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I'm not saying that Rommel could have won in Normandy buy he could have done a lot better a la Anzio or Salerno.
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Jan 23, 2017 19:10
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MikeCrotch posted:I'm not saying that Rommel could have won in Normandy buy he could have done a lot better a la Anzio or Salerno. Yeah, but we should all remember that Hitler liked meddling with deployments, and everyone thought the *real* landing was going to occur at Calais. Now, I wonder what would've happened if they had figured out those blow-up
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Jan 23, 2017 19:17
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WW2 Data It's time to Identify these bombs! I'll show myself out now. What kind of candles did the British use for their Target Identification bombs? What colours could the candles produce? What function or purpose did some of the bombs have? All that and more at the blog!
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Jan 23, 2017 19:46
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Speaking of Vietnam and Westmoreland, was there ever a realistic hope for the US to achieve victory (victory defined as preserving an independent US-Aligned South Vietnamese government)? Precluding the Gay Black Johnson options of nuking everything, invading China, or other massive escalations which Congress would not have tolerated, what the hell do they even do? South Vietnam looks to have been a disorganized mess, and the US government even seems to have been unwilling to topple Diem and his government for some reason. Is victory plausible if Abrams and his counterinsurgency strategy is brought in sooner?
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Jan 23, 2017 19:58
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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Thank you for the war diary posting. It is amazing to read.
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Jan 23, 2017 19:59
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HEY GAIL posted:nobody knew a goddamn thing about medicine until the mid 1990s I think you might be being a leetle hard on the hospitals of the Reagan era here...
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Jan 23, 2017 20:04
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Ice Fist posted:Thank you for the war diary posting. It is amazing to read. I've got a book on Japanese memoirs coming in, so hopefully I'll have some more Diary stuff after Krengel!
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Jan 23, 2017 20:04
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PittTheElder posted:Speaking of Vietnam and Westmoreland, was there ever a realistic hope for the US to achieve victory (victory defined as preserving an independent US-Aligned South Vietnamese government)? Precluding the Gay Black Johnson options of nuking everything, invading China, or other massive escalations which Congress would not have tolerated, what the hell do they even do? South Vietnam looks to have been a disorganized mess, and the US government even seems to have been unwilling to topple Diem and his government for some reason. Is victory plausible if Abrams and his counterinsurgency strategy is brought in sooner? That said, pursuing a better basic strategy in the first place would have made a huge difference. I've read quite a few memoirs where the author's forces fought over an important location, smashed the forces trying to take it from them... and were pulled out after the battle to go someplace else, at which point the NVA and/or VC just walked over and took the place. For all the efforts to interdict the Ho Chi Minh trail by air (including the infamous bombings of Laos and Cambodia), much less effort was given to identifying the routes and blocking them with ground troops. Instead, US strategy was to win the "body count war" and shatter the NVA and VC through attrition.
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Jan 23, 2017 20:09
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FAUXTON posted:Rommel: McClellan except he made an attempt at offensive action. Au contraire: McClellan was hella into logistics and frequently refused to move because he wanted to have his logistics in shape before taking offensive action.
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Jan 23, 2017 20:22
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Morholt posted:I recall some posters in the medieval thread being of the opinion that the Battle of Tours never happened. There seems to be a lot of words written about the Merovingians out there so it seems kind of strange that we're in the dark  about pre-Carolingian warfare.
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Jan 23, 2017 20:52
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Eej posted:There seems to be a lot of words written about the Merovingians out there so it seems kind of strange that we're in the dark Never mind Tours, there's also a fringe theory that the Carolingians never existed!
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Jan 23, 2017 20:54
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feedmegin posted:I think you might be being a leetle hard on the hospitals of the Reagan era here... I SAID WHAT I SAID AND I'M STICKING WITH IT MAD ON THE INTERNET
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Jan 23, 2017 21:04
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PittTheElder posted:Speaking of Vietnam and Westmoreland, was there ever a realistic hope for the US to achieve victory (victory defined as preserving an independent US-Aligned South Vietnamese government)? Precluding the Gay Black Johnson options of nuking everything, invading China, or other massive escalations which Congress would not have tolerated, what the hell do they even do? South Vietnam looks to have been a disorganized mess, and the US government even seems to have been unwilling to topple Diem and his government for some reason. Is victory plausible if Abrams and his counterinsurgency strategy is brought in sooner? If we're defining victory as achieving a stable independent South Vietnam after maybe 1965....probably not, without turning the country into basically an American colony, which you can imagine was not a viable long term proposition. However, prior to that, had they actually realized that Diem was an absolute troll and taken some aggressive steps to establish a representative democratic government in the south, things look a lot rosier. Specifically, had they 1) stopped support for Diem back in the 50s, 2) taken an advisor/enabler role with the Vietnamese military, instead of an active military role, and 3) invested very heavily in the South Vietnamese economy, they probably had the political willpower and military strength to resist the North by themselves. By sending huge numbers of troops and focusing spending on military aid, they really enabled the propaganda machine in the north and undermined any sort of moral high ground they might've had. Another alternative was to tell the French to gently caress off and enlist Ho as a Tito-like ally in SEA but that wasn't a thing any of those fervent anti-communist presidents of the late 40s-early 60s could really fathom.
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Jan 23, 2017 21:10
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Kemper Boyd posted:Au contraire: McClellan was hella into logistics and frequently refused to move because he wanted to have his logistics in shape before taking offensive action. Well yeah the supply lines were a good part of why soldiers liked him. It also slowed him down initiative-wise, which is all I'm really poking at him for.
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Jan 23, 2017 21:41
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The Krengel Diary Part 16 Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15 1942 7 August: We stopped for the night last night and slept in the back of the truck. This morning the clutch-troubled truck shows up again. This time I have had enough and order him back. I hope he makes it. There are enemy patrols in the area driving fast Austin Jeeps. Austin Jeeps refers to "American Austin Car Company" that first built Jeeps. 8 August: In the morning a NAG rescue truck arrives. We load one broken truck on the back of the recovery truck. My own vehicle, with 2 flat tires, gets hitched to the back. What a sight this must be to see on the highway; a German Bussing NAG truck, loaded with an English Scammel, towing an Italian Fiat Jeep. We do however finally reach our own battle group supply depot. I bet the General would love to have seen that convoy. The Scammel is actually a Scammell Pioneer. 9 August: Two companies of our battle group arrive at the depot to search for enemy patrols. We move all of our supply trucks to Daba near the seashore. On the 10th we receive an urgent radio message instructing all units to return to their original positions. WHY??? Orders are orders, so we move out to Mersa Matruh near the coast and are assigned to the Coastal Command. We don't understand; we're Army, not Navy. 12 August: We're under Coastal Command, but on the 13th, we move the main part of the group toward Sollum. I have to go ahead to the field aid station for bandages for my hand. Here I meet up with my friend Eric Wolff again, who has just returned from leave in Germany. I stay at the aid station on the 14th. My left hand has blood poisoning and goes into a sling; the next day it's the other hand and I stay at the aid station until the 18th. 18 August: I return fit for duty, but I have to stay here in Sollum to wait for the arrival of my unit, which is searching for enemy long range desert patrols. They arrive on the 19th and we have a day of rest for the group. 20 August: We listen to news from home on the radio about the British landing attempt at Dieppe. Companies are being reorganized today. My job is to protect the Pioneer battalion. A few shots are fired on an enemy patrol by the shore. 21 August: At 5:30 AM we depart for Daba and reach the Moshee. We call a halt at 3 PM. 22 August: We're up and ready at 6 AM and move out to the El Taqua Plateau, but our truck gives up with an ignition problem. We try to push it but can't. We hitch up to another truck and advance just 3 miles when the wheel bearings run hot and seize. Luckily, we find an Italian unit to stay with for the rest of the night. It seems our vehicle problems are reaching a dangerous level. 23 August: In the morning an 88mm FlaK battery rolls by that is looking for our battle group and gives us a lift. We reach the group at 9 AM. No one bothers about our truck we had to leave behind. Bomber attacks and sporadic artillery fire, but we have no casualties. On the 25th I'm taken back to where we left the truck. It's still there plus the gun. We find a British Commer truck and mount the gun on the back and return to our position. Nothing happens in the next few days, apart from the familiar enemy air raids. We are detailed to stake out a passage through a mine belt. At night we have the normal [British] artillery fire. On the 29th we watch a dogfight above us between our Bf-109s and enemy fighters. Our flak joins in the fight and downs 2 planes. Rumors about a new attack are coming in. The Commer truck is probably a Commer Superpoise. 30 August: At 3 PM there is a conference at General Rommel's forward HQ regarding the new attack. The General suggest a southern pincer movement to take El Alamein from the rear, then, once it is taken, we are to direct an assault toward Alexandria and Kairo, 60 miles away along the coastal highway. My reconnaissance unit is on the right flank. The General's orders must be followed to the letter if we are to achieve success. We have very little gasoline to mess about in detours, and food is low too. We are living on enemy rations we captured. At 7 PM we set out toward the east. Pioneers clear a passage through our own mine belt, then we go in convoy; 48 vehicles and gun carriers. We reach an enemy mine field and have to stop and wait for it to be cleared. Immediately the British open up on us, one truck bursts into flames, wounding the driver severely.
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Jan 23, 2017 21:51
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Are these vehicle breakdowns normal for ww2 or a result of these guys having bad logistics?
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Jan 23, 2017 22:01
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Vehicle breakdowns are normal, a tank works in tough conditions and will last 2-3 thousand kilometers tops before something big breaks. The trick is if you don't have proper logistics and don't let your mechanized units march under a proper schedule and instead rub yourself raw about how fast your units are advancing because you're such a good leader, that number drops, and it drops a lot.
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Jan 23, 2017 22:08
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Sand also does bad things to engines.
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Jan 23, 2017 22:21
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PittTheElder posted:Speaking of Vietnam and Westmoreland, was there ever a realistic hope for the US to achieve victory (victory defined as preserving an independent US-Aligned South Vietnamese government)? Precluding the Gay Black Johnson options of nuking everything, invading China, or other massive escalations which Congress would not have tolerated, what the hell do they even do? South Vietnam looks to have been a disorganized mess, and the US government even seems to have been unwilling to topple Diem and his government for some reason. Is victory plausible if Abrams and his counterinsurgency strategy is brought in sooner? The short version is "No." An astonishingly large amount of writing on the Vietnam War is re-litigating how it should've been fought, from Summer's On Strategy which argues for way more military invention, to McNamara's Argument Without End, which looks at all the points prior to 1972 where the US could've reached a diplomatic understanding. But for a win of "an independent and pro-West South Vietnam", that's probably not going to happen regardless of who's in command, or what strategy they follow. The slightly longer version is that the government that Diem set up was irreparably flawed. It was centered around his family and a small Catholic minority, and riddled through with corruption. David Halberstam wrote in the The Making of a Quagmire that just prior to the coup in 1963, there were something like ten secret policy agencies, who spent most of their time intriguing against each other. Hundreds of millions of dollars of development aid was sold on the black market and diverted into the pockets of top generals. American advisers never pursued a serious anti-corruption campaign for a variety of reasons: they had to preserve the illusion of South Vietnamese independence, their short tours meant any investigations could be stalled and delayed, and some of them were on the take as well. By the time the government stabilized in 1965 with Thieu and Ky, there was little legitimacy left in the South Vietnamese government. The other issue was the terrain. Compared to Korea, Taiwan, and Germany, Communist and and non-Communist Vietnam couldn't be effectively separated. Hundreds of miles of jungles, mountain, and swamp simply wasn't controllable by any reasonable military force. If I were sent back to 1960 or whenever with my shelf of Vietnam War books and a mandate to win the war, I'd focus on 1) winning the peasantry over with real pacification, rural development, land reform, and iron anti-corruption measures. 2) convincing North Vietnam that continuing to supply the war was not worth it. This is probably impossible, since the North's Politburo and people were really committed to reunification on their terms, but it could be done. Take Operation Rolling Thunder all the way, focusing on destroying SAM sites, airfields, mining Haiphong harbor, and bombing rail links into China (note that the latter two may start WW3). This has to be followed with a full diplomatic press on Moscow and Beijing to exploit their differences and put pressure on Hanoi. This requires a way better understanding of the Communist powers than Washington DC ever had. The 1972 negotiations and Christmas bombings were more about twisting Saigon's arms to get them to agree to what they knew was a bad deal than reaching an accord with the Communists. This is of course very hard, since the Communists are getting near ULTRA level strategic intelligence from Pham Xuan An. So yeah, a more competent US strategy based on some kind of COIN principles might have bought some more time, but actual victory as you defined would require North Vietnam deciding to accept the status quo, which is difficult politically, and harder physically.
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Jan 23, 2017 22:38
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What is the fascination with 2nd rate militaries and the ZSU-23? Photos out of the middle east and other low intensity conflicts seem to have this gun jury-rigged to everything imaginable. Is it just a quick, cheap, easy way to get mobile firepower? Also, are these guns just laying around everywhere?
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Jan 23, 2017 23:13
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Splode posted:Are these vehicle breakdowns normal for ww2 or a result of these guys having bad logistics? Especially in North Africa, there weren't really rail networks to just roll all your vehicles on until the point of contact. These vehicles had to be driven constantly and hard, which is rough, especially on tanks. Even modern tanks are not really good for long drives.
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Jan 23, 2017 23:34
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Saint Celestine posted:What is the fascination with 2nd rate militaries and the ZSU-23? It's an easy sell because there is a huge surplus after the cold war, its good against helicopters and other low fliers, and you can aim it at ground level for insane amounts of dakka. I wouldn't be surprised if most of it's victims are people on the ground rather than air targets. I can imagine it being a terror in urban environments with tall buildings like Aleppo where you can aim at building levels which a tank cant elevate. Picture being a poor soul trapped in one of those floors when this thing unloads. Animal fucked around with this message at 23:43 on Jan 23, 2017 |
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Jan 23, 2017 23:39
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Eej posted:There seems to be a lot of words written about the Merovingians out there so it seems kind of strange that we're in the dark I was so amazed the first time I came across that theory. Though not as amazed as the time I met a Russian who insisted that the descendents of Genghis Khan never lorded it over the Russians. Some folk really can't handle their country losing, even when it happened a long rear end time ago.
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Jan 23, 2017 23:52
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The Krengel Diary Part 17 Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15 Part 16 1942 31 August: At daybreak we get through the first mine belt but at the second and third belt a traffic jam occurs. We draw heavy gunfire from the enemy armored cars but we get through and pull 4 of our Panzer IVs with 75mm guns forward. The enemy retreats to the east. We stop in a wadi for the night. Eight hours of bombing during the night by 4-engined American bombers. About 2000 bombs fall in our vicinity. We have 3 men KIA, several wounded and we lose 3 guns from a battery of 4. IF those were American bombers, its unlikely to be B-17s. Maybe they could be Liberators but  1 September: We move to the Djebel Rim for better cover and repair a radiator. We watched a single Bf-109 shoot down 6 enemy bombers. We get bombed and shelled against at night but we have good cover now. Keep this in mind for a few days later. 2 September: Sitting around here and wondering what th eHell is going on; surely along the coastal road things are going better. A water tanker arrives with 300 gallons of water while artillery fires on us. In the late afternoon we get orders to move out. After 5 miles the orders are rescinded because we don't have enough gasoline, so we do a 180 degree about turn and head back to our original position. I am assigned to guard the mine belt and keep the passage open for our retreating Army; day and night we have heavy air raids. 3 September: At daybreak we retreat back to the first enemy belt. The Pioneers are having trouble keeping a passage open; air raids with air torpedoes, really heavy stuff delivered by heavy artillery. 4 September: We stay behind and use the mine belt as a security screen. The enemy works us over with machine gun fire, artillery and PaK. A truck is hit and burns out, but no one is hurt. We have 6 Pumas** guarding the belt and enemy night fighters above, but no attacks. Bad news reaches us from HQ. Our Commanding Divisional General Georg von Bismarck, was killed in action a few days ago. Because of our own trouble, we had not heard the news until now. There is some good news too. Jochen Marseille shot down 17 enemy aircraft on 1 September and his score now stands at 125. Hopefully, our 6 days of racing around in the desert has come to an end. Hans-Joachim Marseille was the leading Ace in Africa, but died on the 30th of September, 1942, after striking the vertical stabilizer upon bailing out of his aircraft. It is thought that the blow either killed him instantly or knocked him out. It should be noted that overclaiming, on ANY SIDE, was a common problem. This is due to kills not always being confirmed, falsified claims, shared kills, or misattributed kills (kills giving to other pilots due to fame, status, etc.). For Hans-Joachim Marseille, research was done by historian Russell Brown, which points to a 65-70% actual kill score of his claimed 158 kills. 6 September: We stay put until 11 AM, then move for better protection to a small wadi a mile or so to the west. I quickly make a drawing of our position and leave to find a supply truck. Maybe the map is good enough for him to follow. Sgt.Eichorn goes with me as he has a bad tooth that needs to be seen to. 7 September: Have to see the doctor to get him to look at a bad oil on my lip. He treats me an I return to my unit. We lay low here until 12 Sept. 13 September: We are guarding the Pioneers who are mine laying today. Mail came from home today too. We have several air raids; Willy lost a leg, but we quickly got him to the medic so he might be okay. We leave here on the 14th headed toward Daba, along the coastal road and stop near Daba for the night. 16 September: By 6 AM we are on the road, in the direction of Oasis Siwah and when we reach Mersa Matruh we refuel our tanks, then head south. The road is in good shape. We stop near Siwah for the night. Today is my 24th Birthday. The next day at 6 AM, we are off again; we traverse the Quatarra Depression that is below sea level. At 5 PM we reach the first mine belt of Siwah. We get through the passage and stop south of Siwah in a palm grove. 18 September: We are near Siwah, eating dates and lemons and listening to radio news from home. We clean ourselves up as best we can and repair weapons. We are told on the 19th that General Rommel is coming for an inspection tour. Jobbo_Fett fucked around with this message at 04:02 on Jan 24, 2017 |
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Jan 24, 2017 00:06
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Animal posted:It's an easy sell because there is a huge surplus after the cold war, its good against helicopters and other low fliers, and you can aim it at ground level for insane amounts of dakka. I wouldn't be surprised if most of it's victims are people on the ground rather than air targets. I can imagine it being a terror in urban environments with tall buildings like Aleppo where you can aim at building levels which a tank cant elevate. Picture being a poor soul trapped in one of those floors when this thing unloads. Pretty much. The Syrian rebels in particular love to fit them on the backs of pickup trucks and use them for long-range direct fire support, not unlike the World War I use of machine guns being fired across the battlefield to suppress distant targets. Being mounted on trucks also makes them extremely mobile in permissive environments so they can quickly scoot out of danger when they start taking return fire; there's even a video of one dodging out of the way of an incoming ATGM with less than a second to spare.
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Jan 24, 2017 00:23
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To those who a identified fighting corruption in South Vietnam as one way to increase the odds American victory, how exactly do you do that? You know it's something that seems obvious, but judging by Americas 21st century military adventures I don't think it's a problem anyone has solved. It's a general rule of developmental aid that the more assistance you give, the larger the proportion that gets lost to corruption. The reasons are complex and varied but basically governments face less pressure to use money productively when it comes from outside sources, and direct assistance takes pressure off the government to provide services. It's often, and futilely, recommended that aid be strictly tied to anticorruption measures, however in practice this is almost never enforced as it threatens the perception of local sovereignty and short term objectives. Today no one knows how to make Afghanistan stop being a corrupt mess, in South Vietnam was probably worse!
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Jan 24, 2017 00:28
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MikeCrotch posted:There are quotes concerning Rommel before D-Day, where he would go personally round each of the beaches and check that the soldiers were laying as much barbed wire and obstacles as possible by checking how scratched their hands were Wasn't it the case that Rommel wanted to defend the beaches heavily but because of executi- Nazi meddling it ended up being a half-assed blend of shore defences and defence in depth?
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Jan 24, 2017 01:24
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The Krengel Diary Part 18 Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15 Part 16 Part 17 1942 21 September: At 6 AM we're dressed and trying to clean up the place. At 11 AM, two Fieseler Storch land and 3 Stukas afterwards. Several other generals are with Rommel; we give them a precise salute. The Marshal surely is impressed with our accomplishments and talks to us for some time. At 1 PM it's time for them to take off. To show his appreciation, he orders to 3 Stukas to dive on our position with blaring sirens as a farewell greeting. We were even filmed by a camera crew. I would like to see that clip some day. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZZ504TGDpE 22 September: Today here in Siwa we are given instructions by the Pioneers on how to avoid, defuse, and find mines. Later we build a wooden shelter for the supply truck; its very hot today. I hear a rumor that those who have been in Africa more than 12 months are going to be sent home. 23 September: We're still in Siwa the 24th and 25th. On the 26th we have a weapons inspection by the Regimental Commander. I have to write a letter home, its Dad's birthday tomorrow; he will be 59. On 28 September I apply for leave; whether it will be granted is another matter. On the 30th a parcel arrived from home. We are getting a new battalion commander today, Major [Hans-Ulrich] von Luck [und Witten]. On 1 Oct. I take the Staff Sergeant to Siwa market to buy fruit for the company. Adolf Hitler speaks to us over the radio at 3 PM. Marshal Rommel is in Berlin too, so we are told. 3 October: After morning inspection we are told that all those that have been in Africa since February 1941 will be relieved. Question: relieved for other duty - or sent home on leave?? No one has any answers. The next day, 4 Oct., all we hear is Goring's speech over the radio. Berhard M. gets promoted to 1st Lieutenant. No other news, so we go for a swim in the sea. 8 October: The War Merit cross is awarded to Sgt. Geiger. I'm not feeling well; fever and shakes, so I go to see the doctor in Siwa. He says I have another cold. 1st Lt. Becker is off to Germany on leave and I get a few days official recovery in bed. I miss the visit of our Commanding Panzer General, Stumme, who too over after General von Bismarck was KIA. I'm feeling better on the 17th but stay in bed until the 20th. 20 October: I'm fit for duty, so I organize a machine gun shooting competition and we come in second. We also do a night march and cover 5 miles in 1 hour 28 minutes with full gear. The prize? A bar of chocolate. Kurt Schulte gets promoted to Lieutenant and takes over 2nd Company, including the Pioneer platoon. 24 October: I hear rumors that I will finally be granted home leave. Will I???? 26 October: At 5 AM we are getting ready to move out of Siwa and by 11 AM we are on the road to Mersa Matruh. We march all night. The suspension breaks on one of the Pumas*. News comes in that the British have started another big drive at El Alamein. My leave, if it ever existed, is obviously cancelled now. We reach Mersa Matruh but march on to Darba and dig in by the sea to repel any seaborne landing by the enemy. 28 October: We wake up because of a huge explosion. We are told later that one of our ammunition trains was blown up by saboteurs. To date, the Africa Corps has destroyed 306 enemy tanks since March last year. We have a ghibli on the 29th, so we can't do anything. Everyone looks for shelter in a sand storm. We hear today that our most successful fighter pilot, Jochen Marseille, has died in a plane accident. I think his total tally was 128 enemy planes shot down. We adjust all the sights on our cannons. The heat distorts the alignment. A new Staff Sergeant arrives to take over a Pioneer Company; his name is Bohme. 2 November: There are a few attempts by enemy patrols to penetrate our lines, but they are repulsed. We can't do much patrolling because our gas tanks are half empty and we would need that gas in an emergency. At 5 AM we're ordered to move to an army reserve assembly point, near the sea. We watch a sea battle between 4 enemy corvettes and an Italian cruiser and a destroyer. All 4 enemy vessels were sunk and we took 100 sailors POW. I can't find anything to support this. No corvettes were lost there, nor any other ships appear to be recorded as lost there. At most, they could be Landing Craft losses, but this doesn't make any sense. Why would 4 Landing Crafts be sputtering around without any cover or support?  Close enough, right?
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Jan 24, 2017 01:33
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forkboy84 posted:I was so amazed the first time I came across that theory. Though not as amazed as the time I met a Russian who insisted that the descendents of Genghis Khan never lorded it over the Russians. Some folk really can't handle their country losing, even when it happened a long rear end time ago. That one is actually bizarre though because who exactly were the existential enemies that the Principalities of Rus all threatened by in the centuries leading up to the creation of the Tsardom?
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Jan 24, 2017 01:35
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Jobbo_Fett posted:The Krengel Diary Part 17 Hans-Joachim Marseille was also an all-around awesome chill dude, bohemian, and unlike our diarist Krengel he was not a racist. He became buddies with his black POW assistant and was genuinely concerned for him. He unexpectedly played jazz on the piano on a party with Hitler in attendance as a gently caress You to the NAZI's, which made everyone clutch their pearls. He went AWOL while on R&R to be with a hot Italian lover. His last days were sad, he was depressed and apparently suffering from PTSD. Read up on him for a good example of a cool German soldier during WWII. Animal fucked around with this message at 01:38 on Jan 24, 2017 |
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Jan 24, 2017 01:36
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Animal posted:Hans-Joachim Marseille was also an all-around awesome chill dude, bohemian, and unlike our diarist Krengel he was not a racist. He became buddies with his black POW assistant and was genuinely concerned for him. He unexpectedly played jazz on the piano on a party with Hitler in attendance as a gently caress You to the NAZI's, which made everyone clutch their pearls. He went AWOL while on R&R to be with a hot Italian lover. His last days were sad, he was depressed and apparently suffering from PTSD. Read up on him for a good example of a cool German soldier during WWII. I'm not allowed to speak too highly of Germans or German things less I'm labelled a Nazi or wehraboo  But yeah, Marseille plays by his own rules and doesn't give two fucks about what the Nazis want.
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Jan 24, 2017 01:44
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Didn't they send Marseille to Africa because he was a pain in the rear end? Partying all night with the local French girls and reporting for duty hungover, having long hair, racing over runways in stolen cars and playing jazz etc?
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Jan 24, 2017 02:01
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Molentik posted:Didn't they send Marseille to Africa because he was a pain in the rear end? Partying all night with the local French girls and reporting for duty hungover, having long hair, racing over runways in stolen cars and playing jazz etc? Yeah that's right. Then to everyone's surprise it turned out he was a gifted fighter pilot and became a celebrity. Going to Africa and becoming a super ace was the worst thing to happen to him, though.
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Jan 24, 2017 02:08
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Jobbo_Fett posted:I'm not allowed to speak too highly of Germans or German things less I'm labelled a Nazi or wehraboo Nah. 
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Jan 24, 2017 02:16
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Jobbo_Fett posted:
What would the competition metric be in a machine gun shooting competition? In my head the normal metric for a shooting competition is accuracy, but that would be kind of weird for machine guns, right?
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Jan 24, 2017 02:35
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Elyv posted:What would the competition metric be in a machine gun shooting competition? In my head the normal metric for a shooting competition is accuracy, but that would be kind of weird for machine guns, right? I'd imagine its still accuracy. You'd have to shoot in single shots or short bursts if you wanted to get good groups, but just because they are MGs doesn't mean its impossible. I'd be surprised if they had the means to organize anything complicated like moving targets. Maybe accuracy on stationary targets + creating an effective "beaten zone"?
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Jan 24, 2017 02:42
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I've always heard that WW1 machine guns were more accurate than their standard rifle counterparts firing the same ammo. They were big, heavy guns set up with very stable firing platforms. I don't know how the lighter WW2 guns compare but I wouldn't expect them to be blunderbusses.
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Jan 24, 2017 03:00
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Interesting he served under Von Luck; he wrote a book called Panzer Commander later on. I read it and found it insightful but it's been over ten years so I should probably go back and re evaluate. A machine gun competition is probably including the entire team rather than individual gunners so they'd likely be judged on how quick they can set up, give the report, accurately engage targets, efficiently change targets, barrel changes, etc etc
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Jan 24, 2017 03:01
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david_a posted:I've always heard that WW1 machine guns were more accurate than their standard rifle counterparts firing the same ammo. They were big, heavy guns set up with very stable firing platforms. I don't know how the lighter WW2 guns compare but I wouldn't expect them to be blunderbusses. I think the longest distance kills in the Vietnam was were with MG's set to single shot with a scope attached.
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Jan 24, 2017 03:08
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It also helps that they generally fired heavier rounds, which performs better over long distances.
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Jan 24, 2017 03:14
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