Lawman 0 posted:

A good post.
Was it possible for the Argentinians to sink the Invincible or Hermes at all?

Gnoman posted:

On a related subject, what warship (excludong unseaworthy boondoggles like the Vasa had the shortest lifespan? Bismarck and Blucher are obvious candidates, but is there anything that was sank quicker?

SerCypher posted:

I know a few people who've done a stint. It's very emotionally draining work.

Ugly In The Morning posted:

If you’re like “both of those sound like Sparta”, you’re right.

The rest of Greece wasn’t much better, if you read the Iliad it’s like “ All these guys would be the villain in anything else. “

Panzeh posted:

I believe there was a Roman estate management text that suggested that slaves be pushed as hard as possible then changed out every two years

White Coke posted:

I've heard that the Germans didn't like American soldiers using shotguns, or British soldiers using sedated bayonets in WWI and that they threatened to execute anyone they captured using these weapons. Is that true, and were there any other weapons that were considered similarly criminal in WWI?

zoux posted:

Assuming time machines or massive geopolitical shifts: would you guys go to a nuclear test shot if you could?

https://twitter.com/AtomicAnalyst/status/1233463598703312896

Also the Wellerstein post linked in this tweet demonstrates how, well reckless, the US was, it's typical 1950's nuclear mad scientist poo poo

Tree Bucket posted:

Any cool first-hand stories from the tests?

Kaiser Schnitzel posted:

The confederate generals in the west always get such a bad rap-were they really that awful or were they just getting whipped by Grant and Sherman for 2 years before Lee started getting beaten by them? Was Albert Sydney Johnston really that great and would he have done anything differently if he hadn’t died at Shiloh?

quote:

It is a perfect example of why fighting an enemy near a river they controlled was a terrible idea. Had that battle occurred somewhere other than the riverbank, Union advantages would have been far less pronounced.

KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:

Burma was absurdly difficult terrain compared to most of the terrain of the proposed route, I don't want to underestimate the challenge of the undertaking but I think they could have built out track quite a bit faster.

Even discounting the crazy stunts pulled in tracklaying in the trans pacific railway chase, four or five km/day is quite reasonable. Grading is the biggest consumer of time and labor and with 1940s equipment it could be done far faster with fewer laborers. Materials will be a challenge but you have the existing railroad to support your build out.

Plus, the transsib alone was sufficient to supply the giant army used by the Soviets for the Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation (1.5m troops, 20k artillery pieces, 5k tanks, 3500 airplanes), so no reason to believe that the same thing, repaired and augmented, would not be able to sustain a hypothetical Japanese offensive going the other way assuming the resources were available to be shipped.

Nenonen posted:

We should call the invasion of Elam by Sumer the first Gulf War and use consecutive numbering from there to this day. Does anyone have recommendations on new literature on the 78th Gulf War?

the JJ posted:

That said, I'd be suspicious of anything pulled from the Cyropaedia, because it was clearly not written as an actual history, more as an idealized 'how I'd do it' that veers into Tom Clancyish 'what if an elephant fought a Nubian phalanx on a chariot with a tank destroyer.'

bewbies posted:

king also partied super hard and was pretty slutty, so he contained multitudes

Comstar posted:

Sounds like a time traveler told him what will happen if he doesn't get in front of that drawing board NOW.

Nebakenezzer posted:

I'm reading the Schiffer book catalog. They have a book called "Making Bows with Children." Brutal.

PittTheElder posted:

The Zimmermann Telegram is a good one though, like they really should have known better. Obviously mid-civil war Mexico isn't going to declare war on the US, and Zimmermann definitely shouldn't have admitted he sent it.

zoux posted:

https://mobile.twitter.com/NinjaEconomics/status/1379509214066933764

What was going on in Canada in 1916

Also interesting that the goosestep thing was applied to German soldiers way before WWII, I've only ever heard it in reference to Nazis

Nenonen posted:

Be noted that you'll be living downstream from my Pilsener Lake.

SoggyBobcat posted:

https://twitter.com/TheOnion/status/1380335409985683458
So did anybody ever write a manual on what to do in this situation?

fish and chips and dip posted:

President of Chad Idriss Déby was killed when leading troops in battle against rebels in northern Chad.

https://www.theafricareport.com/81373/chad-president-idriss-deby-dies-says-national-radio/

My question is; before Déby, who was the last head of state (king, president, dictator, whatever) of a recognized, sovereign territory who was killed in battle? The only I could find was El-Ouali Mustapha Sayed in 1976 from Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (unrecognized state) and a bunch of medieval kings.

Edited for clarity.

Alchenar posted:

There's also just a degree you have the will to fight and how unacceptable defeat is.

The French Revolution leads to Great Britain spending 25 years on-and-off at war and assembling seven international coalitions to contain France, the effort of which eventually results in getting to walk away with complete achievement of all war aims and the ushering in 100 years of global superpower status.

vuk83 posted:

The draft in denmark worked like that, where whole units where drafted and trained together.
I was drafted into a medical company, we were about 150ish people in 4 platoons.
1st to 3rd month was basic training. After that we were reorganised into cmd platoon, 1st and 2nd dressing station platoon, and an ambulance platoon. People where sent of to individual training, which would be medical helper, (2 weeks), medical assistant (4 weeks) drivers licence for truck or car (3 weeks). At the start of the 5th month unit training began, and you began exercises in your subunit, followed by unit training, culminating in brigade exercises. At the end of your conscription you would get a soldiers book detailing your training, and mobilisation unit in case of mobilisation.
But as an old master sergeant told me, the point of the training wasn't so much training the conscripts as it was training the officers and ncos.

Count Roland posted:

Metal tools, weapons and decorations (jewelry, mirrors) were highly valued trade goods.

Learning blacksmithing though, did any natives of the Americas pick this up? Did any already have metal working pre-contact with Europe?

aphid_licker posted:

What's really impressive is that these dudes who are half a planet out of their element and for all intents and purposes just fell off a tree on mars and landed in Tenochtitlan managed to exploit all these internal divisions and poo poo. Like how do you even figure out that these divisions exist

FMguru posted:

It's pretty remarkable that a campaign for control of Europe, and a battle with around 250,000 troops, very much boiled down to hand-to-hand fighting inside of a single building.

Scratch Monkey posted:

Dance Officer posted:

This article came up in the Katawa Shoujo LP. (go read it, it's interesting) I'd like to know how much of it is true, though.

Captain von Trapp posted:

Honestly? No, not really. Maybe a couple banana republics, temporarily, when they already had a solid friendly native faction doing the heavy lifting. Otherwise: Cuba, Iran, Afghanistan, etc.

Nenonen posted:

According to some unverified sources, Romans graciously provided valuable minerals to Carthagean farmers after their victory, and more verifiably provided job opportunities to the citizens.

Uncle Enzo posted:

Hell, in Seveneves they realize the public perception of victory is the *real victory*, so the PR people are in command of the battle and conduct the camera crews as primary combat personnel, livestreaming the whole thing. Positions and tactics are chosen for how they look on screen and match the overall narrative of the conflict.

Tulip posted:

Chinese Civil War stands out: the PRC was famously under equipped at the outset, virtually every tank plane and artillery piece in the PLA was captured. There are a variety of jokes that amount to "the main source of arms in the PLA is the KMT."

Cyrano4747 posted:

By this logic Lafayette wasn't a French general.

The distinction here is whether you're meaning the adjective to imply that he was a general in that nation's military, or a general from that nation.

Lee was an American general if we're using it to mean "general from the united states." He was never a general in the US Army.

Panzeh posted:

Utah Beach would not be a particularly dramatic sequence- though it'd probably not be a bad fakeout. Talk about how we think we're off course, build tension, and they land on the beach and receive no resistance, with a destroyed bunker overlooking them.