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Bad ideas in war

I am reminded of 'McNamara's Morons'.
Just looked that up.

My understanding is that it was the US army that was key in adopting IQ tests, and whatever they test, poor results in them translated to poor performance in war.
 
Perum tries to justify a load of bad ideas


The first bad idea was from Ian of Forgotten Weapons
Ian at Forgotten Weapons has quite a few what weapon would the Elbonian military buy videos.
His latest regular Q&A video has an Elbonian question in it.
I think Drachinifel has addressed it in passing in his weekly Q&A video. The Chieftain has at least one as well.
 
Germany was 100% to blame for the war.

Nothing to do with Russia?


Screenshot 2026-09-19 03.21.21.png

"Historians studying the causes of World War I have often highlighted the roles of Germany and Austria-Hungary, while downplaying Russia's contribution to the outbreak of this global conflict. The prevailing scholarly view has focused on Russia's defense of Orthodox Serbia, its pan-Slavic aspirations, its treaty commitments with France, and its efforts to maintain its status as a major world power. However, historian Sean McMeekin emphasizes Russia's ambitions to expand its empire southward and to capture Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul) as a gateway to the Mediterranean Sea."

"Russia's warnings to Germany led to military action by German forces, which carried out their mobilization and declared war on August 1, 1914. At the start of the conflict, Russian forces launched offensives against Germany and Austria-Hungary"
 
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Important role because the Nazi party made it a scapegoat, along with the stab in the back myth.

Please read thru the following article:


And I even kinda don't think that article goes far enough. With the "Germany was at fault" section. Germany was at fault for WW1. They goaded the Austrian Empire into declaring war despite Serbia agreeing to almost all their demands. And it was for their own expansionist goals. Germany was 100% to blame for the war.

and watch
and realize that Foch's quote "This is not a peace treaty, this is an armistice for 20 years". Is often misinterpreted. He didn't think it was too harsh, he wanted an occupation.
Tell me you're a Stalinist without telling me you're a Stalinist.

I don't think Russia has ever been in a war that Russia didn't have a part in instigating.
 
Nothing to do with Russia?


View attachment 75916

"Historians studying the causes of World War I have often highlighted the roles of Germany and Austria-Hungary, while downplaying Russia's contribution to the outbreak of this global conflict. The prevailing scholarly view has focused on Russia's defense of Orthodox Serbia, its pan-Slavic aspirations, its treaty commitments with France, and its efforts to maintain its status as a major world power. However, historian Sean McMeekin emphasizes Russia's ambitions to expand its empire southward and to capture Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul) as a gateway to the Mediterranean Sea."

"Russia's warnings to Germany led to military action by German forces, which carried out their mobilization and declared war on August 1, 1914. At the start of the conflict, Russian forces launched offensives against Germany and Austria-Hungary"
I suppose we need this again.
 
Recoil isn't the same as conventional artillery. The main forces are not opposite the direction of the projectile but at 90 degrees and try to push the rails apart.
At the present time a set of rails is only good for a few shots before heat, stress and friction degrade them to a point where they need to be replaced.
Way retroactively: no, that's flat out wrong. Yes, there are even more massive forces trying to rip the rails apart, but Newtonian mechanics still apply, in this case the third law. The same massive force pushing the projectile forwards is also pushing the gun assembly (and probably more so the capacitor battery) rearwards. You don't get away from Newton regardless of whether it's a gun, a crossbow, a trebuchet, coil gun or rail gun. So you have the same primary recoil. The only thing you don't get is the secondary recoil from the propellant gasses also exiting forwards.

And any kind of projectile weapons still have to obey the law of the conservation of momentum. Momentum can't be created or destroyed. Some equal momentum has to go backwards if the forward momentum increases. In terrestrial guns case, it's ultimately transferred to the Earth, so at that difference in mass, the actual change in speed for the Earth is lost in many many many decimals, but it's there. The same would apply to any way of changing any object's momentum, regardless of whether it's electromagnetic or photons on a solar sail or magic or the Jedi force push. (So yeah, it would be hilarious to see a Jedi master chuck a whole starship engine at an enemy like in the intro to SWTOR and fly backwards at Mach 1 into a wall:P)

I think that it would be much bigger news if someone had disproved the basic laws of mechanics, than just that they made a railgun :P
 
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and yet the main problem with rail guns is the lateral force imparted on the rails.
In the same way as there is more force pressing sideways on the barrel of a normal artillery gun than the recoil force, but that doesn't mean the recoil goes sideways. The sideways forces are in addition to that. And those obey Newton's third too, as there is as much force on the right rail as on the left rail.
 
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Were any of the rail guns (like Schwerer Gustav in WWII) mounted on curved rails? I imagine most would be on straight and pivot on the car but there's a limit to that.
A train going in a curve is still obeying Newton's 3rd and conservation of momentum. It's just that the centripetal force to turn it is having its equal and opposite force going into the planet. Hell, there are even more mundane cases like redirecting some momentum upwards in a Luger's articulated mechanism, or downwards in the case of a Kriss Vector SMG, but then it pushes on the gun in the opposite direction. Newton will get you no matter what.

I suppose you could do the same with a railgun on rails, but it's still subject to the laws of physics, same as everything else.
 
A train going in a curve is still obeying Newton's 3rd and conservation of momentum. It's just that the centripetal force to turn it is having its equal and opposite force going into the planet. Hell, there are even more mundane cases like redirecting some momentum upwards in a Luger's articulated mechanism, or downwards in the case of a Kriss Vector SMG, but then it pushes on the gun in the opposite direction. Newton will get you no matter what.

I suppose you could do the same with a railgun on rails, but it's still subject to the laws of physics, same as everything else.
The curve in my above was to allow the gun to be trained over an arc. It would have been locked-and-blocked when firing to avoid unintentional changes in bearing.
 
The curve in my above was to allow the gun to be trained over an arc. It would have been locked-and-blocked when firing to avoid unintentional changes in bearing.
I don't know of any used like that, off the top of my head, but it would make sense if you wanted to be able to aim it in a short amount of time.

ETA: AFAIK the way Germany did it was to just build a new segment of track.
 
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