Got a Real-World Weapon, Armor or Tactics Question? Mk. XXIV

[Lemmy]

It's pretty significant, but, as in all thing, it depends on the weapon. I used an extra heavy pommel when I was fencing competitively, and I think it did make my point more agile. For a cutting weapon, I'm not sure how much you want to counterweight the blade.

Hmm... Theoretically, it should make slashing strikes hit harder, but at the same time, make your weapon heavier, so while the angular velocity of the tip would increase, the general speed of the sword would be lower and/or you'd tire more quickly, since you're moving more weight around. For piercing strikes, I believe it would make bring the point of balance lower, giving you more control over the tip... And of course, more mass = heavier impact / greater power of penetration... But again, moving the sword around would be slower and/or more tiresome. Well... In any case, I will take your word for it. I doubt I'll have the chance to test swords and pommels any time soon.

In short I think you simply don't. A pommel for sword that's supposed to have one isn't optional really. And adding one to a sword that's not meant to have one is not something you'd do either. I'd also say you are introducing unnecessary micromanaging in something like D&D with this. If you must I'd say treat an unbalanced weapon as improvised (I know that term exists but not sure of it's rule implication) or something like that. Low quality? I'm not familiar with the rules obviously. But also feel it's incorrect to say a sword with a pommel gets a bonus, rather a sword without a pommel that's meant to should get a penalty. A bog standard D&D longsword comes with the assumptions that it's made the appropriate way, which includes a properly balanced pommel. (Or maybe it doesn't and baseline D&D weaponry are really what IRL would be inferior.)

That's a good point. I asked mostly because I have a custom weapon generation system for 3.X & Pathfinder (it's even in my signature! ) so I was wondering if I could incorporate it somehow... I suppose I could do something like allow it to be thrown but then cause a minor penalty to attack rolls... Doesn't seem useful or interesting, though. Way too situational to matter.

It's not just weight balance, the pommel keeps your grip stuff in place without it a good swing nets you a hollow wooden tube wrapped with leather in your hands and a longsword 5 yards further along and you in trouble.

Yeah... The other uses of pommel I understand. Well... The counter-weight factor too, it's just that the total mass of the pommel is so small compared to the rest of the sword (I think) and so close to the pivot, that it didn't seem to me that it'd have much of an effect either way. didn't seem to have much of an effect.

Anyway, thank you both for answering my question. I really appreciate it.

[Roxxy]

All this talk of pommels and the need thereof, and we have yet to discuss the utility of ending one's opponent rightly.

[Roxxy]

Here's kind of an odd question. My modernish (more like Cold War) fantasy had to have some level of space travel by the time it had 1940s tech, because it had colonies by the 60s. They don't have good enough sensor tech to replicate Cold War spy satellites, but they can get stuff into space easily enough (essentially, alchemists can make a mean engine with magic, but not a camera). We're going to talk about The Rod From God. If you have the tech to get a giant chunk of tungsten into space, you can drop it on people you don't like.

You're the combined alliance of Britain, France, Germany (long story short, no Nazis are around and Germany's still a republic), the Low Countries, and the Scandinavian Countries. Italy, Spain, Portugal, Romania, and the Soviet Union wee the Comintern, and you were fighting them. America is friendly enough, but they got themselves buried neck deep in a land war in Asia, so they aren't coming to Europe. The rest of the Comintern has fallen and Soviets are being pushed back to their initial borders, but nobody wants to invade Russia, anymoreso than anyone wanted to invade Japan IRL. So, you need a superweapon. You can either try and build nukes (America is, though they aren't sharing that with ANYONE), or you can try for The Rod From God. I'm not sure which is better. The Rod sounds a whole lot easier, but tungsten is an essential war material, and I don't know how much one needs for the rod, and whether those supplies would be forthcoming. If the tungsten is there, are you better off starting up a Manhattan Project yourself, or just throwing rocks at the Russians from space until they give up?

[Mike_G]

Hmm... Theoretically, it should make slashing strikes hit harder, but at the same time, make your weapon heavier, so while the angular velocity of the tip would increase, the general speed of the sword would be lower and/or you'd tire more quickly, since you're moving more weight around. For piercing strikes, I believe it would make bring the point of balance lower, giving you more control over the tip... And of course, more mass = heavier impact / greater power of penetration... But again, moving the sword around would be slower and/or more tiresome. Well... In any case, I will take your word for it. I doubt I'll have the chance to test swords and pommels any time soon.

.

You don't need a sword.

Get any 3 foot long stick, swing it, poke with it and see how that feels. Then tape a weight, like a battery or something, to the end and repeat. You'll find it much easier to control the tip with a counterweight attached.

As far as impact, the more weight at the point of impact, the more momentum the blow will have, so moving the center of balance away from the tip is bad for straight chopping damage. This is why a hammer or axe has the mass concentrated at the business end.

An axe or hammer of the same weight as a sword will hit harder, but be harder to control, harder to change direction or recover after an attack, and easier to avoid. And probably shorter for the same total weight.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

We're going to talk about The Rod From God. If you have the tech to get a giant chunk of tungsten into space, you can drop it on people you don't like.

You can either try and build nukes (America is, though they aren't sharing that with ANYONE), or you can try for The Rod From God. I'm not sure which is better.

I'm guessing it's all going to depend on how good your alchemy is. The fun of an atomic bomb is that you take a material you just dug up and turn it into energy for a really hard punch. In rods from god the energy comes in the form of flying the things up there in the first place. If that fuel is easier to get per joule of energy deposited into an enemy than uranium is it could be a good option.

There are still a couple of problems though. While it's virtually impossible to defend from a solid object falling from space ones it's falling, satellites typically have very predictable trajectories. In the real world people keep certain projects a secret by just pulling a tarp over the thing they're making every time a relevant spy satellite is about to pass overhead. And a camera can still turn around a bit, these rods will have some steering, but they're not going to land huge distances away from where they started (except in the down direction of course). So the amount of land you can hit with a single rod installation is going to look a bit like the path of an eclipse, even if you manage to give it a weird enough orbit that it doesn't pass the same points every round trip (should be very doable, I think) on any given trip it can only hit certain targets. An enemy could realistically avoid getting hit just by moving around, never be in the drop zone for whatever satellite is coming this way. Moscow is not going to stay safe this way, but an armor collumn could. It also creates an option for defenses against the satellites themselves. You can't really shoot down a dropping rod, but if space travel is really that easy you can shoot down an orbiting object and any international agreement against doing that goes out of the window as soon as someone is developing rods. As the war stretches out heavy tumbling tungsten rods, unexploded ordnance and lots of shrapnel are going to end up as space junk, which is going to endanger other space activities. Your setting is going to have answers to some of these things.

On the plus side, nukes are kind of a big boom per package delivered, they're suboptimal for precision strikes. If you can a good way to deliver that same amount of energy for the same mount of work but get the energy split up into more different packages you generally speaking have a better weapon. (On this scale, not true for say punches during a boxing match.) For the energy that would destroy the center of Moskou you can destroy just the Kremlin, a few military installations and an important factory or powerplant. You get more done. So that might be part of your justification.

[Vinyadan]

What would happen if it was lead instead of titanium? Liquid metal rain?

[Max_Killjoy]

What would happen if it was lead instead of titanium? Liquid metal rain?

Possibly even lead vapor in the atmosphere.

[Knaight]

What would happen if it was lead instead of titanium? Liquid metal rain?

Tungsten, not titanium. The key material properties are an extremely high density and melting point; titanium's key properties including a really low density, while having a pretty middling melting point.

[Max_Killjoy]

Tungsten, not titanium. The key material properties are an extremely high density and melting point; tungsten's key properties including a really low density, while having a pretty middling melting point.

Tungsten or titanium?

[Lemmy]

You don't need a sword.

Get any 3 foot long stick, swing it, poke with it and see how that feels. Then tape a weight, like a battery or something, to the end and repeat. You'll find it much easier to control the tip with a counterweight attached.

It'll certainly be easier... What I was wondering is... How much easier?

As far as impact, the more weight at the point of impact, the more momentum the blow will have, so moving the center of balance away from the tip is bad for straight chopping damage. This is why a hammer or axe has the mass concentrated at the business end.

Uh... Kinda of... If the weight is on the same side of the pivot, then yes, it does nothing but hamper you... But it is on the opposite side of pivot, it'll allow other end to apply more force (e.g.: swinging an axe by gripping at the center of a 40cm-long shaft is more effective than swinging an axe by gripping at the every end of a 20cm-long shaft). But if you have a counter weight on the opposite side of the pivot, it means you're aren't holding the "business end" from as far as you can, which means you have a shorter moment arm (which is the whole point of a counterweight. No one wants a building crane whose operator is miles away from whatever it's lifting!). But for a slashing/chopping weapon, it's easier to just hold it from as far as you can from the blade increase the arm of the moment and therefore the force applied to the blade. That way, you not only make your weapon lighter (no counterweight = less mass on the handle = you can add more mass to the impact end), but also gives you extra reach.

[Mike_G]

It'll certainly be easier... What I was wondering is... How much easier?

Ummm.. a lot.

Depends on the blade and the pommel, but even a slightly heavier pommel makes a more easily controlled tip.

I used an epee pommel on my foil when I was competing, and while it's only a tiny bit heavier, it made my point work much more precise, and even though the weapon was technically heavier, it was quicker to get back to defend after making an attack. It would have lost momentum in a swing, but that's irrelevant for the type of weapon it was. Even taking the sport element out of it and pretending it's a smallsword, you aren't going to try to bash or chop with it.

"How much?" isn't a question we can answer without defining a specific sword.

Uh... Kinda of... If the weight is on the same side of the pivot, then yes, it does nothing but hamper you... But it is on the opposite side of pivot, it'll allow other end to apply more force (e.g.: swinging an axe by gripping at the center of a 40cm-long shaft is more effective than swinging an axe by gripping at the every end of a 20cm-long shaft). But if you have a counter weight on the opposite side of the pivot, it means you're aren't holding the "business end" from as far as you can, which means you have a shorter moment arm (which is the whole point of a counterweight. No one wants a building crane whose operator is miles away from whatever it's lifting!). But for a slashing/chopping weapon, it's easier to just hold it from as far as you can from the blade increase the arm of the moment and therefore the force applied to the blade. That way, you not only make your weapon lighter (no counterweight = less mass on the handle = you can add more mass to the impact end), but also gives you extra reach.

Again, nobody's arguing that.

But the extra momentum you get, which makes it hit harder, also makes the weapon harder to control. It's harder to change angles to feint here and attack there with a forward weighted weapon, and if you miss it's much slower to get back into a guard to defend yourself.

There's a reason battle axes are lighter than splitting axes.

[Brother Oni]

Tungsten or titanium?

Tungsten: melting point 3422 C, density 19.25 g/cm³
Titanium: melting point 1668 C, density 4.51 g/cm³

As Knaight said, for a metal, titanium's got a fairly low density and middling melting point, making it sub-optimal for dropping from orbit onto somebody's head.

[KarlMarx]

Here's kind of an odd question. My modernish (more like Cold War) fantasy had to have some level of space travel by the time it had 1940s tech, because it had colonies by the 60s. They don't have good enough sensor tech to replicate Cold War spy satellites, but they can get stuff into space easily enough (essentially, alchemists can make a mean engine with magic, but not a camera). We're going to talk about The Rod From God. If you have the tech to get a giant chunk of tungsten into space, you can drop it on people you don't like.

You're the combined alliance of Britain, France, Germany (long story short, no Nazis are around and Germany's still a republic), the Low Countries, and the Scandinavian Countries. Italy, Spain, Portugal, Romania, and the Soviet Union wee the Comintern, and you were fighting them. America is friendly enough, but they got themselves buried neck deep in a land war in Asia, so they aren't coming to Europe. The rest of the Comintern has fallen and Soviets are being pushed back to their initial borders, but nobody wants to invade Russia, anymoreso than anyone wanted to invade Japan IRL. So, you need a superweapon. You can either try and build nukes (America is, though they aren't sharing that with ANYONE), or you can try for The Rod From God. I'm not sure which is better. The Rod sounds a whole lot easier, but tungsten is an essential war material, and I don't know how much one needs for the rod, and whether those supplies would be forthcoming. If the tungsten is there, are you better off starting up a Manhattan Project yourself, or just throwing rocks at the Russians from space until they give up?

As previously mentioned, it's going to be very hard to use the Rod From God (RFG from now on) approach with any degree of accuracy. I'd need to run some numbers on this to give a definite answer, but it seems like the RFGs would have to be dropped with extreme horizontal velocity relative to target, and would further have their descents somewhat altered by weather. Compounded with the fact that you need to have a building full of vacuum tubes to give the modern equivalent of a four function calculator's computing power, it's going to be exceedingly hard to aim the Rods with precision, particularly if they're on the other side of the world, which would require satellite arrays to relay messages to the rod dropper. This opens the difficulty of having a large enough repeating network of satellites to activate the RFG asap to account for error, which in turn makes it easier for the Soviets to disrupt these communications. Atomic bombs don't have any of these issues, as they are essentially almost line-of-sight weapons (200 m error doesn't really matter for an a-bomb).

However, I do have to ask one question. As I recall, historically the Enola Gay flew from Tinian, in the Marianas, a relatively close position to Japan. Given that the front at the current time is somewhere in eastern Poland, the allied powers don't really have a good place to launch a plane carrying the bomb from. Carriers won't work, as planes large enough for atomic missions (B-29s) were too large to fit on carriers. Swedish airbases could probably serve as a base to hit Leningrad, but not much else, and as the war has been long already and the Allies control Oresund the Baltic probably isn't the most strategically important region. So, to get planes close enough to bomb Moscow and the other major industrial centers, one is still obliged to fight a *major* land war, while simultaneously guarding their flank in the Middle East. If too many troops are committed to the Steppes, the Red Army can use the Caucasus as a breakout point to hit the Middle Eastern regions where the Allies are likely getting almost all of their oil.

Now, that's not to say that the Allies can't win in these circumstances. Although an invasion of Russia sounds suicidal, once airbases close enough to hit major cities are acquired can quickly expedite the end of a campaign, forcing the CCCP to surrender. However, if the Allies get that far, they've likely (though not certainly) already won.

As an aside, there's no reason that an atomic bomb can't be split into smaller energy packets. It simply involves putting Uranium in different bombs, rather than one bomb. If anything, given that aiming RFGs at even a city is hard, they're easier to use in precision attacks.

[Lemmy]

Ummm.. a lot.

Depends on the blade and the pommel, but even a slightly heavier pommel makes a more easily controlled tip.

I used an epee pommel on my foil when I was competing, and while it's only a tiny bit heavier, it made my point work much more precise, and even though the weapon was technically heavier, it was quicker to get back to defend after making an attack. It would have lost momentum in a swing, but that's irrelevant for the type of weapon it was. Even taking the sport element out of it and pretending it's a smallsword, you aren't going to try to bash or chop with it.

"How much?" isn't a question we can answer without defining a specific sword.

Yeah.... I know it can't have an exact answer. It was more of a "in a general sense" question, so that I could ahve an idea.

Again, nobody's arguing that.

But the extra momentum you get, which makes it hit harder, also makes the weapon harder to control. It's harder to change angles to feint here and attack there with a forward weighted weapon, and if you miss it's much slower to get back into a guard to defend yourself.

There's a reason battle axes are lighter than splitting axes.

Indeed.

Once again, thank you for taking the time to reply.

[Storm Bringer]

Here's kind of an odd question. My modernish (more like Cold War) fantasy had to have some level of space travel by the time it had 1940s tech, because it had colonies by the 60s. They don't have good enough sensor tech to replicate Cold War spy satellites, but they can get stuff into space easily enough (essentially, alchemists can make a mean engine with magic, but not a camera). We're going to talk about The Rod From God. If you have the tech to get a giant chunk of tungsten into space, you can drop it on people you don't like.

You're the combined alliance of Britain, France, Germany (long story short, no Nazis are around and Germany's still a republic), the Low Countries, and the Scandinavian Countries. Italy, Spain, Portugal, Romania, and the Soviet Union wee the Comintern, and you were fighting them. America is friendly enough, but they got themselves buried neck deep in a land war in Asia, so they aren't coming to Europe. The rest of the Comintern has fallen and Soviets are being pushed back to their initial borders, but nobody wants to invade Russia, anymoreso than anyone wanted to invade Japan IRL. So, you need a superweapon. You can either try and build nukes (America is, though they aren't sharing that with ANYONE), or you can try for The Rod From God. I'm not sure which is better. The Rod sounds a whole lot easier, but tungsten is an essential war material, and I don't know how much one needs for the rod, and whether those supplies would be forthcoming. If the tungsten is there, are you better off starting up a Manhattan Project yourself, or just throwing rocks at the Russians from space until they give up?

if you cant build magitek cameras, I assume you cant build magitek computers, which Is a major problem for a Rods form God system as they need precision targeting and course-correction ability to accurately hit a target (as opposed to merely landing close enough the target sees the flash of impact), both of which require high speed number crunching.


so, it could be done, but it would be extremely inaccurate. the only sort of comparison I can give for long range 1940s computer guidance is the V2 program, which struggled to consistently hit one of the largest cities in Europe at 300Km range. magic may help, but frankly its a bugger to do well with modern tech, let alone 1940s (One of the reasons these system have not been developed in real life)

if you want an idea of the level of accuracy needed, check out Nukemap and see how close to a target a low kiloton bomb/KE event would need to be. but using London as an example, a 15KT bomb that landed directly on big ben would leave someone at the Tower of London with minor burns if they were outside, or basically unhurt if out of line of sight.

[Max_Killjoy]

Tungsten: melting point 3422 C, density 19.25 g/cm³
Titanium: melting point 1668 C, density 4.51 g/cm³

As Knaight said, for a metal, titanium's got a fairly low density and middling melting point, making it sub-optimal for dropping from orbit onto somebody's head.

(The post I was replying to originally said that tungsten had a low density, etc -- which is why I asked. )

[Brother Oni]

(The post I was replying to originally said that tungsten had a low density, etc -- which is why I asked. )

Derp, didn't see the edit asterisk.

[Knaight]

(The post I was replying to originally said that tungsten had a low density, etc -- which is why I asked. )

While correcting a different post on the same error even. It was a badly placed typo.

[Vitruviansquid]

I remember watching this documentary that talked about Teutones and Cimbri raiding Roman settlements as they migrate south into Italy.

This documentary portrayed the raid in a fashion that seemed outright goofy to me. At first, there was a perfectly normal, humdrum market town with butchers and blacksmiths working out in the open and people browsing the stalls on the streets. All of a sudden, a pack of bloodthirsty barbarian warriors, wearing furs and wielding a motley collection of swords and axes enter the shot by rounding a corner, and they're upon the town instantly, slaughtering everyone, grabbing random baskets and pots and chickens, and kicking over everything they did not take.

So this seems silly for a few reasons:

First, I'm finding it kind of hard to believe that the town wouldn't know about the raiders until those raiders were literally upon them. Wouldn't it make more sense for someone, anyone, to have seen the raiders and informed the town? In order to have a town in the first place, shouldn't there be people who live close to, but not in the town itself?

Second, I don't know that the way the raiders behave makes much sense either. Why would raiders be trying to loot things as they come into the town? It strikes me that response times for local defenses would probably not be so quick that the raiders need to actually smash, grab, and get out.

So my question is, what do we know of how raids were performed from antiquity to medieval times? Were there any accounts from survivors or raiders that have some good historical value? Did anyone write anything like a guide to raiding or a guide to fighting back against raids?

[Roxxy]

However, I do have to ask one question. As I recall, historically the Enola Gay flew from Tinian, in the Marianas, a relatively close position to Japan. Given that the front at the current time is somewhere in eastern Poland, the allied powers don't really have a good place to launch a plane carrying the bomb from. Carriers won't work, as planes large enough for atomic missions (B-29s) were too large to fit on carriers. Swedish airbases could probably serve as a base to hit Leningrad, but not much else, and as the war has been long already and the Allies control Oresund the Baltic probably isn't the most strategically important region. So, to get planes close enough to bomb Moscow and the other major industrial centers, one is still obliged to fight a *major* land war, while simultaneously guarding their flank in the Middle East. If too many troops are committed to the Steppes, the Red Army can use the Caucasus as a breakout point to hit the Middle Eastern regions where the Allies are likely getting almost all of their oil.

Now, that's not to say that the Allies can't win in these circumstances. Although an invasion of Russia sounds suicidal, once airbases close enough to hit major cities are acquired can quickly expedite the end of a campaign, forcing the CCCP to surrender. However, if the Allies get that far, they've likely (though not certainly) already won.

I'm guessing the Allies would launch a nuclear strike from Eastern Finland. That gives them about 900 to 1000 km to Moscow. The range of a P51D with external tanks is almost 3000 km. I think this is more important than the range of the bomber carrying the nuke, because the Red Air Force needs to be thoroughly trashed and air superiority ensured before sending the bomber up. Now, that's an American aircraft the Allies don't have, but it shows the technological possibility of such ranges, and the Allies would have to develop similar craft if they're fighting the Russians and know they need super long range fighters. B29 has a range in excess of 5000 km. So, the more vital thing is the ability to essentially pull off what the Battle of Britain couldn't. Which might actually be a challenge, but, with the Soviets having gone into the war with a weaker industrial economy, and with them not getting any lend lease, I wonder if they might lack the ability to outproduce the Allies in terms of building fighters, and if they may have serious trouble building and protecting a radar network compared to Britain. It's still going to be a major pain in the ass for the Allies, and I imagine they have no choice but to settle for clearing a path between Leningrad and Moscow and securing the front lines, rather than clearing the skies over all of Russia. In that case, the Soviets can probably still throw up some resistance compared to Japan, and success probably relies on the escort fighters doing their jobs bloody well.

Edit: You know, those Alchemists that can get rockets into space with magic engines rely mostly on, well, magical chemicals. AKA fuels. Which locally applies to land based aviation, too. The Allies should logically be able to eke out some massive ranges out of their aircraft compared to what we could do IRL. So, the bigger issue will be not getting intercepted by the Soviets, not having the combat range to fight all the way to Moscow. Admittedly, I'm actually on the fence about whether you can wreck the capability of the Red Air Force that bad without ground forces.

Now, that's not to say that the Allies can't win in these circumstances. Although an invasion of Russia sounds suicidal, once airbases close enough to hit major cities are acquired can quickly expedite the end of a campaign, forcing the CCCP to surrender. However, if the Allies get that far, they've likely (though not certainly) already won.

That actually sounds about right. After all, IRL Japan was done by August 1945. There was no way they were ever going to beat back an American invasion force, much less deal with the Soviets showing up. The outcome of the war was pretty set in stone, it was just a question of whether the Japanese were going to face up to it and surrender, or go down the hard way. The nukes just convinced the Emperor to accept the inevitable rather than pursue a doomed struggle further. Russia ending up in basically the same position seems like it makes a whole lot of sense.

I also don't think the conventional "NEVER invade Russia" logic really applies to this scenario. Presumably, the Russians have experienced major combat attrition and a couple years of defeats at this point, so their military isn't in particularly great shape, and it's not going to get significantly better. All those ethnic minorities that hated Stalin are probably pretty angry right now, and Stalin lacks the IRL advantage of the Nazis trying to genocide a bunch of people and driving his enemies back into his arms. Huge chunks of the country are likely not loyal, and the strategic situation probably reminds the party establishment of World War 1, which would make Stalin even less popular. The whole country's probably in utter chaos, and I doubt the Soviet leadership even really commands respect anymore. If the Allies invade in the proper season and with the proper equipment, it might well work. It'd be a massively bloody business and nothing approaching easy, but it doesn't seem particularly suicidal in these circumstances. Just something you don't want to do because the ultimate cost will be very high indeed.

[Roxxy]

if you cant build magitek cameras, I assume you cant build magitek computers, which Is a major problem for a Rods form God system as they need precision targeting and course-correction ability to accurately hit a target (as opposed to merely landing close enough the target sees the flash of impact), both of which require high speed number crunching.


so, it could be done, but it would be extremely inaccurate. the only sort of comparison I can give for long range 1940s computer guidance is the V2 program, which struggled to consistently hit one of the largest cities in Europe at 300Km range. magic may help, but frankly its a bugger to do well with modern tech, let alone 1940s (One of the reasons these system have not been developed in real life)

In that case, I'm leaning heavily towards the nuke, and reevaluating exactly how 1940s spacecraft were (They have to exist to justify what will exist in 30 years, but perhaps they relied on an onboard wizard to figure out navigation back in the 40s [and finding the wizard who actually knows how to do that would be an extreme task], but ten or fifteen years or so later computers got good enough to take over, and then getting a spacecraft where you want it got practical.).

if you want an idea of the level of accuracy needed, check out Nukemap and see how close to a target a low kiloton bomb/KE event would need to be. but using London as an example, a 15KT bomb that landed directly on big ben would leave someone at the Tower of London with minor burns if they were outside, or basically unhurt if out of line of sight.

That's not very far, is it? I've been to London, albeit for one week as a tourist, and I've been to both those places. It feels like they're super close together, at least to my American "used to everything being super far away from everything else" mind.

[Roxxy]

Ancillary question about this war. I like France, and I imagine that, with the Germans between them and the Russians, the French can handle a Spain immediately out of a civil war and not prepared for an international one (I think what Franco always knew when Hitler tried to get him involved holds true in my world, too: Spain didn't have the industry or the stability), and do their part in subduing Italy, then join the fight in Eastern Europe. I certainly don't intend to play with that stupid Cheese Eating Surrender Monkey stereotype,

However, France entered WW2 with some serious problems. I've leard their Air Force was substandard, and their armor not properly concentrated. I've also heard their median age for soldiers was middle aged and they lacked the young manpower of Britain or Germany, but I don't know how true that actually is (it sounded pretty suspect to me). That apart, are there any other key problems with the French military of 1940 that would be have to be addressed if they took part in a prolonged conflict? I'm wondering about things like leadership culture, technology, doctrine, and industry. Also, the warming of relations with Germany happened in the mid-30s, so the French still largely focused on the Maginot Line and another war with Germany up until very recently, meaning the French military largely looks as it did IRL (essentially, Italy went Communist and the Soviet backed side won in Spain, Britain and France got SUPER worried about commies, and democracy won out in Germany through ample fiery anti-Communism, and then the Germans flat out told the British and French that they were abandoning the terms of Versaille so they could address the Communist threat, and Britain and France could work with that and stand together with Germany, or they could stand apart. The Commies were a whole lot scarier than the Germans, and I imagine the German position sounded eminently reasonable.)

[jayem]

Also, the warming of relations with Germany happened in the mid-30s, so the French still largely focused on the Maginot Line and another war with Germany up until very recently, meaning the French military largely looks as it did IRL (essentially, Italy went Communist and the Soviet backed side won in Spain, Britain and France got SUPER worried about commies, and democracy won out in Germany through ample fiery anti-Communism, and then the Germans flat out told the British and French that they were abandoning the terms of Versaille so they could address the Communist threat, and Britain and France could work with that and stand together with Germany, or they could stand apart. The Commies were a whole lot scarier than the Germans, and I imagine the German position sounded eminently reasonable.)

The order is a bit odd, in real life it went Italy, Germany (33), Spain(36-39), which leaves it a bit late for a reaction. And at that point the influences in the civil war would be different.
The fascists were the firey anti-communism/socialist (although as the names indicate, with a complex history that defies that).
However the Soviets had turned a blind eye to Germany rearming in the 20's and the Maginot line was commissioned at the end ('finished' in 39). So even democratic Germany was seen as a threat to France. And in addition you then had the Mol/Rib pact on Poland (which Britain didn't back out of), Russia had campaigned harder on Czechoslovakia. So by that time things are decidedly messy.

While them and the communists were campaigning using 'democratic' political parties in Italy/Germany* (until one won, so arguably a weaker/less scary communism, would be better for medium term German democracy).

However the net effect of that is it's probably closer to real life till the late 30's than expected, so the military in all countries prior to the late 30's is probably similar (just as likely to be up as down).

*As one look at the map will half tell you, from the other side it's nominally democrats against imperialists.

[DavidSh]

However, I do have to ask one question. As I recall, historically the Enola Gay flew from Tinian, in the Marianas, a relatively close position to Japan. Given that the front at the current time is somewhere in eastern Poland, the allied powers don't really have a good place to launch a plane carrying the bomb from. Carriers won't work, as planes large enough for atomic missions (B-29s) were too large to fit on carriers. Swedish airbases could probably serve as a base to hit Leningrad, but not much else, and as the war has been long already and the Allies control Oresund the Baltic probably isn't the most strategically important region. So, to get planes close enough to bomb Moscow and the other major industrial centers, one is still obliged to fight a *major* land war, while simultaneously guarding their flank in the Middle East. If too many troops are committed to the Steppes, the Red Army can use the Caucasus as a breakout point to hit the Middle Eastern regions where the Allies are likely getting almost all of their oil.

Tinian is about 2542 km from Nagasaki. Moscow is about 2462 km from Paris. (Using convenient airports and the Great Circle Mapper website.) I really don't think there is a problem, if the front is in eastern Poland.

Though I guess Roxxy already made the point about aircraft ranges. I just like to make points about geography.

[Storm Bringer]

Ancillary question about this war. I like France, and I imagine that, with the Germans between them and the Russians, the French can handle a Spain immediately out of a civil war and not prepared for an international one (I think what Franco always knew when Hitler tried to get him involved holds true in my world, too: Spain didn't have the industry or the stability), and do their part in subduing Italy, then join the fight in Eastern Europe. I certainly don't intend to play with that stupid Cheese Eating Surrender Monkey stereotype,

However, France entered WW2 with some serious problems. I've leard their Air Force was substandard, and their armor not properly concentrated. I've also heard their median age for soldiers was middle aged and they lacked the young manpower of Britain or Germany, but I don't know how true that actually is (it sounded pretty suspect to me). That apart, are there any other key problems with the French military of 1940 that would be have to be addressed if they took part in a prolonged conflict? I'm wondering about things like leadership culture, technology, doctrine, and industry. )

the median age thing was a result of the proportionally higher losses the French suffered in WW1 (about twice the % of population killed than England, and slightly more than Germany), which created a much more of a "lost generation" effect than in England, and with a lower population than Germany (both in 1914 and 1939), the only way to get enough soldiers was to have a broader section of the population in uniform (whereas the Germans in 1940 could be more selective with who they sent to the front line and who they held back for home garrison duty).

a lot of their material problems were, ironically, a side effect of winning WW1, and thus having large stockpiles of surplus equipment that made it hard to justify getting new equipment for much of the 20s and 30s. For example, a lot of the French tanks in 1940 were FT-17 or similar WW1 era "light" tanks that were state of the art in 1917, and not really updated since.

a big problem with French tanks in general was a preference for the one man turret, as opposed to the two and three man turrets elsewhere (lindybeige did a video about why this is important, but the short version is that a one man turret means you have one man trying to do three jobs that need your full attention to do properly, so he struggles at all three and much slower than a three man team would be at the same jobs). the Air force was similar, and updated its aircraft somewhat later than the Germans or Brits.

the Germans, having been forced to give up most of their equipment in 1918, didn't have these large piles of "legacy" kit, so were forced to start fresh, which meant they had equipment that was much newer than the French (or Brits and soviets, for that matter) in 1940.

Because they were using mostly WW1 era equipment, they formed doctrines based on that WW1 kit, and based on their ww1 experiences, which meant there understanding of what tanks could do is based on the slow, clunky, unreliable mobile pillboxes of 1918, not the faster, more reliable tanks of 1940. Thus, they formed a tank doctrine formed on those foundations and based around supporting the infantry's advance while spread out in penny packets, not independent advances by massed armour.

[Vinyadan]

A question would be the likelihood of the bomber being shot down. Iirc, Japan had large problems with air defense when the A bombs were dropped, to the point that certain aircraft was explicitly to be ignored (lonely planes were understood as recon and consequently ignored). How many planes and bombs could be necessary to reach Moscow, instead, if their fighter and pilot production is still OK?

Also, +1 to fascist regimes being a reaction to communism. However, there's a question worth asking: had fascist Italy never existed (here it's a communist country, right?), could Nazi Germany have been born? Hitler got his power in 33, which means that Mussolini had had more than a decade to showcase the results of his government: general pacification being the most perceivable.

Now, this is something which I haven't often seen in summaries, but in Germany the Nazi party was seen as a revolutionary party, neither more nor less than the Communists. There were proposals to essentially curtail their ability to participate in politics. There was a proposal by Carl Schmitt to suspend parts of the Weimar Constitution to allow the more important or vital parts to survive. This wasn't something he pulled out of his hat: there really was an article (article 48) in this Constitution that allowed the Parliament to concede extraordinary powers to the President, which allowed him to ignore some articles of the Constitution.
There were a lot of problems with this. In practice, once the Federal Chancellor had the President's hear, he could govern through emergency laws passed by the President. This meant that extremely weak governments could survive after losing parliamentary majority. So democracy had already been eroding, as well as the federal nature of Germany, since the President allowed von Papen to take direct government of the Prussian state (population: ~40 million, out of ~65 of the whole of Germany) in 1932.
So Hitler gained his power in this already hypertense atmosphere, but it didn't come easy: the nov. 1932 elections actually saw Communists and socialists gain more votes than he did. However, the revolutionary parties had the overall majority. At this point, the choice was between using the President's powers to call off the Parliament and have him rule only by dictatorial decrees or building another weak government, likely without parliamentary support. So they tried the latter. It didn't go anywhere, at which point a coalition government comprising various parties to the right and the Nazi was built, and Hitler was made Chancellor. The thing is, he actually didn't have a parliamentary majority. He ruled through the special powers accorded to the President by article 48. So one could say that, in a democracy with a different Constitution, Hitler might have never gained his power.
It is however an extremely complex history, and many points remain unclear.
But the 1933 elections? There Hitler was already in power and had spent the last months persecuting his opponents. That's why he suddenly gets over 40%. He then had the Parliament exclude from itself the seats won by the Communists, reducing the total number and gaining the absolute parliamentary majority. He then had the Parliament (involving other parties to reach a 2/3 majority) transmit its powers to the government. I don't think that this last part would have been possible, hadn't there already been various governments that ruled by the will of the President, instead of that of the Parliament, as well as previous similar laws giving part of the Parliament's powers to the government. There also were armed SS in the building, though (they couldn't use the Reichstag because it had been burnt down, and, when the deputies entered, it was full of SA).

Generally speaking there were a lot of precedents and a legal doctrine that facilitated the ascent of a dictator by gradually eroding the meaning of the Constitution and its institutions.

However, concerning international alliances, a Soviet Union which came earlier out of the civil war would have been extremely scary, especially if Italy, then a recognised Great Power, had fallen to Communism. In practice, an alliance to contain communism in such conditions would probably have been a priority. One of the rl reasons why Hitler was tolerated was that a strong Germany was seen as a necessary defense of Europe against a massive and industrialized Soviet Union. It's also why the EU exists, its necessary foundation having been an alliance between France and Germany for reciprocal security against the Eastern Block, financial gain by ensuring French access to German raw materials, and reintegration of Germany in Europe.

[KarlMarx]

Ancillary question about this war. I like France, and I imagine that, with the Germans between them and the Russians, the French can handle a Spain immediately out of a civil war and not prepared for an international one (I think what Franco always knew when Hitler tried to get him involved holds true in my world, too: Spain didn't have the industry or the stability), and do their part in subduing Italy, then join the fight in Eastern Europe. I certainly don't intend to play with that stupid Cheese Eating Surrender Monkey stereotype,

However, France entered WW2 with some serious problems. I've leard their Air Force was substandard, and their armor not properly concentrated. I've also heard their median age for soldiers was middle aged and they lacked the young manpower of Britain or Germany, but I don't know how true that actually is (it sounded pretty suspect to me). That apart, are there any other key problems with the French military of 1940 that would be have to be addressed if they took part in a prolonged conflict? I'm wondering about things like leadership culture, technology, doctrine, and industry. Also, the warming of relations with Germany happened in the mid-30s, so the French still largely focused on the Maginot Line and another war with Germany up until very recently, meaning the French military largely looks as it did IRL (essentially, Italy went Communist and the Soviet backed side won in Spain, Britain and France got SUPER worried about commies, and democracy won out in Germany through ample fiery anti-Communism, and then the Germans flat out told the British and French that they were abandoning the terms of Versaille so they could address the Communist threat, and Britain and France could work with that and stand together with Germany, or they could stand apart. The Commies were a whole lot scarier than the Germans, and I imagine the German position sounded eminently reasonable.)

I'm not 100% certain that the French could simply occupy Spain hands-down. After all, the Spanish do have a history of bogging down specifically French invasions, and a Soviet Wellington being sent over with a small force to occupy the French army could easily drag out that war for a long time. This would especially be true given that there would be an immense population of trained militia or guerillas being present as a result of the Civil War (which I'm assuming the Republic won). Italy might be easier, but again has plenty of defensive points to hold of an invasion with relatively few troops--the Nazis did it pretty well IRL. So while the French would have an important role to play, it's very easy to see them getting bogged down in these side campaigns while Britain and Germany take the lead against the Soviets and Scandinavia fights a Continuation War on steroids.

Tinian is about 2542 km from Nagasaki. Moscow is about 2462 km from Paris. (Using convenient airports and the Great Circle Mapper website.) I really don't think there is a problem, if the front is in eastern Poland.

I didn't realize the distances were actually that similar, I guess I was just looking at bad map projections. Still, while B29 bombings are definitely possible, they'd definitely be exceedingly risky--there are a lot of places to put AA or scramble fighters from on the way to Russia, and every bomb lost is an asset that you can't really afford to lose. Also, by the time that large-scale a-bombings become realistic, Soviet industry may well be safely moved to Siberia. The Russians might surrender simply as a result of population attrition from the bombings, but historically the Nazis were quite efficient at exterminating large numbers of Russian civilians without provoking a surrender. That's not to say the Russians might not lose in the end, but rather that just the bombings still might not do the trick.

What I think is actually the strategic wildcard is probably what Turkey and Iran do. The Turks can in theory shut down the ability of the Soviets to supply the Mediterranean, and have plenty of reason to hate the Soviets, but also plenty of reason to fear them. If they openly side with the Allies to the point of risking war, Spain and especially Italy become much easier for the Allies to attack as the Soviets cannot resupply them. Iran, on the other hand, might declare war on Britain or the USSR in an effort to take back its regional standing and control its oil--Reza Shah especially could be plenty belligerent at times, and might well set up a point where his slightly-less-belligerent heir Mohammed Reza Shah would have no real choice but to follow his policy. If Iran sided with the CCCP, it could easily invade the British and French "mandates" in the Middle East, eliminating their oil supply. On the other hand, war with the Soviets would open up a front on their exposed "underbelly" in Central Asia, limiting the degree to which the Soviets could give ground, threatening their oil in the Caucasus, and forcing them to split their forces. Thus, the decisions of these middling powers could prove major in the war's ultimate outcome.

[fusilier]

a big problem with French tanks in general was a preference for the one man turret, as opposed to the two and three man turrets elsewhere (lindybeige did a video about why this is important, but the short version is that a one man turret means you have one man trying to do three jobs that need your full attention to do properly, so he struggles at all three and much slower than a three man team would be at the same jobs). the Air force was similar, and updated its aircraft somewhat later than the Germans or Brits.

That's a good, if somewhat rambling, video, and I feel that lindybiege makes a balanced argument.

The one-man turret French tanks did well against the German tanks when they were deployed correctly. This may have been due to the many other advantages that French tanks had. From an empirical standpoint (and Lindybiege points this out after a long digression at the end), in terms of combat performance there aren't enough examples to say conclusively that one-man turrets were inferior in combat. (Although there are strong logical arguments) I seem to recall reading that the French tankers themselves didn't complain about the one-man turret -- they had plenty of other complaints though. Perhaps their training and tactical doctrine made it less of an issue for them?

In my opinion the one-man turret was a flaw, but not a fatal flaw, on French tanks.

Also, concerning how the French organized their tanks, it's actually a bit more complicated than they failed to concentrate them. While they dispersed the infantry tanks to support infantry units, they did concentrate the cavalry tanks (like the Somua 35) into responsive units, supported by mechanized infantry. Leading to the large tank Battle of Hannut.

This deployment may have been more effective when waging an offensive campaign -- as Lindybeige pointed out that attacker has the advantage of deciding where to concentrate tanks.

[gkathellar]

Yeah.... I know it can't have an exact answer. It was more of a "in a general sense" question, so that I could ahve an idea.

Indeed.

Once again, thank you for taking the time to reply.

As Mike G says, it's all about the type of sword, and the way it does its job. Let me give some examples:

Jian want their center of balance exactly 4-6" up from the guard (depending on blade length), because a huge amount of technique involves rotation of the weapon around that point. Adding more weight to the pommel isn't helpful in this case, because once you've changed that, you should get a sword other than a jian.

Dao is similar to jian in ideal balance, but a heavy pommel might have its uses, since the pommel "leads" certain chops and short-range attacks. On the other hand, the extra weight is going to slow down some of those same moves, and others are going to feel wonky with a different center of gravity on the weapon.

In either case, the technique plays a huge role in why the extra weight would or would not make sense. Foil, as was mentioned, rotates around its own hilt, so it makes a lot more sense there. I think you could make distinctive argument for any sword in relation to specifics of how it was used.

[Gnoman]

The one-man turret French tanks did well against the German tanks when they were deployed correctly. This may have been due to the many other advantages that French tanks had. From an empirical standpoint (and Lindybiege points this out after a long digression at the end), in terms of combat performance there aren't enough examples to say conclusively that one-man turrets were inferior in combat. (Although there are strong logical arguments) I seem to recall reading that the French tankers themselves didn't complain about the one-man turret -- they had plenty of other complaints though. Perhaps their training and tactical doctrine made it less of an issue for them?

There are few post-1940 uses of single-man turrets on tanks, but there was a huge usage of two-man turrets - the T-34 used turrets with just a commander and a loader, and there is a wealth of data to suggest that this was massively inferior to the three-man turrets in common use. German tanks were often able to get three shots off to the T-34's one (caused by the Soviet gunner having to stop operating the gun to command the tank) and were far better coordinated (due to the Soviet vehicle commanders having to stop commanding their tanks to operate the gun). The problem was so bad that a major reason the T-34-85 was introduced was that production planners were reluctant to stop T-34-76 production to fix the turret problem, as on paper it was not enough of an increase in combat power. By adding a more powerful gun (that was useful but not really needed), there was enough of an increase to justify slowing production, and since the new gun needed a new turret anyway, why not design it for three men.