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I've got a whole series of books by Time-Life on the "Civil War" that my Mom and Dad got me when I was a kid. They told me all about it to the point where I'm highly educated about that particular historical event...I mean, I know exactly what happened in all the definitive moments.

I know all about it because I read it in those books.

Exactly.

You have made a painful point...

It's called experience.

Something you two are very light on.

Regardless of subject.

History is fascinating and how it is distorted to fit facts. Take the Civil War for example. History tells us that the South was dependent on an economic model of agriculture with slaves while the north had those ingenious Yankees who figured out all sorts of neat industrial tricks and built factories and the like. Obviously, because they were smarter and more industrious.

But do you ever see it questioned as to why it was that way? What was the primary method of powering any machinery before steam took over? Well, water of course. And how was that accomplished? Water wheels of course. And what kinds of waterwheels were there? Well there were various kinds but for a big part of the time, there were two main types. There was the undershot wheel, one powered by water running through the bottom of the wheel. And there was the overshot wheel, water traveling over the top of the wheel. The overshot wheel was 90 to 95% efficient and could be adapted to run factories and the like, while the undershot wheel was 60 to 65% efficient and could only power smaller grinding mills and the like.

So, given that disparity, why would anyone ever build an undershot wheel. Well, geography, of course. Overshot wheels needed faster moving streams and since you can’t run water up hill unless you started it on a bigger hill first, big changes in elevation. So, you had to build your factories in places where you had fast streams. But, of course, in the days before railroads and good roads, water was also the way to transport things, so you needed easy access to navigatable water to ship the things you built in your factory.

So, with all that in mind, what did rivers and streams look like in places like Massachusetts and Connecticut where the earliest factories in the US were built? What did they look like in the entire South near the coast? In the early 19th century slow sluggish rivers found across the coastal South, did not lend themselves to industry because it did not have suitable power sources for overshot waterwheels close to the coast and transportation. While in the north, the coastal areas were close to exactly the kinds of streams needed for industry. The US firearms industry was the first industry to adopt mass production methods and it is no coincidence that many gun companies are still, or have been until very recently, based in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New York.

It wasn’t until somewhere around 1876 that a steam engine with the necessary gearing and clutch assemblies was developed that could power entire factories from belts was developed.

Before the advent of modern power sources, geography controlled much much more than it does now. So much so, that our modern minds have forgotten things that people once took for granted and it obscures our insights into their thoughts and motives.

What experience?

All I can see from you is someone in their early 40's who spends his days being a dog pekker gnat on an internet forum.

You're too young to not have a life.

And they're both wrong, to boot. Nothing in Deflave's second statement there was presented as fact.

Of course. It's different, when *you* do it.

Cause you know everthing.

The new 4ager.

Ten threads on the page, you'll get some 4aflave on 9 of em.

Aliens want to see more skin.

I had more life experience at 23 than you'll have in your grave.

I'm way better looking than 4ager.

Well, you know.

Reading and all that. Some struggle.

Plus they were from the south.

I mean... who couldn't whip the south's ass?

You've become what you once ridiculed.

Charming?

Annoying southerner?

Makes perfect sense as the majority ethnic group in the US was and still is of German ancestry. Although there were many anti-German protests after the Lusitania's sinking and the US entered the war, the pro German movement in this country remained strong all the way up to WWII and as you probably know, many returned to the Reich before 1942.

Your source: link

But it does still beg the questions, would the Germans have torpedoed her anyway? (impossible to know, but suffice to say, it would have been almost impossible for that U boat Commander not to recognize the ship) and secondly, HOW did the Germans know she was carrying munitions. Lastly, the German tactic of UNRESTRICTED submarine warfare makes the issue moot. Lastly, the ship's speed and the coal bunker detonation remains valid, as according to that article and others, the munitions found were intact. And yes I was wrong.

The Germans likely would never have resorted to unrestricted submarine warfare but for British treachery, specifically Winston Churchill. At the beginning of the war German submarines would stop British merchant ships offload the crew into boats, and then sink it with a deck gun. Churchill came up with the bright idea of Q ships. They armed ships disguised as merchant ships. As soon as the submarine would surface to board the suspect merchant ship, it would drop the covers on the deck guns and sink the submarine. It was expressly against the rules of war, but to Churchill that didn’t matter. After a few winnings, the Germans decided that they could no longer afford to stop a merchant ship and board it, but instead they were forced to sink them without warning.

A stretch in my opinion..The facts are from day one of WWI, not a single merchant ship was able to reach Germany. They just got desperate in an attempt to stop the strangulation by the RN. Churchill was out of business by 1915 after he was wrongfully blamed for Gallipoli (the Imperial General Staff waited too long, had they struck when Churchill wanted, things might have gone differently)

one of many links