration testing to try to work out Better Gonnes or was it only for proofing breastplates and suchlike to get Better Armour.
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Jan 11, 2021 20:57
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PittTheElder posted:Having some spin being good is somewhat obvious, gyroscopic stabilization is the whole point of rifling to begin with; it seems all but certain any gun/projectile designer would have been aware of this. The problem is that as projectile length:diameter increases the spin rate needed to gyroscopically stabilize it becomes higher, and as long rod penetrators want to be all length and no width you’d have to spin them at impractically high rates for stabilization. The slight spin rate imparted by their fins doesn’t stabilize them gyroscopically, it lets them rotate enough so that any aerodynamic asymmetries are rendered symmetrical to the flight path and won’t lead to a constant deviation.
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Jan 11, 2021 21:31
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FrangibleCover posted:While we're talking about APFSDS properties out of the muzzle, apparently one of the interesting features of modern fin rounds is that they're wobbly when they come out of the barrel and need some time to straighten out. This means that at very short ranges they'll impact armour at a slight angle to their direction of flight, which is bad for them, so your greatest effective penetration is actually out at a hundred or a couple of hundred metres from the muzzle.
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Jan 11, 2021 21:37
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