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Retarded Pimp posted:I've reloaded a lot and something that always struck me as odd was it's easy to make a reduced charge load for lower velocity/recoil, but I've read that that the Sherman 76mm HE round couldn't hold as much filler as the 75mm round since the 76's casing walls needed to be thicker to hold together for the higher velocity and pressure compared to the 75mm. They probably could, but it would require an overhaul of all 76mm gun sights to use properly since the ballistics of such a round wouldn't even be remotely close to all the other shells the 76mm guns fired.
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Oct 18, 2015 16:09
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SeanBeansShako posted:I expect KYOON GRIFFEY JR can certainly go into more detail, but the British rocket artillery of the Napoleonic Wars was more of a psychological terror when first encountered than a physically dangerous one. Saw the Napoleonic bat signal. Rocket Technology As SBS said later, rockets were stolen from the indians, who stole them from the Chinese. The British were the only Europeans to extensively use rockets on the battlefield. In general, Indian armies were absolutely in love with artillery of all kinds, so the British certainly took away a fair amount of respect for massed fires from their various experience. Hyder Ali had entire rocket battalions, which must have made quite a racket. The British were impressed enough to actually copy the drat things, probably due to an extremely fortunate Mysorese hit on a powder magazine. Hyder Ali's guys had a couple of innovative concepts. A rocket had about a pound of propellant in an iron casing with a big stick. The first was wheeled limbers that were also launchers with 5-10 rockets mounted. The second was the massing of fire - about 200 men per rocket battalion were able to deliver a shitload of rockets. Some rockets exploded, and some grazed along the ground like traditional artillery shells, according to British observation. It's not really clear whether the difference in effect was deliberate. The Congreve was the world's biggest and most expensive bottle rocket. You could get various sizes, all typically explosive, up to about 32lb size. In theory, they ranged out to about 2000 meters maximum range for the longest. In practice they weren't all that effective. I think it's largely due to stabilizing sticks being not a great technology, and issues with the solid propellant's quality. Applications The British used rockets effectively for Copenhagen and the French fleet at the basque roads - these both were area targets that were highly flammable. In general they were absolute poo poo against fortifications because of accuracy and the fact that forts don't burn well. Here's a quote from Wellington in 1813: Wellington posted:My dear Lord, I have received your letter of the 11th, regarding the Rocket Brigade. The only reason why I wished to have it was to get the horses; but as we are to have them at all events, I am perfectly satisfied. I do not want to set fire to any town, and I do not know any other use of the rockets. Opinons Basically, your opinion of rockets was directly correlated to the first one you saw fired, as far as I can tell. If you first saw them against an area target like a town, and the first couple hit, you thought they were cool. If not, you recognized that they were absolute poo poo. There was probably some value to the explosives and noise - Line infantry were generally not particularly afraid of roundshot, since you can see it coming and it's relatively "normal." There was far greater fear of explosives like mortar shells and spherical case, so the unpredictability and explosive warhead of the rocket was a somewhat terrifying experience for green troops. However, the terror probably lessened significantly as the rockets didn't really do poo poo. In general, the same principles that apply to modern tube-vs-rocket discussions apply to Napoleonic versions. The rocket gives you a bunch of saturation on an area in a short amount of time. The tube gives you more precision. The gap between the two was massive, so in general I think the British would have been better served by replacing the rockets with additional 5.5" howitzers, which had superior capabilities for most situations, although you can't just automatically divert resources &c.
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Oct 18, 2015 16:13
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feedmegin posted:Regiment. It guards airfields. Yeah. Who else is going to guard airfields, aircraft on the ground/hangers, munitions, stores and comms?
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Oct 18, 2015 16:20
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Fo3 posted:Yeah. Who else is going to guard airfields, aircraft on the ground/hangers, munitions, stores and comms? I thought that was what the Squadron pets were for...
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Oct 18, 2015 16:22
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So glad my old man doesn't post on SA right now.KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:In general, the same principles that apply to modern tube-vs-rocket discussions apply to Napoleonic versions. The rocket gives you a bunch of saturation on an area in a short amount of time. The tube gives you more precision. The gap between the two was massive, so in general I think the British would have been better served by replacing the rockets with additional 5.5" howitzers, which had superior capabilities for most situations, although you can't just automatically divert resources &c. Wellington would have gotten his horse and some good howitzers at the same time!
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Oct 18, 2015 16:24
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HEY GAL posted:I got the impression earlier from one of your entries that this kind of long-term hanging out is a French/German thing. Is that correct? If so, why the French and not the British? Very much so. After the Christmas truce in 1914 the BEF (still a small force of three extremely battered corps) had a major push to ensure that this sort of thing could never happen again, using exactly the reasoning that Private Racine's CO has just given - and, being such a small force (and one with a lot of new, inexperienced officers and men looking for guidance on how to fight a war) it was relatively easy to get everyone on message. Doctrine appeared for how to hold a section of line between attacks that emphasised the need for No Man's Land to be occupied and actively patrolled at night to interfere with anything the Germans might want to do, and recommended frequent trench raids be carried out. This was, as much as anything else, about ensuring that the blokes were kept fighting as often as possible, to stave off cafard and listlessness, and to keep them from having any time to start feeling sympathetic to the Germans across the way. Junior officers were constantly bombarded with circulars and pamphlets and reports from other units, with suggestions for things to do when it was their turn to go up the line; this is where that staggeringly myopic Headquarters catchphrase "Am I as offensive as I could be?" comes from. It was intended to be a question that a good platoon or company commander should frequently ask himself. How many raids have I ordered recently? How many patrols do I send out at night? When the enemy sends a few Minnies over at stand-to, do I ask for return fire from my own trench mortars? What am I doing to actually fight the war and keep the men's morale up, instead of just sitting here passively and letting the days go past? By contrast, it seems that nobody in French high command gave a shite about the men on any practical level (and even if they had, there's only so much you can do from on high to change the culture of an institution of millions of men). As long as his blokes go over the top when they're supposed to, an officer who actually has to go up the line with them is generally left to get on with things as he sees fit, and that leaves room for the more pacifistic sort to tolerate or encourage fraternisation if it means a quiet life and a good bridge partner. Of course you still had plenty of very offensive thrusters and pedants, who ordered raids and patrols like les Anglais did, but there seems never to have been a major coordinated effort by GQG to encourage that culture and make it the default attitude for a new officer.
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Oct 18, 2015 16:51
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thank you. there's a particularly french kind of actively not giving a poo poo which is at least 400 years old
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Oct 18, 2015 16:53
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Retarded Pimp posted:I've reloaded a lot and something that always struck me as odd was it's easy to make a reduced charge load for lower velocity/recoil, but I've read that that the Sherman 76mm HE round couldn't hold as much filler as the 75mm round since the 76's casing walls needed to be thicker to hold together for the higher velocity and pressure compared to the 75mm. The phrase "It seemed so obvious" was made for things like this.
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Oct 18, 2015 17:06
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HEY GAL posted:thank you. there's a particularly French kind of actively not giving a poo poo which is at least 400 years old
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Oct 18, 2015 17:16
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Ardent Communist posted:You can't even say they're bad at war, with Napoleon and the Sun king. edit: a bunch of the napoleon/sun king stuff is that france is very big and very wealthy, which is why it takes the entire rest of europe to bring it down in, like, the nine years' war or war of the spanish succession HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 17:24 on Oct 18, 2015 |
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Oct 18, 2015 17:17
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:Basically, your opinion of rockets was directly correlated to the first one you saw fired, as far as I can tell. If you first saw them against an area target like a town, and the first couple hit, you thought they were cool. If not, you recognized that they were absolute poo poo. There was probably some value to the explosives and noise - Line infantry were generally not particularly afraid of roundshot, since you can see it coming and it's relatively "normal." There was far greater fear of explosives like mortar shells and spherical case, so the unpredictability and explosive warhead of the rocket was a somewhat terrifying experience for green troops. However, the terror probably lessened significantly as the rockets didn't really do poo poo. I wonder how much of Wellington's dislike for rockets came from the battle where he got his rear end handed to him by rockets. "At this point (near the village of Sultanpet, Figure 5) there was a large tope, or grove, which gave shelter to Tipu's rocketmen and had obviously to be cleaned out before the siege could be pressed closer to Seringapatam Island. The commander chosen for this operation was Col. Wellesley, but advancing towards the tope after dark on 5 April 1799, he was set upon with rockets and musket-fires, lost his way and, as Beatson politely puts it, had to "postpone the attack" until a more favourable opportunity should offer. Wellesley's failure was glossed over by Beatson and other chroniclers, but the next morning he failed to report when a force was being paraded to renew the attack." Hogge Wild fucked around with this message at 17:22 on Oct 18, 2015 |
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Oct 18, 2015 17:20
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HEY GAL posted:no no, the grizzled old dude who actively doesn't give a poo poo (whether Barthas or one of his spiritual ancestors in Napoleon's or louis XIII's army) is probably really good at war
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Oct 18, 2015 17:23
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actively not giving a poo poo in 1515 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8Dj_BUUhAU
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Oct 18, 2015 17:29
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Cythereal posted:How about the Mattress, which is what the Brits called their nebelwerfer version? They also had the Sherman Tulip, a lend-lease Sherman with rail-mounted rockets on the turret. There was also the Calliope, which is distinctly amelodic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_uP-AmUEzA
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Oct 18, 2015 17:39
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This may be a bit out of anyone's time frame, but does anyone know anything about battering rams? Watching a film and a medieval army charging a gate uses a large carved out ram's head to break through a gate. Is there any basis in fact? I keep finding pictures of ornate battering rams, but the idea seems ridiculous. Especially considering I thought siege equipment like this would have been constructed on site for the attack.
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Oct 18, 2015 17:53
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Hazzard posted:This may be a bit out of anyone's time frame, but does anyone know anything about battering rams? I don't know a thing about battering rams, but old cannons and such were really ornate for no reason other than people thought that a +5 weapon should look ornate. The ram head would make sense to me if it was a metal thing that you bolted to the end of a log you were using, but you're right, a carved wooden ram head would be stupid. Of course, medieval depictions of siege engines tend to look stupid anyway. 
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Oct 18, 2015 18:24
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Hazzard posted:This may be a bit out of anyone's time frame, but does anyone know anything about battering rams? The ram part is unnecessary, but the idea of hitting something with a very big hammer is sound. Ardent Communist posted:Sorry, I misread that and conflated it with the french surrender monkeys bs. I mean, French revolutionary wars, they took on all comers. The Imperial Old Guard dying to a man at Waterloo, the french have plenty of heroics. Hell, even the french resistance after the leadership surrendered during WW2. La resistance's reputation was inflated post-war. Compared to resistance in Eastern Europe, the Balkans, or even Italy, the French were quite tame until 1944. Conversely, the Free French were very impressive for much of the war. But largely composed of West Africans and Maghrebis, they were impossible to whitewash and were ignored after cosmopolitan France was liberated.
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Oct 18, 2015 18:34
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Sieges were things that went on for weeks and months, people had plenty to time to gently caress around with carving stuff.
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Oct 18, 2015 18:55
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Ardent Communist posted:Sorry, I misread that and conflated it with the french surrender monkeys bs. I mean, French revolutionary wars, they took on all comers. The Imperial Old Guard dying to a man at Waterloo, the french have plenty of heroics. Hell, even the french resistance after the leadership surrendered during WW2. The surrender monkey BS really is just Americans and British being smug about World War 2, and even then, as you said the stereotype doesn't fit. As for today, France might be the only European NATO nation with its poo poo together militarily. It has the largest standing army in Europe, and is the only nation on earth (aside from the United States) operating a proper aircraft carrier. It also has a procurement system that actually functions well, which is totally unique in the west. It has been suggested that when the British finally get the QE class carrier together and are launching it, the French should sail by in the Charles De Gaulle, launching Rafales. I endorse this idea
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Oct 18, 2015 19:34
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Oct 18, 2015 19:51
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Fangz posted:Sieges were things that went on for weeks and months, people had plenty to time to gently caress around with carving stuff. But a carved ram head would only soften the impact compared to a blunt end. EX-TER-MI-NA-TE!
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Oct 18, 2015 19:52
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Well, the German military is slowly eroding (no nationalistic, pro-military upswing like in Japan) as it's a defensive-only force with nothing to defend against, and the British keep downsizing their's with no clear idea what they want their armed forces to do (and even then they change their mind every few years). France is, however, bombing Libya and sending guys to fight in Africa, as well as still keeping the Foreign Legion. So, of the three European powers, it's the only one left. What US and Russia are up to these days is hardly a secret.
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Oct 18, 2015 19:52
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What year is this from? I'm guessing 1916, because that sketch does resemble armour that a few troops wore at the time. I wonder if the cartoonist knew about tanks at the time he drew it.
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Oct 18, 2015 20:06
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JcDent posted:Well, the German military is slowly eroding (no nationalistic, pro-military upswing like in Japan) as it's a defensive-only force with nothing to defend against, and the British keep downsizing their's with no clear idea what they want their armed forces to do (and even then they change their mind every few years). France is, however, bombing Libya and sending guys to fight in Africa, as well as still keeping the Foreign Legion. Uh, we (  ) bombed Libya and intervened in Sierra Leone a while back. I think the UK would like the capabilities, it's more a matter of our current government and our previous government for that matter trying to spend as little as possible on anything ever (which is a perpetual problem with the UK armed forces since at least like 1918). Hence why we have carriers reliant on the frigging F-35B working ever 
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Oct 18, 2015 20:14
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Chamale posted:What year is this from? I'm guessing 1916, because that sketch does resemble armour that a few troops wore at the time. I wonder if the cartoonist knew about tanks at the time he drew it. no idea, i stole it from the yospos pic thread Hogge Wild fucked around with this message at 20:29 on Oct 18, 2015 |
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Oct 18, 2015 20:18
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Ardent Communist posted:Sorry, I misread that and conflated it with the french surrender monkeys bs. I mean, French revolutionary wars, they took on all comers. The Imperial Old Guard dying to a man at Waterloo, the french have plenty of heroics. Hell, even the french resistance after the leadership surrendered during WW2. The Old Guard didn't all die at Waterloo, they broke yeah and some died but quite a few survived. I blame that stupid bit in the seventies Waterloo (such a stupid stupid pointless bit argh) and their infamous bad rear end phrase for that though. Also, I love both British and French military history. Studying them side by side is pretty interesting.
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Oct 18, 2015 20:19
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feedmegin posted:Uh, we ( Don't be shy - there's also the matter of the plans saying "Oh and we should make sure the QE class can use CATOBAR aircraft in case the F-35B doesn't work out." And then several years later the government is like 'welp, lets get the F-35C" and BAE is all "these carriers were never designed for that." Which is either straight up contract violations from BAE, bilking the taxpayer for billions, or massive incompetence on the part of the government when the contract was drawn up Good thing defense contracts are state secrets
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Oct 18, 2015 20:25
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Nebakenezzer posted:Don't be shy - there's also the matter of the plans saying "Oh and we should make sure the QE class can use CATOBAR aircraft in case the F-35B doesn't work out." And then several years later the government is like 'welp, lets get the F-35C" and BAE is all "these carriers were never designed for that." Given they straight up weren't costed in the first place, I'd say straight up incompetence arising out of a purely political decision by Brown to give the Scottish shipyards something to do.
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Oct 18, 2015 20:43
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Hogge Wild posted:I wonder how much of Wellington's dislike for rockets came from the battle where he got his rear end handed to him by rockets. I think it's quite relevant. Wellesley disdained night operations almost entirely because of this little debacle. One would think that as the vanquished, he might have a more healthy respect for rocketry, though.
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Oct 18, 2015 20:53
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Nenonen posted:But a carved ram head would only soften the impact compared to a blunt end. A brass head might help it break things though.
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Oct 18, 2015 21:56
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The Lone Badger posted:A brass head might help it break things though. I think the point of the cap on the end is to keep the timber from mashing and splintering. Can't properly bash down gates without that cap being properly styled, though.
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Oct 18, 2015 22:00
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:I think it's quite relevant. Wellesley disdained night operations almost entirely because of this little debacle. One would think that as the vanquished, he might have a more healthy respect for rocketry, though. Rockets didn't actually help the Sultan Tipu. Like all great British general, Wellesley's greatness stemmed from being a calculating master of the set-piece battle. Things like night operations and rocketry are way too chaotic and random to be attractive to that sort of mindset.
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Oct 18, 2015 22:08
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Nenonen posted:I don't know a thing about battering rams, but old cannons and such were really ornate for no reason other than people thought that a +5 weapon should look ornate. The ram head would make sense to me if it was a metal thing that you bolted to the end of a log you were using, but you're right, a carved wooden ram head would be stupid. What are you talking about, that looks awesome!
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Oct 18, 2015 22:11
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Alchenar posted:Rockets didn't actually help the Sultan Tipu. They did at Seringapatam in that specific action.
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Oct 18, 2015 22:22
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Nebakenezzer posted:The surrender monkey BS really is just Americans and British being smug about World War 2, and even then, as you said the stereotype doesn't fit. As for today, France might be the only European NATO nation with its poo poo together militarily. It has the largest standing army in Europe, and is the only nation on earth (aside from the United States) operating a proper aircraft carrier. It also has a procurement system that actually functions well, which is totally unique in the west. Finally, France has realized its post-WWII self-declared mission to be the counterweight to American power. The French government was so utterly contemptible from 1918 through... um... maybe the 80s that they have a lot of Anglo-American smug coming their way before their dues are fully paid.
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Oct 18, 2015 22:26
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I like to think I'm pretty up on military history, and my own time in has helped to fill in the blanks on a lot of the day-to-day stuff that doesn't make it into the books. I can read about Napoleonic Artillery, and have a rough idea of how the grunts spent their days based on my time with the guns. Maybe less shovelling manure, but turning a wrench on trucks made me empathetic. There is something I've been wondering though. How do specialists spend their time when they aren't needed? I know there is tonnes of training before operations. There's usually very detailed and specific plans. Garrison life can't be that different - eat, clean, drill, shoot the poo poo, look busy. For an example of what I'm thinking about, take Operation Neptune. The Glider Pilots and Landing Craft crews trained since 1942, '43. They rehearsed all through the spring of '44. The plans for the Normandy landings were in the works for a long time, and so was the training schedule. But - What were they doing on June 7, 1944? Gliders were used again in Market Garden and Varsity, but how did pilots spend the time in between? What happened after Varsity, when Gliders wouldn't be used again in the ETO? The crews of the small landing craft must have shuttled supplies from ship-to-shore until the major French ports were captured, but what happened after that? I guess this question also applies to Pontoon crews when there are no rivers, OSS/SOE/French Resistance after liberation, AMTRAC crews in the Pacific, etc.
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Oct 19, 2015 00:46
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There's a reason why they have that army too. They've been involved in a bunch of poo poo down in Africa. The surrender-monkeys thing really only seemed to spark up when they were against the US going into Iraq, but I wouldn't be surprised if it went back to the time when America tried to "fix" things after they pulled out of Vietnam.
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Oct 19, 2015 00:46
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Frosted Flake posted:I like to think I'm pretty up on military history, and my own time in has helped to fill in the blanks on a lot of the day-to-day stuff that doesn't make it into the books. I can read about Napoleonic Artillery, and have a rough idea of how the grunts spent their days based on my time with the guns. Maybe less shovelling manure, but turning a wrench on trucks made me empathetic. Some units had skills easily transferred to other areas or were needed elsewhere to do the same job, and some units just ended up hanging around. What I know about specifically is allied glider pilots. In the US military, glider infantry being just like any other ground infantry and not volunteers like the Parachute regiments, they were treated as kind of just the guy who happened to fly the team to combat and then they fought with the rest of the guys in their unit on the ground. The British had a separate Glider Pilot Regiment which was regarded as a distinct and valuable resource and they were actually all fairly highly ranked NCO volunteers who were expected to form up into their own unit and fight on the ground until relieved. Ideally they were supposed to stay out of the way and try survive to fly again next time, but in practice that wasn't always possible. Also you forgot Sicily, and they took part in Operation Dragoon in August so the last half of 1944 was pretty busy for them.
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Oct 19, 2015 01:01
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If your specific skill-set isn't needed or isn't going to be used, you'll probably be re-trained to something they do need. I knew a guy who had been trained as an NBC specialist in the army, and after they figured there weren't any nukes or chemical weapons in Iraq, he was trained to drive a truck.
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Oct 19, 2015 01:24
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Crews of small landing craft were to be transferred to the Pacific theater after Normandy. My grandfather, who piloted an LST, once recounted how he walked the beach after the battle and found every tank he had disembarked sunk, wrecked or otherwise destroyed. He decided he'd had enough of that rubbish and took a transfer to a Siberian weather station rather than participate in the invasion of Japan. Later he put the Russian he learned to good use by marrying a woman fleeing the chaos of post-Soviet Belarus. While on R&R in Siberia he supposedly did a little bit of spying by traveling around the countryside, though somehow I doubt there was much of interest to see.
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Oct 19, 2015 02:26
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