dieseltaylor

I am just starting on Overy's The Air WAr 1939-1945. Fascinating. There is a huge amount of info on production per man-hour and stuff!. One thing sort of stunning is that until late in the war the Japanese Navy and the Army Air Arms could not agree a common electrical standard for their planes. !!!?

Ridiculously easy to generate battles. In terms of scenarios to play I would suggest you have several years worth to playthrough currently. It is actually interesting to play some of the better North African ones so you can appreciate the difference for those troops going from one theatre to the other.! Joining a club might be helpful as humans are more devious than the AI - not to say humans are also stupider at times also!! Have fun, it is an outstanding game.

ME Be fair the Zero was outstanding at the start of the war. And in carrier battles plane range is a huge factor. The Japanese already knew they could not compete long-term so a knock-out punch was the only hope. Knocking out the Panama Canal seems an obvious target. A for resourcing a fleet the Japanese merchant marine I am sure frequented South America so arranging for fuelling and replenishment I would not think necessarily that big a deal.

SO indeed that is good stuff on Operational Research More on Operational research now http://www.informs.org/

: ) I like that. And 119 is more cunning than I first thought.

Just in todays New Scientist specially for you: Stupid scientists, next thing you know they will be saying advertising works and alters peoples buying habits . Sheesh!. Of course if I was a Defence Minister I would be against the game also - after all we want to get our guys habituated to killing foreigners and this confusion of playing either side is not going to help in demonising those Afghan terrorists.

http://www.bookreporter.com/reviews/0316159433.asp http://www.bookloons.com/cgi-bin/Review.ASP?bookid=2707 James Bradley quotes Charles Lindberg at the beginning of Chapter Ten ('Yellow Devils, White Devils') with the following: 'We hold his examples of atrocity screaming to the heavens while we cover up our own and condone them as just retribution for his acts. We claim to be fighting for civilization, but the more I see of this war in the Pacific the less right I think we have to claim to be civilized. In fact, I am not sure that our record in this respect stands so very much higher than the Japanese.' Seems to be selling well at Amazon

Those Wiki articles are very interesting. The Panama Canal attack would have been a stunt and a half, and perhaps the IJN should have had that plan much further advanced, As for the Itlian type of jet - who knew it!

Slightly off topic - but as I cam across it researching this thread ... http://www.century-of-flight.net/Aviation%20history/flying%20wings/europe_interwar.htm Some seriously weird shapes!

For something more up to date: http://www.airproducts.com/PressRoom/PDF/Helium_on_the_Rise_Insert_CGI.pdf Note their comments on short supply? The full report is interesting though I have not read all the chapters and it seems a little light on hard prices. there is comment that implies the private industry is benefitting from the storage facility as the private companies pay only a share of current operating costs - the Federal Govt could charge a more commercial fee for storage and recover the $1billion . Which brings us to the point as to why the BLM never charged the rigt rate in the beginning .... On a more cynical note you may wonder what happens when the Strategic store is reduced to a small amount and pricing is firmly in commercial hands.

Your response seems to miss the point that the gas is being sold at a non-commercial price - if it were sold by the Government for more then the US taxpayer would benefit rather than the profit going to private companies. [ I did read the linked New Scientist article from which the quoted part comes] There are other sources and competition but not all gasfields have recoverable helium. But as I do not yet know the selling price from the reserve and the commercial price in the open market I am rather reliant on what the scientists say as being a problem.

I think JC must have taken his figures from David Chandler's The Campaigns of Napoleon where the summary at the back - of the battles - gives those figures 4/7000 as casualties. The Greeenhill Napoleonic Wars Data Book gives the breakdown thus: Austrians losses - killed 600, wounded 1600, captured 4000. Force 18500 men French losses - 1200 killed, 2300 wounded. Force 20000 So the Austrians lost less men from a smaller force. However being a predominantly defensive battle with the Austrians in good positions that would not be unexpected - however it does not demonstrate what JC wants it to. On more general note:In Hughes's Firepower notes that a battalion of 500 men with 22inch spacing [150 yards frontage] could fire between 1000-1500 bullets per minute; in effect, six to ten shots per yard. Incidentally the misfire rate was roughly 15% and could be as high as 25% in light rain so when someone takes shots fired to kills one ought to ask if this has been abstracted. Hughes calculates that at Talavera the hit rate was 3% or 4% depending on whose account you take for whether 20 [30000shots] or 30 volleys were fired in a half hour session that accounted for 1250 French casualties. Another point is that the Anglo-Portugese divisions would put out many more skirmishers than the French divisions - up to 25% of the division. With the use of the Baker rifle the British could reliably hit a man sized target at 200yards whereas musket armed infantry would be incredibly lucky to do so. As the French never took to rifles the 20-30000 Baker rifles produced made it a little bit of an unequal contest between skirmishers. Houghton - This quote is from Wikipedia and sets the scene: Bloody stuff indeed. And it seems line won out over a column formation supported by guns.

IR: Ah thats the kind of info we are looking for : ) as for helicoptors http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_helicopters_used_in_World_War_II thats one hell of a list for Germany. An example of undirected "planning"? floating tanks DUKW - US PLUTO Funnies Dozer tanks APDS Airportable tanks - USSR?

http://www.physorg.com/news201853523.html I was quite astonished at this arrticle. Apparently the US has 50% of one of the rarest gases on earth - helium - and is selling it off at a fixed price. This is daft because any body knows that a rare resource goes in value as stocks dwindle. More importantly with super-conductors becoming more common in the electrical field the demand for serious uses could rise rapidly. Is it something to do with being in Bush territory? 8MW Wind turbines using a superconductor motor would only require an 80 ton motor as opposed to a 450 ton motor. Heating metal ingots for pressing requires only 50% of the power if the magnetic field is generated by a superconductor Super-grids are another area of interest. In any event the concept of selling a limited resource cheap should aggravate all US taxpayers! Write to your elected representatives now!

Alfred Price puts it down to the Germans not developing their engines further. As to why not several reasons are supplied above. It may be that this book could give reasons: Major Piston Aero Engines of WWII [Hardcover] Victor Bingham (Author) actually a little searching reveals an interesting thread here http://warbirdsforum.com/archive/index.php/t-1431.html German Airo Engines They Were So Unique

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Village_Inn_%28codename%29 automatic radar controlled plane turret

Following on from the query on engine technologies I was reading an excellent book on air combat and it mentioned the gyroscopic sights which basically made average pilots as lethal as good pilots. So trying to restrict it to WW2 action/possible use Brits Radar Gyroscopic sights Asdic/Sonar [astonishingly early] Hedgehog Jet engine AWACs Window chaff http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaff_%28countermeasure%29 HFDF http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pipsqueak#Pipsqueak Germans Rockets Jet engines good Bazookas Chaff US Bazooka site of the work on the atom bomb Italians midget subs? I am sure the US did invent new war technologies - what were they

I am not aware how much air-time it is getting over there but it did make me wince to see atheists/music lovers put on jankers for not going to a Christian act concert paid for by the US army. http://www.alternet.org/story/147937/soldiers_punished_for_refusing_to_attend_christian_rock_show_?page=entire While the US constitution welcomes all races and creeds it looks like some in the Army have the idea it ought to be a Christian organisation - and are prepared to get tax-payers money for it. OK it seems it is down to one General but what the hell does he think he is up to? And as for the Army EO system - that comes up smelling - but not of roses.

Wiki Apparently JC your theory is dust as despite losing the battle the Austrians took less losses.

Missed your second post JC Brent Nosworthy says the Battle of Arcola was lost on the third day when the Austrians went on the offensive and the French were able to swing on to the flank of the victorious Austrian advance. It would suggest either he or you are barking up the wrong tree. However as I do not propose investigating it in depth tonight I will leave it at that. This from linkie http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=186439 I think the writer is confusing shortrange penetrative power with overall shooting but the implication is obviously that going through more than one body was not unlikely. Another writer says at 80 yards a shot went through 4" of a target post.

I am quite perplexed JC. You seem to be suggesting that a block of men are less vulnerable - which is a point to argue perhaps but surely dismisses the penetration of a musket ball which could easily hit several men in a block. The 0.75" ball of a Brown Bess at sub-100 range would do serious damage - I believe it would go through 0.75" of oak at 100 paces but would need to check that. In any event despite Oman being substantially wrong on the reason for British success it is generally agree line does provide more muskets to fire. The important ingrdient for the British success was holding fire to the last minute , destroyoing the opponents cohesion with a volley and charging with the bayonet.

1] Polikarpov I-16 Some of the best machines guns and cannons. Double the firepower of the Me-109 and nearly three times that of the Spitfire I 2] P-82 Twin Mustang. Actually re-reading it I cannot claim it was a combat aircraft . ..darn. Anyway one of these flew from Honolulu to New York non-stop. Top speed 482mph. SO this question remains open ,,, I will need to find the answer. The Mach speed was achieved by a Mk XI during a trial at Farnborough in 1943. Trials also established that by various cleaning up exercises on a Spitfire V a further 28.5 mph could be added to the top speed. This included a whip aerial, different exhausts, new rearview mirroe[!], polishing an stopping wing and three or four other tweaks. The Mustang laminar flow wing and fuselage was great for improved performance but would degrade quite quickly when dirty or insects built up on the wing front. One has to wonder whther its top performance was the same as its normal in-service performance. The tolerance was very fine , on the wing, .0005 of an inch.

Spitfire - approacing 0.9 Mach in a dive. And aso capable of flying at 65mph. Some trick. The high speed coming down to having the thinnest wing section at 13%. 1] Lead throwing contest was for August 1939 fighters. Interesting data from the book is three to four 30mm hits would be sufficient to bring down a large bomber, a single hit to kill medium bomber and fighter. As for the German 30mm cannon Mk108 used in the Me 262 [and other German fighters] it was lethal but the velocity was low so that shells took 2.5seconds to travel 1000 yards and dropped 100ft in that distance. Rate of fire 660 rounds per minute - but with 90 rounds per gun it was restricted to how much it could accomplish. For 20mm it was reckoned 20 hits were required for a US heavy bomber - obviously ignoring the chance of a lucky hit on the cockpit. German camera footage was showing around 2% of aimed fire from an average FW 190 pilot was hitting. So to get the required number the plane neede 1000 rounds - and 23 seconds of firing. Not very likely. Aces were those who aimed better or who picked off previously damaged planes. 2] Any takers on a fighter type aircraft with the longest range?

I think I actually suffer in CM by actually favouring force preservation - its a mindset problem. For me to press for an overwhelming victory would be extremely unlikely. {Assuming I ever got to that position] Generally I take enough flags to win or at least draw [and I count my and enemy tank/gun losses]. And if winning will take ceasefires. However in a recent tournament at WeboB the casualties in most of the 21 pairings were actually quite light. Probably due to a very large map and people settling for what was achievable. Where their were heavy loss of life it was normally due to a big mismatch in player quality. Another factor was that being in the desert armour are more potent even with early war pop-guns. A few tanks lost would be few men injured so body count would be low. Overall troops involved 650 and the least loss was 55 though most would have been between 100-200 casualties.

On the Napoleonics the best book in terms of analysis is: Battle Tactics of Napoleon and his Enemies by Brent Nosworthy 516 pages in all Even that excelent book is not the be all and end all as: The French cavalry 1792-1815 by David Johnston reveals quite serious reasons why the French cavalry had trouble keeping thier horses in a fit condition.