Posts made by MrMalachiCrunch

Linkon, Very good points.

The human populace being overwhelmed would not make for a good movie normally but that is exactly what would happen.  I read the Battlefield Earth book by L. Ron Hubbard before I even knew he invented scientology .  It was a 1000 page book with the premise being that aliens came to earth about now (1980ish actually) in our technological development.  They came in large ships with no warning, gassed the earth with something that only killed humans, our population went from 5 billion to perhaps 50, 000 spread over various remote areas of the planet in a day, game over.  Fast forward 1000 years and the story starts with aliens firmly in control and the few humans remaining doing their best to avoid all contact with the flying beasts having lost writing and all memory of civilization.  They were basically a few tribes of stone age folk.

The robots will evolve to be a swarm of small units by our hands or their hands.  I am not a fan of sentient robots being possible until some breakthrough occurs that is more than just more megahertz or more storage.  I’ve spent a fair bit of time in university on the topic of sentient software, it’s been 5-6 years away for 30 years now.  It is however a fascinating topic for a geek like me.

No need to create millions of robots, one specific virus tailored to humans would be a much more efficient way to go or gas like you suggested.  Self replication is the holy grail and could spawn a million interesting story lines.  I’ve come across some stories along this line I will dig up…

http://www.tested.com/tech/3d-printing/453768-nasa-3d-printing-future-rocket-parts-lasers/
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/01/22/company-plans-to-mine-asteroids-with-first-fireflies-spacecraft/

Doing so in space is the way to go and it could occur in a generation.  The power of doubling is mind-boggling.  If we can build a machine that could duplicate it self once every 2 years it would not be terribly impressive to most people…2 years!  But in 40 years there would be a million of them in orbit.  In 60 years a trillion and in 100 years perhaps not enough raw materials in the solar system to create a million trillion of them…If I am wrong by a few years lets move out to 200 years where its a million trillion million trillion…30 zeros is a big big number!

Probably not cute and cuddles like the last clip/article.

Probably more along the lines of……

Robot warriors: Lethal machines coming of age
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21576376

ShadowHAwk, the US also sold was materials to Germany but it is true Roosevelt felt Hitler had to be stopped and that most of the trade and support was with Britain.  Had Germany not gone after minorities coupled with a competent P.R. campaign then I am certain Germany could have kept the US from declaring war.  Germany would have to be able to choke out England fairly quickly and not a 10 year starvation blockade.  By the end of 1941 the US still could not muster the political support required to declare war.  Hitler was a fool to declare war on the US first.  Had he not done that one easily avoidable act it might have been another year even with Pearl Harbour before the US comes to the aid of England.  Had he actively worked to keep the US out of the war in Europe/Africa it could easily have been 2-3 more years if ever.

The old saying “If things were different they wouldn’t be the same” comes to mind if you change too much about Hitler and Nazism.  With that in mind a questionable option as unsavory as it is….could be “Avoid genocidal tendencies until victory is won.”

My grandfather fought with the British Expeditionary force in Russian fighting for the Tsarist side.  I wish I knew more about him.  I do know he was fighting past when the war with Germany was over and his side didn’t win, the Tsarists lost.  As a young boy I remember him talking about crossing the ocean, ship losing a propeller in the storm, catching fire and sinking the day after it got into port and then it got bad he said and didn’t talk more about it.  Of course he was 72 the day I was born so was pretty old by the time I could remember him and his few stories.  He was born in 1895 and his first kid was in 1935 so no doubt the war affected him to start a family so late.

You know you are getting old when you can remember talking to somebody born in the 1800s……

Razor…… Nice!

Submarines can always hit undetected submarines.

So a sub is almost as a good as a destroyer other than it cannot vector planes or battleships onto the undetected enemy sub and cost/firepower ratio is different?

The same thing applies to all russian generals in WWI, why single out one of the more successful ones who didn’t lose?  I suppose I am thinking the general himself would have to lose personally eventually.  He never lost a battle so a bit hard to put him in this boat.

Interesting observations.  I wonder how many ships of oil England required compared to those of food stuffs?  Oil cargo ships may have been easier to escort as there were fewer of them compared to food shipments.  I thought I had read somewhere that the threat was England not being able to feed itself more than the oil earlier on.  Could be wrong tho.

Good point.  I knew nothing about General Alexei Brusilov 2 hours ago.  I don’t see where he lost anything.  I somewhat disagree with aequitas et veritas.  I think he was more of a patriot than a hero tho he was certainly brave and heroic but many soldiers are.  He does appear to have been at the cusp of modern warfare, a pioneer in blitzkrieg tactics, early forms of it with limited technologies anyways.

Garg, still laughing out loud at your analogy.  Good one!!!  Man I can’t wait to have a drink with you and da boys!

Fishmoto, I didn’t know that about Sam Houston.  Thanks.

Interesting and good questions.  I wonder if oil was the right target and not food.  The island could survive without much oil, tho it would have been harder to fight.  The people could be deprived of oil for the military, but not food.  The island could not feed itself, starving people will sue for peace.  look at Germany in 1918.

I’m guessing the oil was mostly from the US and that runs the risk of bring the US into the war.  However food shipments could be targeted at non-US supplies of food from the rest of the British commonwealth, like Canada….

The last items would also have been huge.  Had their propaganda machine been used to turn some soviets against Stalin they could have had much help from the local populaces.

But even had the racial persecution and the export of scientists occurred and the US got the bomb about the same time, if they were not at war with Germany and only Japan and England had fallen, a nuclear US I think would live with a non-nuclear Germany had Germany spent some effort and propaganda on the US citizens convincing them that Germany had no beef with the US and that it was just a european thing.

Had it not, the US would have been delayed less than the Germans would have been advanced.  It was not just a few top level nuclear scientist the Germans were short of, it was the huge huge resources put into actually producing the bomb.  The Germans were really not that close at all to making a bomb.  Perhaps by 1950 they could have one.  Look how long it too the Russians and they stole the plans from the US and had the raw materials and manpower to produce what was required.

I think you could script a game plan for Germany starting in 1935 that makes them master of the world if Hitler could get into power maybe using some fascist philosophies early on then once in power cut that crap out and concentrate on winning wars.  Very scary if Hitler could have suppressed his end goals until the war was won.

I agree that the goal would be to squeeze out England, more subs and more planes like you said at the right moment before the US got involved was critical.

ABWorsham, so your natives helped beat the Mexicans off then lived or rather died to regret it.  The natives around here were promised the Michigan area by the British for helping the colony of upper Canada ward off an American invasion.  So how did that native nation of Michigan work out for them?

A friendly poke at Garg…. I’m no racist but I don’t mind giving the natives a few bucks a month just for being native and the losers of their lands.  Kinda like screwing some guys wife then buying him a beer later because you kinda feel a bit guilty.  Prepares for the incoming western volley!  :-D

Earth Science 1F90 at Brock University was known as “rocks for jocks”.  I was in computer science so neither a rock head nor a jock head, but it did fill my context requirements.

Limestone does have a tendency to dissolve and form caves and sinkholes……

It is a good list.  I didn’t pick simpler tanks only because big attrition tank battles occurred in Russia and by this time the end was already assured.  Even if the soviets fell in 1942 it would be to late to take out England and the deadline to win all out in Europe was by the time the atom bomb had been developed.

Germany producing more subs in 1944 then in 1935+36+37+38+39+40 tells a story.  Even 91 in 1945 was more than all the years of 35-39.

Taking out England first before the US got into the war.  Then letting Japan and the USA duke it out while Germany takes out Russia as Japan loses.  The US gets the bomb, defeats Japan and leaves Germany alone.  Very plausible.

I suspect the issue is with the sympatico.ca domain I was using.  Would be interesting if anyone out there had a @sympatico.ca domain email out there to try and register.

Jeremy, if you were considering a different web hosting company I would suggest you look at:

http://www.actioncorporation.com/

or as I now see they are:

http://www.reactioninternet.com/

I grew up with the owner, we both got into software writing at 14 in the early 80s.  Price is one metric, performance and offerings are another.  Paul is among  the most intelligent people I have met and one heck of a drummer!

Ah yes, I see that page now.

Just a suggestion.  On the fmgcon.com/ main page, it would be helpful if there was a obvious specific link that was for the site registration and another obvious link for the event registration.

Perhaps my confusion was a result of my bit of brain injury I got a few years back.  Before that when writing software and user interfaces I would have beta testers use it and ensured they had zero experience with the user interface or software operations before hand.  As a developer you live the creation, what seems obvious to you is not so obvious to a complete newbie to the project.

I was looking for registration first, then and only then did it seem obvious to me to click the convention discussions link……as to discuss you have to register to the site!  Yeah, maybe me being a bit too linear in thinking!  I registered for the event but got no ‘user name’ in that process so was a bit perplexed.

Interesting facts witt!

I find it fascinating that the army of Mexico could not conquer the nation of Texas in the late 1830s and most of the 1840s.  No wonder 75 years later they didn’t want to take on not only the army of Texas but that of the United States during WW I!

I always appreciate reading your factoids!

Right IL, I did use the word attack from Carthage when talking about the war launched by Carthage.  Really, you are that anal about specific usages of the word attack and war etc but even with your masters degree from stanford you were claiming Hannibal was born in Turkey.   It seems obvious to me and everyone else you are using this thread as a platform to attack myself and Garg.

IL, you really need to make a new thread devoted to whatever it is you are really fighting about.

I have to agree with aequitas et veritas.  This thread is about Military History’s Best Loser.  Please do not use this as a forum to continue your personal hostilities between myself and you and Garg and you.  You chimed in to personally attack my position and I still don’t know what you are disagreeing about in what I said.

Until you can politely explain to me exactly it is that I said that you feel is incorrect I am going to ignore you in this thread and allow it to return to what it was really intended for.  Military History’s Best Loser Disagree, but don’t be disagreeable about it.  Everyone else who disagrees with me can do so politely and we can debate and agree to disagree, what is it about you that prevents that from occurring here?