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MrYenko
Jun 18, 2012

#2 isn't ALWAYS bad...

Fish of hemp posted:

On the other hand, if you are building a draconian police state, why change the tried and tested aesthetic?

There had to be at least one member of the Gestapo that slipped through the cracks and ended up in the Stasi.

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MrYenko
Jun 18, 2012

#2 isn't ALWAYS bad...

Elendil004 posted:

Stop me if you heard this mine about Pearl Harbor. Have you ever heard the story of the USS Aylwin, DD-355?

The USS Aylwin was a Farragut-class destroyer built 1933-1935. On Sunday, December 7th 1941, she was anchored near Pearl Harbor like much of the Pacific fleet. Too small to earn any pier space, still more than 50% of her ship's force wasn't aboard that morning, gone on leave or liberty for the weekend. Only one small boiler was lit providing "hotel services," electricity, water, etc.

When the explosions and gunfire echoed through the harbor, the USS Aylwin returned fire. At 0800 the black gang started light-offs, and by 0815 had two main boilers online and tied into the main steam. At 0829 she received orders to put to sea.

Remember how only 50% of her crew was present? Her ship's log reads that at 0858 she was underway, "Ensign Stanley B. Caplan, commanding." The senior-most person on board, one of 4 ensigns, he had 8 months of at-sea experience. He ordered the cutting of the anchor chain so they could get their rear end moving.

While departing Pearl, the fantail crew saw the most amazing thing. There in their wake was the Captain's launch, the small boat full of the CO, the XO, the EO... everyone you "need." But the destroyer was faster than the launch, and to stop and pick up the officers would have created a bottleneck for other ships trying to get underway. ENS Caplan gave the order to maintain speed and put to sea.

They performed ASW patrols and returned to Pearl the next day to pick up her CO. LCDR Rodgers wrote, ""The conduct of ENS Caplan in superbly taking command for 36 hours during war operations of the severest type is a most amazing and outstanding achievement. The conduct of the personnel was magnificent.... Every man more than did his job and was eager to fight."

He went on to have his first command, USS Long, sunk out from under him by kamikaze during the invasion of Luzon. He had a rather eventful war, all told.

MrYenko
Jun 18, 2012

#2 isn't ALWAYS bad...

“gently caress-Off-Huge Letter Opener” doesn’t have the same ring to it.

MrYenko
Jun 18, 2012

#2 isn't ALWAYS bad...

ChubbyChecker posted:

Which level infantry units got .50cal mgs or DshKs in WW2? Was there like a platoon of them in regiment or something?

In a US Infantry division during WWII, the battalion weapons company would have a single M2 assigned to the company HQ.

Dismount M2s aren’t particularly common.

MrYenko
Jun 18, 2012

#2 isn't ALWAYS bad...

Cessna posted:

But mounted? Every tank has one. Every halftrack has one. Hell, some trucks have one.

Ya, one of the sources I found had a mechanized infantry company having something like seven of them, even before Joe starts welding extras onto everything in sight.

MrYenko
Jun 18, 2012

#2 isn't ALWAYS bad...

Cessna posted:

The Yamato, hit by everything in 1945.

:hmmyes:

*record scratch*

:aaaaa:

MrYenko
Jun 18, 2012

#2 isn't ALWAYS bad...

Wait, did the red army formally use Molotov cocktails as antitank weapons? I always figured they were a field-expedient kind of thing.

MrYenko
Jun 18, 2012

#2 isn't ALWAYS bad...

Cessna posted:

May I suggest the Chrysler TV-8?



quote:

Other methods of powering the tank that were later considered include a gas turbine engine drive, a vapour-cycle power plant fueled by hydrocarbons, and a nuclear fission-powered vapour-cycle power plant.

:stonklol:

MrYenko
Jun 18, 2012

#2 isn't ALWAYS bad...

Weka posted:

Like has anyone actually molotoved an abrahms?

Finally, a research grant I’d like to get my name on!

MrYenko
Jun 18, 2012

#2 isn't ALWAYS bad...


gently caress, dude. You just single-handedly tripled my want-to-read list. Cheers.

:homebrew:

MrYenko
Jun 18, 2012

#2 isn't ALWAYS bad...

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”.

:v:

MrYenko
Jun 18, 2012

#2 isn't ALWAYS bad...

Synnr posted:

I'm unsure how they used to do it exactly, but I was curious. All the machine shops running during WW2 had to have the parts plans obviously, but how granular was it? Just dimensional blueprints or did they get planned out tool moves/changes as guides for the machinists? Is there online government archives of that sort of stuff, or did it stay with the companies doing production in whatever records they keep?


I was reading about a specific lathe and a mill that apparently was over engineered for extreme tolerances to produce highly precise parts (nuclear weapons components, cores, etc) and I'm just super curious how that stuff all happens after the boffins sort out what's needed, back in the day. I expect it's all CNC now but manual stuff is far more interesting.

My father is a machinist by trade, worked on a bunch of Vietnam-era military contracts before the war (and after he got back after serving,) and my grandfather was a machinist by trade as well, mostly after WWII. Dad mostly ran manual machinery, but did work an NC mill in the wheel shop at Philadelphia naval shipyard in the mid-late seventies. I’ll ask him some questions next time I sit down, but feel free to message me anything specific you want me to ask.

MrYenko
Jun 18, 2012

#2 isn't ALWAYS bad...

VictualSquid posted:

If they were sufficiently general you could get them printed on coffee cups.


Why can’t I get a turn-of-the-century naval gunfire lookup table on my coffee cup?

:colbert:

MrYenko
Jun 18, 2012

#2 isn't ALWAYS bad...

the JJ posted:

Got a bit of an antique here. WWI era US bayonet.






Please ignore my bad photography skills. The finger in the third image is particularly choice.

Two questions:

Any idea what the symbols in the fourth image mean? I'm assuming some sort of unit or armory mark.

Second, any times on care and upkeep? I'd hate to have it rot/rust away. It's been stored in a pretty dry area, but not that it's with me it's in a place with a bit more damp.

http://www.usmilitaryknives.com/bayo_points_10.htm

The markings on yours aren't quite as deep, but they're identical as the example there except for the inspectors number.

quote:

The left ricasso is marked with the Model date of 1917 and the Remington logo. The right ricasso is marked with the Ordnance Shell and Flame over U.S. (the Ordnance property mark), the eagle head over 14 mark of the individual inspector responsible for the final acceptance of the bayonet, and an X. The X was originally a British mark, used to designate the convex side after flex/bend testing. I don't know if this type of test was performed on US contract bayonets, or if it signified that it had passed some other form of testing.

Also;

quote:

In a strange twist of fate, in 1966 procurement orders were let for brand new production M1917 bayonets. The contracts were issued to General Cutlery of Fremont, Ohio and Canadian Arsenals Ltd., the old Long Branch Arsenal of Quebec, Canada. Stockpiles had finally run out, and new Winchester 1200 trench shotguns were being issued. These were used in limited quantities during the Vietnam War.

M1917 bayonets were still in used by the US Army as late as the early 2000s for use with the M1200 shotgun.

:v:

MrYenko
Jun 18, 2012

#2 isn't ALWAYS bad...

My submission:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_M-class_submarine

MrYenko
Jun 18, 2012

#2 isn't ALWAYS bad...

Poop is stored in the hull.

MrYenko
Jun 18, 2012

#2 isn't ALWAYS bad...

RE: BFTs and modern military EM emissions

Even if the emission in question isn’t precise or strong enough to get say, drop artillery on, they’re sure as hell enough to tell an enemy commander that something is over there that maybe shouldn’t be. Even if no direct tactical action results from detection, you’re still giving your location and general dispersion to the enemy at an operational level.

MrYenko
Jun 18, 2012

#2 isn't ALWAYS bad...

MikeCrotch posted:

The other thing about Gulf War 1 is that because of the fact that the coalition was very worried about the capability of the Iraqi army, the buildup was taken very seriously and a seriously huge amount of force was thrown at Iraq in what turned out to be overkill.

The OOBs from GW1 are shockingly huge. That level of force projection became impossible shortly thereafter.

MrYenko
Jun 18, 2012

#2 isn't ALWAYS bad...

Acebuckeye13 posted:

...or the tiny little "New Romania" on Puerto Rico

That's Jamaica.

Which if anything, is even more amusing. :v:

MrYenko
Jun 18, 2012

#2 isn't ALWAYS bad...

SoggyBobcat posted:

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

Pike square, obviously.

MrYenko
Jun 18, 2012

#2 isn't ALWAYS bad...

Count Roland posted:

But, but they're recoilless!

With a recoilless rifle, most of the energy that would normally be transmitted into the recoil system of an equivalent gun is instead turned into brain-mushing concussion and noise.

Kind of like a JT3/TF33.

MrYenko
Jun 18, 2012

#2 isn't ALWAYS bad...

Panzeh posted:

Generally, convoys containing troopships like that were well-escorted and fast, and the Allies were more willing to abuse their cryptographic knowledge of U-boat patrol zones to dodge them to avoid that. IIRC the Torch invasion fleet, going from the US had a fairly absurd escort.

Large liners like the Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth, Normandie, etc were so fast that they mostly operated outside the convoy structure. And by “fast,” I don’t mean that they could do 33kts when pressed, but cruised around at 15. QE as an example, cruised at well over 25kts, and could do better than 30kts when needed. Queen Mary averaged over 31kts all the way across the Atlantic when she won the Blue Riband in 1938. Even a surface warship would have a hard time catching/intercepting a liner like that, let alone a WWII diesel/electric submarine.

MrYenko
Jun 18, 2012

#2 isn't ALWAYS bad...

260 posts in 14+ years, made up for with loving triple-A quality.

MrYenko
Jun 18, 2012

#2 isn't ALWAYS bad...

Combined United Nations Taskforce fighting The War Against Terror.

MrYenko
Jun 18, 2012

#2 isn't ALWAYS bad...

Panzeh posted:

In addition, radar directed interception was not available.

It’s really hard to overstate how much even the most rudimentary air search radar helps to produce a successful interception. I mean, there is a ton of doctrine and technology besides the radar itself, but when properly implemented, the whole package is a formidable defense.

MrYenko
Jun 18, 2012

#2 isn't ALWAYS bad...

Phanatic posted:

I've wondered this a lot and I've never found the answer to it:

Do ASW torpedoes like the Mk46/Mk50 even have the capability to engage surface targets?

Anyone who actually knows is rightly going to keep their mouth shut. That said, it would be a hell of a design oversight if all a submerged target had to do to evade a torpedo was to surface.

MrYenko
Jun 18, 2012

#2 isn't ALWAYS bad...

Rocko Bonaparte posted:

I wonder how much of this all was a side effect of all the US torpedoes being hot garbage too. Did even one US torpedo cause any damage at Midway?

While that was certainly a factor, most of the issues that the US torpedo bombers faced at midway were due to strike coherence issues and flying obsolete aircraft, rather than technical malfunctions of the torpedos themselves.

Had the strikes been conducted with Avengers and arrived in coherent, escorted packages, we’d probably talk about the early-war Mark 13 in the same breath as the early-war Mark 14. They were both terrible.

Note that I don’t think substituting Avengers for Devastators would have made a damned bit of difference. The TBF detachment from VT-8 flying from Midway got savaged almost as badly as VT-8 proper. I just think that the obsolescence of the TBD overshadows the real issue: The torpedo attack profile puts you in a ludicrously vulnerable position: Low and slow in the slowest, largest aircraft in a carrier air group, flying into the teeth of both the fighters and the AAA from the enemy surface units.

All of that said, towards the end of the war the Mark 13 was actually a pretty good torpedo, but the vulnerability of torpedo bombers had become clear to everyone involved. Pretty much all of the dedicated torpedo bomber projects then ongoing were cancelled (XTB2D, XTB2F,) developed into more generalized attack aircraft (XBT2D/AD-1,) or re-tasked into other missions (XTB3F/AF.)

(And to be fair the Skyraider was designed as a multipurpose dive/torpedo bomber from the beginning, and was even briefly known as the Dauntless II.)

EFB:

MRC48B posted:

Massed air torpedo attacks against enemy fleets were already obsolete before Midway, it just took all of VT-8 and most of VT-6 and VT-3 eating poo poo for the navy to begin to realize it.

MrYenko
Jun 18, 2012

#2 isn't ALWAYS bad...

Rocko Bonaparte posted:

They took the remaining Devastators off of front-line duty after Midway, and I wonder how much of it was driven by torpedo ineffectiveness instead of outright torpedo bomber ineffectiveness.

The took the TBDs off the line because they were totally outclassed, and because they only had 39 remaining airframes after the losses at Midway. It had been out of production since 1939, and the TBF was already slated to replace it. Douglas had only built ~130 of them in the first place, and the USN flat out did not have enough airframes remaining to populate more than two squadrons, not even counting aircraft in overhaul or assigned to other duties.

TBFs had success in the pacific war, sinking Ryūjō during the Battle of the Eastern Solomons, and as mentioned upthread contributing mightily to the sinking of the Yamato and Musashi though notably, these last two were with near-total air superiority. Carrier-based air (with avengers likely over represented due to their employment on escort carriers) was also responsible for sinking more Japanese merchant shipping than anyone other than the US Submarine service.

Torpedo attacks (even with early Mk 13s) worked, it’s just that the aircraft were far more vulnerable than was anticipated, and it took time for tactics to adjust to accommodate this.

MrYenko
Jun 18, 2012

#2 isn't ALWAYS bad...

aphid_licker posted:

Ah, the skin wasn't, uh, stressed or what it's called, it's just covering?

Lancasters used a pretty standard semi-monocoque. Since it was designed for a ventral turret though, they almost certainly did not do away with the support structure in the fuselage when they deleted the turret, they would have just sheeted over it. Remove that panel and the turret ring would still be present.

MrYenko
Jun 18, 2012

#2 isn't ALWAYS bad...

Poor freckles, thought of mast bump, vortex ring state, ground resonance vibration, dynamic rollover power lines and died.

MrYenko
Jun 18, 2012

#2 isn't ALWAYS bad...

AAA fragments, intact AAA UXO, bullets, casings, belt segments, debris from damaged aircraft…

There’s a reason Civil Defense issued helmets.

MrYenko
Jun 18, 2012

#2 isn't ALWAYS bad...

Uncle Enzo posted:

I thought all fixed-wing aircraft from ww2 on caught their spent brass internally? Maybe that was only the in-wing guns in the fighters.

It varied, but was typically (especially in US service) the opposite. Most fixed wing guns dumped brass and links, most flexible guns (and turret guns) retained theirs.

Again, there are exceptions in every direction.

Related:

https://youtu.be/niJ82YCiuYU

MrYenko
Jun 18, 2012

#2 isn't ALWAYS bad...

FPyat posted:

Why did the modernized USS New Jersey lack a distinctive platform structure near the top that the other three Iowas had?

Can you mspaint a circle around what you’re asking about? A quick glance and I didn’t see an obvious difference.

MrYenko
Jun 18, 2012

#2 isn't ALWAYS bad...

feedmegin posted:

I think they actually do dont they? Something about which direction the prop spins.

Technically yes, they do, but the effect was far more pronounced in WWI fighters with rotary radial engines, due to the relatively huge rotating mass.

MrYenko
Jun 18, 2012

#2 isn't ALWAYS bad...

Slim Jim Pickens posted:

There's no such thing as a humane bomb.

I was going to say Jäger bombs, but then I remembered the last time I drank Jäger bombs.

MrYenko
Jun 18, 2012

#2 isn't ALWAYS bad...

Alchenar posted:

IMO the Japanese leadership's insistence on retaining the Emperor and survival of the Imperial system (crucially alongside 'no war crimes tribunals for us') is an obviously thinly veiled attempt to get to end the war to end on 'status quo ante' with a few indemnity payments, fully intent on retaining military control of the country and on having another go at Empire when conditions looked right.

And that was just wholly unrealistic. You can't launch the war that Japan did and conduct it in the way that Japan did, and then expect your opponents to see status quo ante as an acceptable outcome.


e: I do think it's wrong to talk about the 'moral' or 'humane' bomb. It obviously wasn't. War is neither moral nor humane. But in the context of WW2, a conflict in which atrocities and crimes against humanity are perpetrated every single day by the instigators, I find it difficult to accept a moral framework in which Allied leaders are expected to do anything other than 'everything we can to win the war as quickly as possible'.

This is a more cogent response than what I typed up and then forgot to hit the post button on, so I’ll quote it, and then add my word vomit underneath:


One thing that I think is often lost in discussion of the nuclear attacks on Japan is how much the ensuing Cold War changed our outlook on nuclear weapons. At the time, it was clearly understood by at least some in civilian leadership that nuclear weapons were somehow different from other means of war, but the USAAF certainly didn’t see it that way. A 25kt nuclear bomb was simply a safer, and much more efficient way to deliver destructive power to the enemy. Even after the war you can find examples of officers that clearly feel this way, (Powers and LeMay, both veterans of both the European and Pacific strategic bombing campaigns, are the obvious examples) and chafed at the extra layers of control placed on nuclear weapons.

The bomber gap, twenty years of building fallout shelters in the backyard, fifty years of SAC being ready for the end of the world in fifteen minutes… All that stuff does things to the culture that have made nuclear weapons (rightly) an enormous taboo. That taboo did not exist in August of 1945, and the people making the fateful decisions to use those weapons did not have the cultural perspective that we do now. As mentioned upthread, the nuclear attacks weren’t even a huge statistical uptick, since mass incendiary raids on Japanese cities had already hit similar one-night numbers all over the home islands.

I’ve never understood why people will get up in arms over flashing 100k civilians to dust with a nuke, but brush off the firebombings and blockade that did and was doing the exact same thing, only slower. WWII was the last time nation-states harnessed the full potential of their industrial bases to the task of killing each other, and the strategic bombing campaigns against the axis were simply the orgasmic, disgusting conclusion of that fight. The whole thing is despicable to modern eyes, but we are seeing it through an entirely different moral lens than was available to anyone at the time, and particularly in regards to nuclear weapons. I like to think that we as a species have finally learned that while peace is preferable, and occasionally there may be a squabble, it’s generally a bad idea to start a total war for any reason at all.

MrYenko
Jun 18, 2012

#2 isn't ALWAYS bad...

If you really meant successor, then probably airmobile units like the 101st. There’s a solid argument to be made that airmobile is probably now obsolete as well though. MANPADs and SHORAD would do bad things to either one.

A near-peer modern battlefield is a terrifyingly dangerous place.

MrYenko
Jun 18, 2012

#2 isn't ALWAYS bad...

Biffmotron posted:

I remember Ian Toll covering Japanese pilot training pretty well in one of his Pacific War trilogy. I'm pretty sure it's The Conquering Tide, but I don't have the book on hand to check.

It is, I just finished it. He touches on it significantly while talking about the origins and training pipeline for kamikaze pilots in Twilight of the Gods as well.

MrYenko
Jun 18, 2012

#2 isn't ALWAYS bad...

Nenonen posted:

Question: what would be the longest periods of service for military issue equipment that you can think of? Ships, uniforms, weapons, what not. I know this question is really hazy, presumably a basic leather shoe didn't change much over centuries. But I'm thinking more of stuff that was designed for military and redesigned over time to fit changing tactical needs. Like nowadays it seems like uniform patterns change every decade or so. Meanwhile my father did conscription in almost the same gear that my grandfather fought in during WW2. There were plenty of updates in the mean time, but for instance assault rifles took a long time to fully replace bolt action rifles and Suomi SMGs in all units of FDF, especially in 2nd line units like coastal batteries.



https://www.wearethemighty.com/articles/this-50-cal-fought-for-90-years-without-needing-repair/

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MrYenko
Jun 18, 2012

#2 isn't ALWAYS bad...

Alchenar posted:

Unless you've given Rommel a time machine it's difficult for him to do anything to effect those events.

Rommel had already beat the odds to do as well as he did in North Africa.

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