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What is this thread? Its a place where you can discuss the history of organized violence, from cavemen to cruise missiles. This is the successor to the first, highly successful Ask me about Military History Thread. Its OP, Admiral Snackbar, vanished some time in 2012. We are still searching for his killers. Why should we care? Every corner of humanity has been touched by the hand of Mars. By studying war we can understand one of the most important parts of the human condition, and come out better for it. And you develop a dark sense of humour, too! Whats on the table? This thread is open to all sorts of questions, not just about military-technological developments in warfare, but also about wars effects. Since warfare is inextricably linked to its socio-economic and cultural context, the thread can cover more general history-related topics as well. To put it more plainly, if the military is in some way involved you can ask about it. Things to Avoid Theres no harm in asking almost any kind of question, but a number of topics have already been done to death in the previous thread, while others tended to cause massive derails. We would quite frankly be glad to get rid of them. These include, but are not limited to:
On another note, if the thread has veered toward a topic that you do not have any interest in please do not inform the thread of that fact. We dont care, and you wont make the discussion end any faster. Instead, consider posting on a subject that does interest you. Other History Threads
What should I read? This thread will probably have a lot of people asking for book recommendations. It is however too difficult to give a quick and easy general reading list on this broad a subject: theres probably an infinite number of books on every conceivable subject in Military History. Theres always Wikipedia as a general outline, since they (surprisingly) tend to handle our subject with care, but dont be afraid to ask for book recommendations to help you answer specific questions. So, with all that said and done, 
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Nov 13, 2013 19:41
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Thanks, Rodrigo Diaz! We're the guy in the back irl.
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Nov 13, 2013 19:43
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Thanks for the thread, I'm looking forward to hopefully bringing in new posters!
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Nov 13, 2013 19:44
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So, who's going to organize the bets for the next big "HEGEL vs Rodrigo Diaz" fight? Serious question: What's the most effective shield shape?
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Nov 13, 2013 19:52
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my dad posted:So, who's going to organize the bets for the next big "HEGEL vs Rodrigo Diaz" fight? Molded around your chest 
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Nov 13, 2013 19:55
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my dad posted:So, who's going to organize the bets for the next big "HEGEL vs Rodrigo Diaz" fight? Shield shape effectiveness depends entirely on how you want it to be used. Small shields (bucklers) are handy for civilian defense, or for use by archers and other men who need to use both hands most of the time, but do not wear full suits of plate armour. Large pavises are very handy for hiding behind and shooting a crossbow, while smaller pavises fulfill some of that purpose, but allow the shield bearer to use it to fight with as well. The long, kite-shaped shields of the 11th and 12th centuries are good for close-packed infantry formations and for cavalry, because they protect the legs and body very well. Large round shields of the viking type are fairly portable and quite good for single combat because the centre grip lets you punch with the shield edge well. No historical shield design that saw widespread use can really be considered "bad". Rather, each had its place.
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Nov 13, 2013 20:05
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my dad posted:So, who's going to organize the bets for the next big "HEGEL vs Rodrigo Diaz" fight? For what purpose? Very heavy shields such as the pavise had their place on the battlefield at certain times, but it seems evolution of mainstream shields would favour shields such as the kite, evolved from the more primitive early medieval circular shields. The almond shape of the kite shield allowed it to retain much of the relatively lightweight characteristics of the conventional shields, while it extended protection to the lower body, and particularly to the leg, therefore achieving most of the desirable effects of earlier large rectangular shields (the scutum, for example) without being quite as bulky. The prolonged shape also happened to be better at accommodating the shield-bearing hand and forearm and allowed more ergonomic strapping setups to emerge. In short, I think that kind of shape provided the most efficient protection - cumbersomeness ratio for both the typical horsemen and footmen of its period which didn't provide much else in terms of sophisticated protective bodywear. But as any piece of technology, such style of shields also became effectively obsolete as other factors changed. E;fb, and with basically the same point. steinrokkan fucked around with this message at 20:10 on Nov 13, 2013 |
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Nov 13, 2013 20:07
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What's the oldest known shield like? (not counting your own bones)
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Nov 13, 2013 20:22
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There is more to shields than just big/small, square/round/kite/whatever. Caesar writes that during the Gaul war his enemies used big, thick, heavy wooden shields. However, they were flat, which meant that they were easy to penetrate with the legionnaires' pila (heavy javelins with lead tips). Not easy enough to reliably kill the man carrying the shield, but the Gauls couldn't dislodge them either - and the added weight made the shields unwieldy. Many Gaul warriors discarded the shields when that happened, even though it meant exposing themselves. The Roman shields were bent in a kind of parabolic shape, making them far more resistant to getting straight-up pierced.
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Nov 13, 2013 21:41
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drat, my post is turning out to be much longer than anticipated, and I still have to skim over some important parts. Looks like I'll have to make a really general one and then a series of more specialized ones.
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Nov 13, 2013 23:08
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Roughly what proportion of the French and English 100 years war armies were mounted? Is the answer basically "as many as possible" or "more as time went on"? Was there an idea ratio of mounted to unmounted that armies of this period strove for? And by mounted I don't just mean knights on destriers, I mean guys who are mounted for mobilities sake. Finally, does this apply to the rest of Europe or was the 100 years war a unique microcosm in regards to horse use?
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Nov 13, 2013 23:11
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my dad posted:So, who's going to organize the bets for the next big "HEGEL vs Rodrigo Diaz" fight? You can actually see both main types of shields in use today amongst that last bastion of traditional melee combat: riot police. You have the large shields which are good for forming lines, blocking projectiles, and pushing people back, and the smaller, more maneuverable circular shields for snatch squads.
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Nov 13, 2013 23:54
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Rabhadh posted:Roughly what proportion of the French and English 100 years war armies were mounted? Is the answer basically "as many as possible" or "more as time went on"? Was there an idea ratio of mounted to unmounted that armies of this period strove for? And by mounted I don't just mean knights on destriers, I mean guys who are mounted for mobilities sake. Finally, does this apply to the rest of Europe or was the 100 years war a unique microcosm in regards to horse use? My understanding was that armies of the time are not assembled in terms of a real time strategy game sense of, hey, let's train a horseman. Rather, they reflected the social spread of the forces. The high class forces were the mounted knights, if they thought they could afford it, they'd drag some peasants away from their fields to come along. Or recruit some mercenaries if they were available. The exception might be the English focus on dismounted men at arms, with the various laws trying to ensure as many as possible could be called upon to fight.
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Nov 14, 2013 00:00
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I'm trying to remember the name of a particular tactic done by the Tokugawa army that was later done by the British army. It's where musketeers fire and then move back behind a line while they reload. This is done over and over so that you can have continuous musket fire. Thanks!
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Nov 14, 2013 00:01
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I can't do it as I'm on my phone, but might someone go through the last history thread and pick out some of the really interesting stuff to be reposted in this one? I for one would enjoy this.
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Nov 14, 2013 00:02
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Smoking Crow posted:I'm trying to remember the name of a particular tactic done by the Tokugawa army that was later done by the British army. It's where musketeers fire and then move back behind a line while they reload. This is done over and over so that you can have continuous musket fire. The Counter March, although the British probably got that from the Dutch, who developed it independently.
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Nov 14, 2013 00:07
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Smoking Crow posted:I'm trying to remember the name of a particular tactic done by the Tokugawa army that was later done by the British army. It's where musketeers fire and then move back behind a line while they reload. This is done over and over so that you can have continuous musket fire. If you want to get fancy, your pikemen can move back between the musketeers, too. (Everyone's a lot farther apart than they would be later--or earlier, for that matter. There's about three feet or more of space between one man and another on all sides. So the musketeers aren't moving back "behind a line," they're stepping to one side, moving back between the rows, and then stopping at the back of their own file.) If you want to get real fancy, you can do things like divide your company into thirds or collections of squads and have them go through the whole thing at different times. Like every other product of Baroque art, this stuff looks static and ponderous at a cursory glance, but when you take a closer look it's full of complex and continuous motion. Reminds me of this:  my dad posted:So, who's going to organize the bets for the next big "HEGEL vs Rodrigo Diaz" fight? HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 00:47 on Nov 14, 2013 |
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Nov 14, 2013 00:08
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Why do we fight wars?
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Nov 14, 2013 00:08
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Also, did the British actually do anything innovative, or did they just steal everything from the Dutch? (They did corporations, crop rotation, military tactics, and the British got rich off it.)SHISHKABOB posted:Why do we fight wars? Because some video games are intrinsically better than others.
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Nov 14, 2013 00:14
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a travelling HEGEL posted:(The Japanese were observed using it a little bit earlier than it shows up in Dutch military theory, and I would poo poo myself and die if I ever found proof that the Dutch got it from them.) Seriously, that would be a PhD right there, maybe even tenure.
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Nov 14, 2013 00:15
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SHISHKABOB posted:Why do we fight wars? For pretty borders. Does anyone have a recommendation for a book that covers the Xinhai Revolution? Preferably covering the last years of the Qing Dynasty and the aftermath as well.
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Nov 14, 2013 00:15
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Nenonen posted:What's the oldest known shield like? (not counting your own bones) The answer isn't entirely straightforward because the first shields were almost certainly made of materials like hide, leather, or wicker, which are apt to disintegrate over time. Based on primary sources from the ancient and classical period, like art or guys like Herodotus, we know that hide and wicker shields were used. There are also examples from recent times of indigenous peoples in the Americas and Africa using shields made from these kinds of perishable materials. The "oldest known shield" is probably from the depictions of soldiers in Egyptian wall art, which seems to have been a large rectangular shield made from oxhide stretched over a wooden frame.
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Nov 14, 2013 00:21
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Smoking Crow posted:Also, did the British actually do anything innovative, or did they just steal everything from the Dutch? (They did corporations, crop rotation, military tactics, and the British got rich off it.) I wouldn't call it stealing now, I'd calling it perfecting it to a different standard of  myself.
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Nov 14, 2013 00:22
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Smoking Crow posted:Also, did the British actually do anything innovative, or did they just steal everything from the Dutch? (They did corporations, crop rotation, military tactics, and the British got rich off it.)
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Nov 14, 2013 00:22
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Rabhadh posted:Roughly what proportion of the French and English 100 years war armies were mounted? Is the answer basically "as many as possible" or "more as time went on"? Was there an idea ratio of mounted to unmounted that armies of this period strove for? And by mounted I don't just mean knights on destriers, I mean guys who are mounted for mobilities sake. Finally, does this apply to the rest of Europe or was the 100 years war a unique microcosm in regards to horse use? For the sake of mobility, it was generally favorable to have as many mounted troops as possible because it allowed forces to get around faster. In combat, however, it was quickly made apparent that having the bulk of an army fighting dismounted was very often favorable. One thing that the English really had going for them was that they learned early on that the armored, typically knightly cavalryman was not the be all and end all in combat. At the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314, English cavalry suffered a massive and humiliating defeat at the hands of Robert the Bruce's pikemen, made up largely of well-trained commoners. Experiences in Scotland also gave the English a solid appreciation for well-trained and paid (but still relatively inexpensive) Welsh longbowmen. Additionally, the English went into the war with a fairly unified command structure that allowed them to use infantry, archers, cavalry, and, later, artillery in combination with one another to great effect. During this same time, the French were still heavily class-centered and favored the mounted knight, while lacking any real sense of cohesion. Various lords fought with or against each other as they saw fit and even when they were all on the same side, some would refuse to follow orders from the nominal commanders. Early on, they were also reluctant to embrace common soldiers. That's a large part of the reason why, at Crecy, a French army made up largely of armored cavalry suffered a massive defeat at the hands of a much smaller English army made up of longbowmen and dismounted men-at-arms/knights. Even when the French began to dismount, such as at Poitiers and Agincourt, they still found themselves unable to cope with large numbers of longbowmen raining arrows down at them from a distance because they lacked enough archers of their own. Ultimately, the English still lost the 100 Years War for a variety of factors but a lot of the above resulted in them dominating the field of battle for much of it, particularly at the start. Well-trained and highly disciplined commoners equipped as archers or pikemen could make mincemeat out of mounted knights in most situations, but cavalry charges could still be devastating at the right time or against untrained infantry (for example, archers or gunners could break the cohesion of pike formations, allowing cavalry to do their thing with relative ease). What you saw during the Hundred Years War also played out across much of Europe at the time. Well-trained Flemish militia fighting on foot delivered a decisive defeat to French cavalry at the Battle of Courtrai. The English themselves saw cavalry-based armies defeated quite a few times by Scottish pikemen and infantry. Other examples include the defeat of knights and mounted cavalry of the HRE by Swiss pikemen at the Battle Morgarten. I Demand Food fucked around with this message at 00:30 on Nov 14, 2013 |
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Nov 14, 2013 00:23
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a travelling HEGEL posted:National debt. That won the Anglo-Dutch wars. Well a Dutch King ended up on the English throne so take what you will from who won what (incidentally that's why the English army takes so much from the Dutch in this period - the post civil-war rehabilitation of it was done by Dutch drillmasters, and they spend the War of Spanish Succession fighting the French in Holland).
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Nov 14, 2013 00:28
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Farecoal posted:For pretty borders. If you don't mind books written immediately after the revolution: A good overview of the revolution itself, including hostilities, was written by Edwin Dingle in "China's revolution 1911-1912": https://archive.org/details/chinasrevolution000821mbp A summary of economic, social and political conditions in the immediate aftermath, including foreign policies towards China, is covered in Bland's "Recent Events and Present Policies in China": https://archive.org/details/recenteventspres00blan The more long-term period of Yuan Shih-kai's government was also described in "American Diplomat in China" by Reinsch: https://archive.org/details/americandiplomat00reiniala Also, the Cambridge edition on China history provides an excellent primer on a whole range of topics, but unfortunately doesn't cover military matters in great detail.
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Nov 14, 2013 00:34
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Alchenar posted:Well a Dutch King ended up on the English throne so take what you will from who won what (incidentally that's why the English army takes so much from the Dutch in this period - the post civil-war rehabilitation of it was done by Dutch drillmasters, and they spend the War of Spanish Succession fighting the French in Holland). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRB4HTXMJR0 This version doesn't contain my favorite verse, which is: "Oh, Holland is a lovely land and in it grows fine grain It is a place of residence for soldiers to remain Where the sugar cane grows, and the winds they do blow, and the tea grows on every tree I never had but the one sweetheart and he's far away from me." To die in an endeavor you know so little about that you think sugar and tea come from the Netherlands because they're the ones who sell it.  They're right about the link between carrying capacity, population density, and what kind of war an area can support, though.
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Nov 14, 2013 00:35
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steinrokkan posted:If you don't mind books written immediately after the revolution: Thank you, but I was thinking more modern books for a layman. I don't mind if it doesn't cover military matters either.
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Nov 14, 2013 00:40
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Rabhadh posted:Roughly what proportion of the French and English 100 years war armies were mounted? Is the answer basically "as many as possible" or "more as time went on"? Was there an idea ratio of mounted to unmounted that armies of this period strove for? And by mounted I don't just mean knights on destriers, I mean guys who are mounted for mobilities sake. Finally, does this apply to the rest of Europe or was the 100 years war a unique microcosm in regards to horse use? The Chevauchees, like most raiding/pillaging operations, were conducted by mounted soldiers. It's possible to maintain that level of "mounted-ness" because the groups that launch these raids are small in the first place. It's also because you gotta go fast when you're raiding within enemy territory. For big armies, you aren't going to get a straight answer. Nobody took the effort to set up a proper man:horse ratio when the responsibility of mustering troops was delegated to about a thousand different dudes with varying capacities of horse-ownership. The statistics for the French at Agincourt and Poitiers are ridiculously lopsided towards men-at-arms, soldiers who probably owned horses, but in both circumstances the French outright barred their own infantry from participating in the battle so it doesn't mean so much. On the grand scheme of things, trying to put your entire army on horses to try and move faster isn't going to give amazing results. It's one of those things that you need to be prepared to do in the first place, not just made possible through policy. The horses that a European leader would be trying to press into service wouldn't be the same as a steppe pony.
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Nov 14, 2013 00:47
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E: Nevermind. VVVV Just to add context to Hegel's response; I wrote that those books I recommended were written in a popular, approachable style, but overlooked Farecoal's request for more modern sources, so I deleted the post as irrelevant. steinrokkan fucked around with this message at 01:04 on Nov 14, 2013 |
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Nov 14, 2013 00:48
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Until you get into the really arcane poo poo or the stuff produced by armies for internal consumption, military history tends to be written in an approachable style. This is the only subfield that's dominated by people who aren't professional historians and most writers try to keep things zippy without sacrificing accuracy or rigor. Military history belongs to all of us. Edit: Oh what? This was in response to something steinrokkan deleted. ^^^Oh, their date was the issue? Cool then. HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 01:08 on Nov 14, 2013 |
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Nov 14, 2013 00:52
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I Demand Food posted:During this same time, the French were still heavily class-centered and favored the mounted knight, while lacking any real sense of cohesion. Various lords fought with or against each other as they saw fit and even when they were all on the same side, some would refuse to follow orders from the nominal commanders. Early on, they were also reluctant to embrace common soldiers. That's a large part of the reason why, at Crecy, a French army made up largely of armored cavalry suffered a massive defeat at the hands of a much smaller English army made up of longbowmen and dismounted men-at-arms/knights. Even when the French began to dismount, such as at Poitiers and Agincourt, they still found themselves unable to cope with large numbers of longbowmen raining arrows down at them from a distance because they lacked enough archers of their own. Crecy is just the biggest joke of a battle. The French go out of their way to gently caress up their own crossbowmen, throw a hissy fit when said crossbowmen can't deliver, and then spend the rest of the day charging up a hill towards the clearly fortified English positions. What I'm saying is, the problem the French faced wasn't that knights were ineffective, it was their blistering incompetence.
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Nov 14, 2013 00:59
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a travelling HEGEL posted:Until you get into the really arcane poo poo or the stuff produced by armies for internal consumption, military history tends to be written in an approachable style. This is the only subfield that's dominated by people who aren't professional historians and most writers try to keep things zippy without sacrificing accuracy or rigor. Arquinsiel fucked around with this message at 01:11 on Nov 14, 2013 |
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Nov 14, 2013 01:09
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I do a video blog of modern naval warfare simulation (focusing only on one game so far) and history located at http://baloogancampaign.com if anyone is interested in that sort of thing.
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Nov 14, 2013 01:10
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Finally, it's done! A few things to keep in mind: a) It's already super long, so forgive me if I gloss over your favourite StuG modification or whatever. b) It's quite Eurocentric, since most of the interesting things in the period I touch on happened there, and I haven't read much on the Japanese tank industry. c) In the interest of narrative flow, I group things together by topic, not time period, so there is some jumping back and forth in the WWII part, as a lot of things are happening in parallel. An Effortpost on tanks: a general overview Ask a someone to draw you a picture of a tank, and most people will draw you a vaguely similar shape: caterpillar type tracks, main cannon in a single rotating (likely rounded) turret, resembling Main Battle Tanks used by any military today. As it usually happens with any new technology, today’s nearly identical designs came from a varied and diverse background. The idea of an armoured thing that allowed you to kill your fellow man with impunity is not even remotely new, but lost popularity when metalworking could not counter gunpowder with quality, and there was no way to lug around enough metal to overcome it with quantity. With the invention of the internal combustion engine, that balance quickly shifted. An automobile could be covered in hardened steel several millimeters thick, protecting it from bullets. Such vehicles were suitable for fighting bandits and rioters, but the pock-marked battlefields of WWI proved them ineffective. The mud and shell craters proved too much for the overloaded engines of the armoured cars to handle. The need for a new vehicle arose. The first tanks, designed by British Admiralty (the Army had no desire to develop expensive new vehicles) were more akin to land battleships than anything recognized as a tank today. Cannons (“male” tank) or machine guns (“female” tank) were fitted in sponsons. The tanks were huge, with engine compartments that you could walk around in (and had to walk around in, as the engines were quite unreliable, and leaving the tank to fix them in the middle of a battle was not a desirable option). One feature that did last until today, however, were the tracks. Unlike the four or six wheels of a car or a truck, the tanks had many small wheels. One large wheel was connected to the engine, and would pull the track, composed of many links, and connected by flexible joints. That way, the tank had traction with a much larger portion of the ground than a car would, allowing it to pass through very poor terrain. In early tanks, no care was taken to ensure crew comfort. Gas from the engine and guns would collect inside the tank, armour plates being struck by bullets would shower the crew with paint chips. The tanks themselves were slow and sluggish. French and German tank designs that made it on the battlefield were closer to forts than the land ships of the British, making up for a lack of mobility of their cannons with a great number of machine guns on every side. These early designs, fearsome as they may look, failed to affect the outcome of the Great War in any meaningful way. They were too few in number, too unreliable, too new to be used to their full potential by conservative commanders of the time. However, a French tank built during the war managed to stand the test of time, the Renault FT-17. Unlike the monstrous Schneider and Saint-Chamond, this tank was much lighter. Instead of being crewed by almost a dozen men, it only required two: the driver, who controlled the tank by means of levers and pedals, looking through a slit in his hatch, and the commander, who also filled the role of gunner and loader, occupying an upright turret behind the driver. The tank’s machine gun was placed in a single rotating turret. The commander could look at the landscape around him through the machine gun sight or a cupola with vision slits. The tank’s engine was still placed in the rear of the vehicle, but in a much smaller compartment. Nobody knew that this small tank would shape the way armoured vehicles would be built for a hundred years. The Great War came to an end, borders were redrawn, but the bloodshed did not end, as the Russian Civil War erupted. Interventionist forces flooded into the country to defend the interests of the West, bringing with them a great gift to the defense industry of the RSFSR: French FT-17 and British MkV tanks. MkVs were seen as lacking even then, but four FT-17s captured at Odessa piqued the Bolsheviks’ interest. A tank was sent to Moscow as a present to Lenin, and then another, to be used as parts for the first one. The tank was deemed to have great potential, and served as a base for the first Soviet tank: named “Russian Renault”. 16 tanks, slightly modernized versions of the FT-17, were built, each with a proper name, as was the style with battleships. The Renault FT-17 continued inspiring Soviet tank industry on its way to its next tank, the “Small Support 1” (MS-1), or T-18. The T-18 was nothing special, carrying the same armament (two machine guns or a 37 mm cannon), still had two crew members, the same suspension and even the distinctive “tail” the FT-17 had in order to cross wide trenches. It was at this point that the young nation came to an impasse. The design was barely enough to satisfy modern requirements, and lacked much modernization potential. Engineers did not have the experience to design a new tank, and industry did not have the experience to build one. The answer was simple: turn abroad. At the time, two designs were available, but unwanted by their own countries. One was the British Vickers E, a light 6-ton tank. Instead of one turret, the tank had two: one with a machine gun, and one with a 37 mm gun or another machine gun. The tank was crewed by three men: one driver, and one gunner per turret. The Vickers E was an agile and very impressive vehicle for its time, but did not fit into the British armoured doctrine. Fortunately for Vickers, the genius of the design was recognized abroad. The USSR, China, Poland, and many other countries purchased Vickers E tanks. Another design of interest at the time was the child of Walther Christie. The tank had more in common with a car than a tank at first glance, with large rubber-rimmed road wheels instead of the small ones of the Vickers and Renault. Many history books highlight the ability of the tank to be converted from wheeled mode to track mode, reducing wear on the tracks, but ignore the design of the suspension. And boy, what a suspension it was. If you look at the suspension of the Vickers E, it is composed of eight road wheels per side, four per bogey. The two bogeys could travel independently of each other, using a leaf spring to absorb impact. The wheels could not move independently of the bogey, making the tank unable to “hug” complicated terrain. The tank’s main advantage, the ability to use the whole surface area of the track to pull itself, was lost. Christie’s tanks, on the other hand, had four large road wheels per side. Each road wheel had its own coil spring for shock absorption. This allowed each wheel to move up and down independently of its neighbours. This ability was so novel that any suspension with individual road wheels was called “Christie” for a period of time, regardless of what kind of spring it used. Christie’s invention was revolutionary, but the American military was reluctant to purchase it, despite its clear advantage over the unreliable T1 light tanks. However, much like with the Vickers tank, foreign buyers were easily found. Two bitter enemies, Poland and the USSR, were all too happy to purchase new technology at the mere hint that the other one was looking into it. The British and Americans were not the only ones the Soviets were borrowing design choices from. As a part of a secret agreement with Weimar Germany, a tank school was established at Kazan. Tanks built in Germany under the guise of agricultural tractors could be tested here, away from the prying eyes of foreign inspectors. German and Soviet tank commanders were also trained here. When Hitler came to power, relations between the two countries rapidly cooled, and the tank school was shut down. However, the core of the Panzerwaffe was already formed. With plywood cutouts instead of real tanks, the German army began training. Soon, cardboard cutouts were replaced with the first real tank, the Panzerkampfwagen I, built using the Vickers Carden-Lloyd tankette as a base. Combat characteristics of the Pz I were unacceptably poor for its time. Unlike the image of German tanks in popular media today, it could boast neither thick armour nor a powerful gun. Its armour could only protect from rifle bullets, and its armament consisted of two machine guns in a rotating turret: characteristics that could be found on a tank from two decades prior. It was slow and unreliable, but it was a start. Two former allies found themselves at odds with each other, as a civil war brewed in Spain: Germany backing the fascists and USSR backing the Republicans. Both received secret shipments of volunteers and the latest and greatest in light tanks each side could offer. The Germans sent their Pz I tanks, and the Soviets the T-26, a Vickers E with several years worth of refinements built in. One of those was the replacement of two turrets with one, mounting a powerful 45 mm anti-tank cannon. This cannon could knock out a Pz I at any distance, whereas the opposite could only be done at a very close range with amour-piercing bullets. However, the T-26 still only had anti-bullet armour. Towed anti-tank guns of the Spanish fascists had no problems penetrating it. The development of a tank is a constant race between cannon and armour. In the mid 1930s, the cannon was winning. Armour that was enough to defeat a rifleman in 1918 was not as impressive when it came to the latest models of anti-tank cannons, or even anti-tank rifles. The French were some of the first to design a tank with thick armour, impenetrable by anti-tank guns of the time. However, this led to a problem. The resulting low speed and high fuel consumption led to a decrease in tactical and strategic mobility. Despite their seemingly impressive armour, they were incapable of serving as an effective combat unit. Thick armour was no stranger to other nations either. The British Empire was building Matilda infantry support tanks, armed only with machine guns, at first, but with armour thick enough to survive a shelling from any anti-tank cannon of the era. The Germans briefly flirted with heavy tank designs armed with a low velocity 75 mm gun, but they did not find a place in German doctrine. The Soviet Union experimented with “111”, also known as T-46-5, designed by Koshkin, the yet unknown young engineer. The tank was a failure: its mass and thin tracks led to poor performance, and its gasoline engine was too weak to carry such a heavy tank. The BT-SV was another attempt to create a heavily armoured tank, using the BT tanks (the design that evolved from the Christie purchase many years back) and armour plates that were highly sloped, instead of very thick. This great advance is often credited to Koshkin and the T-34 by popular history, but that is not so. Even Tsyganov, the designer of the BT-SV, used the French FCM 36 as a direction of how to (and also how not to) design a tank with sloped armour. However, he was arrested for wasteful spending of government budget (as a great fan of dead-end projects on the BT chassis), and the BT-SV went nowhere. I have talked enough about armour, so let’s talk about cannons. Tanks were armed with three main types of guns at the time: machine guns, low velocity guns approximately 75 mm in caliber, and high velocity guns 40-50 mm in caliber. The two former types were mean to fight infantry. A shell meant to kill people and destroy fortifications does not need to fly fast, but it needs to carry a lot of explosive substance. On the other hand, a shell that needs to penetrate armour needs to move much faster. A big heavy shell is also good in this case for reasons that I will get into later, but in order to propel a big shell at high speeds, you need a lot of gunpowder, meaning its case needs to be thicker to withstand the impact, meaning it can carry less explosives. Technology of the time forces a choice between AP (armour piercing) and HE (high explosive) effects, which is evident in tank designs. Germany, at this point, had the Pz III, with a high velocity 50 mm gun, and a Pz IV, with a low velocity 75 mm gun. The Soviet Union had its T-26 and BT-7 with high velocity 45 mm guns, and T-28 with a low velocity 76 mm gun, and two machine guns in mini-turrets. The Soviet T-35 behemoth carried five turrets, one with a 76 mm gun, two with 45 mm guns, and two with machine guns. The French B1 was similarly multi-gunned: it had a 75 mm howitzer in the hull and a 47 mm gun in the turret. If you wanted to fight tanks and infantry at the same time, such dual layout was your only option. In the early stages of WWII, heavy armour showed its advantages, but also its downsides. French tanks were nearly invincible to German guns, but proved ineffective when time came for grand maneuvers. British Matildas performed much more respectably, but even their mighty hide could be pierced by 88 mm anti-aircraft guns. In 1939, Soviet engineers built the 76 mm L-11 tank gun, the most powerful tank gun to date. It combined a large caliber for the time with previously unheard of speed, resulting in an anti-tank weapon of unparalleled power. This cannon was put in the heavy KV-1 tank, with then unheard of 75 mm of armour, and later the medium T-34 tank, with only 45 mm of armour, but at a large angle. Both tanks received an even longer 76 mm gun in 1941, increasing their anti-armour capability further. While invincible on paper, the tanks had their problems, as any new design does. Instead of focusing on correcting the obvious flaws, Soviet engineers placed their bets on the tanks’ successors, the KV-3 and T-34M, scheduled to begin production in 1941. The ancient (dating back to 1931!) T-26 tank was scheduled to be replaced with the modern T-50, boasting as much armour as the T-34, with a superior torsion bar suspension, like the KV-1. However, not a single T-34M or KV-3 was built by the time the war reached Soviet soil, and only a miserly amount of T-50 tanks made it out of the factory, with their initial mechanical problems still unsolved. The USSR, having lost a large percentage of its obsolete tank park in the first few months of the war, and with its factories ramping up production again in the East was forced to produce the T-60: a simple version of the T-40 reconnaissance tank, with amphibious capability removed, and high caliber machine gun swapped for a 20 mm autocannon. This tank was simple enough to be built in car factories, and it had to be, as the USSR needed tanks badly. Germany, having invaded the USSR with the aforementioned Pz III and Pz IV tanks was shocked. Neither cannon could penetrate a T-34 or a KV-1 from the front. The two tanks received longer guns, but the 88 mm FlaK gun remained the only reliable way to eliminate the Soviet tanks at a long range. In the winter of 1941, it was evident that the plan to swiftly crush the USSR has failed. Germany remembered all of those heavy tank projects from the 1930s, and swiftly upgraded some for that wonderful 88 mm gun. The new Tiger tank was inspired by the DW (Durchbruchswagen: literally Breakthrough Vehicle), and was not that much different from it. Despite entering the battlefield in 1942, it still had the same boxy design as tanks of the previous decade. The 100 mm of front armour was a tough nut to crack for Soviet 76 mm guns, but not a problem for their 85 mm anti-aircraft gun at any effective combat range. By this time, the Americans knew they could not sit out the war forever. Unfortunately, its tanks were downright primitive compared to those fighting in Europe, with relatively weak 37 mm guns and thin armour. The temporary solution was the M3 Medium tank (nicknamed Lee). The tank had three levels of armament: one 75 mm gun in the hull, one 37 mm gun in a fully rotating turret, and a machine gun mini-turret on top of all that. It was huge, and not very well received by either American forces or the British and Soviets that received it through Lend-Lease. In 1942, the Americans put the 75 mm gun in the turret, and got rid of the puny 37 mm gun, resulting in the M4 Medium tank (nicknamed Sherman). The tank was slightly smaller, but putting the big gun in the turret made it a lot more versatile and maneuverable. Later versions of the Sherman received 105 mm howitzers for infantry support or 76 mm guns for improved anti-tank performance. The British installed a powerful 17-pounder 76 mm gun into their Shermans, resulting in a very potent tank destroyer, capable of taking out any German tank head-on. This modification was called the Sherman Firefly. In 1943, it was clear that the quality advantage that Soviet tanks enjoyed in the early war has lapsed. The T-34 was limited by its small turret. The armour of the KV-1 was no longer as impressive as it used to be, but the tank was still more expensive than the T-34, while bringing the same gun to the battlefield. The KV-1S was a lighter version of the KV-1, but still big and expensive. A new tank was needed. That tank was the IS. Equipped with an 85 mm cannon, it had more armour than a KV-1, was faster, and more reliable. Later on, the gun was upgraded to 122 mm in order to effectively combat German Ferdinand SPGs and fortifications. Also in 1943, Germany put a new medium tank into production, the Panther. The project started out as a T-34 equivalent at 30 tons (initially, even a T-34 clone), but swelled up to 50 tons during the design process. The very long 75 mm gun and thick sloped front armour was supposed to defeat the Soviets’ quantity with quality, but the tank was plagued by reliability problems until the very end of the war, and its thin side armour made it vulnerable to every gun in the Soviet arsenal, including man-portable anti-tank rifles. The front armour was not particularly impressive either, as the quality of German metal was steadily declining. Even a non-penetrating hit meant that the armour could crack and fall to bits, or that fragments could break off the rear and damage the crew and internals of the tank. Despite the Panther being a medium tank, the upgraded Pz IV remained the core of the German armoured forces until the end of the war. In 1944, Germany sent out a new addition to their zoo, the King Tiger. Combining an even more powerful 88 mm gun than the Tiger and thicker armour like the Panther, it made a fearsome opponent on paper, but was victim to the same problems as the Panther: poor armour quality and reliability. The Germans were not the only ones to start building a new tank. The Americans finally became unsatisfied with the Sherman, and built the heavy Pershing tank. It was much heavier, with a 90 mm AA gun, but used the same engine as the Sherman, leaving it lacking engine power and prone to breakdowns. The Pershing did not see combat until 1945, and even then, its design left much to be desired. During the late years of the war, light tank production stopped completely. The end of the war would spell death for heavy tanks. Germany, everyone’s favourite builder of overweight beasts, was out of the tank-building business for a long time. The US focused on perfecting the Pershing tank, now classified as a medium. The USSR continued the IS series for a number of years, but it became evident that the gun was winning over armour once again. It was impossible to protect yourself from modern HEAT ammunition and missiles. A tank’s best bet to remain safe was to be small and fast. Additionally, with the threat of nuclear war hanging over the world, a tank had to be cheap, and light enough to be delivered to its destination quickly, and in large numbers. Heavy tanks were non Egypt-viable. Medium designs with relatively thin armour, like the French AMX 30, German Leopard and Soviet T-54 would rule the battlefield for a number of years. Over time, these medium tanks were upgraded with better protection and superior firepower, but never at the cost of mobility, like in WWII days. Eventually, tanks and doctrines changed to the point where the medium tank joined its light and heavy brothers in the recesses of history. Engineers combined the protection and firepower of a heavy tank with the mobility of a medium tank, forming a new type of vehicle: the main battle tank. Ensign Expendable fucked around with this message at 15:49 on Nov 14, 2013 |
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Nov 14, 2013 01:11
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It should probably be the AMX-30 in your last paragraph, the -13 is the light tank platform with the oscillating turret.
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Nov 14, 2013 01:50
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Tevery Best posted:There is more to shields than just big/small, square/round/kite/whatever. Caesar writes that during the Gaul war his enemies used big, thick, heavy wooden shields. However, they were flat, which meant that they were easy to penetrate with the legionnaires' pila (heavy javelins with lead tips). Not easy enough to reliably kill the man carrying the shield, but the Gauls couldn't dislodge them either - and the added weight made the shields unwieldy. Many Gaul warriors discarded the shields when that happened, even though it meant exposing themselves. Roman pila did not have lead tips. There was no lead in them anywhere. It sounds like you might be partly confusing them with the lead-weighted darts of Vegetius' time, the plumbatae, which were short and did not bend. The neck of the pilum I have been told was made of softened iron, but given my personal encounters with archaeologists listing steel as iron and not doing any metallurgical tests, I am not totally sure. There are also two aspects of the pilum that do not sit right with me. While its neck was apparently meant to bend, it was also apparently used to ward off cavalry. This latter aspect in particular makes no sense to me, as it would need to be able to survive more than a single impact to be used effectively as a melee weapon. It's very puzzling. Additionally, while the Roman curve did improve deflection, it only curved on one dimension and, assuming it was considerably thinner than the Gaulish shields, would be quite penetrable. Breaking shields seems to be a theme in most accounts of combat that I have read, and while this may be part of a rhetorical formula in many instances there is clearly a reason behind it, though kite shields of the 11th-14th centuries would also often be deeply curved. I Demand Food posted:For the sake of mobility, it was generally favorable to have as many mounted troops as possible because it allowed forces to get around faster. In combat, however, it was quickly made apparent that having the bulk of an army fighting dismounted was very often favorable. One thing that the English really had going for them was that they learned early on that the armored, typically knightly cavalryman was not the be all and end all in combat. Mobility was important to the English, you are absolutely correct. However, your notion on the French mentality is mistaken. quote:At the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314, English cavalry suffered a massive and humiliating defeat at the hands of Robert the Bruce's pikemen, made up largely of well-trained commoners. Experiences in Scotland also gave the English a solid appreciation for well-trained and paid (but still relatively inexpensive) Welsh longbowmen. Additionally, the English went into the war with a fairly unified command structure that allowed them to use infantry, archers, cavalry, and, later, artillery in combination with one another to great effect. The French force was not made up largely of armoured cavalrymen. Indeed the Genoese crossbowmen were the first men to engage the English, but their crossbows' wet strings and the lack of pavise made them extremely susceptible to English arrow fire. The lack of internal cohesion on the French part was significant, but the source of it was not an inherent disorderliness of knighthood by itself but rather should be taken within the context of 9 unanswered years of English chevauchee. King Philip's near-inaction against the English in these years forced him to seek battle, and forced him to seek it more aggressively than was at all prudent. The French had been hankering for a fight for a long time, which allowed Edward III to take up an excellent defensive position and wreck the over-eager French. quote:What you saw during the Hundred Years War also played out across much of Europe at the time. Well-trained Flemish militia fighting on foot delivered a decisive defeat to French cavalry at the Battle of Courtrai. The English themselves saw cavalry-based armies defeated quite a few times by Scottish pikemen and infantry. Other examples include the defeat of knights and mounted cavalry of the HRE by Swiss pikemen at the Battle Morgarten. Courtrai took place 44 years before Crecy, and infantry resisting cavalry was nothing new even then. It happened at Hastings in 1066, at Bremule in 1119, at Jaffa in 1192 at Bouvines in 1214, at Sterling in 1297, and in many other instances. The notion of the 'infantry revolution' is exceedingly short-sighted at best. While the defeats of Courtrai and Bannockburn did come as something of a surprise this is only applicable in a contemporary context, as during the mid-13th century infantry was not much used in a number of significant European battles (Muret, Tagliacozzo, Lewes, Dunbar) though their importance was still recognised in Louis IX's crusade. Slim Jim Pickens posted:Crecy is just the biggest joke of a battle. The French go out of their way to gently caress up their own crossbowmen, throw a hissy fit when said crossbowmen can't deliver, and then spend the rest of the day charging up a hill towards the clearly fortified English positions. In essence, yes, but there were cultural pressures which made their incompetence all the more likely and likely more extreme besides. Rodrigo Diaz fucked around with this message at 02:04 on Nov 14, 2013 |
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Nov 14, 2013 02:01
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Sweet, I never finished reading the last thread. I'm glad I can actually keep up to date with this now.Rodrigo Diaz posted:There are also two aspects of the pilum that do not sit right with me. While its neck was apparently meant to bend, it was also apparently used to ward off cavalry. This latter aspect in particular makes no sense to me, as it would need to be able to survive more than a single impact to be used effectively as a melee weapon. It's very puzzling. I thought they carried two different kinds of pilum, and one had a stiff neck? Either way, would it actually make a difference against cavalry? Horses usually won't charge a line of spears regardless of whether those spears will buckle on impact or not.
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Nov 14, 2013 02:21
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Koramei posted:I thought they carried two different kinds of pilum, and one had a stiff neck? Either way, would it actually make a difference against cavalry? Horses usually won't charge a line of spears regardless of whether those spears will buckle on impact or not. There were three types carried at some point (possibly pre-Marian Reform era, Hastati, Principes Triarii and all that), two meant for throwing at different ranges and one solid "spear" type for poking in the face or throwing point blank. The variations were basically weight and neck flexibility that gave different performance at different ranges and increased the chances of inflicting incapacitating injury or further weighing down the enemy shield if it wasn't discarded. This is a sweet effortpost. Well done, and please keep going.
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Nov 14, 2013 02:37
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