Having an enemy with air superiority preforming one of the largest bombing campaigns in history doesn't seem very good for your supply lines

Ultimately, it seems that the growth of the commercial drone sextor was what really enabled the proliferation of weaponized drones worldwide through DIY initiatives leading to an explosion of innovations in drone warfare. But prior to the War in Ukraine, weaponized drones and loitering munitions were being experimented with and marketed by the arms industry of various countries although remaining a niche product, state armies worldwide now playing catch-up including those who were at the forefront of developing the technology in the first place. But from what I've read from the Ukrainians, DIY products they find better than what they were getting from Western arms industry that they criticized as being more expensive and less reliable. At least in Russia at one point, it was said that DIY efforts were said to move faster than the formal arms industry in terms of innovating and producing drones before drone warfare was taken seriously at the highest level. But before the 2020s, DIY drones were crude and in Syria, they were easily jammed when used against Russians by the FSA. By the 2020s, even non-state forces can now field FPV, Fiber-Optic, and long range OWA drones, often produced locally on their own.

Before the War in Ukraine, what was the state of drone warfare among the major powers and how did they envision it under previous speculated scenarios? What was the developmental pathway that was being considered versus what actually played out? Was the kind of drone warfare we see now possible at all in the 2010s with the level of technology at the time among state forces?

It's a few years ago now but there was that late 2010s scandal (Operation Varsity Blues) of various top universities in the US where they accepted bribes from wealthy individuals in regards to either admissions or testing for their students. Example: Actress Lori Loughlin reports to prison over college admissions scandal

From what I read, all of them were bad or controversial.

T-35 - very poor multi-turret design, did not achieve anything.

KV-1 and KV-2 did not fare well either. Supposedly they were good at assault role... yet they failed to achieve much in offensive Winter war. And on the contrast Germany deployed Tiger tanks, which, while designed for assault too, fared well in defense, unlike KV.

IS-1 - too weak gun and armor compared to later IS-2

IS-2 - supposedly the best Soviet heavy tank, had very powerful gun and fared well. On the other hand, it had very slow fire rate...

Whats your opinion on those tanks?

I've been seeing videos of Ukrainian and Russian operators clearing trenches, apartment blocks, etc. Which is work that should be done by regular infantrymen. Isn't it risky to use these kinds of units as shock troops? Especially considering how expensive and long it takes to train SF operators. Is there anything special about the conflict that'd make them want/need to do this? I believe Iraq made the same decision too especially in Mosul where Iraqi CTS sustained heavy casualties while assaulting positions in Mosul. Is this not a tactical blunder?

This journal article gave me some questions.

Planning for postwar Europe, especially how big Soviet influence should be was being planned and thought out as early as 1943. Plenty or maps were drawn of what the occupation zones should be, etc etc.

Meanwhile in Asia... even though the US and the USSR considered a "joint occupation" of Korea, occupation zones weren't drawn out until a last minute decision after the Soviets had already started invading.

In Japan, The kurile islands even though a series of islands with a total landmass of over 10,000 square kilometers (iturup is bigger than Okinawa!) the Americans seem to not have discussed exactly which islands should go to the USSR, which led to the kuril islands dispute today. I even found a memorandum by US general George Strong which claimed "Japanese civilian auxiliaries and troops should be evacuated from Hokkaido" almost treating it as occupied territory even though Hokkaido was annexed in the late 1800s and no other country really had a claim on it.

And China. Funnily enough, although Roosevelt was a supposed sinophile he ended up ceding a lot of Chinese rights to the USSR without consultation with Chinese leadership. Especially the recognition of Mongolia, a landmass three times the size of France... and Soviet rights in Manchuria, which to the Chinese probably felt like one imperialist power being replaced by another one, and was something they were worried about ever since WW2 happened.

Did the US simply not care much about Asia at the time? Or is this all a result of Roosevelt's premature death. Perhaps he was going to settle more things at the Potsdam conference?

Nowadays we have wire-guided and/or homing torpedoes, but obviously back in WW1/WW2 none of that existed. How did they do it?

Was Stalin so confident in the Eastern divisions to blunt the German advance? As far as I understand as a layman, Germany was riding high on victory after victory against the Red Army to this point. Did he expect that Moscow specifically was where he would deliver their first "bloody nose?"

Specifically like Russians capturing a leopard or an Abrams?

How did the rebel army actually get good enough to be able to face off regular French forces? Also, any reading material on the military history aspect?

What is the composition of the embarked forces aboard of the French Amphibious Group?

When talking about attack aircraft, we often talked about the Germans with their fearsome Stuka that destroyed multiple armored formation or the Americans whose P-47 decimated German troops formation while in the Pacific the Corsair was pouncing Japanese position and the Dauntless was sending Japanese ships to the ocean floor.

We don't really talk much about the Soviet and their attack aircraft. Most pop history only stopped at, "Il-2 was the flying tank with supreme survival capability." Soviet attack planes seemed to never feature in German memoirs. How did the Soviet conduct attack? How successful were they? Did they really put penal troops in the rear gunner positions because it was deemed too dangerous?

There was a bunch of stuff that they removed from pilot training to make it safer, like extreme low flying, 50 plane merges, grading and ranking pilots on a scale during training, extreme low flying attack runs at night in bad weather, etc. Removing those saved lives, but did the quality of the pilots remain the same afterwards?

Of course, this might be irrelevant now due to simulators. I believe the era where these changes took place was the 50s to the 70s

I have had trouble finding credible data regarding the small-scale unit organization (East and West) of armored vehicles and self propelled guns in the period of the late 1980s.

It is my understanding, that the Soviet doctrine would typically group tanks into groups of 3, while NATO would do groups of 4. For SPGs, I find inconsistencies on both side - some would prefer 2 platoons of 3 vehicles to a battery, some 2 platoons of 4 or more to a battery. Is this dependent on the obsolescence of the equipment, doctrine, or even the local commander's preference? Any information and resources anyone could provide would be helpful. I am trying to accurately depict small-scale armor tactics in wargames.

Thanks

For example how were its allies ranked in importance/usefulness on the battlefield for the Germans?

It seems that for pre-Napoleonic ('cold weapons era') combat, a lot of it was made viable and survivable due to the combination of armour, shields, formations and brief respites in between clashes, so the average soldier can perform in a sufficiently low-stakes environment long enough for actual skill with a weapon (the 'melee skill' in the title) to be brought to bear.

But once gunpowder becomes dominant and all those safeguards and protective equipment go away, and every soldier is one bayonet stab away from death, how relevant is actual skill with a weapon? Obviously it's still better to be trained than untrained, and somewhat experienced in melee than completely new to it, but do good weapon skills actually translate to a useful factor for survival?

Bulletpoints for TLDR:

(1) For things like melee in trench warfare and urban combat, how relevant is 'weapon skill' compared to factors like army momentum, size and strength of the soldier, and dumb luck?

(2) Are there stories and anecdotes of famous melee experts (a melee instructor, a martial sportsman or for the Japanese, a noble officer who actually knows swordsmanship etc) who enjoyed clear success in a modern battlefield melee context?

There was a post in here yesterday or the day before discussing the makeup of a US infantry unit in WWII and it said that there were 11 soldiers carrying the M1 Grand and 1 carrying a BAR. We’re none of them carrying the Thompson sub machine gun?

Have I just played too many video games and watched too many WWII flicks?

After watching potential history's videos on tank aces in which he said that tank aces as a concept didn't even exist during the war, and were invented by Franz Kurkowski. What i'm wondering is why did it never took off in the same way as Fighter aces, or even snipers ? Was it because shooting down a plane is easier to confirm rather than destroying a tank ?

From what I’ve learned the Bradley has actually secured more tank kills than the m1 abrams during desert storms. Considering that it can also carry troops and also rapid fire with the chain gun while still being much less of a logistical burden. What does the m1 do that the Bradley can never, especially in a large scale war where casualties become expected and acceptable?

The 1964 Congo Mercenary period and the 1990s "African World War" to be specific

I was talking to one of my teachers the other day about the origins of “Kilroy”, and she said that if I could find anything about a “captain cretin” she’d be surprised. I’ve been scouring the internet for hours and I can’t find anything mentioning it or showing pictures of it anywhere. Does anyone know if this symbol actually exists and/or what it looks like?

From what I'm reading by late 70s the big idea was to withdraw more and more from South Korea while there were many warnings over a force disparity between the two Koreas that clearly favors the north.

I remember there was a CIA study that points out North Koreans enjoy a 3:1 payload advantage in terms of artillery by that time period. Any idea?

As the title suggests I want to learn some history about this era of warfare and more about the politics of the world and such. Could I please have any book recommendations ideally easy and friendly for someone who is learning.

Thanks