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i think it's literally a thing from intellectual history that fascism makes you bad at everything you try to do
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Jan 31, 2016 04:39
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That's impressively missing the point that a tank is just a box you build around a gun and the means to get it somewhere and shoot it.
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Jan 31, 2016 04:48
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by the same token, isn't a human just a transportation system for a gun
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Jan 31, 2016 04:52
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HEY GAL posted:by the same token, isn't a human just a transportation system for a gun You mean a pike. Also, ammunition for an upper floor window.
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Jan 31, 2016 04:54
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Fangz posted:You mean a pike.
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Jan 31, 2016 04:56
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HEY GAL posted:i think it's literally a thing from intellectual history that fascism makes you bad at everything you try to do That's not fair. They're very good at violence and killing people.
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Jan 31, 2016 05:31
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ALL-PRO SEXMAN posted:That's not fair. They're very good at violence and killing people. super counterproductive
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Jan 31, 2016 05:32
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HEY GAL posted:the whole death cult thing means that extends to themselves though Not as far as I'm concerned. Dead fascists is a very productive outcome.
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Jan 31, 2016 05:42
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ALL-PRO SEXMAN posted:Not as far as I'm concerned. Dead fascists is a very productive outcome. Problem is they tend to drag in non fascists and shoot at people from other countries.
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Jan 31, 2016 06:42
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Suspect Bucket posted:Yeah, be nice guys. We all did dumb fan fictiony poo poo when we were young. One can hope that we were all clever enough to delete our accounts once we realized how idiotic we sounded. The only tank I still care about is the A7V. It was just too ridiculous for this earth. My eyes gloss over most discussion of other armored fighting vehicles.
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Jan 31, 2016 09:49
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Can I ask about medieval warfare? Say, you're a knight in France, and the kings calls to war, and your liege obliges and now you're supposed to bring some peasants with you to the fight. Will your peasants be merged with other peasant formations in battle? Who leads a group of peasants in battle, and how big is that group? Is there a Total War grouping by weapons, or do they just band into rectanglish groups as they are? Are your peasants armed uniformly? Do archers have it better? Who takes care of the wounded, and does anybody care for them in battle? And, just to be doubly sure, the heavy cavalry never chares infantry head on - only flanks, back, and fleeing, right?
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Jan 31, 2016 09:54
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JcDent posted:Can I ask about medieval warfare? Say, you're a knight in France, and the kings calls to war, and your liege obliges and now you're supposed to bring some peasants with you to the fight. Will your peasants be merged with other peasant formations in battle? Who leads a group of peasants in battle, and how big is that group? Is there a Total War grouping by weapons, or do they just band into rectanglish groups as they are? Are your peasants armed uniformly? Do archers have it better? Who takes care of the wounded, and does anybody care for them in battle? This is going to get hashed over by other more qualified people, but generally a noble wasn't bringing just a bunch of dudes with whatever the had handy to the fight with him. His agreement with his lord would specify how many men he'd have to bring with them and how they'd be armed, and I think also how long they could be called up in a given year for free and what their pay would be if they stayed in the field longer. I'm not sure about the rest.
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Jan 31, 2016 10:03
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JcDent posted:Can I ask about medieval warfare? Say, you're a knight in France, and the kings calls to war, and your liege obliges and now you're supposed to bring some peasants with you to the fight. Will your peasants be merged with other peasant formations in battle? Who leads a group of peasants in battle, and how big is that group? Is there a Total War grouping by weapons, or do they just band into rectanglish groups as they are? Are your peasants armed uniformly? Do archers have it better? Who takes care of the wounded, and does anybody care for them in battle? For most of that, depends on the era and the area. Heavy cavalry could make frontal charges. How effective this could be would vary depending. Everyone agrees that if the infantry lose their nerve in the face of the onrushing horsemen they're in for a bad time. Thread opinion is split as to whether a horse would actually factually slam itself into a block of men holding fast. This is, so far as I can tell, the pre-combustion engine equivalent of tank destroyer doctrine chat.
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Jan 31, 2016 10:19
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the JJ posted:For most of that, depends on the era and the area. According to Total War, horse destroyers are camels.
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Jan 31, 2016 10:34
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JcDent posted:Can I ask about medieval warfare? Say, you're a knight in France, and the kings calls to war, and your liege obliges and now you're supposed to bring some peasants with you to the fight. Will your peasants be merged with other peasant formations in battle? Who leads a group of peasants in battle, and how big is that group? Is there a Total War grouping by weapons, or do they just band into rectanglish groups as they are? Are your peasants armed uniformly? Do archers have it better? Who takes care of the wounded, and does anybody care for them in battle? Generally peasants weren't the ones going out on campaigns. European countries had no shortage of professional and semi-professional soldiers during the Medieval era.
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Jan 31, 2016 14:32
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So, today I went for a walk. Tanks!  Guns!  Rockets!   Tank Destroyers!  Muskets!  Swanky Uniforms!  Pikes!   Swords and Sword Accessories!  I will need to go back another time with my real camera, instead of just my phone.
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Jan 31, 2016 15:05
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I am assuming you went for a walk in Russia or somewhere near it 
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Jan 31, 2016 15:43
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feedmegin posted:I am assuming you went for a walk in Russia or somewhere near it I was at the Military Historical Museum of Artillery, Engineers and Signal Corps in Saint Petersburg. I was having a great time until the rocket artillery section, where the attendant there seemed to care enough and say I couldn't take photos unless I had a pass for it. To be fair, I didn't have one (I need to work much more on my Russian, as I'm stumbling my way through all this) and I'm thankful to all the other attendants that let me take a bunch of photos without complaint. Side story: After walking around the entrance hall for a bit I was directed to drop my coat off and buy a ticket at the office. At the cloak room an old comrade there asked me where I was from (Australia), if I knew what the USSR badge on my Ushanka meant (yes) and if I love Russia (Considering everything and my limited ability to express nuance, yes!  ), which earned me a handshake.
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Jan 31, 2016 16:31
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Grand Prize Winner posted:According to Total War, horse destroyers are camels. According to Total War's art guys, there was only two types of uniform for the western european soldiers of the 18th century. I known I should get over such half arsed art direction but no dammit. I will not good sir.
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Jan 31, 2016 16:46
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Xerxes17 posted:Pikes! Triggered.
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Jan 31, 2016 16:56
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SeanBeansShako posted:According to Total War's art guys, there was only two types of uniform for the western european soldiers of the 18th century. Medieval II Total War shipped with bugs such as cavalry never charging, two handed weapons never doing damage, pikemen never using pikes, arqebusiers getting stuck in loading animation forever, archers shooting themselves, and shields providing negative protection. The peasant was the most cost effective unit in the game because it was the only one not bugged in some way.
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Jan 31, 2016 17:23
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P-Mack posted:Medieval II Total War shipped with bugs such as cavalry never charging, two handed weapons never doing damage, pikemen never using pikes, arqebusiers getting stuck in loading animation forever, archers shooting themselves, and shields providing negative protection. The peasant was the most cost effective unit in the game because it was the only one not bugged in some way. To be fair, peasants being the most cost effective unit in the game is a leftover from Rome TW:Barbarian Invasion.
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Jan 31, 2016 17:30
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True to form it got better several years and an expansion now but that is game development for you with the introduction of fast download speeds. Also, semi relevant now but when Ensemble Studios who were making Age Of Empire III which started in early modern and ended in the 19th century were mulling around trying to do a respectful depiciton of native american cultures and some actual native american employees of Microsoft volunteered to chip in and help them with the task. Also, German play testers of course were amused/nit picky about the Catholic Church in the Prussian capital too. Source, this fantastic but old GameSpy article.
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Jan 31, 2016 17:35
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Panzeh posted:Generally peasants weren't the ones going out on campaigns. European countries had no shortage of professional and semi-professional soldiers during the Medieval era. Where do they come from? So wait, no peasant levy? Have I been lied to? my dad posted:To be fair, peasants being the most cost effective unit in the game is a leftover from Rome TW:Barbarian Invasion. Cost effectiveness drives fun out of games 
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Jan 31, 2016 17:42
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JcDent posted:Cost effectiveness drives fun out of games True. Cost effectiveness in in-game currency tends to produce highly negative results to the fun-to-time ratio, and knowing when to throw it out the window is the first thing you need learn how to do if you ever intend to play large strategy games and not feel like you're wasting your life. Unless you're playing the Western Empire in Barbarian Invasion. Even the tutorial advisor tells you that you're probably going to die horribly if you play them, and proving them wrong ain't an easy task.
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Jan 31, 2016 17:52
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I hate doing cost/benefit in games. I always just play defensive until I have enough super-expensive, super-awesome, super-flashy elite assholes to steamroll things.
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Jan 31, 2016 17:54
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Cyrano4747 posted:I hate doing cost/benefit in games. I always just play defensive until I have enough super-expensive, super-awesome, super-flashy elite assholes to steamroll things. Goofy early-game armies from before you have your production organized are the best, though.
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Jan 31, 2016 18:03
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Squalid posted:Million. There's also additional funding coming from State, the UN, probably the CIA, and maybe from the African Union budget (roughly 66% of which is payed by the US and European states), although I'm not sure what the African Union would spend money on in Somalia when the US already covers all its deployment costs. I don't have these numbers handy, but I believe they amount to some several hundred million a year including the budget of the Somali Federal government. Also the deployment has increased in size since 2007 and with it the price tag, but it's all still very affordable compared to the cost of deploying American troops, especially the political costs. Over the last nine years AMISOM has suffered thousands of casualties including over 1,000 deaths, not including the prior Ethiopian intervention or Kenyan casualties incurred in operations outside the AMISOM umbrella. Participation also incurs the risk of retaliatory terror attacks, Al Shabaab has conducted bombings in Uganda, Burundi and Kenya in revenge for their role in the intervention. I don't know anything about this. That's pretty crazy. Can you suggest some sources to read?
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Jan 31, 2016 18:19
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Xerxes17 posted:I was at the Military Historical Museum of Artillery, Engineers and Signal Corps in Saint Petersburg. I was having a great time until the rocket artillery section, where the attendant there seemed to care enough and say I couldn't take photos unless I had a pass for it. To be fair, I didn't have one (I need to work much more on my Russian, as I'm stumbling my way through all this) and I'm thankful to all the other attendants that let me take a bunch of photos without complaint. That's an awesome museum. Congratulations. If you're at all interested in WW2, I can also recommend the Museum of the Defense of Leningrad. It's quite small, but they've got some great stuff in there. The small section about the plight of children during the siege is  as all hell. I've got a bunch of pictures if anyone's interested.
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Jan 31, 2016 18:28
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E: ^^ Yes pleaseCyrano4747 posted:I hate doing cost/benefit in games. I always just play defensive until I have enough super-expensive, super-awesome, super-flashy elite assholes to steamroll things. This doesn't work in Medieval II. The territory requirement for victory is high, and there are several anti-steamrolling tactics the game has. Basically the game rubber-bands a bunch of factors (how much the Church likes you if you're Catholic, what your allies are doing and if they randomly decide to betray you, where eastern Mongol armies appear and what they choose to attack.) At the extreme end of things, it will have your enemies send assassins after your generals, and these nub assassins will succeed where your hyper-veteran elite assassins would fail. (Then the instant these un-generaled armies step outside a city, they turn bandit, etc.) If you get too far too quickly, these rubber band effects start hauling you down. If you attack non-catholic factions, you avoid problems from his holiness, but you need to convert your newly conquered lands into your religion, which means your mighty army has to chill for six or seven turns, while you build churches/have priests wander the countryside. This applies to the Muslim and Orthodox factions as well - they don't have to deal with a Pope, but they do have to deal with most of the map not being their religion. I've played that game way too much
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Jan 31, 2016 18:32
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Grand Prize Winner posted:Goofy early-game armies from before you have your production organized are the best, though. The best are the start game units that you get yet have no ability to either produce, nor reinforce. How the gently caress did this situation come to be?
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Jan 31, 2016 18:38
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Xerxes17 posted:I was at the Military Historical Museum of Artillery, Engineers and Signal Corps in Saint Petersburg. I was having a great time until the rocket artillery section, where the attendant there seemed to care enough and say I couldn't take photos unless I had a pass for it. To be fair, I didn't have one (I need to work much more on my Russian, as I'm stumbling my way through all this) and I'm thankful to all the other attendants that let me take a bunch of photos without complaint. Don't worry, not paying for a photo pass and then taking photos anyway is a proud Russian tradition.
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Jan 31, 2016 18:47
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JcDent posted:So wait, no peasant levy? Have I been lied to? In a word, yes. I'm not sure anybody knows the source of the persistent myth of the peasant levy in particular. It probably has to do with the more general myth of the "Dark Ages" where Rome completely disappeared in 476 AD and European civilization completely lost touch with the glory and grandeur of ancient Greco-Roman civilization. Obviously everything was crapsack and the armies must have declined from disciplined legions to rowdy gangs of hapless peasants. quote:Where do they come from? I'll give you a general overview. For a while a lot of people took this to be the working definition of feudalism writ large, but the reality is local custom was very important and IIRC classic feudalism as described was actually something that existed in a particular area of France for a couple of centuries. Actual practices varied considerably based on where and when, but this is sort of a general idea for you. The sovereign ruler, or prince, is invested by God with authority over the area under his rule. He might be a king, an emperor, or an independent duke or something. At any rate, he is sovereign, meaning he exercises rule in his own right. The prince grants parcels of land, along with the people on them, to trusted intermediaries. This men are rulers of their parcels but not sovereign, because their authority derives from the prince. There can also be several layers of this. The King of France might grant a large parcel of land to a duke, who then grants smaller parcels to lower levels of nobility. These grants, usually called fiefs in English, eventually become hereditary in most of Western and Central Europe. The lord of the manor has rights to collect income in form of rents, taxes in kind, corvee labor, and so forth from the peasants. Corvee labor is just free work they have to do for the lord. It could be something like doing repairs or construction on his manor house or a fort/castle he owns, or it could be as simple as farmings his private fields for him. The peasants are bound to the land they live on and are not supposed to leave. However, at the same time, they have their own rights. They can't be evicted, they're only responsible for contributing corvee labor on a limited and specific number of days, and the lord is responsible for dispensing justice and protecting them from being victimized by bandits and the like. Between each level of society (peasant <-> petty nobility <-> great nobility <-> prince) the mutual rights and obligations are pretty specifically delineated. This is one of the reasons that there are no peasant levies. Military affairs are the lord's responsibility to the peasants, not vice versa. If the peasants had to take up arms every time there was a fight, what is even the point of having a lord at all? In the Hundred Years War, this arrangement led to the use of chevauchee strategy, in which an army (usually the English) would ride through an enemy's territory wrecking up the place, which demonstrated that the lord wasn't doing his job. The peasants would get pissed off and complain, putting pressure on the men whose lands were being raided to respond quickly, which was a way to force an enemy to battle even if they were reluctant to fight. Anyway, to fulfill his military obligations, the lord takes the income from his lands and invests it in training and equipping himself and a body of professional fighting men. He might have them on salary, or he might further subdivide his own land and grant parcels to his men. At any rate, the lord and his men are professional soldiers. The peasants don't fight, but their labor supports the people who do. Most of the time, your men-at-arms are keeping themselves sharp with training, hunting, martial contests and tourneys, enforcing the lord's rule, or screwing around fighting the next lord over if there's bad blood. If something serious is happening and the prince needs an army, he can also send out to word throughout the realm and everybody is obliged to bring their men, and the number and quality of men is usually specifically defined. e.g. your duke is supposed to bring say, 500 guys who have at minimum a mail shirt, a shield, and a sword, and 200 of them are supposed to be cavalry armed with lances. So the duke brings his household retinue, and he tells all the lesser nobility under him to bring their guys, and they show up at the party. If he comes up short or he doesn't feel like showing, in some cases he can also make a cash payment in lieu of men, so the prince can hire mercenaries to make up the difference. There are also people who don't fall under this system, like in England specifically there is a class of people called yeomen, who are free individuals who have their own land. Free men of this class had an individual obligation to be ready to fight and, again, the minimum acceptable level of equipment was explicitly defined. i.e. at times in history they were obligated to practice with the longbow, own a sword and some kind of body armor, etc. They could be called to serve in the king's armies, separately from a lord. tl;dr The prince breaks up land and distributes it to noblemen. The noblemen peel off a portion of the productive capacity of the land and its peasants to fund professional soldiers. When the prince needs them, he can tell the lords to bring their guys to the fight.
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Jan 31, 2016 18:52
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Xerxes17 posted:I was at the Military Historical Museum of Artillery, Engineers and Signal Corps in Saint Petersburg. I was having a great time until the rocket artillery section, where the attendant there seemed to care enough and say I couldn't take photos unless I had a pass for it. To be fair, I didn't have one (I need to work much more on my Russian, as I'm stumbling my way through all this) and I'm thankful to all the other attendants that let me take a bunch of photos without complaint. You know, there's some archery equipment around there somewhere. You need to take pictures.
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Jan 31, 2016 19:10
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Cyrano4747 posted:I hate doing cost/benefit in games. I always just play defensive until I have enough super-expensive, super-awesome, super-flashy elite assholes to steamroll things.  Also spear ashigaru were the best way to play Shogun 2. Speaking of, are there any good books about the warring states period?
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Jan 31, 2016 19:22
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SeanBeansShako posted:According to Total War's art guys, there was only two types of uniform for the western european soldiers of the 18th century. Ah so you're the kind of guy who keeps EU4's budget going through DLC.
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Jan 31, 2016 19:27
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100 Years Ago The search for new correspondents who aren't going to be dead by the second of July continues with another Canadian subaltern and a Sudefrikan machine-gunner in East Africa. In actual war news: the existence of the commerce raider Moewe has finally been detected by the Royal Navy, which immediately starts looking in the wrong place; Hugo Junkers gets an order for more metal monoplanes but is having trouble finding people to design and build the things; and some Zeppelins make history by being possibly the first Germans in recorded history who wanted to go to Liverpool.
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Jan 31, 2016 19:39
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Thanks for the medieval post! Though I wonder where I got the number of 40 fighting days per year (rest is peasant stuff) from. I was thrilled to find out how lawful and legalistic the Middle Ages were.
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Jan 31, 2016 20:00
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JcDent posted:Thanks for the medieval post! Though I wonder where I got the number of 40 fighting days per year (rest is peasant stuff) from. For all the claim of it being a simpler age, feudalism can get downright byzantine.
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Jan 31, 2016 20:23
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Evan, you're an international treasure. 
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Jan 31, 2016 20:40
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