The Hellburner Was the Renaissance Equivalent of a Tactical Nuclear Weapon
warisboring.com
warisboring.com
General Burnside had trained special black troops to head this assault because of just how complicated this mission was compared to anything else in contemporary existence. They were pulled at the last minute by General Meade for a combination of PR reasons (can't have black people winning the war), personal glory reasons, and skepticism.
The entire thing is a very sad story.
It'd be a perfect Drunk History episode.
Both, really. They didn't know what they were meant to be doing and the massive explosion did not exactly promote their higher faculties in figuring it out.
In January, 1917, General Sir Herbert Plumer, gave orders
for 20 mines to be placed under German lines at Messines.
Over the next five months more than 8,000 metres of
tunnel were dug and 600 tons of explosive were placed in
position. Simultaneous explosion of the mines took place
at 3.10 on 7th June. The blast killed an estimated 10,000
soldiers and was so loud it was heard in London.
The craters are still there and form ponds in the fields where the battle took place.
I forgot all the advances in agriculture, which is arguably more important...
Like a better plow, using legumes to replenish nutrients, etc.
On the other hand, the combination of embodied knowledge and chemical energy to create machines, i.e. the internal combustion engine, is a truly novel achievement of our civilization.
These aren't exactly small things, these are the things of eon defining boundaries. Human beings may be fundamentally made of the same things, our physical and emotional machinery may be largely unchanged. But how we live is hugely different.
What about external combustion engines? Also, read about agricultural and industrial revolution.
Although it seems that it may never have been used for any practical purpose, it is often considered to be the first steam engine and was documented in the 1st century AD.
Modern steam engines took off because they managed to make accurate pistons and cylinders. (And a myriad other factors.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitrified_fort
NB As a kid the impressive vitrified fort on the Tap o' Noth was by basis for imagining what Tolkien's Weathertop looked like.
Greek Fire was a weapon that was both used more frequently and used to greater effect.
The opposite would be strategic nukes. These are long range, high-yield weapons used to knock-out cities and bring about nuclear apocalypse type scenarios.
So a strategic plan to prevent the use of a harbor might be a single strategic sized nuke. You could say the tactic and strategic levels merged into one. There's only one tactical move as part of that strategic plan. One call does it all.
A nuclear tactical plan to prevent the use of a harbor might involve as a small part of the overall mission a nuclear torpedo to put a pesky submarine out of commission so a naval invasion can happen without being sunk by the sub. Or a nuclear artillery shell to clear a tank battalion guarding an approach to the harbor from your forces that'll take control of the harbor.
Typically dropping a bridge with a nuke while retreating is rarely/never strategic, it's tactical as a tiny component of an overall retreat involving numerous tasks.
Another characteristic is strategic "button pushing" rarely is authorized on the front line, but tactical "button pushing" is usually authorized at the front line. So M16s tend not to be strategic.
Strategy is considered before battle, while tactics are applied after battle has begun.
A strategic nuke may prevent or end a war, but a tactical nuke might only achieve one of the goals of a strategy.
Given that the first use of a "tactical" nuclear weapon would change the nature of any war, they're a rather strange idea (and in practice, tactical nuclear weapons were phased out because of this). Strategic nuclear weapons changed the rules of warfare, redefining the goals that could realistically be chosen -- one of the few unambiguously correct uses of the word "strategy" IMO.
This is 90% of global history since WWII, in a nutshell.
In my opinion, all nukes today are strategic nukes in that they intend to make your enemy think twice before launching their own nukes.
Even tactical sized nukes, if used today, will ignite a severe counter-reaction that is highly likely to escalate to full blown intercontinental nuclear war.
I don't think this view is as crazy at it sounds on the surface. I don't think the US and UK would launch a general nuclear strike if, say, Soviet Frontal Aviation put a nuclear-tipped cruise missile into the USS Eisenhower or Seventh Army engineers blew strategic bridges with nuclear demolition charges. It's a dangerous line to flirt, though.
What a pretty circle.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiM-RzPHyGs (test footage)
While that test was successful, as far as I know, the project was stopped before it was ever a "production" device. I suspect his was because of the risk to the operator, as small mortar and similar nuclear devices could jam or otherwise fail to move away form the launch site.
The whole concept of a nuclear mortar seems like an idea that sounds good on paper, but probably has all kinds of problem and subtle risks in implementation.
http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2012/07/20/king-of-the-wild-f...
But yeah, small and designed to be delivered against enemy troop concentrations, as opposed to the larger strategic weapons that are designed to be used against enemy population centers and strategic weapons.
As opposed to strategic nuclear weapons, which are designed for uses like destroying enemy industrial capacity, key resource infrastructure, military command and control facilities, and population centers.
From my time in combat zones - we always thought of tactical as the level at which a battalion or lower might operate. Strategic would be entire regiments or larger, potentially involving entire countries.
A nuke that clears the path for a battalion (political implications of using a nuclear weapon aside) is tactical. A nuke that eliminates a capital or engulfs many battalions in flames is strategic.
I would imagine, though, that a "tactical-sized", or smaller, nuke could have strategic implications if you detonated it somewhere of great import (eliminating the leadership while all in one building, for example). This would be a strategic use of a nuke.
But in actuality - it is very complicated. Something like a nuclear weapon is a multifaceted action and cannot be distilled to a single word.
Thank you - that's brilliant. And explains why such a few fire ships had such an effect - always wondered what the problem was.
Too powerful to actually be used, but the knowledge of its existence acts as a deterrent to war.
It was basically the equivalent of a boat filled with TNT as I understand, not that powerful.
Could've been very useful at wiping out ports, cities and fleets, at the time, I doubt they had any qualms about it :-).
Also, not that much of a war deterrent, as history can attest, lol...
There are also air-to-air nuclear weapons designed for planes to shoot at each other, which might not have a yield much larger than a Hellburner.
I share your concern about an interpretation of history that lends arguments to dangerous attitudes in present-day politics, just having recently read a great deal about nuclear yields, the humongous detonations we imagine are not the only type possible, they're just the only type of weapons which have ever been deployed, with many weapons simply not even having been ever tested.
The hellburners had, perhaps, a few tons worth of explosive. And it was blackpowder rather than TNT. A relatively tiny nuke, such as the AIM-26 air-to-air missile, explodes with the equivalent of 250 metric tonnes of TNT. The smallest ever nukes are in the 10-50 tonnes range, still well beyond the blackpowder in any hellburner. The proportion of energy released as radiation and/or fallout is generally inversely related to yield (less confinement of the critial mass > less efficient burning). So Be afraid of tiny nukes.
The the future they will likely use antimatter, not as explosive but as a neutron source. That would allow for much smaller nukes once they figure out how to keep the antimatter suspended within the uranium shell. Such weapons could burn uranium very efficiently, resulting in much reduced fallout.
What about chemical/biological weapons? I faintly recall some stories of the Bible where rats were used as weapons (not a plague from the Lord, but actual humans collecting lots of rats and releasing them near the enemy city), and the ancient Jews were not particularly advanced compared with other civilizations of the time.
Maybe most thought it was just a myth, stories told by travelers, or maybe it was ungentlemanly?
The Civil War and even WW1 saw a lot of losses because of this inability to adapt, by WW2 (and forward) everybody used the latest advances they could get their hands on...
The turtle ships weren't alone but it was a gifted korean naval commander who ironically never commanded a navy before and figured shit out as the war was unfolding. The Korean general would even be hailed as a mythical figure and admired by WW2 Japanese naval generals.
(That's not to say the Korean navy didn't suffer devastating losses... but that was when Yi was in prison thanks to the idiot king who bought the disinformation supplied by Japanese spies.)
Anyway, that raises a philosophical question: if your troops and their supplies need to be delivered across the water, and if your enemy is controlling that water, how much are you controlling the land behind?
You won't find many sympathizers for the Chosun Kings apart from the one hit wonders like Sejong who invented the Korean alphabet.
Depends on how much that is true. Replacements are definitely a problem, but medieval armies had significant ability to supply locally. On top of this, the Toyotomi army was never blockaded on the peninsula; Yi's actions significantly disrupted the sea lines of communication but never truly cut or controlled them.
Without the Ming army to fight Toyotomi would not have been under significant strain. Even with a Ming army on the field and Yi disrupting his SLOC Toyotomi was still able to extract a truce while he held the southern half of the peninsula.
Regardless, what the Joseon navy was able to accomplish it did because Yi was a badass admiral, not because of turtle ships or other special weapons. That was the original point.
The Japanese army did succeed in initially overwhelming Korean forces with supreme military tactics, so much so that they entered Seoul basically unscathed, only to find that the king and his courtiers have fled north.
From what little I know, it seems that the Japanese forces didn't quite understand the situation. In traditional Japan (from what I've heard), if your force wins the battle and enters the enemy castle, you have won. The enemy's people are now under your rule and their food and supply is yours.
Instead, Japanese forces found itself surrounded in a sea of hostile troops and militia bands, who will (incredibly) fight to the bitter end. Not unlike what the US found in Iraq, but without the ridiculous military advantage. Korean army's major military victories included the battle of Haengju (near Seoul) and Jinju (southeastern Korea, near present-day Busan), which all happened within one year since the war broke.
A major reason why Toyotomi could parley for truce that involved Japan securing the southern part of Korea, was that Chinese forces had no reason to stake their lives for someone else's country, yet they still had enough political power to force Korea to the talking table.
I can't speak for the turtle ships, but the cost of the gunpowder used in a hellburner can't be overstated. I know that in the 18th century British navy, accurate gunners were at a premium because the government would not supply powder and shot for target practice, and only a wealthy captain could afford to purchase enough for really good training. The military cost of widespread incompetence at gunnery was deemed less than the financial cost of those training supplies--and that was more than two centuries of development after the Antwerp hellburner.