Recent content by b0ned0me

You know, it’s odd how every single one of these threads seems to turn into an extended dissertation on how the Germans had no logistical, manpower or industrial handicaps that couldn’t have been overcome, how every apparent German numerical disadvantage disappears if examined closely enough...

And you are again missing the point. The Russian losses are of absolutely everyone wearing a uniform in the area of operations from bottle washers and sanitary clerks all the way up to command officers. The German losses are almost exclusively concentrated in the actual fighting soldiers and...

The trouble with this approach is that the UK was desperately short of the kind of people who could design a tank. So all you are effectively doing is gutting the one firm with any experience by moving all their people into the bureaucracy, while still relying on all the people with a background...

Which is pretty much the mindset which even in recent times has led to kicking out the incumbent dictators in Iraq, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Yemen etc. After all, how could things possibly be worse? The answer is, horrifyingly, that it can almost always be worse, just as it could almost always be...

Riiiiiiiiiiiight. So: is 100% aligned with the spirit of AH.com and such a positive contribution to the thread it doesn’t even draw a mention? Good to know which direction I am expected to slant my posts in future.

You should read up on the Papua New Guinea goldfields in Morobe/Bulolo/Wau/Edie Creek and seemingly a million other names. Less than 50km from the coast but an 8-day journey with everything carried by porters. They resorted to flying everything in with IIRC a couple of Junkers managing to...

I think it takes more than finish details. Another part of the issue IMO is that the Hurricane, legendary as it is, was partly a refinement of a 1931 biplane. If they had clean-sheeted something more cutting edge there is a risk it would have gone to pot or been late like the spitfire was, but...

Aaaaand there we go. Not even two full pages of discussion before someone turns up to start witnessing for their lifetime of “better dead than red” indoctrination. Wonder if we’ll make it to four pages before someone starts up the refrain of how the Nazis were meanies but at least they had the...

This is crux of the whole Very British Problem for me. A whole bunch of aircraft companies owned by one huge aircraft-focused conglomerate and instead of having a couple of well-resourced design teams sharing common overheads and resources such as wind tunnel, research flights etc they had a...

Just to return to this topic - around here one of the most common sights on the road is a standard timber truck. Three axle tractor with four axle trailer, max total weight 62 metric tonnes. There are a limited number of dispensation vehicles which run four axle tractors with five axle trailers...

Actually I think most dock cranes (the ones lined up on rows in old photos) maxed out at 4 tonnes or so. The much less common heavy lift cranes for outsize loads maxed out at 40 tonnes or so. Cranes able to handle 60tonnes or more were I believe properly rare, as in only available in certain...

Amazingly enough, famines happen for reasons other than just bad weather and Stalin. It’s not at all outlandish to assume that a white victory would play out like a lot of other civil wars, i.e. a free-for-all between the various factions with foreign sponsors stirring the pot, much like Yemen...

Wait, what? When one-twelfth of Imperial India has the same population as Great Britain, this just wont work. Any attempt at a United Empire on representative lines will immediately disintegrate since the Indians won’t accept anything but redistributive wealth transfers and the white nations...

Why are the odds against it? We know from OTL three facts: 1) The red side in the civil war was disorganised, under-resourced, prone to factional squabbling, totally bereft of any external support and spent a large amount of what resources they did have on murdering each other or ideological...

And his book of the experience “A Staff Officers Scrapbook” is available free on archive.org, or cheaply in hard copy. It’s excellent and informative.