Stalins Organ
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Hitler’s own claims about testing nuclear weapons:
In August 1944 Hitler Ribbentrop and Keitel met with Romanian Marshal Antonescu. Hitler told Antonescu of Germany’s atomic bomb. He described Germany’s latest work on “new explosives, whose development was already advanced to the experimental stage,” Hitler confided his view that the jump from modern explosives to this one was the biggest since gunpowder. Antonescu later quoted Hitler in his diary saying:
“These weapons, for example, have such colossal force that all human life is destroyed within three, or four kilometres of its point of impact.”
Even David Irving says that Hitler's claims to have 5 bombs to Antonescue were fantasy......
Then Hitler suddenly turned to the war. “Germany is in a tough spot, but I’ll get her out of it. The British and Americans have miscalculated badly.... In no time at all I’m going to start using my Victory weapon (Siegwaffe) and then the war will come to a glorious end. Some time ago we solved the problem of nuclear fission, and we have developed it so far that we can exploit the energy for armaments purposes (R¸stungszwecke). They won’t even know what hit them ! It’s the weapon of the future. With it Germany’s future is assured. It was Providence that allowed me to perceive this final path to victory.”see note 5 - Irvings actual words describing this comment are "The origin of Hitler's optimism is puzzling"
There's nothing new about Hitler, or the Nazi's in general, having a reasonable idea of the destructive potential of atomic weapons. Dunno how that is evidence that they actually had them tho.
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Or multiple personality disorder.......
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Not the same as building them.....
At 7% enrichment per day for 2 kg I'd have thought they'd be at the forefront of the technology.....and yet the system was discarded as uneconomic after the war!
And a single "modern" gas centrifuge can only produce about 30 grams of HEU/year which is why hundreds or thousands of them are arranged in cascades.
Hmm.......looks like your history fails the "comparison with reality" check!
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Will it matter? The NKA will be coming to them so they only have to be able to move far enough to get into tank scrapes.....
Will 40 rounds per tank be enough to cover all the incoming threats??
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No.......but we do have a better Rugby team
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Bah - my math still sucks - but at least only by only slightly less than 1 order of magnitude this time!
Iowa would ahve taken 6 & a bit days to cover it's max range....so call it 1.6 million litres/day - so New Zealand has the fuel consumption of about 20 Iowas!
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Or maybe he thought his papers & disguise were good enough - compare it with the capture of Seeadler I linked to where the ship had a British boarding party on board when then boarded by Germans - the British hid hoping to be not found!
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It's a lot!
Today on the news someone said NZ uses about 36 milllion litres of oil & oil derivatives per day - at full speed Iowa's 2.5 million US Gallons ewould last less than a day, and is (I think) about 10 million litres or thereabouts.
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Apparently USS Iowa (BB61) had a fuel capacity of 2,500,000 million Gallons (US I presume), and from it's trials data a range of 4,830 nm at full speed.
that's 517.6 gallons per nm.....or a whole 3.54 yards per mile (2025.33 yds/mile according to current standards - 6076 feet, 1852 metres).
Clearly ship hull design had improved a lot between the design of Hood and Iowa!
By Comparison HMS Dreadnought used 17.5 tons of coal per hour to achieve 21 kts....1 ton of coal apaprently occupies about 1132.7 litres (40 cu feet), or about 251.7 Imperial Gallons.
So Dreadnought burned 4,404 gallons of coal per hour to travel 21 nm....or about 9.7 yards per Imperial gallon of coal.
Or something like that:D
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The British ship had 8 x 4.7" guns....the German 2 x 4.1" & 6 "pompoms".
Given the lack of armour & presumably of subdivision is it probably unsurprising that hits below the waterline seem to have proved decisive!!
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Does anyone know anything about the allied "Checkmate" ship identification system?
For some reason* I was browsing wiki articles about German raiders at lunch & found mention of it - there's a very short article here.....but nothing much else on the web & I was wondering how it worked.
another interesting snippet - The UK AMC Carmania & German Cap Trafalger fought each other at Cape Trindade.....while each was disguised as the other! Surely one of the oddest naval battle ever :cool:
*rumour has it that a distant relation of mine was a goaler of von Lucknow on Ripapa Island in WW1 & was the chap under who's "watch" one of his escapes happened & he subsequently went a bit nuts.....which may or may not be related to teh escape.
BTW if anyone is ever in Chch it'd be worth seeing if you could organise 16 adults to visit the fort - it's well worth the trip.
The story of how his ship Seeadler was seized by the Germans also makes intersting reading!!:eek:
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Wiki, of course, has something to say about it
And afterwards the Yarpies continued with some development - and built 6 relatively simple weapons ......dismantling them in 1989 ans scrapping them a bit later when they signed the NPT.
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Was watching the "Pacific" episode late last night where they charge across the airfield.
Right at the end one of the characters is on a hospital ship that is setting sail (steaming/motoring off??) and I noticed the US flag (jack, ensign?) at the stern of the ship was being lowered.
Just wondering why that would be done then? Do ships only display
a flag at the stern if anchored or something like that?
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Haven't we had enough propaganda over the last few years to know that processed anything is not as good as "natural" anything? Cheese, meat, flour.....
Salt in meat is bad for you - whodathunk that!
Mind you 2.4 ounces of nuts is a lot of nuts - I have a little bag of mixed nuts & seeds in my drawer at work for munching on during the day to replace hte chocolate I'd really like.....2 ounces is probably more than I'd eat "grazing".
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Seems like it's official now - them Northerner's did it
so when do y'all think the rest of the shooting will start - days, weeks, months?
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I was prompted by the Aussie's comments to see what is out there - google does the rest!:cool:
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If the hamster fits it probably involves duct tape and cardboard tubing :eek:
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Were there any hamsters involved in that??
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A couple of fascinating videos about how it was done way back when (1953)
About 40 minutes, in 2 videos, of really basic mechanics - explaining gears, cams, etc., but I've never seen anything about how they are actually put together to construct computers.
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Yep - that pretty much summarises it!
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The Romans in particular had quite long lifetimes - in the 1st couple of centuries AD a non citizen could join the army as "Auxilia" - and after 20 or 25 years service (I forget which....) be mustered out as a citizen.
Auxilia were usually used as the front lines tho - to soften the enemy up forhte citizen legions, and Tacitus specifically commends his father in law Agricola for defeating the Caledones at Mons Grappius using only Auxilia and not risking roman lives!
Citizen veterans of the legions would muster out with land.
As with most armies, most soldiers probably saw little action in their service - the chances of being in a major battle were fairly slim outside hte well known wars -and would have survived.
The Romans actually had a pretty good medical system, and as you'd expect the military had their own system too.
I think "moderns" usually think of "dark age" & medieval medicine when they think of ancient times - presuming that anything earlier must have been even worse.
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"Could build" isn't "to build" - and we talk about journalists being shonky reporters!:mad:
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Roman "line replacement" is pretty well attested in many sources - but the exact mechanics are not known. However it was probably not unique - the Carthaginian formation at Zama - in 3 lines, was probably intended to do the same thing, and the 3rd line there is noted as refusing entry to the fleeing remnants of the lines in front - implying that moving through lines was fairly common.
Later Byzantine manuals we have note quite wide gaps between formations of heavy infantry, in which light infantry operated and through which cavalry were expected to be able to charge out and retire through.
Even such not-so-well drilled troops as Crusader infantry and knights were expected to operate in a similar manner.
As far as I can see such changes would take place out of actual; contact - cavalry would charge out against a retreating foe....or against horse archers who were shooting from a distance. Infantry probably replaced each other during lulls - the Carthaginians lines at Zama were not closely pursued for example, and there are other cases where troops are noted as being close to each other but not actually exchanging sword blows - often 1 side is emboldened to come within javelin range, while the other is either timid...or faking waiting for them to come even closer so they can't get away fast enough when the charge does happen!
As to he hack and slash - some Greek plays give an idea IIRC - Hanson's "The Western Way of War" highlights a few passages where men are gouging each other with their hands and teeth once spears are broken and swords lost, and the crush at Cannae was not unique - similar cases where troops are so tightly packed as to be unable to use their weapons are noted in other battles.
The job of then slaughtering those men seems pretty horrific and not something many modern people think about!
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My boss asked today how was it that these ancient battles had so many people in them - how could the Romans & Carthaginians manage to get 130-140,000 people together for a bit of a scrum in 218 BC - how did they feed them all? where did they come from?
Trying to explain the workings of the Roman & Carthaginian societies was a bit of an effort - the concepts of "the vote" being pretty much the most important thing in existance, of fighting to get it, being prepared to be conscripted for years to fight for it, etc ......well it was interesting experience explaining it all!
US leads the world
in General Discussion Forum
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Or from those people either......