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Nothingtoseehere posted:It was a real shame you were never able to finish your WW1 day-by-day series, it hugely increased my understanding of the war (and of the pace and scale of WW1). The Late war is the bit least talked about aswell - I only vaguely know of the campaigns from 1917 and 1918. Any good stories from then? If you have Kindle Prime, Max Hastings' book on the first few months is quite good: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Catastrophe-1914-Europe-Goes-War/dp/0307743837 (yes I know it's Max Hastings, but for some reason this book feels qualitatively better than his WW2 stuff when he gets hung up on his 'soft soldiers from the Western Democracies wouldn't fight' deal)
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May 31, 2020 20:31
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Xakura posted:The Norse introduced the English to the axe, both physically as well as linguistically. No they didn't. Nothingtoseehere posted:It was a real shame you were never able to finish your WW1 day-by-day series, it hugely increased my understanding of the war (and of the pace and scale of WW1). The Late war is the bit least talked about aswell - I only vaguely know of the campaigns from 1917 and 1918. Any good stories from then? Not really a "good story" but I find the payoff of the Salonika front to be one of the more interesting (and pretty much forgotten in the public Western consciousness) episodes of the late war, it knocked out Bulgaria, liberated Serbia and exposed the underbelly of Austria-Hungary which essentially led to Austria-Hungary just completely dissolving (especially after the brutal beating they had received at the hands of the Russians in 1916 in one of the largest and bloodiest offensives in military history that most have never heard about) and essentially making the future of the German war effort completely untenable. Combine that with the 100 days offensive and you have Ludendorff rushing to hand power and responsibility to sign a ceasefire to the same people (plus Jews and Socialists) that he will then go on to blame for Germany having been defeated, because Germany was never defeated and would have won if it wasn't for the stab in the back.
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May 31, 2020 20:33
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ChubbyChecker posted:This isn't even the first time he's done this. Just a few months ago he said that the South Korea started the Korean War.
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May 31, 2020 20:34
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Vincent Van Goatse posted:I'd honestly welcome tank destroyer chat at this point. It's cute but the Universal Carrier is still my baby in these silly things.
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May 31, 2020 20:39
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brugroffil posted:What are some good examples of military impact on the development of the English language?
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May 31, 2020 20:41
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Xakura posted:The Norse introduced the English to the axe, both physically as well as linguistically.
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May 31, 2020 20:43
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HEY GUNS posted:he also said the venn diagram of queer people and leftists on the internet overlapped completely. everything good is leftist; everything bad is obviously something else Ensign Expendable posted:The argument has devolved to the point where you're now arguing about the English language instead of military history. Drop it. Reminder that EE is an IK for this thread.
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May 31, 2020 20:43
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Cyrano4747 posted:Reminder that EE is an IK for this thread.
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May 31, 2020 20:44
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HEY GUNS posted:what did the english chop wood with before that Blades distributed by strange women lying in ponds?
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May 31, 2020 20:46
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What a surprise it's this loving derail again that absolutely flooded the reports queue. It seems you guys already moved into the shut the gently caress up phase, which is good. Please remain in the shut the gently caress up box.
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May 31, 2020 21:19
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Trin Tragula posted:I am going to put a stop to this happy horseshit if it means violating the copyright of every expert from Liddell-Hart to Sheffield Trin, are your books still for sale? Assuming they are not locked to the UK I've been meaning to buy them.
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May 31, 2020 21:58
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 Are these "stepping switches" (I assume based off of a telephone stepping switch) basically mathematically interchangeable with rotors, and what was the reason for stepping switches instead of rotors, simpler to use existing electronics infrastructure to build the custom stepping switches? I'd like to figure out how exactly this works, does each letter key you press advance the first stepping switch by one which results in the cipher mappings changing like in the enigma rotors? Would each step in the stepping switch have been fixed in alphabetical orders B, C, D, F, etc for the 20's and AEIOUYAEIOUYAEIOUY... for the 6's stepping switch, or were these jumbled based on pre-set switches like the enigma rotors?
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May 31, 2020 22:26
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Is "You can not stop me, I spend 30,000 men a month" a real Napoleon quote? Having some trouble finding the primary source.
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May 31, 2020 23:25
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Sounds like flailing angry pop culture Napoleon to me.
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May 31, 2020 23:32
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Another FAGr 5 story. Last time, the Allies had invaded Normandy in early June, and FAGr 5, based south of Bordeaux in southern France, had been looking at the reasonably clear rail and roads in southern France, and feveranty wishing they'd get the order to retreat to Germany with their rare, large aircraft, the Junkers 290. KG 40, maritime bombing squadron based in Bordeaux was recalled to France almost immediately. Meanwhile, FAGr 5, after some sallys as infantry are having a really nice vacation at their airfield at Mont-De-Marsain, all the while hearing about the gigantic battle in Northern France that is mos def not going the Germans way... At the start of august, things radically changed! FAGr 5, formerly under Flyer Command Atlantic, and then under Fligerkorps X, was shifted to Fligerkorps II. The only sign Fligerkorps II gave to FAGr 5 was to recall all the female auxilliary personal to Germany. Oh, and all Army and Luftwaffe ground units (IE the ones assigned to flak batteries) were also evacuated. The AA guns were still going to be manned, though: by the Free India Legion, which was an Indian force under Subhas Chandra Bose. Mid August was around the time the Falase pocket became a thing, and it was even clearer to the men of FAGr 5 that evacuation should really really start now. As FAGr 5 flew modified large transport aircraft, the worry was not that the aircraft or the flight crews would be lost. Rather, it was everybody else in the unit: the mechanics, armorers, and other ground personnel that would going to have to schlepp overland. This was also the situation at several nearby Luftwaffe airfields. They had no active aircraft there, but personnel of 50-75 at each base, essentially bugging their commanders about what to do now, and getting no reply. Major Fischer made the trip to Fligerkorps II HQ, and returned with the command "just keep doing what you are doing." Seeing as they were useless, it was decided maybe Majorgeneral von Barsewisch, head of Luftwaffe recon should be approached again. Major Fischer was then forbidden to fly to Berlin by Fligerkorps II. August 13th, the Major orders FAGr 5 to prep to withdraw, orders be damned. Fortunately, the men had not just been throwing themselves into sports: they'd been slowly husbanding supplies for a overland trek by vehicle. (Trains, between Allied air attacks and Maquis sabotage and ambush, were seen as too risky.) They'd also gotten a lucky break: when the Luftwaffe construction unit withdrew, they left their supply of gasoline and wood to FAGr five, so the retreat was going to be totally motorized. (Wood was for those weird wood-gas powered cars that petrol-starved Europe had taken to.) A further advantage was going to be the aircraft armory. Ju 290s had heavy machine guns and 20mm cannon galore, and those spares and their ammo were coming with the convoy. Mechanics had already taken a few spare aircraft turrets and mounted them on trucks. The convoy was going to have thin skin, but be *really* heavily armed. On the 15th of August, the Allied invasion of southern France prompted more insubordination. Major Fischer ordered his #2 to get a Ju 290, fly to Dessau (The city where Junkers was based, a little east of Berlin and a not necessarily suspicious trip to anybody in the Fligerkorps) and then use "whatever means necessary" to get to Berlin and notify Majorgeneral von Barsewisch of the situation. Flying with a pilot and copilot, the men were succsessful, stealing a sidecar motorcycle in Dessau to make it to Berlin. They returned on the 17th, with word from the Majorgeneral to immediately start withdrawal to Germany, specifically Muhldorf am Inn, the town where FAGr 5 formally constituted itself. (And also the current base of Transportstaffel 5, which was a Luftwaffe transport formation that flew whatever four engined aircraft they could lay hands on, including some of Italy's strategic bombers.) Actual, y'know, written orders would have to wait. Hm. OK the book says the first Ju 290 took off the night of the 16th, so I'm thinking the orders were also dispatched by the Majorgeneral via radio. So I'm not quite sure what the quibble about "official" orders is about? Maybe the dispatched men just radioed ahead on their own? Anyway, the men probably had their things all packed by mid-July, and had spent the intervening time sorting all the stuff the unit had into organized plane/truck loads. Rip out the cozy kitchenettes! Get hosed, cabin fuel tanks! Reinstall the trappoklappe! [Oh, for those who don't know, the Ju 290 was a tail-sitter that had a big hydraulic ramp that it could open to load cargo and small vehicles.] Whatever the reason, planes were flying back to Germany (at night, at low altitude) very very quickly. Loaded as much as the aircraft could bear, FAGr 5 flew its entire stock of 290s back to Germany. A quoted memoir said "three aircraft were left in the woods" but I'm not sure if they were Ju 290s or some other type. With the officers and the airmen back in Germany, phase 2 began: the not-great roadtrip of FAGr 5 through the last days of Nazi-occupied France. Stage one: Mont-de-Marsain to Poitiers, 18th -20th August 1944 At 5:30 PM, the column of about 600 men departed the airfield for the last time, driving buses, trucks, cars, tow tractors, field kitchens, radio trucks, and whatever wood-gas powered vehicles they could lay hands on. As mentioned, rapid-fire cannon and machine guns were liberally scattered through the convoy. The plan that evening was to reach the main road to Bordeaux, but after dark Ob.Lt. Schmitt decided to take a different route. This was a lucky break as Maquis had in fact laid an ambush for a German fuel column that night. The column then stopped for the night, as they were waiting for the administrative personel from Mont-de-Marsain to catch up. The admin staff stayed behind as no "offical" order had been given to evacuate. The column rolled on at dawn with no sign of the admin staff, who in fact had already been captured by the Maquis. 08:30 hours saw the column reach the outskirts of Bordeaux, where they stopped to refuel and eat breakfast. 10:30 hours, they had passed through the city safely and crossed a suspension bridge across the Dordogne river, a obvious ambush point for Maquis and Allied aircraft. But their luck held, and they encountered neither. The rest of the day was peaceful, arriving at Angouleme at 20:00 hours. The column then learned they'd been lucky in another way: immediately after their trek of the city, Bordeaux had been declared a fortress, which would have been the end of column's trip, as fortresses had to be defended by any means. At Angouleme the local Heer commander told the column that east the Maquis had made travel very sticky. So Schmitt redirected the column north, to Pointers. At 20:30 the column moved on, mostly because said Heer commander really wanted to requisition them. Torrential rain greeted them at darkness. The rain was annoying but also good cover. 15 Kilometers north of Angouleme, the column encountered a big "detour" sign, which appeared to reroute them into narrow ravines. Schmitt called a halt for the night and set a guard. The guard took a little fire from somebody, but a reply from some of the onboard 20mm cannons made it a peaceful night.
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May 31, 2020 23:35
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Nebakenezzer posted:
It's entirely possible they needed someone to stand in front of the General in order to get him to focus on them for five minutes long enough to say "okay do this".
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Jun 1, 2020 00:15
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Nebakenezzer posted:August 13th, the Major orders FAGr 5 to prep to withdraw, orders be damned. Fortunately, the men had not just been throwing themselves into sports: they'd been slowly husbanding supplies for a overland trek by vehicle. (Trains, between Allied air attacks and Maquis sabotage and ambush, were seen as too risky.) They'd also gotten a lucky break: when the Luftwaffe construction unit withdrew, they left their supply of gasoline and wood to FAGr five, so the retreat was going to be totally motorized. (Wood was for those weird wood-gas powered cars that petrol-starved Europe had taken to.) A further advantage was going to be the aircraft armory. Ju 290s had heavy machine guns and 20mm cannon galore, and those spares and their ammo were coming with the convoy. Mechanics had already taken a few spare aircraft turrets and mounted them on trucks. The convoy was going to have thin skin, but be *really* heavily armed. I see a really cool modelling/wargaming project here. I'm not adding 6/15mm WW2 to my project backlog, but somebody could have a lot of fun with this.
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Jun 1, 2020 00:27
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Playing a Maquis vs FAGr5 in guntrucks table top game would be pretty fun, i think.
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Jun 1, 2020 00:55
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I am not familiar with this story, but I'm going to bet on the Maquis. A bunch of mechanics mounting cannons and whatever else to random Italian light trucks sounds like a massacre waiting to happen.
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Jun 1, 2020 02:06
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brugroffil posted:What are some good examples of military impact on the development of the English language? Basically every English idiom is from one of three sources: (1) the Bible, (2) Shakespeare, (3) the sea. Many of the nautical ones are of naval origin.
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Jun 1, 2020 02:48
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Nebakenezzer posted:Another FAGr 5 story.... Jeeze. Do you know why FAGr 5's supposed superiors weren't handing down orders?
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Jun 1, 2020 05:14
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So in the wake of current events where protests and riots in america are being made worse by the way that the police have been trained and encouraged to make things worse and attack protestors, have there been any successes in making an occupational force deescalate and defuse tensions? I know that there were some attempts with soldiers in Iraq that at least put to shame America's current total lack of trying to bring police into line, but I don't know how well that worked overall.
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Jun 1, 2020 07:47
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SlothfulCobra posted:So in the wake of current events where protests and riots in america are being made worse by the way that the police have been trained and encouraged to make things worse and attack protestors, have there been any successes in making an occupational force deescalate and defuse tensions? Given the patchwork of these departments it is very likely that it will happen piecemeal.
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Jun 1, 2020 07:57
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I'm not really sure on the details but also wasn't that Ghandi's success as well? Or at least the popular conception of his success?
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Jun 1, 2020 08:00
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SlothfulCobra posted:So in the wake of current events where protests and riots in america are being made worse by the way that the police have been trained and encouraged to make things worse and attack protestors, have there been any successes in making an occupational force deescalate and defuse tensions? Well, one thing that works is giving into demands. Or preemptively determining what reasonable demands might be, and then enacting them. For example what the UK did with Canada. Or what happened in Taiwan and South Korea, stop the purges give people democracy. Or US Civil Rights and Vietnam protests in the 60s/70s. Obviously ethnic cleansing can work, such as what China is doing in Xianjiang, but let's take that off the table. What you're left with then is a situation where you can't or won't give people what they want, but are unwilling to just kill them all. The challenge is then to I guess, convince people they don't want what they think they want? I don't know if that's ever been successful, usually civilian populations and their anger can outlast occupying forces. Japan and Germany were sort of just so exhausted that they never really put up a serious fight during the occupation so they don't really count. Yeah I can't think of anything, either the people get what they want eventually, or they get brutally crushed, or the oppression continues.
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Jun 1, 2020 08:26
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Gandhis success was presenting a palatable 'peaceful' faction the British could negotiate withdrawal with without losing face. He did almost nothing personally to liberate India, violent insurrectionary leaders did.Trin Tragula posted:The way to combat bad posting is with good posting This is amazing! What were the name(s) of Barthas' memoirs again? Alchenar posted:I think you are stuck on an unnecessary assertion. The Soviet Union plainly was a leftist project, everyone involved thought so, pretty much everyone outside thought so as well, it was just an enormous failure of a project and by the point we are talking about is clearly just an imperialist dictatorship and not what anyone (communist or non-communist) would agree is what an idealised form a communist society is supposed to look like. You're not making sense. If anyone involved would agree it is not what a communist society is supposed to look like, how is it communist? If you think any project will 'inevitably' fail because it is communist, then you're falling victim to confirmation bias. Vincent Van Goatse posted:This is like a negaverse version of those idiots who claim the Nazis were the real socialists because they had "socialist" in their name. Get a dictionary, please. This is embarassing to both of us. Continuity RCP posted:Lenin sucked too. This is my exact point. People are hung up on the Soviet Union being leftist, but after Lenin murdered everyone who disagreed with him the political liberties were gone (which can still be leftist) and the economic capital became subservient to a class of owners in all but name (which cannot). Communism literally is ownership of capital by the working class, something the Soviet Union initially had, but got rid of with the Bolsheviks. Xakura posted:The Norse introduced the English to the axe, both physically as well as linguistically. The cross as well! Which is impressive, since they were pagans. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Jun 1, 2020 08:38
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This is trivia but how come so many people spell Gandhi "Ghandi"? Is it written that way in major languages or was it a typo in Civilization or something? It is weird to me, it'd be like if you saw people referring to Joseph Stalling (but everyone knew you meant the Soviet guy) constantly.
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Jun 1, 2020 09:15
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Nessus posted:This is trivia but how come so many people spell Gandhi "Ghandi"? Is it written that way in major languages or was it a typo in Civilization or something? It is weird to me, it'd be like if you saw people referring to Joseph Stalling (but everyone knew you meant the Soviet guy) constantly. The name "Gandhi" could also be fonetikally rendered as "Gandi". There's two H-sounds in it, and they're both implied H-sounds, like you get at the start of "hour" and "honour". However, there's only one letter H in the name, and if (a) you aren't quite certain how to spell the name, but (b) you're pretty sure there's one, and only one H in it somewhere, both "Ghandi" and "Gandhi" look equally correct.
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Jun 1, 2020 09:24
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Trin Tragula posted:The name "Gandhi" could also be fonetikally rendered as "Gandi". There's two H-sounds in it, and they're both implied H-sounds, like you get at the start of "hour" and "honour". However, there's only one H in the name, and if (a) you aren't quite certain how to spell the name, but (b) you're pretty sure there's one, and only one H in it somewhere, both "Ghandi" and "Gandhi" look equally correct. Mostly I'm wondering if there's some kind of origin point for it. Like if there was an episode of South Park with Gandhi prominently labelled GHANDI or something. (It could have been anything, of course.)
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Jun 1, 2020 09:27
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the literally only thing i know about hindi, apart from the part where it's given a bunch of slang words to working class brits, is that it has H s in it but i don't know where they are. Khaki is the same.
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Jun 1, 2020 09:30
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Khaki, gherkin, Ghana, ghost, ghetto, Khan... I think it's just a general heuristic approach for English speakers that if a word has a silent h in it, it's often at the beginning.
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Jun 1, 2020 10:04
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Nessus posted:You could also spell it Gondee but nobody does that! It's always Ghandi! You see Ghandi more than the accurate spelling. For me, the reasoning is that the H is silent when his name is pronounced and therefore follows the rules for Ghastly or Ghost. Therefore, Ghandi instead of Gandhi
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Jun 1, 2020 11:00
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Hargrimm posted:Khaki, gherkin, Ghana, ghost, ghetto, Khan... More generally, in English, words that have a gh in them are a lot more common than words that have a dh in them. "Dh" isn't a sound in English, while "gh" is. So, if you're a native English speaker trying to spell the name from memory, "Ghandi" looks more right than "Gandhi".
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Jun 1, 2020 12:45
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Goes to the same pile with me as why so many Americans proudly call themselves friends of Isreal. I don't know what that is, but the name suggests to me that a) it exists and b) is not imaginary.
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Jun 1, 2020 14:20
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Tias posted:You're not making sense. If anyone involved would agree it is not what a communist society is supposed to look like, how is it communist? If you think any project will 'inevitably' fail because it is communist, then you're falling victim to confirmation bias. Soviet Union was a leftist country, and as WW2 and other conflicts have shown, leftist countries and people are as capable of genociding minorities, mass gang raping civilians, and committing other war crimes as any other countries and people are. Just because someone follows the same ideology as yourself doesn't make them incapable of being monsters. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Jun 1, 2020 15:41
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e: actually just removing even this
Alchenar fucked around with this message at 16:17 on Jun 1, 2020 |
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Jun 1, 2020 15:51
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Look I avoid modding other peoples patches. I really hate doing that poo poo. But you all have had first the thread IK and then the mod come in and say to drop this line of conversation. And now I guess I need to tap the admin star and remind you all that I technically have buttons in here too and I’m pretty sure Fromage and EE won’t freak out if I use them to enforce their previous requests. So please, loving drop it. Just draw a line under this argument and move on without trying to get in your last word.
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Jun 1, 2020 16:11
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Nessus posted:Do you mean in the sense of tactics used by protestors etc. to make a hostile police force de-escalate, or do you mean in the sense of "does this end in anything other than a police state"? In terms of the former I'm not sure, in terms of the latter, many times; the police in Northern Ireland were demilitarized heavily, various post-Soviet states... I mean in the sense of tactics that a police force could be trained to use instead of that they're doing, because in theory that should be something that could be controlled and legislated, and in this scenario the lack of any training to prevent them from brutality seems to be the root cause of many of these protests breaking out into open conflict. So far as I know, there's nothing that the protestors can do to de-escalate conflict once its started aside from breaking and running, because when the police are trying to act as trained infantry, only they have control over whether they're going to attack. All the protestors can do is decide how much they're going to try fighting back. I'm just trying to get an idea of what a non-hostile police force would be like at a protest or what kind of initiatives the government could force upon their police to prevent them from going hostile. Assuming that a civilian government could have authority over their police force and that they won't just go into open rebellion, which seems more likely now than it did a week ago.
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Jun 1, 2020 16:24
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SlothfulCobra posted:I'm just trying to get an idea of what a non-hostile police force would be like at a protest or what kind of initiatives the government could force upon their police to prevent them from going hostile. https://www.wvtm13.com/article/sheriff-put-down-his-baton-to-listen-to-protesters-they-chanted-walk-with-us-so-he-did/32723860 I dunno how much of this can be affected by policy but it certainly seems less hostile than more typical anti riot stuff.
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Jun 1, 2020 16:28
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In Amerika, you dismiss history. In Soviet Russia, history dismiss you. There, my two kopeks worth on the subject. We can now change topic! I have a question about submarines. Have they ever figured out better ways of evacuating from a sunken sub than swimming out of a torpedo tube or other hole? It seems like some kind of escape pod system would have helped with Kursk and many others. Eject the conning tower with rockets or something. It just feels like if we had jet fighter pilots these days still climb out of the cockpit with their parachute and bailing out the old fashioned way.
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Jun 1, 2020 16:28
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