Infantry Discussion Thread 9: Parabellum [NO KAIJU]

[Eisarn-Ara]

Given the state of the Russian Baltic Fleet at the time, that's no great achievement. Reading about that battle is kinda like watching a dwarf toddler with down syndrome get run over by a garbage truck.

It's not just Tsushima, it's also Port Arthur and Mukden, where they learned that material inferiority could be overcome by clever maneuvers and the Yamato fighting spirit.

Sometimes I wish people could talk on the internet without sneering all the time.

On one very special occasion, the sun did rise over the Japanese Empire in a day, twice.

[Orussia]

It was just happy to be second place as long as it was unmolested. It was modest and respectable.

>modest
>literally exemplified the baroque and rococo movements
lolokay

>respectable
>literally created perfume to hide the fact that they don't bathe
lolokay

[Gallan Systems]

It was just happy to be second place as long as it was unmolested. It was modest and respectable.

>modest
>literally exemplified the baroque and rococo movements
lolokay

>respectable
>literally created perfume to hide the fact that they don't bathe
lolokay

Bathing is for money changers anyway.

[Velkanika]

Given the state of the Russian Baltic Fleet at the time, that's no great achievement. Reading about that battle is kinda like watching a dwarf toddler with down syndrome get run over by a garbage truck.

It's not just Tsushima, it's also Port Arthur and Mukden, where they learned that material inferiority could be overcome by clever maneuvers and the Yamato fighting spirit.

Sometimes I wish people could talk on the internet without sneering all the time.

Port Arthur was a sucker punch, but Mukden was slightly more interesting.

This is IDT, SOP requires a minimum of 50% of every post to be snark.

[Eisarn-Ara]

It was just happy to be second place as long as it was unmolested. It was modest and respectable.

>modest
>literally exemplified the baroque and rococo movements
lolokay

>respectable
>literally created perfume to hide the fact that they don't bathe
lolokay

You forgot the shitting in stair wells.

[Orussia]

This is IDT, SOP requires a minimum of 50% of every post to be snark.

Okay but this is [current year].
New minimum is 75%

[Velkanika]

Just pointing out, we started correcting that error immediately with the Marshal Plan and managed to make Vietnam Capitalist after loosing the war. We've gotta be doing something right when we win by loosing.

Meanwhile the world still reels from America's record of incompetence in Africa, the Middle East, and China.

Europe might be America's greatest colonial success, but that's a very low bar to be setting for yourself.

Europe was the largest consumption market on Earth after the PRC. Seeing as they bought a helluva lot of stuff from us, I'll call that a victory.

Africa was a mess created by the Europoors when they let their colonies go, and in the case of the Belgians that was by design. The Mid East is entirely the fault of the Brits and French who drew the map, and China was right in the Soviet's back yard.

[Gallan Systems]

And yet the catalyst in all of it was the USA, either willing to let European empires and the political stability they created crumble, as can be seen exemplified in the Suez Crisis, or callous mismanagement brought on by incompetence and ineptitude of American foreign policy. Vietnam, Grenada, Cuba, the entire Cold War really, but that's split almost equally on the European front by the USA and USSR. Outside it, the USSR did a lot of damage in the Middle East and Africa, but only because the USA allowed the power vacuums that resulted in such footholds being created.

[Nirvash Type TheEND]

What the fuck did I just get done reading.

[Orussia]

What the fuck did I just get done reading.

[Schwere Panzer Abteilung 502]

America started Pearl Harbor TBF, Japan was just reacting with the only option left to them.

Isn't that victim blaming though? Americans didn't hold a gun to eafh and every pilot to make them fly, or to Yamamoto when he gave the order, or to the Japanese general staff when they decided to attack. Japan just hopped on the empire building bandwagon two hundred years too late.

[Gallan Systems]

America started Pearl Harbor TBF, Japan was just reacting with the only option left to them.

Isn't that victim blaming though? Americans didn't hold a gun to eafh and every pilot to make them fly, or to Yamamoto when he gave the order, or to the Japanese general staff when they decided to attack. Japan just hopped on the empire building bandwagon two hundred years too late.

A better country would have called the American embargoes an act of war. The United States, and possibly the rest of Anglo civilization, seems to (out of stupidity or perfidy?) consider economic warfare to be non-confrontational or something, and draws a tenuous and arbitrary distinction between strangling someone with trade and strangling someone with bombs.

The USA has a pretty long and blemished history of coercing people through its vast economic resources, in lieu of its martial prowess and its general military weakness. It did the same to the French in Mexico, and tried to do the same to the British before it invaded Canada, it fought a trade war with Cuba for 60 years for zero reason, etc. etc.

Ultimately the fact of the matter is the United States was preparing itself for a major war in the late 1930s, almost as much as the European Allies were but not as openly, and the Japanese oil embargoes were about as much a preparation for war as the crash procurement of the Matilda II and Cruiser A13s were in Britain. The US had, except maybe to the most pedantic or stupid observer, entered the war as early as 1938, it just didn't start shooting until it had an excuse to sell to the US public, and obviously since it spent all its time counting money instead of spending it got smacked around right proper.

[Nirvash Type TheEND]

It's so much simpler to just strangle someone with your dick.

[Gallan Systems]

The USA didn't have a dick until after the war.

But it's lost somewhere in the Sahara.

[Puzikas]

This is all just so fucking stupid.

[Gallan Systems]

the truth hurts

[Allanea]

A better country would have called the American embargoes an act of war. The United States, and possibly the rest of Anglo civilization, seems to (out of stupidity or perfidy?) consider economic warfare to be non-confrontational or something, and draws a tenuous and arbitrary distinction between strangling someone with trade and strangling someone with bombs.

On this logic, all trade restrictions are wars, and the US is right now at war with Russia.

[Schwere Panzer Abteilung 502]

To shift the conversation back to infantry(because IDT):

I have a sperg request; what were the combat roles of pioneers in WWI, interwar, and WWII, and how important was a detachment of pioneers to the overall unit they are in? I was going over some old family photos and found this one, of my 2nd great uncle, Friedrich Dittus, a pioneer in the 19th Panzer Division.

[Gallan Systems]

A better country would have called the American embargoes an act of war. The United States, and possibly the rest of Anglo civilization, seems to (out of stupidity or perfidy?) consider economic warfare to be non-confrontational or something, and draws a tenuous and arbitrary distinction between strangling someone with trade and strangling someone with bombs.

On this logic, all trade restrictions are wars, and the US is right now at war with Russia.

Which is not wrong.

The United States has been at war with Russia for over 100 years, though.

Trade wars are a form of conflict, broadly speaking, and the United States' embargoes of the 1930s were a form of conflict preparation. The USA isn't really an offensive minded culture, it's too pacifistic, so it sorta suckers people into taking the first swing at it. You can be sure that it has been cajoling and provoking the conflict for a long time before, though, and it's often the instigator of such conflicts when you get right down to it. It started the Pacific War, Pearl Harbor was just the initial climax.

To shift the conversation back to infantry(because IDT):

I have a sperg request; what were the combat roles of pioneers in WWI, interwar, and WWII, and how important was a detachment of pioneers to the overall unit they are in? I was going over some old family photos and found this one, of my 2nd great uncle, Friedrich Dittus, a pioneer in the 19th Panzer Division.

Pioneers break things. They also build some things.

Anglos call them "combat engineers" or "assault pioneers" or "sappers". The US Army would call them "sappers" since combat engineers are more about the construction side, while sappers can be both, and the British have assault pioneers who blow stuff up.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_%28military%29

They also aren't really infantry, but they're the next best thing (US Army combat engineers have almost as much elan as the US Army infantry, however little elan that is), and better in some regards.

[Schwere Panzer Abteilung 502]

In the world war periods, would pioneers be able to outgun opposing regular infantrymen? And if not outgun, then out-shock? I recall somewhere that stormtroopers were often drawn from pioneer units in the imperial German army; I'm guessing pioneers would be some of the types to go into battle outfitted with grenades galore? Or would they carry things more for breaking equipment(e.g. carry TNT or whatever they had to destroy artillery, blow up trenches & barbed wire, etc. etc.

[Gallan Systems]

Pioneers just blow up/drive through obstacles.

It's not like you'd be able to tell if someone is a pioneer or an infantryman because they have a brick of guncotton or whatever. They just know how to use stuff like shaped charges to destroy impediments and clear minefields. Infantry can do this too, but you end up taking away from your infantry if you use them for that. Same thing when mine clearing tanks aren't really preferred when you have actual mine clearers available in an engineering unit.

They would still be next to the tanks and the infantry and whatever. They're just people who are better trained at particular tasks (breaking things) and can devote resources specifically to these tasks. With infantry or tanks, you're reducing the number of infantrymen or attacking tanks you have to divert resources to breaching an obstacle, which reduces your chances of successfully forcing a breach in the obstacle to begin with, and possibly takes a bit more time.

[Rhodesialund]

the truth hurts (Image)

Stupidity hurts too.

[Gallan Systems]

Apparently stops the truth too, which explains a lot of this thread.

[Rhodesialund]

Apparently stops the truth too, which explains a lot of this thread.

You might want to stick to tactics and military equipment like how Ford sticks to swords. Politics and Geopolitics might not be your bag.

[Gallan Systems]

the truth hurts