• Anchorxiety@reddthat.com
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    48
    ·
    2 months ago

    I’ve been playing “Over the top: WW1” recently on Steam and this reminded me of it. Playing bagpipes while everyone around you is getting shot and blown up. Love the humour in that game lol

      • gibmiser@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        22
        ·
        2 months ago

        It does, I just looked it up but it looks like active players has tanked from thousands down to a few hundred a day. One of the big selling points is matches with up to 200 players… If the devs want to save their game they need to either do a give away or a massive 90% off sale.

        • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          2 months ago

          Damn, it’s only 5 months old, too.

          There is a 40% sale on steam right now, but I don’t think that will be enough to turn things around for them.

          • gibmiser@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            2 months ago

            Its a free weekend, give it a go. I decided to buy it and its been fun enough to get my money’s worth. Use the server browser, I’ve been joining full 200 player games during prime times

  • SuperEars@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    29
    ·
    2 months ago

    7th grade me asked teacher “Did they shoot at the drummer boys too?” and without hesitating she says “YES!” I’m sure she’s right, but she had a gleeful face which made me think she was happy to answer regardless of its truthfulness.

    • ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      16
      ·
      2 months ago

      I mean, in the age of muskets and field cannons they didn’t really shoot at anybody in particular since the guns were not very accurate. They probably did try to hit the bagpipe dudes, though.

      • Notyou@sopuli.xyz
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        9
        ·
        2 months ago

        Fun fact. Rifling wasn’t invented until right before the Civil War. That spiraling in a gun barrel helps the bullet keep aim and hit the target. Before that the balls just bounced out of the musket any old way.

        That is one of the reasons the Civil War was so bloody. The armies still lined up, but this time the rifles shot straight.

        • PyroNeurosis@lemmy.blahaj.zone
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          6
          ·
          2 months ago

          No? Rifling was around muuuch longer than that, but was primarily for specialized divisions (the Kentucky Long Rifle being a notable example). It was becoming more commonly issued at the outset, but at the time, smoothbore muskets were still pretty widely issued due in part to vast stockpiles and sudden need.

          • Notyou@sopuli.xyz
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            6
            ·
            2 months ago

            I’m not sure what you’re No-ing. Rifling was around longer but the Civil War introduced it as a standard.

            Smoothbore muskets were issued in the Union and Confederate armies during the beginning of the Civil War, though both armies quickly adopted a rifled musket; this was the first time in military history that most infantry soldiers were equipped with a rifled musket

            https://historymaking.org/textbook/items/show/275

            • PyroNeurosis@lemmy.blahaj.zone
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              5
              ·
              2 months ago

              Rifling wasn’t invented until right before the Civil War.

              My bad, I took this bit to be saying that rifling was new to the scene, rather than new to industrial-scale manufacture.

              • Notyou@sopuli.xyz
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                5
                ·
                2 months ago

                Oh yeah. My bad. I guess I said that wrong. There were more advances in the rounds that made the rifling better, but I was trying to simplify it.

                I was interested in the Civil War cause the weapons advanced faster than the way we fight wars. You wouldn’t see people lining up and walking toward another army now.

                • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  ·
                  2 months ago

                  Though I think WWI is an even better example. The machine gun wasn’t even that new at the time and had been used in the british colonies, but no European power had themselves faced them and turns out they not only didn’t have any idea how to approach them, but apparently didn’t even spend much time thinking about it because they started the war with fucking calvary charges. And I mean calvary as in aristocrats in expensive armor riding horses, riding out into what would later be known as “no man’s land” to get mowed down by machine guns.

                  Followed by three years of pretty much just trying that only without the horses and more men until Germany ran out of bullets and had to surrender.

  • GraniteM@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    14
    ·
    2 months ago

    William J. Johnston (July 12, 1850 – September 16, 1941) was a drummer boy in Company D of the 3rd Vermont Infantry during the American Civil War. When his division was routed during the Seven Days Battles during the Peninsula Campaign of June to July 1862, he was the only drummer to come away with his instrument. His superiors considered this a meritorious feat, given that the regiment’s other soldiers had thrown away their guns and equipment to lighten their loads as they retreated. As a result, he received the Medal of Honor in 1863; at age 13, he remains the youngest recipient of the award.

  • megopie@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    2 months ago

    My favorite is that the “clown song” is originally an Austro-Hungarian marching song called “entrance of the gladiators”

    And up in to WW1 they would have bands playing during battles. So there is a very good chance that someone had to charge a machine gun nest while the fucking clown song was playing.

    • ShyBeluga@lemmy.zip
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      12 days ago

      This just made me spit out my water. Literally the funniest thing I’ve read in a long while. Thank you kind sir. Brilliant. Just imagining one of them juggling daggers running full speed lmao.

    • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      2 months ago

      Appropriate song for WWI offensive tactitians that spent like 3 fucking years sending wave after wave of young men at machine gun nests until Germany ran out of bullets.