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Cyrano4747 posted:Eh, it's certainly exaggerated but it doesn't have to be bullshit. A couple early tester P-80s were stationed at RAF Burtonwood in late '44 but one crashed on its second flight (in January '45 mind you) and the other was used as a test bed for Rolls Royce. Burtonwood's up North of London but while the story loosely and generously fits known dates it would be an insane breach of procedure, taking two infantry jokers on a joyride in two of the only four P-80s in all of Europe.
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Dec 9, 2014 22:27
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FAUXTON posted:an insane breach of procedure
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Dec 9, 2014 22:29
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Trin Tragula posted:100 Years Ago What never ceases to amuse/amaze me is that right at the time the standard gun warship is reaching its conceptual and technical apotheosis is how few decisive classic gun battles there was to be in WW1+2, (these here Falklandinseln schlacht being a rare case) without subs/aerial torpedoes/aerocraft/carriers interfering. Hell, even pre-dreads may have more engagements to their credit.
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Dec 9, 2014 22:36
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Cyrano4747 posted:More like 60 minutes than 40, but still really goddamned fast for a working class guy in the infantry. HEY GAL posted:You guys remember the Dolnstein book, right? His stuff is solid gold, except he's got a thing in there about how the King of Denmark totally knighted him and all his friends, for reals guys
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Dec 9, 2014 22:40
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HEY GAL posted:something the common soldier would never dream of That's because they don't need to dream about it.
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Dec 9, 2014 23:00
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Trin Tragula posted:100 Years Ago Lice inspection gets serious.
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Dec 10, 2014 02:49
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What was the life of an artilleryman like during the world wars, expecially the first? It seems like almost all the accounts focus on front-line infantry or on flashy jobs like pilot. Were they artillery full-time or did they get sent on patrols, second-rate infantry missions, etc. like modern artillery units often do?
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Dec 10, 2014 03:18
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vintagepurple posted:What was the life of an artilleryman like during the world wars, expecially the first? It seems like almost all the accounts focus on front-line infantry or on flashy jobs like pilot. Were they artillery full-time or did they get sent on patrols, second-rate infantry missions, etc. like modern artillery units often do? Seconding this question mainly because I want to know how much of a threat counterbattery fire was.
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Dec 10, 2014 03:33
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vintagepurple posted:What was the life of an artilleryman like during the world wars, expecially the first? It seems like almost all the accounts focus on front-line infantry or on flashy jobs like pilot. Were they artillery full-time or did they get sent on patrols, second-rate infantry missions, etc. like modern artillery units often do? I can tell you that a modern artillery unit isn't spending any of it's time under counterbattery, because heavy artillery isn't usually a third-world insurgency staple. There's no frontline to be bombarding either, so the workload is pretty minor. The forces bringing artillerymen into foot patrols are the same ones that put tankers into humvees, I wouldn't assume they'd be doing that in a conventional war.
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Dec 10, 2014 03:45
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FAUXTON posted:Seconding this question mainly because I want to know how much of a threat counterbattery fire was. Artillery did artillery things 100% of the time unless poo poo got really loving weird (breakthroughs, overruns etc). Counter-battery - depends on who's doing the shooting. The Western Allies were big in to directed counterbattery fire because they had a poo poo load of radios, air superiority supremacy and light aircraft all over the place. The Russians weren't in to direct counterbattery fire as much as hitting the poo poo out of specific set targets as part of a larger operation. If a specific battery was identified, fires might be shifted to it, but in a less direct way than the Western allies. The Germans were big in to time-on-target artillery barrages, where you get a bunch of guns set up to hit the gently caress out of a specific point on the map all at the same time, rather than a similar volume of fire from fewer guns over an extended time period. Don't know much about counterbattery artillery use by the Germans. At least on the Western front, an artillery duel would end very poorly for the Germans.
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Dec 10, 2014 03:48
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Cyrano4747 posted:I think it's also worth noting that this whole vignette is a really great showpiece for all of the problems with oral history and why you can't take survivor testimony and accounts as 100% statements of fact, but it equally demonstrates how with a bit of a deft touch you can still make some really interesting inferences from it and use it to good effect. You can't take it completely at face value, but you also can't completely dismiss it even if there are aspects that you know are probably mistaken or embellished, whether on purpose or because of the way memory and storytelling works after 50+ years. See also: gold digging ants by herodotus.
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Dec 10, 2014 05:19
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Frostwerks posted:See also: gold digging ants by herodotus. Most likely a mistranslation http://www.nytimes.com/1996/11/25/world/himalayas-offer-clue-to-legend-of-gold-digging-ants.html
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Dec 10, 2014 05:32
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Phobophilia posted:Most likely a mistranslation That's what I'm referring to.
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Dec 10, 2014 05:35
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Frostwerks posted:See also: gold digging ants by herodotus. Now I ain't sayin' she's a gold digger, but she ain't messin' with no broke pre-modern historian.
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Dec 10, 2014 06:15
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Any recommendations on good books about the Battle of the Philippine Sea? Right now I'm eying Red Sun Setting: The Battle of the Philippine Sea and Clash of The Carriers: The True Story of the Marianas Turkey Shoot of World War II.
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Dec 10, 2014 07:27
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In a similar vein, are there any books about late-WWII weaponry? Proper assault rifles, the crazy Hitler planes, jets, etc.
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Dec 10, 2014 07:54
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Koesj posted:Handheld ultraportable AT weapons kinda ended up as a last line of defense of some sorts. In mid to late Cold War terms, heavier 'infantry' AT percolated down to the company or even squad levels. In lots of armies these were lovely systems like Dragon or Malyutka, but the Bundeswehr for example was heavily decked out with MILAN at squad level IIRC, and nowadays a modern military can distribute nasty-rear end fire-and-forget weapons down to the most lowly of fighting units. IFV-borne Panzergrenadier units were/are equipped with a Milan in each squad - their OOB treats the Marder as an integral part of the squad (it's basically the second fireteam while the 6 dismounts form the first one) it carries and each one has a Milan launcher (plus several reloads of course) that can be mounted either on the Marders turret or on an independent tripod for dismounted use. There's also an AT gunner with a Panzerfaust 3 (or Panzerfaust 2 "Lanze" before PzF 3) in the dismounted team. M113-borne Panzergrenadier units also had a Milan per squad and larger squadsowing to the greater carrying capacity of the M113 and the fact that it can't really support the squad in combat like the Marder does. Why yes, it's almost as if we expected to have to stop a metric shitton of tanks one day. I have no idea why. 
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Dec 10, 2014 09:17
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There isn't really a thread about Fury or much of anything I've seen from googling besides a Guardian article (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/11169837/Fury-a-Second-World-War-film-that-takes-no-prisoners.html), but I was wondering if anyone who saw that could go into the historical inaccuracies. I know I know entertainment != history, but surprisingly it seems like they got a lot of details wrt set dressing and props (with the use of an actual Tiger tank albeit an early model one). The final battle scene did seem to push the Hollywood meter a bit over the top though I'm no expert in Waffen SS tactics, just seemed like they took their sweet time getting out the AT weapons, limited as they were. The closest thing I know of to anything like it would be Audie Murphy's exploits Funny enough the Guardian mentions the Sherman vs Tiger matchup being much closer than people think, I have to admit I always thought it was inferior though, probably owing to the armor and less experienced US crews? Also wrt there seemed to be a lot of...integration. I know Mexican-American soldiers served but I honestly didn't know where they fell on the segregation lines or if they just got their own unit, but there were a couple black soldiers with white units and I could have sworn one Asian. Alan Smithee fucked around with this message at 10:17 on Dec 10, 2014 |
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Dec 10, 2014 10:03
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Alan Smithee posted:There isn't really a thread about Fury or much of anything I've seen from googling besides a Guardian article (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/11169837/Fury-a-Second-World-War-film-that-takes-no-prisoners.html), but I was wondering if anyone who saw that could go into the historical inaccuracies. I know I know entertainment != history, but surprisingly it seems like they got a lot of details wrt set dressing and props (with the use of an actual Tiger tank albeit an early model one). The final battle scene did seem to push the Hollywood meter a bit over the top though I'm no expert in Waffen SS tactics, just seemed like they took their sweet time getting out the AT weapons, limited as they were. The closest thing I know of to anything like it would be Audie Murphy's exploits Tankchat quickie, if a Sherman and Tiger were transported into alternate featureless dimension and ordered to fight each other, the Tiger would probably win. That's not reflective of any combat zone though. It's true that 76mm guns could penetrate the Tiger, especially if special ammunition was used. As it goes with tanks, the first one to shoot usually wins. Seeing as the both Tigers and Shermans could penetrate each other's armour, the circumstances would swing the battle. The true worth of any piece of military equipment comes through in its ability to support its army. Tanks didn't fight other tanks very often, with mines and AT guns being the primary tank-killers. Every minor skirmish, where a Sherman showed up but a Tiger couldn't, reflects poorly for the Germans, who'd probably lose that engagement. It wasn't about swarms of cheap tanks either. A Sherman platoon has 3-5 tanks, while Tigers tried to run with 4 if possible. The Germans were usually on the defensive after 1944. Tanks are big and blind, and so tend to take losses when advancing on prepared defenses. The Sherman casualty rate understandable when you compare German tank casualties during their own offensives, like Arracourt, or Noville.
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Dec 10, 2014 10:34
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Alan Smithee posted:Also wrt there seemed to be a lot of...integration. I know Mexican-American soldiers served but I honestly didn't know where they fell on the segregation lines or if they just got their own unit, but there were a couple black soldiers with white units and I could have sworn one Asian. AFAIK Mexican-Americans weren't segregated at all. Chinese-Americans served in frontline units too. US race relations prevented integrated units with blacks, obviously. And the Japanese internment speaks for itself on that front. Apart from those two, only Filipinos were segregated by policy, and that's because the Philippines were basically an American colony.
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Dec 10, 2014 10:43
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Well, some of the points the writer made are pretty pointless. I am not sure if the velocity of the 76mm is close to the 88, but even if it is...what's the point? The US 76mm gun, based on trial shortly after Normandy showed without HVAP ammuntion (which is always in short supply) still can't reliable penetrate a Tiger's frontal armor (due to shatter gap) while the 88 can penetrate a Sherman from over a mile away. But thankfully battle doesn't occur on flat plain with perfect communication among all units so the above scenerio is only one possible outcome out of many. Yeah, by April 1945 the Allied might have those late war tanks like the Pershing and Comet, but at that point of vast vast vast majority of the tanks were still some kind of M4. Pershing and Comet both didn't arrive when they could be useful (say, during the Bulge or something). At Normandy ~50% of the German tanks were Panthers and the Wesetern Allied initally assumed the Panther going to be rare like the Tiger instead of the standard issued tank. The only reason Panzer IV were still produced at that point is because retooling those factories to swtich production from producing Panzer IV to V would of taken too long when the situation at the front is so critical. So calling the vast majority of the tank Panzer 4 is kind of a strech. Not to mention Germany had way more StuG III than any of their tanks so I wouldn't be surprised if that's the most common AFV encountered. For some easy to digest reading I recommend reading these two blog posts (from Chieftain's Hatch): http://worldoftanks.com/en/news/pc-browser/21/chieftains-hatch-us-guns-vs-german-armour-part-1/ http://worldoftanks.com/en/news/pc-browser/21/us-guns-german-armor-part-2/ The author went through both trial data and testimonials that illustrates how once you factor in the tactical and strategical situation things can get quite messy. pedro0930 fucked around with this message at 10:56 on Dec 10, 2014 |
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Dec 10, 2014 10:47
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Alan Smithee posted:Funny enough the Guardian mentions the Sherman vs Tiger matchup being much closer than people think, I have to admit I always thought it was inferior though, probably owing to the armor and less experienced US crews? Except for everyone having Hollywood weapons ranges and the Fury going for a rear shot instead of just putting a 76mm through the side or non-angled front of the Tiger from short range, the scene actually works fairly well. The Tiger ambushes the column from a hull-down position flanking their direction of advance while it's out on open ground with no cover in reach. They react by the best way open to them in the situation and fire smoke shells into it while trying to close in for a kill shot. To which the Tiger reacts by rolling out of the smoke to get a clear line of fire, hopefully before they can close in enough and swarm it.
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Dec 10, 2014 11:10
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Way earlier in the thread, someone postrd about how you couldn't get high up in the nazi hierarchy without walking the party line. What would be some good sources on stuff like that?
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Dec 10, 2014 11:23
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cosmosisjones posted:Way earlier in the thread, someone postrd about how you couldn't get high up in the nazi hierarchy without walking the party line. What would be some good sources on stiff like that? The CIA
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Dec 10, 2014 11:24
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pedro0930 posted:Well, some of the points the writer made are pretty pointless. I am not sure if the velocity of the 76mm is close to the 88, but even if it is...what's the point? The US 76mm gun, based on trial shortly after Normandy showed without HVAP ammuntion (which is always in short supply) still can't reliable penetrate a Tiger's frontal armor (due to shatter gap) while the 88 can penetrate a Sherman from over a mile away. But thankfully battle doesn't occur on flat plain with perfect communication among all units so the above scenerio is only one possible outcome out of many. These tests were done on Panthers, not Tigers.
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Dec 10, 2014 11:37
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Magni posted:Except for everyone having Hollywood weapons ranges and the Fury going for a rear shot instead of just putting a 76mm through the side or non-angled front of the Tiger from short range, the scene actually works fairly well. The Tiger ambushes the column from a hull-down position flanking their direction of advance while it's out on open ground with no cover in reach. They react by the best way open to them in the situation and fire smoke shells into it while trying to close in for a kill shot. To which the Tiger reacts by rolling out of the smoke to get a clear line of fire, hopefully before they can close in enough and swarm it. Complaining about the inaccuracies in Fury misses the vast number of ways in which it conveys an authentic window into the world of the 1945 US army. The way that Fury gets sent to the infantry regiment and then to the field is a pretty good depiction of how 'missions' would be formed and people would get to them. The way in which the officers have been killed and the NCOs have to deal with that fact and keep doing their jobs is authentic. The claustrophobia inside the tank is authentic. The point of the film isn't to be a historical re-enactment, it's to provide the viewer with a window into what it was like to be at war. In that, Fury is an excellent war film worthy of being placed in the highest ranks. Anyone who recognises the fact that Fury has a 76mm gun or knows what the term 'shatter gap' means doesn't need the film to spell it out for them.
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Dec 10, 2014 13:17
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While it wouldn't have made for a very good movie, Fury would have been a much more realistic movie if the Tiger turned out to actually be a Pak 40 battery.
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Dec 10, 2014 14:47
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Theres also the problem of Shermans exploding or burning on every shot. Its like they took that awful memoir death traps as gospel truth. I think 4 other tanks are destroyed two by ammo detonations and two that burn. In reality by the end of the war the shermans had pretty low burn rate thanks to wet ammo storage. The final sequence was also pretty dumb where the ss run around like headless chickens. Plus the evil sinister ss sniper in his camo suit who needs 4 or 5 shots to cutdown the hero in slowmo. It does get some stuff right but I would hardly call three details vast historical accuracy. Finally who can forget that logs make the best applique armor because they will deflect 88mm shells. gently caress tank tracks and cement cover all the tanks in logs.
space pope fucked around with this message at 15:02 on Dec 10, 2014 |
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Dec 10, 2014 14:53
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Wouldn't the Tiger try to keep engagement distances as long as possible? I.e. drive out the smoke cloud, stop, then just gun down the advancing shermans? Also apparently the Tiger driver didnt know how to turn the tank.
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Dec 10, 2014 18:16
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space pope posted:Theres also the problem of Shermans exploding or burning on every shot. Its like they took that awful memoir death traps as gospel truth. I think 4 other tanks are destroyed two by ammo detonations and two that burn. In reality by the end of the war the shermans had pretty low burn rate thanks to wet ammo storage. The final sequence was also pretty dumb where the ss run around like headless chickens. Plus the evil sinister ss sniper in his camo suit who needs 4 or 5 shots to cutdown the hero in slowmo. It does get some stuff right but I would hardly call three details vast historical accuracy. Finally who can forget that logs make the best applique armor because they will deflect 88mm shells. gently caress tank tracks and cement cover all the tanks in logs. It's hollywood. Hollywood likes to create big fireballs and explosions that make huge chunks of pinwheeling debris go *whoosh* right past the camera so the audience goes "OH HOLY gently caress" and ducks and then goes :hwafap: and buys more tickets. Even real no bullshit explosions are far less impressive. Here is a recent video of a Javelin missile cooking off right after leaving the tube. From a pure pyrotechnics standpoint it looks shittier than most decent backyard fireworks, but that's a pretty bona fide brown shorts event and the guys in the video are lucky they didn't get hurt. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=e86_1417827411
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Dec 10, 2014 18:43
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Ensign Expendable posted:While it wouldn't have made for a very good movie, Fury would have been a much more realistic movie if the Tiger turned out to actually be a Pak 40 battery. They did encounter an AT line and all the shells just bounced off.
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Dec 10, 2014 18:44
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Saint Celestine posted:Also apparently the Tiger driver didnt know how to turn the tank.
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Dec 10, 2014 18:45
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:Artillery did artillery things 100% of the time unless poo poo got really loving weird (breakthroughs, overruns etc). Germans were, on the eastern front, pretty big on identifiying Red army Radio communications and using artillery to hit those when uncovered. 6th Armys Radio intercept grouping was especially reknown.
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Dec 10, 2014 19:14
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Arquinsiel posted:From what I understand not turning it was a stipulation of use from Bovington museum, because they JUST finished fixing the thing and didn't want to risk killing it again. Besides, the main point of that section is to kill off the rest of the tank troop. I can actually buy that scene a bit - the Tiger has to advance out of the smokescreen to require the Shermans and the Shermans are caught on a shooting gallery and don't have an option other than 'close and hope for the best'.
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Dec 10, 2014 19:20
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pedro0930 posted:Well, some of the points the writer made are pretty pointless. I am not sure if the velocity of the 76mm is close to the 88, but even if it is...what's the point? The US 76mm gun, based on trial shortly after Normandy showed without HVAP ammuntion (which is always in short supply) still can't reliable penetrate a Tiger's frontal armor (due to shatter gap) while the 88 can penetrate a Sherman from over a mile away. But thankfully battle doesn't occur on flat plain with perfect communication among all units so the above scenerio is only one possible outcome out of many. Actually the 88L56 has quite a bit of problem with the front plate of the Sherman, up to the point of it being completely unable to penetrate the upper glacis (The sloped plate on the front of the tank) at any range if it's angled decently.
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Dec 10, 2014 20:00
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Yeah, a lot of people envision the KwK 36 as this magical gun that slices through everything in its path like butter, but there was nothing exceptional about it. The Tigerfibel instructs to fire at T-34s and Shermans at only 800 meters, for instance.
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Dec 10, 2014 20:25
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100 Years Ago So, what do the French hope to achieve with their winter offensive on the Western Front? Many of the objectives are reasonable and sensible. It probably won't win the war, but in the eyes of the Operations Bureau, there is still cause for optimism. Meanwhile, the Daily Telegraph is advertising for men to enlist as military police, and there's more stories of opposing sides coming to a local agreement, which I've clipped for y'all.  Tee hee, they said "intercourse". Intercooooourse...
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Dec 10, 2014 20:41
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Alan Smithee posted:less experienced US crews? I may be wrong on this but I am pretty sure at this point in the war, US crews are actually superior in experience to the majority of German tank crews.
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Dec 10, 2014 20:48
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Ensign Expendable posted:Yeah, a lot of people envision the KwK 36 as this magical gun that slices through everything in its path like butter, but there was nothing exceptional about it. The Tigerfibel instructs to fire at T-34s and Shermans at only 800 meters, for instance. I think it's because pop culture and video games have convinced people that tank warfare is like a giant mechanised rock-paper-scissors scenario when in reality it's a contest of probabilities and hedging your bets with incremental improvements and advantages. Not to mention the incredibly complicated interweaving of training, morale, tactics, strategy and logistics. Equipment doesn't win battles and it isn't even the biggest (or second- or third- biggest) contributor to winning battles. People like to imagine these perfect-storm scenarios where the vehicles meet in a sterile environment and then numbers are somehow crunched but reality never works like that. The tiger having lots of armour and a big gun didn't make it vastly superior to allied/Russian tanks. It made it statistically more likely to deflect the first shot/score a kill on the first shot. Which is how armour works in general AFAIK. A man in full plate isn't guaranteed to kill an unarmoured man in a fight; his chances are just higher. And when everyone is developing armour and weapons in a race to out-do the other side, the margins are comparatively tiny and you realise that the more intangible surrounding aspects like tactics and logistics make a much, much greater difference than the quality of the equipment (unless said equipment is completely dismal or a gigantic technological breakthrough). Likewise I don't know if you could make easy generalisations of crew quality. Tank crews in which division? The Sherman crews who have just shipped to England and never fought before D-day? Or the hardened veterans of Tunisia? The scratch panzer crews built from auxiliaries and foreign fighters, or the elite formations drawn from years of combat on the eastern front? Slavvy fucked around with this message at 22:19 on Dec 10, 2014 |
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Dec 10, 2014 22:17
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I still say that Fury would have been better if it was from the German perspective, like Das Boot in a Panzer. I liked it well enough for what it was, it's not like there's any war movie that is 100% accurate.Alchenar posted:Complaining about the inaccuracies in Fury misses the vast number of ways in which it conveys an authentic window into the world of the 1945 US army. The way that Fury gets sent to the infantry regiment and then to the field is a pretty good depiction of how 'missions' would be formed and people would get to them. The way in which the officers have been killed and the NCOs have to deal with that fact and keep doing their jobs is authentic. The claustrophobia inside the tank is authentic. Literally none of my friends knew anything about what it would have been like in a tank when the war ended, and they were all surprised at how ad hoc everything seemed to be. Some people I talked to thought that an NCO commanding the column was unrealistic because they seemed to think the entire column would wait until they could get a new officer instead of pushing forward. I will credit the film with showing people that even at the end of the war when the Allies had pretty much won it was still a hard fight. Could have done without that really long uncomfortable scene in the middle.
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Dec 10, 2014 23:26
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