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.

wide stance posted:

Any tanker books like Tigers in the Mud but from an allied perspective in North Africa or the Western Front?

Also, any further reading about the story (myth?) of a Tiger crew having to surrender when 14 Shermans or so were wailing on it, due to concussions or something.

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.

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.

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.

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.

HEY GAL posted:

That's depressing. Let us consider, instead, some swagged out dudes and their portraits.

Back in August 2014, the Frick had an exhibition of two paintings, one by Scipione Pulzone of Jacopo Boncompagni, and the other by El Greco of Vincenzo Anastagi.

This is Boncompagni. Painted 1574.

Governor of Castel Sant'Angelo, leader of the pontifical army, and--by purest coincidence I am sure--bastard of the current pope. His portrait is by the most sought-after portraitist in Rome, and it's in a style these people loved: clear, precise, almost tromp l'oeil. But I can't really see that sensitive and intelligent face on someone thundering down a field in defense of his father's political agenda. And look at what he's holding: in one hand a piece of correspondence and in the other, instead of a rod of office, a diplomatic dispatch case. Wikipedia says that he "was a patron of arts and culture. Pierluigi da Palestrina dedicated to him the first book of Madrigals...He was also a lover of the theatre and of chess." That seems about right. His last name is what his father's had been before he took his regnal name (Jacopo was legitimized) but even that is chill--it means "good comrades."

Rabadh, if the second Desmond rebellion had succeeded, behold the face of your new king.

This is Anastagi. Painted 1575.

He's not a very noble noble, but he is an experienced infantry officer, and Boncompagni has just appointed him sergeant-major of Castel Sant'Angelo. Perhaps, says the New York Times, this is why he had his portrait done. And consider what it's of: a tough officer, at the peak of his craft. The sash for his sword, the ribbons on his helmet, the belt that holds his breastplate and his backplate together, his tasset buckles, and even the fabric lining his armor (as far as I know, in this period it just goes straight over your jacket, which can be uncomfortable, so die da oben put padded cloth on the inside of their armor--you can see some of it peek out beneath the pauldrons) all match, and they all match his pants. But those are the shoes of a man who knows what his job entails. Plain leather, low heels, tied with ribbons as utilitarian as the garters that hold up his sturdy stockings.

But imagine commissioning this thing and then receiving the finished product, because it might be of an Italian nobleman but it's not about that at all, it's about paint and what it means to put paint on a canvas. Look at the light on Anastagi's armor, the curtain in the background, that wall and floor. You've requested a little soliloquy on who you are and why you own and you've just gotten some Greek weirdo musing about the distance between an art's medium and its subject matter--it's like expecting a formal portrait and getting Nude Descending a Staircase. The target audience would not like it, because for people like Anastagi that's not what painting does. Not to mention that a full-length portrait of someone of his low social rank (especially when his new boss just had only a three-quarter portrait done?) is...inadvisable.

In 1756 El Greco left Rome.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/22/arts/design/men-in-armor-el-greco-and-pulzone-at-the-frick-collection.html

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,

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.

In 1583, in reward of other 243,000 golden scudi, Giacomo acquired also the large Duchy of Aquino and Arpino in the Kingdom of Naples, bought from the D'Avalos family. When Gregory died, Boncompagni was the most powerful man in central Italy, and, at the command of 2,000 infantry and some light cavalry, took the task to pacify the situation during the sede vacante period. However, at the election of Sixtus V he was stripped of all his charges in the Papal States.

FAUXTON posted:

MORE METAL

wide stance posted:

Any tanker books like Tigers in the Mud but from an allied perspective in North Africa or the Western Front?

Also, any further reading about the story (myth?) of a Tiger crew having to surrender when 14 Shermans or so were wailing on it, due to concussions or something.

Frantz posted:

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

e: well, except for the guys in the Panther who were probably liquified

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!"

bewbies posted:

The wikipedia list obviously has the flaws of any wiki thing

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.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bsDP5DznDQ

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 .

xthetenth posted:

Which did they consider worse, that it took a few shots or that they went in afterwards?

wide stance posted:

Any tanker books like Tigers in the Mud but from an allied perspective in North Africa or the Western Front?

Also, any further reading about the story (myth?) of a Tiger crew having to surrender when 14 Shermans or so were wailing on it, due to concussions or something.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Rincewind posted:

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.

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.

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.