The Great War
Published on 3 Nov 2018Check Out Supremacy 1914: https://www.supremacy1914.com/index.p…
French tank development started almost simoultaneously with the British. The French tanks were very different in design based on a different understanding of the role of the tank on the battlefield. Arguably, the first modern tank, the Renault FT was a result of this development.
November 5, 2018
French Tanks of World War 1 I THE GREAT WAR Special
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November 3, 2018
Shooting the M14: Full Auto Really Uncontrollable?
Forgotten Weapons
Published on 13 Oct 2018https://www.forgottenweapons.com/shoo…
http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons
Today we are out shooting the H&R M14 “Guerrilla Gun” prototype, but fitted with a standard M14 stock and barrel. With these parts, it handles and fires exactly like a standard M14 – so I can answer the most pertinent question:
Is the M14 really so uncontrollable in full auto?
Contact:
Forgotten Weapons
PO Box 87647
Tucson, AZ 85754If you enjoy Forgotten Weapons, check out its sister channel, InRangeTV! http://www.youtube.com/InRangeTVShow
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October 30, 2018
RE: Bren vs Spandau – which was better? @Lindybeige
Military History Visualized
Published on 17 May 2016Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/mhv
Response video, it was necessary, I like Lindybeige, but his latest video “Bren vs Spandau – which was better?” had too many errors. So here is my response to his video.
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October 28, 2018
Panzerschreck: Germany Makes a Bazooka
Forgotten Weapons
Published on 10 Oct 2018http://www.forgottenweapons.com/panze…
http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons
The German military first encountered American Bazookas in Tunisia in 1943, and quickly put in place a program to copy and improve on the design. At that point, the latest German antitank weapons was the Raketenwerfer 43 “Puppchen”, which was a locked-breech rocket launcher built on a carriage like a standard AT gun. It had a substantial range and a very effective 88mm shaped charge warhead, but lacked the one-man mobility offered by the Bazooka. So, the Raketenpanzerbuchse 43 – shortly thereafter renamed the Panzerschreck – was developed in late 1943.
The Panzerschreck kept the 88mm bore of the Puppchen, so that the warhead could be kept unchanged. The rear half of the munition was redesigned to fit an open tube type of launcher. The early Bazookas captured by German forces were at that time fitted with a battery-powered firing system, which the Germans opted to replace (as would the Americans, in later versions). The Panzerschreck trigger used a small generator, where a heavy spring pushed an iron core through a copper winding and magnet, this creating an electrical charge to fire the rocket.
One shortcoming of the Panzerschreck compared to the Bazooka was that the German rockets did not burn completely within the launch tube – the motors continued to fire for about the first 2 meters of flight. This meant that the shooter would receive substantial burns to the face and hands if protective gear was not worn when firing. Initially, troops were instructed to wear filter-less gas masks and winter gloves when shooting, but it was quickly recognized that this was an impractical burden. Soldiers in the field began to craft protective shields to mount on the tubes, and these were formalized in a windowed shield was introduced in 1944 as standard on new production launchers and as a kit to retrofit existing weapons in the field.
If you enjoy Forgotten Weapons, check out its sister channel, InRangeTV! http://www.youtube.com/InRangeTVShow
Contact:
Forgotten Weapons
PO Box 87647
Tucson, AZ 85754
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October 23, 2018
Quantum Computing – The World of the Future – Extra History – #6
Extra Credits
Published on 21 Oct 2018Credit to Alisa Bishop for her art on this series: http://www.alisabishop.com/
What does the quantum revolution mean today? We talk about quantum computing application possibilities in machine learning, cybersecurity, environmental science, and more.
A tremendous thank-you to Alexander Tamas, the “mystery patron” who made this series possible. We finally found room in our busy production schedule to create and air this series alongside our regularly scheduled, patron-approved Extra History videos. A huge thank you to the multiple guest artists we got to work with, to Matt Krol for his skillful wrangling of the production schedule and keeping everyone happy, and to our Patreon supporters for your patience and support.
Support us on Patreon! http://bit.ly/EHPatreon
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October 22, 2018
The right to repair
Companies have always tried to corral their customers into behaving in ways that maximize the companies’ profits, even if that’s not best for the customers: forcing you to use “official” printer ink, to buy your printers and terminals from the same company that sold you your mainframe, to get your apps from the company that sold you your phone.
One especially effective profit-maximization strategy is controlling repairs. If a company can force you to use its official repair services, they can set prices for parts and service, and force you to use original manufacturer’s parts, rather than third-party parts or refurbished parts. And, of course, they can refuse to repair a product after a certain number of years: in the absence of a third-party repair option, this means that you have to throw away your product and buy another one from the company.
Though the urge to control customers to maximize profits is as old as business, the digital era has seen an important shift in the tactics used to make business models mandatory. The abuse of laws like Section 1201 of the DMCA (which bans breaking DRM), the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (which lets companies treat their “license agreements” as though they had the force of law), as well as trade secrecy and monopolistic supply-chain control has literally criminalized many forms of independent repair, and it’s getting worse.
Last year, 18 state level Right to Repair bills were crushed by a big business coalition led by the tech industry. These bills would end companies’ war on independent service by forcing them to supply parts, manuals, and diagnostic codes to independent technicians.
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October 21, 2018
Tank Chats #36 Tiger 131 | The Tank Museum
The Tank Museum
Published on 21 Apr 2017Tiger 131 is the most famous tank in The Tank Museum’s collection and arguably the most famous tank in the world.
Here curator David Willey discusses the history of Tiger 131, it’s current place and importance in the collection, and its future.
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October 20, 2018
Cavalry was a stupid idea
Lindybeige
Published on 28 Aug 2016The Great Courses Plus free trial: http://ow.ly/fA12302OFSt
Riding a horse into battle is not a technique easy to adopt. The first man to suggest it may have been laughed at.
Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Lindybeige
A long ramble by me. Possibly I should have done one video about Celtic/Roman four-pommelled saddles, and a separate one about how cavalry took a long time to develop.
I wasn’t quite at my peak while making this one. I came back from abroad with a virus, and had spent the previous day coughing.
Lindybeige: a channel of archaeology, ancient and medieval warfare, rants, swing dance, travelogues, evolution, and whatever else occurs to me to make.
▼ Follow me…
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Lindybeige I may have some drivel to contribute to the Twittersphere, plus you get notice of uploads.
website: www.LloydianAspects.co.uk
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October 19, 2018
Webley Model 1911 Stocked .22 Single-Shot Target Pistol
Forgotten Weapons
Published on 29 Sep 2018http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons
The Webley Model 1911 is a single-shot, self-ejecting target pistol made only for a few years. It was fitted with a long barrel to increase sight radius and also a detachable shoulder stock for those who wanted a bit more stability when shooting. Mechanically, the piece must be loaded manually, and it will then open the slide and eject the empty case automatically when fired, leaving the slide open for the shooter to load the next round. These were manufactured until 1914, with the final batch of pistols sold in 1919 from remaining parts stocks.
I am at the range with this example on Malta, thanks to the Association of Maltese Arms Collectors and Shooters. I thought it would be interesting to compare shooting with and without the stock, although my biggest takeaway was that I need more practice time on the range!
If you enjoy Forgotten Weapons, check out its sister channel, InRangeTV! http://www.youtube.com/InRangeTVShow
Contact:
Forgotten Weapons
PO Box 87647
Tucson, AZ 85754
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October 17, 2018
Bren vs Spandau part two
Lindybeige
Published on 31 May 2016The WW2 German fanboys didn’t like my first video on this topic, some were quite hostile. Here I explain myself even more fully.
Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Lindybeige
Many people didn’t read the description on my last video, and so missed my dealing with most of the objections. People don’t read descriptions, so here I come back at my critics in video form. So terrified were some people to think that someone out there might be suggesting that German WW2 equipment wasn’t superb in every way, or that British equipment might have been as good as adequate, that they were very quick to misinterpret me, and to jump to wild and erroneous conclusions. Most people were not like this, and I was blessed as ever by many pleasant comments, but when a YouTuber concludes that a piece of WW2 German or medieval Japanese kit was sub-perfect, then he will face the wrath and wails of the fan-boys.
Musical stings kindly contributed by David Bevan.
Lindybeige: a channel of archaeology, ancient and medieval warfare, rants, swing dance, travelogues, evolution, and whatever else occurs to me to make.
Follow me…
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Lindybeige I may have some drivel to contribute to the Twittersphere, plus you get notice of uploads.
website: www.LloydianAspects.co.uk
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October 16, 2018
Bren vs Spandau – which was better?
Lindybeige
Published on 15 May 2016The Bren gun and the Spandau were rather different, and each the prime infantry weapon of its army. Was one better?
Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Lindybeige
After reading the comments, I shall respond with the following, because the same few points were coming up again and again:
1. The two weapons were both section MGs. This makes them comparable. The standard infantry section of a British Commonwealth infantry unit had one Bren per section, and the standard German equivalent had one Spandau. Yes, they were in other ways different weapons. That is largely my point. If they were almost identical in performance and use, then there would be no video to make. The comparison is only interesting because they were different.
2. Yes, I am well aware that there are descendants of the Spandau still around today, notably the MG 74 and MG 3. I never said otherwise. I was talking about the Bren and the Spandau in the context of WW2, when they went up against each other.
3. I say things in praise of both weapons in this video, and point out short-comings of both, and conclude that they were both fit for purpose. I reject, therefore, accusations of bias one way or the other. The usual thing one hears/reads is that the Bren was rubbish and the Spandau excellent, and the reality was more complicated than that.
4. I concede that when I mention some of the good things about one gun, it may imply to some that these things were lacking in the other. For example, I mention that it was easy to change the barrel on a Bren, which some people have mistakenly interpreted as my saying that it was awkward to change the barrel on an MG 42, which it wasn’t.
5. Yes, very obviously there were more factors than Bren guns that explain the advance of the Allies in in 1944/5 in the west. However, the point I make is that the front advanced towards Berlin every day, and this can only happen if infantry are moving forward, and taking and holding that ground. Artillery and air support cannot do this. It is also a way of countering the too-often-repeated notion that the Germans were better troops with better equipment. Yes, the best German troops were excellent, but let us not forget that they lost. If they were consistently better troops with better equipment, then they would not so consistently have lost.
6. Yes, there were differences between the MG34 and the MG42 more than simplicity of manufacture. The MG42 had a higher rate of fire, for example. I lumped them together at the start of the video for convenience. They served the same battlefield role, and were used with the same doctrine. After-action reports written at the time, and memoirs written afterwards almost never differentiate between them. Everything I say about the relative merits of Bren and Spandau are true for both MG34 and MG42, which both fired substantially faster than a Bren, and were both belt-fed.
7. The name ‘Spandau’ originally referred to the MG 08 used in World War One. It was made at the factory in Spandau, a borough of Berlin. The nick-name then got transferred to the machine guns used by the Germans in WW2. It was a misnomer in that the MG 34 and MG 42 were not made in Spandau, as I say in the video, but it is still a good word to refer to the two weapons since it is quick, clear, and was the term used at the time.
8. Yes, the MG 34 was accurate enough for purpose. Had it not been, I would have been sure to mention that. With a new and cool barrel, fired single shot, the MG34, with its double-crescent trigger, lacking in the MG42, could indeed be decently accurate. However, the barrel quickly got hot and worn, and more importantly, that was not the doctrine of use. The gun was designed to put plenty of rounds down against the enemy. Also — psychology. Give a man a gun that can spray bullets really effectively, suppressing his foes and thus keeping him safe, while making a really impressive noise, and he will use it this way, but accuracy will suffer. Give a man a slow-firing MG with a magazine of 28 rounds, and he will take careful aim and fire far fewer bullets, but with greater accuracy.
Musical stings kindly contributed by David Bevan.
Lindybeige: a channel of archaeology, ancient and medieval warfare, rants, swing dance, travelogues, evolution, and whatever else occurs to me to make.
Follow me…
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Lindybeige I may have some drivel to contribute to the Twittersphere, plus you get notice of uploads.
website: www.LloydianAspects.co.uk
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October 13, 2018
It’s always TEOTWAWKI, and the demands are always the same
Sean Gabb on the message and tactics of the alarmists — whose chosen fixation shifts over time, but whose demands are always the same:
Once you cut through their verbiage, the enemies of bourgeois civilisation have two demands. These are:
- Put me and my friends in charge of preferably a one-world government with total power over life and property; or, until then, or failing that,
- Give us a lot of money.
When I was younger, the occasion for making these demands was something to do with poverty or economic instability, and the alleged need was for a bigger welfare state, or state ownership of the means of production, or playing about with money to “move the aggregate demand curve to the right.” The nice thing about these claims and their alleged solutions was that they all had to be debated within the subject area of Economics. Because most of us knew a lot about Economics, we could always win the debates.
By the end of the 1980s, winning was so easy, the debates had become boring. Since then, the alleged need has shifted to saving the planet from some environmental catastrophe. The resulting debates are now harder to win because most of us are not that learned in the relevant sciences. Though I am more than competent in Economics, my main expertise is in Ancient History and the Classical Languages. Much the same is true for most of my friends.
Take, for example, the latest occasion for making the two demands stated above. This is that the sea is filling up with waste plastic, and that this looks horrid, and is being eaten by the creatures who live in the sea, and that they are all at risk of dying – and that this will be a terrible thing of all of us. For the solution, see Annie Leonard, writing in The Guardian: “Recycling alone will never stem the flow of plastics into our ocean. We must address the problem at the source.” You can take her last sentence as shorthand for the usual demands.
What response have I to this? Not much directly. Give me half an hour, and I will explain with practised ease that the Phillips Curve is at best a loose correlation between past variables, and that there is no stable trade-off between unemployment and inflation. But search me how most plastics are made, how long they take to degrade, or what harm they do if eaten.
A short search on the Web has brought up some useful information. There is, for example, an essay by Kip Hansen, published in 2015 – “An Ocean of Plastic.” He says, among much else:
- That the Great Garbage Patch said to be floating about the Pacific is a myth, and that the main alleged photographs of it were taken in Manila Bay after a storm had washed the rubbish out of the streets;
- That the amount of plastic waste floating in the sea is very small per cubic metre of water, and that it is invisible to the uninformed eye in the places where this Garbage Patch is said to be floating;
- That plastic waste quickly breaks down into tiny chunks that are then eaten by bacteria, who are not harmed by it;
- That larger chunks eaten by fish and birds are easily handled by digestive systems that have evolved over many ages to cope with much worse than the occasional lump of polystyrene foam.
His conclusion:
The “floating rafts of plastic garbage”-version of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a pernicious myth that needs to be dispelled at every opportunity.
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October 12, 2018
How Underwater Explosions damage Ships and Subs #Military101
Military History Visualized
Published on 15 Sep 2017This video looks at how underwater explosions damage ships and submarines. Script was proof-read by a physicist and is based on US Navy/Army and/or academic sources.
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» patreon – https://www.patreon.com/mhvMilitary History Visualized provides a series of short narrative and visual presentations like documentaries based on academic literature or sometimes primary sources. Videos are intended as introduction to military history, but also contain a lot of details for history buffs. Since the aim is to keep the episodes short and comprehensive some details are often cut.
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October 11, 2018
Steyr StG 77, aka the AUG
Forgotten Weapons
Published on 21 Sep 2018http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons
Today’s rifle is not quite an Austrian military StG-77, but it is virtually identical. This is one of the commemorative rifles sold by Steyr, which has been rebuilt with military parts and is a registered dealer sample machine gun (which is why I can show you the complete full-auto functionality in the trigger group.
The AUG (Armee Universal Gewehr) was one of the wave of bullpup-style military rifles developed and adopted in the 1970s, along with the British SA80 and French FAMAS F1. The AUG embodied a number of very forward-looking elements in its design, including extensive use of polymers (including the entire fire control group), a completely modular barrel, and standard integrated optical sight (albeit one considered obsolete today). Mechanically, the rifle’s operating mechanism is a derivative of the Armalite AR-18, as are many other service rifles from this period.
Special thanks to Bear Arms in Scottsdale, AZ for providing this rifle for video!
If you enjoy Forgotten Weapons, check out its sister channel, InRangeTV! http://www.youtube.com/InRangeTVShow
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