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107 mm was inherited from the Tsarist army, so it was originally in inches. 122 mm was a new caliber, I don't know why they picked that one.
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Feb 5, 2021 06:17
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are there any explicit examples from history of vanity calibers? there are a number of examples of numerology being baked into architecture and engineering projects; anything similar in guns? also what combination of '420' and '69' make the most sense for gun measurements, asking for a friend
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Feb 5, 2021 06:18
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HookedOnChthonics posted:also what combination of '420' and '69' make the most sense for gun measurements, asking for a friend 420mm caliber naval rifle with a barrel length of 69 feet
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Feb 5, 2021 06:26
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Nessus posted:Adolf Hitler: Strong advocate of land reform I guess on the most literal level he was, it's just that he was mostly advocating reforming other people's lands to be German (and reforming the people into corpses). It's like if you said "Ted Bundy had a way with women," that'd also be true but you're leaving a giant false impression there about what that "way" was.
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Feb 5, 2021 06:45
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how common was it to salvage a tank that had been hit? I'm thinking more a hit that took out some crew and internal systems probably got through some armor too which I imagine made the tank useless
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Feb 5, 2021 07:29
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Repairing tanks was extremely common in WWII. Unless the thing caught on fire, welding on an armor patch generally didn't compromise it very much, and the raw hull was by far the most expensive and intensive part to make. Much easier to just pop in some damaged parts. Note that many (quite possibly the majority) tanks were knocked out with one or fewer crew losses, so you often didn't have to hose out the previous crew. One of the reasons for the myth of German armor having a lower loss rate is that the Allies generally counted repairable tanks as a loss, while the Germans only counted a tank as lost if it was beyond repair.
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Feb 5, 2021 07:40
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Gnoman posted:Repairing tanks was extremely common in WWII. Unless the thing caught on fire, welding on an armor patch generally didn't compromise it very much, and the raw hull was by far the most expensive and intensive part to make. Much easier to just pop in some damaged parts. Note that many (quite possibly the majority) tanks were knocked out with one or fewer crew losses, so you often didn't have to hose out the previous crew. How did that work for Allied book keeping? How did they count repaired tanks that went back into service?
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Feb 5, 2021 07:54
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White Coke posted:How did that work for Allied book keeping? How did they count repaired tanks that went back into service? I only remember the Soviets, but they wrote a tank as a loss as soon as it was damaged beyond use and recorded it as production when it was repaired back to functionality. IIRC one advantage of doing it this way is that the crew of a damaged tank would be shoved into a new tank right away and when their old tank got repaired it would go somewhere else. The Lone Badger fucked around with this message at 08:45 on Feb 5, 2021 |
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Feb 5, 2021 08:42
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The Lone Badger posted:I only remember the Soviets, but they wrote a tank as a loss as soon as it was damaged beyond use and recorded it as production when it was repaired back to functionality. So were the Germans making their tank crews sit around until their particular one was repaired?
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Feb 5, 2021 09:19
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HookedOnChthonics posted:also what combination of '420' and '69' make the most sense for gun measurements, asking for a friend A mega cannon with 420mm caliber and barrel length of 69 calibers. For comparison:  This is a coastal howitzer used by Austria-Hungary and Nazis with the same caliber and had a barrel length of L/15. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/42_cm_Haubitze_M._14/16 ChubbyChecker fucked around with this message at 10:21 on Feb 5, 2021 |
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Feb 5, 2021 10:17
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Xiahou Dun posted:Is that a real word? I've never seen it before. Cessna posted:It appears a lot in contemporary accounts. What Cessna says. As often happens, I had lazy brain and just used my native Danish grammer instead of the German, which would be frontsoldat/e/en. White Coke posted:So were the Germans making their tank crews sit around until their particular one was repaired? Depends on when we're talking. Germany had a working reassignment structure at first, but as the war heated up you couldn't be sure you got a new tank, and tank crews being pressed into other functions was pretty common.
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Feb 5, 2021 11:39
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:Right, but 107mm is 4.2" and 122mm is 4.8", so it's weird in both systems. IIRC sometimes guns were given a nominal size slightly different from the real size because their ammunition wouldn't be compatible with another gun that was that size, to avoid confusion (and barrel explosions). 75mm vs 76mm for example. feedmegin fucked around with this message at 12:51 on Feb 5, 2021 |
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Feb 5, 2021 11:58
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HookedOnChthonics posted:are there any explicit examples from history of vanity calibers? there are a number of examples of numerology being baked into architecture and engineering projects; anything similar in guns? A .69 caliber musket ball weighing in at 420 grains is about right. (As might have been fired from the Springfield 1842, itself posessing a 42 inch barrel).
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Feb 5, 2021 12:17
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Does anyone have any general information on German WW2 Pionier units (or can guide me towards books or websites), specifically on the Eastern Front? For some reason I cannot seem to find any decent resources on this subject, even for basic info such as specific units, operations they fought in or locations, how they were organised, did they fall under the Wehrmacht or the SS, how were they equipped, differences on how Assault / "Normal" Pioneers were employed in the field etc. For background, I grew up in 80s Germany and spent many weekends with my grandparents, which usually involved going to the Kneipe with one of my grandfathers and sitting in the corner watching a bunch of old farts getting drunk. Usually there came a point (after plenty booze) when their conversation inevitably ended up on the subject of the war, and although I only remember bits and pieces, I'm interested in finding out more on the subject in recent times as my step-grandfather was in one of those units. Looking back at it and having recently touched on the subject with my father (not from same side of the family), I understand he was a pretty messed up individual. I remember he had a wooden hand, and when he wasn't drinking at the pub, spent his days staring out of the window chainsmoking cheap cigars & drinking endless cans of beer (to his death). As an aside, I only realised after many years, and having emigrated from Germany how much this type of upbringing impacted on my worldviews, obviously not in a positive way. Not that I was ever any kind of Neonazi or Holocaust denier, but subconscious things like opinions about Jewish / Travellers / Russians / everyone not German basically, and especially the downplaying of German warcrimes in the context of everyone on the Eastern Front behaving in this manner, i.e. Siegerjustiz, were 100% shaped by the time I spent with these guys. I was completely unaware of this until much later in life when it was pointed out by for example my (Jewish) best friend's parents to me in response to a mightily insensitive comment I made in casual conversation. Likewise, this also made it quite apparent how these types of attitudes remain very much ingrained and considered just fine in people of my generation (born in 70s). Some of my old German friends who never uttered a single word in support of Nazis or Hitler hold some rather hosed up views about "Zigeuner" for example. I got a bit off the subject here....does anyone have any info or can recommend me resources on the subject of WW2 German Pioniere?
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Feb 5, 2021 12:35
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They were batallions under the regular Heer and SS structure. Here are a list of known pioniere unit types, and a couple of unit names: Panzer-Pionier-Bataillon (armoured pioneer battalion performing engineering tasks during an assault from manoeuvre) Sturmpionierbataillon (assault pioneer battalion performing engineering tasks during an infantry assault) Gebirgs-Pionier-Bataillon 95, a pioneer unit trained for the mountain terrain Pionier-Bataillon 233 (divisional pioneer unit) Heeres-Pionier-Bataillon 73 (Corps pioneer unit) Pioneer Battalion, Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler, Waffen-SS Pioneer Battalions, Estonian Auxiliary Police
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Feb 5, 2021 13:08
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feedmegin posted:IIRC sometimes guns were given a nominal size slightly different from the real size because their ammunition wouldn't be compatible with another gun that was that size, to avoid confusion (and barrel explosions). 75mm vs 76mm for example. This is far more common in small arms, particularly civilian small arms. Examples include almost everything that starts with “.38”. 
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Feb 5, 2021 14:05
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Thanks Tias, much appreciated. Do you have any recommendations on books for example that focus on these units? I've come across some info on units in the 5th Gebirgs Division previously (no focus on Pioniere) and am under the impression that it was composed of Austrian troops. Is that correct?
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Feb 5, 2021 14:11
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Xiahou Dun posted:I guess on the most literal level he was, it's just that he was mostly advocating reforming other people's lands to be German (and reforming the people into corpses). I mean fundamentally that agrarian impulse matters because it was part of the reason that Hitler ordered the thrust into Ukraine instead of driving towards Moscow.
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Feb 5, 2021 15:18
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MrYenko posted:This is far more common in small arms, particularly civilian small arms. Examples include almost everything that starts with “.38”. That’s almost never due to conscious decisions about safety or just ordering the wrong ammo - like the 75/76 distinction. - and almost always just dumb organic naming convention poo poo. Cartridge names are sooooo hosed up by basically a hundred and fifty years of people, militaries, and companies using their own systems and none really emerging as dominant. Why is it .30-06 instead of 7.62x63 while 7.62 NATO usually goes by 7.62x51? Because a military naming scheme changed in the intervening 40 years and the civilian sector never caught on. Meanwhile .308 Winchester is what 7.62 NATO was based on and guns can generally fire ammo in either caliber, but .308 is a little higher pressure and that will start an argument in TFR. And THEN you have cartridges that just changed over time. The 8mm Mauser that the Gewehr 88 was developed for had a different projectile and pressure curve than the 8mm Mauser that was used by WW1 but that didn’t stop anyone from converting those old guns and that was arguably unsafe, leading to a whole mess of different loadings down the road. Tldr guns are dumb and ammo is dumber.
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Feb 5, 2021 15:33
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Sounds like we need another standard! Everyone will adopt it and the system will be simple and universal at last!
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Feb 5, 2021 15:43
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the paradigm shift posted:how common was it to salvage a tank that had been hit? I'm thinking more a hit that took out some crew and internal systems probably got through some armor too which I imagine made the tank useless Depends on the damage it sustained. You can penetrate armour without compromising structural integrity. If there are no visible cracks you can cut out the area around the hole and make a patch. The bigger the hole, the more this will weaken the armour, so several high caliber penetrations close together will also result in a write off. Fire is also a big issue that can cause a tank to be unsalvageble, but not necessarily. If it's a small fire that didn't ruin the hardening of the armour then it will be fine most likely. Even tanks that burned out could donate some components for repairing other tanks.
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Feb 5, 2021 18:07
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Ensign Expendable posted:Depends on the damage it sustained. You can penetrate armour without compromising structural integrity. If there are no visible cracks you can cut out the area around the hole and make a patch. The bigger the hole, the more this will weaken the armour, so several high caliber penetrations close together will also result in a write off. Was patching literally just a new sheet of armor cut to fit and welded? I'm unfamiliar with how I guess RHA behaves with welding and breaks. Obviously it doesn't fracture like cast iron, was it all mark one eyeball checks for cracks or was there a set process for checking before repair? Wire wheel it off and etch or something? How large a portion of the internals had hardening that could be compromised by fire? A big enough one I would guess that would ruin the delicate bits, but complicated hardened and getting gearing or something seems like it might have issues. Or were tolerances loose enough that it wouldn't be that big a deal as long as it wasn't warped?
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Feb 5, 2021 21:09
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So think of a large bent and welded box as your turret. You take a hit, and whilst the majority of the rest of your biscuit tin looks compatibly fine, understanding how those forces are transmitted and absorbed during that life altering moment need to be understood. Fire generally is unhealthy for the occupants of the biscuit tin, with face hardness being tempered away without hilarious carbon deposits resulting in a softer face of the material. So when this hit occurs, warpage can occur if significant, into one of two zones for material failure. Plastic deformation is where material moves beyond its breaking point in tension, and elastic where it returns to normal. Plastic deformation is where your cheese-it panther turret assembled by slave labour decides to shot trap that smelly American pop gun 75mm aphe round into your driver's compartment ruining his day, the metal above his head rents as the force of the projectile forces it's way in, setting off the fuse causing the few grammes of he to do its jazz thing Hitler hates. Elastic deformation is where the material returns to normal before the above event as his mates are peppering you with every gun on the tank, smashing optics, your cooking gear, pioneer gear and more pissing you off and dazzling you as it feels like your head being pounded by a thousand drums, with the larger impacts of their main guns ricochet off your Krupp steel.
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Feb 5, 2021 21:53
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Synnr posted:Was patching literally just a new sheet of armor cut to fit and welded? I'm unfamiliar with how I guess RHA behaves with welding and breaks. Obviously it doesn't fracture like cast iron, was it all mark one eyeball checks for cracks or was there a set process for checking before repair? Wire wheel it off and etch or something? It can! If your armour is overmatched by the projectile, it will shatter the plate rather than making a nice neat hole. This is affected by hardness of the armour, hardenability of the alloy, and other factors. Typically if the plate experience brittle failure it can no longer be repaired. It's usually pretty noticeable by inspection, the hole will be jagged and much larger than the caliber of the shell that made it rather than nice and round. Here's an example.  The patch was indeed a piece cut from some other armour plate and welded on. Here are some examples of circular and rectangular patches.  quote:How large a portion of the internals had hardening that could be compromised by fire? A big enough one I would guess that would ruin the delicate bits, but complicated hardened and getting gearing or something seems like it might have issues. Or were tolerances loose enough that it wouldn't be that big a deal as long as it wasn't warped? Torsion bars are the most noticeable thing, you can tell when a tank burned out because they visibly sag. Sufficiently hot fires can compromise the hardening of the armour as well. If the fire is small enough, then you can scoop out the internals and replace them, salvaging the hull.
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Feb 5, 2021 22:19
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Ah, I take it the fracturing they were worrying about was readily visible, not like "might be something fine radiating" microfractures? Was the patching just welded over, or are those samples armor patches that are thicker than the base? Sorry, it's just an interesting (mechanically anyway) thing to me. Projectile impact is a bit on the extreme end of consideration so the decision tree to decide that stuff for tanks in the period is a giant void of question marks. Did they do the same kind of work for ships, just as a "good enough" solution, or did they cut out whole plates and replace them?
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Feb 5, 2021 22:38
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Microfractures and hot tears do affect the resistance of armour to penetration, but I don't think the difference would be big enough for anyone in the field to care. The examples show both patches that are welded over and those cut to size and welded in.
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Feb 6, 2021 00:07
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The most common failure mode was destruction of a track, right?
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Feb 6, 2021 01:00
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The Lone Badger posted:The most common failure mode was destruction of a track, right? Does that even count as a failure mode? I thought de-tracking is just "yep, tank gonna tank"
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Feb 6, 2021 02:24
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Panzeh posted:Also, my civil war hot take is that I think Davis made significantly fewer mistakes in his role as a wartime president than Lincoln. Can you elaborate? I don't know much about the ACW, but what I do "know" is that Davis was supposed to have been a much worse president than Lincoln, so much so that some people think if they had switched jobs the South would have won.
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Feb 6, 2021 02:31
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White Coke posted:Can you elaborate? I don't know much about the ACW, but what I do "know" is that Davis was supposed to have been a much worse president than Lincoln, so much so that some people think if they had switched jobs the South would have won. Sure. So, first off, I want to say, I don't think any Confederate president really changes the outcome of the war. It's just too lopsided for that. Davis had a practically impossible task. I think what actually happened is a bit of an outlier. That being said, Davis' handling of his one direct command worked out well enough, though he did give an 'if practical' order to Johnston that ended up working out anyway, since Johnston didn't use it as a chance to be cautious. Lincoln was, I think, inexperienced in the task of managing generals and giving good strategic guidance. Lincoln put up with an enormous amount of rank insubordination from almost every CinC he had, whereas Davis was generally able to maintain a healthier relationship with his army commanders. Lincoln and his cabinet tended to oscillate between letting generals do what they wanted and putting intense pressure on them to move- instead of finding generals who agreed with his strategic direction, he let them act incredibly insubordinate(especially McClellan). As I said before, I think Davis had one huge gently caress-up, and that was not firing Bragg when his division commanders petitioned Davis for this- when this happens, one of the groups has to go, and it's far easier to replace Bragg than several division commanders. Instead, this dysfunctional command situation was allowed to continue to disastrous results at Chattanooga. His firing of Johnston for insubordination was somewhat reasonable, as while Johnston wasn't wrong that it would be almost impossible to inflict a reversal on Sherman's forces, offensive action was really the only thing that had any hope of actual victory. By this point, Sherman was way too close to Atlanta for a delay to matter. He needed a Chancellorsville-esque miracle and Johnston was simply not up to the task. It turned out, neither was Hood, but hindsight is 20/20. This is not to say Lincoln was a bad president and Davis good, but I think Davis was a better manager of the war than Lincoln. Lincoln's handling of domestic affairs was much better than his handling of military affairs. Also, I think one of the reasons for the Army of the Potomac's poor performance is that the CiC had too many corps reporting to him- it resulted in more difficulty coordinating the dispersed operations they were trying to do. The ANV had 2-3 corps, which made it so Lee wasn't so overburdened directly managing so many subordinates. Sherman had it right, when he organized his forces with the three armies so he had only three direct reports as opposed to the old AoP's 7-9. It's not that he didn't manage corps, but that he didn't need to at all times.
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Feb 6, 2021 03:03
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O hey, people are talking about the ACW so my dumb question is at least vaguely apropos. So I'm watching a thing criticizing the movie Gettysburg (as a film, not as far as historical accuracy for the most part), and I realized I've internalized the idea that cannons of that era are fired by pulling some kind of string... something, rather than earlier versions that had a match cord or something. If (giant IF) that was the case, what the hell was that string doing? Is it releasing like a lever that hits a percussion cap or lights a spark or something? I can come up with some methods that might be the case but I'm comparing them to the dumb idea that it's pulling the lack of fire out cause I'm a dummy.
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Feb 6, 2021 03:43
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Xiahou Dun posted:O hey, people are talking about the ACW so my dumb question is at least vaguely apropos. It's a friction primer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friction_primer
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Feb 6, 2021 03:46
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Thank you! That was bothering me to pieces and hard to google.
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Feb 6, 2021 04:00
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Cyrano4747 posted:Does that even count as a failure mode? I thought de-tracking is just "yep, tank gonna tank" There's throwing the track and there's getting track wheels blown up. They're on the exterior and not really armoured so more things are capable of damaging them. Mines in particular are more likely to blow up the track wheels than to penetrate the hull.
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Feb 6, 2021 05:04
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Cyrano4747 posted:Does that even count as a failure mode? I thought de-tracking is just "yep, tank gonna tank" Even if the track links themselves are undamaged, it's a huge pain in the rear end to get back on. Odds are the tank isn't going to participate in whatever the current mission is if the crew has to get out and put it back on. If the links are damaged and need to be replaced, that's more time the crew has to spend, especially if there are not enough spares on hand. For more fun, the enemy usually likes to keep immobilized tanks under artillery fire to prevent recovery, so the crew might not be able to even analyze the damage until enemy artillery has bigger problems to deal with and starts shooting at something else. It's not that much damage in the long scheme of things, but enough to ruin your day.
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Feb 6, 2021 05:15
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What was the name of the book/author that pushed the myth of Sherman tanks being completely terrible?
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Feb 6, 2021 05:44
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White Coke posted:What was the name of the book/author that pushed the myth of Sherman tanks being completely terrible? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Traps
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Feb 6, 2021 05:52
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White Coke posted:What was the name of the book/author that pushed the myth of Sherman tanks being completely terrible? To put it in perspective, the author was trying to use that to make a hagiography of US tank crewmen, in a sort of more crass "Citizen Soldiers" book.
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Feb 6, 2021 11:45
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Cyrano4747 posted:Does that even count as a failure mode? I thought de-tracking is just "yep, tank gonna tank" I wasn't thinking so much of throwing a track as having the whole thing hosed up by enemy fire. As I understand it you can gently caress up the tracks with a considerably smaller amount of kaboom than you need to breach the main armour?
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Feb 6, 2021 11:58
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BlueBull posted:Thanks Tias, much appreciated. Do you have any recommendations on books for example that focus on these units? No idea, I'm afraid, I just compiled what I could google. However, given the fact that Austria is super mountainous, their soldier core would probably include more experienced mountaineers than elsewhere. I found this, but I don't know how much it focuses on organization, and how much on training and equipment: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7997147-german-pionier-1939-45
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Feb 6, 2021 12:02
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