MilHist Thread: Technically the Yamato did help defeat fascism

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > MilHist Thread: Technically the Yamato did help defeat fascism

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

HEY GUNS posted:

i love the past

Content. I am currently reading The Savage Continent, which is about tumult and chaos in Europe immediately post ww2, including ethnic cleansings carried out against Ukranians, Germans, Jews (again but not by Nazis this time), and people in the Balkans. This is a good book, and it's an important book, but if you do not feel like reading about terrible things happenign to human bodies, please do not read it. Trust me. I'm speaking as a 30yw researcher here.

Edit: If you think hostilities stopped in 1945, you're very wrong. In places there was a low (the baltics) or high (Greece) grade civil war going on, in addition to the ethnic cleansings. We talk a good game about the postwar period but really Europe was only "at peace" from like...1950 onward.

I can believe it. The war was so horrible in eastern Europe I'd have been surprised if there was not a bunch of low-medium intensity conflicts.

Stuff I'm reading right now: Rockets and People, Vol. 1. A free ebook translated by NASA, it's the first of a four-volume memoir of a engineer, Boris Chertok, who was a key Soviet rocket engineer. It's the 1930s right now and the great purges are devastating whole branches of scientific endeavor.

# ¿ Aug 29, 2019 15:40

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# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 20:28

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

Rockets and People:

The Soviet Rocket program started in the early 1930s, and in many ways was more advanced than the German program until the mid 1930s. They identified early on that variations on nitric acid was what you wanted as the oxidant, and were firing nitric acid / kerosene propellant combos by World War 2.

The thing that ruined these programs were purges. The Soviets did manage to field monopropellant rockets, both air launched and Katyusha rockets. But the purges killed or put into the famous prison design bureau camps all the top staff.

I had read that the Soviets in World War 2 were behind in radio equipment, both in quality and in manufacturing for aircraft and tanks. I figured this was some oversight of central economic planning; but nope, it was Stalin's fault, as the purges hit the radio engineers especially hard. One thing the author did during WW2 was engineer radios that could resist distortion from engines.

The author at the start of WW2 was working on a project to design a rocket interceptor, conceptually much like the Me 163. In a feat of stunning badassness, he, his family, and his commune were shipped to the Urals. There, this gang of engineers and technicians converted an old iron foundry to an aircraft factory themselves, on meager rations, in -40 C cold, and began engineering a prototype rocket fighter! Their engine test stand faced out over a frozen pond. Getting nitric acid to stay in its area was troublesome, but they got it to work

They actually got a flying prototype out of it, constructed of wood. Eventually trans-sonic aerodynamic fuckery sent the prototype into the ground at full throttle, though it set a world speed record while doing so

When world war 2 started, the author's great aunt writes and says something like "aren't you working on airplanes or something, why are the Germans bombing moscow instead of your planes bombing berlin?"

quote:

Each time the engine was activated, a rust-colored cloud of nitric acid vapor would explode from the nozzle. Our eyes teared our faces stung as if hit by an arctic blast, we continually felt like sneezing and coughing. It was obviously dangerous to inhale the rust-colored atmosphere, and I had the
imprudence to allude to this. Pallo said that the vapor was nothing compared with the explosion of a rocket engine.That was when it was really harmful.

# ¿ Sep 2, 2019 02:54

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

MrYenko posted:

Were they still having issues with this in the forties? It was essentially a solved problem by the late twenties in the US.

Yes. While I'm not 100% sure, I think this was mostly a product of the purges, as the technical and military personel who could have worked on this got gulag'd.

quote:

without any red tape, I was provided with a night pass and ration cards then ordered to go, without delay, to our abandoned factory in Khimki and set up the production of remote-controlled onboard radio stations and suitable control knobs. I was to work out ways to protect the onboard receivers against interference from spark ignition.They disregarded my objections that this was not my area of expertise and that I had flown here specifically with the assignment to come up with a radio control system for the BI[neb note: that's the expernmental rocket] interceptor. �A war is going on, every day is precious.Your BI is still to come, but we need radio communications in battle not tomorrow, but today�yesterday even.We already have fighters that are as good as the Germans�, but our radio communications are deplorable!�

[...]

By late summer, at the same Factory No. 293 we had abandoned in October 1941, a special equipment department (OSO) was already in operation. Jack-of-all-trades Sokolov and his team of two mechanics and one lathe operator were the production division. Three designers and two drafters drew from early morning until late in the evening, and after my inspection they redid the greater part of their labors. Two radio engineers darted about Moscow and combat airfields trying to equip the laboratory with instruments and models of real radio stations. I considered the five-man �special purpose� team our main accomplishment. This team, which consisted of an engineer, two technicians, and two mechanics with �golden hands,� was tasked with making forays to frontline airfields for the practical application and commissioning of our achievements. This did not require long trips. Aviation units taking part directly in the air war were located 30�50 kilometers from Moscow. I went along to one of these airfields near Kalinin so that I could hear with my own ears the effectiveness of our measures.The test was very simple; it involved two squadrons of Yaks. All of the aircraft in one squadron were equipped with ignition-shielded wires, noise filters, and remote-controlled radio stations.The fighters in the other squadron had the same radio stations, but had no noise protection. After both squadrons had taken off, the commander gave heading change instructions from the control post. He transmitted codes, asked how they were understood, and requested a response.

The squadron with the optimized radio communications executed all the commands concisely, answered questions the first time they were asked, and went in for a landing precisely upon command. The second squadron, by contrast, responded, �Did not copy that; say again.� Their maneuvers did not always correspond to the commands, and toward the end, the commander took the microphone from the communications officer and let loose the kind of Russian expressions that overcome any radio noise; the squadron returned for its landing.

Bolstered by frontline flight rations, our team worked around the clock after this test to optimize the equipment of the regiment�s airplanes. One of the tasks of this aviation unit was to escort and cover the low-flying attack aircraft that were regularly attacking the enemy�s nearby rear areas. After returning from a raid with the upgraded equipment, the escort pilots reported,�It�s a whole new ballgame! We�ve even stopped cursing now, since we can understand everything.� For the first time they returned without losses.

When all the work was finished, we were officially thanked in front of the ranks. We then returned to our Khimki airfield, having been provided with both �dry� and �wet� rations.

# ¿ Sep 2, 2019 15:50

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

Rockopolis posted:

Frontline flight rations = amphetamines?

decent food

The author, during his evacuated to just west of the Urals phase was mildly chagrined to discover that the prison camp design bureau actually had it better in food and accommodations than they did

another part of his extended family was caught in Lenningrad for the first winter of the siege, and out of 8 members, 7 died of starvation while one managed to get out across Lake Ladoga

# ¿ Sep 2, 2019 21:42

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

So, I did my thing on Alcock, now I'm researching Brown. My question is basically "what did brown do as a second Lt. before transferring to the RFC?"

Alcock joined up and trained with the Public school battalion, and was...gazetted? as a 2nd Lt. in January 1915. (I know gazetted means "made" and this has something to do with some tradition where, I don't know, their name is written down, possibly in The Gazette, but it still throws me slightly.) Brown then is assigned to the Manchester regiment, and arrives on the Western Front in time for the second battle of Ypres. He then ----- is there, apparently sticking around for battle of the somme in some capacity, though hopefully not being involved in Beaumont Hammel. He then - at some point - transfers to the RFC, where he's an observer, and is shot down the last time during the battle of Loos.

Maybe Brown managed to get out of the bad bits, but I'm curious because his time serving on the ground could potentially put him in a bunch of horrific spots. Which would be doubly bad as Brown was an American citizen who renounced his citizenship to enlist.

# ¿ Sep 3, 2019 17:11

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

I got a model of HMS Prince of Wales recently, 1/700, waterline, from Tamiya.

Two questions: was the Prince of Wales and her sister the only two battleships completed in line with the Washington Naval Treaty? And, I looked on wikipedia and read about the Hood/Prince of ~~Whales~~ Wales engagement with the Bismarck and the Prinz Eugen. I didn't realize that the RN had six destroyers with them, and that the battle was kind of a shambles even before the Hood exploded? The Wales was having serious mechanical issues with her guns, so much so that she sailed with civilian vickers/armstrong engineers, and the ship was so new that the crew hadn't been on a shakedown cruise yet. The Vice Admiral Lancelot Holland on the hood had this plan that Hood and Prince of Wales was going to target Bismarck while two other heavy cruisers shadowing the two would target Prinz Eugen.......but the cruisers didn't know this because radio silence. And then you have the things not done to hood for economic reasons that made it explodable.

I guess my other question is "is 'it was a shambles' fair', because it sure seems like the RN for once could have the warship engagements it really loved, but still miffed it thanks to lack of attention to detail. Prince of Wales would puncture Bismarck's fuel bunkers, which would lead to Bismarck murder eventually, but this seems pretty small

Also PS could the last battleship HMS Vanguard take the Bismarck in a straight fight

# ¿ Sep 5, 2019 01:33

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

Rockets and people is in a pretty awesome section, as the author is part of a Soviet expedition looking for German technology. He arrives while Berlin is still fighting (and him and his comrades blunder into Germans a few times with a long-suffering jeep driver) and paints a really interesting portrait of just after the battle was won and the war ended. But have this story of thread favorite, caches of alcohol and soldiers:

quote:

DIARY ENTRY. 10 May 1945.
We barely managed to make our way to the Lorentz company in Tempelhof. There was a large crowd of women and children.They stood silently looking through a high lattice fence separating the fa�ade of the building standing in the interior of the courtyard, away from the street. Our soldiers with automatic weapons guarded the entryway and in the courtyard were several Jeeps with officers scurrying about between them loading cardboard packages.When we had managed to pass through, after long negotiations, we determined that it was not secret radar instruments that had been hidden in the Lorentz basement, but over a hundred barrels of fruit preserved in alcohol�some sort of base product for all kinds of liqueurs. To be on the safe side, the first wave of the assaulting Red Army soldiers who had discovered this basement had filled the darkness with bursts from their automatic weapons before investigating its contents. A curious liquid began flowing from the perforated barrels. When subsequent echelons of attackers realized what was in the basement, the liquid was already ankle deep. Nevertheless, they feverishly filled all sorts of military-issue containers with the precious nectar.

# ¿ Sep 5, 2019 18:31

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

zoux posted:

I grew up as a non-denominational evangelical Christian, and one of the ideas of this particular flavor of Protestantism is that demons and angels are real, they look like common depictions of them, and they are all around us, unseen, protecting us and tempting us, and they are full on at war. The point is to add a militaristic aspect to one's faith, as though one is actually fighting demons when they make moral choices, so that's the mindset I was in when I was 8-13ish. This dude Frank Peretti wrote these books (Piercing the Darkness and this Present Darkness) where he described such a world, with major angels and demons doing full on battle unseen in our bedrooms as we struggle against jacking off, and it was just the most badass thing I'd ever read. It's given me a lifelong interest in wars against, between or otherwise involving the Host of heaven and hordes of the Pit, as well as a silly interest in things like angel hierarchies and ranks and purposes of demons. t

sidebar: do you know a good book that gives the history of how "vague biblical references" turned into elaborate, almost DnD esque typologies of angels and demons?

Also thank you ship friends for answering my Whale Prince questions, I think I get it now

HEY GUNS posted:

become orthodox lol

wait, are all these sick typologies orthodox? not fair

# ¿ Sep 6, 2019 02:02

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

Ensign Expendable posted:

What's so hellish about buying up whatever the US or UK write off?

Oh my friend, the cold war thread has such sights to show you :cenobite:

Phanatic posted:

Give the Jews more credit, there's plenty of that stuff in the mishneh torah and the Kabbala as well.

HEY GUNS posted:

no, the super detailed hair splitting typologies are medieval Catholic, they loved that poo poo

zoux should still become orthodox, and you should as well

Fair enough

Are there good books on this sorta Jewish/medieval catholic shenanigans?

Also do the orthodox have knightly orders, I figure that's the main advantage the Catholics have

# ¿ Sep 7, 2019 03:16

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

FrangibleCover posted:

With the notable exception of the CF-18 contract in the early 80s the Canadians have hosed up every single tactical aircraft procurement since the Clunk. All of them. Ask me about one and I'll tell you why it was the wrong choice.

C-17?

# ¿ Sep 7, 2019 12:44

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

ChubbyChecker posted:

The Clunk?

BEFORE the F-18 :smug:

So just outta curiosity, mr. cover, what's your opinion on the NSS?

# ¿ Sep 7, 2019 15:08

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

Reading Rockets and People, vol 1:

Our narrator is getting an eyeful of mittelwerk at Nordhousen. While the Americans were through in the looting of the place, they only took completed V-2s, leaving parts enough for 60 or so A4s. One thing Chertok notices: while everybody has an eye out for new technology, the Soviets are astonished by something the Western Allies completely ignored: how compared to the Soviets, the Germans had a staggering wealth of machine tools and precision instruments. When Chertok was in Berlin, he was particularly taken with the

quote:

Siemens four-mirror oscillograph. There we found various models: two-, four-, and six-mirror models. Without them, conducting research on rapidly occurring dynamic processes is impossible. This is a new epoch in the technology of measurements and engineering research. In Moscow, at NII-1 we had only one six-mirror oscillograph for the entire institute. And these Germans had so many!

Chertok was also impressed with something the west found rather mundane:

quote:

For us it was a novelty that the company List, which specialized only in the development and mass-production of multi-pin plug connectors, existed and flourished among the Germans. They had produced hundreds of thousands of connectors for German aircraft and rockets. The concept was very simple, but the engineering and production involved were fundamentally new to us.This innovation developed in response to the extreme complexity of the electrical circuits used in flying vehicles. The connectors enhanced rapid assembly and allowed electrical components to be connected and disconnected reliably during the repair and testing of individual compartments.

The very term shteker, or plug connector, made its way into the Russian language from the Germans after the war. Throughout history much has been transferred to the victors from the vanquished. Only after the war did we come to appreciate what a tremendous technical role such a seemingly simple device as the plug and socket connector was destined to play in aircraft and rocket technology! The Germans spent years developing reliable connectors, and introduced into aircraft and rocket technology the standard List shteker, which had from two to thirty pins.We needed three years to reproduce connectors that were as reliable. However, during our first years of mastering rocket technology they gave us a lot of trouble.

Now our industry produces connectors�both tiny and enormous, airtight, onboard and ground-based�to connect and remotely disconnect more than one hundred electric circuits. Despite all of these achievements, the problem of connector technology remains one of the most complex in the entire world.This is why there are booths at every international aerospace exhibition advertising hundreds of modifications of quick and reliable cable connectors. Dozens of powerful companies in many countries produce them by the millions.

At Mittelwerk, the Americans had taken all the specific Rocket test equipment - but had left behind state of the art manufacturing and machine tools. Also, regular executions took place with the interior industrial cranes, with up to 70 people at a time being hung for sabotage. And here's something unbelievable:

quote:

Much later�in early 1946 as I recall�a German artist came from Erfurt to speak to General Gaydukov, chief of the Institute Nordhausen. He brought a large collection of watercolors and pencil drawings depicting subterranean production activity at Mittelwerk. According to the artist, any photography or filming of the factory and the surrounding areas was forbidden on the threat of death. But the leaders of the A-4 program believed that a creation as great as Mittelwerk should somehow be immortalized.

They had sought out the professional artist and caricaturist, and with the help of the Gestapo, had brought him to the factory to draw the entire primary missile assembly process and do as many sketches as possible in color. He labored diligently, but at times he got so carried away that drawings appeared of prisoners being beaten, executions, and visits to the factory by high-ranking guests such as Ernst Kaltenbrunner himself. We looked intently at these drawings filled with doomed individuals in striped uniforms, among whom were certainly dozens of heroes whose names humankind will never know.

How did he manage to keep these pictures? �Very simply,� he explained. �A special officer of the Gestapo took some pictures from me. But he wasn�t interested in a lot of them. I was supposed to hand them over to the factory management, but I wasn�t able to�and now I would like to offer them as a gift to the Russian command.� General Gaydukov accepted this unexpected gift with gratitude.

Eventually the album of these pictures was sent to Moscow. But as to its whereabouts now, I do not know. Perhaps it is in some archives and someone willmanage to find them.

# ¿ Sep 9, 2019 13:24

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

Cyrano4747 posted:

That place is still a head gently caress and a half today. Worth a visit if you�re in the neighborhood.

Yeah, it's most definitely on my list. Just because I think the thread would like it, here's an adorable passage where Boris, badass rocket and electrical engineer, and his friend, similar, act like giddy children in a good quality hotel:

quote:

After a five-minute drive on a cobblestone road going up a hill, we got out of the car on a small square by the main entrance to a three-story villa. The massive doors�plate glass behind ornamental wrought-iron bars�would not give. The B�rgermeister ran off somewhere and brought back an elderly German woman�Frau Storch. �She was a maid here. She knows everything and is prepared to help you.� Frau Storch had the keys. We entered. But where was the German pilot? Suddenly we were almost run over by a little kid about five years old on a tiny bicycle. He turned out to be the pilot�s son. We learned that the villa had another half with a second entrance. Isayev was outraged that part of the residence was still occupied. Rosenpl�nter [German rocket engineer deemed too unimportant to be included in Operation Paperclip] rapidly muttered something. I announced that the house suited me and let Alfred unload our meager luggage.

The villa was magnificent. The first floor had a large drawing room. It was a library with bookcases made of dark wood. There were deep armchairs in front of an elaborate fireplace and a separate smoking room with ashtrays of varying sizes. Passing from the drawing room through heavy doors, we entered a fragrant garden. There were magnolias, roses, and a pool with a fountain, which for the time being was not functioning.

�Aleksey,� I said, �the fountain�that�s your bailiwick. Let�s get some rest and then you can fix the jet.� Isayev promised he would.

A marble staircase led from the vestibule to the second floor. Here there were four bedrooms, two bathrooms, and two half-baths equipped with various lavatory sanitary facilities�four toilets in all! The floors were covered with large carpets, and the walls were decorated with ornamental rugs and paintings of local landscapes and scenes of nature. Heavy red velvet curtains hung at the wide windows. We entered the largest bedroom.The bed was mahogany and designed to accommodate, as we determined, four. It had snow-white featherbeds instead of blankets. And the ceiling! The ceiling was a mirror. Lying blissfully in bed you could admire yourself in the mirror. Isayev could not contain himself. He threw back the featherbed and plopped onto the bed, sinking just as he was, in dusty boots and full uniform, into the froth of feathery-white bedding. With a leisurely attitude, he pulled out a soft pack of his favorite Byelomorye cigarettes, which were in short supply here, and lit up.

�You know, Boris, it�s really not all that bad in this �fascist beast�s den of iniquity.��

At that moment, alarmed by our long absence, Rosenpl�nter appeared, accompanied by Frau Storch and the B�rgermeister. Finding Isayev in the bed, they were completely dismayed. �Is Herr Officer very ill? Should we bring a doctor?� We calmed them down and announced that we would take the villa. We asked only that the other half be made available. �We are going to have a lot of guests!�

�Jawohl!� was the response, to which we had already become accustomed. The third floor turned out to be a mansard; Frau Storch said that sometimes the maid or guests spent the night there.

We asked, �Why isn�t there any hot water?�

�Oh, for that you need to go down into the basement and heat up the boiler.�

Isayev could not restrain himself. �Come on, let�s go light it now.�

In the basement there was a large bunker filled with coal. We heated up the boiler and each of us luxuriated in a separate bathroom. Next,wrapped up in fluffy bathrobes (where did they get this stuff?!), we went down into the library and celebrated our new digs over an improvised lunch.

Nebakenezzer fucked around with this message at 20:04 on Sep 9, 2019

# ¿ Sep 9, 2019 18:57

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

HEY GUNS posted:

this reminds me of "why didn't the Ottomans take advantage of the Thirty Years War to just steamroll northwest" and the answer is the same--they had their own problems at the time.

Was it just locking up potential sultans in the dark house

I know as you study more you get a very real sense of what you don't know, but I feel like the very end of the Ottomans, making furniture related jokes,, and "they be these guys who had their poo poo together for a long time" I feel like I know nothing about them

# ¿ Sep 13, 2019 02:05

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

FrangibleCover posted:

Also in 1941 the Swordfish was obsolete as a dive bomber, obsolescent as a torpedo bomber and state of the art as a carrier anti-submarine aircraft all at the same time. That's where they really excelled, lifting significant loads from short decks and keeping them aloft for extended periods.

The Swordfish's career was extremely odd. It had as you said excellent flying characteristics, and because Germany didn't field carrier based aircraft, it really took the pressure off for finding a replacement. This lasted until a squadron of attacking swordfish was annihiliated trying to attack the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau as they did their channel dash. (The Swordfish were supposed to have air cover, but the whole counter by the British was a gong show mistakes and bad communication.)

This probably would have been the end of the Swordfish, but a new area opened up that they were extremely good at. Escort carriers could use the Swordfish's excellent flying characteristics, and continued as ASW aircraft for the rest of the war, even getting radar.

Rockets and People: Hunting for Traesure

So Chertok has set up a missile and rocket institute in that amazing luxury house, and are attempting to secure as much intel and personel as they can. When they first arrived in the Nordhausen area, the team heard a rumor that an old forest cabin had valuble machinery or something stashed in it. They'd been unable to find the cabin, but pieced together it'd been a hunting lodge for Nazi bigwigs, who lost their taste for hunting in the war's last year. Now, a SMERSH officer has put them back on the trail....

quote:

The Smersh officer continued, �I think that the Americans visited these areas, but did they find everything? I won�t be able to help you.We�re being transferred to the east.They�re about to begin the demobilization and reduction of Smersh. According to our information, the last vestiges of Vlasov�s men are hiding somewhere in these forests. They are considerably more dangerous than the German Nazis. If you go looking for the �forester�s cabin,� I�d advise you to arrange an armed escort with the commandant�s office or the Seventy-fifth division. Just in case.�

�Are you sure,� I asked, pointing to the map,�that the alleged secret cabin is in our zone and not the American zone?�

�I can�t say for sure.They still haven�t laid a precise border over the hilly, forested terrain. Our border guards and the Americans are posted on the roads, but there are no checkpoints, barriers, or soldiers in the forest.�

That very same day at the Villa Franka I convened an improvised �military council� to develop a plan to uncover the secret of the �forester�s cabin.� Isayev was certain that there would be nothing there to do with engine technology� everything that the Germans had in that field he had already studied at the Walter company in Basdorf, and now it was time to settle down in Lehesten.Therefore, he had no intention of wasting a day on some mythical �forester�s cabin� with the added risk of ending up in the American zone. But the others supported me, and we formed a two-car expedition. The division command allocated a Jeep and driver, an �unemployed� combat intelligence officer, and a soldier with an automatic weapon�just in case.Accompanying me in my Mercedes was my German guide, whom the military commandant and B�rgermeister had recommended, and engine specialist Ivan Raykov, who joined us despite Isayev�s objection.

�One automatic weapon and three pistols is quite sufficient to defend ourselves against an attack of wild boars,� I commented.

We left early in the morning. Soon thereafter, on the gravel road that dodged around the forested hills, I was no longer able to orient myself using the map and had to completely trust the guide.After about an hour of driving that was difficult for the Mercedes, Alfred hinted that the motor was overheating and said we might not have enough gas for the return trip in these road conditions. As if in response to his apprehension, having ascended to the top of the next hill, we came out of the dark forest into a sunny clearing.The road ended at the open gates of a small country estate, in the middle of which stood a small two-story house with a double-gabled, red tile roof. Along the edges of the clearing stood haystacks and mangers for the forest animals. (Side note, WTF.) Everything appeared to be well-kept. But the most unexpected sight was the Jeep parked in front of the house.

The division intelligence officer yelled out,�Turn the cars around! Drivers, stay in the cars! All others stay by the vehicles.� He turned to the soldier with the automatic weapon,�Petro! Cover me in case something happens. I�ll go alone first to investigate.�

Evidently having seen or heard our procession, an elderly woman came out of the house. She was waving her arms very aggressively, making it clear to us that we were to beat it. Summoning every shred of my knowledge of German, I emerged from where I had taken cover and tried to communicate with her.

�This is a nature preserve,� she yelled. �You are scaring the animals. The American soldiers came here and went off into the forest to hunt. They took away my husband�s car. He walked to Nordhausen two days ago to ask for help. Now you�ve come to hunt too, and we are going hungry�but we never shoot the wild animals!�

The Jeep had a military license plate and the stars and stripes marking.How did it get here? we thought, through our zone?

As if in response to our musings, a burst of automatic fire resounded in the forest followed by several single shots.We lit up cigarettes and decided to wait for the hunters.

Soon thereafter, four Americans emerged from the forest. We couldn�t figure out what their military ranks were. They were carrying a roe deer by the legs and dragging the carcass of a wild boar along the ground.When they saw us, the Americans were not embarrassed, but greeted us gregariously. In Russian-German-English, but primarily pointing with our finger at the map, we showed them that this was our zone and they didn�t have the right to kill animals here. In response the Americans guffawed, slapped us on the back, and offered us the pick of the roe deer or the wild boar. After loading their booty, the Americans departed rolling down the road that went over the other side of the hill. We understood then that we were located somewhere on the border.

I attempted for some time to explain the objective of our visit to the distraught proprietress. After we had handed over our entire supply of cigarettes �for her husband,� she led us to the barn, moved aside a pile of some sort of brooms, and pointed to a trapdoor in the wooden floor. In the dry cellar we discovered what was clearly well-packed electrical equipment.We couldn�t make it out in the darkness. The next day, a team that included German specialists�without an automatic weapon-wielding soldier but with a wealth of rations�brought the precious cargo Special Incidents 311 from the �forester�s cabin.� It turned out to be two sets of relay boxes and control panels intended for pre-launch tests and the launching of V-2 missiles. I managed to find the Smersh officer who hadn�t yet left Nordhausen and thanked him for steering us to the cabin. He said that we had been marvelously lucky. Subsequent clarification had shown that the �forester�s cabin�was considered part of the American zone.

# ¿ Sep 15, 2019 14:53

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

Siivola posted:

Nature preserves maintain feeding spots for animals so that more animals make it through the winter.

Ah. Is this just for hunting preserves or is it more common?

# ¿ Sep 15, 2019 15:18

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

Rockets and People, Vol. 1:

Now that work on digesting Nazi rocket knowledge has started, a traffic accident badly injures the military head of the ad-hoc rocket organization, General Kuznetsov. (This might be the Kuznetsov that gets his own engine design bureau later, not quite sure.) His replacement, General Gaydukov, grasps the potential of rocketry, and starts lobbying Moscow intensely for more resources. [This is something our narrator is greatful for, since his wife is in Moscow scrounging for firewood and fixing their burned out hotplate for the millionth time, and he thinks he might need leave to go back to her.] This campaign caps with the incredibly brave move of going over Lavrentiy Beria's head and talking to stalin directly about 1) getting rocket/missile research a proper seat in the Soviet structure, and 2) maybe releasing all those imprisoned rocket scientists? Stalin agrees to both, and tells General Gaydukov to talk to the People's ministries to see who Gaydukov wants to attach himself to.

The three ministries are aircraft, munitions, and artillery. Aircraft is the best technical fit - but is now enormously busy upgrading the Soviet air force, and is in no mood to take on yet more engineering challenges that Stalin might just gulag you for if something goes wrong. This refusal set up a rivalry between missiles and aircraft that would persist till ICBMs were perfected.The Munitions Ministry was similar; normally they'd be more interested, but are now in the middle of atomic bomb research and construction, which is mos def something that people will be gulag'd for if there are delays. The artillery ministry was in theory the least attractive of the ministries, mainly because making cannons is pretty goddamn far away from missiles. [Note: if you are thinking 'what about the Katushya' that was produced and operated in an entirely separate structure from artillery]. But, they had the political interest: artillery had plateaued in terms of technology, and the new rocket and missile field promised new prestige. What's more, artillery had started doing RnD on technologies nearness for rockets and missiles: namely starting its own SAM program, and developing AAA guided by radar. So rockets and missiles got themselves a patron.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2019 15:11

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

Ensign Expendable posted:

Artillery was handled by the GAU, which was a directorate, same as the GABTU. The separate People's Commissariats/Ministries were for Armament and Ammunition. Armament would deal with production of all guns, tank or towed.

This did result in a lot of spats between everyone when something like an SPG was produced. Sometimes the GAU would approve something but the GABTU would reject it and vice versa.

quote:

One way or another, Gaydukov had received instructions directly from Stalin to meet with the People�s Commissars. There were three choices: Shakhurin,
People�s Commissar of the Aircraft Industry; Vannikov, People�s Commissar of Ammunition and director of the First Main Directorate which was in charge of the atomic problem; and Ustinov, People�s Commissar of Armaments.

So Chertok mentions that the Commissariates were going to be transformed to ministries post war. Now I know zero about Soviet government structure. What's the difference between a Commissariat, a Ministry, and a directorate?

In my mind, I just thought "in order to administer and get resources effectively, you need to be under one of the industrial patrons."

JcDent posted:

So who was making and operating Katyushas?

Katyushas had been developed pre-WW2, by the rocket scientists that were all thrown in the Gulag around 1937. During WW2, Katyushas were not part of individual divisions, but were directly under what I'm assuming is the Soviet joint chiefs. I'm not sure why the Soviets did this; maybe even the Katyushas had a lot to know to operate properly, and they didn't want Red Army commanders treating it like any personel pool?

The 20th USAAF Air Force, the guys who flew B-29s against Japan, had a similar structure: they were not under theater commanders MacArthur or Nimitz, but answered to the Joint Chiefs. This was so the B-29 could concentrate on strategic bombing of Japan - it seems like they were hoping to finally prove the strategic bombing thesis.

# ¿ Sep 17, 2019 14:07

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

Phanatic posted:

Is there hard evidence of the Soviets dropping cluster munitions disguised to look like toys during the Afghanistan invasion? Or is it a case of kids being curious and getting maimed by UXO and the story growing with each telling?

Hm. Good question. I remember reading a Reader's digest article (SHUT UP, I was 14) where one air-spread mine was a box with wings, so sorta toy-like.

# ¿ Sep 17, 2019 16:26

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

RocknRollaAyatollah posted:

Especially those piloting the single occupant submarines, the Neger and Biber, and even more so for those who were test candidates for D-IX. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-IX

quote:

Though simpler drugs such as Pervitin [link: methamphetamine] and Isophan [link: methamphetamine] helped to keep soldiers properly stimulated

# ¿ Sep 19, 2019 18:07

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

JcDent posted:

I hope the site is good because I'm bookmarking it!

Cool, what site is this?

KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:

the correct ratio was something like 3:1 guys with RPGs vs guys with rifles

I feel like this is a rare time where reality and video games agree

# ¿ Sep 23, 2019 18:36

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

This weekend on Steam, the Total War franchise is on sale.

# ¿ Sep 27, 2019 11:49

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

FrangibleCover posted:

And XB-70 went faster and higher than anything else again, necessitating the development of the MiG-25. Given how the Blackbirds did against MiG-25 interceptions I think even they wouldn't provide a full solution. In the end the fast, high bomber was killed by the surface to air missile, because you can have more SAMs than fighters per dollar so you can spread them around better. People say it was about altitude, but you can stand a 60s jet interceptor on its tail and get up to 60000ft no bother. The issue is having the jet interceptor in the right place at the right time.

I'd add to this that developing a missile to intercept the XB-70 would have been an order of magnitude less costly than developing the XB-70. Engineering and economics favored the missiles, not the bombers.

Also in the 1980s, MiG-31s ran regular successful interceptions of SR-71s spying from international airspace. Thanks to composite parts, the MiG-31 could accelerate to mach 2.8. This allowed them to be in a position to launch their Mach 4 missiles at the Mach 3.2 Blackbird.

Question for Cyrano especially, but anybody who knows the cold war Soviet Union is welcome. Have you read anything about the Soviets post-war fishing fleets? I'm reading about it right now, and it is *crazy* in several ways.

# ¿ Sep 27, 2019 17:29

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

Milo and POTUS posted:

Where you reading this

Got a book called "Cod: the Ecological History of the North Atlantic Fisheries."

The Soviets post war went huge - enormous - into a high seas fishing fleet. So much so that they were building ships in West German shipyards to take advantage of it. They also apparently surreptitiously stole the British design for what would become the modern factory trawler, the Fairtry I. (Dragged a net from the rear instead of the side, massive refrigeration facilities.) By 1965, Soviets had 106 factory trawlers, 30 mother ships (not really sure, maybe larger storage/resupply ships) and 425 side trawlers. This fleet was catching 900,000 tons of fish per year in foreign waters, usually till the entire region's ecology collapsed.

The Soviets were the biggest, but most of Europe was doing the same thing, subsidizing the construction of vast fishing fleets that would wander the oceans taking whatever they could get. Iceland acting unilaterally to protect its own fishing grounds was the right move, because between around 1955 to 1970 there was basically no rules at all for fishing beyond four miles from a nation's coastline.

Nebakenezzer fucked around with this message at 20:11 on Sep 27, 2019

# ¿ Sep 27, 2019 20:09

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

BalloonFish posted:

That is interesting - I had no idea the Soviet fishing fleet was so big. I'm aware this is a big gap in my own knowledge (among many...) but I never think of the USSR as a major civil maritime power. But I've just looked it up and the Soviet Union was building a million tons of merchant shipping a year in the 50s and 60s, and by the 1970s they had the sixth largest merchant fleet in the world

Does your source have anything about what proportion of these trawlers were packed with ELINT gear, trailed sonar/hydrophone arrays from their 'trawling gear' and spent a curiously large amount of time 'fishing' in the bits of the GIUK Gap and Western Approaches which NATO subs used to get in and out of the Clyde?

A good question. The book makes clear that unlike Newfoundland/Canada, the USSR was *very* into maritime research, both biology and physical, and were doing bathymetric surveys around Canada (say, Baffin Island) that Canada couldn't be bothered to do. It also mentions that the Soviet fishing fleet was so big off the Grand Banks that they occasionally had "spotter ships" that did nothing aside from use sensors to find fish. This is a rambly way to say I'm not exactly sure, but it seems like there was enough ships that the ELINT trawlers could farm out more mundane surveillance and survey to ostensibly civilian ships.

Also hilariously the one nation they never hosed with was Iceland, as they were ornery from the start

Also also would it be bad form to ask why precisely the USSR needed that much merchant marine

HEY GUNS posted:

My dude, I had no idea.

once again, holy gently caress

# ¿ Sep 27, 2019 22:46

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

Geisladisk posted:

I doubt even the most ardent tankie would disagree with "the USSR's planned economy did dumb things sometimes". They'd disagree about how often "sometimes" is, but I'm pretty sure everyone agrees this is one of those times.

You'd be surprised

If you believe Marxism is literally infallible and perfect, literally any flaws refute this belief, and thus must be dismissed or denied

# ¿ Sep 28, 2019 13:13

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

bewbies posted:

man, the PRC is doing a LOT of the same kinds of stuff with their fishing fleet and "maritime militia" right now.

It's fortunate that people's views of this has changed. Now fishing grounds out to the continental shelf are recognized as territory for nations. And all it took was 20-30 years of stripmining the oceans :smith:

# ¿ Sep 28, 2019 15:07

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

Timmy Age 6 posted:

Fisheries management is just a long history of sadness, failure, and depression. I saw a talk this past spring about a study that surveyed captains in Gloucester, Massachusetts (historically one of the biggest fishing ports), and basically everyone there has clinical PTSD as a consequence of trying to figure out what to do now that the bottom has dropped out of so many fisheries. It's really grim right now, and it certainly doesn't look like improvements are likely in the near term.

Clinical PTSD or depression? I totes get the latter, but am slightly confused by the former.

I've been talking with a friend (his dad was a Fisherman) and between that and seeing the whole sordid 90s fishery collapse through the local newspaper, I realized I knew basically nothing about it. I have that fishing as an industry in Newfoundland is done, and a major part of why is not so much there is nothing to fish, it's that the capital-intensive fishing of modern trawlers is too efficient? It costs like $2 million for a modern trawler, and to afford the payments you have to be fishing one thing or another constantly. But more than like one person in Atlantic Canada doing that soon means the stock has to be protected it declines so dramatically. Then you move on to the [next species] and the pattern repeats. So this book is giving me some facts at least to base my half-assed guesses on.

GreyjoyBastard posted:

most of the reason Somalian piracy is such a thing is that foreign fishing devastated their waters and now you had a bunch of highly experienced sailors with boats and no way to make a livelihood

Yeah, the initial UN laws of the sea were, dare I say it, written for nations to stripmine (need a new word here) fish stocks that were not being "fully exploited" by nations poorer in capital. The protection of stocks today has to be based on what biology inhabits the national region, regardless of distance to a given shore. And that's not going to be sufficient ultimately to protect the Ocean's ecosystem, since some biology ranges over the world.

milhist question for the inclined: If Arthur Whitten Brown was part of 3rd (Special Reserve) Battalion of the Manchester Regiment in 1915, can anything be usefully inferred from that?

# ¿ Sep 28, 2019 18:00

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

FrangibleCover posted:

Yeah, I thought his first name was Alcockand.

Very forgivable

I'm curious about Brown's army record simply because for all I know he was in a rear echelon engineering unit all the time, but the 1st Manchester saw some poo poo when Brown was attached. Like Brown shows up in France just in time to be a part of the 2nd battle of Ypers.

# ¿ Sep 28, 2019 21:08

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

Arquinsiel posted:

Wikipedia says after that he got shot down a few times, so he clearly wasn't in an engineering unit all the time.

Yeah, just in time to avoid the Battle of the Somme Brown either volunteers or is sent to the RFC, as an observer. It's here he gets hooked into air navigation as a subject, as at the time air navigation was done entirely by guessing and visuals. He gets shot down twice too, in the 5-6 months he was flying.

# ¿ Sep 29, 2019 16:50

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

Rockets and people, Vol. 2

At the end of volume one, Korolev and Glushko [note: future famous Soviet rocket scientists] have made appearances in Germany. Our narrator, Boris Chertok, actually interviews Korolev not knowing really who the hell he is. It turns out that when somebody gets denounced and gulag'd, you first create an itemized list of all the bad things they are or have ever done, and then you burn that list in the fire of forgetfulness like that person never existed. Chertok gets the impression quickly that Korolev *really* knows his poo poo, as he seems to be judging how effective the entire Soviet rocket RnD efforts have been so far from just a few questions Korolev asks Chertok. Korolev also, Chertok mentions later, is giddy with freedom, and I can understand why. He's spent near a decade in the Gulags, and now, not only is he free, he's been given authority with the rank of a engineer colonel money, sent to Germany, and now he's driving his own goddamn car?! Chertok mentions that Korolev loved driving as it was very much an expression of "I'm free bitches!" that he had going on at his release.

Glushko Chertok knew, at least by reputation. He had learned that in his rocket interceptor work, Glushko had set up a prison design bureau for rockets. He had also read one of Glushko's books. When a person gets gulag'd, all of their work is destroyed in public, while only the security services retained whatever copies were left. Though random coincidence, Chertok bought the book Glushko wrote in the late 1930s, only learning later in WW2 that this book was rare and dangerous to have. (Chertok was dreaming of some sort of applied electricity plasma rocket at the time.)

Korolev also attended the British test shot of a captured V-2, disguised as an artillery captain.

quote:

All the members of our delegation, except for Korolev, had been sent to Cuxhaven with the ranks that had been conferred on them. But Korolev, on instructions from Moscow, had been ordered to change into a captain�s uniform with artillery shoulder boards and �cannons.� Apropos of this, Pobedonostsev said that �this artillery captain� provoked considerably more interest among the British intelligence officers who were watching our delegation than General Sokolov, Colonel Pobedonostsev, and the other high-ranking officers. One of the Brits, who spoke excellent Russian, asked Korolev straight out what he did. In accordance with his instructions and his cover story Sergey Pavlovich responded,�You can see that I am an artillery captain.� The Brit remarked, �Your forehead is too high for an artillery captain.What�s more, you clearly weren�t at the front judging by your lack of medals.�Yes, for our intelligence services this disguise was a resounding failure.

The launches at Cuxhaven took place without a hitch. Filling us in on the details, Korolev commented ironically about the complete helplessness of the Brits, who themselves had not participated in the launch preparations at all, being entirely dependent on the German team. It had been impossible to determine the missile trajectories because it was overcast. But the launch made an impression. These missiles were, of course, a far cry from the GIRD rockets that Korolev had
launched with Tikhonravov twelve years previously.

Also note that the Soviet test firing staff working around Mittelwerk and Nordhausen always served visiting VIPs "rocket fuel", IE shots of the ethanol-water mix that was the fuel. The testers managed to boost the A4's engine output by tweaking the engine and the turbopumps, managed to take the 33 tons thrust to 35 tons.

We also get a hint of what may be termed a personality flaw on the part of Glushko:

quote:

Two officers entered my office. I immediately recognized the colonel�it was Valentin Petrovich Glushko. The other officer, a lieutenant colonel, introduced himself simply as List. Both wore high quality uniform jackets, well-pressed trousers rather than tunics, jodhpurs, and boots. Glushko smiled slightly and said, �Well, it seems you and I have already met.� Evidently he remembered our meeting in Khimki. Nikolay Pilyugin dropped in and I introduced him as the institute�s chief engineer. I proposed that we all sit down and drink some tea or �something a bit stronger.� But Glushko, without sitting down, apologized and said that he needed emergency automobile assistance. �We were driving from Nordhausen and our car was pulling badly and smoking severely. We were suffocating from the smoke inside.They say that you have some good repair specialists.�

Nikolay Pilyugin went up to the window and announced, �Yes, it�s still smoking. Did you turn the motor off?�

Suddenly in a calm, quiet voice List began to speak. He removed his service cap, revealing a shock of completely gray hair, and sank demonstratively into the armchair.

�Don�t worry.The brake pads of the handbrake are burning out. We drove from Nordhausen with the handbrake engaged.�

Pilyugin and I were flabbergasted.

�Why didn�t you release it?�

�You see, Valentin Petrovich stipulated that if he was at the wheel, I was not to dare suggest anything to him.�

Later we found out that before his arrest in 1938, Grigoriy Nikolayevich List had been the deputy chief designer at the I.V. Stalin Automobile Factory (ZIS) In terms of outward appearance, his manner of speaking and holding himself, List was a typical old generation intellectual. Nevertheless, he understood automobiles in all their subtleties and drove them beautifully. He drove the car from Berlin to Nordhausen. But in Nordhausen, Glushko demanded that the wheel be turned over to him. And this was the result.

Pilyugin and I didn�t know whether to laugh out loud or to sympathize. But there was not a trace of indignation or surprise on Glushko�s face. He too sank calmly into his armchair, pulled out a pristine handkerchief, and wiped off his forehead.

I called our repairs department, and after explaining the situation, requested that they quickly replace the Olympia�s handbrake.And that was our first meeting with Glushko at the Institute RABE in Germany.

One of the most important things built in Germany for future Soviet Rocketry was a train. The Nazis had been designing and building a V-2 Launch train, with all the facilities needed to launch a V-2, along with accommodations for the crew. The Soviets completed this, realizing this would be handy as hell to have at their future test range. Then, a VIP demands a copy of the first train be constructed, and this was done. These two trains were used for many years afterward, basically the home base for Soviet rocket science when out on their vast test range at Kapustin Yar.

At the end of Volume One, no less than Korolev gives his opinion as to what the Soviets gained the most from German Rocketry. Stuff, yes, but according to him the most valuable thing gotten out of it was the identifying and concentrating of the people who'd go on to be key in the Soviet rocket industry.

Vol. 2

Our narrator and comrades have managed to launch a few V-2s at Kapustin Yar on the Russian Steppe, along the way inventing a new term: bobik, which basically means software bug, except a bobik is a several hour delay caused by electronic fuckups.

The new launches are thrilling, but reveal something badly wrong with the V-2's guidance system. Fortunately, they have with them Germans (who get their own railcar on the science train) in particular two scientists who worked on the V-2's guidance. They break out a test table and a guidance system, and soon find the problem: vibration is causing electrical noise between the gyroscope signal and the "amplifier-converter" that took the signal and translated it into action. The noise was blotting out the control signal. On the spot, in the lab car, the German scientists fabricated a line filter to let the control signal through and block the noise, which works in the next shot. This was apparently a problem never fixed on German A4s, which I think is a sign of how hard the Germans locked down the design once Heinrich Himmiler thought they had it.

The German railcar personnel are lavishly rewarded with a prize of 15,000 rubels for each man and a jerry can of pure ethanol. (The Germans shared the alcohol with the Soviets as I think we can all agree a jerry can of pure alcohol is too much even for a railcar's worth of men.)

Nebakenezzer fucked around with this message at 18:08 on Sep 29, 2019

# ¿ Sep 29, 2019 18:05

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

Polyakov posted:

Iran would board US ships and attack neutral tankers in the gulf, they would then arm the Mujahidin in Afghanistan to fight the Soviets and intensify their calls for the southern SSR muslims to rise up, they would blow up the US and French barracks in Beirut and conduct bombings in France proper and had a nasty habit of shooting their exiles on the streets of European cities and their proxies would kidnap people from all nations in Lebanon. The only people they didnt aggrevate really were Israel, China and North Korea who would supply them largely to spite other people, Iraq and the USSR respectively. They approached diplomacy with a hammer in every situation. There are reasons they behaved in this way, it wasn't neccesarily completely irrational. Iran had a foreign policy that was incapable of being consistent, you had the moderates in Tehran trying to gracefully manuever their way into Moscows good graces, or to gently thaw with America, then the Revolutionary guards would come out with their big honking clown car and gently caress it up by blowing something up because they were essentially a law unto themselves and were very dedicated revolutionaries.

Nobody really liked Saddam, its just that he was generally the person least likely to set the Persian Gulf on fire, he was a murderous dictator but he was far more predictable. He also had the bankroll of not only Iraq to spend but also the gulf states who were granting him significant loans to keep the Persian menace at bay.

I have two questions for you.

First, was trench warfare in the Iran-Iraq war as First World War Miserable as I picture anytime I hear the term? Obviously everybody has radios and tanks, but I'm still picturing the Iranians trudging across no-man's land straight into the teeth of prepared defenses.

Second, have you heard of the Arrow Air Crash? In December 1985 the worst aircrash in Canadian and USAF history happened in my hometown. The victems (aside from the aircrew and two secret squirrel types) were men of the 101st airborne, who'd been in Sinai on a peacekeeping mission. The resulting total lack of curiosity by America as to what happened and a completely incompetent/ordered to produce a result crash investigation made people suspect a cover up...which was mos def warranted. The Arrow charter company was a CIA front out of Florida, who were frequently used in Iran-Contra arms deliveries. In fact, it's likely that the aircraft took on a load of Iran-bound ordnance - likely missiles - while on a stopover in Cairo. Anyway, sabotage of a CIA charter carrying American soldiers home for Christmas does sound like something the Revolutionary Guard would do on their own.

# ¿ Oct 2, 2019 16:35

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

Polyakov posted:

As far as i am aware the only evidence of the Arrow air crash being anything other than bad luck was a Shia group claiming responsibility for it at the time. I think that were there any evidence of that being the case it would have come to light by now. Its certianly something that the IRGC might do if they had the chance, but i dont really see how they would have done.

Somebody did take responsibility, I'll look it up after work.

As for evidence, unlike the US where the FAA keeps the aircraft wreckage forever, it was policy at the time with CASB to destroy wreckage once the "investigation" was done. It was wasn't policy, but they also removed the top six inches of topsoil where the wreck was. There's eyewitness testimony consistent with sabotage/an explosion, but eyewitnesses are not super reliable, though I guess if you believe them, you are onboard with the sabotage theory. There was a lot of work done discrediting the offical conclusion: basically the only thing the investigation managed to prove was that its conclusion was wrong. This was later vindicated by a second investigation by a Supreme Court Justice, who also said there was not enough hard evidence to justify the minority finding of sabotage. That supreme court justice also has his house searched by the RCMP for reasons that are now sealed until everybody ITT is dead.

There's also the bizarre behavior of American authorities, who for some reason were ordered to do nothing in the investigation (like the behavior of the explosive experts) when the Lockerbie bombing a few years later saw the FBI all over that poo poo, even though the UK at the time had Scotland Yard and quite a few years in bomb investigation. The noise kicked up by the relations of the dead in the crash actually got a senate investigation, where the Senate opened, dunked on Canada for its terrible crash investigation, and then after lunch closed the investigation. So, there were lots of people who were very industrious in not looking for evidence.

Best actual evidence: the Doctor who did the autopsies at the US airbase where the remains ended up [Dover? Same place the Challenger astronaut bodies were taken to] testified in the inquiry that people in the front fourth of the aircraft aspirated toxic gas consistent with an onboard fire. This fire apparently originated in the cockpit, as both the pilot and copilot had already absorbed lethal amounts of this gas by the time the airliner hit the ground in its flight of less than a minute. We might have learned more, but after this the doctor was apparently forbidden from testifying further.

e: I hope you don't mind me yammering on about this, but it occurred to me a short time ago learning about Iran-Contra etc might be helpful in maybe finding better evidence to support my theory that Reagan heard about the accident, panicked, and asked his BFF PM Mulroney to cover it up

Nebakenezzer fucked around with this message at 19:37 on Oct 2, 2019

# ¿ Oct 2, 2019 19:34

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

HEY GUNS posted:

i will hear nothing against my plan to repopulate greenland, iceland, the maritimes, and northeast canada with walruses, good sir

Sable Island will once again be walrus-y

# ¿ Oct 4, 2019 15:34

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

Mr Enderby posted:

Their pioneering commitment to the open practice of free love was too much for even the French, and King Phillip had the order abolished.

I sort of love the idea that the real reason the Knights Templar were brought down is that European kingdoms thought they were acting "a little gay"

# ¿ Oct 8, 2019 15:34

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

A fantastic post!! I've a few small questions.

First, I read an account (possibly through you, possibly on Wikipedia) that at some point the Iraqis started attacking Karg Island with their bombers, which lead to the Iranians using their F-14s and Phoenix missiles to shoot them down? I just ask because if so, this, weirdly, is the only time the Phoenix was used operationally.

Second, Tu-22 bombers in Iraq. Were they actually operational? I remember in the Libyan-Chad conflict Libyan Tu-22s had to be operated and maintained by Soviet personnel as the honkies were nightmares to keep flying.

A comment more than a question: Canada around the time of the Iranian Revolution was in the middle of choosing a new fighter jet. At one point, Canada was toying with the idea of buying Iran's F-14A fleet. The Iranians were initially interested, but walked away when it was learned the covert extraction of a bunch of Iranian hostages was done with Canadian help. Probably for the best. While the F-14 was the last of the red-hot western interceptors, they were also maintenance pigs, and the A type had that lovely engine.

Another Comment: that "shootdown" of a cargo aircraft bordering with the USSR I know a bit about thanks to another odd Canadian connection. The aircraft was a CL-44 Yukon, a Canadair modification of the Bristol Britannia. The cargo version had a hinged tail section, with the entire tail swinging aside so cargo could be loaded faster. The RCAF divested themselves of the type in the early 1970s, and these aircraft in particular would have vibrant second careers as dodgy cargo haulers, as in the 1970s, the CL-44 was just about the biggest/most powerful aircraft on the used cargo market. The one that was intercepted was Argentine, with three Argentinians and one Briton as the crew. The interceptor was a Su-15, and the wiki says it "deliberately rammed" the CL-44, but I expect that's communist spin on one of their interceptors messing up and actually colliding with their target. The Soviet pilot ejected and survived.

Polyakov posted:

In reference to the idea of the IRGC blowing up the Canadian airliner that was raised, I don�t buy it because there really isn�t a reason for it to happen in 1985, Iran are desperate for weapons, the US seems to be delivering on them, albeit sporadically, and their chosen method of pressure is taking hostages in Lebanon which is proven to work, why would they risk their one real lifeline to perform this act? Potentially it was carried out by the IRGC as a rogue op, but it would be their largest one to date, and they tend to get found out after the fact because they aren�t terribly subtle. Egypt isn�t exactly prime stomping grounds for them in the 80�s and it would require significant penetration of the apparatus there to get away clean. We know so much about the inner workings of the US government in that era owing to extensive congressional investigations, despite Norths desperate shredding, that I cannot imagine such a cover up could be conducted without some reference to it appearing and being pursued.

Yeah, if there's one takeaway from your latest, it is that the timing, at least for Iran, doesn't really make sense? I don't have the book with me, but I think the Islamic Jihad Organization did take credit for the Arrow disaster; I've no idea how credible such calls are, and the wiki at least makes clear that it was a group make specifically to do dirty stuff so Hezbollah wouldn't get the blame. Not *too* familiar in this area, but I'm pretty sure organizations like that are not huge into meticulous record keeping.

# ¿ Oct 9, 2019 18:05

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

My take was that North Americans in WW2 saw the world going absolutely nuts, and had no idea what could happen. Lots of talk and prep went into protecting the eastern Seaboard, Canada and the US, from air attack, even though the military could have told them this was at best a remote risk. Hindsight's 20/20 of course, but it was more a statement of how weird the world had gotten. If you look through Life Magazine just after Pearl Harbor, some of the speculative stories are just lovely. One of them speculates on the interior of Australia becoming a crucible for tank warfare between the Japanese and the Allies; another has plans for guerrilla warfare in Oregon if the Japanese invaded Alaska, then pushed down through BC into the US.

# ¿ Oct 11, 2019 02:53

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

bewbies posted:

I love the hot take that random American guy in 1941 should have known that the Japanese actually didn't have the logistical backbone to support an invasion of the West coast

that of course begs the question why did the Japanese start the war in the first place when the end was going to be them getting nuked? idiots

fair

Life Magazine story: so in the buildup to Barbarossa, the experts were trying to predict the German's next move now that they were not invading Britain. All the smart money was on an invasion of Turkey, so the Germans could capture Iraq, Syria, and the rest of the mideast, so they could secure enough oil.

FuturePastNow posted:

Every week there's news and for a year or so, every week that news was bad. Even if you're across the ocean from that news, that's still traumatic. And then, one day, you wake up and the US Pacific fleet has been annihilated.

Another Life Magazine story: in the runup to Pearl Harbor, the magazine was really hyping up the Philippines, and its mega general MacArthur. The stories freely predict that if the Philippines fell, the war would last at least a decade

and then it falls

# ¿ Oct 11, 2019 13:11

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# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 20:28

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

Randomcheese3 posted:

This isn't quite right; the British had experimented with multi-carrier tactics in the late 1920s and early 1930s, and generally planned to keep their carriers together in a fleet action. This was used in action early in the war - Ark Royal and Glorious operated together during the Norwegian campaign, for example. However, due to a scarcity of carriers (exacerbated by the early losses of Courageous and Glorious) compared to the amount of tasks that required a carrier, the RN rarely got to concentrate their carriers until 1942-3. The Japanese only really adopted massed carrier groups from late 1940, as the IJN digested and interpreted the lessons of the Sino-Japanese war.

This isn't to say that the British had everything right about the use of carriers. The main reason for the British use of massed carriers wasn't to deploy massed carrier strikes, as the IJN planned. Instead, it was a defensive measure, with British carriers operating together in the early war not effectively coordinating their strikes. The RN, in planning its air defence tactics, followed the RAF's assumption that 'the bomber will always get through', that fighters would not be able to locate and catch attacking aircraft before they made their attacks. Guns would have to be used to break up attacks by enemy aircraft. This was most effective when the guns were massed, so the carriers were massed. They were also kept close to the battleships, which could add their firepower to the defence. Such an arrangement also made defence against submarine attack easier. However, it made it harder for the carriers to make frequent manoeuvres to launch aircraft.

Another weakness IMO of British Carriers is that they didn't develop very good carrier aircraft. I'm not sure if this was a product of their "always buy local" aircraft industry, or lack of expertise by the Admiralty, or just a lack of willingness to invest. Whatever the reason, the Italian ground based aircraft many a time saturated and overwhelmed the carrier aircraft and could attack like the Carrier was not there in the first place.

Also I've a vitally important argument to start: what's the best version of Mutiny on the Bounty? I pick the 1930s version as Bligh is the biggest rear end in a top hat yet emotionally complex

# ¿ Oct 12, 2019 19:23

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > MilHist Thread: Technically the Yamato did help defeat fascism

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