Ask me about Military History!

The Something Awful Forums > Archives > Comedy Goldmine > Ask me about Military History!

coolatronic: Nov 28, 2007

HeroOfTheRevolution posted:

Your description could be applied almost word-for-word to the most widely read and important pseudo-history in the Western world. I'll leave it up to your imagination what I'm talking about.

Barto posted:

And, ya that's true about the book which we shan't name, point taken.

Is it the Da Vinci Code?

# ¿ Jul 18, 2010 22:30

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 11:53

coolatronic: Nov 28, 2007

Does France deserve the modern reputation it has for being surrender-happy?

I know the French took a massive amount of punishment in WWI before their forces started to mutiny but it seems like they had the most to fight for considering they were on French soil. Compared to the Australians, as an example, it seems that the French lacked some military backbone. If true, why was this the case?

# ¿ Jul 19, 2010 15:12

coolatronic: Nov 28, 2007

I have heard that the United States originally became involved in Vietnam because the French refused to join NATO otherwise. Even if this is true, I am sure it was only one of many reasons for US involvement over there, but can anyone confirm or deny that there is a link between the US in Vietnam and France joining NATO?

# ¿ Aug 19, 2010 20:04

coolatronic: Nov 28, 2007

Hydrolith posted:

I know the Parthians did this, hence our term "parting shot" as a corruption of "parthian shot".

Really? Because I read (on Wikipedia just now) that, "It is quite obvious that the two phrases have rather similar phonetic soundings but are actually separately derived at different times."

# ¿ Dec 6, 2010 16:03

coolatronic: Nov 28, 2007

Earlier in the thread someone suggested that tanks are obsolete. I thought this was a provocative statement so I put it to my friend who is in the Canadian Infantry and who got back from Afghanistan several months ago. Here is what he had to say when I asked whether he agreed or disagreed with the statement:

Canadian infantry guy posted:

Definitely somewhere in the middle.

I think it is highly dependent on the type of warfare. And perhaps more dependent on your enemy's air to ground, anti-tank capabilities and tactics.

The normal advantages cited for a tank are mobility, fire power and shock action. I would not argue with the second or third one as most modern tanks can effectively engage and destroy targets armoured or otherwise out to around 4 km. That is about twice the effective range of the Light Armoured Vehicles I drive around in and with a much bigger calibre shell. Tanks today tend to have a main gun that fires either 105, 120 or 122 mm projectiles where the Light Armoured Vehicle we use, uses 25mm. This leads into the third point, that it can be discouraging to the enemy when you have a weapon system that can kill you before you even get an opportunity to engage it. The first point might not always be true. Tanks because they are tracked and because they have huge engines and heavy armour tend to be able to go a lot of places that wheeled vehicles cannot. However because they are huge and have huge engines they rely on a huge logistics echelon to provide them with fuel and parts (tracked vehicles require a lot more maintenance than wheeled vehicles). This logistics echelon can become their achilles heel. Particularly when operating in an asymmetric environment where guerrilla or insurgent forces are operating behind your forward lines. For the most part your logistic vehicles are soft skinned, (although this has started to change in Afghanistan and the current Iraq war) and this makes them highly vulnerable to enemy attack. In the initial parts of the modern Iraq war many of the fighting vehicles met little resistance initially and the enemy forces allowed them to get passed so they could target the support vehicles, which greatly stalled the momentum of the original thrust.

Manoeuvre and effectiveness of a tank can also be greatly hampered by closed terrain, trees, mountainous terrain, or urban environments. In urban environments they are highly vulnerable to dismounted threats with anti-tank weapons because they can get so close to them without being seen.

Another problem with tanks is that they are unable to dismount anyone as they usually have a crew of four (driver, gunner, loader and commander) who are all required at all times for it to be effective. For this reason, the tanks never moved alone when I was in Afghanistan as they had no ability to conduct searches for Improvised Explosive Devices or interact with the local population if necessary.

The final big weakness they have is from air to ground threats. Tanks normally have their weakest armour on their top. Western forces have not fought a war recently where we did not have total air dominance so it is hard to say whether or not the tank would come out of favour if both sides had strong air assets.

A time (fairly recently) where we saw the tank play an important role in the outcome of a battle was Desert Storm. In that instance it was a conventional military fighting a conventional military and there were many tank on tank and tank on armoured vehicle engagements that went in the US and their allies' favour because they had superior armour (Abrams main battle tank).

A time recently where we saw the tank perform very poorly is the 2006 Israel Lebanon war, where I believe the Israelis lost four Merkava IV main battle tanks to man portable anti tank weapons (such as the RPG 29). This is allegedly a pretty lovely tank compared to what we use (the Leopard II) or the American Abrams tank, but it certainly highlights their limitation within or near to urban environments.

With my personal experience, I was greatly disappointed by the use of our tanks while I was in Afghanistan. All of their successful engagements where they actually killed people were engagements when they were stationed at the top of a mountain on an observation post. Most of these engagements were 2km + and they are able to accurately target dismounts and it was kind of handy in this role, because the release authority for their weapons was delegated to a much lower level of command than air assets that were at our disposal and could have achieved the same effect. So that being said there were a few days where they were very useful, however that same effect could have been achieved by a static gun system on top of that mountain. So other than those few times they were useless. And I mean useless. Part of this was a command problem as they probably could have been deployed effectively to the desert South of the populated area in our area of operations to try and target insurgent supply chain, but there was perhaps not the best appreciation for their employment by the infantry Battle Group Commander, nor was their will power by the tank Squadron Commander or any of the tankers themselves as they seemed very much apposed to ever depart their forward operating base.

Another part of the problem is that if we take advantage of the full maneuverability of our vehicles we tend to destroy farmer's crops and walls and then lose their support. As such we tried to keep our vehicles on the roads as much as possible and had to provide compensation if we were forced off road and damaged someones crops/property.

So there it is. Many mixed feelings about tanks in there. Many pros and cons to their employment which are situationally dependent. Not obsolete, but certainly closer to it than the infanteer will ever get.

So, tank nerds, what should I respond with that will blow him away or at least make me sound like I actually know what I am talking about.

# ¿ Jun 3, 2011 20:02

coolatronic: Nov 28, 2007

Ghost of Mussolini posted:

Khrushchev is undeniably the loser of the whole affair, given how it was a great blow to his internal credibility within the upper levels of Soviet policy. The withdrawal was a great public embarrassment for the USSR, whilst the missiles in Turkey and the Polaris-armed subs were removed quietly. It was a considerable public-international issue, which added to mounting internal concerns that weakened his position as leader.

I would think that defending your country from nuclear attack is one of those areas where the reality trumps perception, though.

# ¿ Aug 14, 2011 14:28

coolatronic: Nov 28, 2007

Agesilaus II posted:

The U.S. naval victory at the Battle of Lake Erie

Are there details on how this happened? I heard that everything went swimmingly for the British at the start of the war except for the naval stuff and that sounds backwards. My understanding is that the US barely had a navy at the start of the war because Jefferson had made major cuts to defence spending. If that is true, how did they get up to speed on Lake Erie so quickly and successfully?

Another neat thing I heard about the War of 1812 was that the New York militia refused to take orders from national army officers and were skeptical that their mandate legally allowed them to proceed onto foreign soil, thereby holding everything up. Confirm/deny please.

# ¿ Sep 26, 2011 02:27

coolatronic: Nov 28, 2007

Hiridion posted:

I don't know, at the least you'd have thought the Allies would have been concerned about the murder of tens of thousands of their soldiers in Japanese PoW camps.

Yeah, I heard the Japanese would starve PoWs, then give them lots of uncooked rice to eat, then give them a bunch of water so all the rice would expand in the PoW's stomachs.

Anyone have any other horror stories about the Japanese treatment of PoW?

# ¿ Oct 22, 2011 21:23

coolatronic: Nov 28, 2007

Farecoal posted:

My brother claims the Civil War was a useless war because slavery would have become economically unviable around 30 years after the 1860s. He told me it would become too expensive to care for the slaves. (He also claims this is why in a libertarian society there wouldn't be slavery) Bullshit? Not bullshit?

Did your brother explain why he thought it would become more expensive to care for slaves over the next 30 years? Were they going to petition for universal health care? Were other civilizations going to switch to the Emancipation civic? Maybe your brother meant that economic factors other than the expense of caring for slaves were going to make them a relatively bad investment, such as depressed demand for cotton overseas or diminishing returns from exhausted soil? That could be, I don't know.

I can, however, give you some background that I ripped off from a Teaching Company lecture called "Southern Society and the Defense of Slavery" (lecture 33 in the American History course -- I know it's not the greatest source but you guys can correct and add to it as you like.) I think the lecture does a good job of explaining why and how economic factors interacted with social mores to entrench slavery in the South, so I'll do my best to summarize it here.

***

When the American constitution was being drafted, there was a strong sentiment that slavery would die naturally of economic causes because tobacco markets were suffering. Without a cash crop like tobacco or sugar cane, there was not much economic benefit to owning slaves. Slaveholders, who were almost half of the constitutional convention in 1787, even allowed the federal government the constitutional power to ban the import of slaves after 1808 (which the federal government did). "The hour of emancipation is advancing," wrote Thomas Jefferson, "it will come." Besides, there were plenty of white immigrants arriving in America who could provide cheap labour without being black, so it was convenient to turn away from slavery.

But then the spinning jenny and the cotton gin were invented and English demand for cotton grew at the same time , so it became much more profitable to own slaves. Export of cotton to Britain jumped from 12 million pounds annually in 1790 to 588 million pounds annually in 1850. The number of slaves in America stopped decreasing and went from .7 million in 1790 to 3.9 million in 1860. At that point, cotton basically was the Southern economy.

With more slaves came more insurrections and revolts like the Amistad Seizure, the Charleston Uprising, and Nat Turner's slave rebellion. Southern fears of a Haitian Revolution in their backyard caused them to turn their backs on emancipation and crackdown on slaves, causing greater hostility amongst slaves, causing more slave insurrections. This cycle coincided with a change in the Southern ethos regarding slaves: before it had seemed as though they were just going to become a relic of the past but as time went on a sophisticated racism developed. Negroes were described as the necessary "mudsill" upon which the rest of society sat, and their subjugation was rationalized as not that bad through perverse logic.

I should mention that there were conscientious objectors to slavery as well. There was international and domestic political pressure against slavery, and many religious groups turned against the institution. These movements were somewhat counter-productive, however, because they fed into the Southern persecution complex.

For more information I recommend checking out -- for free -- lectures 2 and 3 in this Yale course on the American Civil War.

***

In my humble opinion, economics was the primary reason why slavery existed. Other regions started to produce more cotton during the American Civil War but that might not have happened if the South could have shipped more than 10% of its cotton yield during the war. Global demand for cotton grew and I suspect demand for American cotton would have remained healthy without the war, but even if it was cut in half there would still have been more than enough demand to keep slavery afloat because you would only be going back to earlier levels that had already been proven to support slavery. And even if the bottom completely dropped out on the cotton market, there would still have been a proslavery culture that would have resisted emancipation as a matter of principle for decades. Lastly, even if it was true that slavery would have been abolished in 30 years anyway, that is still 30 years of slavery that 4 million slaves would have to wait through, so your brother calling the war "useless" is always going to be bullshit.

Farecoal posted:

Edit: Summary-they would have kept Slavery until the end of time, regardless of the actual economic benefits, simply because so much of their wealth was based on the material value of the slaves themselves.

Well if the "actual economic benefits" to slavery fell then "the material value of the slave themselves" would fall too. A capital asset's value is largely determined by what level of income it produces.

# ¿ Nov 25, 2011 18:11

coolatronic: Nov 28, 2007

Zorak of Michigan posted:

Re Japanese strategy, it always seems to be like they planned backwards. They didn't assess enemy resources and intentions and them devise methods for winning; they assumed that they would win and reasoned backward from that.

I heard the Japanese expected America to essentially cede the Pacific after Pearl Harbor. They thought that democracy had weakened the American martial spirit so a decisive blow would be sufficient. They recognized they would lose a long war because they would be outproduced. But when the decisive blow had the unintended effect of riling up the Americans, Japan's own martial culture would not let it surrender despite being faced with a losing proposition.

I'd be curious if anyone has any good references to support or deny that view.

Alchenar posted:

Singapore was a significant port and Burma was a country, but the Dutch East Indies were Dutch and the Phillipines were a US colony. China was Chinese and the Indonesians neutrality pacted Japan to save themselves.

To add to your list: the French had Vietnam.

# ¿ Feb 3, 2012 00:08

coolatronic: Nov 28, 2007

Pyle posted:

Just how much did the strategic bombing of Europe affect the outcome of the WWII? I have always understood that the role of bombing was so insignificant that it was close to useless. Every time Allied bombed some German factory, the Germans were able to rebuild it the next day. In order for the bombing to be effective, they should have bombed the manufacturing plants to ruins and then continued to bomb the ruins everyday. The Blitz over London was useless in the war effort, except it really hardened the will of British to fight. Same could be said about retaliation bombing of the German cities. Did the bombing campaign against Germany achieve anything in the huge scale of WWII?

If you are a chicken, imagine the effects of another devastating attack on German agriculture and try living and laying eggs through that. It was not insignificant.

# ¿ Feb 13, 2012 05:04

coolatronic: Nov 28, 2007

Did the Germans try adjusting the wheels on some of their trains to the different gauge of Russian track? Seems like that would have been easier than building new track at 10 miles per day or whatever. What am I missing here?

# ¿ Jul 3, 2012 15:18

coolatronic: Nov 28, 2007

tallkidwithglasses posted:

I really disagree about the disconnect- you're thinking in a globalist tradition while leftism in the Southern Cone tends to be very very regional. Che is revered everywhere, sure, but most countries in the area have their own native leftist movements that in many cases have been active for decades. The Zapatistas are an excellent example, as are the various rebel groups in the countries north of Amazonia. Not all of them were beneficiaries of Soviet aid, and the KGB presence in South America actually kind of mirrored the CIA/School of the Americas model, with lots of locals that would go off and get training from from foreign agents and then return to their home countries and continue developing their organization.

On top of all that, there's a really distinctive character to South American leftism as part of the regional identity. I mentioned the universal regard for Che (Chavez always talks about how great Che was, the Shining Path love Che, Chileans put Che up alongside Allende in their leftist pantheon), and the Southern Cone regionalism of the 70s is still largely intact when it comes to South American relations. The centuries of outside intervention, first from Spain and then from the United States, as well as the fact that land reform has always been one of the biggest popular movements on the entire continent means that Marxism has some naturally fertile ground and also acquires a distinctive regional character.

I would think the Shining Path in Peru would actually support Bagheera's theory that there was a shift away from Soviet-affiliated movements and violence in the 1990s. The Shining Path has essentially been defunct since 1992 and rejected by the vast majority of Peruvians, which suggests a move away from violence as a political means and away from an organization affiliated with global Communism/Marxist-Leninism/Maoism.

# ¿ Aug 15, 2012 02:48

coolatronic: Nov 28, 2007

GreenCard78 posted:

Is it true school lunch comes from WW2 draftees often being under or malnourished? If so, can someone cite it?

You might want to check out Geoffrey Perret's "There�s a War to be Won: The United States Army in World War II" and "Days of Sadness, Years of Triumph: The American People 1939-1945" to look for an American answer to your question. I'm not sure which one it's in but Perret talks about the Army's high rejection rates of recruits. The Army tried to set the bar low with the following standards: (1) 5 feet in height; (2) 105 pounds; (3) correctable vision; (4) no flat feet; (5) half your natural teeth; (6) no hernias; and, (7) no venereal disease.

Despite that forgiving threshold, the rejection rate was still around 50%; the Army had anticipated it would be only 20%. Bad teeth and bad eyes were the two most common grounds for rejection and they could often be traced to malnutrition. Another major problem was a lack of basic medical care. Vast swathes of the population simply never saw a doctor, dentist, or optometrist.

But even knowing that America's embarrassingly unhealthy population seriously hurt the war effort, it is going to be hard to find a citation linking that to the Nation School Lunch Act, 1946, because (1) there probably isn't a real strong link, and (2) it is always hard to discern the purpose of legislation. There are just so many things going on both behind and in front of closed doors when legislative sausage is being made that a precise definition of an abstract notion like purpose is a fool's errand. That said, I'll give you my unasked for speculation as to the answer anyway.

I'll start by looking at what the Act itself says is its purpose. Veins McGee already quoted the part of the "Declaration of Policy" that says, "It is hereby declared to be the policy of Congress, as a measure of national security, ..." but he cut off the quote there. In doing so, he/she omitted the other two purposes given in the Act, namely children's health and consumption of domestic agricultural products. I suspect those two reasons were more important than national security. The US Department of Agriculture website explains the Act's timing was a result of the re-emergence of domestic food surpluses after global demand settled back down post-WWII. People were probably worried that things were going to go back to the way they were in the Depression with food being tossed in the ocean while people starved. It's a win-win if you are addressing child hunger and boosting the agricultural industry with one stone. And denying food to hungry children is a hard platform to campaign on.

But even if national security was the most important reason for the Act, you can't assume that "national security" in this context means "ensuring a plentiful supply of well-fed recruits for future wars." It could, for example, refer to the importance of keeping spare agricultural production because a country that can't independently feed itself is at a major strategic disadvantage. A poor country is also at a major strategic disadvantage, so if you thought in 1946 that America would grow rich on the back of a strong agricultural sector and well-nourished laborers, you could conceivably support the Act on national security grounds that were essentially economic grounds. The drafters of the legislation probably left it vague on purpose to make it easier for legislators to swallow and for judges to declare it constitutional.

I wouldn't be surprised if you could find instances in the congressional transcripts where someone debating the Act pointed to the high rejection rates of recruit's in WWII as grounds for its enactment, but who knows how persuasive that was even to the hypothetical member of Congress that said it. American federal politicians are notorious for being beholden to agricultural interests.

# ¿ Aug 23, 2012 01:50

coolatronic: Nov 28, 2007

Vincent Van Goatse posted:

This is waaaaay the hell out of my field of expertise, but weren't jousting matches a sort of war game/miltiary exercise?

Eh, not really/primarily. Jousting one-on-one developed out of medieval tournaments, which involved up to thousands of knights charging at each other with lances a few times before degenerating into a massive melee over acres and acres of land. They allowed the nobility to keep their military skills sharp but were mostly done for sport and entertainment. They even had banquets afterwards and handed out prizes.

Tournaments and jousting weren't military duties that knights had to perform for their lords, they were opportunities to brawl for fun. Like hunting done by the nobility, they were good practice with weapons but were done more for enjoyment's sake.

As straight-up jousting became more popular, medieval tournaments concurrently became safer and less like real-life military situations. For example, they switched from real weapons with sharp points to blunt instruments and put a railing in between the participants to prevent head-on collisions. Lots of people still died but by the time one-on-one jousting became a major part of tournaments the heavy cavalry charge, the knight-as-warrior-aristocrat role, and reckless endangerment were all on the decline.

# ¿ Sep 27, 2012 06:07

coolatronic: Nov 28, 2007

SeanBeansShako posted:

Can we open a General History Thread in GBS again and just read on how the people of the United States developed their modern identities in the early 20th century?

There's a good passage about Anti-German sentiment during WWI in East of Eden. It's fictional but Steinbeck grew up in the town of Salinas (in California) where it's set during the war so I assume it's largely based on reality and in the passage a young John Steinbeck is the character describing his experiences so it seems autobiographical. Here it is:

Steinbeck posted:

We had our internal enemies too, and we exercised vigilance. San Jose had a spy scare, and Salinas was not likely to be left behind -- not the way Salinas was growing.

For about twenty years Mr. Fenchel had done hand tailoring in Salinas. He was short and round and he had an accent that made you laugh. All day he sat cross-legged on his table in the little shop on Alisal Street, and in the evening he walked home to his small white house far out on Central Avenue. He was forever painting his house and the white picket fence in front of it. Nobody had given his accent a thought until the war came along, but suddenly we knew. It was German. We had our own personal German. It didn't do him any good to bankrupt himself buying war bonds. That was too easy a way to cover up.

The Home Guards wouldn't take him in. They didn't want a spy knowing their secret plans for defending Salinas. And who wanted to wear a suit made by an enemy? Mr. Fenchel sat all day on his table and he didn't have anything to do, so he basted and ripped and sewed and ripped on the same piece of cloth over and over.

We used every cruelty we could think of on Mr. Fenchel. He was our German. He passed our house every day, and there had been a time when he spoke to every man and woman and child and dog, and everyone had answered. Now no one spoke to him, and I can see now in my mind his tubby loneliness and his face full of hurt pride.

My little sister and I did our part with Mr. Fenchel, and it is one of those memories of shame that still makes me break into a sweat and tighten up around the throat. We were standing in our front yard on the lawn one evening and we saw him coming with little fat steps. His black homburg was brushed and squarely on his head. I don't remember that we discussed our plan but we must have, to have carried it out so well.

As he came near, my sister and I moved slowly across the street side by side. Mr. Fenchel looked up and saw us moving toward him. We stopped in the gutter as he came by.

He broke into a smile and said, "Gut efning, Chon. Gut efning, Mary."

We stood stiffly side by side and we said in unison, "Hoch der Kaiser!"

I can see his face now, his startled innocent blue eyes. He tried to say something and then he began to cry. Didn't even try to pretend he wasn't. He just stood there sobbing. And do you know? -- Mary and I turned around and walked stiffly across the street and into our front yard. We felt horrible. I still do when I think of it.

We were too young to do a good job on Mr. Fenchel. That took strong men -- about thirty of them. One Saturday night they collected in a bar and marched in a column of fours out Central Avenue, saying "Hup! Hup!" in unison. They tore down Mr. Fenchel's white picket fence and burned the front out of his house. No Kaiser-loving son of a bitch was going to get away with it with us. And then Salinas could hold up its head with San Jose.

Of course that made Watsonville get busy. They tarred and feathered a Pole they thought was a German. He had an accent.

WWI was also the war during which the Canadian city of Berlin changed its name to Kitchener. Here is the wikipedia (I know) summary of it:

wikipedia posted:

Immigrants from Germany, mostly Lutheran and Catholic, dominated the city after 1850 and developed their own newer German celebrations, and influences, such as the Turner societies, gymnastics, and band music. During the First World War Anglophone reaction against all things German led to the abandonment of this heritage. For example, churches switched to English language services. In 1916 following much debate and controversy, the name of the city was changed to Kitchener; named after the late British Field Marshal The 1st Earl Kitchener.[8] After the war, local historians and civic groups promoted a new heritage that emphasized the county's Pennsylvania Dutch roots. Illustrated souvenir books, a popular novel, and site markers celebrated this simplified, nationalistic version of the founding.[9]

# ¿ Oct 10, 2012 20:26

coolatronic: Nov 28, 2007

Nenonen posted:

who other later famous people were members of the Hitler Jugend/Bund Deutcher M�del?

Wikipedia says "Stuttgart mayor Manfred Rommel (son of the famous general Erwin Rommel); former foreign minister of Germany Hans-Dietrich Genscher; philosopher J�rgen Habermas and the late Prince Consort of the Netherlands Claus von Amsberg," were all Hitler Youth. I defy anyone to give less effort than that to answer the question.

# ¿ Dec 3, 2012 20:30

coolatronic: Nov 28, 2007

Morholt posted:

Can someone tell me about late medieval European combat? I'm mainly interested in the battle of Grunwald but it is difficult to find reliable accounts of it, not that I would be sure where to start.

Was it really all about the heavy cavalry charge? What was the role of the crossbowmen and other infantry? Would light cavalry have been employed in a charge as well? In lots of accounts I've read about knights charging over their own infantry, did this actually happen and if so was it a deliberate tactic?

Did commanders have some kind of control on the battlefield or was it just a matter of pointing the knights in the right direction? Was the actual melee very deadly in itself or was it more of a pushing match to see who would lose cohesion first?

Were bombards an effective weapon in 1410 or more of a terror thing?

CBC's Ideas program did a 3-part program called "The Sword Brothers" on Knights/Crusaders. The third one was on the Teutonic Knights and discussed the Polish/Lithuanian-Teutonic War. The focus shifts to the Battle of Grunwald around the 37-minute mark of the program (which can be found here in podcast form) and goes on for about 15 minutes.

# ¿ Jan 21, 2013 19:19

coolatronic: Nov 28, 2007

Going back to the subject of stormtroopers, I thought that another thing distinguishing them was that they were selected for their predilection for violence but nobody else has mentioned that so now I'm questioning it. Like, I thought most people in WWI were getting worn down psychologically while the shock troops were chosen to be shock troops because they had a boner for killing.

Anyway, Veins McGee, you should check out "Storm of Steel," a stormtrooper's memoir that is the anti-All Quiet on the Western Front.

# ¿ Feb 12, 2013 20:54

coolatronic: Nov 28, 2007

Alchenar posted:

The Germans were around for 6 years. The Russians for 40.

Yeah, it's reminiscent of Ho Chi Minh's preference for the French over the Chinese.

# ¿ Feb 15, 2013 00:50

coolatronic: Nov 28, 2007

How did Russia get so big?

# ¿ Mar 21, 2013 19:24

coolatronic: Nov 28, 2007

OK. Thanks for all the answers. I was mostly wondering if there was a structural advantage that Russia enjoyed like a cultural adaptation to conducting warfare in a subarctic climate, the stability/longevity of the Romanov dynasty or the quality of the Cossack military tradition. The lack of a major opponent would certainly fit the bill along with the other things you folks mentioned. To get as massive as Russia I presume you need a number of factors in your favor.

Slim Jim Pickens posted:

Russia expanded in many directions dude, it's what you do when you have a lot of people but not much money. There is a tax base and population to the West and South, and not so much to the East. Because nobody could contest Siberia, Russia could colonize it at whatever pace pleased the Tsar. It was pretty similar to the colonization of Canada, the first settlers were fur trappers and traders who worked with/shot the Siberian natives as they went along.

If the key ingredient for the conquest of Siberia was population density then why didn't China move in first?

# ¿ Mar 22, 2013 03:47

coolatronic: Nov 28, 2007

Sounds more and more like Down Periscope is the most realistic movie released about the contemporary American military.

# ¿ Apr 29, 2013 03:06

coolatronic: Nov 28, 2007

A review of the Stalingrad trailer:

quote:

Love story - check;
Inexplicable focus on a very few individuals despite a battle that will see hundreds of thousands of casualties - check;
Terrible spacing among soldiers in a tactical setting for added dramatic effect - check;
Hand to hand combat - check;
Effective use of pistols in combat - check;
People running around while on fire - check;
People using weapons improperly (loading mortar with hand above the tube and holding the PPSH by the drum while firing it from the hip) - check;
Pristine monument and teddy bear to show stark contrast and the horrors of war as if Reuters was covering the war - check;

Yep, all the components of a lovely war movie. That being said, it might be interesting to see a different perspective on The Great Patriotic War, but I don't have high hopes from what I saw there.

# ¿ May 18, 2013 00:04

coolatronic: Nov 28, 2007

They went into Afghanistan pretty hard.

# ¿ Jul 2, 2013 15:02

coolatronic: Nov 28, 2007

SilverSliver posted:

1) You have 48 hours to make me interested in Military History.

Hey, have you seen the music video for the song "Do the Evolution" by American grunge rock band Pearl Jam? I think you might like it. It features elements of military history like:

The use of nationalist propaganda and fascist symbols in mass societies to incite belligerence;
The way basic tools soon developed into weapons like clubs and slings in tribal societies;
The obsolescence of recon cavalry caused by the development of armored cavalry;
The futility of human wave tactics in the face of overwhelming artillery and machine-gun fire in WWI;
The rapacious nature of the military-industrial complex first described by WWII Supreme Allied Commander Dwight "Ike" Eisenhower; and,
The moral implications and consequences of using nuclear and conventional bombs on civilian targets (which I believe was recently a topic of conversation in this thread so you could check that out too.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDaOgu2CQtI

# ¿ Aug 17, 2013 16:26

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 11:53

coolatronic: Nov 28, 2007

Grand Prize Winner posted:

And by the way what was the source for that gif? I must see it.

It's this movie trailer parody put together by Jimmy Kimmel Live.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3NwB9PLxss

But for my money, 30 Rock's black Hitler comedy is much better.

# ¿ Nov 13, 2013 01:26

The Something Awful Forums > Archives > Comedy Goldmine > Ask me about Military History!