If you’re gonna do this at least match it up

There’s no need. And proficiency wouldn’t be nearly as good, regardless of manuals.

FWIW, tripods are much better than bipods.

When my Grandpa told me about it, it was just kind of out of nowhere. I had just finished doing some plumbing work at his house and he was writing me a check for the supplies, and just started telling me stories about the war. He just had a thousand mile stare and you could tell he could see these events replaying in his head as he told them to me. He told me about killing men from only feet away, and how he covered himself in debris as a German tank rolled over a trench he was in, he said he was shot at directly from an 88. He said everyone he fought alongside was killed, he spent 32 days in front line combat and collapsed from battle fatigue. He said he woke up in a hospital in Paris and cried tears of joy to be out of that hell.

I don't think they were fighting history

It's weird describing combat to someone who hasn't been there. I don't need comforting, I just get strange looks when I describe things I've done or what I was thinking of doing.

I’ve heard from a few veteran friends of mine say that they don’t talk about war, not because of the trauma, but because of the way their friends and family look at them as if they are either damaged or heartless afterwards.

My stepdad has an 8500²ft house that was built by a super rich person in the mid 1800's. As soon as you walk in there's a gigantic handmade custom ornate winding wooden hardwood varnished staircase going upstairs (looks like it would have taken months to carve) and the dining room looks like a cathedral with the same hardwood forming squares coming down from the 15ft ceiling ceiling with decorative cloth between each one and a huge hand carved 14 person table in the middle. It even has a maid's quarters upstairs on the third floor and there's little hidden hallways built so the maids could bring food straight from the kitchen to the dining room without using the main door. It's crazy to me that the house is valued at like 40k, the inside is absolutely beautiful and has like 6 fireplaces with custom themed rooms like "the oriental room" and "the trophy room" with tons of old exotic taxidermied animals all over the walls with a poker table in the middle. Used to love getting drunk and exploring all over there but he gave it to his son and got a smaller house with my mom so I haven't been inside in a while

/r/historicaloverlays

If anything, this didn't need to be a gif. A still frame would've been fine.

Not so much with housing because the materials and approach to building have changed and that has had a very real impact on longevity (older houses are not over-engineered as such, but they did tend to be built out of heavier/more solid materials because the alternatives didn't exist and using far more labour intensive approaches). That still leads to issues but they tend to be different.

Take UK housing stock, a 100 year old house is not particularly unusual (about 25% of the total stock), most is more than 60 years old. Many of those 100 year old houses are built from solid engineering brick, actual stone, have stone lintels, joists tend to be far thicker/larger than they would be if built now to support thicker/heavier wooden floor boards than would be the norm now too, albeit not as well finished. You'll likely still have a slate roof and heavier rafters to support it. They have/had lime plaster on the walls, lath and plaster ceilings etc.. And would have had internal plumbing/gas/electricity retrofitted at some point in the last 60 years.

That means that the structures tend to be incredibly solid (until someone tries to take out a chimney and fails to support things properly etc..), but also have lots of rough edges, walls aren't quite parallel, nothing is level, insulation (beyond the plaster and ceilings) is poor because the expectation was that the house would need to breathe and would have open fires internally..

Newer builds on the other hand tend to be built using a minimum of material, and using processes that are as light on labour as possible. You have far more complex materials involved, and plumbing, wiring and so on are embedded. The downside of that is that things can go wrong quickly when they do, weathering can be pretty catastrophic, a roof might be expected to last 15-25 years rather than 50-100 years for example, but broadly there is simply less room for wear before it becomes a problem.

There is probably a sweet spot (in the UK at the moment it's likely a 60's built semi/detached house) that balances a decent finish with a solid structure.

With a machine gun, clearly

Imagine when ar glasses become mainstream and you could relive history as you travel

You are correct! Here is a M12 Gun Motor Carriage in action in Aachen.

I am having a hard time finding the quote (so take it with a grain of salt), but I recall a German commander in Aachen saying something along the lines of "when the Americans begin to use artillery as sniper fire— you have lost."

Wild

I wish there was a subreddit for content like this. I absolutely love these.

Don't fight history, history always wins.

At least it used to.

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I'm fairly positive this was the battle where the Americans had to use a 155mm self-propelled gun to knock out German positions inside large, old buildings. The Sherman's 75/76mm guns couldn't penetrate the thick stone facades, so they resorted to open-sight artillery instead. The Germans were pretty pissed about it's use and wanted the practice to be outlawed.

Good idea to take down the massive lamp post that would have been in their way first, to be fair.

I saw the victory column earlier this year! The tower itself is really cool, but preserving the damage to the tower felt very symbolic and made me try to imagine where the projectiles came from. Same at the Brandenburg gate, though I mostly only saw small arms fire

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420 Smoking Barrel

From what I've read, the Germans prior to the battle had pulled civilians out starting with children. It was noted that they simply dropped a bunch of kids off just east outside of the city. They later rushed in and began escorting out elderly and women— who were horrified to see the soldiers immediately fortifying their houses with concrete and such as they were escorted out.

That's not to say there weren't civilians left in the city. It's interesting to note that Hitler had ordered the evacuation of the city because he suspected the population preferred American occupation because allied bombing would cease. Generalleutenant Gerhard Graf von Schwerin had paused the evacuation and appealed to the allies to treat the populace "mercifully". Word got out to Hitler that he did this and ordered him arrested— but surprisingly forgave him later. As far as I know, the Germans resumed the evacuation of civilians and that it was enforced pretty "harshly".

/r/historicaloverlays

Is there a way to contribute money to posting photo plaques where historical pictures were taken?

I'd pay $10 to see that photo be posted on a plaque on that wall right there.