Weekender XLBS: Would YOU Be In The 25% & Shoot?
November 27, 2016 by dignity
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Magnus Terminus, for the space station.
Talking about male animals attracting females with noise, ome of the weirder ones is the kakapo flightless parrot in New Zealand. It digs out a bowl shaped hollow into the ground (which acts a bit like a speaker/amplifier) then produces a booming sound that an be heard for miles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dsasOfFUcA
The male kakapo will do this every night for months trying to attract a female. However, because this boom is low frequency, it is not very directional, and the kakapo is a green parrot in a green forest. So the females have to waddle around the forest guessing where the male is.
Happy Sunday
Happy Sunday!
I think the thing to remember about the difference between war in say the Napoleonic or WW2 eras vs today is that we don’t see conscription on most modern armies. The people who join are likely more pre-disposed to being able to kill compared to the volume of soldiers who were conscripted in larger scale wars of the past.
Interesting and a great point!, but I wonder if it’s quite as straightforward as that, we don’t have ‘pure conscription’ but we do have a form of ‘economic conscription’ in that I’d imagine a lot of service people maybe join up for economic reasons as much as patriotic or pre-disposition.
However you would imagine that global events have a huge impact on that, it’s bound to be more evident during periods of peacetime. If a country suffers a catastrophe or attack, then patriotism is going to be a huge factor in recruitment.
Either way, I wonder if it significantly affects the percentages, or is there a deeper human nature aspect to it.
Many of us ‘believe’ we can do the job, but I imagine it’s another thing entirely to actually do the job!
In Britain, conscription was called on by Generals during the Napoleonic era, but was never enacted on by the Regular Army (In other words, conscription didnt happen in Britain during the Napoleonic era). In France however, Napoleon “inherited” a large army based on a law called the “Jourdan Law” stating “Every Frenchman is a soldier and and owes himself to the defence of the nation”. Due to this large number, Napoleon created the “Grande Armee”.
Conscription was never seen in Britain due to the Industrial Revolution and many workers found they could find better paid work (E.G A Dockworker in 1806 could earn approx. 28shillings a week; A Private in the British Army…. 7 shillings a week.)
So, what was the insentive to join the army? Two major reasons:
1: Guarenteed work, therefore guarenteed wages. It wasn’t unheard of in areas of Britain for skilled workers to be assaulted to make them unable to work to free up positions in jobs. Joining the army sometimes meant you woud have a job for the rest of your life (mainly due to your life being ended pretty quickily, especially being posted to the Carribean due to diseases).
2: Loot. The end of the 1700’s into the early 1800’s, it was not uncommon for soldiers to loot bodies of their enemies (most armies frowned upon looting friendly corpses as a mark of disrespect unless the items were being returned to family, but that doesnt mean it didnt happen), buildings in areas they fought or garrisoned, etc.
Other factors would have made less fortuate people join the army as well, such as guarenteed clothes in the shape of your uniform.
Food for thought. 🙂
War, it is something man has done from the time of being in a tribe. It is in our nature to fight for what we believe in and WW2 was the last time we fought to defend our nation, all wars since involving HM Forces has been at the whim of our polictians, with the exception of the Falkland Islands.
I joined the forces in 1989, following the family tradition of the eldest son of the eldest son joining HM Forces. So for me it was out of tradition, Queen and country and all that. I still serve and will do till 55. In that time I have been to Iraq, Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq again and Afghanistan more times than I care to remember. I have done my duty, but it was always for the man next to me and to survive, to come home and grow older.
Without doubt it takes a mindset to serve in your chosen role and I have worked for some mad people, but it takes a certain madness to approach a hail of lead that can ultimately lead to ones demise and in turn return a wall of lead knowing that it will end another’s life (something the politicians don’t get), you certainly learn to live in the moment and only another old snotty knows the score.
I wouldn’t say there are psychopathic tendencies in the military like civvie street parse, as total command and control is needed in combat, even though no plan survives contact, so we have to improvise and adapt to overcome. But I can understand how one would think it takes a certain something to get to the upper echelons, most generals are polictians in uniform now and as such no longer tight to the men they once commanded, each unit looks to its CO’s and RSM for its ethos. Trust me a man who would lead you to utter diaster wouldn’t last very long, certainly not some madmen from history. Times have changed, as has war and the people that fight it, I would truly have been far happier the Army of WW2 as you were fighting for the survival of your own country, as opposed to effecting Western policies on a foreign nation in the name of anti-tertorisum.
But I took the shilling and will see it through till the end and when that times come I would have served for 39 years. And the Forces and the people in will be very different from the ones I started with.
Great show.
I take my hat off to you sir. You are in a profession that I don’t think I could do. I respect every man and woman who serves our country. Wishing you well until your 55th birthday. 🙂
Great show guys. One point on Bloop. Oh and It’s Barry Lyndon the movie. The Prussians did a test and found that over 100 paces a musket had an accuracy of 60%. A Battalion in the field however had an accuracy rate of 15% or 6% hit rate. First number for first volley second for later volleys.
During the Cold War the USSR picked up an extremely strange signal between the US positions around the Berlin Wall. The USSR spend millions of dollars and thousands of agents to try and decode this noise. Want to know what it was?
It was static. The USA and Nato were broadcasting and rebroadcasting static to both waste the USSR’s time and get them to focus on the area so they spent less time intercepting other areas. This could just be a white noise code done as you said to be almost perfectly like an animal to send everyone on a wild goose chase.
It could well be a large animal that we have just not seen in eons so nothing’s off the table.
Also the wearing of chainmail has nothing to do with squid but sharks. The metal overloads their nose (which is packed with insane amounts of nerves) and the mail offers some protection against bites.
With the help you want I can do no better than recommenr the great LINDYBEIGE!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zViyZGmBhvs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDNyU1TQUXg
Keep in mind almost all the Soldiers of WW2 were conscripts. We don’t normally think of them in the same way as we do Vietnam Conscripts but most soldier (on all sides) were farmers and shopkeepers, they had no reason to want to kill other people. That’s what made the SS and Japanese so dangerous they had the fanaticsm.
As Lindybeige says (long post last bit sorry) almost all the Victoria Cross recipients were elder brothers or had a family dependant on them. They saw their men as their family and a lot of them recount not even thinking before they do something insanely heroic they were just defending their ‘family’. Audie Murphie is a great example of this since he was an elder brother and his family depended on him.
Percentage sourced from The Art of Warfare in the Age of Napoleon
By Gunther E. Rothenberg
“almost all the Victoria Cross recipients were elder brothers or had a family dependant on them”
Now that is a fascinating point right there! V. Interesting. (So driven, by a ‘love’ of those around them, not necessarily devotion to king and country or some underlying violent social behaviour)
It’s the power of love mmmmmm?
you should watch Jeremy Clarkson’s documentary on the VC @warzan, it’s a corker of a show and well worth an hour of your time.
Very interesting. Out of all the things I (as a non-military person) can think of that would make me charge a machine gun by myself or go into melee with a bayonet alone, family and close friends are about it. Even when totally surrounded I can’t help but feel my instincts would be to break out and keep fighting rather than do anything especially heroic.
On psychopaths you’re correct. Although Pshychopaths tend to be given awards more for destroying a direct threat rather than preserving comrades. It’s almost like there is a dual track here for the same award. Both are incredible feats but for different reasons.
There was a documentary on about this a few years back. It began with mention of 18th/19th century soldiers who would march towards the enemy, in line with their comrades, repeatedly loading their muskets, but not firing. So it was not a bravery issue, but an aversion to killing that was preventing them from firing their weapon (their guns recovered from the battlefield were found loaded with multiple lead shot).
The documentary said 2% of soldiers were high rate-killers due to being sociopaths (?) and 2% of high-rate killers were people with a heightened sense of community/social responsibility and this instinct overruled their natural inhibitions.
then the documentary talked about how modern training methods tried to automate the kill response in ordinary soldiers…
a female Oxbridge lecturer has written some papers on post-traumatic stress and Xenophon’s Ten Thousand (long-term fighting in enemy territory and Xenophon is writing from direct experience as their commander).
I have read about the same thing but I think it was probably nerves and fear that was the causing the weapon to be continually being reloaded as their drilling took over but forgot to fire. It’s the same reason a lot if men fired their ramrods accidentally as their nerves took over though I’m sure aversion to firing was a reason for done as well
I think the evidence was from the American Civil War (?) so you can imagine the reluctance to kill…
I think the US army conducted psychological surveys on its soldiers before deployment in WW2. Less than 10% expressed a desire to kill Germans, but the figure was five times higher when the recruits were asked the same question in regard to Japanese combatants….
if that is so – then were there some battles/wars in the past where killing-rates were higher?
I think that might have something to do with the two different wars. In Europe you fought in cohesive units that were supported by tanks and artillery to take set objectives against enemies that would shoot at you.
In the East you fought a totally different war in close combat and against fanatics. You could probably be ok with just pinning a German squad so missing on purpose isn’t so bad but when a Banzi charge comes at you it’s shoot or die.
The Modern reflex was developed after WW2. It uses pop up targets you have to identify and shoot within a few seconds. The idea behind it (from what I can make out) is to get soldiers/cops trained to react instictively while still distinguising between hostile and friendly targets.
Happy Sunday! Weekender XLBS time! 😀
The ‘Bloop’ phenomenon is a great talking point and wouldn’t it be amazing if it was a crazy huge sea monster? There is a general agreement in the international scientific community that the sound was the cracking of an ice shelf as it broke up in Antarctica. Logically that makes sense, but I’ll stick with a giant sea monster because life is far more interesting with a little mystery. 🙂
Regarding the nature of combat and the kind of psychology required, check out the book On Killing by David Grossman. It describes the techniques used to overcome most people’s aversion to killing another human being, as well as the cost to society when a large group of young men no longer feel that aversion. Makes you realize that Orwell was right when he described the “rough men” that allow the majority of us to sleep peacefully.
Regarding the Bloop, can we see what this might look like in Deep Wars? Maybe John can jury rig something together for the Hobby Lab.
@warzan I think you sea monster has been spotted 😉
Sorry can’t post the image but it’s here 😉
Ohh you have no idea how much I wish that were so lol
T’was a better film than I’d expected. Gravity dictates the how large an animal may evolve to but there’s no such limits under water 😉
Having served in the armed forces and served in a combat environment (Iraq), how a person reacts is an unknown quantity. Most soldiers will just get on with the job in hand, yet some will break down unable to cope, the idea of killing someone and the fear of being killed just overcomes them. People who would expect to react well under fire (so called tough guys) break down, and those you assume would be the one to crack are suddenly the guys single handily storming a machine gun position.
Whenever I hear this question of how you’ll react in a combat situation, I hear all the macho comments of young lads saying they’d have no problem pulling the trigger, etc. I call BULL on this… Until you’re in that situation YOU have no idea how you’ll respond.
We were on one position during the Gulf war, it was around midnight I was on sentry duty with one of my oppos. We had a GMPG, looking out into the dark we coul see movement. My oppo shouted one half of the the security challenge, now if they are friendly they’d shout the correct response back. Nothing happened so I grabbed the GMPG, cocked. I had this gut instinct something was wrong, I did a dry run of sweeping the gun across the 6 guys walking towards us and so I knew I could quite easily take them out. I asked my oppo to shout out again, no response. As I was just about the pull the trigger, we heard an American voice shout out, don’t fire we’re US. I came close to a blue on blue, but my gut instinct had prevented me. Irony was that these same guys when going back to their own position were actually fired at by their own mates, resulting in some being injured.
We all have a conscience and that sometimes prevents us from pulling the trigger, wether that’s for real in the military or metaphorically in other parts of our life. I’ve pulled the trigger for real in the military, sometimes my eyes may have been closed others times they weren’t, other times you pull the trigger and you tell yourself someone else hit the target.
Are there guys with physco tendencies, probably yes, they make great soldiers and I suspect most of those guys head into the special forces. I’ve met a few who served in the special forces and they are a different kettle of fish compared to most young lads serving.
Fascinating insight, thanks for this!
Reading what you said about ‘you tell yourself someone else hit the target’ reminds me that those carrying out the death penalty in the USA do so in a group. Each individual pulling the switch, as it were, do so without any one of them knowing which of them pulled the particular switch that actually electrocuted. Of course i could have been mislead by fiction and media on this.
That 15-25% fire ratio comes from Men Against Fire by S. L. A. Marshall. But Men Against Fire is not widely regarded as having used a good statistical model. I recommend reading S. L. A. Marshall’s Men Against Fire: New Evidence Regarding Fire Ratios (written in 2003 and linked below) whih reviews how Marshall derived his percentages and why they are probably wrong.
http://strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/parameters/Articles/03autumn/chambers.pdf
I have never been in the military but my answer that I was about type before the more eloquent one above stated would have been that I wouldn’t know until I was placed in that situation
Happy Sunday!
A lot of warfare is like chess. It’s about positioning your pieces to force the enemy to move where you need them, knowing that if they go to take a piece they will come off worse from the exchange, That’s why support is crucial.
With regards to Rome meeting the Chinese; you also want to checkout the Greeks. Consider how far East Alexander got.
There was a documentary recently about the Terracotta Army. Analysis shows that the technologies used and the sculpting style had a lot in common with how the Greeks were doing it at the time compared to anything the Chinese were doing at the time.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/did-greeks-help-sculpt-chinas-terracotta-warriors-180960771/
I watched that. Very interesting viewing
@warzan Romania derives from the Latin Romanus, meaning “citizen of Rome”. It was the Roman province of Dacia, inhabited by various Thracian peoples, possibly the lands were Spartacus came from, as the Dacians are a Thracian poeple.
Roman incursions under Emperor Trajan between 101–102 AD and 105–106 AD, see Trajans column as this is a record of the campaigns and a lot of Rome was build from the money gained in this campaign, resulted in half of the Dacian kingdom becoming a province of the Roman Empire called “Dacia Felix”. The Roman rule lasted for 165 years. During this period the province was fully integrated into the Roman Empire, and a sizeable part of the population were newcomers from other provinces. The Roman colonists introduced the Latin language.
I hope this helps example the link between Romania and the Romans
@warzan here’s one to give the willies: A few years ago a customer came in to my store, an older gentleman. He was enquiring after a TV but was continually stopping to get his thoughts together. This gave me time to notice his mis-shapen wire rimmed glasses were Attached to his nose… which was made of rubber… a prosthetic nose… not a good quality rubber nose either…
During the conversation it was revealed that he had had a cancer in his sinus which had necessitated the removal of his nose. The real problem was, with all his stopping to think and him standing pretty close, him turning slightly revealed the fact that his rubber nose didn’t properly cover the space left behind! I could see the edge of the crevice which led inside his head!!!
So whatever you do, please do not sneeze and blow a hole in your head!
Don’t worry @warzan; very, very occasionally you do get a hole in the sinus lining close to the base of the extraction socket: Oroantral communication – doesn’t result in your head exploding, just a bit inconvenient and they tend to heal up fine as long as they’re looked after.
Occasionally, the little hole does persist and it heals in an annoying way to form an oroantral fistula, which can need a little bit of faffing around with to sort out, but it’s not often that that happens.
Odd thing that you got told that the length of the roots of the tooth were a result of having fluoride in the water in England (plus not many water supplies in England have fluoride added to them anyway!) because that’s total BS… Sure, fluoride has some effects on teeth, length of root development isn’t one of them – it’s all genetic, my good man.
Disclaimer: length of the roots of your teeth is no indication of the length of any other body parts…
I think many have already commented about this but I just wanted to confirm some of what they’re saying and let you know my thoughts.
I too have been through basic as others have on here and been in situations where you have to make that decision. We as a people no longer act on instinct and when faced with those situations many over think which then shortens their reaction time and in many cases they panic. This may be one of the many reasons for so many rounds to be fired and not hit and enemy. The thinking isn’t always a bad thing of course as it does prevent many accidents and blue on blue incidents, the last thing you want in an armed force is someone who blindly follows orders.
I think the conscription also comes down to it as people were ‘rushed’ through some form of training before being thrown into combat. You’ve got to remember though war isn’t fast like in the movies, there’s big periods of nothing at all followed by everything happening at once, again taking us back to panicking.
Also while we were taught to fire at the enemy were also taught to fire in the direction of them as while they’ve got their heads down because of all the rounds going in their general direction, they’re not firing back which means another section can advance. They can them out rounds down while you advance. This can be repeated until either the enemy run or you overrun then. Obviously this is just one example and there are many different tactics employed.
I think they’re are many factors to this, if I’m honest, and not one simple answer or reason.
I forgot to say that Bill Thronhill is a great sculptor and I love his range, from the Saga/Dark Age stuff, you need to check out the Irish for Saga and Brian Boru, to the Great War and Very British Civil War.
The Romano-British are just that, the British or Celtic population that where Romanised. The Ancient British society embraced the Roman way of life. Romano-British culture is the culture that arose in Britain under the Roman Empire following the Roman conquest in AD 43 and the creation of the province of Britannia. It arose as a fusion of the imported Roman culture with that of the indigenous Britons, a people of Celtic language and custom. It survived the 5th century Roman departure from Britain.
@warzan i believe the Jackie Chan film is Dragon Blade…. 🙂
Happy Sunday everyone, the Jackie Chan film is called “Dragon Blade” I quite liked it then again I am a Jackie Chan fan.
Great show. Just a couple of things, first the ‘Bloop’ would need eat, but animals that big generally eat big and as a result can destroy their environments quickly if sedentary. Hence why whales and elephants move around. Presumably a creature that big would eat a lot to deal with the energy requirements of moving mass that big and to remain warm (that part of the world can get very cold, the lightless deep). So what the hell would it eat?
@warzan, I’ve posted this before but I seriously see this as the future of modern warfare – https://futurism.com/videos/incredible-short-film-looks-frightening-potential-virtual-reality/
Oh and btw it’s Sociopaths that often rise to positions of power more that Psychopaths. The Nazis did a lot of experiments with psychopathy base on concentration camp guards who were extremely prone to suicide. It’s one of the reasons they started using slaves in the camps.
That intro was lols. I love going to the Dentist. I just sit in that chair and let them go to town in my mouth doing what they have to. I find the whole thing very relaxing. I can somehow tune out all the noise from the equipment being used.
Having been a dental surgeon for 25yrs I’m slightly dubious that there is a difference in form or shape of third molars between NI and ENG.. 😉
And it’s actually best not to sneeze at all!
Having all watched Sharpe we know to aim low and the colours of the uniforms were decisive in telling friend from foe in the smoke. Visibility in a Napoleonic battle wasn’t all that great with hundreds of muskets firing. Fear and the complexity of the loading process no doubt did not help the accuracy of their firing either..
Omg… @warzan we need another place to have the friday morning breakfast at the Bootcamp.
What….is the Breezemount kitchen out of service? That’s the main reason I am coming 🙂
No i am talking Friday morning on arrival it has been traditional to heah the the old court house for a fry up. If you arrive on the Thursday then yes i am sure the Breezemount will sort you out:-)
How to pronounce fictional place names – keeping the internet busy since forever. I according to my old housemate (and Call of Cthulhu GM) it’s ruh-LIE-eh.
On to blue whales, here’s one I snapped recently (museum cafe for scale) https://www.instagram.com/p/BMnNPqDAGxL/
Good start. 20 minutes in and I’m already on my 4th paragraph of nonsense.
As for bloop – it’s extremely likely there are large marine species we’ve yet to discover, and very liley there are huge species, especially in remote parts of the ocean such as that one. IIRC we only confirmed the colossal squid exists in my lifetime.
Now that you mention it..where to go for breakfast and a pint now!?!?
@warzan
@dignity
Please advise!!
I am some of the locals woukd let you join them at the local bus shelter to share the previous nights kebab and bottle of Bucky
Talking about Legecy games, people are happy to play through a console/PC game one or RPG players play through a campaign or module once. So I don’t see why it should be an issue with regards to board games.
Happy Sunday guys.
Interesting show today with some nice subject matter. There be monsters in them waters would be great I think but we need a better name than Bloop’s.
I think with regards to modern wars and the percentage of aimed shots has changed in a number of ways due to time, tactics, training and technology moving on.
Over time our general concept of right and wrong has improved and we hesitate to kill more. Although ingratiated in our society through various formats of games where it is easy, we worry about taking the wrong life more than in the past. This is reinforced at least in our military through training with things like LOAC, judgmental training, BDA’s and CDA’s when able. The term ‘honestly believe’ is key in your statements after the fact as you may be brought in to justify your actions. While all this does give you a moment’s pause when not sure, when you are sure it often takes away the thought process as you take your shot. More often than not in recent times when we are out on the ground, we wouldn’t initiate the contact but react to it. At which point all the PDT kicks in, hesitancy disappears and you react. How you react varies by how you are engaged i.e. by IED, small arms, etc.
Afterwards is when it seems to hit more and there are many guys and girls out there who carry the scars inside, sometimes you can see those scars on bonfire night or new year when something goes off they weren’t expecting or when an ambulance starts the siren next to them.
Another thing in relation to the comment about having autonomous engagements with people. We now often engage using machines which show us the enemy as a non human form. We look at the enemy via sighting systems at magnified ranges that show them as heat blooms, symbols in a HUD/MPD or some other form. Where there are no details or anything identifying them as a person. From P-ID’s we often engage without knowing all of what the person has done relying on Intel or other sources to allow us to take a life. In these situations we are killing by proxy. But as mentioned in the above comments each situation for each person is different and it is in the moment with all the factors leading up to it that determines how you feel when you pull the trigger.
But why doesn’t Bloop yell “Bloop” more often!??
Lookup SETI (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) they got a transmission from an orbiting alien spaceship – a 72 second continuous extraterrestrial signal
And what did the message say?????? … the message said “Wow”
It must have been from the President of the Galaxy 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTMA5dOGOjM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wow!_signal
The “Wow” signal is really interesting as they have never been able to find the signal again. I think it is referred to as the “Wow” signal as that is what the technician who discovered it on the read-out wrote next to the data when he/she highlighted it (I could be wrong however), but definately a good one too look into. 🙂
the theory I heard was that the transmission came from an orbiting space ship that flew away after it made the broadcast.
luckily the technician hearing the signal didn’t chance a civil war by reply with the one-word message – ‘Cool!’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLSZ_Sao2KU
‘civil’ – galactic!
“In 2012, on the 35th anniversary of the Wow! signal, Arecibo Observatory beamed a response from humanity, containing 10,000 Twitter messages, in the direction from which the signal originated. Arecibo scientists have attempted to increase the chances of intelligent life receiving and decoding the celebrity videos and crowd-sourced tweets by attaching a repeating sequence header to each message that will let the recipient know that the messages are intentional and from another intelligent life form.”
Do they want to start a War!! – there goes the theory – ‘Aliens would not attack earth because they would have no conceivable motive’
🙂
Glad to hear the dentist was impressed with your big, healthy root @warzan
Happy Sunday Beasts and Backstagers!
The sea monster topic is definately fascinating. I once had the great experience to have two finback whales swimming alongside our sailing vessel. Being the next smaler whale species to the blue whale – they were almost the sames size as our ship (and I say ship, becaus it was not only a small boat). Imagining a creature the size of the “Bloob” and probably being a not so decent and friendly creature like a whale is terrifying and amazing in the same case. Oceans are huge, I absolutely believe there is a lot of creatures hidden we’ve not seen.
Cheers
here is a fact for you @warzan, if you want to find out who your friends are and who are psychopaths, but them in a WW1 style trench under bombardment for a period of time. Those that come out unaffected by ‘Shell Shock’ are the psychopaths.
https://youtu.be/FDNyU1TQUXg and https://youtu.be/zViyZGmBhvs?list=PLzzh7AuEBkEnwByVv24Hzk3Ha8ajdOhUP and this for fun https://youtu.be/GrauBQf7FpI?list=PLzzh7AuEBkEnwByVv24Hzk3Ha8ajdOhUP
Also this is a great channel overall.
@warzan you should take a look into the Rothschild’s involvement with the napoleonic wars and the battle of waterloo, very interesting
Looking at the legacy games, I have to compare it to limited edition minis – while cool only when painted. But you need to take a deep breath, and mentally get in there. Once you start it is a joy to get it done.
I still think the Dropfleet Space Station should be called Assgardia.
…or a name to honour the Black Knight Satellite/Space Station. Armagh Planetarium has been involved in the government cover-up!
http://www.armaghplanet.com/blog/the-truth-about-the-black-knight-satellite-mystery.html
just to hide the fact that ancient Alien Greys visited Boa Island…
http://www.megalithicireland.com/Boa%20Island.htm
You can pick up transmissions from the Black Knight Satellite on a Tesla Receiver…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFxBmEpGIBw
Happy Sunday 🙂
The Bloop story was sweet 😉
Happy Sunday!
I’m only part way into the show, but have paused at the discussion around soldiers in combat and once again its interesting to hear within only a week period for myself, the discussion around the statistic of soldiers who actually fire in combat.
My first discussion around it was after watching an episode of Black Mirror on Netflix. @warzan I highly recommend watching this episode even if you watch no other episodes as its quite dark, but looks into the subject of soldiers in future combat. Great twist in the episode. Its in series three and the episode is called “Men Against Fire”. I highly recommend all of Black Mirror season three as I punched my way through it ignoring previous seasons (Each episode is an individual story looking at modern society through a dark satirical eye) but as a stand alone episode “Men Against Fire” is great but also looks into the conditioning of soldiers in combat and is utterly fascinating. I was blown away by it. Warning the episode contains violence and nudity 😀
Anyway on with the show for me.
Happy Sunday!
@warzan – So 25% wouldn’t fire at the enemy…. where some of these 25% used as the source of cloning for Stormtroopers in Star Wars as that may explain quite a lot!
@dignity – ref the K47 soviet tank, the weapon sounds very similar to the Glaive super-heavy tank in 30k. That fires a 48″ beam 1″ wide hitting everything beneath it (and in most circumstances wiping out units hit by it!)
Talking about the second world war, If you had to do it you would do it.
I once when i was a child, as you do, ask my Grandad if he ever shot anyone the the war. His reply was odd to me then, He said he fired in the enemies direction and men fell, but his troop fired and so, no one could say they actually were the one who shot them.
When i pressed to ask if he new he did. He said the only time he could really say he did was when going though a village house by house. He booted down a door and a German was coming down the stairs towards him. Both looked at the other, then moved their weapons to fire, he shot first and was able to move on to another building.
I think it was a hard thing for him to say, he quite often would tell me other things but never again about that.
They were sleeping in a ditch around a field, ready to return to England for some R&R when one night his friend asked him to take over his guard duty for a few hours. As he was off to see a woman. To do this extra duty cost that man Three bars of chocolate.
That night the area got hit by a bomb, and when they called the all clear and it was time for my Grandad to get back to his sleep area, he found through the centre of his sleeping bag was a large chunk of shrapnel which if he was sleeping would of killed him as he slept.
Just reminds me of the man he was. Proud easy going and loved.
On Legacy games: I emailed Z-man Games at the time of the game’s release and asked why they had made the game OPTA and why they had lowered the quality of components. They replied that they needed to maintain their margins. I don’t see how those changes were anything other than a business decision, and Z-man Games weren’t pretending otherwise either. I’ve seriously doubt i’l lose out by making the game replayable.
On Romania: Bear in mind that the Byzantine Empire continued in the region up until the late fifteenth century.
Name the spacestation bloop. Biggest thing in space…
Name the space station bloop. Biggest thing in space..
Awesome show lads , as a ex service man with a couple of tours under my belt I found it is a number of things , first one basic training kicks in and second is the lads around you , I personally would die for them and they me , the way I thought about it was I was protecting me lads and my family back home the other side had there reasons for fighting.
@warzan have you not heard the story’s of sperm whales with huge ring scar’s from the octopus sucker rings that are 12 plus inches across.
you can do a Roman Army Kill Team of Exploratores/Arcani verses a raiding party of Irish (Scots)/ Picts /Germans / or Dacians…
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=uY3ca4-HpiAC&pg=PT123&dq=arcani+irish&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjq5b6J-cnQAhXMLsAKHVmaCXMQ6AEITTAJ#v=onepage&q=arcani%20irish&f=false
(read to the end of the page)
…or Sarmations or an ambush on a Sassanid elephant column (tank attack!)
https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=Sperm+Whale+and+Giant+Squid&view=detailv2&&id=8D2BA0EE7E1C0D93350503272B1935442F038245&selectedIndex=143&ccid=XLYjUBFY&simid=608042674578719438&thid=OIP.M5cb623501158b73cbf737a8cba16217bo0&ajaxhist=0
That stuff is genuine but…
‘Giant Squid’ was one of my favourite characters from the Weekly World News – I used to photocopy articles and put them up on noticeboards in the University next to genuine pieces from history, archaeology and biology journals 🙂
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=6PADAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA11&dq=giant+squid+weekly+world+news&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiDlfKMgcrQAhUmLcAKHcWWC10Q6AEIHTAA#v=onepage&q=giant%20squid%20weekly%20world%20news&f=false
there was one about the Giant Squid sinking the Titanic and divers finding ‘sucker marks’ on the hull!
Great show as always chaps
happy Sunday!
Thanks for the mention chaps. I was a bit uncertain about @warzan‘s ideas on cell shading at first but I’m coming round to just getting things done. See you at the bootcamp! I can’t wait for the new battlegrounds you’ve got prepared.
@warzan As the Dropfleet Commander boot-camp is coming up, why not look at the Black Knight satellite and see what Justin makes of that.
Also, has “Beast Space 9” been suggested for the station or should I go and sit quietly in the corner???
That just went all over the place. Just how an XLBS should be.
This one is for @warzan
https://youtu.be/wcgvLiNYCcA
Lets face in, once you have played a boardgame campaign and stop playing, you do not, or very rarely go back to it due to all the new games you have bought.
Happy weekend guys! (it’s wednesday now though)
As you guys were talking about statistical numers in war (how many people will fire guns, the success ration of the very top fighter pilots, etc, it brought to mind the Patero Principle. It’s known as the law of the vital few, or more commonly the 80/20 principal.
It basically sums up that 80% of effects are due to 20% of the causes. ie: 80% of the world’s wealth is owned by 20% of the world’s population, 20% of customers account for 80% of complaints. I’ve even seen CCG survey where (once tallied up) 20% of the collectors own 80% of the cards in circulation
So there is a good chance these war figures ring true – that 20% of the armed forces account for 80% of shots fired/casualties caused.
I’d lay bets that 20% of BoW members account for 80% of comments in the forums too!
And if you want to go further down the rabbit hole – there’s something called Zipf’s Law! which delves even deeper into statistical distribution. Super interesting stuff
There’s a great vsauce video about it all here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCn8zs912OE
Happy Su… un well Wednesday I guess.
Great shows as usual guys, you brought some light to me through a day of being at home sick.
The bloop story was amazing and even if I do not like hexes the idea of having that to build your terrain on a pre game phase is really tempting I must say.
Thank you for the Golden Button! I’m really pleased you guys picked up on the rag tag campaign look going on with the ships, that’s exactly what I was hoping to convey. Thanks!
The muskets of the Napoleonic era were really only good for the first shot. After that the smoke and noise made them less effective. Add to that the dirt and grime that fouls the barrel the subsequent shots are much less likely to hit a target.
One thing no one does for the Napoleonic soldier’s uniform is making the accurate. During the revolution almost none of the French soldiers had uniforms outside of a red, white and blue emblem on their person. Later on they probably had better uniform standards. After a month in the field the army was probably in tatters with faded cloth, mismatched trousers and field coats. The Imperial Guard probably retained their uniforms appearance (I base this on no fact).
I am painting 6mm Napoleonic French and I am not giving their uniforms a parade ground appearance. I am gaming the early period with Field of Glory and there was a lot of variety between units. Victrix miniatures is the only company that paints Napoleonic soldiers with a ragtag appearance.
I realize that the British army of the period probably did maintain the parade ground appearance.
I keep thinking about those statistics of soldiers actually killing, etc.
How does this explain the American Civil War or Vietnam? So many people were kiled in these wars. I cannot imagine people were shooting over each other’s heads. People could go all day naming battles with lots of death and battles with relatively few deaths.
You cannot interview a handful of people and use their experience to reflect the whole.
When my platoon came under fire in an Iraqi village we saw that the insurgents were young boys. No one hesitated or aimed at their feet. They shot the kids because those kids were trying to kill us. It is terrible but true.
The “A-Team Effect” does not apply to combat in any era (I thought that the actors fired Real bullets on the A Team. They never hit anyone because they always fire their weapons at a raised angle. Check it out. My kid mind thought they shot over each others heads).
I cannot buy the 25% thing. It reminds me of that black mirror episode.