Vanagandr

One shell and 71 hp left this game is not good for my hypertension

To be fair it was an Island country that had gotten by on blind luck/sheer incompetence of the enemy (not to say early war victories against the British weren't impressive feats, but the buck largely stops there, and further offensive actions into Burma turned into a real shitshow) when it came to ground battles (that mattered) and quick victories by sea
 
You shell anything enough its not gonna matter that you would take more casualties than necessary and it will take needlessly longer than a nation with more modern equipment and doctrine on the ground, its still going to be a win in the strategic sense, and the sea battle that made it happen mattered to Japan arguably more than any ground battle every will
 
Fact is dosent matter if the Japanese had assault rifles and main battle tanks if their fleet is still decimated, their commerce fleet bleed white, and their outposts outside the home islands are isolated.
 
A loss at sea has far reaching effects.
 
Sure the fact that American marines more often than not went up against a Japanese soldier with antiquated weaponry with and a inefficient at best and suicidal at worst chain of command helped, but what helped a hell of alot more is that 16 of his buddies died from the month long coastal bombardment, and 10 others starved to death or died of dysentery when everything but the clothes on their backs and weapons in their hands were lost in the mass retreat away from the devastating air and seaborne onslaught. 

Poverty creates extremism, and I think we can take the example of the South after the Civil War too. The impoverishment caused by the war was never addressed during reparations as the South was accepted back into the Union, and suddenly there's a lot of angry people doing very antisocial things. As far as the people of Germany were concerned, the rebuilding of Germany went pretty decently for both the East and West (as far as I'm concerned, fuck the West for putting literal Nazis in positions of power), but when the DDR died, jobs died with it and were never replaced by the new German Federal Republic. Note the correlation of GDP to NPD votes. Again though, I think there are too many factors involved to definitively place blame on any one thing, although I'm entirely certain that work opportunities are a factor.

Fun ancedote; I had some very specific problems when I tried to learn Spanish. I know German well, and I know some Swedish, and there are a surprising number of false friends. 'Es' means 'it' in German, and 'it is' in Spanish. 'En' means 'the' in Swedish or 'in' in Spanish. 'Og', pronounced 'oh, means 'and' in Swedish, while 'o' in Spanish, pronounced the same, means 'or'. 'Y', in Spanish is pronounced the same as 'i' in Swedish; the former means 'and', the latter means 'in'. 'De' means 'of', in Spanish, and means 'they' in Swedish, but it is pronounced 'dome'. It took several weeks before I could reliably keep myself from pronouncing 'de' Swedishly. I still use 'es' in Spanish as the German 'es', which fortunately is fairly interchangeable, at least to the point that I'm understood.
 
Another interesting thing is that whenever I learn languages now, I tend to relate them to German. IE Spanish first person's -o conjugation to German -e, second person -as to -st, third person plural -en to -en, etc.

I kinda want a Tarantino Star Wars movie. No GALACTIC THREAT OF THE WEEK, just a couple of asshole criminals doing asshole criminal things. Only in Star Wars.

As long as this thread is in permanent derailment, would it be the correct place to ask if I could get "The Worst Scandihoovian" as a member title?

Well I better fucking spampost like I'm trying to get banned and incite mayhem.
That was a pointed comment.

As long as this thread is in permanent derailment, would it be the correct place to ask if I could get "The Worst Scandihoovian" as a member title?

Some stuff I took pictures of in the German Museum in Munich; more to do with technology than anything explicitly German. Could not recommend against going if you want to see some neat stuff. I don't know if my cheap tablet can compete with the professional photography exhibited here, but this stuff was pretty neat all the same. It's so long ago I don't know if I can correctly accurately identify any of these pictures accurately to what they actually are.
 

Cutaway of a 24 cylinder airplane engine, but I don't remember exactly what it was from. Vaguely recall it having military application.
 

ME-262 engine; it had a little knob (visible on the right hand side of the engine) that you could use to turn the turbine blades. German museums are more interactive than American counterparts; I think in America you wouldn't be allowed to touch it at all.
 

I remembered this being of a German experimental VTOL craft, or at least a German designed craft, but cursory google search tells me it's an F-104. Memory is probably in the wrong here.
 

COSMONAUTS
 

Sikorsky S-58 (unless I'm mistaken), back from when turbines were less viable than radial engines for helicopter applications. I know as a pilot I wouldn't want a whirling pole of death sitting directly beside me.
 

This is an agricultural helicopter from some aircraft-focused museum from a municipality in the vicinity of Munich. The funnel at the bottom was used to distribute insecticides/herbicides etc.
 
I had many more pictures, but my tablet had an unfortunate and fatal fall from the upper bunk of a hostel bed in Cologne. I have now only the pictures that I had already uploaded.

Some stuff I took pictures of in the German Museum in Munich; more to do with technology than anything explicitly German. Could not recommend against going if you want to see some neat stuff. I don't know if my cheap tablet can compete with the professional photography exhibited here, but this stuff was pretty neat all the same. It's so long ago I don't know if I can correctly accurately identify any of these pictures accurately to what they actually are.
 

Cutaway of a 24 cylinder airplane engine, but I don't remember exactly what it was from. Vaguely recall it having military application.
 

ME-262 engine; it had a little knob (visible on the right hand side of the engine) that you could use to turn the turbine blades. German museums are more interactive than American counterparts; I think in America you wouldn't be allowed to touch it at all.
 

I remembered this being of a German experimental VTOL craft, or at least a German designed craft, but cursory google search tells me it's an F-104. Memory is probably in the wrong here.
 

COSMONAUTS
 

Sikorsky S-58 (unless I'm mistaken), back from when turbines were less viable than radial engines for helicopter applications. I know as a pilot I wouldn't want a whirling pole of death sitting directly beside me.
 

This is an agricultural helicopter from some aircraft-focused museum from a municipality in the vicinity of Munich. The funnel at the bottom was used to distribute insecticides/herbicides etc.
 
I had many more pictures, but my tablet had an unfortunate and fatal fall from the upper bunk of a hostel bed in Cologne. I have now only the pictures that I had already uploaded.

Some stuff I took pictures of in the German Museum in Munich; more to do with technology than anything explicitly German. Could not recommend against going if you want to see some neat stuff. I don't know if my cheap tablet can compete with the professional photography exhibited here, but this stuff was pretty neat all the same. It's so long ago I don't know if I can correctly accurately identify any of these pictures accurately to what they actually are.
 

Cutaway of a 24 cylinder airplane engine, but I don't remember exactly what it was from. Vaguely recall it having military application.
 

ME-262 engine; it had a little knob (visible on the right hand side of the engine) that you could use to turn the turbine blades. German museums are more interactive than American counterparts; I think in America you wouldn't be allowed to touch it at all.
 

I remembered this being of a German experimental VTOL craft, or at least a German designed craft, but cursory google search tells me it's an F-104. Memory is probably in the wrong here.
 

COSMONAUTS
 

Sikorsky S-58 (unless I'm mistaken), back from when turbines were less viable than radial engines for helicopter applications. I know as a pilot I wouldn't want a whirling pole of death sitting directly beside me.
 

This is an agricultural helicopter from some aircraft-focused museum from a municipality in the vicinity of Munich. The funnel at the bottom was used to distribute insecticides/herbicides etc.
 
I had many more pictures, but my tablet had an unfortunate and fatal fall from the upper bunk of a hostel bed in Cologne. I have now only the pictures that I had already uploaded.

Some stuff I took pictures of in the German Museum in Munich; more to do with technology than anything explicitly German. Could not recommend against going if you want to see some neat stuff. I don't know if my cheap tablet can compete with the professional photography exhibited here, but this stuff was pretty neat all the same. It's so long ago I don't know if I can correctly accurately identify any of these pictures accurately to what they actually are.
 

Cutaway of a 24 cylinder airplane engine, but I don't remember exactly what it was from. Vaguely recall it having military application.
 

ME-262 engine; it had a little knob (visible on the right hand side of the engine) that you could use to turn the turbine blades. German museums are more interactive than American counterparts; I think in America you wouldn't be allowed to touch it at all.
 

I remembered this being of a German experimental VTOL craft, or at least a German designed craft, but cursory google search tells me it's an F-104. Memory is probably in the wrong here.
 

COSMONAUTS
 

Sikorsky S-58 (unless I'm mistaken), back from when turbines were less viable than radial engines for helicopter applications. I know as a pilot I wouldn't want a whirling pole of death sitting directly beside me.
 

This is an agricultural helicopter from some aircraft-focused museum from a municipality in the vicinity of Munich. The funnel at the bottom was used to distribute insecticides/herbicides etc.
 
I had many more pictures, but my tablet had an unfortunate and fatal fall from the upper bunk of a hostel bed in Cologne. I have now only the pictures that I had already uploaded.

The first sounds like a bastard mix of Dutch and Swedish, and I feel like I could understand the last two if I were a bit better at Icelandic
 
This is hella cool

"I'm not paying my tab, what's mine is mine."
 
"But that's not fair!"
 
"FAIR? WHO'S THE FUCKING NIHILISTS HERE YOU FUCKING CRYBABIES?"

I had been meaning to start posting here for a while, but I never got around to it. I recently got back from Germany, and some trivial and not so trivial cultural differences that I found fascinating from my position as an American, so I figured I would share them, roughly in order of when I observed them. Some of these things are probably representative of Europe more generally, but I unfortunately did not get a chance to visit outside of Germany. So here are some interesting things I observed in Germany, from the perspective of an American.
 
Germany has different light switches. Whereas the US has toggle switches, Germany has seesaw switches. The thought had never occurred to me that light switches might not be a universal constant throughout the world.
 
People are much more liberal with their use of car horns. This might be a thing in the US too, but I live in a smaller town where horns are reserved for near-accidents and assholes. 
 
I was told that you could ask for tap water in most places, and they would serve it to you, at a price, and with distaste, but there was only one place I found that would actually serve me tap water (which they offered at no charge). The restaurant was flanked on both sides by hostels, so I assume they were catering to tourists who were used to free water. It's not easier to find free water outside of restaurants either. I found only one public fountain in my whole stay, and it was installed by the work of an individual philanthropist rather than the state. I've heard the historical reason for Germans' distaste for tap water is because the original water lines in Germany were not safe to drink from and cultural momentum keeps people from drinking tap water. I ended up buying a couple of half liter bottles of water, which I refilled from bathroom taps, which I was assured are perfectly safe now, throughout the trip. This was probably the most jarring thing for me.
 
I don't drink soda, but I noticed that if people would order soda at a restaurant, the waiters would pop open a bottle of soda and pour that into a glass. Soda fountains are apparently not a thing in the rest of Europe either. 
 
This didn't come as a surprise to me, since I was already acquainted with German culture, but none of the war-related museums I went to glorified the Wehrmacht or the SS at all, and would go on to say that Germans in general were complicit with the crimes of Nazi Germany. Germany, as a whole, is very apologetic about WWII, and they do not make excuses for the actions of the Nazis. Wehraboos are so terrible at wanting to be German that they completely ignore Germany's actual stance on WWII. 
 
Graffiti is almost everywhere. As best as I can tell, people have an apathetic acceptance of it, and don't bother to clean it up. There was a lot of anti-fa graffiti on street lights and things, which I thought was pretty neat. The one slogan in particular that I liked was "the 8th of May; whoever doesn't celebrate it, lost."
 
Older buildings are not treated with as much reverence as in America. There were cafes in almost every historical building, which I couldn't see happening in America. I assume that because there are a lot of older buildings relative to America, their attitude towards older buildings is different.
 
German museums are also much less secured than American museums, apparently trusting to the people themselves to not ruin antiquities, or possibly having replicas on display. They had a lot of things behind glass still, but they had some historical artifacts sitting out, and the American in me was mentally screaming. If we wonder why people think Americans are paranoid, this might be a small reason why. German museums also tended to be more interactive than American museum, in my experience, especially where technology was concerned. In the German Museum in Munich (not really much to do with Germany specifically), which was a technology oriented museum, you could hop into the cockpit of a bunch of aircraft, turn the turbine of an ME-262 engine, mess with the collective of helicopter blades, watch steam engines work, among other things.
 
I spoke with a lot of non-Americans, and talking about gun control always amused me. People are accustomed to the knowledge that Americans own guns, and they voice distaste for it, but for some reason the concept of going to a range and shooting for fun is incomprehensible. They'll get this expression of horror, and ask pointed questions as if they assume you're planning something. I'll tell them an anecdote about how one of my friends went into a gun store and came out the same day with a "civilian-model" AK-47 (for lack of better terminology that I know), and they just get this comical horrified look, as if they have no idea how Americans haven't already shot each other to death. I could never argue though that they didn't have a point when they would bring up that mass shootings are much more common in the US though.
 
German cuisine is interesting too. I could not find many traditional German restaurants, but at any given time you were in spitting distance of at least two Italian restaurants. American fast food chains, specifically McDonald's, Burger King, Subway, KFC, and Pizza Hut, are also common in Germany, and generally taste better than their American equivalents (McDonald's is an exception), in my opinion at least. 
 
Any business that does not need to be open at all times (IE hotels, hostels, hospitals, and sometimes museums) is required to be closed on one day of the week. Most shopping centers and other business places are closed on Sundays, most restaurants choose either Monday or Tuesday to be closed. There's not many places that are open 24 hours of the day, and there's not really any places equivalent to American retail stores like Walmart or Target. I understand this isn't so uncommon in the rest of the world, but it was a little weird for me since I took it for granted that you could go a Walmart on any day that isn't Christmas and buy whatever you happen to need.
 
Air conditioning is only a thing in office buildings or department stores generally. Houses and smaller buildings have neat windows that can open either side to side or from the top to let in air, and it doesn't usually become hot enough that it feels uncomfortable without air conditioning. The last few days I was in Germany it got up to 25 Celsius and I thought I was going to die.
 
Bottle deposit in Germany is between 15 to 25 cents. In any metropolitan area you're likely to see people picking through trash cans for yesterday's bottles. Bottlecaps, cigarette butts, and sometimes glass pave the streets of Germany.
 
I'll probably add to this later. Cultural phenomenon thread maybe?

I had been meaning to start posting here for a while, but I never got around to it. I recently got back from Germany, and some trivial and not so trivial cultural differences that I found fascinating from my position as an American, so I figured I would share them, roughly in order of when I observed them. Some of these things are probably representative of Europe more generally, but I unfortunately did not get a chance to visit outside of Germany. So here are some interesting things I observed in Germany, from the perspective of an American.
 
Germany has different light switches. Whereas the US has toggle switches, Germany has seesaw switches. The thought had never occurred to me that light switches might not be a universal constant throughout the world.
 
People are much more liberal with their use of car horns. This might be a thing in the US too, but I live in a smaller town where horns are reserved for near-accidents and assholes. 
 
I was told that you could ask for tap water in most places, and they would serve it to you, at a price, and with distaste, but there was only one place I found that would actually serve me tap water (which they offered at no charge). The restaurant was flanked on both sides by hostels, so I assume they were catering to tourists who were used to free water. It's not easier to find free water outside of restaurants either. I found only one public fountain in my whole stay, and it was installed by the work of an individual philanthropist rather than the state. I've heard the historical reason for Germans' distaste for tap water is because the original water lines in Germany were not safe to drink from and cultural momentum keeps people from drinking tap water. I ended up buying a couple of half liter bottles of water, which I refilled from bathroom taps, which I was assured are perfectly safe now, throughout the trip. This was probably the most jarring thing for me.
 
I don't drink soda, but I noticed that if people would order soda at a restaurant, the waiters would pop open a bottle of soda and pour that into a glass. Soda fountains are apparently not a thing in the rest of Europe either. 
 
This didn't come as a surprise to me, since I was already acquainted with German culture, but none of the war-related museums I went to glorified the Wehrmacht or the SS at all, and would go on to say that Germans in general were complicit with the crimes of Nazi Germany. Germany, as a whole, is very apologetic about WWII, and they do not make excuses for the actions of the Nazis. Wehraboos are so terrible at wanting to be German that they completely ignore Germany's actual stance on WWII. 
 
Graffiti is almost everywhere. As best as I can tell, people have an apathetic acceptance of it, and don't bother to clean it up. There was a lot of anti-fa graffiti on street lights and things, which I thought was pretty neat. The one slogan in particular that I liked was "the 8th of May; whoever doesn't celebrate it, lost."
 
Older buildings are not treated with as much reverence as in America. There were cafes in almost every historical building, which I couldn't see happening in America. I assume that because there are a lot of older buildings relative to America, their attitude towards older buildings is different.
 
German museums are also much less secured than American museums, apparently trusting to the people themselves to not ruin antiquities, or possibly having replicas on display. They had a lot of things behind glass still, but they had some historical artifacts sitting out, and the American in me was mentally screaming. If we wonder why people think Americans are paranoid, this might be a small reason why. German museums also tended to be more interactive than American museum, in my experience, especially where technology was concerned. In the German Museum in Munich (not really much to do with Germany specifically), which was a technology oriented museum, you could hop into the cockpit of a bunch of aircraft, turn the turbine of an ME-262 engine, mess with the collective of helicopter blades, watch steam engines work, among other things.
 
I spoke with a lot of non-Americans, and talking about gun control always amused me. People are accustomed to the knowledge that Americans own guns, and they voice distaste for it, but for some reason the concept of going to a range and shooting for fun is incomprehensible. They'll get this expression of horror, and ask pointed questions as if they assume you're planning something. I'll tell them an anecdote about how one of my friends went into a gun store and came out the same day with a "civilian-model" AK-47 (for lack of better terminology that I know), and they just get this comical horrified look, as if they have no idea how Americans haven't already shot each other to death. I could never argue though that they didn't have a point when they would bring up that mass shootings are much more common in the US though.
 
German cuisine is interesting too. I could not find many traditional German restaurants, but at any given time you were in spitting distance of at least two Italian restaurants. American fast food chains, specifically McDonald's, Burger King, Subway, KFC, and Pizza Hut, are also common in Germany, and generally taste better than their American equivalents (McDonald's is an exception), in my opinion at least. 
 
Any business that does not need to be open at all times (IE hotels, hostels, hospitals, and sometimes museums) is required to be closed on one day of the week. Most shopping centers and other business places are closed on Sundays, most restaurants choose either Monday or Tuesday to be closed. There's not many places that are open 24 hours of the day, and there's not really any places equivalent to American retail stores like Walmart or Target. I understand this isn't so uncommon in the rest of the world, but it was a little weird for me since I took it for granted that you could go a Walmart on any day that isn't Christmas and buy whatever you happen to need.
 
Air conditioning is only a thing in office buildings or department stores generally. Houses and smaller buildings have neat windows that can open either side to side or from the top to let in air, and it doesn't usually become hot enough that it feels uncomfortable without air conditioning. The last few days I was in Germany it got up to 25 Celsius and I thought I was going to die.
 
Bottle deposit in Germany is between 15 to 25 cents. In any metropolitan area you're likely to see people picking through trash cans for yesterday's bottles. Bottlecaps, cigarette butts, and sometimes glass pave the streets of Germany.
 
I'll probably add to this later. Cultural phenomenon thread maybe?

I had been meaning to start posting here for a while, but I never got around to it. I recently got back from Germany, and some trivial and not so trivial cultural differences that I found fascinating from my position as an American, so I figured I would share them, roughly in order of when I observed them. Some of these things are probably representative of Europe more generally, but I unfortunately did not get a chance to visit outside of Germany. So here are some interesting things I observed in Germany, from the perspective of an American.
 
Germany has different light switches. Whereas the US has toggle switches, Germany has seesaw switches. The thought had never occurred to me that light switches might not be a universal constant throughout the world.
 
People are much more liberal with their use of car horns. This might be a thing in the US too, but I live in a smaller town where horns are reserved for near-accidents and assholes. 
 
I was told that you could ask for tap water in most places, and they would serve it to you, at a price, and with distaste, but there was only one place I found that would actually serve me tap water (which they offered at no charge). The restaurant was flanked on both sides by hostels, so I assume they were catering to tourists who were used to free water. It's not easier to find free water outside of restaurants either. I found only one public fountain in my whole stay, and it was installed by the work of an individual philanthropist rather than the state. I've heard the historical reason for Germans' distaste for tap water is because the original water lines in Germany were not safe to drink from and cultural momentum keeps people from drinking tap water. I ended up buying a couple of half liter bottles of water, which I refilled from bathroom taps, which I was assured are perfectly safe now, throughout the trip. This was probably the most jarring thing for me.
 
I don't drink soda, but I noticed that if people would order soda at a restaurant, the waiters would pop open a bottle of soda and pour that into a glass. Soda fountains are apparently not a thing in the rest of Europe either. 
 
This didn't come as a surprise to me, since I was already acquainted with German culture, but none of the war-related museums I went to glorified the Wehrmacht or the SS at all, and would go on to say that Germans in general were complicit with the crimes of Nazi Germany. Germany, as a whole, is very apologetic about WWII, and they do not make excuses for the actions of the Nazis. Wehraboos are so terrible at wanting to be German that they completely ignore Germany's actual stance on WWII. 
 
Graffiti is almost everywhere. As best as I can tell, people have an apathetic acceptance of it, and don't bother to clean it up. There was a lot of anti-fa graffiti on street lights and things, which I thought was pretty neat. The one slogan in particular that I liked was "the 8th of May; whoever doesn't celebrate it, lost."
 
Older buildings are not treated with as much reverence as in America. There were cafes in almost every historical building, which I couldn't see happening in America. I assume that because there are a lot of older buildings relative to America, their attitude towards older buildings is different.
 
German museums are also much less secured than American museums, apparently trusting to the people themselves to not ruin antiquities, or possibly having replicas on display. They had a lot of things behind glass still, but they had some historical artifacts sitting out, and the American in me was mentally screaming. If we wonder why people think Americans are paranoid, this might be a small reason why. German museums also tended to be more interactive than American museum, in my experience, especially where technology was concerned. In the German Museum in Munich (not really much to do with Germany specifically), which was a technology oriented museum, you could hop into the cockpit of a bunch of aircraft, turn the turbine of an ME-262 engine, mess with the collective of helicopter blades, watch steam engines work, among other things.
 
I spoke with a lot of non-Americans, and talking about gun control always amused me. People are accustomed to the knowledge that Americans own guns, and they voice distaste for it, but for some reason the concept of going to a range and shooting for fun is incomprehensible. They'll get this expression of horror, and ask pointed questions as if they assume you're planning something. I'll tell them an anecdote about how one of my friends went into a gun store and came out the same day with a "civilian-model" AK-47 (for lack of better terminology that I know), and they just get this comical horrified look, as if they have no idea how Americans haven't already shot each other to death. I could never argue though that they didn't have a point when they would bring up that mass shootings are much more common in the US though.
 
German cuisine is interesting too. I could not find many traditional German restaurants, but at any given time you were in spitting distance of at least two Italian restaurants. American fast food chains, specifically McDonald's, Burger King, Subway, KFC, and Pizza Hut, are also common in Germany, and generally taste better than their American equivalents (McDonald's is an exception), in my opinion at least. 
 
Any business that does not need to be open at all times (IE hotels, hostels, hospitals, and sometimes museums) is required to be closed on one day of the week. Most shopping centers and other business places are closed on Sundays, most restaurants choose either Monday or Tuesday to be closed. There's not many places that are open 24 hours of the day, and there's not really any places equivalent to American retail stores like Walmart or Target. I understand this isn't so uncommon in the rest of the world, but it was a little weird for me since I took it for granted that you could go a Walmart on any day that isn't Christmas and buy whatever you happen to need.
 
Air conditioning is only a thing in office buildings or department stores generally. Houses and smaller buildings have neat windows that can open either side to side or from the top to let in air, and it doesn't usually become hot enough that it feels uncomfortable without air conditioning. The last few days I was in Germany it got up to 25 Celsius and I thought I was going to die.
 
Bottle deposit in Germany is between 15 to 25 cents. In any metropolitan area you're likely to see people picking through trash cans for yesterday's bottles. Bottlecaps, cigarette butts, and sometimes glass pave the streets of Germany.
 
I'll probably add to this later. Cultural phenomenon thread maybe?

http://www.znak.com/svrdl/news/23-06-14-19/1041689.html
 
"This year, the Ural exhibition of arms - Russia Arms Expo - will be advertised using images of fantastic animals-cyborgs, which use samples of Russian weapons. At a meeting with reporters, Deputy General Director of Uralvagonzavod Alexei Zharich, supervising the exhibition, told that this additional branding is just one of the many media "chips", which aims to make RAE 2015 not only as military expo, but as a show."
 
Here are those promo cyberanimals. 
 

 

TOS-1A Solntsepyok MLRS system
 
 

BMPT-72 turret on this Lynx.
 

 

 
 

 

Welcome Vanagandr!

I'm making a trip to Europe sometime this year. Very good timing for me.