Comments by "David Himmelsbach" (@davidhimmelsbach557) on "TIKhistory"
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@Xander Turon
Let's stick with the facts. WHEN IT COUNTED, Hitler held back his armies and let Goering's Luftwaffe have bombing practice. THIS is when most of the French and British soldiers escaped.
There was VERY low cloud cover, and both armies were largely fleeing at night.
This gambit fooled the Germans very well.
ONLY AT THE END, when it finally became apparent that the BEF was getting away, did Hitler send in the infantry to mop up.
Yes, he still held the panzers back. They were needed to get to Paris.
The above sequence entirely explains why Hitler let the BEF escape... he actually didn't... he thought that they were hopelessly trapped from the first... that they COULDN'T get away.
Later, after their escape turned into a PR disaster for Hitler, he came up with "I was not really interested in capturing the BEF."
[ I really didn't want that cookie, mother. ]
Another in a LONG line of patented Adolf Hitler lies.
Ever since analysts have imputed to Hitler some bizarre desire to see the BEF get away. That thought NEVER crossed his mind.
To repeat, the BEF snuck away, right under his nose; something that he could not possibly imagine. It's not for nothing that the whole escape was then and now regarded as a national miracle. That's how SHOCKING it was that the BEF got out of Dunkirk.
Worse, the French army replicated the British escape. This is something that is normally new news to moderns. Today's man-in-the-street has no idea that the French escaped the Dunkirk perimeter, too.
The problem was that they had to leave ALL of their weapons behind. Even their rifles.
France simply didn't have enough weapons to re-equip all of the men who had escaped. And all of the best gear had been captured by the Germans in that pocket. ( front line tanks, artillery, FLAK, etc. )
Consequently France threw in the towel June 22, 1940.
22 is, of course, the magic number at Rick's Cafe. Heh.
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@John Burns
It was ESSENTIAL that the Allies seize Arnhem bridge... ALL of it.
Losing the southern half = total failure of MG.
For the SS would surely blow the bridge into the river before XXX Corps could do anything about it.
As Grabner showed, the SS could cross virtually the whole distance before Frost could shoot.
But the SS needn't even travel that far to set explosives. Indeed, as a matter of fact, the Dutch had ALREADY placed explosives in both bridges. They were pre-charged with explosives before 1940. This was not unusual.
So all that the SS had to do was to double check the charges, the wiring, and boom, down she went. The Dutch explosives were PERFECTLY set to take the bridge down ENTIRELY. Further, the detonation cables ran to the south side of the river. The Dutch always assumed that the Threat came from Nazi Germany, not Belgium.
Hence the Nijmegen cables went to the post office cum telephone exchange ( where a Dutchman severed the link -- right at the start of the battle -- he immediately realized that Nijmegen bridge simply HAD to be the Allies objective, too obvious it was.)
Ditto for the Arnhem bridge. Its detonation cables led straight to the south side.
In short, Frost couldn't do a THING to stop the SS from dropping the entire bridge into the river. This destruction was pre-engineered -- by the builders of the bridge, themselves. The SS didn't need to even bring in explosives or cables. The Dutch had done all of their work for them. (!!!)
Monty never could cross the Rhine in Holland. He (wisely) didn't even make the attempt. Urquhart was mistaken that Monty would find British Airborne's pitiful bridgehead suitable for 21st Army Group.
The reason for the 'sloth' of Horrocks, and Monty late in the battle was due to the fact that both understood what I've posted here. At a minimum, the local Dutch had spelled it all out. Arnhem bridge was a goner. No Dutchman could save it buy cutting the cables.
Deal with it. MG went south once the Big Brains kept every airborne unit away from the island on Day One. ( Over the protests of both Gavin and Urquhart, BTW. )
Yeah, I could just cry.
In all airborne operations, the drop zones are THE critical decision. If you get them wrong, God help you. That's what happened here.
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@Whitpusmc
The Soviets were getting staggering amounts of FREE economic inputs for their war economy on top of weapons systems transfers.
Avgas
Explosives
Lubricants ( industrial cutting fluids + the stuff you're thinking of )
Signals cables ( ie phone lines )
Copper
Steam Locomotives
Rails, too
Machine tools ( the most sophisticated ones, at that )
Tungsten Carbide bits -- from USA and Sweden -- the latter bought with gold by the USA. These are the REAL reason for the Soviet production miracle.
Medical supplies of all types
Military food -- ie rations suitable for mobile operations
Tanks, planes, trucks, ...
Tires, rubber hoses of every type,
100% of Russia's radio tubes. (!!!!!)
All of the above was FREE and in epic quantity.
Oil drilling rigs + drilling tool bits
Critical oil refining technology -- especially high tech catalysts
Atomic secrets and example materials suitable to clone America's plutonium production reactors at Hanford in Washington State. Obviously, the blue prints were sent over, too. Materials without instructions would be largely worthless. These shipments were duly listed circa 2000AD -- and posted to the Internet by Russian college kids. They had access to the astounding database of LendLease transfers -- but did not know the significance of the atomic materials, even though they were highlighted as 'atomic materials.' Only an atomic scientist// technician would realize their import.
Yeah, I fell out of my chair. Klaus Fuchs could never have sent these materials to Moscow. ONLY FDR and Harry Hopkins had that level of authority. Even traitor J. Robert Oppenheimer couldn't export atomic technology.
Yes, he was the Primary traitor, giving Uncle Joe every imaginable atomic secret. JRO was the ONLY person in the entire Manhattan project who could go anywhere, see anything, know everything. For everyone else, knowledge was compartmentalized. JRO didn't trust FDR. That was his motivation. Oh, the irony.
[ Of course, Harry Hopkins, traitor, sent these on their merry way. FDR let Harry stand in for himself when he was feeling tired. By 1944, Harry was busy, indeed. Harry's private diary makes it plain that he was a Bolshevik, himself, a real True Believer. These sentiments were kept hidden from the nation for fifty-years after WWII ended. ]
Tail-gunner Joe was right: FDR infested our national government with Stalinists.
Today that role has been replayed by 0bomba -- who has slotted CAIR operatives all through our Government. The effect is the same as before. We are naked to our enemies.
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Adolf broke up the SS Corps: the 1SS left all of its heavy equipment -- donating it to the 3SS and 2SS. It, the 1SS, was sent to northern Italy. It was supposed to be joined with the 2SS, but the Soviet offensive at the Mius forced Adolf to flip around, yet again.
However, once that battle was over, the 2SS went off to Italy, never to 'visit' Russia again.
The 2SS left its 170mm guns in Russia, though.
The Western Allies ultimately destroyed these divisions -- only the rump of the 1SS ever was sent east... to Lake Balaton. There the Red Army kicked its azz.
Additionally, the formations destroyed by the Russians at Stalingrad were re-constituted -- and then all sent to Italy.
Lastly, the 24th Panzer Corps which stood as reserve at Kursk was also sent to Italy. ( 14p, 16p, 24p, 26p, 29m -- again all Stalingrad panzers )
Indeed, this shift is the very reason that Hitler stopped the Kursk attack. He was reacting to the Allied invasion of Italy -- and Italy's surrender to the Allies.
So you couldn't possibly be more wrong. Adding them up we have a panzer army and an infantry army. (!!!!) That's what it took to occupy Italy.
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@mPky1
LendLease WAS free to everyone except the American taxpayer.
The program got rolling because it was obvious that Britain was broke.
What I might say is that WWII was launched in Europe as a joint operation between Stalin and Hitler.
I might say that the USSR invaded MORE countries than Germany between 9-1-39 and 5-9-40.
I might say that during the first half-year of war between these two 'buddies' the USA was stuck at peace.
I might point out that EVERYTHING Britain 'gave' to Moscow came by way of a LendLease gift from America. London was merely 'flipping the assets' -- being in absolutely no position to create them. Even manufactures that bear Britain's stamp could NOT be so manufactured without American inputs.
[ Britain DID make a huge contribution to victory, but that came by way of British aid to the USA, not British aid to the USSR. ]
I might point out that Britain NEVER gave the USSR tens-of-thousands of tanks -- ONLY the USA could -- and did -- do that.
I might say that London sent thousands of its lousy tanks that were failures in the hands of every other power that tried them in combat, and Moscow was grateful.
I might say that until Barbarossa, Moscow's agents visibly and very actively obstructed the function of America's docks so that aid to Britain was throttled; then, suddenly, the West had peace on the docks.
Russia paid in blood for the folly of Stalin -- the TRUE initiator of WWII in Europe.
The partition document shows Stalin's initials and his wide -- almost smeared -- crayon that dictated the merge line between the Nazis and the Bolsheviks. Until Stalin romanced him, Adolf Hitler was actually BOXED IN.
He was critically short of:
Nickel
Tungsten
Chrome
Copper
Rubber
Crude oil
Met coal ( not used for steam -- used to make steel )
Ball bearings
Aluminum
Stainless steel
Heavy water
And that's just off the top of my head.
Stalin not only launched the war, but provided the Nazi tyrant with the means to defeat France: unlimited crude oil became unlimited avgas. The French were NOT expecting the Luftwaffe to be able to fly so many sorties as they did because in ordinary circumstances, the Luftwaffe would've LONG since run out of avgas. Stated another way, Paris was counting on Berlin to be throttled by its critical fuel shortage -- and this was figured into its strategic calculus. They discovered, via Stalin, that they were totally wrong to do so.
As it was the French air force didn't even stock enough avgas to carry on the fight, nor did France even build remotely sufficient fighters, either. This is astounding to read, but Paris spent as much as Berlin on fighter aircraft -- but just didn't get any. (!!!) What was happening was that, with every switch in government, the prior contracts were terminated and new ones let to industrialists that the new 'In' party favored. So Paris ended up funding scads of new design research -- while actually not buying any fighters in a production run. The Spring of 1940 was the earliest that mass production began. Less that 40 days later, Germany was over-running France. (!!!)
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@Neil
The British Army was in LOVE with direct fire artillery straight up into WWI. It was SO much more effective than indirect artillery... so much cheaper... and it worked like a charm against natives that only had small arms.
WWI changed Britsh doctrine. They adopted the Kaiser's solution: indirect fire.
( The BBC even ran a video documentary covering all of this. )
Niel, the 32pdr has been already discussed in a post stream right here, look for it.
BTW, the British converted the 32pdr to a true AAA role. Automatic gun-laying was the reason for British AA successes against the V-1. It couldn't be defeated any other way. ( save the RAF, itself )
The V-1 was engineered to defeat the gun-laying speed of all traditional AA. It was flying too low, too fast, requiring crazy levels of gun slew to get ahead of it. The Germans never conceived that the British had jumped to the next level, and on a mass production basis.
( AAA 32pdrs would've shot US 8th AAF and RAF Bomber Command to pieces. No wonder the British kept their stuff top, top secret.)
( The British were so obsessed with radar that they built 'Elephant' to jam German long range radar. This was another top, top secret project. It turned out to be totally unnecessary. It radiated insane amounts of microwave power towards the German radar set -- to flood its electronics. No-one knew that the Germans had shut it off due to lack of performance. It, the German radar, was sucking down crazy amounts of electric power while not providing ANY additional information on Allied bombers. Their own coast watchers cost nothing and were more accurate. All they had to use was the human ear. Bomber streams are both loud and comparatively slow. )
BTW, the radars that adjusted the fire of the 32pdrs were TOP SECRET for years and years. You just won't find any reference to their employment from period documents. Instead, the V-1s just seem to fall out of the sky by brilliant crew training. Heh.
The fact remains: the WDF and 8th Army simply refused -- for doctrinal reasons -- to use 25pdrs as PAK. One wonders if PAK rounds were even in the theatre.
It boggles the mind, but the nation that invented armored warfare managed to be WAY behind Germany and the Soviet Union. The contrast with the RAF and RN is stark. The British Army was simply the step-child of the military services. That may well have been the correct decision, strategically, but it sure produced poor results in North Africa and Malaya.
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@Neil
The British Army just didn't do it.
The very idea of using their howitzers as PAK was well nigh universally rejected.
Finding last-gasp defenses in the archives is irrelevant.
The idea that a single man can pivot a 25pdr makes all of us giggle.
How in the world is that relevant to combat?
How in the world is he actually supposed to AIM the dang thing?
FLAK guns can easily be re-purposed towards ground targets. Everyone knows that.
Everyone also knows that the American, German and British armies would rather pull their eye teeth than commit their indirect howitzers to a direct fire role.
[ Yet sometimes this had to be done. Famously the USA brought up its most awesome 155mm Long Tom self-propelled gun to fire flat trajectory into German bunkers on the far side of the lower Rhine. The gunner got a medal for it. He was aiming at vision slits, as even the 155mm round was too weak to bust the German fortification. ]
This is still true.
The Americans still have direct fire rounds for their M198 and M777 howitzers. The LAST thing they wish to do is to use them.
As for footage of 25pdrs rolling up ramps, there is too much out there.
Ramps as an expedient for the WDF seems to have been universally adopted. Considering the terrain, it's easy to see why.
The discussion is about what the WDF found to be practical, to be doctrinal, not what some armchair historian might conjecture could pencil out.
The number of German panzers knocked out by 25pdrs and other howitzers is trivial.
The number of British (and other) tanks knocked out by 88s is legendary, epic, history-making.
There IS a difference.
It actually would've made more sense for the British to use their 32pdrs -- FLAK -- but such a scheme was rejected out of hand -- regardless of what the Ordnance boys thought.
No, the evidence is crystal clear: the WDF favored the 6pdr PAK. It did the job, and did it well.
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@Perera The USA pulled Japan off of Russia once Stalin's man informed him that Japan was certain to attack the USA. He promptly shifted 500,000 soldiers out of the Far East -- with tremendous impact December 1941 -- and the USA was not even at war at the time.
The USAAF pulled the Luftwaffe out of Russia -- almost entirely -- BEFORE Normandy. In financial terms, the Air War was MORE expensive than the land campaign. So you entire line of reasoning implodes.
The USA + UK pulled one panzer army and one infantry army out of Russia when they invaded Sicily. That invasion stopped the German attack at Kursk dead in its tracks. The Germans NEVER had a strategic attack in Russia for the rest of the war.
As the Germans shifted into the west -- they were ground up and destroyed. The units involved were the PREMIER units in Germany. The only super-units in the left east: 3SS, 5SS and Grossdeutchland.
In the west: 1SS, 2SS, HG, 1st Para, 2nd Para, 4th Para, 7th Para,116th Pz, Pz Lehr, -- and ALL of the decent units in the Luftwaffe. The USAAF shut off Adolf's oil supply: Ploesti and the Big Week ( February 1944)
ALL of the critical oil attacks occurred LONG before Normandy.
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@Bob Fink
Monty was AWOL for this battle. ALL of the evidence indicates that he was so drunk with Victory Disease that he left the matter to Browning.
Here's the rub: Browning didn't have the 21st Army Group's staff. Monty had gathered around him the Cream of the British Army. It's what you'd expect of Britain's top field command.
The result was a plan that was loaded with brain farts from end to end. And the average Joe or Tommy actually STILL thinks that MG was Monty's plan.
It's so against Monty's style -- it's not funny.
Monty, himself, would NEVER have failed to drop the 101st on the island between the two bridges. In all of the posting here, no-one addresses this mega-gaff. That goes double for Brits.
Forget Gavin, Browning and all the rest -- how in the WORLD could ANY senior officer look at these drop zones and miss the fact that THE critical terrain was the ISLAND between the two bridges?
The fact that it's an island is lost for most civilians as the map they see does not back away far enough to show that the island is part of the greater delta of the lower Rhine.
The idea that you can't parachute onto a polder because the ground is soft -- that's a GOOD one. Just tell the boys to land soft and roll into the mud. Make absolutely no attempt to stand up until you're at a stop.
BTW, the Poles DID land on the island -- just too late to be shot up something silly by German FLAK.
No-one discusses why Monty didn't ask for JEEPS. These were known to be perfect for off-road transport -- even in the polders. They WERE used by both the 82nd and 101st to great effect. Why not XXX Corps? I'll tell you why, they were overlooked.
In the film, XXX is shown using British trucks. Whereas, Monty specifically demanded 2,000 American GMC trucks for this battle. What happened? Monty, rightly, figured that XXX Corps trucks would have to drive off the road and onto soft ground. He KNEW that his lorries wouldn't roll five feet once they left the high ground.
The lack of observation aircraft passes without remark. Strange. Most strange. The Americans had been able to get away with observation aircraft at all times prior.
Naturally this omission led to no co-ordination between ground and air. The standard drill was for buddies to be assigned such duties. That is the ground trooper was a USAAF airman from the same outfit that was overhead. They'd switch positions from operation to operation. This way both ground-man and air-man knew how things looked from both positions.
What actually happened is that Monty put his seal on Browning's plan -- without tearing open the box and looking inside. Browning's reputation was on par with all army commanders. So there was no WAY that Monty was going to smear Browning's rep. This is why the chit landed on the Poles. It certainly couldn't be dumped on the Americans. ( Which would be politically insane. )
Monty, Gavin -- BOTH are covering for Browning's gaffs.
The failure to drop the 101st on the island makes every other gaff look tiny by comparison.
Frost would've had a cake walk if the southern end of the bridge was held by the 101st. They'd just come marching over the span by the battalion. There'd be no-one for them to fight on the island.
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@Bob Fink
Military politics dictates that officers that rise to the top ALWAYS dump gaffs onto others. The slightest bit of stink is usually a career ender. That's the world as it is.
My own sister in a corporate climber of the first order.
She's not bright, not bright at all. Just check out her academic record.
What she's is a first class blame shifter and credit taker... and not a bad liar, either. Consequently she fits right in with her corporate peers. She's one of the club. They're all like that.
If you've EVER met a top corporate honcho you soon realize that he's nothing special. He's got political skills: blame shifting and azz kissing being at the top of the list.
Such is the nature of man.
Rommel, Monty, Patton, MarArthur, on down the line, all owe their reputations to junior officers, that you know not of.
(Sometimes they are revealed in specialist histories.)
In the case of Allied generals, their track record is immensely puffed up by Bletchley Park -- and the code breakers in America.
[ Strangely, the biggest intercepts of WWII occurred by reading Purple transmissions from the Japanese embassy in Berlin to Tokyo. It was the Americans that broke this code -- and sent Purple machines to London. These were so few in number that London's machine came at the expense of Pearl Harbor. (!!!)
The USN was PISSED. (King)
This was a DIPLOMATIC code -- only. The reason it was so important was that Hitler loved to spill his guts to the Baron. Then the Baron, with an astounding audio memory, transmitted every last bit to Tokyo. ( What a FOOL. )
These were the transmissions that informed the Allied that Patton could NEVER be given Army Group command in Normandy. Why? Adolf told the Baron that if and when Patton showed up -- then that would be the main show -- and then he, Adolf, would commit EVERY reserve to that front.
This was NEVER explained to Patton. Hell even Bradley didn't know it.
Only Ike knew it. It is of the record that Ike stayed away from Patton -- lest he let this little detail slip -- as Patton was a buddy of his going back decades. Indeed, Patton's three stars came directly off of Ike's old uniform... with a photo op to match. ( North Africa )
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@allangibson2408 NO. While many Right Wing governments are dictatorships// kingships Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot -- on down the line were WAY far to the left -- and totalitarian to boot.
Right Wing always means a government that has a state religion. That's what todays' Saudi Arabia is. It's hardly alone:
Iran, Kuwait... the Taliban... Pakistan are all nations that have fused their governments to a state religion -- in this case Islam.
During the French Revolution when the very term came into being, Monarchists ALWAYS wanted the restoration of the fusion of the French Catholic Church with the King and his Lords.
In the ancient past, the vast majority of all nations were just so: Right Wingers.
It was the USA that broke that mold in a major way. It's ILLEGAL for any faction in the US to be Right Wing. For it's illegal to have a state-sponsored religion... straight from the US Constitution.
The slur of Right Wing is now used against any faction more traditional/ classical/ conservative than the fellow cursing said Right Winger.
Hence, we now have even AOC cursing (under her breath) Pelosi for being too far to the 'right.' Naturally, Nancy is hugely insulted.
During WWII absolutely NO-ONE ever accused Adolf Hitler of being Right Wing. BTW, he not only hated the Jews, he hated the Church -- Catholic or Protestant. That's why so many clerics died during the Holocaust. In this, Hitler lined right up with Stalin and Mao. BOTH also hated religion -- and clerics.
Ironically, Adolf did have nice things to say about imams. One gave him a fatwa so that he was morally justified in the genocide of European Jewry. This tidbit has blown by historians. They are not a religious crowd -- so a fatwa goes right over their heads or into the circular file.
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@ben... BTW there is film footage of the British 8th Army's tortured advance up the boot, for they had to set Bailey bridges virtually every step of the way. The soft underbelly turned out to have simply no end of rapid, but short, rivers to cross. What the Allies failed to bomb, the Germans blew up. There wasn't a single decent bridge standing as the Allies advanced. The engineering effort was astounding. THIS was why the Germans looked so good -- on paper -- during their retreat. Further, the destruction was so vast that the Allies had to use their supplies to stop civilian starvation. This was something that no Allied commander anticipated. The tonnage involved was vast. Sophia Loren, the actress, suffered starvation until the Allies rolled in. She was hardly alone. So, at a fundamental level, while necessary, the Italian campaign was a first class bitch from start to finish. It DID pull a panzer army and an infantry army out of Russia. But the Reds NEVER bring that up.
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