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Praetorium Honoris

Tuesday, November 13, 2018

Tough Old Gut

A machine gunner and two riflemen of Co K, 87th Mountain Infantry, 10th Mountain Division, cover an assault squad routing Germans out of a building
in the background. Sassomolare Area, Italy. Porretta Moderna Highway. 4 March 1945.
(U.S.Army Signal Corps Photo)
I can see Churchill now at his map with his pointer pointing out the soft belly of the Mediterranean and after I got there I often thought what a tough old gut it was, instead of the soft belly that he had led us to believe. - General Mark W. Clark
Welcome to the first installment of Sarge's "Off the top of my head" History Lectures*...

Juvat's tale of the leadership of 1LT Raymond L Knight on Monday got me to pondering about the Italian Campaign in World War II. It was brutal, it was nasty, and great heroism was shown on both sides. But truth be told, it was a fairly easy task for a defender to keep the Allies bottled up as long as they did, and it wasn't just the terrain that aided the defense.

Google Maps
See the map above? Look at Italy, then look at Germany, what's between the two? A crap ton of very big mountains, that's what. Why Churchill (who I admire greatly) thought that attacking Germany via the Mediterranean (Italy or Greece, oh look, Greece has mountains too) is beyond me. Especially when one thinks back to World War I where Sir Winston's big plan to knock Turkey out of the war gave us Gallipoli. A disaster of truly epic proportions. (Which also got Winnie kicked out of the government and sent packing to command a battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers in France. Oddly enough, my Great Uncle Robert was at Gallipoli in a different battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers, he survived that one. Though he didn't survive the war. And yes, someday I should sit down and explain military organizations and hierarchies, perhaps in a new page on the sidebar, but not today. Gomen nasai.)

Truth be told, many in Britain were a bit "on edge" about the American desire to land troops on the shore of France and then drive into Germany. The Brits had already tried that, on a small scale, at a place called Dieppe. Where, like at Gallipoli, they had their asses handed to them by the Germans. (Though technically it was called a raid, it was, in essence, a rehearsal of sorts for the later landing in Normandy. Needless to say, the British were not very sanguine about the prospects of a larger landing in 1944. Out of approximately 10,500 men involved, over 4,000 became casualties. That right there, that's an ass whupping in anyone's book. Mind you, this was also against a fairly low quality German unit.)

The Dieppe Raid occurred in August of 1942, now as I recollect, the Americans were pretty hot to trot on getting ashore in Europe at the earliest opportunity. Like 1943, certainly we can do that General Marshal (back in DC, a fine staff officer but a man who had never led troops in combat) thought. Many American generals thought so as well. But those party poopers, the Brits, said, "Let's clear Jerry out of Africa first, I mean we've got him on the run, what-ho, now would be a jolly good time to bag the fox, dontcha think?"

Where in our first run in with the Jerries, we got our asses handed to us at Kasserine.

Yes, yes, Patton fixed everything (well him and a lot of other people) and the Germans gave up in Africa in 1943. So now what?

"Hey, let's invade Europe! We're ready!" Sayeth the Americans.

"Um, no, not so fast, we should, ya know, plan things first." Sayeth the Brits.

What to do, what to do. That's when Churchill said (yes, I'm paraphrasing), "Hey, the Italians have a terrible military, let's kick their butts and that will put us in the Germans' backyard!"

Well sure, while the individual Italians were magnificent soldiers, they had to be the most poorly led military on the planet. Hell, even the French made fun of them. (No, seriously. In 1940 when the Italians invaded Albania, yes, Albania, and got their asses kicked, the French allegedly put signs up along their border with Italy advising the Italian Army they should stop retreating as they were now in France. Or something to that effect. After the Germans had crushed the French Army, the Italians, no doubt remembering the insult, declared war on a defeated France. Talk about kicking a fellow when he's down!)

Anyhoo. So yes, Italians weak, Allies strong. However, the Germans, not being idiots, also knew that their ally was weak. They had a plan to occupy Italy should the Italians decide to quit. Yes, it was a very well thought out plan, as many German plans tended to be back then. Well, except for the "let's invade Russia" thing.

So, long story short, Allies jump from North Africa to Sicily. Some hard fighting, Germans scurry across the strait to the "toe" of the Italian "boot." Italians decide they've had enough (basically the King fired Mussolini, who's buddies decided that enough was enough and looked at Benito and essentially said, "Bye now!" Germans pour into Italy, just liked they planned to, and send their scar faced commando guy, Skorzeny, to rescue Il Douchebag, er, I mean Il Duce, while the Allies jump over the Straits of Messina onto the Italian mainland.

Which no one is defending, as near as I can recall. I mean, not much worth defending there, is there? I mean it's not like it's on the road to Rome now is it? Nope, the Germans are farther north, barring the way to Rome. The plan is to keep the Allies as far south in Italy as possible. With just a few divisions the Germans can hold for months. (Which they did.)

So the Allies are ashore in the toe (and eventually the whole foot of the boot), what's next? Well, build some airbases of course. Then what? Hey, rather than fight our way up the boot, let's do an amphibious invasion. Like, I know, here, at Salerno! (See the map below for the location of Salerno, and other places. Also note the rivers, something else that made Italy "easy" to defend for the Germans. This rivers had to be crossed. One American division, the 36th Infantry, a Guard unit from Texas, lost two regiments - out of three - attempting to cross one of the smaller rivers, not shown, near Cassino. A Congressional investigation after the war exonerated all of the big shots involved. Back then things weren't all that different than they are now.)

(Source)
Why Salerno? Well, it is near a big port (Napoli, or Naples if you prefer) which was needed to supply the armies fighting their way up Italy. So yeah, we land south of the port. I guess the Germans never expected that. In truth, they probably didn't care as their first defensive line was north of Napoli, the Gustav Line running through Cassino.

Yes, Monte Cassino, ancient monastery which the Germans were not using as a defensive position. But hey, generals are smart, so ours figured they must be using it, we would. So we bomb the living crap out of it. (As I recall, the Germans actually moved - "liberated" - many of the priceless works of art there. But we still leveled an ancient building belonging to the Catholic Church. In Italy. I'm sure that won us many fans.)

After we blasted it, the Germans said, "Oh look at all the lovely rubble our troops can take cover in." Which they did. While we were losing 55,000 men taking the place, and the Germans were losing 20,000, we landed at Anzio, to flank the Gustav Line. Thing is, General Clark told the guy leading the landing (a Major General Lucas as I recall) to "be careful, don't stick your neck out." Which apparently he took literally. The landing was made, then they sat there and watched the Germans reinforce.

Which led Churchill to quip (remember this entire mess was his bloody idea) "I had hoped that we were hurling a wildcat onto the shore, but all we got was a stranded whale."

Gee, thanks Sir Winston. (By the way, the Brits were fighting on the Adriatic shore of Italy, think east coast, while the Americans, and a host of others, were fighting up the Tyrrhenian shore, think west coast.)

Eventually we did take Rome. HUZZAH!! Must be big news right?

Nope, that happened on the 6th of June, 1944. The same day the "real" invasion landed in Normandy. So the whole thing went rather unnoticed. The fighting in Italy lasted until the war ended in May of 1945. As I recall, not a single Allied soldier made it into the Reich from the Italian campaign. At least not while the Germans were still resisting. But it wasn't for lack of trying.

The Italian campaign really damaged Mark Clark's reputation with many historians. I've talked to guys who served in Italy, they weren't big fans of the guy. But hey, Marshal liked him, so did Ike (but apparently not enough to have him in France). So like the French say, "plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose." The more things change...

Anyhoo. One more thing, all those guys fighting in Italy, all that equipment? Well, after D-Day, in August of 1944, someone decided that Italy wasn't enough of a sideshow, no, we had to land in southern France as well. Using men and equipment taken from Italy.

My personal opinion? Fighting in Italy was to please an ally, i.e. Churchill. I suppose the British 8th and the American 5th Armies had to be employed somewhere. While Churchill would have liked Greece as well as Italy, we had to pick one. At least we were mad at the Italians. It did tie down a number of German divisions, but so did Norway, and we didn't bother attacking there. Heck, a feint at Italy probably would have had Hitler sending those divisions there anyway. Who knows?

But it was a bitter fight in the mountains, in the rain and cold of the Apennines. Terrain well suited for defense, which the Germans were really, really good at. A lot of nations fought in Italy: Brazilians (a whole division!), Brits, Canadians, Indians, Poles, South Africans, and New Zealanders. There were also Free French units, some from North Africa, I recall especially the mountain tribesmen, Goumiers from Morocco, some pretty fierce guys. There was even a Greek brigade and a Jewish brigade! I think it was the Poles who actually finally captured Monte Cassino, after paying a heavy price in blood.

Back in the day Avalon Hill had an interesting game covering the campaign, Anzio. I've played it a few times, as the Allies I would struggle to make it north of Rome. As the Germans my biggest headache was having to send units back to the Reich for refitting and eventual dispatch to the Eastern Front!

And that is the Italian Campaign in World War II, off the top of my head.

A tough old gut, that's for sure!




* Meaning which, I don't do a lot of research before writing, picture me answering a question about a topic while sitting down, face to face, avec moi, perhaps over an adult-type beverage. Hopefully which the questioner is buying. (Hint.) Reader suggestions for future topics along these lines are welcome. Of course, the post might wind up being. "Hhmm, I know next to nothing about that." Hey, it happens.

52 comments:

  1. Today's post reminds me of my 10th grade history teacher, animated and down-to-earth though he used more exclamation points since he was the high school football coach and being an ex-jock he was a rather large, excitable guy. The Brits, their indirect, soft underbelly route vs the Yanks direct, brutal route. Either way the poor G.I. Joe lived and died in mud. Good change of pace post Sarge.

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    1. I loved teachers like that.

      Glad you liked the post, I'll probably do it again.

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    2. I too was thinking History class...

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    3. I often toyed with the thought of teaching history. I accompanied my daughter's history class to Waterloo at the invitation of the teacher (a fine teacher of history he was hisself). I know a lot about that battle, long story short, out of a class of 25 students, two, count 'em, two kids went with the teacher and I out onto the field itself for one of my "off the top of my head" history lessons. The teacher looked at me on the walk back to the gift shop, where all the other kids were, and said, "Yup, welcome to my world."

      Because we don't emphasize the importance of understanding the past, we produce lazy citizens, Anyhoo, that's my take on it.

      (LUSH's history teacher in junior high was freaking awesome!)

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    4. I had a history teacher like that. First thing he did was tell us Christians he was going to piss us off, then the Jews, then the Muslims, then the Indians (feather) and Indians (dot) and maybe the Chinese and the Japanese and anyone else who isn't offended it's because your country or religion never amounted to anything, so, well, there, you're offended already.

      Probably the best opening of a class ever.

      His description of how the pre-Greeks won at Marathon. Take a bunch of pissed off macho guys, pack them in 60lbs of armor, and then send them running down a 30degree gravel beach and have them stop when they get into the water. Any Persians that get in the way just slowed them down a smidge.

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  2. The other month, my girlfriend showed me her grandfather’s WWII uniform jacket, and wondered if I could tell her anything about it...

    Turns out he was 85th ID, and had a CIB and a handful of other medals. He probably could have told a story or two about the “gut,” were he still with us. Sadly, I never got the chance to meet him.



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    1. Oh yeah, the 85th fought hard in Italy, I'll bet he would have seen some heavy stuff. Those guys typically didn't talk about it though.

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  3. Keep 'em coming. Your "off the top" would put most of today's history (?) teachers to shame and heading to the library to research from books that they should have at home starting with Rick Atkinson's trilogy, http://liberationtrilogy.com/books/

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  4. Churchill's reasoning was sound. Keep the Germans fighting there. And in the balcans, and southern France. Otherwise they would have the troops pivot and aid either of the other two fronts. They could have stalemated either front and extended the war. Japan at the time was trying to extend into Russia, how much longer would Russia lasted? They were thinking of troops, they would have to start closing factories, to maintain the fronts. America was stretched out, same with the other allies. We were starting to use high schoolers. That's known by the enlistment papers. So, all the fronts as diversions were necessary. An evil, but necessary.

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    1. Yes, and no. A feint in that direction would have been sufficient. Like I mentioned, Hitler kept a bunch of divisions in Norway, just in case. The partisans in Yugoslavia kept a lot of German troops tied down there. The Nazis were already stretch thin, robbing Peter to pay Paul. The Allied bomber offensive kept thousands of troops tied down defending Germany (searchlight and anti-aircraft batteries, not to mention fighter squadrons).

      Japan had no interest in getting involved in Russia after the battles of Khalkhin Gol in 1939. The Russians kicked their butts there.

      Churchill's reasoning was heavily influenced by Gallipoli and Dieppe. The Brits were running out of men and the thought of confronting the Germans directly kept many a British leader awake at night.

      Using high schoolers? Yes, volunteers, not draftees, my Dad quit high school to join the army, had to get permission from his parents to enlist at 17. OTOH, my great uncle John was in his 30s when he was drafted. We were running out of infantry.

      So yes, I disagree with all of the fronts being "necessary."

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    2. Ya.... read accounts of Army Air Corps trainees switched into infantry in 1944, things were getting stretched by late in that year.

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    3. Armies always seem to run short of infantrymen.

      But when you are at the forefront of the battle, you take the most casualties. Hence, you need replacements.

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    4. "Armies always seem to run short of infantrymen."

      Not just infantrymen. My mother taught radio to bomber crew during the war. I was not allowed to have a BB gun, because she remembered guys arriving at the first class of the day having forgotten to put in their glass eye. How empty is your manpower pool when you are taking men with only one eye?

      Paul

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  5. Smiling Albert turned to be a pretty good infantry commander for a Luftwaffe general. That entire campaign was a terrible grind, and it got darn little attention back home. In fact, the British Eighth Army had a great song called "We Are the D-Day Dodgers" to answer a snide remark from Lady Astor.

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    1. Italy was a tough slog, Germany had some very competent officers on scene, Kesselring being one. Who started his career in the army, as an artillery officer.

      The British Eighth Army had nothing to be ashamed of, their's was a hard war.

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    2. "...their's was a hard war."

      Who's wasn't, except for the REMFs?

      Of course, my thought is that to the lead man of the lead squad, of the lead platoon, of the lead company, everyone behind him ( and that was everyone in the whole bloody army ) was a REMF.

      Paul

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    3. Try fighting a war without them.

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  6. Oh yes, more history please.

    I attended a nice little Veterans Day celebration and parade on Saturday in Mansfield, TX. Many Corps of Cadets marching. I am happy to report that history still means something there.

    Found this link over at Feral Irishman. I had not heard this story before.

    http://www.5ad.org/units/Duane%20Francies.htm

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    1. I had heard that story, can't remember where though, It might have been at the Aviation Museum in Pungo, where they used to have a Fiesler. (Not sure if it's still there. I have pictures of it from the last time I was there.)

      Great story.

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  7. Certainly a different style post for you Sarge. For quite a while I though Beans had snuck it in. Good job, though.

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    1. The mood came over me all of a sudden like.

      It was fun though.

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  8. Yup it was Polish II Corps that planted their flag on top of ruins of Monte Cassino, after some crazy fierce fighting with legendary "Green Devils" of German Fallschirmjaeger.
    http://kresy-siberia.org/hom/files/monte-cassino-marzec-1944-1024x657.jpg
    Though the flanking by Free French including many colonial units was probably decisie in making the position untenable for Germans.
    Anyway capturing Rome on June the 5th was probably the shortest-lived news of the war considering what happened day later in normandy...
    Poles continued fighting up the peninsula fighting for Ancona and Bologna.
    And probably the most famous soldier of the corps was not human at all- a friigin' BEAR...
    http://www.badassoftheweek.com/voytek.html
    I call this Rigft to Keep and Arm Bears.

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    1. Ah yes, Voytek the bear! Now that is truly badass!

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  9. One major reason for opening this front I only learned fairly recently, from the third volume of Manchester's biography of Churchill. Stalin kept making believable threats to negotiate a separate peace with Germany if a "second front" wasn't opened in the West. I had known about Stalin wanting the Western Allies to get onto the Continent, but not that he was threatening to leave the war altogether. This was an influencing factor, along with the others you mentioned.

    Re: Mark Clark, I've read that a lot of his problems in Italy stemmed from his not trusting the Ultra intercepts he was given, hence episodes like making a defensive perimeter around the Anzio beachhead when he was told that the road to Rome was open.

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    1. Absolutely right, Stalin wanted a second front. He actually did make noises about quitting the war. After all, there was a precedent for that.

      I didn't know that Clark didn't trust Ultra. Perhaps too good to be true was in his mind.

      Thanks Captain O for adding to our knowledge!

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  10. I’ve read and heard a number of tales of the Italy campaign, but never before in the context of the entire Western Europe campaign.
    Thanks!

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  11. My dad enlisted in early 1940 and was originally a cavalry guy (4th Cav.) at Ft. Meade in South Dakota. He shipped over to the 87th Mountain Infantry Regiment when they stood up in 1941 and was a founding member of the 10th Mountain Division in 1943. After going through mountain warfare training at Camp Hale they sent him to Radio Operator's School and he was attached to the 110th Signal Company of the 10th when they headed off to Italy.

    Since he never (NEVER) talked about his time there, I've done a bit of my own research into the units he was attached to and their histories. One of the interesting items I discovered is that not long after he left, the 4th Cav. traded in their horses in 1942 and the 4th Cavalry Regiment was redesignated and reorganized as the "4th Cavalry Group, Mechanized". That unit participated in Operation Overlord and came across the Normandy beaches on June 6th after capturing the "Îles Saint-Marcouf" (Saint-Marcouf Islands) off Utah Beach. They remained in Europe throughout the rest of the war.

    I don't know which path was more difficult, Normandy or Italy, but it would have been tough going either way. I'm just glad he made it through, otherwise...well, you know...I wouldn't be here.

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    1. Combat is combat no matter where you're stuck in it. Sucks, period.

      Still, I'd take Italy over the Pacific any day of the week!

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  12. My Grandfather was in the 85th Reg, 10th Mountain.

    He did not have any of their specialty mountain training though. Just a basic infantry soldier.

    He was sent to Italy and was part of a replacement group arriving in Leghorn days before the 10th Mountain arrived. He was then sent to them as an augmentee for expected combat losses and fought with them all through Belevedere / Riva Ridge, etc..

    He was wounded at the battle of Mt Delle Spe (took some German Mortar fragments and was in a local battlefield hospital for a little while. rejoined the Unit shortly after crossing the Po river. Fought again all up to Lake Garda.

    Had just taken Mussollini's personal estate home on Lake Garda when Germany surrendered. Celebrated drinking El Duce's private stock of vino right out of his own cellars.

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    1. Now that's how you celebrate a victory! Drinking the bad guy's booze in his own house. (Couldn't hear the lamentations of his mistress though, she died when he did. See yesterday's post by Juvat for the photo.)

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  13. Very cool history lesson!! More, please.

    And I agree with Juvet...if you decide to go to war...then go to WAR. Do it. Get it done. Appoint competent generals/leaders, and get the hell out of their way! No limiting the ROE. The goal is to win. Bomb the living daylights out of them, pick off any survivors, and salt the earth when done so everyone else thinks long and very hard before wanting to pick a fight with us again. That was our reputation after WW2,but after Viet Nam, we just looked like wimps...
    My 2 cents. Prove me wrong. Please. :)

    See, topic for next history lesson.

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  14. You mentioned the route into southern France - the slog up the eastern part of France into Alsace and then across the Rhine had some pretty tough going as well. Are you familiar with any of it, such as the battles around Hatten and Ritterwhoffen? Or in the Vosges forest? There are some divisional histories on line - my interest is in the 14th AD since that was my dad's unit. Subject for a post at some point?

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    1. I am familiar with that campaign, and you're right, great idea for a future post.

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  15. WW1 - Churchill as First Sea Lord endorsed an entirely naval campaign for the Dardanelles. When that failed, considered a lack of guts by the ships commanders, Churchill had no further role to play. He did not envisage and had no part in planning or controlling a land based offensive on Gallipoli. Indeed, he was cleared by a 1922 Board of Inquiry of doing any such thing. The land campaign was run by the British Army. Sir Ian Hamilton had no part in planning the Gallipoli campaign but brought in at the last minute to command. The defeat ruined his otherwise distinguished career.
    WW2 - The Italian campaign was the as much as the Allies could do to relieve the pressure on Russia without tipping off the Germans that the final campaign would be through France.

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    1. Still and all, he got the blame for Gallipoli, but yeah, the Royal Navy didn't perform well there. For many reasons.

      As for Italy, the Germans knew that we had to come over the beaches in France. No mystery there. It was only the where in France that was a mystery to the Germans.

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    2. At Gallipoli, not the least of their problems was because the absolutely vital minesweepers were converted fishing trawlers manned by their civilian crews, if you can believe that. They didn't want to work under fire. It was dangerous, though. One night, four of them were sunk. But there were a lot of problems motivating civilian crews not under military discipline or training to do as they were asked. Still, they came closer than they thought to forcing the Dardanelles, since the Turkish batteries shot off nearly all their ammunition. British and French dreadnoughts steaming off Constantinople would probably have convinced Turkey to make terms rather quickly. The landings were mismanaged as badly as at Anzio. A mighty beached whale. Sigh. Lost opportunities, and worse, many lost lives for no useful purpose at all. Except to make plain to later leaders that amphibious warfare is hard.

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    3. Excellent points Larry.

      And we still don't take mine warfare seriously enough.

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    4. Sure we do! The mine warfare module for the LCS might be ready for deployment on an LCS sometime in the next decade. Whether the LCS will be deployable in a meaningful way is a different question.

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    5. Heh. We certainly spend enough on it!

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    6. AF Sarge...Churchill may well be blamed for Gallipoli as long as facts don't matter. Take another look at the history, I think you should retract your own blaming!

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    7. Facts do matter, as does perspective.

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  16. "Yes, it was a very well thought out plan, as many German plans tended to be back then. Well, except for the "let's invade Russia" thing." Well, that " let's invade Russia " thing was actually an Austrian's plan; despite that, if the Austrian had kept his hands out of the mixing thereof, the Germans might have done enough better to have caused Joe S. to have asked for quarter.

    Thanks for the post.
    Paul L. Quandt

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    1. Hitler wanted to invade Russia, the General Staff planned it.

      But yeah, Hitler's meddling made it harder.

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  17. "Well sure, while the individual Italians were magnificent soldiers, they had to be the most poorly led military on the planet. Hell, even the French made fun of them."

    When we were in Italy, my father, as the ranking U.S. commander in the area, was invited to an Italian armor unit's award ceremony. He invited me to go along. As we were going home, he asked me if I noticed the dates of the awards. I had. They were all during the time that Italy was a member of the Axis powers.

    Paul

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    1. Heh. Bureaucracy, always a day late and a dollar short.

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  18. Somewhere, in one of your posts that I am catching up on, you used the phrase ' robbing Peter to pay Paul '. For some reason, that has long been one of my favorite phrases.

    PLQ

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Just be polite... that's all I ask. (For Buck)
Can't be nice, go somewhere else...

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