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  #21  
Old 12-20-2013, 09:49 PM
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Joe Wooten Joe Wooten is offline
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The Maginot Line would not have stopped the Germans in WW1. It only went to the Belgian border and then stopped. In 1914, the vast majority of the German Army came into France through Belgium, not directly from Germany. They were stopped only by the lucky happenstance of a British pilot noticing a gap between two German armies converging on Paris, and the quick decision to send troops out to exploit that gap and stop the West pincer of the german army. That allowed the French army to make a stand on the Marne and stop the main German force.

The Maginot Line was just an exercise in statist wishful thinking on par with renewable energy, the SLS, and government control of health care. All are/were a complete waste of money.
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  #22  
Old 12-20-2013, 10:16 PM
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Originally Posted by Joe Wooten
The Maginot Line would not have stopped the Germans in WW1. It only went to the Belgian border and then stopped. In 1914, the vast majority of the German Army came into France through Belgium, not directly from Germany. They were stopped only by the lucky happenstance of a British pilot noticing a gap between two German armies converging on Paris, and the quick decision to send troops out to exploit that gap and stop the West pincer of the german army. That allowed the French army to make a stand on the Marne and stop the main German force.

The Maginot Line was just an exercise in statist wishful thinking on par with renewable energy, the SLS, and government control of health care. All are/were a complete waste of money.


Good points... I guess I should have clarified... The Maginot Line could have worked in 1914 IF it went all the way to the sea... as you said, the Germans were following the Schlieffen Plan to go through the low countries into France, completely bypassing the thing as it was built, whether it was there in either war... It could be said that the British and French war plans were both counting on the Germans respecting the neutrality of the low countries and not conquering them or using them as an avenue for invasion-- it was foolish in 1914, and it was even MORE foolish in 1940... they had the example from 1914, yet hadn't learned from it...

Totally agree with your second observation...

Later! OL JR
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  #23  
Old 12-20-2013, 10:26 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by luke strawwalker
Whats interesting in hindsight is that NATO took much the same foolish stance for the defense of Western Europe during the Cold War. They assumed that the Soviets intended a massive armored invasion in a conventional war against the West if it came to war, since the Russians had all those dozens and dozens of tank divisions standing by in the Warsaw Pact. Thus, NATO intended to 'turn back the Red hordes' and destroy the massive conventional armored thrusts of Soviet tanks by the use of tactical nuclear weapons, neutron and enhanced radiation bombs, and such (which incidentally would have devastated Western Europe anyway, using them on their own soil). The Soviets were well aware of this, and their plans were completely different. If it came to war, the Soviets intended a full out nuclear first strike against NATO bases and assets in Western Europe as a PRELUDE to any other action-- IOW, nuke "everything" and then send the tanks in to secure what's left...
I'm not so sure of that. I know the US Army's take was that the Russians (Soviets) would send heavy armor west, and that NATO didn't have the means to counter that with armor. So they deployed air power instead. I worked on a program employing airborne TOW missile firepower on helicopters with the intent to knock out up to four tanks with one helo. My project added night operation capability to the system.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure we coulda hurt them badly as they advanced westward. That is, by the time they backed us up to the English channel, we woulda had 'em thinned down pretty good by then, whereupon we would have launched a counter offensive.

And if they chose to go nuke instead of conventional, well, we all know how that woulda turned out! (MAD)

Doug

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  #24  
Old 12-22-2013, 02:18 AM
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Originally Posted by snuggles
There was a rocket sled test of the Gemini ejection systems done at Edwards, I believe.
One test had the sequencing off a ..... bit.... The mannequins(crash test dummies) came plowing THROUGH the closed hatches .(,my keyboard sticks on the exclamation sign).
I'd really like to find footage of this. There has to be some out there on the Interlink.
You mean the "interwire"...so said an elderly man I heard talking with Lars Larson on his radio show, when Lars was discussing the advantages of e-mail over postal mail ("I don't use that interwire or whatever you call it. Our family enjoys mailing photographs back and forth.").
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Originally Posted by snuggles
FWIW most ejection seats are able to punch through a canopy if it doesn't jettison. There are canopy breakers mounted just above the headrests. Having worked on them in the USAF. I can tell you that an ejection is no picnic. But, it does give you a chance to survive.
Mark T
At one time (decades ago), they may have killed more technicians on the ground--I recall reading about one incident where a technician, inspecting an ejection seat in a fighter jet parked inside a hangar, accidentally launched himself through the hangar roof! John Young witnessed a failed Gemini ejection seat test from a rocket sled. After the dummy and seat plowed through the hatch (which was *never* jettisoned that time), he quipped, "That's one h.ell of a headache--but a short one!" :-)
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  #25  
Old 12-22-2013, 02:37 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by luke strawwalker
Good points... I guess I should have clarified... The Maginot Line could have worked in 1914 IF it went all the way to the sea... as you said, the Germans were following the Schlieffen Plan to go through the low countries into France, completely bypassing the thing as it was built, whether it was there in either war... It could be said that the British and French war plans were both counting on the Germans respecting the neutrality of the low countries and not conquering them or using them as an avenue for invasion-- it was foolish in 1914, and it was even MORE foolish in 1940... they had the example from 1914, yet hadn't learned from it...

Totally agree with your second observation...

Later! OL JR
Helping a 100% disabled (rated by the Veterans Administration) Vietnam combat veteran friend of mine with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder as his health fails, I find my hatred of war growing far deeper and stronger than it ever was--I am not advocating pacifism, just growing more disgusted that humans make war while simultaneously priding themselves on being superior to animals. My friend studied anthropology in college on the GI Bill, in an attempt to understand why humans make war--and he never found an answer. An insight came to me recently, and he said, "That's the answer!" It is:

"When one human looks at another, more often than not he sees an *other* and not a brother."
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  #26  
Old 12-22-2013, 12:07 PM
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bernomatic bernomatic is offline
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Regarding the ejection seats, what you might not be taking into account is the mindset of the pilots-astronauts. My pappie flew the SBC2C dive bomber at the end of the war and then the F4U-4 after the war in the Marines. When I told him I was going skydiving, he looked at me as if I was nuts. "Let me get this straight," he asked, "you're going to jump out of a perfectly good airplane? On purpose?" I offered the fact that he wore a parachute when he flew. His response was that he would have used it only if he wanted to die. Now his brother, my uncle, was in the 82nd Airborne during WWII, so I gather he knew that it was't certain death to jump, but his mindset was that his plane was his life and it would be far better to trust your luck on it than on a pair of silk pajamas. He would have rather ridden it down than jump.

I can only assume this mindset was prevalent throughout most pilots. You learn to trust your machine and put your life into its hands (wings?) every time you leave the ground. I Think that no matter what the rescue/escape system was, you used it only when your love of life overpowered your love of that craft. And that love of craft can be a very powerful thing ( for a fictional example see Star Trek "Elaan of Troyius").
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  #27  
Old 12-22-2013, 12:16 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bernomatic
I can only assume this mindset was prevalent throughout most pilots. You learn to trust your machine and put your life into its hands (wings?) every time you leave the ground. I Think that no matter what the rescue/escape system was, you used it only when your love of life overpowered your love of that craft. And that love of craft can be a very powerful thing ( for a fictional example see Star Trek "Elaan of Troyius").

I think it was more of a combat pilot's trust in his own skills (sometimes to the point of arrogance) to land a damaged plane than to put his life into the hands of an assembly line chute packer and the pure chance of where and how he might land under canopy.



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  #28  
Old 12-22-2013, 12:30 PM
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Originally Posted by blackshire
Helping a 100% disabled (rated by the Veterans Administration) Vietnam combat veteran friend of mine with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder as his health fails, I find my hatred of war growing far deeper and stronger than it ever was--I am not advocating pacifism, just growing more disgusted that humans make war while simultaneously priding themselves on being superior to animals. My friend studied anthropology in college on the GI Bill, in an attempt to understand why humans make war--and he never found an answer. An insight came to me recently, and he said, "That's the answer!" It is:

"When one human looks at another, more often than not he sees an *other* and not a brother."


Nope, he sees something competing for food, air, love, whatever.

I am going to preface this post with the statement that I don't "love" war and that an idyllic Eden would be the first thing I would hope for civilization. However, as long as there are more than one person on Earth, it ain't gonna happen.

War is the logical progression of the survival instinct. You can claim that animals don't do it, which is why I didn't say the natural progression, but you may be forgetting some. Ants for instance wage "war" with nearby other ants. I won't even begin to try and link the lifestyle of the ant (some may say communistic) with the warrior tendencies.

There is conflict in everything we do, even in love. I well remember the "fight" I had to go through over twenty-five years ago to get my now wife to go out with me in the first place. I am also happy to forget the twenty five years of conflict since to keep our marriage together.

Now at times something more important comes along than companionship, say food. If there is a lack, than most humans (especially males) will do all that they can to get what they need to survive.

To do away with war, one would have to turn humans into an unfeeling, eternally powered robot. As for me though,

I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.
- Alfred Lord Tennyson
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  #29  
Old 12-22-2013, 03:53 PM
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It's interesting that your father had that attitude. A few years ago, my club, CMASS, was at the Acton, Mass, Space Day event. Among the attractions there was a visit from former astronaut Dick Gordon (Gemini 11, Apollo 12). After his talk, he signed autographs and talked with a lot of us. While I was talking to him, a group of Army skydivers jumped from an aircraft overhead. We were watching them come in and I asked Gordon if he'd ever done that amongst his various adventures. He said "there's no way I'm crazy enough to jump out of a perfectly good airplane!" He then mentioned something about his son doing that and how nuts he thought he was.

I imagine from this conversation that it would have taken quite a lot for one of those Gemini guys to pull the ejection ring.







Quote:
Originally Posted by bernomatic
Regarding the ejection seats, what you might not be taking into account is the mindset of the pilots-astronauts. My pappie flew the SBC2C dive bomber at the end of the war and then the F4U-4 after the war in the Marines. When I told him I was going skydiving, he looked at me as if I was nuts. "Let me get this straight," he asked, "you're going to jump out of a perfectly good airplane? On purpose?" I offered the fact that he wore a parachute when he flew. His response was that he would have used it only if he wanted to die. Now his brother, my uncle, was in the 82nd Airborne during WWII, so I gather he knew that it was't certain death to jump, but his mindset was that his plane was his life and it would be far better to trust your luck on it than on a pair of silk pajamas. He would have rather ridden it down than jump.

I can only assume this mindset was prevalent throughout most pilots. You learn to trust your machine and put your life into its hands (wings?) every time you leave the ground. I Think that no matter what the rescue/escape system was, you used it only when your love of life overpowered your love of that craft. And that love of craft can be a very powerful thing ( for a fictional example see Star Trek "Elaan of Troyius").
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  #30  
Old 12-22-2013, 11:14 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bernomatic
Nope, he sees something competing for food, air, love, whatever.

I am going to preface this post with the statement that I don't "love" war and that an idyllic Eden would be the first thing I would hope for civilization. However, as long as there are more than one person on Earth, it ain't gonna happen.

War is the logical progression of the survival instinct. You can claim that animals don't do it, which is why I didn't say the natural progression, but you may be forgetting some. Ants for instance wage "war" with nearby other ants. I won't even begin to try and link the lifestyle of the ant (some may say communistic) with the warrior tendencies.

There is conflict in everything we do, even in love. I well remember the "fight" I had to go through over twenty-five years ago to get my now wife to go out with me in the first place. I am also happy to forget the twenty five years of conflict since to keep our marriage together.

Now at times something more important comes along than companionship, say food. If there is a lack, than most humans (especially males) will do all that they can to get what they need to survive.

To do away with war, one would have to turn humans into an unfeeling, eternally powered robot. As for me though,

I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.
- Alfred Lord Tennyson
I was speaking of animals (and mammals in particular), not insects (yes, I know insects are a type of animal), which may be more "parts of a group mind" than individuals with minds. Humans *can* refrain from killing on the orders of their leaders (the fall of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc are recent examples). Also:

During World War I, one Christmas (1915, if memory serves) the German troops on the front were sent miniature Christmas trees as a morale boost. They sang Christmas hymns in the trenches, and the British forces overheard them and began singing with them. Before long, an unofficial truce--enacted by the soldiers themselves--occurred. The next day, they were actually playing soccer with each other, and the officers on both sides were upset that their respective troops were fraternizing with each other. While they did ultimately succeed in stopping that undesirable (to them) state of affairs, they almost lost control of the situation, with soldiers on both sides asking, "*Why* are we at war with each other? Can't our leaders settle this matter over a conference table instead?" Had a contemporary historical figure similar to Mohandas Gandhi (whose non-violent noncompliance could have served as an example) been active and known to them at the time, World War I could have ended right then.
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