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Germany had lots of restrictions regarding their army due to WWI, Staling made pact with Hitler and supported him military and let German troupes be trained in Russia, then together they partitioned Poland. Hitler and Stalin were cooperating till 1941, so I would be quite resistant to give Stalin any credit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

http://www.historynet.com/devi...

Right, and Mormon Island just 'accidently' caught fire after they refused to tithe.

Sammuel Brannan wasn't collecting tithing for Brigham Young.

ITS has an unusually large gamble involved, even by the standards of Musk's companies. Just to pick issue one of many: it's cryogenic composite tanks. Composites and cryogenics don't play well together; there have been attempts in the past, and they were failures. Musk is wanting to take us from "zero launch vehicles of any size using composite cryogenic tanks" to "by far the largest launch vehicle ever built, fully reusable up to a thousand times (for the booster), out of composites". That's a huge jump. ...

They're also working on insanely high pressure, full flow staged combustion engines with a rarely used propellant mix, used up to a thousand times each with low maintenance...

Ordinarily I'd agree with you. If we were talking about the usual suspects (NASA/Boeing/LockMart), they'd have a pile of paper at this stage and not much else.

But SpaceX has (had) a giant carbon fiber tank which they successfully burst tested to 2/3rds the design pressure back in November, then blew up testing with liquid nitrogen on February 17th 2017. (Judging by the pictures, it failed at the equatorial seam.)

They've built and tested a 1/3rd scale Raptor engine (which I presume you already knew, but other readers might not). It's the first full flow methane fueled rocket engine ever to be test fired, and only the second full flow design in history. (The first was Russia's RD-270, tested back in 1967.)

Having done those things is impressive enough, but the absurdly fantastic part is how rapidly they've done it. They were in Mississippi at the Stennis Space Center in late 2013 to refurbish and modify the E2 test stand to handle methane. Slashdot covered that. They were done with that process April 21st, 2014. Slashdot didn't notice that part. They used that test stand to validate their design and conducted the scale model test firing on September 26th, 2016, just 2 years, 5 months, and 5 days later. And it worked. They were so sure it would work, they didn't even bother with the customary 'burp' test to be sure it would ignite properly. That's a ridiculously rapid development process for any rocket motor, let alone for a design that's been done only once before in history and never for the fuel they selected. For comparison, development of the F-1 used on the Saturn V started in 1955 for the Air Force and it wasn't until 1965 that it underwent a successful test firing without destroying itself, after three years of self-destructive test firings.

SpaceX have definitely set themselves some very hard tasks, but their demonstrated ability to actually get to the test article stage, and from there to the production stage, and to do so quickly, is unmatched in modern times.

1862 - Lincoln writes a letter where he declares he wishes to preserve the union regardless of the morals on slavery. He issues the Emancipation Proclamation, whereby all slaves in Union territories had to be freed. As states came under Union control, those slaves too had to be freed.

- buck-yar

[A]ll persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free

- Emancipation Proclamation

No slaves in Union territories were freed by the Emancipation Proclamation.

Learn your history, fool! Stalin had so totally fucked up the Soviet Union, executed his best generals beforehand in his paranoid purges, killed millions in his famine especially in the Ukraine (where the peasants had to resort to cannibalism), that when the Nazis attacked Russia the Soviet Union was fucked. Stalin himself had expected to be shot by his own people. Instead the Allies shipped massive supplies and aid to the Soviet Union ($130 Billion!) to prop them up. The Soviets paid a very high price in human life in World War II, but if it wasn't for Western supplies they could not have done it http://www.historynet.com/did-...

In other news: How to win friends and influence people: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08... Now what does the US administration think the families and neighbors of these dead civilians are going to do?

You can pretty much blame this guy for FDR deciding to issue executive order 9066. The American intelligence community of the day - if you can call it that - was clearly not on the ball. They knew the only way they could stop more spying incidents was to lock up everyone that might have even the slightest inclination towards helping Imperial Japan.

How they did it was legally brilliant. They didn't order that people of Japanese ancestry be locked up - instead, they simply banned them from "military zones" which were (apparently) essential to the defense of the United States in a period of war. By declaring almost everywhere in the US to be a military zone, save a few internment camps and the like, the Secretary of War made it against the law for the order's targeted people to remain in their own homes, or pretty-much anywhere else.

Order 9066 pitted the Constitutional rights of those American civilians affected by the order against the Constitutional mandate that the Republic protect its borders and people from foreign threats. It should come as no surprise that Hugo Black would support such a measure.

The willingness of soldiers to fire on the enemy has been long debated. There is good evidence that most soldiers, even when they are in danger of being overrun by the enemy, don't fire their rifles (only about 30% fired against enemy in WWII). We are raised to value human life and it's really difficult to overcome that prohibition. Interesting article here: http://www.historynet.com/men-...

It's interesting thinking about that kind of statistic when applied to someone that's not in-danger themselves and is under the scrutiny of someone that expects on-the-job performance who's also not in-danger themselves but isn't obligated to push the button to kill. I expect it's actually easier to justify, in the stress of a firefight, not taking life as it can be blamed on the stressful situation, compared to being in an environment without that kind of external stress.

Maybe it would make sense to shorten their shifts an hour or a half-hour and mandate that they either go work-out, or go to the pistol range and get in some target practice, or something else to help the nerves a bit that doesn't involve killing people.

The willingness of soldiers to fire on the enemy has been long debated. There is good evidence that most soldiers, even when they are in danger of being overrun by the enemy, don't fire their rifles (only about 30% fired against enemy in WWII). We are raised to value human life and it's really difficult to overcome that prohibition.
Interesting article here:
http://www.historynet.com/men-...

The USSR doesn't even call it "World War 2" - it's "The Great Patriotic War". And yes, the USSR was tremendously important.

But who was arming (and feeding) them?

Yup, America, World Police -

http://englishrussia.com/2008/...

http://www.historynet.com/russ...

And somehow, Obama thought he could bluff the people who were willing to spend *lives* to advance their national aims. Bottom line, Putin is playing chess, and Obama is playing connect 4.

If you happen into a library that carries Military History magazine you may want to read the Roman medicine article, it is fascinating. Just one tidbit:

The Best Medicine

On average the Roman medical corps saved the lives of 70 percent of the wounded that reached the field hospital, a survival rate not equaled until the 1904-05 Russo-Japanese War

Maybe the Romans only brought people to the hospital who they thought had a chance of living.

If you happen into a library that carries Military History magazine you may want to read the Roman medicine article, it is fascinating. Just one tidbit:

The Best Medicine

On average the Roman medical corps saved the lives of 70 percent of the wounded that reached the field hospital, a survival rate not equaled until the 1904-05 Russo-Japanese War

It is fascinating that we continue to find artifacts from the ancient world that show far more sophistication that people today generally realize. This finding is one. The Antikythera Mechanism is another. I recently read a fascinating article about ancient Roman military medicine which was so advanced that it was not equaled in some ways until the 1900s. I have little doubt that there is much more to be found. Our ancestors could be quite astonishing in their abilities, and very human in their flaws.

I'll meet you part way, here is a puzzler for you. See if you can track down and read this article: "The Best Medicine" - Roman military medicine was centuries ahead of its time .

Roman battlefield medicine was so advanced that after Rome fell it wasn't really equaled in some ways until the 20th Century. They were far better able to return men to health and fighting shape so that they could continue on as soldiers in service of the empire than pretty much any nation or empire for 1,600 years. Saving soldiers like that preserved fighting strength, retained highly skilled and experienced soldiers, and encouraged the soldiers to do their part in battle since they knew they would be taken care of. You would think there would be considerable interest in that from the military, so why didn't anyone else really equal that ancient empire until the last century?

It wasn't merely a question of technology and skill that allowed the Romans to do that, although that was important. There were issues of culture that played a significant role in developing their medical art. There was also a question of military organization and priorities involved. Try reading that article and then testing and filtering your ideas against it. Blaming a conspiracy is often the easy way out when the actual problem is much more complicated. Conspiracies do exist I grant you, but I don't think that is a good explanation for not curing cancer in a general way. Any company that could come up with a viable solution for that would stand a very good chance of crushing the rest of the industry, they would get all the profits until their patent expired.

The claim was 30%, not 10%.

Subsequent investigation revealed that the actual rate was closer to 80% for engaging the enemy, and the remaining 20% were more often engaged in tasks more important than them, personally, shooting at the enemy - including things like calling in airstrikes/artillery, delivering ammo, and treating the wounded.

The only way you could get it down to anywhere near 10% is if you include support troops that never saw a battlefield.

How is Russia an enemy? The cold war is over and yes there will always be Nation/Nation Spy vs. Spy shit going on. That the nature of governments and regimes as far back as recorded history. Even the Romans used spies as well as Hannibal who effectively had spies inside Rome. http://www.historynet.com/espionage-in-ancient-rome.htm

What Snowden has done here is opened a view into a world that our government doesn't want us to see. Although I think the majority of what's been publicly produced has been damaging, deep down I think we knew our government was doing these kinds of things. Hey, those guys with the AFDBs weren't completely nuts, right?

It's naive for us to believe that spying won't go on and that covert operations will stop after all these documents have finally been released. Governments will do what governments will do and I seriously doubt that there is one government on this planet that doesn't have some sort of covert operations going on somewhere. Hell, I'll even bet that Vatican City and Lichtenstein has some spy scandal in the wings. What's unfortunate about this situation is that we all learn how deep this goes and how our Constitution has been subverted. Snowden is just the messenger and while we're troubled with the message, we shouldn't shoot the one who brought us the message.

The First Battle of the Atlantic
British submarines in World War One
His German Imperial Majesty's U-Boats in WWI
WWI German submarine has underwater Lake Michigan grave
German WWI Submarines (Pictures)
U-boat Attack, 1916
Anti-Submarine Measures from World War I
Depth Charges

After WW2 when over a million ex German soldiers died in huge outdoor concentration camps that the treaty was sidestepped by using the designation of 'Surrendered Enemy Personnel'.

I'm afraid you've either confused the USSR for the USA, or you've got some history from a crank .

In early April 1945, the United States was responsible for 313,000 prisoners in Europe; by month's end this total had shot up to 2.1 million. After the fall of the Third Reich, the number rose to a staggering 5 million German and Axis POWs. Of those, an estimated 56,000, or about 1 percent, died—roughly equal to the mortality rate American POWs suffered in German hands. Those held in Soviet-occupied territory fared far worse. Officially, the Soviet Union took 2,388,000 Germans and 1,097,000 combatants from other European nations as prisoners during and just after the war. More than a million of the German captives died. The immense suffering Germany and her Axis partners had caused surely played a key role in the treatment of enemy POWs. "In 1945, in Soviet eyes it was time to pay," wrote British military historian Max Arthur. "For most Russian soldiers, any instinct for pity or mercy had died somewhere on a hundred battlefields between Moscow and Warsaw." - German POWs and the Art of Survival

The Soviets were not especially benign: The Soviet Story (2008)

I would like to see some more on that hunger strike claim. The Soviets tended to starve and mistreat their POWs.

In early April 1945, the United States was responsible for 313,000 prisoners in Europe; by month's end this total had shot up to 2.1 million. After the fall of the Third Reich, the number rose to a staggering 5 million German and Axis POWs. Of those, an estimated 56,000, or about 1 percent, died—roughly equal to the mortality rate American POWs suffered in German hands. Those held in Soviet-occupied territory fared far worse. Officially, the Soviet Union took 2,388,000 Germans and 1,097,000 combatants from other European nations as prisoners during and just after the war. More than a million of the German captives died. The immense suffering Germany and her Axis partners had caused surely played a key role in the treatment of enemy POWs. "In 1945, in Soviet eyes it was time to pay," wrote British military historian Max Arthur. "For most Russian soldiers, any instinct for pity or mercy had died somewhere on a hundred battlefields between Moscow and Warsaw." - German POWs and the Art of Survival

The Soviets were not especially benign: The Soviet Story (2008)

The POWs in Guantanamo are unlawful combatants - they do not fight the war in accordance with the Law of War and the terms of the Geneva Convention. Al Qaida's basic strategy is essentially to commit war crimes. They are not "kidnapped partisans."

They mightn't have called it terrorism, but yeah asymmetric warfare, civil insurrection, insurgency, sabotage, political assassinations and all that stuff have been around since the beginnging: http://www.historynet.com/terrorism-in-the-ancient-roman-world.htm Whether the actions of those ancient states made them more or less secure than modern states is a matter for some debate. After all, they are now extinct.

This is dismaying. Even if we found a bottle on the beach and wished every gun on the planet to be turned into kittens and cheese burgers, we will still have them appear, but now not out of predicable venues, but out of thin air as far as any system is concerned. Let's face it, bad people will have reached their weapon production zenith, while the rest of us flounder around in inept, corrupt politics.

This is only dismaying if you believe free citizens have no right to fashion weapons for their own defense. The printable gun, in a way, just takes us back to where we were a century or two ago - anyone with a little technical knowledge and patience can make a reasonably effective weapon. Civilization didn't fall back then - in fact, you could argue that it reached its zenith at exactly the time that weapons production became achievable by any sufficiently motivated group with moderate wherewithal. There's a reason that the first use of interchangeable parts was in the firearms industry, paving the way for the machine age at large.

BTW, I've got enough experience with 3D CAD/CAM and the fiddliness of various rapid prototyping methods to recognize that it's actually considerably easier to get hold of conventional machine shop tools like lathes, gun drills, and milling machines and make much more serious weapons than DD's plastic pistol.

(If you're not averse to breaking laws, then history is full of good model weapons - the German MP3008, was a 9mm submachine gun designed to be easily fabricated with minimal tooling and expertise. Note that for resistance purposes, even the most basic of firearms can give you a shot (literally) at a better-armed enemy, allowing you to then take his (far more effective) weapon: witness cheap (a few dollars!) single shot pistols like the Liberator or "Deer Gun"...)

Despite Martin Jetpack's talk of its usefulness for remote search and rescue, the real money is for military purposes. This piece describes the first practical uses of helicopters in Korea for reconnaissance, supply, and medivac. A decade later, the next generation of choppers -- Chinooks and Hueys -- were doing serious delivery work in combat.

I, for one, welcome our new kiwi jetpack flying overlords.

There's some context to think about. The US entered WWII as a direct result of American soil being attacked. It was pretty clear that fighting back was a matter of national security. In that context it would be easy to make the case that a leaker of battlefield secrets was treasonous.

Since then we've only waged elective wars, generally for purposes that leave many of us scratching our heads in confusion. Who knows what the hell we invaded Iraq for. Our strategy there and in Afghanistan seems to be to drive around in Hummers until somebody shoots us, then chase 'em down and shoot 'em back. How that benefits our national security is a mystery to me. Maybe some of these leaked documents can clarify it.

Who knows what the hell we invaded Iraq for.

I'm serious, you know. Iraq has always been about oil: Fought half a year after the exhaustively chronicled 1940 air campaign that blunted German hopes of neutralizing or conquering England, this Mideastern shootout was at least as crucial to the outcome of World War II — yet few have heard of it. The prize over which the campaign raged was crude oil. Although Britain had granted Iraq independence in 1927, the British empire still maintained a major presence there, since Britain's oil jugular passed through that Arab kingdom.

Iraq was created around oil, it's an eternal conflict zone because its borders are around natural resources, not around the people living there.

Everybody knows Iraq is about oil. Some people know but refuse to admit it, but everybody knows.

That's one possible outcome and I couldn't agree more. Here's another, however: http://www.historynet.com/world-war-ii-double-agents-d-day-victory.htm

Like it or not there's multiple precedents for doing exactly that. Enemy combatants are only accorded POW status if they obey the laws of war.

The first link is about the execution of the conspirators in the Abraham Lincoln assassination.
The second link is about German saboteurs from WWII who were executed as spies.

1. What the fuck does that have to do with enemy combatants?
2. Those were the first two times military tribunals had ever been convened and they were controversial then.
Yes, 144 years ago, it was controversial to try non-POWs by the military.

The lengths people go to justify the Bush definition of "enemy combatants" never fails to surprise me.

When Al Quada starts fighting in uniforms under a flag and taking steps to prevent civilian casualties (rather then setting out to cause them) then we can start treating them as POWs.

This was written in 1949
Read the last paragraph.

If they aren't POWs (3rd Geneva Convention), then they are civilians (4th Convention).
International law is crystal clear that there is no intermediate status.
How hard is it to comprehend that you cannot throw people down a legal black hole and torture them?

If they're not POWs, then why would they be tried in a military tribunal?

Like it or not there's multiple precedents for doing exactly that. Enemy combatants are only accorded POW status if they obey the laws of war. When Al Quada starts fighting in uniforms under a flag and taking steps to prevent civilian casualties (rather then setting out to cause them) then we can start treating them as POWs.

The source is cited but apparently you couldn't be bothered so here you go:

http://www.google.com/search?hq=Marshall+%22Men+against+fire%22

And here's an article that talks about it: http://www.historynet.com/men-against-fire-how-many-soldiers-actually-fired-their-weapons-at-the-enemy-during-the-vietnam-war.htm/print/

In a squad of 10 men, on average fewer than three ever fired their weapons in combat. Day in, day out - it did not matter how long they had been soldiers, how many months of combat they had seen, or even that the enemy was about to overrun their position. This was what the highly regarded Brigadier General Samuel Lyman Atwood Marshall, better known as S.L.A. Marshall, or 'Slam,' concluded in a series of military journal articles and in his book, Men Against Fire, about Americaâ(TM)s World War II soldiers. Marshall had been assigned as a military analyst for the U.S. Army in both the Pacific and Europe. The American, he concluded, comes 'from a civilization in which aggression, connected with the taking of life, is prohibited and unacceptable... The fear of aggression has been expressed to him so strongly and absorbed by him so deeply and pervadingly - practically with his mother's milk - that it is part of the normal man's emotional make-up. This is his great handicap when he enters combat. It stays his trigger finger even though he is hardly conscious that it is a restraint upon him.'

Ramming to sink another ship requires something which will puncture the other ship's hull.

Good observations Einstein.

Sailing ships did not have such. I suggest that if you think they armoured the bow, you first explain, please, how that would do much damage to a ship's underwater hull, and second, provide an example.

You do understand the amount of kinetic energy that will be projected by a large wooden object if thrust even at a slow speed into another. Ramming wooden vessel a was meant to break the main beam of the ship where it was weakest with the main beam of another ship where it was strongest, if sucessful a ramming attack would cause flooding and capsizing even if it did not break a ship in two. This is basic physics (year 8 level, what happens if I smash one thing with another) do I need to draw this for you in crayon. Google was as per usual able to provide an example, quote from here

When Bellerophon rammed the 74-gun French Aigle,

In the battle of Trafalgar, as a last ditch effort after the British ship Bellerophon was far too damaged to continue fighting they rammed a French ship of similar size.

Also from Wikipedia

The ram was commonly used in antiquity, and was an important part of the armament of the galleys of Imperial Rome.

Shock horror, I was right. I guess my history is not that bad after all. The rest of you posts were poor misquotings to attempt to cover your own failings at history.

Fireships as you describe were fireships, not rammers

What I said was the principal behind a fireship was to set it on fire and ram it at an enemy vessel. What I hoped you would draw out of this was the objective of this was to set the enemy vessel on fire. My critical assumption was that you had some knowledge about navies and/or historical naval warfare, so I guess mea culpa.

One destroyer actually slid on top of the U-boat whose crew tried to board the destroyer to fight with pistols, knives, and whatever else was handy. The destroyer sent out the call to repel boarders. That doesn't make boarding a standard WW II tactic.

Once again you attempt to misquote me only shows your own ignorance. Boarding was the preferred tactic in Napoleonic days (pre ironclads). Before we had standardised designs, explosive shells and mass production when it was actually easier to board and take over a ship then to sink it. Here's the relevant bit from my post with the important words highlighted.

Boarding was the preferred tactic as a fighting or trading ship represented a huge investment and a captured ship was worth a lot more then modern warships

The bold part should indicate that I was talking about a time before the mentioned objects, IE before "modern warships".

Also forget any attempt to confuse beaching with ramming.

Please quote where I did this. Beaching and Ramming are different but are also in the same category of naval tactics, look in the index under S for Suicide tactics. I thought that commonality would be easy to understand but forgive me as I over estimated your mental capacity.

I suggest you practice your reading comprehension skills and go back and read some of that history your memory has garbled.

My history is sound, given how badly you misquoted my post I think I am safe in ignoring your amateurish attempt at grammar Nazism (whilst I admit my grammar is not perfect, my reading comprehension is sound unlike your own).

2) Join the NRA and learn how to protect yourself and your family _AND_ buy at least 20-30,000 rounds of ammo.

I'm all for gun ownership. I think the statistic is that members of households with guns are three times more likely to be the victim of a homicide than non-gun households, so, by all means... stock up.

--- SER

The architects in the middle ages trusted their offspring to finish and maintain the cathedrals that the architects laid the foundations for. Seems that turned out ok - most of the cathedrals are still here and don't show signs of being stolen or vandalized. Even the Germans had the good sense to leave Paris alone during both wars and they're the original Vandals.

...

You are also wrong about the Germans. A number of old inner cities and over 200 medieval castles in my country (the Netherlands) were destroyed beyond repair by the Germans in the 4 days we fought them. Paris was saved because it wasn't fought over. Still the Germans are not more destructive than our other neighbours. Overall they are our most peaceful neighbours.

NASA's failures with the Space Shuttle were because the system was never fully funded. The original Shuttle as envisioned would have a 15 billion dollar development cost and would have been completely re-usable. There would have been seven shuttles, multiple assembly buildings and launch pads. At that scale, yes, the shuttle could have hit its original targets. But, they didn't get the money, some things slipped.

Shuttle

Well, there is no proof of intelligence in the White House either. Doesn't mean there's no intelligence, just no proof. Yoda says: Will prove a negative, you?

there is no question at all that Saddam has a long record of supporting terrorism, including Palastinian suicide bombers.

Weird typo there, instead of "including", you should have written "even if they were only". And just their families, actually. He never paid out any money to the bombers, just gave aid to their families after the Israelis bulldozed their homes. That said, I think Saddam should hang for what he did to the kurds and the world IS a better place with him gone. It's just that it would be even better with Bush gone, too.

In the end, I support President Bush not because he's always right - of course he's not - but because he is steadfast and resolute when confronting our enemies.

The main problem with that position is that the reason Bush is steadfast and resolute is because he believes he is always right. The man has never admitted a mistake and that's an incredibly dangerous attitude for a President to have. It's the wrong kind of leader for ANY kind of times. Strong and decisive is all well and good, but not when it leads the entire world on wild goose chases. There are times when it's better to think first and act later, especially when you hold millions of lives in your hands.

John Kerry is not the kind of person who will take strong and decisive action when faced with a threat

Yes, he is.

Where I got that you're a holocaust denier was from the post where you wrote:

When I asked you if you believed the holocaust took place, you didn't answer the question.

As for Paris:

http://search.eb.com/normandy/articles/Choltitz_Di etrich_von.html

http://www.fact-index.com/d/di/dietrich_von_cholti tz.html

http://www.historynet.com/wwii/blparissavior/