Some Interesting Military Data

[rancke]

Emphasis added, and note, this was 1902, well before the Geneva Convention dealing with the treatment of prisoners of wars. The General Order providing for this was promulgated in 1895.

The Royal Navy's Articles of War include instructions on how to treat prisoners of war (though not, IIRC, about how to feed them). And they're from 1653. Moral codes of conduct towards enemies is not always about treaties.


Hans

 

[aramis]

As for the US Army Air Force, as all pilots had to be officers, and you did have a fairly high casualty rate, promotions did tend to be rapid.

Only combat pilots; ferry pilots (many of whom wound up engaging en route to resupply combat squadrons) could be sergeants or WASPs.

And many of the pilot sergeants were promoted to Flight Officer (≅WO1) if assigned to combat duty. Most, but not all. And most of a bomber's crew (7 of the 10) were enlisted.

http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=1423

 

[Timerover51]

During WWII, 29 YO colonels were not unheard of, either. Especially in the USAAC.

Another factor that I forget to mention was the enormous expansion of both the Army and Army Air Force during World War 2, which was also a major factor in a very fast promotion rate.

 

[Timerover51]

I came across the following Field Manual while working on another project, and it has some very useful data on food shelf life.

FM 10-13 Supply and Service Reference Data (July 31, 1969)

Table 2-4 gives the period of time which nonperishable subsistence items may be kept without loss of quality. Storage time should be calculated from the date of packing, not from the date of receipt. The period indicated for each item in table 2-4 is not necessarily its maximum storage life and should be used as a guide only.

The manual can be downloaded at the following website.

https://archive.org/details/FM10-13

I have been also finding, while researching for other data, all sorts of data on prices of things in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Would there be any interest in some of that data being posted somewhere?

 

[SpaceBadger]

I have been also finding, while researching for other data, all sorts of data on prices of things in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Would there be any interest in some of that data being posted somewhere?

I think that price info for the late 1800s could add some nice color to the Space:1889 games, if we ever get going again.

 

[Timerover51]

I think that price info for the late 1800s could add some nice color to the Space:1889 games, if we ever get going again.

Okay, right now I am looking at prices circa the First World War, aka The Great War. Will work on those after October 11th.

 

[Timerover51]

An interesting way to get intelligence, just not sure how terribly reliable it would be. From a US Military Intelligence Bulletin for 1943.

Cattle left behind by Burmese fleeing the combat zone were driven by the Japanese into places where they could be conveniently watched from under concealment. When natives bent on looting—usually two to four men travel together—tried to steal the groups of cattle, the Japanese would pop out and arrest them. The captives then were taken before a Japanese officer and questioned about the opposing forces (British). If the natives could not supply sufficient information (generally they couldn't), one of them was released to go back into the British lines and find out more, while his friends were held as hostages. If the released native did not return by a given date, the remainder of his group were shot for stealing. Since the native released would often be separated from his family by the Japanese if he failed to return, he generally came back with some information because it was the easiest way out, both for himself and his fellow looters.

 

[Timerover51]

Thinking of cattle, the following quote comes from an inspection done by a US Army Quartermaster Captain filed on 19 July 1944, covering an inspection trip through the Normandy Beachhead area where he was checking on ration use and acceptability. No one seemed to like either the "C" ration biscuits or the lemon powder crystals. However, supplements were being made.

b. In all cases, unit commanders have issued orders severely disciplining mess sergeants who have made use of cattle slaughtered "by shell fire, mines or small arms fire". This is to discourage free licence to shoot for augmentation of the ration.

One group did like the "C" rations.

a. The opportunity presented itself to use the services of an interrogator at a PQW enclosure. Approximately 25 prisoners from one SS Division and one paratroop division were questioned. Their answers revealed the following information:

Without exception, they like our "C" Ration, even cold, which was the way they were required to eat it. They were issued a ration of canned stew and beans, etc., comparable to our "C" ration while in tho lines. Behind the lines they were being fed a ration comparable to our"A" Field Ration, including fresh fruits, vegetables, meats, butter and eggs. Many of the prisoners were carrying a small round flat box in thoir shirt pocket containing fresh butter.

 

[Timerover51]

The following quotes come from a series of lectures by leading US industrialists and military officers to the US Army Industrial College. In this case, the lecture was delivered by the Chairman of the Fairchild Aircraft and Engine Company, concerning French aircraft production. The lecture presents a very interesting picture of French industry.

Among the various plantswhich we were asked to analyze the first one was that of a French Goverment-operated engine factory, He irnmdiately swept aside any subterfuge and said, "This is our worst factory." It had originally been the Lorraine-Dietrich Engine Plant and, during the Fronts Populaire, had been assigned the task of producing Gnomre-Rhone motors under license. Now, realize that it had no engineering to do - only had to manufacture. With a force of 3100 employees it produced 20-30 motors a month. With a force of 2800 employees, when we were in France under war conditions, without the Front Populaire, it produced 115 motors in the month of May. The management had calculated that without any further addition of personnel it should produce 150 motors a month by the middle of the year. The Government asked us to calculate an equivalent figure and, using figures which I was fortunate in obtaining a year or two before, on Continental. versus American production, 200 a month was a reasonable figure. Now, gentlemen, just turn over in your minds the difference between 20-30 a month, under a labor government, and 200 a month, which was calculated on the basis, among other things, of an allowance of 1.6 French workmen to produce the equivalent of one American workman. And, as we go along, you will see in this little trip through France that we come across a number of traces of the effect of the Front Populaire or the period of labor domination in industrial production.

Before the war, I had an opportunity to swap figures with the head of the Junkers plant, as well as the head of the Bristol plant in England. Strangely enough, the French, English, and German factories, as compared to the American factories, all have a relative cost of 1.6 hours for each one hour of our cost. Assembly cost for them runs around 40% and taking a comparable Pratt & Whitney engine which I was then building, it was 18%, and that clearly shows up the difference in the tooling and machining methods which precede the final assembly.

Emphasis added in both quotes. During the US participation in World War 2, the US production figures were considerably improved on. Not all planets might be equally productive, depending on the exact form of government. This series of industrial lectures are full of gems like the above.

 

[Ulsyus]

An interesting way to get intelligence, just not sure how terribly reliable it would be. From a US Military Intelligence Bulletin for 1943.

That's an interesting anecdote, but it goes really well to showing why, without abject apologies for their nation's wartime behaviour as Germany did all through the second half of the 20th Century, Japan has a lot of trouble being accepted in Asia these days.

Anyway, unless the Japs held their hostage until after a successful raid, the locals may have lied about what they found in order to deal a little summary justice out to the captors.

A rule in intelligence sort of runs along the lines of torture or threats of death don't guarantee the truth...

 

[Timerover51]

WHEW!!! Just finished 25 pages of handouts for the tour of the 1st Division Museum. I did come across some nice cross-sections of a M4A3 Sherman and a M47 Patton. Any chance of posting one of them to the gallery to show what the interior of a tank might look like?

One of the big time consumers was putting together a description of the organization of a U.S. infantry division in World War 1, based on the individual TO&E of the units. In the course of doing that, I did go through the reports of the Baker Mission to Europe to help the U.S. in determining a good way of organizing a division for the War. The resulting report is quoted extensively in the first volume of the United States Army in the World War 1917-1919.

Essentially, it shows how to organize an Army and a division in World War One, so would be of great assistance to someone running a lower Tech Level campaign.

You have two options for download. One is from the Combined Arms Research Library, and one from the Center for Military History. The Center's download is a reprint, and there are some annoying typos that show up, so it is best to use the one from the Combined Arms Library. Both of them are in copy and paste format for Adobe Reader.

http://cgsc.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/p4013coll7/id/391/rec/103

http://www.history.army.mil/html/books/023/23-6/index.html

I also have been going through America's Munitions by Benedict Crowell, who ran the U.S. munitions procurement program, and there are some interesting weapon cost figures that can be gleaned from there. I will try to put together some of them for posting. Again, it would be useful for someone running a lower-tech campaign.

 

[Ulsyus]

WHEW!!! Just finished 25 pages of handouts for the tour of the 1st Division Museum.

You have that much time on your hands? Want to come help me clean up in the yard?

 

[Timerover51]

You have that much time on your hands? Want to come help me clean up in the yard?

I have been medically retired from the U.S. Army since 1978, so in theory, I am retired already. My body does not work real well, but my brain functions quite well.

 

[Timerover51]

An interesting commentary on one of the things that happens during a war, and that is an increase in the cost of living. The following comes from a British Parlimentary Report of 1916.

In the words of the Director of the Department of Labour Statistics of the Board of Trade in September, 1916, "It may be estimated that the average increase in the cost of living of the working-classes, between July, 1914, and the present time, taking food, rent, clothing, fuel and light and miscellaneous expenditure into consideration, is about 45 per cent., disregarding increased taxation and assuming tbat the standard of living has not been modified in view of war conditions."

A 45% increase in two years is pretty steep.

 

[HG_B]

An interesting commentary on one of the things that happens during a war, and that is an increase in the cost of living. The following comes from a British Parlimentary Report of 1916.



A 45% increase in two years is pretty steep.

Dig in behind it and you'll find that the gold standard was abolished by the Currency and Bank Notes Act of 1914 resulting in the printing presses being fired up and fiat currency rolling off.

 

[Timerover51]

While this does have a lot to do with the existence of Free Traders in Traveller, it does come from a history of seaborne trade during World War One that was done by the Historical Section of the British Admiralty. The coasting trade in England is also mentioned, and that in some respects resembles the Free Trader commerce in Traveller.

On the other hand, it was mainly by the general traders or tramps that the bulkier commodities, which are usually shipped in whole cargoes, such as sugar, ore, timber, and to some extent grain, were brought to British ports. It was entirely by vessels of this class that the exports of coal were lifted, and in the general carrying trade their importance was very great. Running on no regular service, and ready to go wherever a charter could be obtained, and to take the goods to any port to which they might be ordered, these ships were an indispensable factor in the distribution of the world's commerce, while at the same time they constituted for Great Britain an all important mobile reserve of surplus tonnage on which to draw in time of need. In times of peace they were to be found engaged in the trade of other countries to an even greater extent than in that of the United Kingdom, and while liners accounted for over 54 per cent, of the British tonnage employed in the carriage of our own imports and exports, 81 per cent, of the steamers and 75 per cent, of the tonnage trading between foreign ports consisted of general traders.

 

[Carlobrand]

Dig in behind it and you'll find that the gold standard was abolished by the Currency and Bank Notes Act of 1914 resulting in the printing presses being fired up and fiat currency rolling off.

Not getting into politics here, this is a question of accuracy. Text of the Act does not say that.

"Be it enacted by the King’s most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:—
1.— (1) The Treasury may, subject to the provisions of this Act, issue currency notes for one pound and for ten shillings, and those notes shall be current in the United Kingdom in the same manner and to the same extent and as fully as sovereigns and half-sovereigns are current and shall be legal tender in the United Kingdom for the payment of any amount.
(2) Currency notes under this Act shall be in such form and of such design and printed from such plate and on such paper and be authenticated in such manner as may be directed by the Treasury.
(3) The holder of a currency note shall be entitled to obtain on demand during office hours at the Bank of England payment for the note at its face value in gold coin, which is for the time being legal tender in the United Kingdom. ..."

(emphasis added)

With due respect, the act as written establishes what amount to gold certificates, redeemable in gold. Whether or not the government cheated and used it as fiat currency, printing more notes than they had gold in the expectation that most people wouldn't redeem them, I don't know. Whether the use of paper in lieu of a gold coin weakened the gold standard, I don't know. That seems to be the assertion of the site that hosts the text of the act, but I'm not an expert on currency and I'm not about to explore the details of the Brit WW-I currency system in a Trav forum. However, the act as worded clearly did not abolish the gold standard, and the fact that war had literally just been declared makes it difficult to say whether any later inflation was related to this Act or to other wartime economic factors.

https://www.gold.org/sites/default/files/documents/1914aug6.pdf

Of more interest to me from a Trav perspective is the increase in costs of goods that seems to generally accompany a war. Britain in that two-year period was dealing with the German effort to squeeze off her maritime trade with submarines. Trav worlds range from worlds with populations smaller than a Brit town to worlds as densely populated and economically diverse as Earth. It is conceivable that many of these worlds would experience economic disruption in wartime as worlds were besieged, commerce raiders prowled, resources and goods were diverted to wartime needs, local communities dealt with the loss of customers as troops and sailors headed off to other worlds to meet the enemy, and so on, and so on. What's less clear - because only GURPS gives a detailed picture of interstellar traffic and because we can only make educated guesses about the other factors - is the degree of disruption that would occur. Given the tremendous variability between worlds, I suspect we're pretty free to paint the picture we want on that score, within a broad range.

 

[Timerover51]

I have no interest in having this thread turned into a discussion of the ins and outs of a gold standard. The increase in the cost of living in Britain was mirrored by an increase in the cost of living in the US as well, for which I have plenty of documentation. The US was still on the gold standard during World War One, and US companies were being paid in gold bullion for a lot of the military equipment. food, and raw materials purchased by England and France, based on the standard US Dollar-British Pound exchange rate.

I will refrain from any more such posting in the future. I have already had one thread hijacked and shut down.

 

[HG_B]

Not getting into politics here, this is a question of accuracy. Text of the Act does not say that.

I'm just saying what happened at the printing presses with the fiat currency as a result of that Act. You can pour over the Exchequer & Bank historic documents for more data.

 

[HG_B]

I have no interest in having this thread turned into a discussion of the ins and outs of a gold standard. The increase in the cost of living in Britain was mirrored by an increase in the cost of living in the US as well, for which I have plenty of documentation.

Yep. The Fed reserve bank appeared in 1913. Here is what happened to USD inflation: