The man's name was Dr. Richard Jordan Gatling, inventor of the Gatling gun, pictured above. After inventing the weapon, Gatling wrote, "It occurred to me that if I could invent a machine – a gun – which could by its rapidity of fire, enable one man to do as much battle duty as a hundred, that it would, to a large extent supersede the necessity of large armies, and consequently, exposure to battle and disease [would] be greatly diminished."
Same sort of thinking that prompted the U.S. to drop a pair of nukes on Japan. The jury has still not reached a verdict on that (and probably never will). It's safe to say, however, that the Gatling Gun did not achieve its designer's stated goal. The Vulcan miniguns and their variants have proved, unequivocally, that having more firepower will NOT make people stop hatin' on you.
ReplyDeleteits funny most advancements in small arms (aka soldier portable weapons) were intended to reduce the number of wars and people killed in conflicts. Hiram Maxim the inverter of the modern day machine gun also intended for his weapon to make war so horrific that it would cease to happen.
ReplyDeletethe funny thing is statistically it has worked, even though we are still killing each other.
Same sort of thinking that prompted the U.S. to drop a pair of nukes on Japan. The jury has still not reached a verdict on that....
ReplyDeleteThe jury is still out?!?....damn you fricking hippies are so effing stupid.....
August 10, 1945, just a day after the bombing of Nagasaki, Japan submits its acquiescence to the Potsdam Conference terms of unconditional surrender, as President Harry S. Truman orders a halt to atomic bombing.
Jury came back in 24 hours and said Holy shadowy outlines Tojo, we give up......
.....and you are stupid enough to thin the jury is still out....
http://www.gatlingguntheultimate.com/PRICE-LIST.html
ReplyDeleteAnd any 18 year old can get one:
COWBOY GATLING GUN
1879 POINTER ROD GUN
SIX BARREL IN 22 CAL. LONG RIFLE
BARRELS ARE 20" INCHES LONG 4140 STEEL TG
40" INCH TALL TRIPOD WITH SOLID BRASS FOLDING BRACE
BARRELED RECEIVER IS 30" INCHES LONG
GUN IS 45" INCHES TALL ON TRIPOD WITH OUT MAGAZINE
GUN SUPPLIED WITH TWO 40 ROUND MAGAZINES
GUN SUPPLIED WITH TOOL KIT AND CLEANING KIT
GUN FINISHES OF 1880s WITH HIGH POLISH BRASS
SERIAL NUMBERS ARE CONTINUED FROM ORIGINAL GUNS
GATLING GUN WEIGHT ON TRIPOD - 100 LBS.
no questions asked......
as long as they pass a FFL, for the low low price of $10,000.00
Thomas:
ReplyDeleteThanks for being a fucking moron, it always makes my day when some bloodthirsty, moralistic piece of shti coward like you refutes a philosophical contention for which they have no evidence.
Japan's surrender sure did make "The Bomb" look like a grand idea, so much so that between the U.S., Russia, France, Great Britian, North Korea, India, Pakistan and (almost certainly) Israel all gots 'em. Between the weapons themselves, the facilites used to produce them, the weapons delivery systems used to drop them on our enemies (whomever they might be at some point in time), the monies spent on payrolls and associated costs and the monies already spent (or committed) for clean up of nuclear weapons manufacturing facilities (Rocky Flats, CO and Hanford, WA--to name but two) the spending is in the trillions of dollars. Much of that money could have been used for other purposes without compromising the safety or territoriality of the countries involved.
This "fricking hippie" did his four in the AF and has never been arrested for being stoned, has paid his own way in life and has worked enough to not have to worry about being called lazy by folks such as yourself.
I'm guessing, by the tone of your comment, that you're a rednecked gun owner who's "Proud to be an American", you could change that to "Proud to be an clueless asshole" and it would be a little more accurate.
Mikeb302000:
I think that commenters such as Thomas view the use of nukes as the ultimate DGU. It's been pretty much impossible to show that guns in homes leads to FEWER deaths by gunshot; like wise it's been impossible to show that possession of nuclear weapons leads to greater safety of the nations who have them. Nukes sure didn't stop the bombings at the WTC in 1993 or 2001 or the terrorist attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma city. Oh, sorry, my bad; I'll withdraw that last one, the Murrah Building was blowed up by some True MurKKKan Patriots (TM). Jeez, it's too bad that the SKKKrotalMurKKKanPatriotiKKK Front wasn't around back then; Timmy McVeigh coulda just carried his SKS or whatever around downtown at some Teatard rally and gotten his rage on in a safe and sensible manner.
democommie although i don't agree with Thomas's attitude. the trillions of dollars the US spend is nothing compared to the millions of lives that would have been lost if we had to invade main land Japan the conventional way. Japan still had 2-3 million soldiers in china and Japan and they would have fought even more brutally than Iwo Jima was. the Japanese government had done a good job of indoctrinating the citizens of Japan to think that the US and Britain were a bunch of barbarians out to pillage and kill everything in their way. a great example of this is how little progress the British made against the Japanese in south east Asia during the war.
ReplyDeleteThis "rednecked gun owner who is "Proud to be an American" did his five in the USA and NG and has never been stoned, or for owning a firearm has paid his own way in life and has worked enough to not have to worry about being called lazy by folks such as yourself.
ReplyDeleteTwo atomic bombs ended the Japanese decades long murderous rampage.... that conventional forces did not....
in four days.
The Japanese only respected violence and FM&LB taught them who was the ultimate authority....
and nowhere in my post did I call you lazy or drug addled, if you want to project go right ahead.
There is a debate amongst miltary historians as to how necessary it was to drop the atomic bombs on Japan: especially the one dropped on Nagasaki.
ReplyDeleteOne school of thought is that the Japanese were indeed ready to fight to the last.
Another points out that By any rational yardstick, they were not. Japan already had been defeated militarily by June 1945. Almost nothing was left of the once mighty Imperial Navy, and Japan's air force had been all but totally destroyed. Against only token opposition, American war planes ranged at will over the country, and US bombers rained down devastation on her cities, steadily reducing them to rubble. What was left of Japan's factories and workshops struggled fitfully to turn out weapons and other goods from inadequate raw materials. (Oil supplies had not been available since April.) By July about a quarter of all the houses in Japan had been destroyed, and her transportation system was near collapse. Food had become so scarce that most Japanese were subsisting on a sub-starvation diet.
Even before the Hiroshima attack, American air force General Curtis LeMay boasted that American bombers were "driving them [Japanese] back to the stone age." Henry H. ("Hap") Arnold, commanding General of the Army air forces, declared in his 1949 memoirs: "It always appeared to us, atomic bomb or no atomic bomb, the Japanese were already on the verge of collapse." This was confirmed by former Japanese prime minister Fumimaro Konoye, who said: "Fundamentally, the thing that brought about the determination to make peace was the prolonged bombing by the B-29s."
Months before the end of the war, Japan's leaders recognized that defeat was inevitable. In April 1945 a new government headed by Kantaro Suzuki took office with the mission of ending the war. When Germany capitulated in early May, the Japanese understood that the British and Americans would now direct the full fury of their awesome military power exclusively against them.
So, was it necessary to drop the bombs on Japan--probably not.
Oh, Tommy, Tommy, Tommy:
ReplyDelete"The jury is still out?!?....damn you fricking hippies are so effing stupid....."
"hippie" is dogwhistle on the right for "lazy, dirty, commie, sex crazed junky"? You were unaware of that? Jesus, you are clueless.
"Two atomic bombs ended the Japanese decades long murderous rampage.... that conventional forces did not....
in four days.
The Japanese only respected violence and FM&LB taught them who was the ultimate authority...."
Just like them filthy mooslims, right?
How about them Krauts, they were pretty nice guys, right? We selected targets, IN Japan, in 1944, while there were still millions dying in Russia and the rest of Europe. No targets were named in Germany. Oh, but of course we bombed Germany incessantly from 1942 on, so we were just trying to even up the death and destruction we had handed out to Hitler's Germany?
Japan was bombed for myriad reasons, not the least of which was "payback" for their attack on Pearl Harbor and to put them in their place.
You need to read a whole lot more history, pal--or go through life being a simplistic idiot.
Before it all got so heated, I understood Thomas to be saying that the bombs ended the war sooner. But, immediately I thought of democommie's jury being still out as referring to the morality of using nukes on other human beings for the one and only time.
ReplyDeleteIt's a good discussion. Being a peacenik, ex-hippie myself, I go with democommie.
democommie
ReplyDeleteyour comment to Thomas about needing to read more history could also be applied to you. through fire bombing and carpet bombing we actually had killed more Japanese than both LB & FM did combined. its something like 750,000 killed through conventional bombing of japan while only 75k through the two atomic bombs. I would definitely say the psychological effect of the bombing ended the war alot quicker cause it wasn't just the general loss of life that got to the Japanese it was the fear that the atomic bombs would become the new normal in the USA's bombing campaign.
Laci The Dog
I have to make the counter argument to your points, yes japan was hurting badly and its not clear how long they could have defended the mainland but at the same time they had the ability to take the 2-3 million soldiers out of south east Asia and china and redeploy to the mainland if they needed. those soldiers were fresh and did not have issues of rationing because of the general barbarism they were committing in china to feed themselves. secondly from the fighting in the Philapenes and Iwo Jima the ferocity and determination that the Japanese soldiers fought with increased as they were being pushed further back towards mainland japan. so i would say the blood shed would have by default been extremely high if we had launched a conventional assault on Japan. finally the USA and Britan had made a few months earlier an offer to accept the Japaneses governments offer of surrender yet Japan refused even though they were in such dire situation. In the end it was a situation where the emperor of japan had the final say on surrender and it did not seem like he was willing to cave till until we dropped the atomic bombs.
honestly i cant say the world is a better or worse place for it but it was what seemed at the time to be the quickest way to end the pacific conflict.
DAG:
ReplyDeleteThe troops that Japan had in China were isolated and dependent upon a decimated Japanese Imperial Navy to return them to Japan. The U.S. Navy and Army Air Corps had near complete superiority in whatever areas they operated in.
I'd suggest reading this:
"http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/33694/why_did_japan_delay_surrender_to_the_pg4.html?cat=37"
The Russians were anxious to grab territories that both they and the Japanese claimed, the Kuril Islands and Sakhalin Island among them.
The use of nuclear weapons against the Japanese was planned when it was not obvious that he Allies would defeat the Germans in Europe before the bombs were ready for deployment.
The amphibious invasion of Japan would likely have resulted in horrendous casualties for both the invading forces and the soldiers and civilians in the targeted areas.
That the invasion was necessary is somewhat questionable. The Japanese were already defeated, they just refused to admit it. Their troops in the Pacific islands had been exterminated or bypassed and cut off. Japanese troops in China were fighting an ultimately unwinnable war with the Guomintang and the Chinese Communists. The Russians were, as mentioned previously, anxious to gain territory AND to avenge the beating they had received in the Russo Japanese War of the early 1900's.
For these reasons and others I say the jury is still out and will probably never be able to deliver a definitive answer as to the necessity of using nuclear weapons against the Japanese. My own pet theory is that the Bomb was built and the Russians were acting quite aggressively in their campaign in Europe and Manchuria. I think that part of Truman's thinking (and this is ENTIRELY conjectural on my part) was that using the bomb would convince the Russians to re-think any plans to send a well-equipped and battle hardened military into the power vacuum that was left by the defeat of the Nazis.
DAG:
ReplyDeleteI meant to add that racism, which was a major feature in U.S. anti-Japanese propaganda of WWII which helped to dehumanize the Japanese just as much as the German propaganda of the 1930's helped to dehumanize European Jewry.
Therefor, bombing a bunch of buck-toothed, bespectacled, hairy yellow monkeys could be more easily rationalized as a positive action.
The U.S. was not alone its racism; both sides of the conflict were replete with examples of racist art and rhetoric. That makes it no less vile. Racism is, in fact, the basis for much of the hateful rhetoric used today, in the U.S. against muslims, arabs and dark skinned, non-primary english speakers in general.
DemoCommie
ReplyDeleteI dont think that japan was going to surrender in any timely manner they had refused to surrender just a few short months before, this is after we had leveled 10 of their largest cities using conventional bombs. my thoughts on the Atomic bombs having sped up the surrender and saving as many as a million lives is reasonable, if we had to fight a conventional landing things would have been very costly in lives and money. along with that the emperor of Japan had the final say on surender and there had been no signs that he was going to cave. we had been building up for an invasion of japan that was intended to force surrender so the argument of they were about surrender doesn't seem like it was going to hold up well. and on the issue of the Japanese army being defeated already tell that to the defenders of Iwo Jima who had no air support no navy yet fought extremely hard for that island.
the basic issue i see here is that you don't ascribe nearly as much perceived value to human life as I do when balancing the benefits and costs of using the Atomic bombs. you seem to put more focus on the environmental damage and costs than the importance of the number of humans who would have been killed if the fighting had continued.
"I think that part of Truman's thinking (and this is ENTIRELY conjectural on my part) was that using the bomb would convince the Russians to re-think any plans to send a well-equipped and battle hardened military into the power vacuum that was left by the defeat of the Nazis."
the problem with that argument is that the Russian knew about the bomb and the Potstand (sp) agreement made boundaries and set up a structure for who was going to get what. and just as the Russians were well equipped so were we. the USA and Britain Still had an effective Navy which is something the Russians did not have during the war.
The Russians made LOTS of agreements with Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Finland, Romania, Poland, Ukraine, Serbia, Montenegro, Chzechoslovakia, etc.,. They kept one of them that I'm aware of, that they had with the Finns (and they cheated more than a bit on that one). One of the major reasons that only the Finns remained free, of all of the Baltic states, was the fact that they had inflicted a severe beating on the Russians during the Winter War of 1940 and demonstrated their ability and willingness to fight a war of attrition over ground that they knew well.
ReplyDeleteConsidering that the Russians had lots of armor, plenty of armaments and a very large army* at the end of WWII AND the demonstrable fact that Joseph Stalin had no compunction about losing millions of troops in a ground war (something that neither the U.S. or U.K.'s military and political leaders were sanguine about). Russia already had troops deployed in a vast arc of formerly free countries making it extremely difficult to carry the battle to their country without devestating every country they then occupied.**
The U.S. had little stomach for destroying the entire country of Japan, nor the patience to mount an effective blockade and starve the country into submission. The U.S. and the U.K. had troops and other resources scattered over many millions of square miles and supply lines that they depended on were thousands of miles long. Stalin's armies, otoh, were mostly within a1,500 mile radius of Moscow.
Nobody, and I mean nobody, was equipped to take on Soviet armor. The Russians held both numerical and technological superiority in this area. The U.S. certainly had more Strategic bombers, but they would have to cross the Urals to do significant damage to the Russian military production facilities.
Stalin had most of the cards in that poker game, "The Bomb" was the wild card and the U.S. demonstrated to Stalin's satisfaction that they would use it, not one, but twice.
* Somewhere between 5-13 million troops.
** The "Scorched earth" policy was not idle musing or an empty threat on the part of Stalin.
DAG:
ReplyDeleteAddressing your other point. The U.S. was well aware of the ferocity with which Japanese troops would fight (as were the Germans with the Russians and the Poles). It was suggested that the U.S. Navy use munitions charged with poison gas at Iwo Jima. That was not done, on the basis that it was inhumane. Seems to be a bit of disconnect from, "We can't use poison gas on fanatic and suicidal troops", to "let's bomb two japanese cities and kill several scores of thousands of civilians.".
I value life, mine, yours, this nation's soldiers and, yes, the soldiers and civilians of countries engaged in wars against us and our allies. The environmental damage done by the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs was pretty horrific and even today the people who were in those cities (and their descendants) deal with aftermath of the firestorm and radiation. Blast damage can be repaired to the point where it's hard to see how devestated a city was. Genetic mutation and psychological damage can be as debilitating and much more difficult to repair.
The U.S. has demonstrated, since about 1776 (before that it was the British) that they would repay, in spades, any attack on this nation. A bit under 3,000 died at the WTC on September 11, 2001. Since then, many thousands of Iraqis have died, regardless of whether they were enemy "troops" or innocent civilians. Fucking with this country is always a bad idea, although our reflexive invasion of Iraq for a crime committed by people who were almost all from Saudi Arabia (and abbetted by other terrorists in Afghanistan) was a recruiting wet dream for Al queda.
democommie i would prefer to keep off of the Iraq war seen as there isn't much to talk about we should never have gone to war there at all. there was no point and despite Bush's protesting otherwise Sadam was starting to cooperate again with the UN.
ReplyDeleteon WWII and Russia you are forgetting that between the Brits and USA we were already standing right in front of the Russian Troops and our tanks were not nearly as inferior by the end of the war as you would think. the Sherman was a pile of junk but it was not the main battle tank by the end of the war. secondly the Russian strategy was throw lots of people at the problem not really effective against a well supplied army and Britain was our supply depot in WWII not the USA. on the technological front the USA also had better small arms. the SVT although a good gun did not hold up well to the abuse the round it fired produced and had mechanical issues because of that. and the mosin although a good gun was slow to reload and get follow up shots with. the USA also had better supply management than the Russians even during the later part of the war.
This:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.militaryfactory.com/armor/detail.asp?armor_id=64
indicates that there were fewer than 500 Pershing tanks in Europe at the end of WW2. The same source indicates that the Russians had manufactured over 12,000 T34/85 by the end of 1944. This source (http://www.wwiivehicles.com/ussr/tanks-medium/t-34-85.asp) indicates that there were many more than that made. Assuming the lower number and assuming 80% of them were destroyed by the fighting prior to 5/9/45 there would still be over 2,000 in operating condition.
Taking nothing away from the British and French, the Russians, having had their asses handed to them by the Germans from 1940-1942 or thereabouts were not going to let it happen again. The Russians lost an estimated 8,000,000 troops from 1940-1945 and still had about that many left. Also, by the time of the last offensive against the Nazis the Russian Marshalls had convinced Stalin that ideological purity was not as important as winning the war. Russian troop morale was much higher in 1945 than it had been in the dark days of the early part of the war.
We could argue about this all day or longer but it would get us nowhere. You're gonna believe what you're gonna believe, as am I.
War has never stopped war.
http://www.militaryfactory.com/armor/detail.asp?armor_id=64
ReplyDeleteindicates that there were fewer than 500 Pershing tanks in Europe at the end of WW2. The same source indicates that the Russians had manufactured over 12,000 T34/85 by the end of 1944. This source (http://www.wwiivehicles.com/ussr/tanks-medium/t-34-85.asp) indicates that there were many more than that made. Assuming the lower number and assuming 80% of them were destroyed by the fighting prior to 5/9/45 there would still be over 2,000 in operating condition.
Talk about comparing apples and oranges.....
T34 production 135,000~ all versions
30 tons
M26 Pershing prodution 4550~
45 tons
And there were
M4s in theater
Tom, honey:
ReplyDeleteCitations, dumbfuck, not numbers, citations.
T34/85's beat the best armor the Germans had.
Tommy:
ReplyDeleteDid you even read DAG's original comment on the tanks?
This is what he said:
"the Sherman was a pile of junk but it was not the main battle tank by the end of the war."
The Sherman WAS the main battle tank until the end of WWII with the Pershing coming on in mid-1945 (according to the sources I looked at). The Sherman was not able to knock out German Panther's unless they got a shot on a particular spot on the hull. The T34/85 would have most likely destroyed the Sherman in straight up combat; whether it would have been able to slug it out with the Pershing is a moot point, there weren't enough Pershings available in August of 1945.