tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post6465882459063452152..comments2024-03-28T12:29:39.157-07:00Comments on Graphic Firing Table: Battles Long Ago: Yalu River 1894FDChiefhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10607785969510234092noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post-76267088323287783552013-09-16T07:41:34.731-07:002013-09-16T07:41:34.731-07:00Ael: Homestead is a good idea. Let me think about...Ael: Homestead is a good idea. Let me think about that...<br /><br />And, yeah, it'd be hard to approach that one impartially.FDChiefhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10607785969510234092noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post-72605978000881312902013-09-16T07:40:51.968-07:002013-09-16T07:40:51.968-07:00Ael: Yeah, I don't remember where I read this ...Ael: Yeah, I don't remember where I read this but I was reading not so long ago that 21st Century Western civilization is basically coasting on the fumes of the Second Industrial Revolution (the 1850-1900 one - I was wrong on the terminology for the comment above); the internal combustion engine, in particular, is the big hold-back. The "Third" revolution - the digital/information breakthrough that started about 1950 - is more or less a subset of the scientific jump made by the Second.<br /><br />And same-same for my grandfather McMillan; he was born to a former crofter in an Edinburgh council house with gas light and a communal pump. His son was born in a house with electric light and a 1922 Ford out front...and his GRANDson (me!) was born in a house with electric light and a 1955 Ford our front. And MY son was born in a house with electric light and a 1997 Honda out front...and a computer in the living room.<br /><br />Same-same with our military technology. Give or take some sophisticated commo, guided munitions, and fast movers a good officer of 1945 would adapt pretty quickly to command of a 2013 mech infantry battalion. But the same officer brought forward from 1918? Hell of a lot tougher, but do-able (the basic combined arms interaction is there, if very rudimentary). But go back another 50 years and it just isn't possible; the technological gap is way too huge...<br /><br />It'll be interesting to see if sometime in the next 50 years we figure out a "next wave" past the internal combustion engine. If we do I can see a "Fourth" revolution happening. If not, though, it looks like more of the past 50 years with ever smaller leaps forward...FDChiefhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10607785969510234092noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post-62441914309707983892013-09-15T21:03:01.928-07:002013-09-15T21:03:01.928-07:00Well, if your blood pressure can handle it, you m...Well, if your blood pressure can handle it, you might consider the Homestead Strike. Much of the action took place earlier in the summer, but it was resolved on October 13.<br /><br />As far as rate of change goes, I think that things have slowed down in the last 50 years. A very old friend of mine says his grandfather was born in the highlands in a round stone house that hadn't really changed since neolithic times. He died in a house with porcelain toilets, an ice box, electric lights, a radio, a telephone and with a car parked outside. Today (80 years later) I live in a house with porcelain toilets, a fridge, electric lights, a computer, a TV and a car parked outside. Oh, I also carry my phone around.Aelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10788190394672505925noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post-31540211809119605102013-09-15T08:58:02.333-07:002013-09-15T08:58:02.333-07:00Ael: When you think about it, the fifty years from...Ael: When you think about it, the fifty years from 1850 to 1900 - not coincidentally the height of the First Industrial Revolution - were a period of military ferment unlike nearly anything before or since.<br /><br />When you stop and think about it, a Western army officer of 1750 (or 1700, for that matter) would have been pretty comfortable stepping into the shoes of his 1850 counterpart. The weapons were a little longer-ranging and the tactics a little looser (thanks to the skirmishing innovations of the Napoleonic era) but the basic infantry-cavalry-artillery combination was fundamentally unchanged.<br /><br />Likewise a naval officer of 1660 would have recognized the line-of-battle of 1850; wooden sailing ships firing short smoothbore cannon in a broadside? Been there, done that...<br /><br />But by 1870 you've got the central battery ship, rifled cannon and armored warships at sea and rifled muskets and cannon on land, no to mention the huge changes in logistics that the railroads have brought and command-and-control changes of the telegraph. By 1890 the poor 18th Century guy would be hard pressed to even identify the armies and navies of the turn of the 18th Century, what with turreted steel-armored warships and soldiers hidden in the landscape firing rifles behind sandbagged and barbed-wired positions...<br /><br />That's what makes the late Victorian period so fascinating to me. Like all the Change Periods of "punctuated evolution" there's all kinds of intriguing and bizarre innovations, some which lead to genuine revolution, some to dead-end cul-de-sacs, but all of them fascinatingly unsettled...FDChiefhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10607785969510234092noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post-13797905427264375712013-09-15T08:48:49.480-07:002013-09-15T08:48:49.480-07:00DF: Well, the battles for October are getting slim...DF: Well, the battles for October are getting slim. There's Zama in 202BC where the Carthaginians get handed their notice, and Tours in 732. I'm more interested in the latter as an engagement (Zama is really just the inevitable conclusion of a maritime empire trying to fight a continental one on land and finding what a mug's game THAT is...) but the problem is that the contemporary sources are just impossible. There's just no real way to tell exactly what happened on the field of Tours and why.FDChiefhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10607785969510234092noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post-15738568011712341062013-09-13T20:44:29.193-07:002013-09-13T20:44:29.193-07:00People often don't realize just how fast the n...People often don't realize just how fast the naval technology was changing at that time. Until the Dreadnaught put everything into a nice neat package, Navies and Naval shipyards were trying a lot of goofy things.<br /><br />Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Aelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10788190394672505925noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post-62279950784786654112013-09-13T12:23:46.114-07:002013-09-13T12:23:46.114-07:00Not a conflict I know much about, but as usual, a ...Not a conflict I know much about, but as usual, a fascinating and engaging account. Love the nutty ship designs. <br /><br />How many Battles pieces is this now? Every one worth reading. And to think last year you said you thought you were out of ideas! What have you got planned next?Don Francisconoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post-19623392326623076672013-09-13T11:10:35.276-07:002013-09-13T11:10:35.276-07:00Brian: thanks. I'm an earthpig both by profes...Brian: thanks. I'm an earthpig both by profession and inclination but sometimes the watery stuff is just the more important. In this case the land battles of the First Sino-Japanese War were so ridiculously one-sided they weren't really worth talking about.<br /><br />The only way that Qing China had a chance would have been if it'd had a decent navy and been able to cut off the Japanese expeditionary force from the Home Islands, so the naval side of the war was critical. Of course they couldn't, and didn't, but I think this fight points out 1) that it was a nearer-run thing than it looks at first glance, and 2) that as important as being technically and tactically proficient as a military force is having a political leadership that understands the geopolitically critical factors for national defense and pays attention to them.<br /><br />Empress Cixi's looting of military funds to build her damn Summer Palace was criminally inexcusable, and hopefully the dead sailors of the Yalu have been gleefully barbequing her damned soul in Hell these many decades. She killed them as dead as if she'd pulled the lanyard herself.FDChiefhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10607785969510234092noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post-78330214088652179372013-09-13T09:36:20.322-07:002013-09-13T09:36:20.322-07:00Bravo! another well written and researched piece. ...Bravo! another well written and researched piece. Naval stuff doesn't float my boat (snicker) but you covered an important battle in Japan's rise.<br /><br />Well done.Brianhttp://brtrain.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post-18030678664467709662013-09-12T06:51:13.593-07:002013-09-12T06:51:13.593-07:00mike: One of the many bits of history and geograph...mike: One of the many bits of history and geography that 99.8% of U.S. citizens are unaware of is the old, old antagonism between Japan and China, and the larger history of everybody and their dog piling on China back in the 19th and early 20th Centuries. But the Chinese remember, and not fondly.<br /><br />I didn't look into the ground campaigns much, but my general impression is that they are covered (in English) with the same sort of brevity that the naval actions are. Much of the material seems to be fairly general and addresses the overall war rather than the specific engagements and military details.<br /><br />I suspect a LOT of that has to do with the lack of information from the Qing side.<br /><br />And Yuan was one of the "warlords" that made China such a fun place after the 1911 Revolution. So, yeah, things were kind of a mess because of the Beiyang, and, trust me, the Chinese haven't forgotten that, either...FDChiefhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10607785969510234092noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post-63965428156564220832013-09-11T21:38:29.805-07:002013-09-11T21:38:29.805-07:00Chief -
Thanks for an interesting post. I had r...Chief - <br /><br />Thanks for an interesting post. I had read a magazine article about this many, many years ago but it had nowhere near the detail you dug up.<br /><br />I love Chinese cinema. Wish this one would be dubbed in English. Shows the battle thru Chinese eyes. And earlier if I am following it shows the bureaucratic arguments for naval buildup - ignored by the Qings. Shows the dog. Shows the old admiral drinking his cup of hemlock. Shows the assassination of a Chinese negotiator who signed the surrender by an enraged Chinese patriot. Does show an Anglo professor early on but I did not see hide nor hair of old Philo.<br /><br />http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFWiYmZEI4o<br /><br />I wonder what books are available on the land battles. The one picture you show (#16) has some weird looking material. Is that a real historical print? <br /><br />Also on the land war wasn't General Yuan Shikai the guy that tried to start his own imperial dynasty after Sun Yat Sen overthrew the last of the Qings?<br /><br />Again, nice job.mikenoreply@blogger.com