General military questions thread

Bacle

Bacle

When the effort is no longer profitable...
Founder
Sailor.X said:
I thought it was coal dust that caused the explosion.
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WolfBear said:
Yes, but is there any particular reason that the amount of coal dust necessary for this occurred while the Maine was in Cuban waters?
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Air flow ventilating the ship to keep it cool in tropical waters spread it about, maybe?

They weren't underway so they would have needed to actively ventilate the lower parts of the ship, and the dusk ended up sparking in a fan motor?
 
W

WolfBear

Well-known member
Bacle said:
Air flow ventilating the ship to keep it cool in tropical waters spread it about, maybe?

They weren't underway so they would have needed to actively ventilate the lower parts of the ship, and the dusk ended up sparking in a fan motor?
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What do you mean by "underway"? Moving?
 
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WolfBear

Well-known member
Also, one more question: Does anyone here know which ages of French men were drafted in World War II? Especially in 1939-1940?
 
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WolfBear

Well-known member
@Husky_Khan @Ricardolindo Just how much do you think that extreme German male longevity (ages 107+) is going to be affected in Germany by the fact that Germans lost an extremely massive amount of their 1910s-born and 1920s-born men in World War II?

Take a look at just how much of a demographic hole WWII caused for Germany:

Here's a German population pyramid for 1939:

Germany_Sex_By_Age_1939.png


And for 1950:

Germany_sex_by_age_1950_12_31.png


Adjust the ages by 11 years from pyramid 1 to pyramid 2 to get a proper comparison, since 11 years have passed between 1939 and 1950.
 
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WolfBear

Well-known member
WolfBear said:
@Husky_Khan @Ricardolindo Just how much do you think that extreme German male longevity (ages 107+) is going to be affected in Germany by the fact that Germans lost an extremely massive amount of their 1910s-born and 1920s-born men in World War II?

Take a look at just how much of a demographic hole WWII caused for Germany:

Here's a German population pyramid for 1939:

Germany_Sex_By_Age_1939.png


And for 1950:

Germany_sex_by_age_1950_12_31.png


Adjust the ages by 11 years from pyramid 1 to pyramid 2 to get a proper comparison, since 11 years have passed between 1939 and 1950.
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Also, take a look at this:

451f767ecca03336412fa16eedbc772b5fdfe207.png


The scale, in order from top to bottom:

West Germany
East Germany
Russia
Sweden
 
TheRomanSlayer

TheRomanSlayer

Kayabangan, Dugo, at Dangal
There's something ironic about WWII German tanks that I heard or listened, but I'm not sure if this is true: that certain German tanks, like the Tiger and the Panther (plus their variants, that is), are so overengineered that they're maintenance intensive. Is overengineering a main issue with not only WWII Axis weaponry, but also modern day militaries as well?
 
Buba

Buba

A total creep
The Tiger and Panther more complicated than they needed to be, that is true.
And both were rush jobs and overweight, thus breakdown prone.
Shortly put - awful!
 
TheRomanSlayer

TheRomanSlayer

Kayabangan, Dugo, at Dangal
Buba said:
The Tiger and Panther more complicated than they needed to be, that is true.
And both were rush jobs and overweight, thus breakdown prone.
Shortly put - awful!
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The ultimate irony about German efficiency. Even their Porsche Tiger had an unusual design, but easily broke down as well.

Heck, even the Shermans wouldn't be prone to breakdowns. Even Japanese and Italian tanks are not really maintenance intensive, compared to their German counterparts.
 
Aldarion

Aldarion

Neoreactionary Monarchist
TheRomanSlayer said:
There's something ironic about WWII German tanks that I heard or listened, but I'm not sure if this is true: that certain German tanks, like the Tiger and the Panther (plus their variants, that is), are so overengineered that they're maintenance intensive. Is overengineering a main issue with not only WWII Axis weaponry, but also modern day militaries as well?
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Tiger wasn't that problematic for its original purpose, considering it was designed to be an assault tank and thus not expected to go for long distances.

Panther, though, was a medium tank. So its flaws - while similar to Tiger - were much worse. It was difficult to maintain, had too complex of a gear box that required very well trained drivers or it would break apart, and some other problems.

Though I expect things were not that bad design-wise as they were in practice - as the war went on, Allied bombing of factories plus raw material shortages meant that there was simply not enough spare parts to keep tanks running properly, so it is likely that German tank reliability issues were overstated. At any rate, even so they were far better than "rugged and simple" Soviet tanks, but inferior to Sherman.
 
Buba

Buba

A total creep
With a little search it is possible to find comments in English on the French appraisal of the Panther.
Fun factoid - the French used the Panther the longest :) - and were not impressed ...
 
Aldarion

Aldarion

Neoreactionary Monarchist
Buba said:
With a little search it is possible to find comments in English on the French appraisal of the Panther.
Fun factoid - the French used the Panther the longest :) - and were not impressed ...
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Yeah, I am aware of that. But how much of that was due to the design and how much due to production?

For example, Tiger II tanks had armor that was brittle, prone to cracking and spalling... but then again, Panther was unnecessarily complex, especially its engine and gear box.
 
M

Marduk

Well-known member
Moderator
Staff Member
TheRomanSlayer said:
The ultimate irony about German efficiency. Even their Porsche Tiger had an unusual design, but easily broke down as well.

Heck, even the Shermans wouldn't be prone to breakdowns. Even Japanese and Italian tanks are not really maintenance intensive, compared to their German counterparts.
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Aldarion said:
Panther, though, was a medium tank. So its flaws - while similar to Tiger - were much worse. It was difficult to maintain, had too complex of a gear box that required very well trained drivers or it would break apart, and some other problems.
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The weird thing about Panther is that it was a medium tank only by designation. In weight it was heavier than Pershing and Churchill, while similar to IS-1 and KV-1.
In light of that it shouldn't be so surprising that it was experiencing a lot of the reliability problems common among WW2 heavy tanks.
Also expected is that the lighter of German tanks, like the common Pz 3 and 4 based vehicles, weren't known for their mechanical unreliability.
 
A

ATP

Well-known member
Marduk said:
The weird thing about Panther is that it was a medium tank only by designation. In weight it was heavier than Pershing and Churchill, while similar to IS-1 and KV-1.
In light of that it shouldn't be so surprising that it was experiencing a lot of the reliability problems common among WW2 heavy tanks.
Also expected is that the lighter of German tanks, like the common Pz 3 and 4 based vehicles, weren't known for their mechanical unreliability.
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And germans could choose 35t tank instead of Panther,but failed to do so./VK3002/
And produce czech medium tanks.Especially T.25 look promising.I once read that Hitler refused that becouse he wanted german workers making medium tanks - but even he could not be that retardet.
 
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bintananth

bintananth

behind a desk
Buba said:
Design.
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That's one of the biggest issues with German WWII equipment. German engineers tended to go for overengineered and fancy without paying much attention to the fact that some poor shmuck in the rear has to keep it functional.

Fr'ex: The Heinkel He 177 was somewhat comparable to an Allied heavy bomber in terms of performance. They never got them to work reliably.
 
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