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World War II history appreciation thread - you insensitive clod

Don - I keep forgetting that your a fellow enthusiast (WW2 that is not mother's bottom drawers :) )!!

Dan - the tiger is a fucking beast (the king tiger even more so)...makes the Sherman look like a ford fiesta in comparison.

I think we touched on this before but the gerries had some top notch equipment.... The MG42... basically the same design as the M60, FM MAG (GPMG) and H&K MG3, the MP43 ( worlds first assault rifle), the panzerfaust & panzershrek, the dual purpose 88mm anti aircraft/anti-tank gun etc. etc. Not to mention the ME 262 jet fighter, V2 rocket etc.......

I've just finishes reading a book on Speer (meant to get the one Felix recommended but got the wrong one:) ) and its fascinating how despite the bombing the Germans kept increasing armaments production almost until the end of the war. It was just lack of transport to get those arms to the front line and lack of things like fuel and the collaspe of the command and control structure that stopped them making better use of them.
 
Yeah, even when so much shit had hit the fan that the fan could no longer be called such, they kept going. The underground factories such as the Mittlewerk for the V1 & V2 are great example of this.

Fuel really was one of their main problem, Romanian oil fields just didn't cut it. Imagine if Italy had been able to discover the oil in Libya before the war (I don't think it was discovered until the late 50s), it could have solved the problem.

Another problem is that a lot of their designs were just too technical; the Tiger is a good example as it was a complete nightmare to maintain. If Hitler had kept his more decentralised military command, which was so successful early in the war, rather than intervene so much in operations with suicidal orders then more progress could have been made in the USSR.
 
Exactly Don. Fuel was the biggest problem. Huge amounts of material was never used due to lack of fuel to move it. The Romanian oil fields as you say were insufficient compounded by Hitler's idiotic decision to divert the 6th army to Stalingrad instead of making a proper effort to take the oil fields in the caucuses.

Also as you say, the tiger and to some extent the panther were massively over-engineered making them hard to maintain.

Another often overlooked fact is that while weapons like the V2 were ahead of their time, they only delivered a small 500lb warhead (1000lbs for the V1). There total amount of high explosive delivered by Hitlers "-wonder weapons" was less than delivered in a single night by the US 8th Air force....they were technically advances just not practical or destructive enough. Same with the rocket planes that they built. People marvel at the fact that they were capable of speeds of over 600mph but when your up against prop driven planes that cruise at half that speed then its no use. Compounded with the fact that such planes were so incredibly dangerous meant that more Germans were killed in accidents than were actually shot down. By funnelling more and more of their ever decreasing resources into such projects they did more harm than good to the German war effort. Instead of concentrating on producing more conventional proven weapons they squandered resources on over designed, impractical and not particularly damaging "vengeance weapons".

Even good ideas like the ME262 were spoilt by Hitler"s stupid decision to try to turn it into a bomber rather than an interceptor combined with Goering's mismanagement of the Luftwaffe and a lack of fuel meant it never reached anywhere near its full potential. Likewise the MP44 assault rifle only made it into production by misleading hitler by designating it a machine pistol rather than a rifle (hitler had forbidden the development of any new rifle type weapons). Its use of an intermediate cartridge and selective fire mechanism made it truly the father of the modern assault rifle.

Yet again though meddling from higher up spoilt a good idea by insisting that these weapons only be issued to waffen SS units while the typical landser was stuck with his outdated Mauser 98k. The chaotic divide and rule organisation of the third Reich that kept hitler in power ultimately contributes to them losing the war.

I could talk about this shit all day long (as you can see lol!!-... It's good to talk to others who share the same interest on the subject as k do

Please excuse any typos in this post.....I've just woken up from another nightmare and am posting to try and clear my mind before I try to get back to sleep......sigh!
 
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Went over to my grandfather's place for some pasta today. I plied him with a few glasses of wine. He usually tries not to talk about the war. It's not the most endearing conversation. This time all of the young children left the table and I knew he was going to bestow upon me a great tale of grit, determination, wisdom.

Anyways, he was was serving in Ethiopia. Him and his comrades we're going through a village and eliminating some armed resistance. They thought they had cleared it entirely, he was walking with his friend Fabrizio. The pair came across a hut, Fabrizio poked his head in and the next thing he knew he heard a shot and his friend's brains were splattered across the harsh Ethiopian dirt. A savage emerged gun in hand firing off shots, luckily they missed my grandpa. There was four of his friends behind him, one wielding a large knife. He took off running, shots ringing past his head. Thinking fast he slung his rifle over his shoulder as he ran and emptied his clip. He kept running but didn't hear anyone giving chase anymore. He caught the gunman in the head, a single shot penetrating through his forehead. Two of his friends faced similar fates, but one lay clinging to life, struggling to breath. He walked over to him, with his rifle, the man put his hands up, he pressed the rifle to his temple and squeezed but he had ran out of ammo. He unsheathed his knife, took a step forward and plunged it into the man's heart.
 
englandgz74 said:
I could talk about this shit all day long (as you can see lol!!-... It's good to talk to others who share the same interest on the subject as k do
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Interesting stuff, yeah it is indeed good to talk to others about it all, i find it all fascinating. ever since playing with army toys as a lil kid and watching saving private ryan and band of brothers. & then reading war books and stuff

Not WW2 but worth a look

Three shots with the Anzio 20mm
 
Saving Private Ryan is actually a really good film....it made me want to learn more about Omaha beach and why it all went so horribly wrong for the yanks there.....

There are many reasons for it which I wont fo into here....

Same with band of brothers....made me want to learn more about the 101st Airborne division and their role in d-day and beyond.
 
I love those live fire videos. I've never fired a real gun and I think it's probably best to leave it on a screen.

I loved 'Band of Brothers' but didn't even finish watching 'The Pacific'. I thought it was pretty shite.
 
I held a firearms licence in the 90s....owned several handguns and a couple of rifles.....dunblane put an end to that though :(

I thought the pacific was shite too. I've got the book that the series was based on here but that's not great either. Hard to get into IMO
 
Yeah the pacific was nowhere near as good as band of brothers. cant remember much about the pacific it but Band of brothers sticks in my mind
 
I've got the book that band of brothers is based on plus the box set of DVDs....i just rewatched it again a few weeks ago...

Its an excellent series. The realism of the gunfire and explosions is amazing.
 
The one scene that I really remember, and the one that made me stop watching, was when that Japanese soldier goes mad after his comrades were shot and he then takes about 17 bullets in slow motion while screaming at the Yanks.

englandgz74 said:
I've got the book that band of brothers is based on plus the box set of DVDs....i just rewatched it again a few weeks ago...

Its an excellent series. The realism of the gunfire and explosions is amazing.
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Yeah, the Bastogne scenes actually make me a bit terrified.
 
ColtDan said:
Wicked. i'd love to get a big revolver or something. would be badass

FPS Russia - The 40mm Machine Gun
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I had a colt python .357 magnum revolver...a glock 17 9mm and a Beretta 92F 9mm.....

Rifles I had a Remington 700 .308 (7.62mm) and a old .22 bolt action.

When the handgun ban came I had to turn them all in..i could have kept the .22 but sold that as well. My licence expired years ago.

You can still own bolt action single shot rifles and shotguns but not handguns....my interest in competition shooting has passed now though. I'm more interested in the history of firearms and the mechanics.....different gas systems, bolt designs, lower receiver patterns....that sort of thing (geek I know :) )
 
Don Luigi said:
The one scene that I really remember, and the one that made me stop watching, was when that Japanese soldier goes mad after his comrades were shot and he then takes about 17 bullets in slow motion while screaming at the Yanks.



Yeah, the Bastogne scenes actually make me a bit terrified.
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On the DVD there is a behind the scenes thing and most of the Bastogne scenes were filmed indoors with paper snow...they showed you how the dis the effects of the German 88s exploding among the trees and stuff....really interesting stuff
 
englandgz74 said:
I had a colt python .357 magnum revolver...a glock 17 9mm and a Beretta 92F 9mm.....

Rifles I had a Remington 700 .308 (7.62mm) and a old .22 bolt action.

When the handgun ban came I had to turn them all in..i could have kept the .22 but sold that as well. My licence expired years ago.

You can still own bolt action single shot rifles and shotguns but not handguns....my interest in competition shooting has passed now though. I'm more interested in the history of firearms and the mechanics.....different gas systems, bolt designs, lower receiver patterns....that sort of thing (geek I know :) )
Click to expand...

Wicked!!

M1 Garand Firing

Pinggggg
 
Bit of a design flaw in the M1 the fact that the stripper clip makes that easily recognisable sound telling everyone your out of ammo after the 8th round is fired :)

As a rifle though it was way ahead of its time...the first semi-auto rifle in wide spread service with any army....plus that 30-06 round packed a decent punch!!
 
Yeah, they really did make the change quick. Rather than phase it in, they made it their service rifle as quickly as possible when the war started. They really did modernise their forces quickly after joining the war. When Pearl Harbour was attacked, they were still using Springfields as the service rifle and the British Brodie style helmet, which apparently had a tendency to break your nose.

Although, considering they had such a small standing army and the size that their forces swelled to, it wasn't as hard for them to modernise as it was for other nations. The less said about Italian arms the better.

I did always have a soft spot for the Carcano rifle though. I thought the 6.5mm was odd for some reason but the Japanese used that in their Arisakas. I watched something a while ago that said they took a shipment of Carcanos from the Italians as part of some trade agreement.
 
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