76th Anniversary of Hiroshima Bombing

[Agema]

Didn't most anti-tank rifles just get mounted on rotating chairs and become anti-air guns?

No. An anti-tank rifle is supremely unsuited to AA: it doesn't have the ability to flood the sky with bullets, or provide mid-air explosions, either of which was usually required to take out a plane. Specialised AA was thus done by autocannons or sorts of specialised artillery, although regular machine guns could also be effective if the planes were low enough.

They didn't though, apart from one very specific example (from Russia, the same country that's been using the same basic rocket setup for 60 years, they don't count). But otherwise, anti-tank cartridges went the way of the dodo along with the rifles that fired them, because their entire concept is outmoded. You don't see .55 Boys, 13.2 mm TuF, 7.92x94 mm Patronen, 7.92x107 mm DS, so on. You do see other rounds that were designed for an anti-material role still in use though, like .50 BMG, because it's still useful. It's technically still useful in it's original role too, as an anti-aircraft round. But anti-tank rifles? Gone, dust, never to be seen again.

I agree with Hipsters. An anti-tank rifle is just an anti-materiel rifle from the days when they could penetrate tanks. The basic concept is the same today as it was then: penetrative power against an armoured target where normal firearms would be ineffective. No-one uses old WW2 AT rifles just because newer, better ones were created - in much the same way effectively no armies are still equipped with Kar98s or Lee-Enfields. (Well, as a caveat, some extremely underequipped armies like Afghan warlords might have them, and some paramilitary organisations may keep them in stock - I think the Indian police do).

 

[crimson5pheonix]

No. An anti-tank rifle is supremely unsuited to AA: it doesn't have the ability to flood the sky with bullets, or provide mid-air explosions, either of which was usually required to take out a plane. Specialised AA was thus done by autocannons or sorts of specialised artillery, although regular machine guns could also be effective if the planes were low enough.

Funnily enough that is what .50 BMG was designed for, AA. Granted it was designed when planes were wood and paper, but still. It's still used today for AA. Granted at this point it's only going to be useful against helicopters and the like, but still. You might get lucky against a low flying jet.

I agree with Hipsters. An anti-tank rifle is just an anti-materiel rifle from the days when they could penetrate tanks. The basic concept is the same today as it was then: penetrative power against an armoured target where normal firearms would be ineffective. No-one uses old WW2 AT rifles just because newer, better ones were created - in much the same way effectively no armies are still equipped with Kar98s or Lee-Enfields.

Well no, there are no anti-tank rifles anymore, and an anti-material rifle can't penetrate tank armor. Anti-tank back then was indeed anti-tank, for disabling tanks. They could be used in anti-material roles, heavy things other than tanks, but they were meant for tanks.

Conversely today, there are anti-material rifles, but they can't be used effectively against tanks. There is no man-portable rifle today that's useful against contemporary tanks. Going back to something else Hipster brought up that I largely skated on, he mentioned using hunting rifles to snipe and vice-versa. That's slightly more accurate than saying anti-material rifles are anti-tank rifles, but realistically you will never expect a Steyr Scout (a dedicated hunting rifle) to pull off the 3km+ shots that snipers can get with a properly designed sniper rifle using a proper sniper round. To an extent a gun is a gun, but also guns are absolutely not interchangeable, rounds are not interchangeable, and not all guns can perform in all roles. Anti-tank is a very very specific role, and it's not useful anymore.

That being said about hunting rifles, the current record sniper kill was made with a rifle that weighs 12 kg while the Steyr Scout weighs 3 kg, so I know which one I'd want to carry around all day looking for a deer.

 

[Revnak]

To bring this on topic, the nuclear bomb never should’ve been used on Hiroshima, American bombing campaigns were mostly worthless and just served to increase the total of civilian deaths, and Truman was an imbecile.

 

[BrawlMan]

Hiroshima remembers atomic bombing, warns of 'threat of total annihilation'

Hiroshima marks the 76th anniversary of the world’s first atomic bombing with the city's mayor urging leaders to unite to eliminate nuclear weapons.

www.latimes.com

God damn nuclear weapons still exist.

From last year.

​

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Going back to something else Hipster brought up that I largely skated on, he mentioned using hunting rifles to snipe and vice-versa. That's slightly more accurate than saying anti-material rifles are anti-tank rifles, but realistically you will never expect a Steyr Scout (a dedicated hunting rifle) to pull off the 3km+ shots that snipers can get with a properly designed sniper rifle using a proper sniper round. To an extent a gun is a gun, but also guns are absolutely not interchangeable, rounds are not interchangeable, and not all guns can perform in all roles. Anti-tank is a very very specific role, and it's not useful anymore.

That being said about hunting rifles, the current record sniper kill was made with a rifle that weighs 12 kg while the Steyr Scout weighs 3 kg, so I know which one I'd want to carry around all day looking for a deer.

I'm just going to point out that the most commonly used sniper rifle (accounting for military and police) is the Remington 700, which is literally just a pretty standard bolt action hunting rifle. It's known as the m24 in military service in the US.

 

[SilentPony]

To bring this on topic, the nuclear bomb never should’ve been used on Hiroshima, American bombing campaigns were mostly worthless and just served to increase the total of civilian deaths, and Truman was an imbecile.

To be fair the bombing had nothing to do with the war at all. The Japanese never really cared about it, they only surrendered when Russia started to invade. And the US only ever used the bomb to show off to the Russians what it could do. Hiroshima was just "Atomic Bomb, filmed in front of a live audience". I don't even think the Japanese leadership had even heard about Nagasaki until after they decided to surrender because the Russians invaded the same day, and the Emperor would rather deal with the Americans than deal with the Russians.
And to be fair total war is the most horrific thing humans can engage in, with the express purpose of killing civilians until support for the war stops. So the bombing campaigns in Japan weren't exactly "worthless" if their goal was simply to kill civilians, which it was.

 

[Revnak]

To be fair the bombing had nothing to do with the war at all. The Japanese never really cared about it, they only surrendered when Russia started to invade. And the US only ever used the bomb to show off to the Russians what it could do. Hiroshima was just "Atomic Bomb, filmed in front of a live audience". I don't even think the Japanese leadership had even heard about Nagasaki until after they decided to surrender because the Russians invaded the same day, and the Emperor would rather deal with the Americans than deal with the Russians.
And to be fair total war is the most horrific thing humans can engage in, with the express purpose of killing civilians until support for the war stops. So the bombing campaigns in Japan weren't exactly "worthless" if their goal was simply to kill civilians, which it was.

Here’s the thing, that doesn’t work. This was shown by later wars where the US bombed every standing structure in N Korea or N Vietnam and the enemy kept fighting. Killing civilians does not diminish support for a war, it increases it.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

I'm just going to point out that the most commonly used sniper rifle (accounting for military and police) is the Remington 700, which is literally just a pretty standard bolt action hunting rifle. It's known as the m24 in military service in the US.

It should be pointed out that

A) I did admit you could have more crossover there than you can with anti-material vs anti-tank, just that a hunting rifle isn't going to have the precision of a properly designed precision marksman's rifle like an L115A3, which is why you don't see an M24 in the list of top range sniper kills despite being so common.

B) The M24 isn't just a rebranded 700. It is quite similar, fair enough, but it is also slightly redesigned for greater precision than an off the shelf Remington, and is consummately heavier for it. And I'm sure much more expensive.

 

[Gordon_4]

Here’s the thing, that doesn’t work. This was shown by later wars where the US bombed every standing structure in N Korea or N Vietnam and the enemy kept fighting. Killing civilians does not diminish support for a war, it increases it.

It absolutely can work, but you kind of have to go all in. Bombing civilians in Germany (and England) reduced the available pool of soldiers, sailors and airmen. It also deprived each nation of its workers and industrial bases for war material and food. Either could have had that happen to them; just circumstances meant in the end Germany ran out first.

In Vietnam there was (apparently) a conscious effort to win hearts and minds because the ostensible enemy was Communism and not an enemy sovereign state. The Allies really didn’t have much interest in winning hearts and minds in Germany, they just wanted to stomp the Third Reich into the mud as hard and as viciously as possible.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

How many weapons has humanity invented that don't still exist in one form or another?

To rephrase,

75 Years After Hiroshima And Nagasaki, Why Are We Still Building Nuclear Weapons?

75 years after the bombings of HIroshima and Nagasaki, it's long past time to retire nuclear weapons once and for all. But old thinking and special interest lobbying are standing in the way.

www.forbes.com

We’re basically just dismantling old retired warheads on one hand to appease the NPT and making newer, more efficient and deadly arsenals because why not.

Status of World Nuclear Forces - Federation of American Scientists

Despite progress in reducing nuclear weapon arsenals since the Cold War, the world’s combined inventory of nuclear warheads remains at a very high level.

fas.org

But to reiterate in the form of another question, how many weapons has humanity invented that can fuck up the entire planet?

 

[Mister Mumbler]

How many weapons has humanity invented that don't still exist in one form or another?

Chariots.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Chariots.

Isn't the modern approximation of a chariot just a car?

 

[davidmc1158]

Isn't the modern approximation of a chariot just a car?

Nope. Now a motorcycle with a sidecar maybe.

 

[SilentPony]

Here’s the thing, that doesn’t work. This was shown by later wars where the US bombed every standing structure in N Korea or N Vietnam and the enemy kept fighting. Killing civilians does not diminish support for a war, it increases it.

It absolutely can work, you just have to commit. Sherman's march to the sea during the American Civil War is one of the first examples of a modern total war tactics, where nothing and no one wasn't a viable target, and it eviscerated the moral of the South. It left such an impact that to this day, 150 years later, the South still views Sherman as a war criminal because of the violence his army did, and in his view the more violence the faster the war is over and the more lives are saved in the long run. 5,000 civilians die and millions of dollars of damage are done, and in exchange they prevent another Gettysburg where some 50,000 are killed in 3 days.

 

[CM156]

Firing dead diseased donkeys over the walls.

Chariots.

Both correct.

Back to the topic at hand, I don't think the topic about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are just about those historic events. It's also about the more important question of if a country is ever, under any circumstance, justified in using atomic weapons. Especially against a nation that does not possess them.

We have invented weapons that I'm not entirely sure we've invented the moral restraint not to use.

 

[Seanchaidh]

 

[Gordon_4]

Both correct.

Back to the topic at hand, I don't think the topic about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are just about those historic events. It's also about the more important question of if a country is ever, under any circumstance, justified in using atomic weapons. Especially against a nation that does not possess them.

We have invented weapons that I'm not entirely sure we've invented the moral restraint not to use.

See also; Facebook.

 

[Agema]

Funnily enough that is what .50 BMG was designed for, AA. Granted it was designed when planes were wood and paper, but still. It's still used today for AA. Granted at this point it's only going to be useful against helicopters and the like, but still. You might get lucky against a low flying jet.

Right. But that's an ammunition type, and as the "MG" gives away, it was originally for a machine gun, not a rifle. Planes are hard to hit: you're going to struggle to take them out of the sky with a weapon that fires large bullets at a rate of ~10/min.

Well no, there are no anti-tank rifles anymore, and an anti-material rifle can't penetrate tank armor. Anti-tank back then was indeed anti-tank, for disabling tanks. They could be used in anti-material roles, heavy things other than tanks, but they were meant for tanks.

Right, but what you're arguing here is sort of semantic: there are no longer anti-tank rifles because high-penetration rifles are no longer used to damage tanks. But I think this is a very dubious argument when that type of rifle is still going, just repurposed for a different type of target.

 

[Revnak]

It absolutely can work, but you kind of have to go all in. Bombing civilians in Germany (and England) reduced the available pool of soldiers, sailors and airmen. It also deprived each nation of its workers and industrial bases for war material and food. Either could have had that happen to them; just circumstances meant in the end Germany ran out first.

In Vietnam there was (apparently) a conscious effort to win hearts and minds because the ostensible enemy was Communism and not an enemy sovereign state. The Allies really didn’t have much interest in winning hearts and minds in Germany, they just wanted to stomp the Third Reich into the mud as hard and as viciously as possible.

More ordinance was dropped on Vietnam and N Korea than in Germany or Japan, at the very least in terms of concentration, and it really isn’t even close.

It absolutely can work, you just have to commit. Sherman's march to the sea during the American Civil War is one of the first examples of a modern total war tactics, where nothing and no one wasn't a viable target, and it eviscerated the moral of the South. It left such an impact that to this day, 150 years later, the South still views Sherman as a war criminal because of the violence his army did, and in his view the more violence the faster the war is over and the more lives are saved in the long run. 5,000 civilians die and millions of dollars of damage are done, and in exchange they prevent another Gettysburg where some 50,000 are killed in 3 days.

See above. Tactics of total war also involve much more than just bombing, my criticism is specific. Sherman also destroyed communication lines and quite importantly disrupted the social structures around him for miles in all directions, which is important to making that loss of morale happen rather than simply hardening support for the war.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

Right. But that's an ammunition type, and as the "MG" gives away, it was originally for a machine gun, not a rifle. Planes are hard to hit: you're going to struggle to take them out of the sky with a weapon that fires large bullets at a rate of ~10/min.

But ammunition can be used in more than one gun. They adapted .50 BMG for single shot rifles, but never saw fit to adapt anti-tank rounds to machine guns.

Right, but what you're arguing here is sort of semantic: there are no longer anti-tank rifles because high-penetration rifles are no longer used to damage tanks. But I think this is a very dubious argument when that type of rifle is still going, just repurposed for a different type of target.

It is somewhat semantic, but that's kinda why I picked that kind of gun, an anti-tank rifle isn't just a high-penetration rifle. It's a tool with a highly specific purpose. They didn't make anti-tank rifles to penetrate armor, they made anti-tank rifles to disable tanks. Penetrating their armor was the best way to do it with a man-portable rifle, but that's just the means to the design end. And that's why I point out that nothing of the anti-tank rifles remain. Anti-material rounds are for destroying materials. Anti-tank rounds are for disabling tanks of the interwar period.