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| Two German paratroopers with handcarts loaded with equipment. (Source) |
I plan on interrupting the flow of my story every now and then to take a look at the history of what's going on in "the book." (In quotes because it's not really grand enough to really deserve the title of "book" just yet. Heck, I don't even have a title for it yet!) That being said, take a load off, smoke 'em if ya got 'em (remember this story is set during WWII, lots of soldiers smoked, there is a reason for that), and settle back for the history which inspires me to take on this endeavor.
Here's the situation in Normandy as of D + 6, the 12th of June, 1944 -
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As you can see by the red line on the map, the Allies haven't really gotten that far from the beaches upon which they set foot in Normandy. (Note the scale at the top right.) You can also see that the British and Canadians have at least three armored divisions in between them and Caen. Though those divisions were not at full strength, there is only one British armored division to face them.
One thing that stands out whenever you read about the war is that to the man on the ground, every German tank was a Tiger and every German gun was an 88. Of course, that wasn't the case. But if you're an infantryman, protected by nothing but your uniform and whatever cover you can get behind, that's rather immaterial. Tigers and 88 mm anti-tank guns were scary as Hell!
Now I know I keep nattering on about the bocage, something which Suz pinged me on in the first day or so of the story. While it's easy to kind of describe it and some of the pictures I've used kind of show it, the following short (well, 30 minutes is kind of short) film is well worth your time.
Even though I knew what the bocage was, I learned a lot from that video.
See you on Saturday for another episode in the lives of Willie and Joe, er, I mean Bill and Jack. The war rages on, but our fellows deserved a day off!
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Then, as now, the newspapers didn't have a clue.
Love me some Willie and Joe - I have an old little book compilation of Bill Mauldin's cartoons, and I can see why the dogfaces liked them so much. Many are just classic, irreverent glimpses into the realities of the everyday Joe.
ReplyDeleteYup, favorites of mine.
DeleteBeloved by the poor, tired dogfaces, but hated by much of the higher brass.
DeleteMauldin drove Patton nuts!
Delete+1 on the Bill Mauldin cartoon's. My Dad had a book of them as well that I read when I was a kid.
ReplyDeleteHaving grown up in up-state NY, which in places has almost as many rocks as Vermont, and having personally picked my fair share and then some of rocks, and having traveled in Europe, I have seen bocages...just never knew that was what they were called. Always called them either stone walls, or hedgerows...depending on the location. But, no, would not want to be meandering along the pretty country lane when there were Enemies about. Heck, in peace times they are kinda close and crowded, and that is without anyone firing atcha.
I thought the book got written first, and then the title was chosen...but what do I know, I certainly haven't ever officially published any books. Enjoying the read, BTW. More please.
I was kidding about the book title, usually that shows up near the end of things is my understanding (not that I've ever been published). I don't even have a working title, other than "the book."
Delete"More" is on the way, I just wanted to cover some of the history, particularly the bocage. Nasty innit? Lovely for a stroll but nasty if someone's trying to kill you!
American stone walls or hedgerows are... um... babies to the over 1,000 year old ones in Normandy. They were almost at the concrete level of toughness. Even the Brits, with their 2,000 year old stone walls, had no friggin clue.
DeleteBut. Well. New England is a good start on the idea. Start with a stone wall or a spoil wall, add a millenium of wind-blown dirt, dead vegetation, weeds, cuttings, dead things, dirt, rocks, more dirt, you can see how they 'grew'.
The bright side of the Bocage is that the thick, tall walls protected the fields nicely from ravening cows and pigs, blocked the sea breezes and allowed the mists to settle to the ground, and definitely delineated property lines.
Kind of like the western France version of rice patties. Except without most of the flooding and without all the poisonous snakes and insects.
A millennia is rather a long time.
Delete(FWIW, Korea has lots of rice paddies, no poisonous snakes therein. Bugs? Oh Hell yes. DAMHIK)
While the German Mark V has a unique profile the Mark IV had a vague resemblance to the Mark VI despite the size difference and maybe in the heat/fear of battle that first glance......."OMG.....TIGER!" Awaiting eagerly your next installment of Bocage Battle Sarge.
ReplyDeleteThe application of Schürzen to a Pzkw IV made the resemblance (at a glance, with it firing at you) look something like a Tiger I.
DeleteWhat are Schürzen? See here.
While the Tigers were few terror weapons, the most deadly killer of allied tanks was humble StuG III - relatively cheap and easy to produce, ubiquitous, often attached to infantry divisions, and deadly with 75mm L/48. Low soilhouette helped with camouflaging into ambush sites...
ReplyDeleteReichsmark for Reichsmark, Panthers were probbaly best German tanks. With strong frontal armour, sloped like t-34 but much thicker, deadly accurate 75 L/70 canon and enough mobility to rival medium tanks of other nations it was something of a proof of concept of post war MBT designs.
...mobility when it wasn’t broken.
DeletePaweł - The Panther is overrated.
DeleteWhat a bear said.
DeleteOf the German tanks, the Panther was by late 1944 probably the best. Deeply flawed by strategic measures (too expensive, weak drive train for the power and weight, and way too hard to repair), but a most excellent cannon, superb optics, and very good armor until late '44 as German metallurgy ran short of critical elements. The drive train and suspension was horrible to repair. We captured a whole lot of broken down Panthers that couldn't be repaired in a fluid battle. Overall, the Sherman was probably the best tank of the war in logistical terms, but one-on-one, I'd rather have been in a (working) Panther or Tiger. Thankfully, modern war isn't one-on-one, though that is something that deeply worries me about today's US Navy...
DeleteThe StuG with a short 105mm was a nasty anti-infantry weapon, but the StuG with the long 75mm was a tank assassin.
DeleteFYI - The StuG III and later IV models were - basically the hull of a tank (Pzkwfw III or IV models,) and slap a low box with a top on the crew section (called a casement) and put a gun on it that swivels side-to-side and has elevation and depression. German artillery designed it as a way of getting artillery guns up to the troops (at the time, many of the artillery pieces were towed by... horses, not good in a mobile environment.) Cheaper and easier to build than a turreted tank, they were surprisingly effective as both front-line artillery support for infantry, and then when armed with longer, more powerful guns, as tank destroyers. (The US went with open-topped boxes for tracked artillery, and turreted tank destroyers (with open topped turrets.)
Having a lower gun mount meant, for a lot of instances, the StuG (short for 'Sturmgeschütz' - assault (or storm) gun) was able to be concealed a lot better than a conventional tank. Add on those Schürzen to an already short vehicle, whether purpose made back home or field adapted, and the outline of the stubby StuGs was easily broken up.
By 1944 reliability problemsof early panthers were mostly ferreted out, and she was a deadly cat. Andd there was over 6000 of them produced which meant they were far often seen than Tigers (let alone King Tigers of which less than 500 were made).
DeleteAnd if Polish technic students of resistance could operate "liberated" Panthers in Warsaw Uprising for a few days without any logistical support this says a lot...
Shermans were typical products of US auto industry, cheap, reliable and easy to customize. Logistically best of the war, really. British Firefly variant with 17pdr "tiger killer" gun was especially deadly, though.
T-34s were easy to manufacture but much more prone to mechanical breakdowns (even compared to German designs at that says a lot. Thankfully they were also easy to rpeair, and when equipped with 85mm canon - similarily to a Tiger, a AAA derivative - they boasted great firepower for medium tank.
Dont get me started on USN, quality is all good but then it goes into overengineering and lack of numbers...
Larry - Spot on.
DeleteOn paper the Panther's armor was good, in reality poor materials and even poorer workmanship (actually sabotage) made the armor less than effective. A lot of pictures of broken down Panthers show them nose low, the torsion bars were all busted up. The suspension made for a very smooth ride, but was indeed a nightmare to repair.
Beans - Yes, an effective defensive weapons system for 1944. You can bet money that the Panzerwaffe would rather have had turreted tanks. Then again, the people in Hell want ice water.
DeletePaweł- Compared to the Soviet and Western Allies number of tanks, 6000 was spitting into the wind.
DeleteMost Allied tankers fought the Pzkw IV. T-34s weren't all that easy to maintain.
I didn’t choose the StuG life, the StuG life chose me.
Delete🤣🤣🤣
DeleteInteresting film. Yes, learned stuff I didn't know, fleshed out my mental idea of what they were.
ReplyDeleteI like the historical breaks, adds a lot of info that we may or may not know. I can easily see the books having thick Appendixes explaining nomenclature, map symbols (very familiar to us who used to play a lot of war games from Avalon Hill or SPI) and other esoteric stuff like what a hedgerow is, or what a StuG vs a Pzkfw is.
Keep up the good work. Any idea when you return to the office-office and not the home-office?
Yes, I included the film because I too learned a lot from it. Also makes it easier to picture the scenes for the book!
DeleteOffice-office (technically I'm in a lab, I hate offices) will commence on Monday, just for short bursts as I need access to data I can't access from home. When I can work from home, I will.
We did run into a whole lot more 88's than we expected. Allied intelligence largely missed the the III Flak-Korps behind the invasion beaches. It had a lot of 88's and more 37mm and 20mm cannon. Intelligence also blew the movement of the fairly large and veteran (by 1944 standards) 352nd Infantry Division to Omaha Beach. The US didn't actually run into Tigers until later in the war, despite the excited reports from the front. It's always interesting to compare the differences between first-hand reports from people in the fighting to after action analysis. In the Pacific, it often seemed every tanker was a carrier according to pilots of both sides -- and often sunk multiple times.
ReplyDeleteExcellent points Larry. When the war entered its mobile phase, breakout to West Wall, the Tigers were a non-player, they were just too slow. More Panthers were seen, but still the bulk of effective German armor was the venerable Pzkw IV.
DeleteSunk multiple times, heh Grey Ghost Enterprise jumps to my mind...
ReplyDeleteAt Midway, Japanese after damging Yorktown got second strike package to attack her, and the new pilots thought they sunk yet another carrier, because this one was moving and without much dmaage visible. Thus by late day of the battle, command on the Hiryu was thinking they can knock out last US CV and somewhat salvage the disaster...
Ah, the fog of war, and seeing what you want to see.
DeleteHappens all the time.