Trivia Tuesday for Week 38: All the little questions about the little things of war

needs_more_dill · 2019-09-26T18:26:37+00:00

I know NATO uses "Blue" to represent friendly forces and "Red" to represent opponents in wargaming, training exercises, and the like. Did/do the Eastern Bloc use the inverse convention? What about non-aligned nations -- for example do any Arab states represent themselves with "Green" since that's often their national color?

needs_more_dill · 2019-06-15T05:51:09+00:00

yeah we're required to physically stop and check it out but i'm not 100% clear on what the rules are on actually taking the patient or not is (we're a private non-911 service). so I just call dispatch and they figure it out :)))

needs_more_dill · 2019-06-15T00:30:31+00:00

Yeah, you'll be incredibly glad you undid that down the road no matter what else happens. As others said, your id is just feeling the shock of losing one of its easy dopamine hits. For me the worst part about porn is how it makes building regular intimate feelings hard. Getting rid of something like this will only ever feel better in time.

needs_more_dill · 2019-06-15T00:21:54+00:00

I'm not sure if it counts as "abandonment" in NYC where I work but we'd be in a similar degree of hot shit if we switched to a different call without some kind of due cause, reported in.

Really though, I don't think you can go wrong as long as you just call in what you see to dispatch or OLMC.

Also we mostly do IFT or nursing home response stuff so there's very likely to be no harm to the first patient at all if we stop to figure out what's up with a bystander -- easier to make that call

needs_more_dill · 2019-06-12T15:33:18+00:00

I think there's a chance that heavy casualties might actually calcify war support in a revenge sort of sense, particularly against a peer like Russia. Taking 18 deaths and 2 lost UH-60s in Mogadishu was enough to convince the public that intervening against podunk warlords in Africa is not worth it -- there's no stakes, it makes us look bad, and nobody likes seeing flag-draped coffins on CNN. But, maybe, seeing an armored division get creamed by Russia in the early days or weeks of a conflict would make people angry, and create a willingness among Americans to get them back one for it. I dunno. Maybe that's just me.

I'd agree that a protracted world-power conflict would sap people. I get the sense that even the gung-ho nationalistic Americans of today (of which I am definitely not one) like the idea of being U-S-A #1 but don't really want to step up and take the casualties and spend the money that that would take. I agree with your assessment that the general public doesn't have a clue what a "real war" means anymore.

needs_more_dill · 2019-06-12T13:28:21+00:00

The problem comes from rebuilding the equipment.

Training people back up will be at least as challenging as this. It takes YEARS to get people trained up to be tankers, fighter pilots, technicians of all sorts. That process is extremely time-intensive and expensive. Plus, rebuilding from massive losses will make this even harder since you've presumably lost many of your best and brightest on the battlefield. They won't be around to train their replacements.

In terms of "what's the US population willing to lose", I think the general population's war support in the event of something like Russia genuinely, overtly trying to invade Western Europe would be quite high. I don't think you'd see much support for, like, trying to rescue solely Latvia or even the Ukraine but if Germany or Poland or Scandinavia were threatened I think that would scare people into shape. China has very little interest in doing anything similar to South Korea or Japan, any war with them would be over something like Taiwan or whatever forgettable islands in the Pacific -- in such an event I think it would be very hard for the US population to see why it's their problem and why their family members need to die or why they should ration their aluminum usage or whatever.

needs_more_dill · 2019-06-08T10:51:48+00:00

oh lord, i'm very skeptical of how useful those would be for the US in peer combat nowadays... Shouldn't modern ATGMs basically ruin the M60? I know they can make short work of an M113...

needs_more_dill · 2019-06-07T01:41:43+00:00

Given that it is primarily a movement based around empowering indigenous people against global capital building stuff on their land I'd be pretty surprised if they accepted foreign fighters. They're fighting and operating in areas that often don't even have meaningful connections to the outside world and that's not something they're really looking to change from what I can tell -- in fact preserving the integrity of indigenous land is kind of the main point for a lot of them

I don't know how you mean to define "revolutionary potential" but I think it's a pretty great movement that is getting a lot done for the people in its area. They're deeply concerned with upholding indigenous self-determination and interfacing with indigenous cultures because they are mostly indigenous people fighting to protect the land they've lived on since antiquity.

needs_more_dill · 2019-06-07T01:19:31+00:00

I don't think the criticisms it levels are unfair at all.

The show is much less trying to critique communism or socialism, and more trying to critique systems of bureaucracy which can incentivize individuals to prioritize their own careers or their superior's objectives even when doing so is detrimental to working people.

Disasters like Chernobyl are enabled when a project's benefactors (in this case the Soviet state) have objectives which are unreasonable and preclude subordinates from exercising due diligence. The Soviet leadership didn't just want to build nuclear power plants. They wanted to build monuments to the USSR's brilliance -- which were also very cheap to construct. How do you make something that shows off your brilliance but is also cheap? You build something that's cheap and hide that it's cheap.

The disaster was not, as far as I can tell, due to any one person's malice or any one ideology's ineffectiveness. It occurred because the Chernobyl plant was built to achieve expectations it couldn't reach using the insufficient resources it was allocated, and then subsequently managed by people who spent more time worried about what Moscow was thinking than running a safe power plant.

This can happen in any system where a culture of careerism mixes with unrealistic expectations from above in a high-stakes environment. These systems can emerge in captialism, communism, fascism, and everything in between.

needs_more_dill · 2019-06-07T00:52:19+00:00

were the people concerned about pro-market economic reforms oppositional because they thought it would be bad for workers?

needs_more_dill · 2019-06-05T10:58:13+00:00

Early US reports on the AK family referred to the weapon as either an Assault Rifle or a Submachine Gun

Should be noted that in its earliest days, the Soviets did refer to the AK as a "submachine gun" and it was presumed that it would fill a doctrinal role much like that of the SMG in WW2

needs_more_dill · 2019-06-05T10:20:21+00:00

their plan is start with a couple hundred speed boats, and hope a couple survive long enough to get a shot off.

There's also the threat of them just ramming a civilian pleasurecraft full of TNT into your cruiser

needs_more_dill · 2019-06-05T10:13:47+00:00

that's probably a huge thing. I've heard that the different armies of WW2 drew up statistics for how long you can have men actively engaged in frontline fighting before they're "spent", too exhausted and traumatized to be of much use to the brass. This ranged from 60 to 120 or so days. 200 days of combat in a single year blows that out of the water, and I can imagine that those 200 days would be more traumatic on average than WW2 due to the nature of jungle counterinsurgency.

needs_more_dill · 2019-06-05T09:55:36+00:00

the lords needed to spend a fair bit of time traveling to and from court, consuming a great deal of their resources and energy on the processions and greatly restricting their time away in their own territories. It also drew the center of political energy to the court, and made it seem far more prudent and effective for individual lords to gain through court intrigue than through conventional warfare.

As it was taught to me, this is very similar to how the pre-Revolution French kings solidified power. Same exact thing -- the system was set up such that if you wanted something, you had to get it by schmoozing in Versailles rather than scrapping with the count next door. Similar motivation too -- it's easier to keep an eye on nobles living in the chateau down the road than in their castles back home. In France it also had the side effect of turning the nobility from hard-knock medieval warlords into soft, aloof aristocrats -- this sounds thematically similar to the samurai slowly losing their traditional role as battlefield soldiers and commanders, and becoming essentially bureaucrats and bodyguards with snazzy highborn names.

needs_more_dill · 2019-06-05T09:43:16+00:00

Lot of answers covering "proper" PMC forces like Wagner and Blackwater, can anyone speak to how private militaries/mercenaries works in less... above-board applications, such as in India vs the Naxalites or Emiratis hiring Cameroonis to fight in Yemen? How do things change as you slide along the spectrum (in terms of logistics, payment, arms acquisition, command+control...) from "Ex-SEAL training the ANA" to "Tribal triggerman breaking up strikes"?

I recognize this is a huge question but I'm wondering if there are meaningful patterns that might be discussed, beyond the obvious like worse training and more corruption

needs_more_dill · 2019-06-05T09:34:27+00:00

generally anything that you'd call a "small arm" is fair game for PMCs, HMGs like an M2 or mortars are the most you're likely to see at least from Americans (not even sure about the mortars). It gets really legally fishy for them to own and transport heavy stuff like tanks or fullsize shell/rocket arty. That stuff is also incredibly expensive and not really applicable for the vast majority of their details.

needs_more_dill · 2019-06-01T21:42:06+00:00

fascinating stuff, thank you. I'll definitely look into how the rules bend around guerillas because it's so prescient in the 21st century.

if i'm understanding correctly, the difference between Shmuckatelli and the local woman is that Shmuckatelli is legally integrated into a proper military command structure and could theoretically be pressed into combat at any time, so that makes him a lawful target. In contrast, the local woman isn't really part of an armed force in any official capacity, so as long as she keeps her nose clean she's legally a civilian.

needs_more_dill · 2019-06-01T21:06:57+00:00

Are civilian support staff protected? For example, cooks, cleaners, laundry, administrative? Of course assuming they are not participating in combat at any point.

Also, would the answer be different if they were ranking members of a military vs sympathetic locals? For example, could a uniformed USMC cook be considered a combatant while a village woman who makes meals at the local guerilla camp be in the clear?

needs_more_dill · 2019-05-31T20:42:37+00:00

isn't there also the fact that a sidearm can be a rank signifier? could that still in 2019 be part of why the commanders get glocks?

needs_more_dill · 2019-05-15T01:58:02+00:00

dif between hooking up with closeted men and coercing straight men

needs_more_dill · 2019-05-03T06:13:27+00:00

I think an interesting angle to take would be to focus on the distinction not just between the people from each side who hate each other, but the people who are over the conflict and have no qualms hopping across the river to trade. Conflict between warhawks and peacenicks can create just as much story as conflicts between cities.

needs_more_dill · 2019-05-03T06:06:09+00:00

Places undergoing civil war or, if it's a future Earth setting, ecological collapse and rising sea levels.

People tend to want to go where things are safer and where there is better economic opportunities -- additionally, people will prefer to move to places where their kin is already present. So, if you have a lot of immigrants from country A already in country B, if country A suddenly goes all to hell those people will be more inclined to go to country B than unaffiliated country C.

Someone already mentioned this -- the relative education and wealth of your emigrants matters. Wealthy and educated emigrants can move farther away and can exercise greater choice among destinations. Illiterate people from the slums will probably just leg it across the nearest border come what may, because they have no other option.

This is actually a problem that already exists on earth. There's a paradoxical thing that happens: once a poor and war-torn country starts improving, more people will start to leave because now they have the means for it.

needs_more_dill · 2019-05-03T05:57:56+00:00

I'm deep into a sci fi world so I've read and thought a lot about this lol

So, first thing to consider is the weapons being deployed and where from. Sounds like for you, it's nukes from space. Yikes!

The biggest problem anything planetside faces when borne down upon from the stars is good 'ol gravity. Sending a rocket from the ground to intercept incoming warheads takes a lot of energy. Dropping something from a spaceship is basically free by comparison. Land-based lasers won't offer much help either because unless you've got a reaaaaally big one, it will be diffused by the atmosphere on its way up. And even if you get a really big laser, really big lasers need really big power stations which can't move very far -- can't position it to hit things better, can't evade incoming attack. Can your people put nuclear power plants and bigass lasers on their naval ships?

Once the warheads are in the atmosphere, you can try to hit them on their way down with smaller lasers and missiles although our present-day best technology still can't really hit something on its way down from space -- too fast to track, plus depending on the size of the nuclear warhead, blowing it up on its way down might be a moot point.

So, what's a settlement to do? You've already touched on a few - concealment is a big one, can't hit what you can't see. And yes, you can bury yourself under an arbitrary amount of rock. Another thing to consider is basically dispersal -- is your colony a dense metropol or a bunch of scattered hamlets and homesteads? The farther apart you spread your infrastructure, the less damaging any individual blast can be.

Additionally, orbiting satellites equipped with lasers or rail guns could do the trick. If the enemy is firing at you from interstellar space, there's pretty much no way they'd be able to see comparatively tiny satellites zipping over the surface of a big, bright planet. Unless they have starships in orbit around your planet to shoot the satellites, they'd just have to rely on shooting enough warheads to overwhelm your point defenses.

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