The Military Thread

This was a few pages back, however:

West Point is just a school, it doesn't afford you any actual differences on paper in the military, same as the Air Force Academy and Annapolis.

However, there is the ol' "ring knocker" underground. Academy grads take care of academy grads.

A school like Ranger, Air Assault or Airborne give promotion points to enlisted soldiers in the Army. Infantry officers get some perks for being in Ranger school, others not so much. Like Barkey said, Academy grads take care of their own.

Actually, if the Army runs things like the Air Force does, then Westpoint grads have seniority over ROTC and OTS grads because of how they work the commissioning dates. So all other things being equal, the Academy grad is just a smidgen higher up the pecking order than the other guy.

re: Tank Rams: Rams were a feature on battleship design until around WWII. Dreadnought's only victory in combat that I am aware of came from ramming a German U-Boat.

Vet left a passive aggressive note for parking spot Reserved for Vets.

PTSD Might be as old as humanity

edited 26th Jan '15 4:24:47 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Saw that little piece on the note on the local news. Real dick move on the part of the note writer.

Indeed very dickish. It is kind of wrong to make assumptions like that.

For your "Ram Tiger" Fair warning to take the contents of the site with a healthy dosing of salt. The site is rather weird but has some interesting references.

Honestly I think they saw the real estate business stuff on the car and made their assumption based on that, rather than on the driver being a woman. Still a very passive-aggressive dick move.

I dunno, you have some real nasty bigots around here. I'd buy them not thinking a woman can be a veteran.

We must consult the oracle!

Hilary Doyle mentions three Tiger P Fahrgestelle being made as "Ramm Tigers" in ''Tiger 1 Heavy Tank 1942-45. Not sure what that entailed though, or if Doyle is right.

The concept of the Rammtiger is pants-crapping insane, so there's that.

edited 26th Jan '15 5:08:01 PM by Achaemenid

Really though, if were were going to use any tank for ramming, a Tiger? and a Tiger P at that. Sure it's heavy, but speed and reliability's a bit lacking. It'd suck to be charging straight towards a soviet tank, then about 50 feet away loosing a gear and screeching to a halt.

The theory behind the Rammtiger is that it was for destroying buildings, but ramming them with a tank is a really really stupid way to do demolition work - most large buildings have basements, which will trap tanks that drive into them, which is why tanks rarely drive through them in the real world.

BTW, the photo supposedly showing the vehicle in a Soviet military dump is fake.

Plus just swatting the building with a HE shell will usually have a fairly satisfying effect, without the risk of entangling the vehicle in the building's wreckage or any surprise Anti Tank crews in or near the building. That's why some Engineer tank-variants mount a short-barreled cannon, for expeditious obstacle clearing.

edited 26th Jan '15 5:17:50 PM by AFP

Did we post the video of the Danish guy bunny hopping around doing trick shots with a bow and arrow while claiming to have learned lost techniques from "Ancient Manuscripts"?

Well, we'll skip that and go straight to this response.

Afp: Yeah I saw that vid and it popped up on the forum at least in one spot. The website is filtered for me ATM. What is the gist of the article?

Another potential use of the Ram Tiger was to clear barricades and road blocks in cities to disrupt attempts to channel forces or clear damage from combat. Though it seems a team of combat engineers and/or something like the "Flying Dust bin" were better suited to such activities.

edited 26th Jan '15 5:38:34 PM by TuefelHundenIV

The gist of the article is that the guy doesn't know enough about archery to realize that there are very good reasons that archers shoot the way they do, and many of those reasons also being why Lars's technique wouldn't actually be very useful in real life.

He also points out a lot of the obvious editing done to the video which suggest that he's cherry picking his best shots to show off rather than showing any of the numerous times he shot arrows into the walls and floor of the room.

Heh. There is more to pick apart like the supposed depiction issues and other claims made in the video. Like how many variations there are in bows, quivers, and even shooting techniques across the world.

I think he claims that the quiver was a Hollywood invention at one point.

He claimed the over the shoulder quiver was. Despite the fact it is used in North America, Africa, Asia, and limited use in Europe by both foot and horse archers. Also claims only one side of the bow was really used despite quite a few depictions to the contrary. His silly half draw on a 30-35lb bow you can buy at walmart is really not that impressive.

There's a pretty funny Garth Ennis comic that has a Sherman Firefly lining up a shot on a Panther falling through the floor into a vat of treacle, having driven into a sugar-refining factory.

On an unrelated note, I'd like to pick the brains of our WW 2 naval experts. I watched Below last night, which had a scene in which a German destroyer tried to flush out an American submarine using heavy metal hooks that trail across the seabed, doing a fair bit of damage to the sub. I'm 95% sure it's a made up movie weapon as I can't find any credible evidence for it on the 'net and it seems pretty impractical as a method of anti-submarine warfare, but is there any chance I'm wrong?

Well...it sounds more like WWI sub-hunting than WWII, let's put it that way. It requires really shallow waters to work.

It does remind me of what is probably the only ASW kill ever scored by a rowboat. During the Gallipoli campaign, a British sub got stuck somewhere in the Hellespont—I believe it was in the mouth of some harbor or another—and lay on the bottom. To hunt for it, a junior officer—either Ottoman or German—took a rowboat with a cook; they paddled around, dropping a lead over the side until they came across the bottomed sub.

Then they lowered a depth charge over the side and paddled like hell.

edited 27th Jan '15 12:50:50 PM by SabresEdge

Source

Much obliged. It did seem like a ridiculously situational weapon, and rather heavy to be carried round for the small number of circumstances in which it could be used.

You mean one the Battlefields tank sub-series with the Geordie tank commander?

I absolutely do. The dialogue is golden. The best thing about Ennis' writing is the rendition of accents.

You think it unlikely that a ship would carry around a heavy hook and a chain?