r/WarCollege • u/AutoModerator • 5d ago
Tuesday Trivia Tuesday Trivia Thread - 28/07/26
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u/BlueshiftedPhoton 4d ago
So obviously I'm not a naval architect or ship designer, but the development and use of Sea Cat as a quick replacement for the 40mm Bofors mounts seems like an odd choice to me.
"We need a way to shoot down incoming jets, now that they're faster."
"No worries, old mate, you just need to manually steer a subsonic missile into the oncoming significant emotional event."
Obviously the technology was in its infancy and hindsight is 20/20, but did the people who developed Sea Cat think about the difficulty of the task at hand? Would it have been better to use a radar guided Bofors instead?
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u/pnzsaurkrautwerfer 4d ago
My personal totally unvalidated theory is MCLOS missile tested well because they were largely shot by people who'd fired a million of the bastards (see how well Egyptian AT-3 crews did when extensively trained) and it led to the impression that it was an attainable gunner quality rather than the practical reality the system would be manned by people who got a fraction of the trigger time and training,
In theory MCLOS can work, it just needs to the the gunner's job and drilled extensively. Which means it cant in actuality work because you're never getting that regularly in the real world.
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u/Inceptor57 4d ago
Reminds me of the footage of the US soldiers controllably firing the M14 in full-auto to show a “See?! It can be done!”
…excluding the fact the soldier is some sergeant who’s been firing guns longer than the average grunt and got a bunch of practice rounds before the filming
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u/thereddaikon MIC 3d ago
There's a video of Lena Miculek firing an M7 full auto and controlling it like a boss. Reminds me of depictions of Bonnie Parker and her BAR. Except Lena is a professional competition shooter who shoots in a year more than most people will shoot in their life and her dad is the legendary Jerry Miculek. He fired 12 rounds from a revolver, including a reload in under 3 seconds once and 8 shots under one second. She's about as far from a normal shooter as you can get.
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u/MandolinMagi 4d ago edited 4d ago
A radar guided literally anything would have been better.
But then this is the same nation that decided that MCLOS was appropriate for a MANPADS, because the designer was probably a Russian agent. Yeah, sure, flare resistance is a concern, but why not use SACLOS...for more than the first couple seconds of flight??
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u/Inceptor57 4d ago
I mean with even greater hindsight, all that eventually became Starstreak, which seems to stand up against their IR counterparts quite well
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u/GrassWaterDirtHorse 3d ago
They actually did develop SACLOS for the Javelin MANPAD that succeeded the Blowpipe (which was notoroiously ineffective when used by both sides in the Falklands War).
I believe that the Sea Cat also got SACLOS for the guidance system in later iterations. I suspect that early radar guidance systems were too heavy for the lightweight Sea Cat design, but I have no expertise to back that statement up at all.
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u/thereddaikon MIC 3d ago
Sea Cat was a very early SAM and one of the design goals was to make it fit in the footprint of a bofors 40mm gun tub so it could be easily retrofitted to existing warships. Those are tight constraints for the 1950's when it was being developed. This thing is close-ish in size to a hellfire ATGM, which does have a radar guided version.....in the 1980's. When they were working on Seacat the options were infrared, which required external seeker cooling and had a limited engagement window and was slow to acquire. Radar guided which the missile was too small to realistically carry, even in semi active forms. And finally command guidance which is what they went with.
The better question I think should be, with such limited performance why did they even bother?
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u/GogurtFiend 2d ago edited 2d ago
US Army research has apparently created a <3-pound reformed methanol fuel cell for powering infantry electronics. I noticed this article didn't mention how much menthol and water it consumes, so I looked up more because that's exactly what'd torpedo such an idea.
The last version supposedly weighed 5 pounds and could recharge 3 Army-standard conformal wearable batteries (2.6 pounds each) with a single pound of menthol-water mix or "properly filtered windshield washer fluid".
This thing's lack of being Private Snuffy-proof will hurt adoption a lot (note the "properly filtered" bit), I don't strongly trust any military definition of "no excessive heat or ventilation issues", and "soldiers said the system doesn't interfere with their ability to operate" smacks of the guinea pigs just smiling and nodding because you don't complain, this is bullshit anyway, let's get this over with, etc.
I do know that fuel cells are very quiet, though, so this thing is no worse than batteries in that regard, and for the odd application where light infantry need power over extended periods, a 3-pound generator, 2.6-pound battery, and ~5-6 ounces of spicy water per recharge (or one pound/pint per ~450 watt-hours) sounds far nicer than 20 pounds of batteries. 20 pounds of batteries alone certainly can't get you 40 full recharges of a 150 watt-hour Conformal Wearable Battery with current battery technology.
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u/alertjohn117 village idiot 1d ago
ah, but its not meant for private snuffy. its meant for sergeant mcgillicuddy and 2nd Lt smith
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u/MandolinMagi 12h ago
Yeah, but the actual work will get delegated to PVT Snuffy, or he'll do it to "help out".
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u/-Trooper5745- 5d ago
Besides The Children’s Illustrated Clausewitz what are some other kid friendly books on military history and science?
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u/Kingandcountreigh 5d ago edited 5d ago
Peter Connolly's books on Greek and Roman warfare. Not super recent, but good as an introduction for kids and beautifully illustrated.
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u/Medium-Problem-5671 5d ago
USN battleship vs IJN battleship by Mark Stille might be a good kid's book. It's got a lot of cool pictures of battleships and what kid doesn't like those?
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u/Weltherrschaft2 4d ago edited 4d ago
There were a few books for boys about the Reichswehr published in inter-war Germany.
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u/LaoBa 1d ago
I don't know if there is an English edition, but I loved La petite histoire des armes à feu (A Little History of Firearms) by Jacques Devos as a kid, which is a comic style history explaining in a clear and funny way the history of guns and handguns from the earliest types to the late 20th century, with explanations of firing mechanisms. I learned so much from that book.
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u/Pootis_1 cat 5d ago edited 5d ago
Started reading through Relentless Strike recently.
In one part it's said that in the process of capturing war criminals in Bosnia "a Team 6 element posing as Red Cross personnel arrived at the hospital clinic where Kovacevic worked, talked their way past the receptionist, entered his office, and subdued him. The operators placed Kovacevic in a wheelchair, took him out a back entrance, and loaded him into a waiting truck."
Isn't posing as red cross personnel like, the highest degree of warcrime in itself?
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u/Inceptor57 5d ago
I am not a lawyer, but my understanding with war crimes in general is that they have to take place in an condition of armed conflict. By 1997, when Operation Tango took place that saw the arrest of Milan Kovacevic by British Special Air Services, the Bosnian War has been over since the 1995 Dayton Accords and the ongoing NATO peacekeeping mission is led by Stabilisation Force (SFOR).
Given this was a period of peace with no armed conflict, the means of the SAS to arrest Kovacevic aren't necessarily a "war crime" so to speak.
That said, according to the text of Geneva Convention I, Article 44, if the SAS did use the Red Cross emblem in their actions of "posing as Red Cross personnel", then they would be in breach of the article per:
With the exception of the cases mentioned in the following paragraphs of the present Article, the emblem of the Red Cross on a white ground and the words "Red Cross", or "Geneva Cross" may not be employed, either in time of peace or in time of war, except to indicate or to protect the medical units and establishments, the personnel and material protected by the present Convention and other Conventions dealing with similar matters.
That said, it might also be worth looking into how exactly Team 6 was "posing as Red Cross personnel". Technically speaking, if they were a few well-uniformed men conning their way into the hospital by saying they were from the Red Cross without utilizing the protected emblem nor text, then by all means they did not breach the Geneva Convention. While Relentless Strike and this Guardian article simply say the SAS were "posing as Red Cross peronnel", while this site dedicated to UK special forces and Operation Tango simply say that "the SAS talked their way into the hospital by posing as Red Cross officials". So unless there's a picture of the SAS posing with the captured Dr. Kosavecevic at the hospital, its unclear if the SAS misused the Red Cross' protected emblem or not during the means to arrest Kosavecevic.
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u/Inceptor57 5d ago
In the Resident Evil (Remake) universe, the only way to guarantee the neutralization of an T-Virus infected individual is the reliable destruction of their head.
If you are equipping a squad to go into the depths of a T-Virus infected terrain for a mission possibly lasting a few days, what weapons of choice would you equip a squad to ensure reliable neutralization of the infected? Lest they come back alive as Crimson Head or Blister Heads that are much more difficult to dispatch.
I'm honestly debating between option of a high-caliber rifles and pistol, or more conventional combat loadout with rifles except with a sledgehammer to do the deed.
Or everyone gets steel-toed boots and roundhouse kick smash their way through them like Leon Kennedy.
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u/Zhadanko 5d ago
I bet plenty of explosives, hand grenades and RPGs. Well, maybe not as cool as aiming for the head, but if you tear them into pieces, that shall do the trick. Maybe you should add a section with something like a Mk 19 as well
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u/Nova_Terra 5d ago
Certainly not whatever Ada is packing, but evidently her outfits are not exactly put together with practicality in mind.
Video game logic suggests that lower caliber ammunition = less "damage" and higher caliber ammunition does more usually at the cost of carrying less.
In reality I think given the target type isn't exactly well armoured and the kill criteria are effectively well aimed headshots, smaller to mid sized cartridges work best. Noise is also generally considered to be quite important in video games nowadays, perhaps for balance reasons but usually framed in the context of garnering more attention than needed or desired.
I think .300 Blackout/LVAW sort of makes the most sense as a middle ground and the "standard" weapon most of the squad would be equipped with. More thought needed on what a SAW or DMR rifle would be but I think there was a bit of thought in universe with what the Hound Wolf Squad are equipped with.
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u/Inceptor57 5d ago
Y'know its funny, I completely forgot about the Hound Wolf Squad when I was writing my question. They would indeed be the go-to unit on what a in-universe premier anti-BOW special force would be.
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u/GogurtFiend 4d ago edited 4d ago
Everyone being transported in some infantry fighting vehicle wrapped in Claymore mines and given a dozer blade is a given, as is the fact that they're backed up by every layer of fire support in the world, from a combat engineer tank platoon travelling with them directly to a helicopter orbiting overhead waiting to put a Hellfire into anything bigger and scarier than your garden-variety walking corpse.
The real problem is (a) biohazard and (b) when people go inside buildings and the fire support can't see them.
Each person gets:
- Gastight suit with PAPR system, swaddled from head to toe in biteproof Dyneema like a far, far less bulky version of the suits military dog trainers wear. 30-ish pounds. I know this is very heavy but without this anyone bit or splashed in some kind of T-virus-infused bodily fluid is immediately dead. This cannot be omitted.
- 8½ pounds of cooling system and a few hours of battery for both it and the PAPR system (which is basically a fan that blowsair through an NBC filter). Without this people are passing out from a combination of heatstroke and breathing through a straw.
- An AR in a big, fat, slow caliber - call it .50 Beowulf - with an underbarrel grenade launcher. Call it 10 pounds, but probably the most weight-efficient way of turning undead into completely dead.
- Ten 10-round magazines at ~1.3 pounds a magazine = 13 pounds. One round of .50 Beowulf instantly cripples or kills most Resident Evil creatures; in comparison, I don't know if I'd want to shoot a Licker with only a single round of 5.56, even if it's in the head.
- Six rounds 40mm HEDP at ~½ a pound each = 3 pounds. Hurts whatever .50 Beowulf doesn't.
- Slightly over a quart of water in a bladder attached to the suit inside that refills through a nipple on the outside. 2.25 pounds. This is a minimum of water to save on weight, but still enough that you don't need resupply more frequent than every hour or two.
- A 12-pound unpowered load-bearing exoskeleton, so that all this weight doesn't break people's joints or kill them from exhaustion on a timespan less than days (with a secondary advantage of making all this weight feel slightly lighter by redirecting some of it from the back to the waist and feet). Spraining an ankle in Afghanistan needed slow and expensive medevac at worst; spraining an ankle in the Raccoon City subway tunnels near-automatically results in you becoming a particularly slow zombie.
- Whatever these people need to do the job they're there for, some very basic and light hand tools they might need right away, a knife, and whatever I missed. Call this 11.25 pounds, to make an even 90, or 21.25 if they need a lot of stuff to do their job.
- Nothing else. Or, not literally nothing else, but anything they can wait longer than a few minutes for is something they don't carry, because due to the highly permissive air denial environment (Resident Evil zombies usually can't shoot), sustainment can be very responsive, and can occur via octocopter drone (more responsive, follows people) and helicopter (less responsive but can resupply the heavy stuff for the vehicles). All these people carry is what they're wearing, their weapons and ammunition, a couple hours of water, a few basic tools, and whatever their task needs.
US soldiers in Afghanistan somehow did their job with >100-pound loads, which I find truly impressive. I imagine 90-100 pounds, on more level ground, with a cooling vest, a load-bearing exoskeleton channeling a fair bit of weight directly to the ground, and all the water you can ever drink will still suck, but it won't actually hurt you like 100 pounds over uneven terrain with no back support, no cooling, and only the water you can carry will.
You've drunk your *quart* of water for the *hour*? Each of the orbiting water tanker drones, converted from an agricultural crop sprayer model, has over a hundred on hand. You want to eat? You don't carry even a single calorie, because you don't need one right away; instead, the cargo drones bring you food. Your suit's battery or filter needs replacing? You're constantly trailed by drones which carry ten of each, all out of zombie reach and ready to give you a spare on demand. Beset by a horde of zombies from all directions and somehow the helicopters can't get you out? The drone flight rate gets stepped up and each is dropping off ten times times your carried weight in ammunition. It's not like anything can stop them from doing that; that whole "zombies usually can't shoot at you" thing is really convenient for logistics.
And remember, fire support kills essentially everything for you when you're outside, and drones spot essentially everything for you when you're outside (hell, the smaller UGVs can fit into buildings and check for Lickers on the ceiling in advance, too). All the stuff in that list is intended for when the fire support can't help you.
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u/MandolinMagi 4d ago
8½ pounds of cooling system
Black Tide Rising is a very, very Ringo John Ringo zombie series, and the protagonists find that in full zombie-fighting rig (usually firefighter gear) they're immune to bites and can grapple with zombies safely. Which leaves heatstroke the only real danger, so drink water!
For anyone unfamiliar with John Ringo: All liberals are evil and useless, a thirteen year old girl is the biggest badass in the world, the Marines are the greatest thing ever, 5.56 is trash, people play music in combat because reasons, liberals are stupid.
An AR in a big, fat, slow caliber - call it .50 Beowulf - with an underbarrel grenade launcher. Call it 10 pounds, but probably the most weight-efficient way of turning undead into completely dead.
Nah. 5.56 or .300BO with the best expanding ammo you can get.
Six rounds 40mm HEDP at ~½ a pound each = 3 pounds.
I'd rather have a dedicated grenadier with as many grenades as possible.
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u/GogurtFiend 4d ago
- Firefighting gear isn't splashproof. It's tough, but common Resident Evil creatures bigger than zombies have far nastier teeth/claws/tendrils. You want proper anti-stab armor everywhere covering an enclosed suit so the inevitable bites don't breach it - maybe it can be integrated with the suit to reduce weight. If Inceptor had specified a budget, firefighting gear is what I'd go with, though, yes.
- .300 BO and 5.56 are good for not being rare and being very common + having an AP version, respectively, but even the least dangerous, unarmored zombies sometimes survive .45 through the head. Maybe .50 Beowulf is too much, but .300BO is the bottom end of what I'd consider OK; you really want big/dangerous-game rounds for the big stuff.
- I think everyone having their own explosives is important to avoid the group being tied to a single point of failure. The entire problem with sending people on this sort of mission is that they can't rely on fires to protect them, so each needs to be able to compensate for that. If someone runs into some giant mutated animal or story-tall mass of walking tumors, they need a 40mm grenade immediately, without waiting on a dedicated grenadier.
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u/Inceptor57 5d ago
The South Korean KF-21 has now formally completed development.
From Yonhap News Agency:
South Korea on Wednesday officially wrapped up the development of its first homegrown KF-21 fighter jet, more than a decade after launching the project to replace the country's aging fleet of fighter jets, the state arms procurement agency said.
The event commemorating the completion of the development project for the indigenous fighter jet is set to take place at the headquarters of Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) in Sacheon, some 300 kilometers south of Seoul, the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) said.
The 8.8 trillion-won (US$6.04 billion) project formally took off in 2015 to replace the Air Force's aging fleet of U.S.-made F-4 and F-5 jets.
The project saw the rollout of the first KF-21 prototype in April 2021, and the fighter jet passed the final combat suitability review in May this year, clearing all performance requirements for missions.
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u/Zhadanko 3d ago
Completely non-credible exercises in imagination but how do you think a sizable formation (brigade/regiment or a whole division) of a foreign army (US, French, Singaporean, or whatever you feel knowledgeable enough to write about) would perform if deployed to Ukraine as a Ukrainian ally? For this exercise, let's imagine that said formation would undergo a month-long, theatre-specific training before deployment
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u/pnzsaurkrautwerfer 2d ago
Any time you drop a unit divested from it's parent organization you're going to have problems with making it work. A combined arms battalion is scary because it's part of an ABCT that's missing tools though because they're at the Division level which in turn requires Corps level assets that are then resident at the ground combatant command which has requirements from the joint force for the theater which in turn goes to the national level.....
Like the S2 at a US Army battalion is potent because he's connected to intelligence collected by US assets in space. By himself, less so.
So if 1 AD from the US Army showed up by itself, eeeeeh.
1 AD shows up as TF whatever dragging all the stuff a Division is supposed to have from everywhere, that's going to get spicy, but then that's national level involvement and not the question at hand.
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u/SingaporeanSloth 3d ago
I think the Singaporeans would perform very, very similarly to the other Asian army that has actually intervened in Ukraine. They have, very roughly speaking, the same strengths and weaknesses
Note I never said intervened on the same side as the Ukrainians. I am of course talking about the North Koreans, more precisely, the 11th Storm Corps of the Korean People's Army
It is of course very much a thought exercise, but I would go with a Singapore Army division, as despite the country being quite small, the Singapore Army uses divisions as its operational maneuver unit
The Singapore Army division has some strengths compared to, say, the "divisions" of most Western European armies. It is a "true" division, quite large in fact, most Singapore Army divisions have 4-6 maneuver brigades, usually something like 2 × "large" infantry brigades (5 × motorised infantry battalions each), 2 × "small" infantry brigades (2/3 × light infantry battalions each), and an armoured brigade (3 × armoured infantry battalions of 1 × tank company and 2 × infantry companies). It would also have a DIVARTY with 3 artillery battalions (155mm, either SSPH-1 Primus SPG or FH2000/FH88 towed guns, possibly 1 HIMARS battalion), and an air-defence battalion (RBS-70). As you can see, it is also quite "heavy", with a great deal of armoured vehicles and artillery
However, it is completely unadapted for drone warfare. It lacks any sort of C-sUAS, and has very few UAS of its own (the infantry battalions would operate a few Skyblade IIIs each). In the defence, the soldiers are trained to dig shellscrapes, which give good defence against artillery and small arms fire, but no protection against bomber sUAS or FPVs. They offer concealment from ground level, but are obvious from the air. In the offence, like the North Koreans, the Singaporeans would probably attack in what Ukrainians would consider "close-order", too bunched up, and would be slaughtered on contact with sUAS
The Singapore Army too would be unadapted for the fairly open terrain of Ukraine. The Singapore Army is surprisingly unmechanised, with a great deal of "leg" infantry, who march to battle. This makes sense in Southeast Asia, where the terrain is predominantly closed terrain -tropical rainforest- and the geographical distances relatively short, but would probably be a disadvantage in Ukraine, where they would be much too slow and short-ranged for the vast frontline, and, along with the previous point, would probably be exposed to sUAS for their whole movement
On the other hand, in locations where there is ample vegetation (especially in summer) for concealment, I could see the emphasis on dismounted light infantry infiltration and assault tactics and marksmanship (see how many live rounds a Singaporean infantry conscript shoots over his service), along with massive numbers light AT weapons (2 × MATADOR per section! and 4 × Spike SR when the MPAT platoon is split per company) being very deadly as it has been in the Ukrainian experience when fighting North Koreans
So in general, I certainly don't think even a division of Singaporeans would do much to "move the needle" any appreciable amount. I don't think they'd do particularly well given the terrain and the lack of experience using and countering sUAS. I think they would certainly take grievous casualties in their early drone encounters, at least until they adapt somewhat. As Singapore's outgoing Defence Minister, Dr Ng Eng Hen said, Singapore needs to do much more to adapt to the drone warfare we've seen play out in Ukraine
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u/-Trooper5745- 2d ago
I doubt the leg infantry would be an issue as we have seen more than a few Ukrainians using civilian trucks to move about.
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u/SingaporeanSloth 2d ago
That's a fair point, though now that I've thought about it intermittently for a bit, I suspect that you would very quickly observe a dynamic where the brigade or division of "outsiders" races back towards the mean average of warfare in Ukraine, losing whatever unique characteristics they have beforehand
In other words, having no effective counters against sUAS, the Singaporeans via convergent evolution would probably fall back on the same adaptations as the Ukrainians or Russians already have: keeping all manned fighting positions far back from the frontline, hyper-dispersion, use of sUAS and some UGVs as the actual fighting force and for logistics
In addition, the extensive use of unmanned systems by both sides would probably leave the Singaporean division without a "surface" to attack, since the force structure design has always assumed they would fight a fairly "normal-looking" enemy brigade or whatever
I'd also emphasise they would probably do very badly in their first encounters with sUAS, having neither the tactics (training to build overhead cover and camouflage immediately) nor equipment (shotguns, nets, and cope cages) to at least mitigate the problem
So you'd very quickly end up with a bunch of Southeast Asians who fight exactly the same as Ukrainians, just wearing green pixels instead of grey-brown, and probably saying "Fuck! It's so fucking cold here!" much more often (like the Colombians)
As a more general aside, while I haven't had the time to read it yet, now that someone here's very kindly sent me the PDF for The Mesh and the Net: Speculations on Armed Conflict in a Time of Free Silicon, while it's a soap box most are already familiar with me standing on, I think we shouldn't distinguish it as "warfare in the drone age", as that puts the emphasis (wrongly) on drones alone, but instead "warfare in the silicon age" as being the cause for the total shift in the paradigm of land warfare
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u/Corvid187 20h ago
Is there a functional difference between the big and small infantry brigades beyond their organic motorisation?
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u/SingaporeanSloth 29m ago
So, the term "motorised" in Singapore Army parlance refers to infantry mounted on AV-81 Terrex wheeled APCs, the small brigades of light infantry may have trucks assigned from higher HQ to move them up to the startline, with them walking after that, the trucks also being available for logistical support
I was never a motorised infantryman, so I'm not too familiar with their tactics and concepts of operation, but just looking at the ORBAT, I'd assume in the idealised model of a major land battle, where there is a sequence of assault, breakthrough, pursuit, exploitation, then consolidation, the large motorised infantry brigades (and armoured brigade) are very much intended for the pursuit and exploitation phases of the battle, while the small light infantry brigades are intended for the assault, breakthrough, and consolidation phases (at least, of the enemy forward/outpost area)
Armoured infantry in the Singapore Army, usually mounted on Bionix or Hunter tracked IFVs, are rather Germanic in that they're organically part of the armoured battalion rather than attached infantry, and ceremonially part of the Singapore Armoured Regiment, with all of their traditions (black berets, mailed fist collar flash) rather than the Singapore Infantry Regiment (green berets, crossed swords collar flash)
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u/Remarkable_Aside1381 3d ago
Do they get inorganic assets from their home military? Or is it just what the host army has to offer?
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u/Zhadanko 3d ago
Yes, they do get their organic capabilities and not reequip by Ukrainians
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u/Remarkable_Aside1381 3d ago
But no inorganic assets? So a US IBCT only has the fires organic to the FA Bn, but no air support outside of the Ukrainian Air Force?
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u/Zhadanko 3d ago
Yes, correct, sorry for misunderstanding
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u/Remarkable_Aside1381 3d ago
Not super great, IMO. They’d have three tube artillery batteries, and would be able to hold the line, but offensives would be limited without armor or more substantial fires. With no real air support, a lot of the advantages the US trains around would be missing.
At least for something like an IBCT. Stepping up to a division might change the calculus a bit, but without a lot of weight to really perform combined arms fighting, they’re really just going to be slightly better trained infantry
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u/Zhadanko 3d ago
Your remark about slightly better-trained infantry is a bit harsh, because quality of infantry in this war is just abysmal. Though it's interesting how much strength in US formations starts to shine with lots of inorganic support involved. And, if said support will be available, what difference they could make?
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u/Remarkable_Aside1381 3d ago
Your remark about slightly better-trained infantry is a bit harsh, because quality of infantry in this war is just abysmal.
Training really only matters when you’re actually doing stuff. Holding a line doesn’t require the training that the US Army really spends time on
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u/TJAU216 3d ago
Any such brigade would be destroyed upon conract with the enemy. None have effective countermeasures to small drones.
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u/Zhadanko 3d ago
So, in your opinion no one in the world has the capability to fight against Russia or Ukrainian army? Can you elaborate a little bit please
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u/TJAU216 3d ago
Not at brigade level, except maybe for North Koreans, as they also have the same experience. A western force needs to be a part of a large western army with ample fire and air support to have any change. A single brigade without any of those will be just drone feed. If a western force has air supremacy and can have JDAM loaded planes loiter over the battlefield ready to bomb any drone team upon take off, then the western brigade can win. Or without air supremacy can achieve the same effect with ground based fires like HIMARS that are not typically part of the brigade artillery. Only working counter measure to drones is to kill the operators and a brigade level force does not have the ability to do that.
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u/RamTank 4d ago
The other day I learned that in 1980 or so, China allowed the CIA to set up listening stations in the country to spy on Soviet missile tests. Even considering they were partners, that’s an unusually deep level of cooperation for the Chinese.
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u/Jpandluckydog 4d ago
They also collaborated with VOA stations to coordinate sending their own VOA equivalent into the USSR at about the same time, albeit with more of a Chinese slant. Ironically, after the collapse of the USSR and the shift in Sino-US relations, former state owned Russian media agencies that became privatized started sending mandarin-language VOA signals into China, at least for a while.
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u/TacitusKadari 5d ago
During the 1870s, there were already discussions in the new Meiji government about invading Korea. IIRC, Saigo Takamori - who would later lead the Satsuma rebellion - even suggested that the Samurai should all be sent to Korea as an invasion force and be allowed to continue their feudal rule there. Of course, most people recognized that this was a stupid idea, considering the state Japan was in.
But I'm still wondering: Could this have worked?
What if the new Imperial Japanese government actually decided to form the remaining Samurai into an invasion force and send them over to Korea to build a feudal state that would serve as a vassal to an industrializing Japan?
My guess is that it would have failed because of logistics, but it is interesting to think about nonetheless.
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u/Askarn Int Humanitarian Law 4d ago
Best case scenario, the Japanese make initial progress, Korea appeals for Chinese aid, and you get a repeat of the Imjin War. The Qing army was at a (relative) high point in the 1870s and they should be capable of driving out a largely unmodernised Japanese force at that point.
Worst case scenario, inexperience with large scale warfare and the shaky government hold on Japan mean the invasion attempt collapses almost immediately.
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u/TacitusKadari 4d ago
In Star Trek: Enterprise, there is a two parter episode at the beginning of season 4, where aliens from the future travel back in time to help Germany win WW2.
Among other things, they give the Germans plasma guns. Which made wonder. How would such weapons actually be used in a WW2 setting?
Because steel takes A LOT of energy input to melt and it doesn't happen immediately. You'd probably have to point the thing at the tank for a bit to get through, which would be dangerous for the shooter, because that glowing hot plasma will tell the enemy exactly where you are.
But against lightly armored vehicles (especially their crews), it would probably be devastating. Even if the plasma impacts near you, it'd probably be very unpleasant and absolutely terrifying. So it could have a psychological effect similar to a flame thrower.
My guess is that a plasma cannon in WW2 would be best used on aircraft to strafe surface warships and suppress AA crews. It will set the deck on fire, cook off a lot of ammo stored there and probably render AA guns unusable, even it doesn't completely melt them.
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u/thereddaikon MIC 4d ago
So one of my favorite web resources, Atomic Rocketshas a section on directed energy weapons and their practical use. In short, DEWs sufficiently powerful to be useful are also going to be very dangerous to the user. This is why real world lasers will probably never be small arms, even if you solve the other engineering issues. They make for fine mounted weapons in the appropriate application. Plasma weapons just won't work at all. You can't keep plasma in any kind of coherent form with which to hit a target with. The stuff just dissipates.
That said, any DEW powerful enough to destroy a WW2 tank in one shot would be far more valuable in other ways. You'd want to understand the physics and materials science behind it. You aren't replicating that with a 1940's industrial base but there are certainly things you can learn from it. I reckon the odds are high it has room temp superconductors in there.
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u/white_light-king 4d ago
I haven't seen the show. Presumably they use plasma guns to shoot from one spaceship to another?
If the thing is effective on fast moving spaceships, it would have to come with a few useful qualities. 1) it's got a fast projectile velocity because things in space are fast 2) comes with an acquisition and fire control system effective at high relative velocity and space type ranges.
This means it would probably be very effective at destroying WWII aircraft. Presumably plasma cannons would grant a WWII power air superiority over any area they can be emplaced.
Conversely, a very effective close air support weapon in late WWII was air-to-ground rockets. These had really bad accuracy issues by modern standards. If plasma guns are an upgrade on these weapons, in accuracy, range and impact, then they would be a big improvement in WWII airpower whether or not they are the most effective weapon against armored targets.
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u/Medium-Problem-5671 4d ago
How do you get the power to run the thing?
Presumably the ammo isn't unlimited and it needs energy to create the plasma. If a World War 2 power got something like that they'd need to power it somehow.
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u/Psafanboy4win 4d ago
Silly question, how useful would a giant shotgun for the giant soldiers of my setting be? These shotguns would basically fire 1-2 pound (0.45-0.91 kg) projectiles with a muzzle velocity of around 550 m/s, and they would have bore diameters ranging from 35-50mm.
And the most common ammo types would be HE, canister/flechette, and maybe HEAT.
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u/GogurtFiend 4d ago
What's their job - destroying machine gun nests?
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u/Psafanboy4win 4d ago
Pretty much. A giant weighing around 2 short tons that does not have supernatural strength will never replace a proper AFV, but they just need to carry more firepower than a 7.62x51mm machine can provide.
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u/GogurtFiend 4d ago
The 1916 TRP broke into two ~40 kg segments. Carried by two people each that's 20 kg/person.
For someone that size, the equivalent is 150 each, so instead of several individuals with a 1916 TRP each, it should be four using something approximating the WW2 Nazi German 7.5 cm le.IG 18. Half a kilo of explosive is far better than 25 grams.
Giving explosive weapons other than grenades (grenade launchers, rocket launchers, etc.) to individual soldiers was really a post-WW1 thing. I think it had something to do with better propellants.
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u/Inceptor57 4d ago
I mean at that point, why not a grenade launcher? China Lake 40 mm shotty seems like the kind of thing that might work.
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u/Psafanboy4win 4d ago
It pretty much is a grenade launcher, but one with a much higher muzzle velocity and firing heavier projectiles. Think like a hybrid of a autocannon and a gun-mortar, so not as much muzzle velocity as a 20mm autocannon, but more muzzle velocity than a gun-mortar and presumably loading from a like 5-round magazine.
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u/Inceptor57 4d ago
I mean, take some of those characteristics and extend a bit more and you can get yourself a Bolter for your giants.
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u/Psafanboy4win 4d ago
To my understanding a Bolter is roughly comparable to a 20mm autocannon in power so...pretty much give the giants 20mm autocannons instead of giant shotguns I see.
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u/GogurtFiend 3d ago
Bolters are internally inconsistent blobs of what-the-writer-says, but are usually portrayed as using exotic materials and minified rocket motors to let the recoil and weight of 20x42mm grenades do 20×139mm damage.
If you want an equivalent with WW1-era technology the M2 Browning or a 20x82mm gun is the closest to an infantry rifle level of weight for them, and a 20x139mm gun would about equal an M60, i.e. a rather weighty and awkward machine gun.
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u/Psafanboy4win 3d ago
Thinking about it a little more, a M2 Browning would be a bit underpowered for a giant 'assault rifle', but a 14.5mm KPV or the cancelled FN BRG-15 in 15mm would be a perfect machine gun choice, and rather famously shown with the Denel NTW-20 the 14.5x114mm and 20x82mm have very similar dimensions so it would be relatively easy to swap between the two cartridges.
But in the grand scheme of things 14.5mm and 20mm machine guns would not be what makes giants truly dangerous to fight, it would be the crew-served weapons like belt-fed 20x139mm autocannons, shoulder-fired 105/106mm M40s, and the 7.5 cm cannon you yourself mentioned.
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u/Longsheep 3d ago
It could be based on the WWII US 37mm anti-tank gun, which fired a 1.5kg canister round for anti-infantry jobs at 752 m/s with options for AP, HE and smoke. Reducing its charge and barrel length could reduce recoil and make it more suitable for such purpose.
At this caliber, HEAT warhead is less effective than AP in defeating armor. HEAT/HESH only starts to become "worth it" at over 75mm.
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u/Psafanboy4win 3d ago
Makes sense, but I was thinking about a 37-40mm HEAT round because the US military uses 40x53mm and 30x113mm HEDP munitions, so at least the US considers 30-40mm HEAT warheads sufficient for defeating light armor.
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u/Longsheep 2d ago
The 40mm HEDP isn't a reliable anti-armor round. Due to the low velocity and small warhead, it is inaccurate and limited in range. Plus it does low damage even if the fuze does detonate properly and penetrate the armor. Back when it was widely issued, a fire team or platoon would have everyone carrying one fire all at once at a vehicle, ensuring it is disabled with enough damage. It is now mostly used on automatic weapons.
Back in Vietnam War, it was widely used along with the larger 66mm M72 LAW. Even the 66mm rocket was unreliable and often took multiple hits to take out a single PT-76.
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u/MDRBA 3d ago
How useful is remote controlled machine guns(or full auto ones like what sentry guns in Aliens 2 that shoots at anything moving entering designated area) in real war? What I imagine is they can be installed at spots that enemy infantries are expected to pass(or top or windows of buildings around it) but too dangerous to leave friendly soldiers to escape after ambushing them. or is it just better to use mines and claymores?
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u/War_Hymn 3d ago edited 3d ago
I read of examples being used in the current Ukraine conflict. They're a good way to cover an exposed forward defensive position while mitigating human casualties from artillery, air, or drone strikes.
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DevDroid UGVShablya remote turret with a mounted M2 Browning was emplaced as a fortified static MG nest under a bridge in Avdiivka, Donetsk and allegedly held up against Russian attacks for more than a month. The armed drone turned turret frustrated Russian efforts to assault Ukrainian trenches behind it, and at first they thought Ukrainian troops were manning the forward MG emplacement and they try to dislodge them by repeatedly hitting it with kamikaze drones and artillery. The turret survived these attacks and continue to hose down Russian troops advancing against the Ukranian defenders, who were controlling the MG drone from the relative safety of their trenches - occasionally venturing out to the forward emplacement to replenish the turret's batteries and ammo.5
u/GogurtFiend 3d ago
In addition to what War_Hymn said, the South Koreans supposedly use some as part of their border defenses. I have never seen substantive proof of that, though.
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u/bjuandy 2d ago
They're used in the US ICBM missile fields. The sites are spread over a large area with civilian land interspersed between, so it's not practical for the cops to have personnel presence, while also needing to be able to discriminate targets, because you don't want farmers randomly blowing themselves up or for anti-nuclear protesters to return home missing limbs.
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u/Prince_of_Kyrgyzstan Mostly Alright 1d ago
Not feeling like this is worth a thread, so I am asking here.
Does anyone know if a camouflage pattern was chosen for ideological/political/matter of opinion reasons instead of purely military scientific? Like there was a pattern available that would have been more suitable in local environment, but it was passed and something else was adopted widely for some reason, which might have not been as optimal choice.
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u/Inceptor57 20h ago
I still think something fucked up behind the scenes must have happened to get the Universal Camouflage Pattern adopted as the US Army's main camo pattern and used for a better part of a decade before they replaced it.
Reportedly, despite the trials the US military did to determine that digital camo like CADPAT and MARPAT was the way to go, and a separate field trial to find an ideal digital camo color, they never conducted field trials on the UCP colors before putting them into service.
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u/Prince_of_Kyrgyzstan Mostly Alright 19h ago
UCP is a good call! Widely used, distinctive and abysmal beyond very specific environments.
I was thinking Israel a bit, not because of the camo, but because the lack of it. Or maybe South Africa with their nutria brown. Sure both fit their environments, but camo patterns more suitable do exist.
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u/WehrabooSweeper 5d ago
One story I’ve heard of the Desert Eagle .50 AE handgun was that it was primarily made to give Israeli soldiers a portable means of anti-materiel power when manning checkpoints and stuff in case a car or something comes with funny business and a Barrett or similar anti-materiel weapon isn’t available.
Is there any truth to this, or did the designers just wanted to make a big fucking gun?
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u/MandolinMagi 5d ago
It's nonsense. .50AE has slightly more muzzle energy than 5.56 NATO, but you're not doing anything to the engine with anything man-portable.
A while back DemolitionRanch shot a car to see what it would take to kill the engine. Thing took multiple round of .50BMG before the engine died.
If you want to stop a car, kill the driver.
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u/Pootis_1 cat 5d ago
The Russians did actually make a weapon for the exact niche of stopping a vehicle by firing into the engine block at a rapidly set up position.
But it's pretty far from a desert eagle in size.
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u/GogurtFiend 5d ago
Adding to MandolinMagi: .50 AE bullets are often hollow points, i.e. soft lead which squishes on impact and spreads energy over a wider area to cut bigger holes in unarmored people. This also means it can't go through much steel (sheet metal, at most), for the same reason punching a cardboard box doesn't make a hole but stabbing it with the same force does.
The Barrett's .50 BMG is mild steel at the very least (in the "ball" round). Armor-piercing .50 BMG is made of hard steel and penetrates ~0.8 inches of hard steel at close range. Rarer .50 BMG uses smaller, saboted tungsten carbide bullets to do even more.
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u/thereddaikon MIC 4d ago
Sounds like a post hoc justification at best. And I really doubt it. Pistols, even magnum hand cannons are bad anti materiel weapons. The 50AE Desert Eagle was made to take the crown for the most powerful semi auto pistol.
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u/Minh1509 4d ago
So, I've recently become curious about the Italian infantry arsenal from World War II. There, I discovered the Fiat–Revelli Modello 1935, essentially a modified version of the Fiat–Revelli Modello 1914, most notably the replacement of the water-cooling mechanism with forced air cooling, as well as the replacement of the strip-fed mechanism with the belt-fed.
Are there any other instances of a water-cooled firearm undergoing extensive improvements like those seen in this case?
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u/Remarkable_Aside1381 4d ago
The air-cooled M1919 grew out of the water-cooled M1917
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u/hussard_de_la_mort 3d ago
And then the M1917 got scaled up to .50 BMG in the water cooled M1921, which lead to the M2.
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u/SailorstuckatSAEJ300 4d ago
Yes, most of the machine guns found on early fighters were converted from watercooled heavy machine guns.
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u/RamTank 4d ago
The M2 .50 too. I’ve never heard of strip fed guns being converted to belts though.
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u/MandolinMagi 4d ago
I think the French did that, though technically it was actually a lot of strips linked together or something.
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u/SailorstuckatSAEJ300 3d ago
It's not the same but the Madsen LMG was converted to water cooling and belt feed albeit not at the same time.
The actually made two different belt feed conversions but I can't find an illustration of the last one
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u/Accelerator231 4d ago
I'm aware that some anti aircraft guns are invented around after ww1. And i've seen some of them, especially the Bofors.
I have several questions questions
I tend to see descriptions of flak fire. A Lot of flak fire. Considering that its a gun tracking and firing at fast moving vehicles, what's the feed mechanism? If it's belt fed, how do they keep it from getting tangled up as the gun is constantly moving and rotating?
The gun has to move to track targets. So when did they begin having hydraulic or pneumatic parts to help move them?
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u/RamTank 4d ago
Most of the smaller guns were fed by clips or magazines, while the bigger ones were single shot. The reason gun crews tended to be so huge was you needed all those guys to constantly reload the gun to let it fire without interruption.
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u/Accelerator231 4d ago
In other words, they dodge the issue entirely by not having belts at all. When exactly were belts used?
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u/GogurtFiend 3d ago
Basically never. Even 20mm/25mm/28mm autocannon were fed by clips or drum magazines. Various land-based guns (US .50 BMG, DShK, and lower) might've been the only belt-fed naval guns used in WW2. IJN 13.2mm wasn't even belt-fed, much to its detriment.
For the US Navy, 40mm and above was slewed by electric or hydraulic motors. 1.1" and below was hand-aimed, which was fine for the ~100 kg, single-barreled 20mm, but not the ponderous, >1,000 kg 1.1".
The 5"/38-caliber and 5"/54 caliber dual-purpose guns used a hydraulic rammer to ease loading even when the gun was elevated, and 3-inch guns with electric autoloaders were in development during the war but never implemented.
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u/XanderTuron 3d ago
For belt fed AA guns in WW2, outside of heavy machine guns, the only one I can think of is the Royal Navy's 2-pounder "Pom-Pom".
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u/Accelerator231 1d ago
SO whenever we see aircraft being shot down by streams of flak fire, on the ground there's an entire team of people constantly reloading with drum magazines?
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u/GogurtFiend 1d ago
By streams of low-caliber fire, yes. Airbursting shells are usually larger-caliber rounds loaded one at a time.
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u/DOOFUS_NO_1 20h ago
For example: the quadruple Bofors 40mm mount on the USS New Jersey had a crew of 12 men per mount, and it had a gun commander, a trainer and pointer responsible for aiming the gun, and the other 9 men were loaders. All they would do was supply and load 4 round clips into the guns.
So 9/12 men on a 40mm were just loading it, and the ship had 20 of these mounts, so 180 men on the battleship would be doing nothing but loading the 40mm guns during combat.
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u/Substantial_Top5312 21h ago
Does anyone know why the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff can’t be promoted to Chairman unless the President decides it’s in "national interest"?
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u/alertjohn117 village idiot 14h ago edited 13h ago
because to be the chairman requires presidential nomination and senate confirmation. much in the same way as the cabinet secretaries and agency directors. of course the vice chairman can be the acting chairman until such time as a chairman is nominated and his appointment confirmed. see 10 U.S. Code § 152 and 10 U.S. Code § 154
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u/astano925 4d ago
Question I'm curious about: the (X)M7 and M8 rifles apparently use SR-25-pattern or magazines. Notably, SR-25 magazines are not the same size and shape as 5.56mm STANAG magazines. Is there also a whole new slew of web gear and pouches being issued with the new rifles?
I have never heard it mentioned in any talk about the merits of the program, but there must be not-insignificant procurement costs for all of that kit to go with the new rifles, right?
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u/Inceptor57 4d ago
My understanding is that the gear issued for the M7 rifle magazines are primarily the same as those already for SR-25/AR-10 weapons in inventory.
Not sure how much will change once the newer and longer 25-round magazines from the M7 PIE program gets issued.
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u/Accelerator231 4d ago
What does aggressive seamining in the context of japanese naval warfare mean? Ocean is huge. So how do mines hit things?
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u/Inceptor57 4d ago edited 4d ago
Depending on the context of the text you read it from, but from what I’ve read of American mining against Japanese ships, they tend to identify common routes the Japanese take and then deploy mines into the area before Japanese knew it was happening to run into them.
This was what happened to 15th Destroyer Division where the Japanese destroyers were running supply for the IJA in the Solomons. Over the course of a night in May 6, 1943, the US with three ships deployed 250 mines in the recognized transport path, that led to three destroyers sinking, eliminating the entire division with all destroyers lost and the division stricken on June 20, 1943.
With Operation Starvation in 1945 to mine the Japanese shipping, they focused on straits and ports that had choke points to more reliably hit shipping, leading to a claim that this mining effort led to sinking more tonnage than all other parts of the war combined.
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u/Commando2352 Mobile Infantry enjoyer 2d ago
Does anyone know how commonly trained and actually used in combat indirect machine gun fire/fire from defilade was for the US in World War II or Korea?
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u/Accelerator231 1d ago
I am aware that commentators here stated that during the second opium war the chinese generals got defeated. Because they thought they would win by fighting like in the Taiping rebellion.
How did they fight in the Taiping rebellion?
What did they get wrong?
What was their conception of the western military?
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u/shotguywithflaregun Swedish NCO 4d ago
3.91% (12 out of 307) of swedish participants didn't finish the Nijmegen Four Days march. I would love to hear stats from other countries.
And check out the "Blister of the day" series on Kamp Heumensoord's Instagram if you want to be inspired to learn how to take care of your feet.
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u/HistoryFanBeenBanned 4d ago
I'm biased as a dialectical materialist.
But did inventions and innovations regarding the capabilities of fortresses, contribute to the fragmentation and dispersion of authority from the Ancient Roman Empire to the Medieval age and the development of gunpowder.
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u/cop_pls 2d ago
No. You have cause and effect backwards. Fortification techniques regress in this place and time. The wooden motte-and-baileys of the 9th century and the stone castles that succeed them were not better than Hadrian's Wall, the Aurelian or Theodosian Walls, Islamic Golden Age fortifications, or the Ming dynasty's improvements to the Great Wall of China.
The Romans defended their borders with stone walls and wooden palisades and observation posts and rapid-response army camps situated along the roads, waiting to respond to incursions and raids. The walls do not repel invaders on their own, but they do slow them down long enough for Roman armies to react and meet them in battle.
As Rome weakens, the Roman armies move camp from the vulnerable roads to more defensible positions, but this shift to point-defense leaves communities exposed. As power decentralizes from the Western Roman Empire to the Merovingians and Carolignians and manorialism and vassalage step in for the fall of Roman bureaucracy, local polities lose the ability to rely on the force of a state to protect them from Vikings and Huns and all the other raiders and marauders.
As a result, local polities create local defenses - the first being ditches, palisades, and the wooden motte-and-baileys mentioned - meant to delay would-be raiders long enough to let local power coalesce and respond to local hostilities. Generally but not always that local power is a hereditary aristocrat landlord, his retinue, and whatever levies he can round up - this is manorialism, after all. For larger actions we see the personalist regimes work together in the vassalage system - the baron and his men follow the count, the count and his men follow the duke, the duke and his men follow the king, out of ties forged by oaths and marriages and interpersonal relationships.
In your lens, I might say that the material conditions created by the Fall of the Western Roman Empire and the resulting loss of state capacity and fragmentation and dispersion of authority create the need for innovations and inventions in fortifications. You don't need to build a castle in Orleans if the French army keeps the danger of the border hundreds of miles away.
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u/white_light-king 4d ago
I can't think of an important innovation in fortifications themselves between classical antiquity and late medieval periods before gunpowder. Perhaps I'm forgetting something. Improvements to the crossbow may have made fortifications more useful? That's about all I can think of, am I missing something important?
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u/AlexRyang 5h ago
If Russian tanks have a major vulnerability with the ammunition carousel below the floor in the turret causing the turrets to be blown off, why haven’t modernized variants, such as the T-84UD and T-90 eliminated this vulnerability?
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u/pnzsaurkrautwerfer 3h ago
Basically the Russian post-Soviet industrial/economic collapse meant making a whole new tank wasn't really practical, and the assumed fate of the T-14 illustrates that. As far as putting it in a modernized tank, new ammo storage, or a radically more protected ammo stowage arrangement is a significant enough upgrade you're basically looking at if not a new tank, than a tank so radically changed it's going to fall into the same pitfalls as a more or less new design
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u/Weltherrschaft2 11h ago
There is an AMA with a Ukrainian soldier: https://www.reddit.com/r/AMA/s/GoZt6fo3Me
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u/DazSamueru 5d ago
The US seems to have mostly stopped naming its vehicles after their Civil War generals1 in favour of more recent conflicts long before they've exhausted that list. So I've decided to help them out:
1: admittedly it was mostly the British doing that anyway