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The Space Dino

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Being that I am living in Hong Kong since I think early 2014, I think I can say that the effects of war are a lot closer here than in san francisco, eve  though we have fort funston.

Here there are some old roads that are part of hiking trails that still have holes in them from Japanese tanks, I live right next to a WW2 POW cemetery, and I buy milk and cat litter in the building where I buy groceries is the same one where the final surrender of Hong Kong to the Japanese was signed (Its a Welcome now).

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12 hours ago, NorthernDevo said:

Umm....after reading the thread, I understand the focus of the thread but the title "War Interest" seriously jarred me.

I know there are other combat veterans out there; not sure if they would agree with me; each has their own personal opinion. MY opinion is it is something to be avoided at all costs; that it is the last resort of the incompetent politicians to find a less extreme solution. If it is the first resort well...then it is even less desirable. I have seen both; first-hand. The cost is beyond measure; not in terms of dollars but in civilian lives and cultural stability. As a Patricia; I am sworn to protect civilians and the damage that was wrought to them in Bosnia and Afghanistan was unimaginable.

Just please consider that for those who fought, war is not academic or interesting; it is horrible, personal and frightening. Cool gadgets and nifty documentaries are nice; they do not change the horror, bloodshed and destruction of war.

 

War leaves an indelible mark upon the soul. While I maintain an interest in war history, there's some things I was privy to in DS that i would rather forget. 

Have to say I agree totally with this perspective.

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You can't be a rocketry enthusiast without knowing a little about the German V-2 project.

The engineering milestones achieved during the war were pretty amazing. The war itself? Not so much. Glad I'm living in times when aerospace agencies race against each other without any casualties and sacrifices needed to achieve their goals.

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On ‎2016‎-‎11‎-‎22 at 9:26 PM, HoloYolo said:

I know war is terrible, but learning about it will expose the true horrors of it, and maybe it could help us avoid it.

Uh huh - a decent answer. So why did posts on this list include "Which tank is the coolest"? I'm sorry, but this is NOT a serious and sober consideration of war and its consequences - it's a thread on how cool military machines are. A poster said the 'Tiger II' was the coolest tank; I wonder what an Allied soldier or French civilian would have thought about that machine. Now don't worry; I have no intention to be a killjoy; military machinery is cool; just so long as we keep in mind what that machinery is designed to do...and spend a thought to the consequences of that action.

Now...I'm trying to quote posts here; this forum seems to be seriously resistant to easy quoting. I'll add to my thoughts soon just so long as I figure out how to quote something without the forum going completely insane.

Which I'm sure is easy; but it's currently driving me nuts.

Edited by NorthernDevo
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26 minutes ago, NorthernDevo said:

Uh huh - a decent answer. So why did posts on this list include "Which tank is the coolest"? I'm sorry, but this is NOT a serious and sober consideration of war and its consequences - it's a thread on how cool military machines are. A poster said the 'Tiger II' was the coolest tank; I wonder what an Allied soldier or French civilian would have thought about that machine. Now don't worry; I have no intention to be a killjoy; military machinery is cool; just so long as we keep in mind what that machinery is designed to do...and spend a thought to the consequences of that action.

Now...I'm trying to quote posts here; this forum seems to be seriously resistant to easy quoting. I'll add to my thoughts soon just so long as I figure out how to quote something without the forum going completely insane.

Which I'm sure is easy; but it's currently driving me nuts.

How do you think a German civilian felt when the Allies dropped phosphorus on the city they fled to after the Russians started invading? Or maybe when a T-34-85 drove over their home street in Berlin? Or other things I'm not allowed to say here?

People say "x" is cool because of it's features, not what crew decided to do to people and/or infrastructure. A tank that weighs 100 tons? Cool! A tank crew that blew up a whole neighborhood on purpose? Not so cool. Unleashing atomic energy? Cool! On a city? Not so cool. Of course the intentions for those machines and devices were meant for beyond evil purposes, but we learned so many things. Peaceful, clean energy that powers millions? Thank Manhattan. 

The reason I enjoy wars the most are because of the reasons they were fought, the generals and leaders who fought them, and the technology used in such wars. The amount of people who died in the World Wars is a shocking and sad statistic, but things happened, and that is why I'm saying this right now. Maybe one thing happening would've meant us still not being able to use these computers? War is just interesting, no one is saying war isn't evil, in fact, I think most think about war like you do.

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7 hours ago, HoloYolo said:

How do you think a German civilian felt when the Allies dropped phosphorus on the city they fled to after the Russians started invading? Or maybe when a T-34-85 drove over their home street in Berlin? Or other things I'm not allowed to say here?

People say "x" is cool because of it's features, not what crew decided to do to people and/or infrastructure. A tank that weighs 100 tons? Cool! A tank crew that blew up a whole neighborhood on purpose? Not so cool. Unleashing atomic energy? Cool! On a city? Not so cool. Of course the intentions for those machines and devices were meant for beyond evil purposes, but we learned so many things. Peaceful, clean energy that powers millions? Thank Manhattan. 

The reason I enjoy wars the most are because of the reasons they were fought, the generals and leaders who fought them, and the technology used in such wars. The amount of people who died in the World Wars is a shocking and sad statistic, but things happened, and that is why I'm saying this right now. Maybe one thing happening would've meant us still not being able to use these computers? War is just interesting, no one is saying war isn't evil, in fact, I think most think about war like you do.

Once again, 100 percent agreed.

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23 hours ago, HoloYolo said:

How do you think a German civilian felt when the Allies dropped phosphorus on the city they fled to after the Russians started invading? Or maybe when a T-34-85 drove over their home street in Berlin? Or other things I'm not allowed to say here?

 

Exactly. You're not suggesting one side or the other has experienced any less horror in war? That was not the point. The point was that war is destructive; and that destruction has a catastrophic and deeply traumatic effect on Human life. We can chat casually about 'great' tanks, machines, etc. but consider if YOU are the person FACING that machine...the focus shifts remarkably. I said I didn't want to be a killjoy. Military machinery and topics CAN be cool; but let's just keep the reality of those things in sharp focus.

As an analogy; we can consider the sword. The sword is perhaps the most well-regarded and admired weapon; it is a beautiful, elegant and wonderfully-crafted piece of work; a finely-designed and desirable tool. Swords have shaped legend - as the Wootz sword pulled from a form in Damascus did (the linguistic root of Excalibur has been firmly traced to Syria.) Swords have been objects of desire; of story. Swords define heroes in story and legend. From (according to Mallory) Arthur's God-given weapon to the superbly balanced swords of the Samurai; the sword has always held the forefront of our imagination.

Now think for a moment what that lovely piece of metal does to the Human body when it is being used for the purpose it was designed for. If you've ever seen a Katana - for example - actually used for its specific purpose, its glamour fades sharply; replaced by a much more sober and serious consideration of its capabilities. When a sword - great as it might be - is used to effect, the effect is death, agony and butchery. For the record I, myself, have never seen a Katana being used in combat; though I have seen machetes, axes and knives used. The difference between us is that for me and for those that like me served in combat, this is not an academic exercise; it is personal history.

 

I have NO wish at all to disrupt this thread; simply to point out that what is cool to some is a horrible, personal reality to others.

 

To add in a positive way to this thread, I can tell a story of my second tour in Bosnia, 1992. I was second-in-command of a Pioneer Section of the Patricias - the finest fighting Foot on Earth - operating in support of UNPROFOR, about three months into our tour of duty. For weeks, we'd been taking sporadic but increasing small-arms fire on our patrols; regular sweeps were more and more becoming active engagements. These were usually just locals with Kalashnikovs and too much Slivovitz taking potshots; but not always. Sometimes we took serious fire; we returned it in spades...NO-ONE fires on Canadian soldiers without a major fight on their hands. We never lost anyone in our platoon but overall the Battalion had 3 men hurt, for at least a dozen attackers (including a number of RPG's) wiped out. We were winning, but the Brass decided something needed to be done. So we did it.

We arranged a fun event for the locals: a "Firepower Demonstration". It's a chance to show off a little, blend with the locals and chat them up. After all, we're strangers in their country; we should show them who we are, right? Keep in mind that as Peacekeepers we have to keep our 'friendly' faces on at all times. Not the easiest task, I assure you.

In fact, it's much more serious, though we'd never say so. They want to see, to assess our tactical ability. We get the chance to clearly see their weaponry and strength. It's like a 'fun day' sponsored by the NRA.

That is a joke.

The firepower 2Bn chose to demonstrate was our vehicle-mounted TOW launcher - a powerful and effective anti-tank missile platform. Its HEAT rounds are devastatingly effective against armour; but hardly spectacular...so we put on a show. :wink:

The night before the demonstration; I was assigned to take four soldiers - my entire fire-team - plus a fully-crewed M113 APC to act as security escort for a party of Canadian Combat Engineers out to the destroyed Russian T-55 tank we'd be using as a target. We set up a cordon; our APC's twin guns and thermal sights watching as the Engineers went to work. I don't know much about explosives save what I learned in the Infantry - I can only blow things up; I can't blow them down - but as far as I could see they wired that damn thing up with high explosive, a ton of black powder, a few gallons of naphtha and a drum of diesel fuel; all wrapped up in a few dozen yards of detcord.

I can honestly say that loading my guys up and driving away from that thing was one of the scariest moments of my life. The Engineers were happy, I was shi...er...sweating bricks until we cleared the blast radius; which was a heck of a lot farther than I liked. (Chuckle)

The next morning was bright, fresh and festive. The town had turned out; plenty of opportunity to mix with the locals. Most of the local men had weapons of one type or another; we knew damn well they'd been the ones shooting at us but...peacekeeping, remember. We chatted: Yes, this IS a C8! Top of the line; look how clean it is; how new. Those notches in the stock? Ignore them...not important. Is that your Kalashnikov? How nice! Let me look! Hmmm....some rusty rounds in there; I'll make a note. :wink: Ohhh....that guy has a Dragunov! Wonderful! What - no special ammunition? Too bad! I'll make a note. Here, let me show you something nice; THIS is the Bowie I always carry...oh yes sir; Canadian troops ALWAYS carry a favoured personal weapon...do you have a favourite weapon? No? Ohh. I'll make a note.

And so on :wink: 

I would love to say I was the soldier selected to fire the TOW at the target.  Perhaps if I say it enough I'll even believe it one day; I want to so much. But I wasn't. Mike Auccoin had that honour and I still haven't forgiven him :wink: I was over to the left of my line with my Section; making sure my courageous troupe of brainless idiots were doing what I told them to: staying behind the berm and keeping their flippin' faces planted. We were at a safe distance - in Army terms anyway. In civilian terms the range was totally-freakin'-stupid-close; it was planned that way. If you're going to make a point you don't want the people you're making a point at miss the point.

RHIP - rank hath its privileges - I stayed standing until Mike shouted "Firing now!" Then I dropped and sucked mud - hard.

BOOOOOMMM!!!!

In all my years, in all my tours, in all my operations whether combat, training or monitoring, in all my civilian adventures - many somewhat shady - I've never seen an explosion like that. I've seen A-10s take out an ammunition dump; I have personally eliminated a fuel depot; I have withstood a major artillery barrage. I have NEVER seen a blast like that. The Engineers had done their work superbly; they crafted a blast never seen before or since. An actual HEAT round strike looks small on the outside; the devastation happens inside the vehicle. This blast erupted like a solar flare - white-hot, huge and unbelievably spectacular. There was enough solid explosive planted to mask the fact it was a fuel-air explosion (an FAE will give away the game to anyone who knows ANYTHING about explosions at all) and the ground heaved under us. I lifted my head just enough to see the most wonderful sight: the turret of the T-55 - 12 tons of steel - spinning lazily as it rocketed into the air above the gigantic fireball. My timing is probably off ( I do know the math) but that turret flew for damn near 10 seconds before it hit the ground.

There was a sudden silence.

The very next sound was the collective 'Thunk' of dozens of Serbian fighters' jaws hitting the ground at the same time.

Insurgent activity dropped to near-zero for the remainder of our tour. :D We had maybe four or five serious firefights after that - a tenth of what we'd had beforehand.

I love telling this story because it's fun and exciting and to be frank; I tell it well in real-life; it's a great story. More importantly, I love telling it because no-one died - and this one demonstration kept the hotheads and fighters from attacking us for a while.

I call that a win. :wink:

Cheers!

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by NorthernDevo
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1 minute ago, NorthernDevo said:

Exactly. You're not suggesting one side or the other has experienced any less horror in war? That was not the point. The point was that war is destructive; and that destruction has a catastrophic and deeply traumatic effect on Human life. We can chat casually about 'great' tanks, machines, etc. but consider if YOU are the person FACING that machine...the focus shifts remarkably. I said I didn't want to be a killjoy. Military machinery and topics CAN be cool; but let's just keep the reality of those things in sharp focus.

As an analogy; we can consider the sword. The sword is perhaps the most well-regarded and admired weapon; it is a beautiful, elegant and wonderfully-crafted piece of work; a finely-designed and desirable tool. Swords have shaped legend - as the Wootz sword pulled from a form in Damascus did (the linguistic root of Excalibur has been firmly traced to Syria.) Swords have been objects of desire; of story. Swords define heroes in story and legend. From (according to Mallory) Arthur's God-given weapon to the superbly balanced swords of the Samurai; the sword has always held the forefront of our imagination.

Now think for a moment what that lovely piece of metal does to the Human body when it is being used for the purpose it was designed for. If you've ever seen a Katana - for example - actually used for its specific purpose, its glamour fades sharply; replaced by a much more sober and serious consideration of its capabilities. When a sword - great as it might be - is used to effect, the effect is death, agony and butchery. For the record I, myself, have never seen a Katana being used in combat; though I have seen machetes, axes and knives used. The difference between us is that for me and for those that like me served in combat, this is not an academic exercise; it is personal history. I have NO wish at all to disrupt this thread; simply to point out that what is cool to some is a horrible, personal reality to others.

 

To add in a positive way to this thread, I can tell a story of my second tour in Bosnia, 1992. I was second-in-command of a Pioneer Section of the Patricias - the finest fighting Foot on Earth - operating in support of UNPROFOR, about three months into our tour of duty. For weeks, we'd been taking sporadic but increasing small-arms fire on our patrols; regular sweeps were more and more becoming active engagements. These were usually just locals with Kalashnikovs and too much Slivovitz taking potshots; but not always. Sometimes we took serious fire; we returned it in spades...NO-ONE fires on Canadian soldiers without a major fight on their hands. We never lost anyone in our platoon but overall the Battalion had 3 men hurt, for at least a dozen attackers (including a number of RPG's) wiped out. We were winning, but the Brass decided something needed to be done. So we did it.

We arranged a fun event for the locals: a "Firepower Demonstration". It's a chance to show off a little, blend with the locals and chat them up. After all, we're strangers in their country; we should show them who we are, right? Keep in mind that as Peacekeepers we have to keep our 'friendly' faces on at all times. Not the easiest task, I assure you.

In fact, it's much more serious, though we'd never say so. They want to see, to assess our tactical ability. We get the chance to clearly see their weaponry and strength. It's like a 'fun day' sponsored by the NRA.

That is a joke.

The firepower 2Bn chose to demonstrate was our vehicle-mounted TOW launcher - a powerful and effective anti-tank missile platform. Its HEAT rounds are devastatingly effective against armour; but hardly spectacular...so we put on a show. :wink:

The night before the demonstration; I was assigned to take four soldiers - my entire fire-team - plus a fully-crewed M113 APC to act as security escort for a party of Canadian Combat Engineers out to the destroyed Russian T-55 tank we'd be using as a target. We set up a cordon; our APC's twin guns and thermal sights watching as the Engineers went to work. I don't know much about explosives save what I learned in the Infantry - I can only blow things up; I can't blow them down - but as far as I could see they wired that damn thing up with high explosive, a ton of black powder, a few gallons of naphtha and a drum of diesel fuel; all wrapped up in a few dozen yards of detcord.

I can honestly say that loading my guys up and driving away from that thing was one of the scariest moments of my life. The Engineers were happy, I was shi...er...sweating bricks until we cleared the blast radius; which was a heck of a lot farther than I liked. (Chuckle)

The next morning was bright, fresh and festive. The town had turned out; plenty of opportunity to mix with the locals. Most of the local men had weapons of one type or another; we knew damn well they'd been the ones shooting at us but...peacekeeping, remember. We chatted: Yes, this IS a C8! Top of the line; look how clean it is; how new. Those notches in the stock? Ignore them...not important. Is that your Kalashnikov? How nice! Let me look! Hmmm....some rusty rounds in there; I'll make a note. :wink: Ohhh....that guy has a Dragunov! Wonderful! What - no special ammunition? Too bad! I'll make a note. Here, let me show you something nice; THIS is the Bowie I always carry...oh yes sir; Canadian troops ALWAYS carry a favoured personal weapon...do you have a favourite weapon? No? Ohh. I'll make a note.

And so on :wink: 

I would love to say I was the soldier selected to fire the TOW at the target.  Perhaps if I say it enough I'll even believe it one day; I want to so much. But I wasn't. Mike Auccoin had that honour and I still haven't forgiven him :wink: I was over to the left of my line with my Section; making sure my courageous troupe of brainless idiots were doing what I told them to: staying behind the berm and keeping their flippin' faces planted. We were at a safe distance - in Army terms anyway. In civilian terms the range was totally-freakin'-stupid-close; it was planned that way. If you're going to make a point you don't want the people you're making a point at miss the point.

RHIP - rank hath its privileges - I stayed standing until Mike shouted "Firing now!" Then I dropped and sucked mud - hard.

BOOOOOMMM!!!!

In all my years, in all my tours, in all my operations whether combat, training or monitoring, in all my civilian adventures - many somewhat shady - I've never seen an explosion like that. I've seen A-10s take out an ammunition dump; I have personally eliminated a fuel depot; I have withstood a major artillery barrage. I have NEVER seen a blast like that. The Engineers had done their work superbly; they crafted a blast never seen before or since. An actual HEAT round strike looks small on the outside; the devastation happens inside the vehicle. This blast erupted like a solar flare - white-hot, huge and unbelievably spectacular. There was enough solid explosive planted to mask the fact it was a fuel-air explosion (an FAE will give away the game to anyone who knows ANYTHING about explosions at all) and the ground heaved under us. I lifted my head just enough to see the most wonderful sight: the turret of the T-55 - 12 tons of steel - spinning lazily as it rocketed into the air above the gigantic fireball. My timing is probably off ( I do know the math) but that turret flew for damn near 10 seconds before it hit the ground.

There was a sudden silence.

The very next sound was the collective 'Thunk' of dozens of Serbian fighters' jaws hitting the ground at the same time.

Insurgent activity dropped to near-zero for the remainder of our tour. :D We had maybe four or five serious firefights after that - a tenth of what we'd had beforehand.

I love telling this story because it's fun and exciting and to be frank; I tell it well in real-life; it's a great story. More importantly, I love telling it because no-one died - and this one demonstration kept the hotheads and fighters from attacking us for a while.

I call that a win. :wink:

Cheers!

 

 

 

 

 

Great story! I see what you mean now. Things are cool until those things start rumbling towards you, I see that. Cheers as well (using cheers this way is awkward for me)!

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25 minutes ago, HoloYolo said:

Great story! I see what you mean now. Things are cool until those things start rumbling towards you, I see that. Cheers as well (using cheers this way is awkward for me)!

Thank you. You are smart, well-rounded and empathetic; I was sure you would understand. I just beg you to remember how many people, men, women and children, have seen 'those things' rumbling towards them - whether those things be tanks, technicals or scores of men with machetes. War is awful beyond measure; the machines are designed to do horrible things.

My consolation lies in the belief that the ability and willingness to do horrible things on my part relieved the suffering of the civilians we protected. I don't know if we succeeded. I do know we had small victories. One sniper killed here, one family saved there. That is enough. And if I live long enough I might one day actually believe that.

The rest is for history to decide.

Edited by NorthernDevo
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21 minutes ago, The Space Dino said:

I'm speechless now, but overall that was some really long and good stuff you guys wrote there. 

I would kind of like to discuss about the cool stuff about these things because the bad stuff discussion is kind of getting lengthy....

Ending the bad stuff now; we can continue with the fun stuff. It's the same stuff; just with a different perspective.

 

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38 minutes ago, pTrevTrevs said:

Has anybody heard of this guy, by any chance? He makes a lot of neat videos about military history and common misconceptions about warfare. Most of the stuff he makes has to do with Antiquity or the Middle Ages, but he covers more modern stuff on occasion.

https://www.youtube.com/user/lindybeige

Nope...

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The personal aspect actually has become the most interesting aspect of military history to me at most times. I have a particular interest in some military technologies (WW2 aviation and naval stuff, and age of sail vessels), but that always tends to be a starting point---as a technical person, I suppose that is unsurprising, that I come for the technology, but stay for the, well, humanity. This is why, for example, I prefer "grunt level" accounts, rather than "big picture" accounts in general.

Think about more ancient history, and what warfare must have been like. Movies make such fighting into heroic masses of single combats, when in fact it was a charnel house of less "glamorous" shoving and stabbing. Stab, step, stab, step. With most of the actual killing only happening once a side broke... then you get to learn how long it takes to butcher people with knives, wholesale. 10s of thousands in a couple hours. Hard to imagine. And that's just the troops, then what happens to the city that lost?

Anyone interested in listening to history should consider Dan Carlin's Hardcore History. He obviously has to cover broad events, but he makes a real effort to not stick to the "great man" end of history, and tries to get a feel for the regular people who have to live through whatever terrible time he's covering.

He starts Wrath of the Khans with a version the very discussion we're having about viewing history from a long way off, and forgetting about the impact for people forced to live through it.

Edited by tater
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16 hours ago, pTrevTrevs said:

Has anybody heard of this guy, by any chance? He makes a lot of neat videos about military history and common misconceptions about warfare. Most of the stuff he makes has to do with Antiquity or the Middle Ages, but he covers more modern stuff on occasion.

https://www.youtube.com/user/lindybeige

I just found out about that boi and he makes some interesting video's!

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On 11/25/2016 at 9:06 PM, NorthernDevo said:

I have NO wish at all to disrupt this thread; simply to point out that what is cool to some is a horrible, personal reality to others.

I didn't think it was disruptive at all. Not considering all the points of view is bad.

Also, you made your point very well, both in Bosnia and on these forums. :)

On 11/25/2016 at 9:06 PM, NorthernDevo said:

More importantly, I love telling it because no-one died - and this one demonstration kept the hotheads and fighters from attacking us for a while.

That's always the best outcome.

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Everytime i see the weight of a tank, im like: That thing is way too heavy to reach LEO... Oh wait.

I usually research spacecraft, and weight is one of my biggest concerns. When i have ideas for spacecraft, i avoid heavy materials. But tanks are different than that, so i can get confused a bit.

 

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11 hours ago, The Space Dino said:

Back to the good stuff...

Maybe we should discuss about tanks?

The discussion of hardware outside of a specific context is pretty uninteresting to me. It's like those (terrible) shows that "rank" the best fighter, tank, whatever. Utterly meaningless. Military technology exists within multiple contexts, and cannot be separated from doctrine. Sometimes doctrine follows the function of the tech, other times the tech is developed to enable a doctrine. outside of specific combat doctrines, you can also think about logistics, too (in the case of WW2, the abject failure of the Axis at logistics makes any technological superiority in hardware utterly moot).

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Hi, all. Interesting thread with interesting perspectives. Here's mine:

I've been a military history buff since forever. My father was a WWII veteran, he joined the Army in 1939, ended up a tanker, went ashore in a DD tank in the first wave on Utah beach at Normandy. He finished two enlistments and got out. He and my mom moved out to California, he wound up joining the National Guard in the 1960s and ended up as a supply sergeant, which is more of a part-time job than the usual one-weekend-a-month type of commitment of the typical Guardsman. So all my school years I spent half my summer vacation hanging out at the NG armory while Dad was working, climbing around on the jeeps and the deuce-and-a-halfs, even the occasional tank or APC. When we got older we would help out, even helping check in the rifles after a drill weekend. And guns, holy cow, was my dad a gun guy. We had a huge collection of guns. Mostly modern stuff, but lots of curio & relic guns too. 1903, Garand, M1 Carbine, a Lee-Enfield, bunch of 1911s, a Luger. I learned to shoot when I was five years old. At least once a month we'd spend a day at the range. I was a bookworm growing up, which my father definitely was not, so I supplemented all of this with reading up on military history, mostly 20th century. Then I got into wargaming: Squad Leader, Third Reich, on and on. My whole childhood was just steeped in the military.

When I graduated high school my plan was to go ROTC and become a pilot, but my eyesight washed me out from even becoming an officer. My next plan was to join the Army and go armored cav, be a tanker like my dad. But then the Navy came along and flashed a lot of big enlistment bonus numbers in front of me, so I changed my mind and wound up as a nuclear mechanical operator running nuclear power plants on submarines. Which sucked. So I did my six years and got out. 

So, yeah, all sorts of war stories, history, interesting stuff to discuss.

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8 hours ago, tater said:

The discussion of hardware outside of a specific context is pretty uninteresting to me. It's like those (terrible) shows that "rank" the best fighter, tank, whatever. Utterly meaningless. Military technology exists within multiple contexts, and cannot be separated from doctrine. Sometimes doctrine follows the function of the tech, other times the tech is developed to enable a doctrine. outside of specific combat doctrines, you can also think about logistics, too (in the case of WW2, the abject failure of the Axis at logistics makes any technological superiority in hardware utterly moot).

Ok then, how about you give the specific contexts, since I'm terrible at stuff like that:)

 

5 hours ago, TheSaint said:

Hi, all. Interesting thread with interesting perspectives. Here's mine:

I've been a military history buff since forever. My father was a WWII veteran, he joined the Army in 1939, ended up a tanker, went ashore in a DD tank in the first wave on Utah beach at Normandy. He finished two enlistments and got out. He and my mom moved out to California, he wound up joining the National Guard in the 1960s and ended up as a supply sergeant, which is more of a part-time job than the usual one-weekend-a-month type of commitment of the typical Guardsman. So all my school years I spent half my summer vacation hanging out at the NG armory while Dad was working, climbing around on the jeeps and the deuce-and-a-halfs, even the occasional tank or APC. When we got older we would help out, even helping check in the rifles after a drill weekend. And guns, holy cow, was my dad a gun guy. We had a huge collection of guns. Mostly modern stuff, but lots of curio & relic guns too. 1903, Garand, M1 Carbine, a Lee-Enfield, bunch of 1911s, a Luger. I learned to shoot when I was five years old. At least once a month we'd spend a day at the range. I was a bookworm growing up, which my father definitely was not, so I supplemented all of this with reading up on military history, mostly 20th century. Then I got into wargaming: Squad Leader, Third Reich, on and on. My whole childhood was just steeped in the military.

When I graduated high school my plan was to go ROTC and become a pilot, but my eyesight washed me out from even becoming an officer. My next plan was to join the Army and go armored cav, be a tanker like my dad. But then the Navy came along and flashed a lot of big enlistment bonus numbers in front of me, so I changed my mind and wound up as a nuclear mechanical operator running nuclear power plants on submarines. Which sucked. So I did my six years and got out. 

So, yeah, all sorts of war stories, history, interesting stuff to discuss.

Nice story you got there!

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Anyone interested in WW2 Aviation? Specifically, the Battle of Britain and the Allied strategic bombings are parts of the war that seem to be neglected when it comes to the history books, even though some of the most inhumane.

The Bf 109 G-6 is probably my favorite aircraft. Spent its first days over Poland and lasted to the end, defending the Reich that it came from.

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23 minutes ago, Columbia said:

Anyone interested in WW2 Aviation? Specifically, the Battle of Britain and the Allied strategic bombings are parts of the war that seem to be neglected when it comes to the history books, even though some of the most inhumane.

A bit, but only in the larger context of the war. If you're asking me whether I think that strategic bombing could have strangled the German war machine, my answer is no. Also, you mentioned inhumane. Do you mean Dresden and Coventry style, or something else?

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9 hours ago, pTrevTrevs said:

>WW2 aviation

>Kerbal Space Program forum

 

 

Need I say more?

In my experience though, there are way way more people fascinated in tanks than planes, and the few military aviation enthusiasts are more into fighter jets.

 

;__;

20 hours ago, Dman979 said:

A bit, but only in the larger context of the war. If you're asking me whether I think that strategic bombing could have strangled the German war machine, my answer is no. Also, you mentioned inhumane. Do you mean Dresden and Coventry style, or something else?

The strategic bombing campaign did help burn out Luftwaffe aircraft and pilots, though. Ironically, German war machinery was at its peak in 1944 (I believe so), and their issue was pilot shortage. And yes, the Blitz and Dresden style. 'Twas on the level of the atomic bombings if not worse, and wasn't even for a greater good either.

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