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Old 03-29-2016, 09:41 PM   #151
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Default Re: About draftees and other military veterans

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Originally Posted by Icelander View Post
What I donīt really know is how aggressively these laws were enforced between WWII (and maybe Korea) and Vietnam. Would people born in 1937-1942, i.e. too late for WWII and Korea and fairly late for Vietnam, in that they were then already primary breadwinners for families, have been drafted in peacetime? Did they need a good excuse to avoid the draft?
Elvis Presley was drafted in 1958.
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Old 03-29-2016, 09:58 PM   #152
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Default Re: About draftees and other military veterans

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Originally Posted by adm View Post
The U.S. had ~12,000,000 people in uniform out of ~131,000,000, that's less than 10%. Germany had over 30%. This is one reason the Russians were so concerned about U.S. intentions post WW II, they were dangerously low on fit fighting age population, and the U.S. could probably field another 20,000,000 with modest effort, and still keep our manufacturing going at a rate that no one could then match.
A MPP of 10% is still massive. WWI France, WWI and WWII Germany or WWII Russia are all examples of countries where the stresses of total war essentially decimated a generation and civilian life was affected to the point that only tyranical measures sufficed to retain power.

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Draft;
Military service has generally been performed by a rather small proportion of our population, with the exceptions of the U.S. Civil War, and WW II. During the Cold War draftees were used to man the Central European positions watching the Warsaw Pact troops watching back, plus Alaska, and Greenland. Most served for 2 years active service, and 5 years reserve service. As to how likely one was to serve, I don't know, this period was too recent to be covered much in school when I went, and my reading has been centered on ~1914 to ~1946.
Two years active, five years reserve. Thanks.

To take a random NPC as an example, he was born in 1918 and was drafted in 1943. He got home in 1946. In 1950, he was still unmarried, age 32, not working in any critical industry. Would he have been drafted again for Korea? Or technically, I guess, called up for service again, because of his reserve status?

His military record was unexceptional. If any attempts were made to measure his abstract reasoning facilities or generalised intelligence, he would have scored abysmally, but he was obedient, biddable and not lacking in basic mechanical aptitude. That is, he wasn't any kind of genius mechanic, but he could be taught to make hospital corners, operate a mop, salute, parade and clean his weapon as well as the next fellow. Better, in case of the mop, cleaning and hospital corners, as he didn't have much in the way of irrelevant thinking going to distract him from simple tasks.

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One thing to know is that the Draft Boards who sent the military draftees was a local group, who tended to send those young men who did not fit into the local community first, and others to fill out whatever quota they had. People of status generally made sure that their kids were in "safe" units that would only to be sent out for a "real" war, not Asian brush fire wars.
I know it started out that way, but precisely because of the abuses you mention, this aspect was removed at some point. I don't know the date when it went to a (theoretically) randomised lottery system.

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Those families that had a history of military service would have their kids volunteer, often for combat commands.
Oh, indeed.

The Dufresne family and Allen family are very different in that regard. Victor Jude Duresne's great-grandfather was a doughboy in WWI, his grandfather died on Guendecanal in 1942 and his father and two uncles all went to Vietnam, with one uncle falling at Khe San in 1968 and Abel Dufresne, his father, coming back with a Silver Star after his three tours in Vietnam.*

By contrast, it is a proud boast of the Allen family that no Allen has ever been chump enough to fight wars for the benefit of other people wearing the uniform of the United States. The first Allen in North America, Clayton 'Clay' Allen did serve as a scout for the United States Army in several Indian wars and the War of 1812, but as he seems to have spent most of his time selling contraband to Indians on both sides and running slaves up to the Canadian Maritime provinces, he can hardly rank as an honourable veteran of the US Army.

His son, the first US-born member of the clan, John Clayton Allen, fought with distinction in the Civil War, but unfortunately for Allen posterity, he did so as a Copperhead under Gen. Leadbetter. Sean Danville Allen was too old for WWI and while his oldest boy, Richard 'Dick' Allen, father of current patriarch Clayborn Allen, was at the right age then, a quiet word with a member of the Draft Board prevented any unpleasantness and allowed young Dick Allen to learn his trade at the sawmill and logging sites instead of wasting time in uniform.

Clayborn himself had a college deferment, more or less during 1955-1962. The first three years were just a technical college working for an associate degree, but he finally got into a real college (admittedly in Canada, but McGill is a very good school) in 1958. Spends 1958-1960 in Canada. Then in 1964, when the draft for Vietnam really got going, he would have been twenty-seven and married with a pregnant wife. I imagine his draft number was high enough so that the draft ended before he could be called up.

*Strangely, very little has been said about the third uncle, other than he lives in Thailand in 1988.
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Old 03-29-2016, 10:27 PM   #153
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Default Re: About draftees and other military veterans

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Uh-huh. This question I can answer from my own life experience. The War ended before I had to register but that doesn't mean that draft avoidance wasn't a subject of intense interest from age 9-10 on.

There were a _lot_ of ways to avoid either the Draft or at least ground combat in Vietnam. I could go on for many paragraphs.

Anybody who wanted to avoid such like and had either connections or ingenuity or even just a study ethic and scholarship prospects may be assumed to have done so.

As a curiosity, after the Draft ended the whole Selective Service machinery was done away with until that idiot (Jimmy Carter) re-instated registration. He said we needed to maintain a database. Starting in January of 1978 males needed to register for the non-existent draft when they turned 18. I just missed that and never had to register under either the old or new systems.

So anyone 28 to 18 will have sent in a postcard with his address on his 18th birthday but probably nothing else. The database was not updated very well. Males turning 18 before 1974 or so will have had to not only register but had to report for a medical to determine his draft status. Mentally and physically healthy young men would probably have been rated A-1 and may or may not have been called up depending on necessity and lottery results and who knows what else..

Ones with physical problems such as my wretchedly bad eyesight would be rated 4-F and never been called up.
Ok, another random example.

An NPC born in 1945. Physically and mentally in average health. In 1988, he has a college degree (he's a CPA), but I've not established when that degree was earned. Assuming that he did not succeed in getting a deferment in the mid-60s, perhaps because he could not afford college immediately upon finishing high school, would he most likely have been drafted at age 18 or age 21? Some other age?

If he was drafted, he presumably stood a fairly high chance of getting a non-combat MOE, as he certainly did not seek out a front-line infantry position. What would be the most mundane and common thing to do in the military while Vietnam was going on?
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Old 03-29-2016, 10:31 PM   #154
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Default Re: 1980s American Cars, Guns, Gadgets and Consumer Goods [Atmosphere, look, minutiae

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There was at least some draft after WW II. Worked with a guy that spent the last part of WW II hiding in the basement to avoid the draft, in Germany. After the war the emigrated to the US and he was promptly drafted and sent to Germany as part of the occupation force.
Ok, that would have been late 40s/early 50s.

What about someone who wanted to go to war when Korea started in 1950? For an NPC who was born in 1933, did he have any plausible way to join the military at age 17? Legally?

What about not-so-legally? Was the bureaucracy good enough by 1950 so that people couldn't lie about their age any more, like they did when joing up for WWII?

The NPC in question is 6'3" and 240 lbs. as a man in robust middle age, so I imagine he was a tall and broad-shouldered teenager. Could grow a mustache early and, at least in 1988, has a formiddably hairy chest, enough so that the PCs consider him* an outside possibility for the man/men that the suspect in custody refered to as 'Big Bad Wolf' and 'Hungry Wolf'.

*Along with Clayborn Allen, who perhaps best fits that role.
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Old 03-30-2016, 03:14 AM   #155
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Default Rifle scopes

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Originally Posted by Litvyak View Post
From the 1975 Gun Gigest annual (pricing is in 1975 dollars and including only to compare the relative prices between scopes):

Browning Wide Angle 3-9 $104.95
Bushnell Scopechief IV 3-9 $110.50
Bushnell Scopechief V 3-9 $110.50 (Battery powered reticle)
Leupold Vari-X II 3-9 $112.50
Lyman All-American 3-9 $109.50
Nickel Supra Vari-Power 2.5-9 $250.00
Nickel Supra Vari-Power 3-10 $225.00
Leatherwood Bros. Auto/Range 3-9 $129.50
Redfield Traditional 3-9 $99.60
Redfield Widefield 3-9 $122.80
Tasco Omni-View 3-9 $139.95
Weatherby Premier Standard 3-9 $94.50
Weatherby Premier Wide Angle 3-9 $109.50
Williams Guide Line 3-9 $130.00
Thank you ever so much for this list. It was extremely useful to me.

Do you mind if I push my luck and check if you might be of even more use?

So far, I've equipped a lot of the rifles meant for shooting fox and bobcat in the twilight with the Bushnell Scopechief V, simply because I don't know about any other late 70s/early 80s variable power scopes with an illuminated reticle.

There was apparently also a Hensoldt fixed-power 4x scope with a battery illuminated reticle made in the 80s, which I know about because it is mentioned in GURPS Tactical Shooting. I think it was related to or perhaps even the same scope as what the West Germans were putting on military rifles in the late 70s.

Do you know if any other scope models came with battery-illuminated reticles in the period 1975-1985?*

For characterisation purposes, I would really like Dr. William Pinault to own a different model of scope than resides on the high-quality loaner rifles that the Allens keep for visiting VIPs.

The desired attributes are about the same; a variable power scope of 3-9x or thereabouts with good light-gathering capabilities and an illuminated reticle (or the equivalent). In game terms, it will be more or less the same thing (probably exactly the same), i.e. a +1 to +3 Acc scope that reduces darkness penalties by -2 and weighs from 0.7-1.5 lbs. But I'd like Dr. Pinault to own an imported European or Japanese scope**, not an American one with a commonplace (if good) reputation like the Bushnell.

On the above list, only the Nickel and Tasco are foreign and neither of them are really the kind of prestigious, pretentious maker names for which I'm looking.*** I'd like Hensoldt, Carl Zeiss, Schmidt und Bender, Kahles, Swarovski or the equivalent if European and something like Nikon if Japanese.

Does anyone know if these companies made any model of scope between 1975-1985 that had 3-9x magnification (or 2.75-8x, 3.5-10x or anything similar), 40mm or more objective lens and an illuminated reticle?

I suppose illuminated reticle is more important than variable power, if it is in 4x or 6x or so.

When were the Kahles Helia scopes marketed?

*In 1985, Trijicon starts marketing scopes with tritium illuminated reticles.
**Allowing him to wax ecstatic about the quality of engineering 'by these marvellous, organised peoples' in a quasi-racist manner.
***For all of that, 1970s Tasco scopes were reportedly excellent and Nickel has a very good reputation. But these are not pretentious, just very fine products.
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Old 03-30-2016, 07:13 AM   #156
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Default Re: 1980s American Cars, Guns, Gadgets and Consumer Goods [Atmosphere, look, minutiae

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Originally Posted by Icelander View Post
What about someone who wanted to go to war when Korea started in 1950? For an NPC who was born in 1933, did he have any plausible way to join the military at age 17? Legally?
While you cannot be drafted at 17, you could (and still can) voluntarily enlist at that age as long as you have parental consent.

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What about not-so-legally? Was the bureaucracy good enough by 1950 so that people couldn't lie about their age any more, like they did when joing up for WWII?
No. Lying about your age was still very much an option: At 14, Korean War Soldier Enlisted Before He Could Shave

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Thank you ever so much for this list. It was extremely useful to me.

Do you mind if I push my luck and check if you might be of even more use?
Unfortunately I can't be much help on anything further regarding scopes. That info that I had came out the 1975 Gun Digest which I bought used a couple years ago as a reference for firearms in 1970s era games. The Scopechief V is the only scope mentioned as having a battery powered reticle.

The other brands you're curious about aren't mentioned at all, probably because nobody was importing them at the time. In fact, there is a quick reference in an article to the fact that Del-Sports, Inc was no longer importing Kahles because the prices had risen too high on them.
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Old 03-30-2016, 11:22 AM   #157
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Default Re: 1980s American Cars, Guns, Gadgets and Consumer Goods [Atmosphere, look, minutiae

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While you cannot be drafted at 17, you could (and still can) voluntarily enlist at that age as long as you have parental consent.

No. Lying about your age was still very much an option: At 14, Korean War Soldier Enlisted Before He Could Shave
Splendid, that allows two of my NPCs to have a connecition through shared history, even though they probably didn't meet until later.


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Originally Posted by Litvyak View Post
Unfortunately I can't be much help on anything further regarding scopes. That info that I had came out the 1975 Gun Digest which I bought used a couple years ago as a reference for firearms in 1970s era games. The Scopechief V is the only scope mentioned as having a battery powered reticle.
I'm doing the best I can to research the history of battery powered reticles. I've got to be able to find out when Hensoldt or Kahles started offering them. Though I haven't found many sources, I'm starting to believe that maybe Zeiss and Swarovski didn't offer illuminated reticles until later, with tritium or other modern methods. Maybe battery illuminated reticles didn't suit their elegant designs and/or demand for accuracy at long ranges.

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Originally Posted by Litvyak View Post
The other brands you're curious about aren't mentioned at all, probably because nobody was importing them at the time. In fact, there is a quick reference in an article to the fact that Del-Sports, Inc was no longer importing Kahles because the prices had risen too high on them.
Were there any high-quality compact 2.5x or 3x fixed-power sight scopes mentioned in your magazine? I find that Googling period scopes is easier if I have a precise model name.
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Old 03-30-2016, 11:59 AM   #158
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Default Re: 1980s American Cars, Guns, Gadgets and Consumer Goods [Atmosphere, look, minutiae

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Were there any high-quality compact 2.5x or 3x fixed-power sight scopes mentioned in your magazine? I find that Googling period scopes is easier if I have a precise model name.
I'm not sure what you mean by compact... if you mean like modern tactical scopes people stick on their AR-15s? Then no... there's nothing like that. However, there is the Nickel Supralyt 2.5x listed at retail price of $130, the Leupold M8 3x listed at $68.50, and likely some others. These would be fairly traditional hunting scopes, though.
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Old 03-30-2016, 12:29 PM   #159
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Default Re: 1980s American Cars, Guns, Gadgets and Consumer Goods [Atmosphere, look, minutiae

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I'm not sure what you mean by compact... if you mean like modern tactical scopes people stick on their AR-15s? Then no... there's nothing like that. However, there is the Nickel Supralyt 2.5x listed at retail price of $130, the Leupold M8 3x listed at $68.50, and likely some others. These would be fairly traditional hunting scopes, though.
By compact I mean significantly lighter and more handy than the bigger variable power scopes that go up to 9x magnification.

Basically, most well-designed scopes with low fixed magnification are probably meant to be compact and should be much less of an encumbrance on a 5-6 lbs. plinking rimfire or camp gun than a 3-9x40mm or even a 3-9x56mm scope. Obviously, such guns would be even handier without scopes, but many middle-aged men feel a low power scope is easier to use with less than perfect vision than iron sights, especially as the light gets dimmer when it nears twilight.

The Leupold M8 3x scope is actually a perfect example of a 1970s vintage 'compact' hunting scope. I've even equipped Phil Willette with one of those mounted on his Savage 24V Series D rifle/shotgun combination gun in .22 Hornet/20G. But for Dr. William Pinault, I'd really prefer a 'fancy' imported model, even if the stats are exactly the same.

Willette is pragmatic and indifferent to fashions. He doesn't pay for brand recognition or unnecesary bells and whistles. More than a decade ago, he got a nice deal on a used Savage 24 in the .22 Hornet chambering, which he found a useful pest control gun around his cabins, and he liked being able to reload his brass.

When he was invited on the coyote night hunts some years later, he didn't buy a fancy new 'yote rifle, he just stuck a scope on his old plinker. Not the most expensive scope, but a quality model that suited his purpose. He doesn't mind that he doesn't have the capability for quick follow-up shots, because he takes pride in not missing.

Dr. Pinault, however, isn't really an avid hunter or the sort of gun nut who owns multiple gun cabinets. On the other hand, he is very sensitive to clean, attractive lines, understated elegance and perfection of design. He doesn't so much pursue fashions as he seeks to project, or even, ideally, embody, good taste.

He will always try to acquire classics, whether they are currently antiques or he believes that they will become classics in the future. When he buys a firearm or a riflescope, he will approach the matter as if he were spending an equivalent amount on buying a tailored suit, Italian leather shoes or a crystal candelabra. He will do research and then he will look at samples for as long as it takes, seeking that elusive perfection.*

At a glance, Willette will not be willing to spend more than ca GURPS $1,000 on a scope/rifle combination for a hobby. Dr. Pinault will gladly spend GURPS $5,000+ on a classic gun and scope, but he unless what he acquires is clearly an immortal piece of art, he might not go over $10,000. He could, after all, be spending that money on wine, brandy, paintings or fine dining instead.

Of course, Dr. Pinault is left-handed and dislikes intensely shooting right-handed bolt-actions. He is also not fond of brass flying at his face. This somewhat limits his options. He has had success with firearms that eject the spent shell or brass downwards, instead of sideways, and often borrowed Allen's Ithaca 37 Featherlight pump shotgun and his Browning SA-22 semi-automatic rifle. The latter got so bad that Dr. Pinault finally bought his own Browning SA-22, a custom deluxe one in Grade VI, with the safety moved for left-handed use. It's for that gun that I require a compact scope with good light-gathering capability, as Dr. Pinault uses it a lot to plink at small animals and even sometimes shoots at coyote at short ranges, often in poor lighting.

*Perfection within his budget, of course. He is not a spendthrift, merely an aesthete. He will set a budget for each purchase that his purse can bear. That might be quite a generous budget, however, as he is a renowned neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins with no family to help spend his disposable income.
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Old 03-30-2016, 01:42 PM   #160
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Default Re: About draftees and other military veterans

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By contrast, it is a proud boast of the Allen family that no Allen has ever been chump enough to fight wars for the benefit of other people wea}ring the uniform of the United States. The first Allen in North America, Clayton 'Clay' Allen did serve as a scout for the United States Army in several Indian wars and the War of 1812, but as he seems to have spent most of his time selling contraband to Indians on both sides and running slaves up to the Canadian Maritime provinces, he can hardly rank as an honourable veteran of the US Army.
I assume by counting the last enterprise as dishonorable you are saying he was a kidnapper not a rescuer?
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