Quotulatiousness

February 10, 2019

Stalemate in China, Bombs over Finland – WW2 – 024 – February 9 1940

Filed under: China, Europe, History, Japan, Military, Russia, WW2 — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

World War Two
Published on 9 Feb 2019

While the Winter War rages on in Finland, Japan is confronted with a dilemma. Keep fighting the Chinese and face huge problems feeding the populace in Japan and their newly conquered territories or withdraw and face your own populace to whom you’ve promised a glorious victory.

Follow WW2 day by day on Instagram @World_war_two_realtime https://www.instagram.com/world_war_t…

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Between 2 Wars: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list…

Written and Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Produced and Directed by: Spartacus Olsson and Astrid Deinhard
Executive Producers: Bodo Rittenauer, Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson
Creative Producer: Joram Appel
Research by: Indy Neidell
Edited by: Iryna Dulka
Map animations: Eastory

Colorizations by Norman Stewart.
Thumbnail Colorization by Olga Shirnina aka Klimbim.

Photos of the Winter War are mostly from the Finnish Wartime Photograph Archive (SA-Kuva).

Eastory’s channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEly…
Archive by Screenocean/Reuters https://www.screenocean.com

A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.

From the comments:

World War Two
2 days ago (edited)
New week, new video. A special one, since this one covers my birthday. Well, it would have if i were 54 years older… Anyhow, the Japanese are in trouble this week. At the same time, the Finnish are not as much in trouble as the Soviets would like them to be, but the pressure of the Soviet attacks is building up. Meanwhile, the Allied forces present a plan to actually intervene in the Winter War, in favour of Finland. A – for the Allies not at all unconvenient, side-effect would be an extra bonus. Talking about a convenient side-effect: If you support us on Patreon, we will be able to create ever more content. Right now, we’re working on the first biographies and more specials. We love to be able to bring those to you weekly, but we’re not there yet. Check out or Patreon page on https://www.patreon.com/TimeGhostHistory.

Cheers,
Joram

A debate on the impact of Brutalism on British cities

Filed under: Architecture, Britain, History — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

In Prospect magazine, James Stevens Curl and Barnabas Calder disagree on how Brutalist architecture has influenced destroyed urban areas in so many British cities. This is Curl’s opening salvo:

20 Fenchurch Street in London has been nicknamed the “Walkie-Talkie” due to its distinctive design.
Image by Toa Heftiba via Wikimedia Commons.

Visitors to these islands who have eyes to see will observe that there is hardly a town or city that has not had its streets — and skyline — wrecked by insensitive, crude, post-1945 additions which ignore established geometries, urban grain, scale, materials, and emphases.

Such structures were designed by persons indoctrinated in schools of architecture in ways that made them incapable of creating designs that did not cause immense damage and offend the eye, the sensibilities, and the spirit. Harmony with what already exists has never been a consideration for them, as it was not for their teacher: following the lead of “Le Corbusier” (as Swiss-French architect Charles-Édouard Jeanneret called himself), they have, on the contrary, done everything possible to create buildings incompatible with anything that came before. It seems that the ability to destroy a townscape or a skyline was the only way they have been able to make their marks. Can anyone point to a town in Britain that has been improved aesthetically by modern buildings?

Look at the more recent damage done to the City of London, with such crass interventions as the so-called “Walkie-Talkie” (which, through its reflectivity, has caused damage on the street below), or the repellent stuff inflicted on several cities by the infamous John Poulson and some of his bent cronies (from the 1950s until they were jailed in 1974). Quod erat demonstrandum.

How has this catastrophe been allowed to happen? A series of totalitarian doctrinaires reduced the infinitely adaptable languages of real architecture to an impoverished vocabulary of monosyllabic grunts. Those individuals rejected the past so that everyone had to start from scratch, reinventing the wheel and confining their design clichés to a few banalities. Today, form follows finance, when modern architecture is dominated by so-called “stars,” and becomes more bizarre, egotistical, unsettling, and expensive, ignoring contexts and proving stratospherically remote from the aspirations and needs of ordinary humanity. Their alienating works, inducing unease, are, without exception, inherently dehumanising and visually repulsive.

Semiauto M2 Hyde Reproduction: The Interim US WW2 Subgun

Filed under: History, Technology, USA, Weapons, WW2 — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published on 9 Jan 2019

http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons

Cool Forgotten Weapons merch! http://shop.bbtv.com/collections/forg…

George Hyde designed the gun that would eventually be adopted as the M2 submachine gun in the late 1930s, and it was first tested at Aberdeen Proving Grounds in October of 1939. At that time, the gun had many good traits (weight, handlings, etc) but suffered from parts breakage and unreliability. Hyde went back to work on the gun at the Inland Division of GM, and came back with a much improved version in April of 1942.

The Inland-Hyde SMG was chambered for .45 ACP ammunition and used standard Thompson magazines, and was poised to become the US Army’s new submachine gun, replacing the overly expensive Thompson. The Hyde passed a 6080 round endurance test with flying colors, and exhibited much better effectiveness in fully automatic than the Thompson. At the end of the April tests, it was formally accepted to replace the Thompson and given the designation M2.

A contract was given to the Marlin company (Inland being busy with other projects) to manufacture 164,450 of the guns, with delivery to begin in December 1942. However, Marlin had problems tooling up to produce the new gun, in particular with dies for several parts to be made using powdered metal sintering. Actual delivery of the first guns did not happen until May of 1943. In the meantime, Hyde and Inland had continued working on cheaper and simpler designs, and created the stamped sheet metal M3 “Grease Gun”. By the time the M2 was actually ready for delivery, the M3 had been tested and accepted by the Army as a better replacement than the M2. By mid-June, the M2 was declared obsolete and Marlin’s contract cancelled.

In total only about 500 M2 submachine guns were made, with (I believe) 6 surviving today. The example in this video is a semiautomatic-only reproduction made from scratch by a viewer of the channel, who graciously offered to loan it to me for this filming. Thanks, K!

Contact:
Forgotten Weapons
PO Box 87647
Tucson, AZ 85754

QotD: Hell is other drivers

Filed under: Quotations, Randomness — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 01:00

There are many reasons to become a more competent and more conscious user of the American road, but allow me to acquaint you with one reason that you’ll regret having done so: once you get to the point where every action you take behind the wheel has a defined and precise purpose, you will find the unconscious and purposeless actions of everybody on the road around you to be utterly maddening. I’m talking about the people who wander from lane to lane for no reason. The drivers who speed up to match you as you pass them on the freeway, not out of anger or machismo but simply because their subconscious herd-animal instincts tell them that it’s completely safe and comforting to be driving at 75mph next to another 4,000-pound unguided missile. Tailgaters. People who can’t merge at speed. I could go on, but I think you get the idea.

I’m not saying that road rage and aggressive driving isn’t a problem in the United States — it obviously is — but much of the bizarre behavior you see out there on the road is simply due to the fact that the average driver puts no more thought into his choices behind the wheel than I do into selecting toilet paper at the supermarket. They aren’t trying to offend you or “beat” you. They’re just kind of stroking along on instinct and the dimly remembered lessons of high-school driver’s ed. That’s why you will have somebody blow by you in a 55 zone only to hold you up in the 75 zone that follows: they aren’t even looking at the speed limit signs. Instead, they’re simply doing a speed that feels comfortable to them. It’s completely unconscious.

Jack Baruth, “How To Mentally Manipulate Your Fellow Drivers: This is not the lane you’re looking for…”, Road and Track, 2017-03-07.

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