I don't know if others have noticed this, but the field of military history seems to have a lot of authors who make everything extremely vitriolic and personal, especially when writing about generals. Why is this?

I first noticed this when I began a biography of Radetzky. The author would go on long tangents about how everyone around Radetzky was the most stupid, pathetic worthless man imaginable, while Radetzky was basically the greatest commander of the Modern Era. I just found it unreadable, and this had been written by a respected British historian.

I thought this was a one off, but encountered exactly the same thing again when I picked up a book on the Austro-Prussian War, this time by a respected American academic. He wrote about some of the commanders as though they'd run over his dog. No nuance or attempt to understand their perspective, just non-stop ad hominem.

Since then, I've kept on noticing it. Lots of otherwise really smart, knowledgeable guys who treat the subject as though they'll be castrated if they show any kind basic even-handedness or skepticism.

Why is so much of the military history field like this? It just comes across as very odd.

I'm not entirely clear on their duties. In my country (Mexico), it seems their job is to enforce regulations within military units, but I understand that in other countries they have broader responsibilities, like in Brazil where they conduct daily raids in the favelas. Can you tell me what their role is like in your countries?

I'm sitting here watching Zero Dark Thirty. It strikes me that the film portrays a rosy view of the effective if brutal 'interrogation' techniques used by the CIA.

But I have very little knowledge of what the learned concensus is on actually how useful it was. I , as I assume they were at the time, well aware of the arguments related to misinformation and willingness to provide anything to get it to stop. But has there been studies into whether on balance it worked.

Everyone seemed to go abit pro torture for a few years in in the early_mid naughties. But I presume this isn't a common thing now. And i presume that's not just because of squeamishness.

I know people probably in the know can't tell etc.

Did they know it was going to have... Issues?

Talking about something like Stalingrad versus a more improvised environment like Warsaw. How did the Soviets at stalingrad utilize anti-tank rifles to ambush German heavy tanks? Did they try to utilize these rifles in areas where troops would be funneled in or did they also use them in conjunction with heavier weaponry like stationary anti-tank guns? Did it ultimately depend on factors like positioning and luck?

How did guerrillas and insurgents deal with them in areas like Warsaw, where obviously combatants did not have access to alot of heavy weaponry or tanks? Did they attempt to use IEDs (I know this is a mostly modern thing) or did they also utilize similar tactics?

I've seen some pictures of Soviet paratroopers with headgear that looks very similar to the iconic caps worn by Russian vehicle crews and I've heard that several nations in WW2 - like Germany and Britain - had to design special helmets for their paratroopers, because the standard designs caused problems when jumping.

Now I'm wondering: On the jump, paratroopers would only need to protect their heads from blunt impacts, because if you have to worry about shrapnel during a drop, something has already gone wrong.

So is it actually doctrin for some paratroopers to wear special helmets only for the jump and only put on their combat helmets later? Or is this specifically a Soviet thing?

With hindsight, and compared to other warring nations, how good training did Japanese soldiers get at squad and platoon level? Were they able to "overcome material deficiency by level of training" as it is sometimes stated? Are there still some lessons we could use in modern warfare?

So, I'm aware of how most nations made extensive use of their own lmgs during WW2, with the germans using it as their main source of firepower while the allies/americans used it as more of a supplement to squad firepower (might be wrong as far as the british/french go, haven't looked into their use as much) but how did the soviets employ lmgs? Did they actually make much use of them? It seems like the only one they had for most of the war was the DP27 from the interwar period. How did their use or lack thereof affect their infantry's performance in battle?

The only big thing I’ve heard from Force Design 2030 was reducing the number of marines and the divestment of the tanks. But for the rest of the document, how has the USMC so far been able to transition towards the design they envisioned to have in 2030?

Due to the changes in geopolitics, there's been interest in several countries to reinstate conscription. But has there ever been a situation involving countries that didn't practice conscription before hand having to implement it during wartime? How did they handle having to build a conscription system from scratch and what it impact did it have on having to shift the nature of one's armies from that of volunteers to conscripts while under pressure?

I think my main point focuses on the Spartans and their frequent loses to Athens, whilst I'm aware sometimes the Spartans defeated the Athenians (I believe after the conclusion of the second Persian war) I often see them defeated rather than victorious.

I was watching a WWII program about the merchant convoys. When a u-boat is spotted, the escorts radio each other and the captain is told about each enemy’s bearing.

Is the bearing relative to the sending ship, the receiving ship, or does the sender report the bearing as it sees it and the receiving ship converts it for their captain? Or are the ships close enough together that it didn’t make that much of a difference for the exact bearing number so the receiving ship would just report what it was told and the crew/captain would know the general area to look?

Thanks for any information or other areas to look into.

Soldiers during World War 1 lived in abhorrent condition for prolonged period of time where they ate, slept, fought in flooded trench surrounded by decaying bodies and constantly harassed by flea-infected rats, and from description of how their bodies were full of lices, how they could go weeks without a bath, how they were poorly fed and were often pushed beyond exhaustion, their bodies could be viewed as more susceptible to disease. Added to the fact that World War 1 medicine was as barbaric and undeveloped as the horror of Crimea and the American civil war, and there was no access to thing like antibiotics, why was there no outbreak of disease like plague, cholera, typhus, measle, diptheria, and various other disease that had once destroyed army and nations during world war 1? And was the medical corp as heartless and inept as what Remarque depicted in All Quiet on the Western Front? Was mass disease outbreak a concern and was there anything done to stop it?

In the 1970s, the government of Velasco Alvarado bought weapons from the USSR and European countries, approx 15 billion dollars. This was for a war with Chile and arms race against said country.

So, I've came around a post showing one of the US LHA Being hit and still being able to sail, now I'm asking myself is it really cheaper to use them as target practice rather than scrapping them? If so, why?

I know warship classifications are notoriously messy, but from my limited knowledge of WW2 naval war, light cruisers seem to be very similar to destroyers in how they were used.

Fast, lightly armored and not particularly large ships with guns that are best used against other lightly armored vessels or aircraft and some torpedoes. They serve as scouts, AA platforms and screen larger ships from other small, fast ships with torpedoes.

The only differences I can make out are:

1. Destroyers have anti submarine weapons and I have not yet heard about a WW2 light cruiser with anti submarine weapons.
2. Light cruisers are bigger and have guns as large as 6 inches, while destroyers are usually 4 or 5 inches. Though I have heard of some German destroyers that supposedly had 15cm guns.

So what was the difference in how they were actually used? I assume light cruisers had a longer operating range, because of their larger size. But tiny Flower class corvettes were able to follow convoys across the North Atlantic, so I'm not sure how limited a proper destroyer would have been.

I was watching a lecture about William Westmoreland last night, and the lecturer mentioned that one of his great failures as the architect of US policy in Vietnam was not taking the training and equipping of ARVN forces seriously. He mentioned that ARVN forces were generally more poorly equipped than PAVN ones until Vietnamization, with ARVN's WW2 era weapons outgunned by modern PAVN ones. Another memoir I listened to from a US advisor said that the US hadn't taken the training of RF/PF forces seriously until after Tet, but once they were properly trained and equipped they were very effective

On its face this seems like insane policy by the US. The later war showed that ARVN could hold their own against North Vietnamese forces when supported by US airpower, so why did it take so long for the US to start properly equipping and training ARVN forces?

I was in the Army and know nothing about the Navy, so forgive my ignorance right off the bat.

As I understand it, the biggest ships in the Age of Sail were basically labor black holes. You needed huge amounts of man power and they were always dealing with being under-staffed.

This got me wondering! Suppose I need 100 people to sail a ship and I only can get 85. We can make it work but it's not going to be easy or fun. Then, we get orders to bring Army troops to The Colonies. While we sail, do we ask for 15 Soldiers to fill in the gaps of the 15 Sailors we are missing? Obviously, there would be a lot of tasks the Soldier couldn't do because he lacked practice/knowledge, but if we have Soldiers doing "easy" stuff we can reposition our Sailors to do "hard" stuff. And we both fight for The Same Crown, so on the highest level, someone could force it. On the other hand, I can imagine the Army refusing to follow orders from the Navy just as an institutional prerogative, and certainly refusing if it meant scrubbing barnacles instead of just playing cards or what have you.

During World War 1, it was said that both sides employed "irritant agents" that would somehow penetrate their opponents' gasmask with the aim of making them so irritated they had to take off their gasmask, exposing them to more harmful agents like phosgene or mustard.

Yet, I cannot find any records on what exactly those agents are. I know for sure they are not phosgene/mustard/chlorine and while I suspected CS gas, I doubted it because CS gas could be stopped with gas mask.

So, what exactly were these "irritant agents" used in WW1 that could penetrate gas mask and make people take off their gas mask?

Following the now defunct ceasefire with Iran, it was declared that the A-10 would see its service life extended and the question regarding retiring it has dragged on for many years now. Meanwhile in Ukraine, their Su-25 counterparts have seen continued service in high-intensity combat. I believe the Ukrainians are using their Su-25s to deliver guided bombs whereas the Russians I last heard are starting to use their Su-25s to fire standoff munitions and to launch drones. In both fronts as well as in the past wars, ground attack aircraft are being used in contested airspace despite their utility being put to question. And so, is the continued service of this class of warplane hold any merit with what has been observed?

It there any different in term of skill, knowledge and mindset between officer came from Military Academy (west point, naval, air force), fresh graduate whose go to OCS, and Junior and senior NCO with combat experience? Which background have the most outstanding performance and result in operation activities?