[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Random Military Trivia (Page 1 of 3)
Posted: 8/1/2012 5:32:24 AM EDT
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I'm bored, and have decided to look up some military trivia. Here you go arfocm
-The PRC still has two battalions of horseback cavalry -80% of men born in the Soviet Union in 1923 didn't survive the war. -Some of the first men captured on D-Day were two Korean soldiers. The Koreans had been conscripted into the Japanese Army but after being captured by the Russians at the Battle of Nomonhan in the Russo-Japanese War (part II, the 1940′s one, not the 1904-05 one). They were pressed into service in the Russian Army. Captured by the Germans in a battle near Moscow, the Koreans were then pressed into service in the Wehrmacht. They were then captured by the Americans whilst they were engaged working on the Atlantic Wall. The Americans (mercifully) did not press them into service but rather held them as prisoners of war. -Roman soldiers were required to have their swords and daggers on their person at all times, even while digging trenches - Nero's general Corbulo actually executed legionaries for removing their sidearms during his Armenian Campaign. -It is believed that the last traditionally-organized Roman legion to fight as a complete unit was the Legio II Parthica during the Persian Wars of 242-244 AD. Afterwards most legionary units operated in smaller detachments (vexillations) of 500 or 1000 men. -The USMC is the world's largest Marine force in the world. It is larger than the active duty IDF, and British Army -John Paul Jones, "father" of the US navy had a plan to assemble a joint French/Spanish the invade and conquer the UK. But, the plan failed to make it passed the planning stage, due to the fact that when he launched a raid on the British port of Whitehaven to burn the 200 ships of the British navy. As a way to make the invasion possible. His Marine contingent went to a pub and got drunk. **Feel free to add your own bits of trivia.** 
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SPARTAN 117 has been awarded every UNSC award except the Prisoner of War medal. ONI Section 2 directive is that all SPARTAN's Killed in Action (KIA) are to be listed as Missing in Action (MIA) to lend credence that SPARTAN's do not die.
Can you tell what book series I have been reading? On a more serious note (This is GD after all) the term "point blank" is actually derived from the french. To set the machine gun marks the lowest baseline was a white line (white in french is "blanc") so when the enemies were close enough that no elevation of the weapon was needed the weapon was set to "point blanc" and now you know the rest of the story. |
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My great uncle link
He court martial Lee Harvey Oswald As seen here |
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Heaviest Tank
The heaviest tank ever built was the German Maus II, which weighed 192 tonnes. However by the end of the war it had never reached an operational state. - source: Guiness Book of Records. Suicide Dog Bombers The Soviet Red Army once trained dogs to destroy enemy tanks. The dogs were trained to associate the underside of tanks with food and were fitted with a 26lb explosive device strapped to their backs. Once the dogs crawled under the tanks, the device was triggered and exploded destroying the tank (and of course the dog). Unfortunately this didn't always work as planned as the dogs were trained using Soviet tanks so were more likely to run under these than the German tanks. As many as 25 German tanks were put out of action this way during the battles for Stalingrad and Kursk. Army Bear Amongst the methods of transport used by the 2nd Polish Corps fighting the battle of Monte Cassino was a brown bear called Wojtek who helped to move boxes of ammunition. Luck of the Phoenix One of the American light cruisers anchored at Pearl Harbour during the Japanese attack of December 1941 was the Phoenix. The Phoenix survived the attack virtually unscathed, however, more than 40 years later she was torpedoed and sunk by the British submarine Conqueror in the South Atlantic. The Phoenix, at the time of her demise, was of course known then as the General Belgrano. [this probably only means anything to British readers - ed] Churchill's Near Miss On January 17th 1942 Churchill was nearly shot down by the enemy and then his own airforce. During a return trip from the United States, his flying boat veered off course and came close to German anti-aircraft guns in France, after this error was noticed and corrected, his aircraft then appeared to British radar operators to be an enemy bomber. Six RAF fighters were scrambled to shoot him down, but fortunately for Churchill they failed to find him. Grounded Paratroops After suffering heavy losses during the airborne assault and capture of Crete, Hitler never again committed his airborne troops to large-scale operations and they were instead used as ground infantry. Bomber of Nagasaki Virtually everybody knows the name of the B-29 bomber that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima - the Enola Gay - but how about the one that dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki 3 days later? This B-29 was known as "Bock's Car", and Nagasaki was not its original target - the intended target city was Kokura, which escaped as the bomber was under orders to attack only a clear target and the city was shrouded in smog at the time. Nagasaki was the first alternative target city. Nazi Salute Despite what you might see in the movies, the regular German Army (Wehrmacht) did not usually use the Nazi salute. Only after the July 1944 attempt on Hitler's life were they forced to use the Nazi salute as standard. D Day Although many people refer to the Allied D-Day landings in Normandy as "Operation Overlord", the naval assault was actually called "Operation Neptune". The landings were originally known as Overlord, but in September 1943 the codename was changed to Neptune, and Overlord from then on was used to refer to the general Allied strategy in northwestern Europe. And the D in D-Day stands for Day! Suicide Ships You've heard of suicide or kamikaze bombers - but how about suicide battleships!? On 7th April 1945 off the island of Okinawa the Japanese battleship Yamato, which had not been given fuel for its return journey home, arrived with several other ships to attack the American fleet. The Yamato, which was one of the two largest battleships ever built, and her accompanying ships, were sunk by American aircraft before they reached their target. Himmler Heinrich Himmler, the evil head of the Nazi SS, was once a chicken farmer. |
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I'm bored, and have decided to look up some military trivia. Here you go arfocm -The PRC still has two battalions of horseback cavalry -80% of men born in the Soviet Union in 1923 didn't survive the war. -Some of the first men captured on D-Day were two Korean soldiers. The Koreans had been conscripted into the Japanese Army but after being captured by the Russians at the Battle of Nomonhan in the Russo-Japanese War (part II, the 1940′s one, not the 1904-05 one). They were pressed into service in the Russian Army. Captured by the Germans in a battle near Moscow, the Koreans were then pressed into service in the Wehrmacht. They were then captured by the Americans whilst they were engaged working on the Atlantic Wall. The Americans (mercifully) did not press them into service but rather held them as prisoners of war. -Roman soldiers were required to have their swords and daggers on their person at all times, even while digging trenches - Nero's general Corbulo actually executed legionaries for removing their sidearms during his Armenian Campaign. -It is believed that the last traditionally-organized Roman legion to fight as a complete unit was the Legio II Parthica during the Persian Wars of 242-244 AD. Afterwards most legionary units operated in smaller detachments (vexillations) of 500 or 1000 men. -The USMC is the world's largest Marine force in the world. It is larger than the active duty IDF, and British Army -John Paul Jones, "father" of the US navy had a plan to assemble a joint French/Spanish the invade and conquer the UK. But, the plan failed to make it passed the planning stage, due to the fact that when he launched a raid on the British port of Whitehaven to burn the 200 ships of the British navy. As a way to make the invasion possible. His Marine contingent went to a pub and got drunk. **Feel free to add your own bits of trivia.** There is a movie about the two Korean solders titled "My Way" at red box! |
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Quoted: Quoted: I'm bored, and have decided to look up some military trivia. Here you go arfocm -The PRC still has two battalions of horseback cavalry -80% of men born in the Soviet Union in 1923 didn't survive the war. -Some of the first men captured on D-Day were two Korean soldiers. The Koreans had been conscripted into the Japanese Army but after being captured by the Russians at the Battle of Nomonhan in the Russo-Japanese War (part II, the 1940′s one, not the 1904-05 one). They were pressed into service in the Russian Army. Captured by the Germans in a battle near Moscow, the Koreans were then pressed into service in the Wehrmacht. They were then captured by the Americans whilst they were engaged working on the Atlantic Wall. The Americans (mercifully) did not press them into service but rather held them as prisoners of war. -Roman soldiers were required to have their swords and daggers on their person at all times, even while digging trenches - Nero's general Corbulo actually executed legionaries for removing their sidearms during his Armenian Campaign. -It is believed that the last traditionally-organized Roman legion to fight as a complete unit was the Legio II Parthica during the Persian Wars of 242-244 AD. Afterwards most legionary units operated in smaller detachments (vexillations) of 500 or 1000 men. -The USMC is the world's largest Marine force in the world. It is larger than the active duty IDF, and British Army -John Paul Jones, "father" of the US navy had a plan to assemble a joint French/Spanish the invade and conquer the UK. But, the plan failed to make it passed the planning stage, due to the fact that when he launched a raid on the British port of Whitehaven to burn the 200 ships of the British navy. As a way to make the invasion possible. His Marine contingent went to a pub and got drunk. **Feel free to add your own bits of trivia.** There is a movie about the two Korean solders titled "My Way" at red box! I watched it, it was alright. The Normandy landing scene.... 
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I guess arfcom doesn't like anything military related, and has no military knowledge what so ever.  Quit being a little turd. Read this. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raid_at_Cabanatuan |
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Last week, I met the man who flew the last US Navy seaplane flight. |
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Balls to the Wall
Meaning - To move real fast. Origin: World War Two fighter pilot slang. The engine throttles were topped by little balls. The throttle was advanced by being pushed forward. If the throttles were at maximum power, the balls were to the wall (the instrument panel). |
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Balls to the Wall Meaning - To move real fast. Origin: World War Two fighter pilot slang. The engine throttles were topped by little balls. The throttle was advanced by being pushed forward. If the throttles were at maximum power, the balls were to the wall (the instrument panel). I think that phrase pre dates that a bit in reference to a centrifugal govener system on early steam engines... |
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Quoted: Quoted: Balls to the Wall Meaning - To move real fast. Origin: World War Two fighter pilot slang. The engine throttles were topped by little balls. The throttle was advanced by being pushed forward. If the throttles were at maximum power, the balls were to the wall (the instrument panel). I think that phrase pre dates that a bit in reference to a centrifugal govener system on early steam engines... That's "balls out". |
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Army Bear Amongst the methods of transport used by the 2nd Polish Corps fighting the battle of Monte Cassino was a brown bear called Wojtek who helped to move boxes of ammunition. There was a thread here about Wojtek. BRB Yep - a year ago in the Archives HellifIknow's thread "Great story. Wojtek the soldier bear" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIg1pZgMGRk&feature=related http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wojtek_(soldier_bear) And a workup of the stencil that his host unit had on their trucks: 
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I -Some of the first men captured on D-Day were two Korean soldiers. The Koreans had been conscripted into the Japanese Army but after being captured by the Russians at the Battle of Nomonhan in the Russo-Japanese War (part II, the 1940′s one, not the 1904-05 one). They were pressed into service in the Russian Army. Captured by the Germans in a battle near Moscow, the Koreans were then pressed into service in the Wehrmacht. They were then captured by the Americans whilst they were engaged working on the Atlantic Wall. The Americans (mercifully) did not press them into service but rather held them as prisoners of war. I had seen a movie about this in the Redbox machine and thought it was a weird pipe dream. |
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The first American shot fired in WWI was by Teofilo Marxuach in San Juan, PR
he was an officer so I'm sure he told a sergeant to do it 
Teofilo Marxuach |
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Balls to the Wall Meaning - To move real fast. Origin: World War Two fighter pilot slang. The engine throttles were topped by little balls. The throttle was advanced by being pushed forward. If the throttles were at maximum power, the balls were to the wall (the instrument panel). I think that phrase pre dates that a bit in reference to a centrifugal govener system on early steam engines... That's "balls out". I came back here to correct myself and got beat. So it is
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During the Hundred Years War, captured English Longbowman would have their first two fingers on their right hand cut off so they couldn't shoot their bows anymore. That's how the "V" for victory hand sign started. It was a taunt by the English to show that their fingers were still intact and they were capable of fighting. In the original novel version of Master and Commander, the large frigate is actually an American ship, as America and England were quite hostile during much of the Napoleonic War time period (most notably during the War of 1812). The French had innovated the larger 24 lb gun frigate prior to the Napoleonic War, but the French Revolution so decimated the French naval officer corp that these ships were easily outfought by standard British 18 lb gun frigates, causing them to discount the design. American heavy frigates with competent officers completely outclassed standard British frigates and became the future of frigate design after the war. Modern U.S. Navy frigate sailors like to trace their history to these early sailing frigates, although in truth the only similarity is the name. A frigate was a specific classification of design with one full gun deck and additional guns on the forecastle and quarterdeck, with a ship-rigging (three square-sailed masts). Frigates tended by to be employed in the 'cruiser' role. A cruiser was a classification based on function not design, and was any warship large enough to operate independently but too small to be a ship of the line of battle. Frigates were among the largest warships not considered a ship of the line of battle. As wood gave way to iron, frigates stopped being frigates and simply became cruisers. During WWII, the British and Americans needed a lot of ships smaller than destroyers to escort convoys. They (and especially the British) revived a lot of old sailing names to classify these ships, such as corvettes, frigates, and sloops of war. Thus today the modern Ticonderoga class cruiser is a more direct descendant of the sailing frigate, and the modern frigate is a more direct descendant of a sailing sloop of war (a loose term applied to several types of naval sailing ships too small to be a frigate). |
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John Denver gave Mr. Rogers satanic tattoos every time they burned a village. They burned so many Mr. Rogers had full sleeves and that's why he always wears a sweater. They also chewed on collected ears like beef jerky and smuggled coke with Steve Earl. I've heard that
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Originally Posted By
....... -John Paul Jones, "father" of the US navy had a plan to assemble a joint French/Spanish the invade and conquer the UK. But, the plan failed to make it passed the planning stage, due to the fact that when he launched a raid on the British port of Whitehaven to burn the 200 ships of the British navy. As a way to make the invasion possible. His Marine contingent went to a pub and got drunk. **Feel free to add your own bits of trivia.** Well, shit happens. 
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Walther Christie's tank was the grandfather of the British Cruiser tanks and ultimately, the Centurion. It also influenced the Russian BT-7, T-32 and the T-34.
The post war French 75mm gun was based on that of the German Panther. Syria was the last country to use the Pzkw IV. They were dug in as pillboxes before the Six Day War. The T-34/85's combat record exceeds the long barrel PzKw IV. They were used in Angola and other African nations (think civil wars). John Garand had a hand in designing the M-14. Four Civil War Union officers became presidents. They include Grant, Garfield, Cleveland and Hayes. Gray Ghost Conf Lt Col John Mosby became a US Ambassador after the Civil War. The first US battleships sunk in WW II were by the Germans. OK, they (BB 23 Mississippi/Lemnos & BB 24 Idaho/Kilkis) had been sold to Greece and were flying the Greek flag when sunk. The submarine Tang carried as unauthorized equipment an ice cream machine. The M-60's locking system was influenced by the German MG-43 which in turn was copied from the Lewis Gun - a design originally rejected by the US Army. how's that for full circle? The destroyer escort, USS England (DE-653), sank an unmatched six subs. She wasn't named in honor of the mother country but for a sailor who was killed aboard the Oklahoma during Pearl Harbor. When the US Navy wanted funds in fy 1874-75 for new monitors, it told Congress the funds were for rebuilding Civil War era monitors. |
| During WW2, the Navy had barges that went with the fleet who's sole purpose was to make Ice Cream. They also had two side wheel aircraft carriers on the Great Lakes for training, Wolverine and Sable. The Army had portable Coca Cola plants to supply the troops with Coke and the 29th Infantry Division had a travelling whorehouse that followed behind it in France (the Blue and Grey Riding Academy) and the girls were cleared "for duty" by the division physicians. |
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John Denver gave Mr. Rogers satanic tattoos every time they burned a village. They burned so many Mr. Rogers had full sleeves and that's why he always wears a sweater. They also chewed on collected ears like beef jerky and smuggled coke with Steve Earl. I've heard that. |
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John Denver gave Mr. Rogers satanic tattoos every time they burned a village. They burned so many Mr. Rogers had full sleeves and that's why he always wears a sweater. They also chewed on collected ears like beef jerky and smuggled coke with Steve Earl. I've heard that opps, yeah me too
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During the Hundred Years War, captured English Longbowman would have their first two fingers on their right hand cut off so they couldn't shoot their bows anymore. That's how the "V" for victory hand sign started. It was a taunt by the English to show that their fingers were still intact and they were capable of fighting. In the original novel version of Master and Commander, the large frigate is actually an American ship, as America and England were quite hostile during much of the Napoleonic War time period (most notably during the War of 1812). The French had innovated the larger 24 lb gun frigate prior to the Napoleonic War, but the French Revolution so decimated the French naval officer corp that these ships were easily outfought by standard British 18 lb gun frigates, causing them to discount the design. American heavy frigates with competent officers completely outclassed standard British frigates and became the future of frigate design after the war. Modern U.S. Navy frigate sailors like to trace their history to these early sailing frigates, although in truth the only similarity is the name. A frigate was a specific classification of design with one full gun deck and additional guns on the forecastle and quarterdeck, with a ship-rigging (three square-sailed masts). Frigates tended by to be employed in the 'cruiser' role. A cruiser was a classification based on function not design, and was any warship large enough to operate independently but too small to be a ship of the line of battle. Frigates were among the largest warships not considered a ship of the line of battle. As wood gave way to iron, frigates stopped being frigates and simply became cruisers. During WWII, the British and Americans needed a lot of ships smaller than destroyers to escort convoys. They (and especially the British) revived a lot of old sailing names to classify these ships, such as corvettes, frigates, and sloops of war. Thus today the modern Ticonderoga class cruiser is a more direct descendant of the sailing frigate, and the modern frigate is a more direct descendant of a sailing sloop of war (a loose term applied to several types of naval sailing ships too small to be a frigate). I disagree. A frigate today is still the smallest ship that can operate independently in blue water. |
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Some of the first men captured on D-Day were two Korean soldiers. The Koreans had been conscripted into the Japanese Army but after being captured by the Russians at the Battle of Nomonhan in the Russo-Japanese War (part II, the 1940′s one, not the 1904-05 one). They were pressed into service in the Russian Army. Captured by the Germans in a battle near Moscow, the Koreans were then pressed into service in the Wehrmacht. They were then captured by the Americans whilst they were engaged working on the Atlantic Wall. The Americans (mercifully) did not press them into service but rather held them as prisoners of war. That's one of my favorite WWII facts. I wonder if those two Koreans went back to Korea, and if so, if they survived the Korean War in the early 1950's? 
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SPARTAN 117 has been awarded every UNSC award except the Prisoner of War medal. ONI Section 2 directive is that all SPARTAN's Killed in Action (KIA) are to be listed as Missing in Action (MIA) to lend credence that SPARTAN's do not die. WIN LOL too bad they all died.... |
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Some of the first men captured on D-Day were two Korean soldiers. The Koreans had been conscripted into the Japanese Army but after being captured by the Russians at the Battle of Nomonhan in the Russo-Japanese War (part II, the 1940′s one, not the 1904-05 one). They were pressed into service in the Russian Army. Captured by the Germans in a battle near Moscow, the Koreans were then pressed into service in the Wehrmacht. They were then captured by the Americans whilst they were engaged working on the Atlantic Wall. The Americans (mercifully) did not press them into service but rather held them as prisoners of war. That's one of my favorite WWII facts. I wonder if those two Koreans went back to Korea, and if so, if they survived the Korean War in the early 1950's? It seems that these poor souls never made it back home to Korea as apparently the Koreans were exchanged with the Soviets for American POWs liberated by the Red Army. This I find a little suspicious as at that time the Red Army and the US Army were on the same side and no POW exchanges should have been necessary. I could accept that they were returned to the Soviet’s however as at that time there was a largish Korean Diaspora under Soviet control and they therefore would have seemed like a Soviet problem to deal with. |
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Originally Posted By
....... -John Paul Jones, "father" of the US navy had a plan to assemble a joint French/Spanish the invade and conquer the UK. But, the plan failed to make it passed the planning stage, due to the fact that when he launched a raid on the British port of Whitehaven to burn the 200 ships of the British navy. As a way to make the invasion possible. His Marine contingent went to a pub and got drunk. **Feel free to add your own bits of trivia.** Well, shit happens. They probably broke some shit too, being Marines  .
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The "tank" got its name while the Brits were developing it in secret during WWI. So as not to raise any curiosity, the cover story for the project was that the construction was for a metal water tank.
Many of you know that Maj Jimmy Stewart (already a well known actor), served as a B-24 pilot during WWII. One of his commands was a composite unit, the 703rd Bomber Squadron Div. One of the Sergeants in that unit would later become an actor - Sgt Walter Matthau. 
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Johhny Carsons side kick Ed McMahon was a Marine F-4U Fighter pilot. While I was stationed at MCAS Yuma, Colonel and Mrs. McMahon stopped off there in their big RV en route back to Los Angeles. He popped into the seven day store and was very happy to shake hands and say hello to everyone. |
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The shortest war on record was the Anglo-Zanzibar war, which lasted an estimated total time of 38 minutes before the forces of the Zanzibar Sultanate lost.
Total Casualties: Zanzibar Sultanate - ~500 killed/wounded British Empire - 1 petty officer was badly wounded. -Hannibal Barca is very well known, but his brother Margo is not, in spite of many of Hannibal's victories, including Cannae, hinging on the well timed and effectively led cavalry charges Margo initiated. -The Romans were masters of fortifications. A well trained and equipped legion could pitch camp in two hours, and could fortify the positions with trenches, walls, and towers as quickly as twelve hours. -The Last Great War of Antiquity, fought between the Sasanids and the Byzantines, lasted for over 100 years and ended when Emperor Heraclius, in complete ignorance of his flanks, rear, or supply lines, charged straight into Persia from Constantinople and began attacking key settlements in one of the greatest moments of bravado in history. Then the Arabs showed up waving this book called the Quran and it all became kind of pointless -The Byzantines had a favored crewed automatic crossbow fired by winding it in similar fashion to the first automatic machine gun - the Gatling. -The primary armor for Macedonian infantry at Issus was cloth and glue. -The primary armor for Aztec and Inca warriors was cloth and glue. -During the war to free Mexico from the French, the US cashiered hundreds of soldiers at the border, complete with uniforms and weaponry. The Mexicans even had an "Irish" brigade made up of such that fought against the French. |
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Johhny Carsons side kick Ed McMahon was a Marine F-4U Fighter pilot. While I was stationed at MCAS Yuma, Colonel and Mrs. McMahon stopped off there in their big RV en route back to Los Angeles. He popped into the seven day store and was very happy to shake hands and say hello to everyone. Ed McMahon was commissioned in the Marine Corps and was trained as a fighter pilot in the F4U Corsair. He served as an instructor pilot, never seeing combat. His assignment to the Marine Carrier Group was canceled when the atomic bomb was dropped. Reactivated for the Korean War. Ed flew the O-1E completing 85 missions and was awarded six Air Medals |
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Quoted: Quoted: During the Hundred Years War, captured English Longbowman would have their first two fingers on their right hand cut off so they couldn't shoot their bows anymore. That's how the "V" for victory hand sign started. It was a taunt by the English to show that their fingers were still intact and they were capable of fighting. In the original novel version of Master and Commander, the large frigate is actually an American ship, as America and England were quite hostile during much of the Napoleonic War time period (most notably during the War of 1812). The French had innovated the larger 24 lb gun frigate prior to the Napoleonic War, but the French Revolution so decimated the French naval officer corp that these ships were easily outfought by standard British 18 lb gun frigates, causing them to discount the design. American heavy frigates with competent officers completely outclassed standard British frigates and became the future of frigate design after the war. Modern U.S. Navy frigate sailors like to trace their history to these early sailing frigates, although in truth the only similarity is the name. A frigate was a specific classification of design with one full gun deck and additional guns on the forecastle and quarterdeck, with a ship-rigging (three square-sailed masts). Frigates tended by to be employed in the 'cruiser' role. A cruiser was a classification based on function not design, and was any warship large enough to operate independently but too small to be a ship of the line of battle. Frigates were among the largest warships not considered a ship of the line of battle. As wood gave way to iron, frigates stopped being frigates and simply became cruisers. During WWII, the British and Americans needed a lot of ships smaller than destroyers to escort convoys. They (and especially the British) revived a lot of old sailing names to classify these ships, such as corvettes, frigates, and sloops of war. Thus today the modern Ticonderoga class cruiser is a more direct descendant of the sailing frigate, and the modern frigate is a more direct descendant of a sailing sloop of war (a loose term applied to several types of naval sailing ships too small to be a frigate). I disagree. A frigate today is still the smallest ship that can operate independently in blue water. A sailing frigate was generally the largest warship short of a capital ship. That's not what a modern frigate is. |
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During the Hundred Years War, captured English Longbowman would have their first two fingers on their right hand cut off so they couldn't shoot their bows anymore. That's how the "V" for victory hand sign started. It was a taunt by the English to show that their fingers were still intact and they were capable of fighting. In the original novel version of Master and Commander, the large frigate is actually an American ship, as America and England were quite hostile during much of the Napoleonic War time period (most notably during the War of 1812). The French had innovated the larger 24 lb gun frigate prior to the Napoleonic War, but the French Revolution so decimated the French naval officer corp that these ships were easily outfought by standard British 18 lb gun frigates, causing them to discount the design. American heavy frigates with competent officers completely outclassed standard British frigates and became the future of frigate design after the war. Modern U.S. Navy frigate sailors like to trace their history to these early sailing frigates, although in truth the only similarity is the name. A frigate was a specific classification of design with one full gun deck and additional guns on the forecastle and quarterdeck, with a ship-rigging (three square-sailed masts). Frigates tended by to be employed in the 'cruiser' role. A cruiser was a classification based on function not design, and was any warship large enough to operate independently but too small to be a ship of the line of battle. Frigates were among the largest warships not considered a ship of the line of battle. As wood gave way to iron, frigates stopped being frigates and simply became cruisers. During WWII, the British and Americans needed a lot of ships smaller than destroyers to escort convoys. They (and especially the British) revived a lot of old sailing names to classify these ships, such as corvettes, frigates, and sloops of war. Thus today the modern Ticonderoga class cruiser is a more direct descendant of the sailing frigate, and the modern frigate is a more direct descendant of a sailing sloop of war (a loose term applied to several types of naval sailing ships too small to be a frigate). I disagree. A frigate today is still the smallest ship that can operate independently in blue water. A sailing frigate was generally the largest warship short of a capital ship. That's not what a modern frigate is. Destroyers and Cruisers would be considered ships of the line today. If we are going to limit capital ships to CVNs only, sure. But the frigate fills today the same role it did during the 1600s. |
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Lee Marvin was a Marine Sniper. Lee Marvin,a private first class in the Marines received a Purple Heart for wounds received during the battle for Saipan in June 1944? He was wounded in his buttocks by fire which severed his sciatic nerve. His real name was Marvin Lee. When asked about the change he said that the Marine Corps did that and he got so used to answering to it, he kept it that way in civilian life. Marvin is buried at Arlington National Cemetery. |
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During WW2, the Navy had barges that went with the fleet who's sole purpose was to make Ice Cream. They also had two side wheel aircraft carriers on the Great Lakes for training, Wolverine and Sable. The Army had portable Coca Cola plants to supply the troops with Coke and the 29th Infantry Division had a travelling whorehouse that followed behind it in France (the Blue and Grey Riding Academy) and the girls were cleared "for duty" by the division physicians. America, Fuck Yeah! (If true.) |