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Uncle Rubick's Russian military media and news thread.

I like to recommend a YT channel.


For most people, the content here will be dull as dirt. Then again enthusiasts of historical aviation are not most people.

Here is an interesting video on the US versus Soviet use of the Airacobra.
It tries to answer why P-39 did poorly in the Pacific and in the Eastern Front did great.

Not for everybody. Every time someone pulls out charts and graphs casual viewers' eyes glaze over. This is a well-researched piece of historical work.
 
Again recommending a YT channel.

Lordhardtrasher is YouTuber who styles himself as an Englishman, making all his opinions null and void for being a tea-drinking Asiatic Island dweller.

With that low-effort joke about the English out of the way, let us look at this historic YT channel that has a very pronounced comedic tint to it.

This is the first part of a 4 part series about strategic bombing in WWII.
Boldly bombing bugger all.

Part two just appeared on his channel.
 
I am guessing that this is about the (lack of) effectiveness of Allied strategic bombing in WW2?
 
Unless you don't care what you hit - AKA a 'pure' terror attack.
Yeah but these don't tend to achieve much in terms of military or political goals compared to the cost of flying the planes themselves. There are much more effective ways of doing terror attacks with a military than dropping dumb bombs.
 
I am guessing that this is about the (lack of) effectiveness of Allied strategic bombing in WW2?
It is more about poor initial assumptions, difficulty in training, woefully inadequate equipment, petty political squabbles, etc etc.
It is not about lack of effectiveness, and more about why it was ineffective.

I am actually looking forward to the part about late-war Pacific theatre. Because that was actually a successful campaign.
Even if Mister Wright was more likely to kill the American crews than the Japanese air defenses were.
 
Cue why noone uses dumb bombs anymore.

To be fair, it actually is possible in principle to be reasonably accurate with manually-aimed "dumb" bombs... if you are allowed to fly in a straight line towards the target, at a constant speed and altitude, so that your bombardier guy can carefully take aim through the sights.
But don't try that in the skies over German-occupied Europe... you'd make the German AA crews so happy.

For an anology - it's one thing to be a deadly accurate sniper while aiming through optical sights and firing "dumb" bullets, if you are camped on a hilltop under cover.
Would be quite another thing to try to do your sniping while standing on the back of a pickup truck that was speeding down a dirt road, with the driver constantly having to swerve to dodge potholes and landmines.
If you are not an Elf, do not try to cosplay as Legolas.

Yeah but these don't tend to achieve much in terms of military or political goals compared to the cost of flying the planes themselves. There are much more effective ways of doing terror attacks with a military than dropping dumb bombs.

For shame, Rufus! This makes you sound like you're from some country whose military has a limited budget, and therefore has to worry about poor-people concerns like cost-effectiveness.
How un-American!
:p
 
This time I am recommending a website.


Naval Weapons is, for the most parts, a very dry collection of information on naval weapons of the steam and steel era of naval history.
If you want to know the chamber pressure of a Yugoslavian destroyer naval gun this site has your back.

But the link provided above is the list of essays written by both historians and naval enthusiasts.

If nothing else I would urge anyone to read

Designing a Ship By Stuart Slade
Both eye opening and funny.
 
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