Virdea

Like the 6.8mm SPC?

Like the 6.8mm SPC?

Like the 6.8mm SPC?

Like the 6.8mm SPC?

In the next two decades the MAS series of rifles will skyrocket in price.  If you consider that there is an estimated million Garands in civilian hands and 350,000 M14s, and now there are 400,000 M16 variants (and maybe as many as 1 million rifles all told), then I expect these weapons will plateau and even come down in price - especially since each has the possibility of later manufacture.  The 40,000 MAS 49/56 and variants that came into the US are the last that will ever arrive - the MAS 44 itself is under 2000 weapons.  Some models of MAS 36 are also extremely constrained - the MAS 36/LG48 may be under 200 weapons in the entire US inventory - while the CR39 is in the double digits.
 
Sort of like the SVT or W43 rifles.  10,000 of each came in during the 1980s then that was it.  Now they are worth 10 times what they sold for IF you can find one for sale.

I just last year ended a useless argument over the importance of logistic with a gentleman from Chicago who claimed that he taught "major strategy courses to Army people."
 
He made the following claim:  
 
1.  The word logistics is never used in Roman writing.
2.  Honor Harrington series demonstrates that logistics is not as important as good generalship.
3.  The Draka series demonstrates that even South Africa could be a world power if it ignored logistics and hired good generals.
4.  "You don't need logistics if your army looses the battle"
 
I claimed he had accidentally inserted a Twinkie in his rectum and its decay had ruined all chance of his evolution into a thinking being.

Like the 6.8mm SPC?

Like the 6.8mm SPC?

I don't think people are really fully aware of the context of this issue, so here's a quick background.
 
The Spratleys are basically a bunch of unclaimed islands and reefs in the middle of the South China Sea, which may contain some oil deposits. By virtue of being unclaimed and possibly having resources it was subject to a tug-of-war by the region, with China having the biggest share of the pie because they had the biggest stick. The Philippines is the second best claimant because the Spratleys are closest to the Philippines. The status quo for a long time was that each claimant had control of some of them (with China and the PH having the most), and that nobody would start any development unless it has the approval of all the claimants.
 
The problem is that China radically changed its position around 2010, when some frankly crazy people in the military or Politburo decided to change the definition of "Chinese territorial waters". Rather than the usual 12 nautical mile limit, China decided they were extra special and claimed their territorial waters extended to over 200 nautical miles. If the Spratleys were considered to be Chinese territory (albeit the Spratleys, being contested reefs for the most part, don't even count as "land territory" from which territorial waters can be extended - a distinction that becomes important later), this essentially means the entire South China Sea becomes Chinese territorial waters.
 
This may not seem like a big deal, but very many major sea routes go through the Souh China Sea, which feeds all of the major ports in the South East Asia region - particularly Singapore, Manila, Hong Kong, and basically every port in Vietnam. By turning the South China Sea into territorial waters, China is basically saying they have the right to instantly blockade any South East Asian nation.
 
Unfortunately Southeast Asia isn't in any real position to do anything about it. Malaysia and Indonesia are only superficially involved and are busy with their own internal problems. Thailand is technically still in the middle of a coup. Singapore is a city-state and, while having a very advanced military, has to park most of its weapons in America because Changi Naval Station can't fit everything. Vietnam to its credit continued its grand tradition of fighting China in spite of hopeless odds, and got a patrol vessel sunk for its trouble by ramming after it challenged the construction of a Chinese oil rig.
 
That, much to the groan and dismay of the region, means it's up to the Philippines to contest the claim. And given our first action was to rename the "South China Sea" to the "West Philippine Sea" in all of our maps, which was an utterly useless symbolic gesture that only succeeded in getting all of China's Internet trolls to focus their efforts against us, you can see why the region is in utter despair.
 
That said, our governement has somehow managed to be more competent and decided on the pretty smart move of taking the case to the International Tribunal for the Laws of the Sea, which is all but guaranteed to rule against China's 200 nm territorial water claim, and is a potential source of embarassment for a China still styling itself as a benovelent big brother instead of a bully.  
 
The thing is, rather than back down from this legal challenge, China very recently decided to double down on their initial mistake and to defy geography in order to avoid admitting it was wrong regarding claiming the whole South China Sea.
 
Since the first problem with their claim is that the Spratleys are still considered reefs and not islands which can exert territorial influence, China decided to spend a whole lot of money to turn those reefs into actual islands. Since they now have actual "islands" in the area which can theoretically exert territorial control, they can then claim that the other claimants are in fact merely squatters claiming reefs and can therefore be evicted. After which China reasserts its 200 nautical mile territorial water claim and turns the South China Sea into their lake.
 
Hence the recent US interventions. One of the Philippine's side-tactics in the Spratleys game since the early 2010s had been to troll the hell out of the Chinese Navy, which could not really respond to our provocations because they fear it will cause the activation of the Mutual Defense Treaty between the PH and the United States (this is why the only casualties so far in our trolling match were in fact Taiwanese fishermen shot by mistake by the Philippine Navy); and the US for the most part was in fact horrified by this potential flashpoint because they thought the court case would already settle it.
 
The man-made Chinese islands changed all that. The US military (and I hope Obama) are well aware of how this changes the game and can potentially render irrelevant our previous play of taking the case to an international court. That's why they're stepping up the patrols and they're playing tag. They want China to know they're not happy about what they're doing.

Another candidate for "simple bolt" would be the Arisakas.  Basically of the same nature as the MAS, except the cap is locked externally rather than internally, and it uses a Mauser type extractor.

The French safety is installed on each soldiers trigger finger.  
 
The reality is French rifles did not have safeties until 1945 when they were installed on the MAS 1944.  French theory - originating in the 1860s, was that a safety was just a mechanical device which could be set to the wrong setting or could mechanically fail when you needed it.  French soldiers instead maintained strict weapon discipline.  
 
Soldiers carried a weapon with a loaded magazine and no round up the spigot.  You only jacked a round in when you were ready to fire, and when the battle was over you went back to no ammo.

Bayonet deployed.

My memorial day gun.  Off I go this afternoon with my 36/51 and 10 rifle grenades.  

This is America, pardner. We use the British Imperial system.
 

Once you get permissive and euphemistic about torture and the like, you guarantee things will happen.
 
The fact is soldiers in combat (or police on the road or what have you) will once in a while loose sight of where the line is drawn.  The answer though is not to draw a new line and hope that one holds.  I am in favor of prisoner advocates with one power - to audit all interrogations and yell "stop."  Properly arranged they look to the rights of the POW without gumming up the system the way a lawyer would.  
 
And I always hear: "would you torture someone if there was a nuclear bomb ticking down in your own town"?  And I think come one, that happens like never.  Making up a 1-1million what if to prove the 999999 is weak.

ISIS POWs will (and should) have all of the rights of a prisoner under the various conventions.  Faced with barbarism the protectors of civilization cannot give up the high ground - the US never should have played loose with the WoT.
 
That said it is relatively easy to hold tribunals to assure that most of ISIS actors get some sort of punishment.  

ISIS POWs will (and should) have all of the rights of a prisoner under the various conventions.  Faced with barbarism the protectors of civilization cannot give up the high ground - the US never should have played loose with the WoT.
 
That said it is relatively easy to hold tribunals to assure that most of ISIS actors get some sort of punishment.  

ISIS POWs will (and should) have all of the rights of a prisoner under the various conventions.  Faced with barbarism the protectors of civilization cannot give up the high ground - the US never should have played loose with the WoT.
 
That said it is relatively easy to hold tribunals to assure that most of ISIS actors get some sort of punishment.  

"Is differentiation to the point of using other as a verb in a very awkward sounding construction essential to one or both of those processes"
 
I have no idea.  My training in anthropology is limited to the essentials
 
"and how would one go about measuring that sort of identity thing?"
 
This is a dissertation level discussion.  My own training is psychographics and human studies and I can think of dozens of ways to develop diversity measures.  

1) These idiots will never hit me.  Why don't they just go ahead and shoot?
2) I can't remember how it goes, ready, fire aim?  Fuck it, I will just shoot my pistol in the air.
3) Shit!  I was suppose to write down his last words, but I could not hear them.  Did he really say 'goathead' to the squad?
4) I wonder if they would still let me shoot this guy if they knew I was only 11?
5) Jesus, they always put me in the second rank and I am only 1.2 meters tall!
6) Goathead, how can he know that!
7)  You know, this would be a cool time to use my grenade.
8) I wonder what he meant by cheek weld?  Could that be why I always miss?
 

Don't you know? Age of Empires is a 100% accurate depiction of the period between the Fall of Rome (which for your convenience is a single date not a process) and the Early Modern period, and the tech tree was an essential part of daily life.
 
It's probably got a lot to do with yearly refreshes on technology being totally incompatible with having an idea of how much more of a difference quality made to effectiveness than form, for example (and a profound misunderstanding of things leading to the idea that all examples of a technology that eventually wins out are superior to all forms of an earlier technology). That and DnD is not based on the middle ages. DnD is based on a pop-cultural idea of the middle ages heavily filtered through Tolkien.

As a historian, I doubt that Arthur existed in anything like what Chanson de Geste gives us - and the annalae are 2 centuries after him before he gets mentioned, only oral tradition gives us any clue and that is weak, but one could see a warrior rising from senior regimental leader to lead the Romanized Britons.  And it is interesting to note that whatever really happened, the United States itself has only lasted slightly longer than the longest window we have for Subulae Romana di Brittanae.  
 
Anyway you can have a Twilight 2000 roman legion stick, or a straight fantasy.  People of the 4th century had magic, horrible monsters, barbarians, and all the rest.

Ok, so here is the back story that can start us on defining our game.  Please excuse me if I go into scholar mode.
 
In 388 archeological evidence shows that Hadrian's wall is abandoned.  While traditional scholars place the date of the loss of the wall as 383 the presence of coins from 387 show that it was held for a few more years.  This tells me as a historian that our knowledge of what was going in in Britain is weak at best, and subject to exploitation by game designers.  We know some of our primary source is bogus, and here I include some of the attribution to Honorius, but we do also know that on the ground Roman paid legions are off the island by 400.  Welcome to the dark age, a time when nothing happened unless it was of interest to the Greek speaking world.
 
Chronica Gallica is our only true written window into what happens in Britain that is contemporary with the events, and it is quiet until 451 when it says "Britanniae usque ad hoc tempus variis cladibus eventibusque latae in dicionem Saxonum rediguntur..."  This gives us to bits of evidence.  Britain existed as a unique entity and was no longer truly Roman.  De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae then provides our window directly after events, and it is a muddy mirror at best and in some ways over -relied on.
 
Archeological evidence though is intriguing.  From 400-500 there is a building boom in some Welch cities.  The buildings show advanced sophistication - running water, hot water, sewers, and under floor heat.  Although historians are now muddied by nationalism - the evidence is great that a Romanized kingdom existed for some 200 years in this region, and that the kingdom has largely been forgotten or subsumed by Saxon chroniclers in later years.  Despite existence of some primary source, this region rests in shadows until the time right after Charlemagne when educational reforms starts to send educated writers to the broader European hinterlands.
 
These people recreated the Roman army on a local basis, had forums, probably spoke latin and wrote down things..  They were surrounded by illiterate barbarians tribes which they made deals with, but were otherwise isolated from the rest of the world.  The world does not communicate as we might think back then - St. Patrick will do his work without much fanfare in the middle of this period but his importance will mot be recognized by Europe until the 8th century when learning returns to Europe.  
 
You literally have a blank canvas here where a great story could be told.

One question, by fall of the Roman Empire do you mean Sack of Byzantium 1453, or sack of Rome 410 - 560.
 
I think if you mean the western withdrawal phase of the Roman empire then I can help you work out a REAL cool story line for a historical model.  It means I have to bone up on my old Welsh though.
 
The final fall of Rome is also fascinating, but harder to sell to people who have never heard of an Ottoman except to assume it is a fancy French couch.

I included a section on 6.8mm superiority when used against flaming M4 tanks.