|
Frostwerks posted:What were both positive and negative stereotypes of various nationalities in the ETO? You mentioned friendly fire as American (though I don't know if this is because they were considered skittish and twitchy or because they had poor operational awareness and lit up their own by mistake) which I too have heard before but I was wondering if there were any traits held in esteem even among enemies. I imagine though that one's worldview would have a significant impact on this I realize: someone in their early twenties who spent their formative years under the NS banner probably wouldn't have many kind words to say on behalf of Slavic peoples, but I could be surprised. There was a joke in the western theatre that the way to identify a distant group of infantry was to fire one shot at them. If they responded with volleys of rifle fire, they're British. If they start shooting machine guns at you, they're German. If they scramble for cover, and five minutes later your position gets destroyed by artillery fire, they're American. What was the American doctrine of taking territory during WWII? I've read about blitzkrieg and deep battle, but I hardly know anything about how the Western Allies advanced after D-Day.
|
# ? Jan 27, 2015 05:37 |
|
|
# ? Jun 5, 2024 07:24 |
|
wide stance posted:Any tanker books like Tigers in the Mud but from an allied perspective in North Africa or the Western Front? Never heard that one. The most impressive "invincible Tiger" story I've seen was the one in the Tigerfibel where it took two dozen shots from AT guns and managed to crawl back to friendlies with two ruptured torsion bars and other damage.
|
# ? Jan 27, 2015 05:38 |
|
So I'm still trying to research military jurisprudence... Spain, Feldlager near Alcantara, 9 Sept 1580. The Silesian Erich Lassota, from whose reminiscences this anecdote comes, is a common soldier among the Landsknechts who are serving Philip II in his war against Portugal. They have been ordered to leave camp, but they are refusing since they have not been payed. The Obrist rides up and says: "If anyone sets himself against my order, henceforth I shall not pardon any single person who appeals in a capital case. Instead I will punish everyone according to his crimes, as set down in the Articles of War." With that, he rode away. The following morning, the regiment broke camp. HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 05:43 on Jan 27, 2015 |
# ? Jan 27, 2015 05:40 |
|
MORE METAL
|
# ? Jan 27, 2015 05:46 |
I found an interview with a Soviet tanker who used a Sherman. Some very neat stories and anecdotes about the Sherman in here.quote:- My tank was hit on 19 April 1945 in Austria. A Tiger put a round straight through us. The projectile passed through the entire fighting compartment and then the engine compartment. There were three officers in the tank: I as the battalion commander, the company commander Sasha Ionov (whose own tank had already been hit), and the tank commander. Three officers, a driver-mechanic, and a radio operator. When the Tiger hit us, the driver-mechanic was killed outright. My entire left leg was wounded; to my right, Sasha Ionov suffered a traumatic amputation of his right leg. The tank commander was wounded, and below me sat the gunner, Lesha Romashkin. Both of his legs were blown off. A short time before this battle, we were sitting around at a meal and Lesha said to me, "If I lose my legs I will shoot myself. Who will need me?" He was an orphan and had no known relatives. In a strange twist of fate, this is what happened to him. We pulled Sasha out of the tank and then Lesha, and were beginning to assist in the evacuation of the others. At this moment Lesha shot himself.
|
|
# ? Jan 27, 2015 05:51 |
|
chitoryu12 posted:I found an interview with a Soviet tanker who used a Sherman. Some very neat stories and anecdotes about the Sherman in here. Loza has a full book, Commanding the Red Army's Sherman Tanks, which is on Amazon. Definitely an interesting read if you can get ahold of it.
|
# ? Jan 27, 2015 05:59 |
Chamale posted:There was a joke in the western theatre that the way to identify a distant group of infantry was to fire one shot at them. If they responded with volleys of rifle fire, they're British. If they start shooting machine guns at you, they're German. If they scramble for cover, and five minutes later your position gets destroyed by artillery fire, they're American. There wasn't any kind of formal name for the doctrine, but you can get a glimpse at it by looking at Field Manuals. FM-17, covering armored divisions, FM-6-20, covering the use of artillery on a tactical level, FM-2-20, covering the use of mechanized reconnaissance troops, FM-5-6, covering engineer operations, and FM-7-40, covering the rifle regiment, are all probably fairly fruitful. You should also read up on fire and movement.
|
|
# ? Jan 27, 2015 06:04 |
|
HEY GAL posted:That's depressing. Let us consider, instead, some swagged out dudes and their portraits. Getting caught up after a rough few weeks but I had to give this post some appreciation. This is how you do history. Evidence, context, argument, Also, someone asked about panzer corps and eastern front atrocities. The short answer is that there still needs to be more research done, but they pitched in like everyone else when asked. I know there was a good article published a couple years back about one particular massacre by a tank regiment and I'm pretty sure there's a book coming out soon from a younger guy on that subject. I'll throw up some details when I have access to my notes again.
|
# ? Jan 27, 2015 07:02 |
|
Cyrano4747 posted:Getting caught up after a rough few weeks but I had to give this post some appreciation. This is how you do history. Evidence, context, argument, Edit: Also, check out Boncompagni's Wikipedia entry. (He's listed here as Giacomo, I guess they used both that name and Jacopo?) He was refined as all hell, but was able to carve out a nice little niche for himself until the next administration pried him out of it: quote:Despite all the political and military charges he had been able to assign to his son, Gregory aimed to carve out for him a true state. After a failed attempt of acquisition of the Marquisate of Saluzzo in 1577, in the same year the pope paid 70,000 golden scudi for the small Marquisate of Vignola to Alfonso II d'Este. Two years later it was the turn of the larger Duchy of Sora and Arce, for which the pope and Giacomo paid 100,000 golden scudi to Francesco Maria II of Urbino. Also you can buy a little marquisate lol Edit 2: Meanwhile, this is what Anastagi did about ten years before that picture was made. HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 09:25 on Jan 27, 2015 |
# ? Jan 27, 2015 07:17 |
|
Hi! I guess this is not strictly speaking history (as of yet anyway), but have any of you book-loving goons read "An Intimate War: An Oral History of the Helmand Conflict" by Mike Martin? If so, what did you think? At a glance it seems like he has some very well made points about the problems of the last 30 or so years of conflict in the region, but I'm not really an expert on the subject. Seeing as I'm still a student, and therefore have little to no extra cash for "read this for fun"-type deals, I was hoping to hear if it is worth it, or if I should look for something else to spend my precious fun-money on Also, this is awesome! Does it by any chance exist as a poster one can buy? FAUXTON posted:
|
# ? Jan 27, 2015 13:55 |
|
wide stance posted:Any tanker books like Tigers in the Mud but from an allied perspective in North Africa or the Western Front? I feel like mentioning Stalingrad here, where one T-34s armour was too thick for German grenadiers to penetrate, so they just kept wailing on the front plate, till the crew emerged to surrender, all completely deaf.
|
# ? Jan 27, 2015 14:00 |
|
Frantz posted:Hi! Inter-library loan it! If your uni library has Link+ or something similar, they can get it from another library and get it to you in a week or two.
|
# ? Jan 27, 2015 14:07 |
|
Tias posted:I feel like mentioning Stalingrad here, where one T-34s armour was too thick for German grenadiers to penetrate, so they just kept wailing on the front plate, till the crew emerged to surrender, all completely deaf. That was Beevor's Stalingrad and the opening days of the invasion to Soviet Union. The tank in question was KV-1, which Beevor described as "KV Tank Monster". According to the story, German panzers lined up and pounded KV until they ran out of ammo. The KV's crew emerged from inside deaf and dazed, but tank did not have a scratch. I'd love to have some verification to this story.
|
# ? Jan 27, 2015 14:23 |
|
Bacarruda posted:Inter-library loan it! If your uni library has Link+ or something similar, they can get it from another library and get it to you in a week or two. I've tried, all of their copies have been loaned out for ages, with multiple people still in front of me in the queue
|
# ? Jan 27, 2015 14:52 |
|
PittTheElder posted:Wait, was friendly-fire a real problem for American forces in WWII? I assumed it was a crack about some of their more recent performances. I'm not aware of any statistical analysis that suggests the US was any worse than anyone else about friendly fire in WWII. You see Cobra listed a lot but at least in terms of bodycount it is pretty mild, especially compared to some of the stuff the Brits did. Cap Arcona was the worst I know of by far; they also had significant incidents in North Africa and a couple in Normandy. Submarines from all sides were fond of wasting friendlies, the Germans in particular. The wikipedia list obviously has the flaws of any wiki thing but at least on cursory glance it appears the Brits won both the bodycount and number of incidents contest by a mile. That being said, if I had to guess I suspect the Red Army would beat the Brits handily if we had perfect data. Chamale posted:What was the American doctrine of taking territory during WWII? I've read about blitzkrieg and deep battle, but I hardly know anything about how the Western Allies advanced after D-Day. This is speaking very broadly, but I think the best description is a focus on combined arms and support-by-fire. In other words, combined arms teams were the basic building block; operations were conducted employing as much firepower as possible from all sources. In practice this usually meant fixing opponents with maneuver units, then using artillery and air power to reduce them without a whole lot of additional manuevering. This was a pretty good plan for a theater where the US had such a massive advantage in artillery density and air superiority. bewbies fucked around with this message at 17:39 on Jan 27, 2015 |
# ? Jan 27, 2015 17:28 |
|
Pyle posted:That was Beevor's Stalingrad and the opening days of the invasion to Soviet Union. The tank in question was KV-1, which Beevor described as "KV Tank Monster". According to the story, German panzers lined up and pounded KV until they ran out of ammo. The KV's crew emerged from inside deaf and dazed, but tank did not have a scratch. I'd love to have some verification to this story. Ack, you're right I only have the Danish translation, in which it's merely "a tank", which I took to be a T-34, since the previous paragraph rambles on about quick T-34 deployment from factory to streetfight.
|
# ? Jan 27, 2015 17:39 |
|
Operationally speaking the US didn't really have a single land doctrine in ww2. The Pacific theatre was its own crwature. Operation torch demonstrated an ability and willingness to expend vast resources in order to achieve conventional but impractical for other belligerents goals like opening a second front. US generals liked to criticise Monty for being slow, but Eisenhower was the top-down proponent of the allied broad-front advance on the west front. Bradley was solid but lacked the ground or resources to make his mark, Patton talked the talk of mobile warfare but liked to throw his men at defended forts.
|
# ? Jan 27, 2015 17:53 |
|
From the link early about Russian Shermans:quote:The Sherman was light years better in this regard. Did you know that one of the designers of the Sherman was a Russian engineer named Timoshenko? He was some shirt tail relative of Marshal S. K. Timoshenko. This reminds me of Chekov from Star Trek.
|
# ? Jan 27, 2015 19:58 |
|
quote:But the solid-shot on the JS was so powerful that one hit was sufficient for anything. When we went into Vienna, they gave us a battery of heavy JSU-152s, three of them (In his book Loza called them SAU-152, I specially asked him about these vehicles, he said they were based on JS chassis, therefore they were JSU-152. -Valeri). How they held us back! On the highway we could make 70 km/h with our Shermans and the JSUs barely moved. When we got into Vienna there was an incident that I described in my book. The Germans counterattacked us with several Panthers. The Panther was a heavy tank. I ordered an JSU to move forward and engage the German tanks. "Well, take a shot!" And oh, did it shoot! I must say that the streets in Vienna were narrow, the buildings tall, and many wanted to watch this engagement between a Panther and an JSU. They remained in the street. The JSU let loose and the impact knocked the Panther backward (from the distance of 400-500 meters). Its turret separated from the hull and landed some meters away. But as a result of the shot broken glass fell from above. Vienna had many leaded-in windows and all of these fell on our heads. To this day I blame myself that I did not foresee this! We had so many injured! It was a good thing that we were wearing helmets, but our arms and shoulders were all cut up. This, my first, experience of fighting in a large city was sad indeed. We still say, "A clever man does not go into a city, but bypasses it." But in this case I had specific orders to go into the city. Everyone being hyped to see the ISU-152 take out a Panther getting pelted by glass shards after the shot is the best e: well, except for the guys in the Panther who were probably liquified Eej fucked around with this message at 20:11 on Jan 27, 2015 |
# ? Jan 27, 2015 20:06 |
Eej posted:Everyone being hyped to see the ISU-152 take out a Panther getting pelted by glass shards after the shot is the best If you watch the GoPro videos of T-72s in Syria, you'll see just how much wanton destruction heavy guns cause in urban areas. They completely fill the immediate surroundings with dust and smoke, shatter windows and knock things over, and potentially even light nearby flammables on fire. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bsDP5DznDQ
|
|
# ? Jan 27, 2015 20:25 |
|
100 Years Ago With the Chilembwe Uprising well in hand, the authorities start thinking about settling down for some good old-fashioned mass reprisals. Meanwhile, in Singapore, there's serious problems brewing among the Indian troops currently garrisoned there. Today's paper swings from the sublime to the ridiculous; there's a highly interesting coroner's inquest into the shooting of two officers after their car was stopped by a Territorial Army guard, and the current state of the mining market is described in terms better suited to a bowel movement. edit: Also, I went on the Internet, and I found this: a picture of a German dugout literally all wearing their underpants on their head like Captain Blackadder... Trin Tragula fucked around with this message at 21:04 on Jan 27, 2015 |
# ? Jan 27, 2015 20:52 |
|
chitoryu12 posted:I found an interview with a Soviet tanker who used a Sherman. Some very neat stories and anecdotes about the Sherman in here. quote:Here is an incident from Hungary. We had a trophy German "letuchka" (light maintenance truck). We had penetrated into the German rear in column. We were going along a road and our light truck had fallen back. Then another light German truck, just like our own, attached itself to the back of our column. A while later our column halted. I was walking down the column, checking vehicles. "Is everything in order?" Everything was fine. I approached the last vehicle in the column and asked, "Sasha, is everything OK?" In response I heard "Vas?" What was this? Germans! I immediately jumped to the side and cried out "Germans!" We surrounded them, a driver and two others. We disarmed them and only then did our own light truck come up the road. I said, "Sasha, where were you?" He responded, "We got lost." "Well, look," I said to him, "Here is another light truck for you!"
|
# ? Jan 27, 2015 21:03 |
|
I know a lot about WW2, but I never knew the first Royal Navy vessel lost was sunk by another RN boat while they were both skulking around neutral waters. Classic British military action: malicious and stupid.
|
# ? Jan 27, 2015 21:11 |
|
chitoryu12 posted:If you watch the GoPro videos of T-72s in Syria, you'll see just how much wanton destruction heavy guns cause in urban areas. They completely fill the immediate surroundings with dust and smoke, shatter windows and knock things over, and potentially even light nearby flammables on fire. Some of my favourite parts of documents on the Battle of Berlin are soldiers bemoaning how it takes 2-3 76 mm shots to make a hole in a building big enough to send troops through, unlike a 152 mm shell, which makes the building disappear .
|
# ? Jan 27, 2015 21:35 |
|
Ensign Expendable posted:Some of my favourite parts of documents on the Battle of Berlin are soldiers bemoaning how it takes 2-3 76 mm shots to make a hole in a building big enough to send troops through, unlike a 152 mm shell, which makes the building disappear . Which did they consider worse, that it took a few shots or that they went in afterwards?
|
# ? Jan 27, 2015 21:40 |
|
xthetenth posted:Which did they consider worse, that it took a few shots or that they went in afterwards? The taking a few shots, the buildings were quite stable despite holes being punched through. Usually.
|
# ? Jan 27, 2015 21:57 |
There's other videos of BMPs being used for urban combat. They punch holes the size of a dinner plate in everything.
|
|
# ? Jan 27, 2015 22:05 |
|
wide stance posted:Any tanker books like Tigers in the Mud but from an allied perspective in North Africa or the Western Front?
|
# ? Jan 27, 2015 23:29 |
|
Tanks in urban environs always sounds like a horrible idea. Especially in WW2 era tanks where a dozen people chucking molotovs could gently caress one up.
|
# ? Jan 27, 2015 23:51 |
|
That's why they had a squad of guys riding on top of them to suppress anyone that pokes their face out within 100-150 meters.
|
# ? Jan 27, 2015 23:52 |
Rhymenoserous posted:Tanks in urban environs always sounds like a horrible idea. Especially in WW2 era tanks where a dozen people chucking molotovs could gently caress one up. From what I've heard regarding Iraq, armored vehicles actually performed way better in urban environments than anyone expected. Obviously you don't want to send lone vehicles into hostile territory with no support, but a properly supported tank can and will gently caress major poo poo up. It helps that the Abrams is a tough nut to crack open anyway, so it's not like someone can just hurl a Molotov onto a buttoned-up tank and wait for the crew to bail. I think remotely operated MGs are also a big boon, since they can be safely used to fire up into buildings without anyone exposing themselves to danger.
|
|
# ? Jan 28, 2015 00:26 |
|
Ensign Expendable posted:That's why they had a squad of guys riding on top of them to suppress anyone that pokes their face out within 100-150 meters. Don't think that anyone was actually fighting from the top of the tank, unless you have sources that say otherwise.
|
# ? Jan 28, 2015 00:28 |
|
Rhymenoserous posted:Tanks in urban environs always sounds like a horrible idea. Especially in WW2 era tanks where a dozen people chucking molotovs could gently caress one up. Tanks are really useful for dominating the streets and providing direct fire support. The idea that they're totally worthless in cities is crazy. The US army doctrine in ww2 was theoretically not a whole lot different from the German one, but it's very difficult to ascribe a 'doctrine' to each country in ww2 because the way each country's army acted tended to violate it much of the time. If you want to see general trends, the US Army had the largest divisions of any combatant in ww2, and these divisions were bulked out with everything, from motor transport, to getting an independent tank battalion each. This is because the US decided to field only 90 divisions during the war(that number turned out to be only 87) The US Army quickly recognized the value of supporting armor in infantry attacks, though the post-war army would eventually become composed of formations based off the US Armored divisions instead with the armor and armored infantry battalions training together, providing better coordination.
|
# ? Jan 28, 2015 00:52 |
Having watched a bunch of Syrian tank videos, am I correct in thinking that they seem unable/unwilling to use their infantry properly? Driving a lone T72 down an alley so narrow you can't even traverse the turret fully, with multi-storey apartment blocks on either side, seems like absolute madness and you get the impression that the only reason their losses aren't more severe is just a shortage of AT weapons among the rebels.
|
|
# ? Jan 28, 2015 00:56 |
Slavvy posted:Having watched a bunch of Syrian tank videos, am I correct in thinking that they seem unable/unwilling to use their infantry properly? Driving a lone T72 down an alley so narrow you can't even traverse the turret fully, with multi-storey apartment blocks on either side, seems like absolute madness and you get the impression that the only reason their losses aren't more severe is just a shortage of AT weapons among the rebels. Well, Assad is just throwing whatever he has at the problem, and whatever the attrition rate for tanks in Urban warfare is, it's at least as bad for infantrymen. His problems probably partly relate to the fact his tanks are kind of lovely, probably mediocre tank crew training, and the widespread diffusion of cheap AT in the form of RPGs, which, while not that good, can still do a lot when they're plunging on to the top of the tank, as the Russians themselves have discovered in some of their central Asian adventures. The biggest problem tanks have in urban environments is that they can be hit from the top and the back very easily, but that's a problem an infantryman has x100 in the same environment.
|
|
# ? Jan 28, 2015 01:05 |
|
Slavvy posted:Having watched a bunch of Syrian tank videos, am I correct in thinking that they seem unable/unwilling to use their infantry properly? Driving a lone T72 down an alley so narrow you can't even traverse the turret fully, with multi-storey apartment blocks on either side, seems like absolute madness and you get the impression that the only reason their losses aren't more severe is just a shortage of AT weapons among the rebels. In the particular video that was linked there did seem to be infantry running all over the place. I too was sceptical, but then sure enough they'd come scampering out periodically. But the tanks certainly did seem get ahead of them a lot.
|
# ? Jan 28, 2015 01:57 |
|
Rhymenoserous posted:Tanks in urban environs always sounds like a horrible idea. Especially in WW2 era tanks where a dozen people chucking molotovs could gently caress one up. More often soldiers would hide AT guns is crazy places like cellars or storefronts and blast any tanks they saw coming. I can't imagine the noise. The Americans gave up trying to fight through the streets of Aachen and started to level the city block by block. That, or haul artillery guns to the front line and blast holes into buildings at point blank for the infantry to mouse through.
|
# ? Jan 28, 2015 02:05 |
|
PittTheElder posted:In the particular video that was linked there did seem to be infantry running all over the place. I too was sceptical, but then sure enough they'd come scampering out periodically. But the tanks certainly did seem get ahead of them a lot. I don't remember anyone praising arab army training, so it just might be that the infantry isn't exactly trained to support tanks.
|
# ? Jan 28, 2015 02:55 |
|
Oh hey, something like that almost happened to my grandad. He and his buddy pulled into camp late at night, heard a bunch of people speaking German, and just crept back out of there.
|
# ? Jan 28, 2015 03:07 |
|
|
# ? Jun 5, 2024 07:24 |
Disinterested posted:Well, Assad is just throwing whatever he has at the problem, and whatever the attrition rate for tanks in Urban warfare is, it's at least as bad for infantrymen. His problems probably partly relate to the fact his tanks are kind of lovely, probably mediocre tank crew training, and the widespread diffusion of cheap AT in the form of RPGs, which, while not that good, can still do a lot when they're plunging on to the top of the tank, as the Russians themselves have discovered in some of their central Asian adventures. I'd agree with you if it were an army fighting another army but in this case it's an army (however inept, still an army with organised structure and discipline and supplies et al) fighting civilian guerillas. The army is able to bust out the BMP's and just vomit out a whole bunch of infantry and tanks wherever they like, they also have artillery. You'd think that would be enough to oust the rebels. I also don't think the T72's are doing particularly worse than most tanks would in that scenario. You wouldn't want them taking on a modern armoured division but they're still a fast and powerful tank when you're facing guerrillas who appear to be limited to RPG's and don't have any really dangerous ATGMs (someone correct me if there are indications to the contrary). You could also argue T72's were designed with division-level field combat in mind, not resisting rear/top hits at short range. PittTheElder posted:In the particular video that was linked there did seem to be infantry running all over the place. I too was sceptical, but then sure enough they'd come scampering out periodically. But the tanks certainly did seem get ahead of them a lot. In a lot of the videos the tanks appear to be just wandering around in small groups with no infantry in sight. I get the feeling they're approaching it backwards and trying to get the tanks to lead the way instead of having infantry clear the buildings with tanks as cover.
|
|
# ? Jan 28, 2015 03:22 |