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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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 😉
http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Arbl2Dh_Nqc/WDqXYbx0FTI/AAAAAAAALzY/ka7ToykHZiw/s2048-no/IMG_1778.JPG
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
@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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
@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… Read more »
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.