Some Interesting Military Data

[Timerover51]

You are correct, the Wood referred too is Leonard Wood. I should have made that clear.

 

[Timerover51]

Based on the 1926 US Army Air Service Tables of Organization and Equipment, an Air Division in support of what would be an Army Group, would have the following number of men and aircraft:

Air Division: 4008 Officers, 45 Warrant Officers, 29,056 Enlisted Men, and be operating 2106 aircraft of various types.

It addition, it would ideally have an airship brigade with 24 Airships manned by 320 Officers, 12 Warrant Officers, and 6244 Enlisted Men.

Also, under the Type Organization would be included an Observation Group with 58 Aircraft (161 Officers, 1 Warrant Officer, and 950 Enlisted Men) and a Balloon Brigade with 32 Balloons (398 Officers, 14 Warrant Officers, and 8002 Enlisted Men).

The Balloon Brigade, in 1926, apparently had Field Generators for the production of hydrogen gas at the rate of approximately 5500 Cubic Feet an hour. Hydrogen gas cylinders were available, weighing 132 pounds each, with a capacity of 191 cubic feet of hydrogen at 2000 lbs. pressure and 174 cubic feet of hydrogen at 1800 lbs. pressure. A Balloon with a capacity of 37,500 cubic feet of Hydrogen gas could be filled in 1 hour with cylinders, and 7 hours with the Field Hydrogen Generator. At the rate of about 5500 cubic feet per hour, the generator could produce 30 pounds or 13.6 kilograms per hour.

Would there be any interest in my producing PDF files for both the organization of smaller units and also the performance of the aircraft, balloons, and airships?

 

[Vladika]

Based on the 1926 US Army Air Service Tables of Organization and Equipment, an Air Division in support of what would be an Army Group, would have the following number of men and aircraft:

Air Division: 4008 Officers, 45 Warrant Officers, 29,056 Enlisted Men, and be operating 2106 aircraft of various types.

It addition, it would ideally have an airship brigade with 24 Airships manned by 320 Officers, 12 Warrant Officers, and 6244 Enlisted Men.

Also, under the Type Organization would be included an Observation Group with 58 Aircraft (161 Officers, 1 Warrant Officer, and 950 Enlisted Men) and a Balloon Brigade with 32 Balloons (398 Officers, 14 Warrant Officers, and 8002 Enlisted Men).

The Balloon Brigade, in 1926, apparently had Field Generators for the production of hydrogen gas at the rate of approximately 5500 Cubic Feet an hour. Hydrogen gas cylinders were available, weighing 132 pounds each, with a capacity of 191 cubic feet of hydrogen at 2000 lbs. pressure and 174 cubic feet of hydrogen at 1800 lbs. pressure. A Balloon with a capacity of 37,500 cubic feet of Hydrogen gas could be filled in 1 hour with cylinders, and 7 hours with the Field Hydrogen Generator. At the rate of about 5500 cubic feet per hour, the generator could produce 30 pounds or 13.6 kilograms per hour.

Would there be any interest in my producing PDF files for both the organization of smaller units and also the performance of the aircraft, balloons, and airships?

Yes, and thank you ahead of time.

 

[Timerover51]

1900 Victorian Tech Forecast

The following forecasts with respect to 20th century warfare were made by George Sutherland in his book, Twentieth Century Inventions: A Forecast, published in 1900, and available for download on Project Gutenberg.

Sutherland describes himself in the following terms.

It may, therefore, be claimed that, in some moderate degree, the author is fitted by training and opportunities for undertaking the necessarily difficult task of foretelling the trend of invention and industrial improvement during the twentieth century. He must, of course, expect to be wrong in a certain proportion of his prognostications; but, like the meteorologists, he will be content if in a fair percentage of his forecasts it should be admitted that he has reasoned correctly according to the available data.

Some of his military predictions are as follows. If this is in fact a good representation of Victorian England technical thinking, it is astonishing that Great Britain survived World War 1. All added emphasis is mine.

The magazine rifle was held to be so perfect in its trajectory, and in the rapidity with which it could discharge its convenient store of cartridges in succession, that the bayonet charge had been put outside of the region of possibility in warfare. Those who reasoned thus were forgetting, to a large extent, that while small arms have been improving so also has artillery, and that a bayonet charge covered by a demoralising fire of field-pieces, mortars, and quick-firing artillery is a very different thing from one in which the assailants alone are the targets exposed to fire. Given that two opposing armies are possessed of weapons of about equal capacity for striking from a distance, they may do one another a great deal of harm without coming to close quarters at all. Yet victory will rest with the men who have sufficient bravery, skill and ingenuity to cross the fire-zone and tackle their enemies hand to hand.

This baffling of the rifleman by the artillery supporting the cavalry and bayonet charge will produce momentous changes, not only in the future of war, but also in that of international relations. Anything which tends to discount the value of personal bravery and to elevate the tactics of the ambuscade and the sharp-shooting expedition gives, pro tanto, an advantage to the meaner-spirited races of mankind, and places them more or less in a position of mastery over those who hold higher racial traditions. The man who will face the risk of being shot in the open generally belongs to a higher type of humanity than he who only shoots from behind cover.

We don't need no stinking trenches!!!!!

Moreover, the nations which have the skill and ingenuity to manufacture new weapons of self-defence belong to a higher class than those which only acquire advanced warlike munitions by purchase. One of the early international movements of the twentieth century will be directed towards the prohibition of the sale of such weapons as magazine-rifles, quick-firing field guns, and torpedoes to any savage or barbarous race. It will be accounted as treason to civilisation for any member of the international family to permit its manufacturers to sell the latest patterns of weapons to races whose ascendency might possibly become a menace to civilisation. As factors in determining the survival of the fittest, the elements of high character, bravery, and intellectual development must be conserved in their maximum efficiency at all hazards.

On the high seas the battle-ships, which will virtually be the cruisers of the future, will be provided with turbine torpedo-boats, carried slung in convenient positions and ready at short notice to be let slip like greyhounds. During the hazardous run of the torpedo-boat [Pg 239] towards the enemy, various devices will be employed for the purpose of baffling his aim, such for instance as the emission of volumes of smoke from the bows and the erection of broad network blinds covering the sight of the little craft, but capable of being shifted from side to side, so that the enemy's marksmen may never know exactly what part of the object in sight is to be aimed at. The torpedo will be carried on a mast, which at the right moment can be lowered to form a projecting spar like a bowsprit; and the explosion that will take place on its impact with the enemy's hull will be enough to blow a fatal breach in any warship afloat.

He is thinking of the spar torpedo from the US Civil War here, which he evidently views as far superior to the Whitehead Torpedo. Clearly, he also hasn't thought through the fact that an explosion large enough to sink any warship afloat with one hit, detonating right in the bow of the torpedo boat, might just blow up the torpedo boat and its crew as well.

The submarine boat will have some useful applications in peace; but its range of utility in warfare is likely to be very limited. It is hopeless to expect the eyes of sailors to see any great distance under the water; therefore the descent must be made within sight of the enemy, who has only to surround himself with placed contact-torpedoes hanging to a depth, and to pollute the water in order to render the assault an absolutely desperate enterprise.

Military aeronautics, like submarine operations in naval warfare, have been somewhat overrated. Visions of air-ships hovering over a doomed city and devastating it with missiles dropped from above are mere fairy tales. Indeed the whole subject of aeronautics as an element in future human progress has excited far more attention than its intrinsic merits deserve.

A balloon is at the mercy of the wind and must remain so, while a true flying machine, which supports itself in the air by the operation of fans or similar devices, may be interesting as a toy, but cannot have much economical importance for the future. When man has the solid earth upon which to conduct his traffic, without the necessity of overcoming the force of gravitation by costly power, he would be foolish in the extreme to attempt to abandon the advantage which this gives him, and to commit himself to such an element as the air, in which the power required to lift himself and his goods would be immeasurably greater than that needed to transport them from place to place.

The amount of misdirected ingenuity that has been expended on these two problems of submarine and aerial navigation during the nineteenth century will offer one of the most curious and interesting studies to the future historian of technological progress. Unfortunately that faculty of the constructive imagination upon which inventive talent depends may too frequently be indulged by its possessor without any serious reference to the question of utility. Fancy paints a picture in which the inventor appears disporting himself at unheard-of depths below the surface of the sea or at extraordinary heights above the level of the land, while his friends, his rivals, and all manner of men and women besides, gaze with amazement! Patent agents are only too well aware how often an inordinate desire for self-glorification goes along with real inventive talent, and how many of the brotherhood of inventors make light of the losses which may be inflicted upon trusting investors so long as they themselves may get well talked about.

I am not sure if Mr. Sutherland lived long enough to see his "very limited" submarine nearly bring England to defeat in World War 1, and his "fairy tale"
aircraft bombing London. Those English who read his book and put value in its predicts must have been utterly bewildered as to how an Englishman could get things so wrong.

He also totally misses the internal combustion engine, putting everything into steam and electricity (electric farm tractors with really long power cables), and ignores petroleum (viewing with great distaste the use of "highly inflammable oils"), while his predictions for ocean ships, considering that he is English in 1900, are truly bizarre.

 

[JimMarn]

Reading the book 'Wheezers and Dodgers' about the technical people who invented many things that saved England during WW 2, it is reasonable to believe that Sutherland's writings were followed by the Admiraly and British Army Brass almost to British destruction.

If you don't know who they are; they designed many things including hedgehog anti-submarine mortar, anti-submarine and anti-aircraft training rooms, blockhouse busters, etc.

The Panjandrum was their one major failure.

The book is very much worth reading.

 

[Timerover51]

Reading the book 'Wheezers and Dodgers' about the technical people who invented many things that saved England during WW 2, it is reasonable to believe that Sutherland's writings were followed by the Admiraly and British Army Brass almost to British destruction.

If you don't know who they are; they designed many things including hedgehog anti-submarine mortar, anti-submarine and anti-aircraft training rooms, blockhouse busters, etc.

The Panjandrum was their one major failure.

The book is very much worth reading.

I read that one or one very similar to that a long time ago. Also, against Sutherland, the UK did lead in sonar development for a long time, and developed that first integrated air defense system using Radar. There were some in the Military who did understand technology. Churchill was using Lindemann as a science advisor for a considerable period before the war, and although Lindemann had his problems, Churchill clearly was aware and understood the importance of technical research and development. Remember that the development of the tank was started by the Admiralty under Churchill as the Land Ship Committee.

 

[Timerover51]

An extremely apt quote, of a Union Volunteer writing about the Civil War.

Who can really know what an army is unless he mingles with the individuals who compose it, and learns how they live, think, talk, and act?

From the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Citizen-Soldier, by John Beatty, published in 1879.

 

[Timerover51]

Rations

As rations figure prominently in any soldier's memory of service, and also have major morale effects, here is a comment on British Army Rations at the start of World War 1. It may give some GMs ideas as to star ship food too.

"Each man a pound of fresh meat, one and a half pounds of bread, two taters (i.e potatoes), two ounces of sugar, and an ounce of tea and three ounces of cheese. And, besides this, every feller gets a tin of jam once in four days."

This looks well on paper, but pot and plate make a difference in the proposition. Army cheese runs to rind rapidly, and a pound of beef is often easily bitten to the bone: sometimes, in fact, it is all bone and gristle, and the ravages of cooking minimise its bulk in a disheartening way. One and a half pound of bread is more than the third of a big loaf, but minus butter it makes a featureless repast. Breakfast and tea without butter and milk does not always make a dainty meal.

Quoted from the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Amateur Army, by Patrick MacGill.

 

[JimMarn]

I've read a number of books about WW2, and one big thing was the Brit infantry talking about the bully beef in tins they hated.

 

[Timerover51]

An Interesting Naval View

It has been a while since I posted something here, and I have now access to all sorts of additional data.

The quote is from Admiral Sir Geoffrey Hornby, K. C. B., Royal Navy, and appears in the US Navy Office of Naval Intelligence Information from Abroad publication on Naval Tactics from 1884.

You may put an iron-clad in any position you please, and if she is attacked by three of these unarmored vessels she will make a run at one vessel or the other, attack her with her guns, and threaten her with her ram, and it must be death to that vessel if she touches her any way. The two other vessels, you say, will follow and disturb the action of the iron-clad; but it must be recollected that the iron-clad will always be firing at them, one gun at least, and with shells, the bursting power of which must necessarily, as far as we know, destroy the fighting power of the cruiser. If any one contemplates what the bursting of a shell filled with 37 pounds of powder (Note: The black powder bursting charge of the British 12.5 inch common shell of the era.) in the center of any unarmored vessel would be, I think he will agree there would be no more fight left in the ship. It is no answer to say that the ship is armed with a gun as heavy as the iron-clad has; the morale of the people will be destroyed, and they will be unable to continue the action against the concentrated force to which they are opposed. For that reason I hold that the unarmored ship cannot contend against the armored.

With respect to ramming, based on several accidental ramming incidents, most notably that of HMS Victoria and HMS Camperdown, resulting in the sinking of HMS Victoria, and severe damage to the Camperdown, any ship ramming a vessel of comparable size may suffer nearly as much damage as the rammed vessel. For information on how the flagship of the British Mediterranean Fleet was sunk by the second-in-command of the British Mediterranean Fleet, go to the following website, and remember, this is NOT fiction.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Victoria_(1887)

As for a single shell hit from a 12.5 inch gun totally knocking the fight out of a large, unarmored cruiser, that was apparently a pipedream (hard to say what the pipe was filled with) of Admiral Hornby. Look at the accounts of some of the US Civil War naval battles, the actions of the War of the Pacific (also called The Guano War) in 1879, or the actions of the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95, the Spanish-American War, or the Russo-Japanese War, much less World War 1, and you will realize how far off the good Admiral was.

 

[Dagrill]

I've read a number of books about WW2, and one big thing was the Brit infantry talking about the bully beef in tins they hated.

corned beef in cans from argentina, I quite like it, but I would not eat it every day and I think the desert heat did things to it as well...

Regards

David

 

[rancke]

corned beef in cans from argentina, I quite like it, but I would not eat it every day and I think the desert heat did things to it as well...

Many years ago the stores (or one specific chain of stores, I forget) had cans of Argentinian beef in gravy. It was decilious and so easy to prepare. Just boil some rice, dump the content of one can in the rice, stir for a bit, and serve. Sadly, such cans disappeared from the shelves 30 years ago.


Hans

 

[Xerxeskingofking]

I'd just like to say that current-generation british army ration are, in fact, quite edible, at least for a week or two. I won't vouch for having to spend 4 to 6 months on them, but the current rations are good enough that thier isn't much complaint about the rations on the exercises I've been on (we complain about other things instead), except when we find out we've got the older rations instead, which are merely passable. most of those have expired or been eaten, now, thankfully.

However, the puddings are still something of a letdown. It is my honest held belief that the Toffee pudding is, in fact, a failed prototype for a body armour plate that they are trying to get rid off, as the only way to eat it is by shooting it a few times to brake it into chunks small enough to swallow, and thier are only three uses for Suede pudding: 1) packing out a sandbag. 2) using the relfective foil packaging as improvised signaling device, and 3) throwing at the enemy in the hope he will recoil in fear (have to be careful with that last one, though, it may contravene several biological warfare treaties). at any rate, neither can actaully be eaten.

corned beef in cans from argentina, I quite like it, but I would not eat it every day and I think the desert heat did things to it as well...

Theirs only so many times you can eat Corned Beef without something to alter the taste. Tabasco sausce was favoured, and indeed became part of the new ration packs.

 

[Timerover51]

Interesting that when the subject of Rations comes up, comments always follow. Maybe I should post something regarding the rations for War Dogs and Horses/Mules in World War 2, which would give some idea of Vargr and K'kree food requirements, given that the K'kree average 550 kilos per Mongoose Library Data. And I would suspect that the food requirements for an adult Terran Lion would be a reasonable approximation for the Aslan.

 

[Magnus von Thornwood]

They are not bloody lions!

/snips, who was cute and feisty/ And I would suspect that the food requirements for an adult Terran Lion would be a reasonable approximation for the Aslan.

The Aslan are not bloody lions, they are former arboreal creatures. If they resemble any Terran animal it would a Giant or maybe even Dire Lemur. So, what are the food requirements of a 100kg or more lemur?

 

[aramis]

The Aslan are not bloody lions, they are former arboreal creatures. If they resemble any Terran animal it would a Giant or maybe even Dire Lemur. So, what are the food requirements of a 100kg or more lemur?

The aslan are plains-dwelling Carnivore/Pouncers who had a forest dwelling ancestor. In the exact same way that H. Sapiens is a plains-dwelling Omnivore/Gatherer that had an arboreal ancestor.

Lions and Aslan share the same niche - _plains_ dwelling pouncers willing to chase for short distances, who have adapted minimally physiologically (mostly in color and mane), but strongly behaviorally, from their forest dwelling patterns to a plains dwelling one. And using numbers to make up for prey that individually is too risky.

Note, however: Aslan are about half the mass of a lion - and thus should be taking down prey between that of lions and cheetahs. Where the Terran lion got bigger, the proto-aslan turned to tools.

(CT AM1 Aslan.)

Oh, and AM1 doesn't say they're from Arboreal origin, merely forest dwelling. They could have been ground level predators, so your claim of lemurs is without basis.

 

[Magnus von Thornwood]

Yum, some sort of crow!

The aslan are plains-dwelling Carnivore/Pouncers who had a forest dwelling ancestor. In the exact same way that H. Sapiens is a plains-dwelling Omnivore/Gatherer that had an arboreal ancestor.

Lions and Aslan share the same niche - _plains_ dwelling pouncers willing to chase for short distances, who have adapted minimally physiologically (mostly in color and mane), but strongly behaviorally, from their forest dwelling patterns to a plains dwelling one. And using numbers to make up for prey that individually is too risky.

Note, however: Aslan are about half the mass of a lion - and thus should be taking down prey between that of lions and cheetahs. Where the Terran lion got bigger, the proto-aslan turned to tools.

(CT AM1 Aslan.)

Oh, and AM1 doesn't say they're from Arboreal origin, merely forest dwelling. They could have been ground level predators, so your claim of lemurs is without basis.

Okay, so they are lemur descended. Missed the bit about mass since I am working from memory, which kind of failed and did good. Ah well, live and learn, maybe this time it will stick in the long term better.

 

[Timerover51]

From the Journal of the Travellers Aid Society, page 25, with respect to the Aslan.

Commonly considered one of the six major races, the Asian average 2 m in height and weigh about 100 kg. They are descended from four-limbed, upright. bipedal carnivore/pouncer stock, originally adapted to a solitary arboreal existance.

The larger animals of the grasslands proved too much for a single individual, and the Asian were forced to take up hunting in prides (Asian: hrudi) in order to survive.

In his classic work, The Serengeti Lion, George Schaller puts the average weight of the African Plains Lion at between 110 and 180 kilograms, and for calculation of lion predator biomass uses a figure of 98 kilograms. He puts the average amount of prey killed and scavenged per lion, including cubs, at 2,500 kilograms per year. I believe that the consumption figures for Terran Lions, and by analogy, Aslan, both being carnivore/pouncer, would be about the same.

If needed, I will get out my copy of Encyclopedia of Mammals and post the typical diet of lemurs as well.

I do not recall saying that Aslan were derived from Terran Lions, I probably should have specified that I was using the Lion as an analogy, just as I was using the Horse and Mule as analogues for the K'kree.

 

[Ishmael]

This should help in determining metabolisms and caloric intake requirements....

http://universe-review.ca/R10-35-metabolic.htm

 

[selunatic2397]

This thread always has such neat data, thanks for all of you posting to it!