Stalins Organ

Really?? diesel powered were they?? But no - the picture is of DH-112 Venom's starting with Coffman cartridges

as far as I can recall these guys were the original "Diggers" due to their job - the sobriquet subsequently being adopted by the whole of the New Zealand Division, and then.......as per usual.....by Australians.....

After the war 75 Sqn was officially "gifted" to the RNZAF with it's title and badges, and remained an active combat squadron until the NZAF strike wing was dissolved in 2001.

Ulster was a Destroyer, not a Cruiser but nit picking aside, I enjoy reading these posts - keep it up

I suspect the reason there were "spare" 122mm guns was that they were not so popular for the regular artillery - where their long range was not overly useful and their smaller throw weight more of a problem - much like the British 4.5". According to wiki about 2500 122's were made, viz about 6900 152's - see also the annual production rate at RKKA I note that the number of ISU-122's & -152's made was almost identical at 1910 and 1885 respectively.

Reading wiki about RAMB I - it was one of 4 "banana boats" built to ship refrigerated bananas from Eritrea to Europe for the Regia Azienda Monopolio Banane (Royal Banana monolpoly, hence RAMB). They were all designed from the outset to be able to be fitted as auxiliary cruisers, and the 3 sister ships all had "interesting" fates: RAMB II: escaped the British blockade of Eritrea and sailed to Japan...however the Japanese were still neutral and not keen for an Italian raider to operate from their ports, so disarmed it and chartered it as a merchant. When Italy surrendered in 1943 the Italian crew scuttled it, but it was raised and eventually sunk by US aircraft in 1945. RAMB III: In Italy when war declared, was armed and used as convoy escort in the Adriatic - fought British surface forces during the raid on Taranto. Torpedoed by the British in Benghazi harbor, raised & returned to Trieste. Seized by the Germans in 1943, refitted as a minelayer & laid 500 mines in Adriatic before hitting one of them & returning to port in running astern. Sunk by allied a/c in 1944. RAMB IV: fitted as a hospital ship and captured by the British in Eritrea. Pressed into British service, bombed and set afire by Luftwaffe a/c & sank off Alexandra May 1942.

they look pretty much the same as the goggles here I reckon - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vickers_armed_LRDG_trucks8.jpg

According to wiki at least some of the prisoners knew, and asked for a fairly grim conclusion if a breach could not be made: Aspersions cast in the direction of SOE may be a bit misplaced, although the controversy is also discussed on that page - it is, of course, entirely possible that all positions are true, at least in the minds of the people of the time who made the decisions based on the information they had.

those would be 2 vehicles designed AFTER the Sherman....so how are you going to incorporate that aspect exactly - time travel??:cool: BTW the Hellcat was a whole 8" shorter than the Sherman, and the Chaffee was 1" TALLER! Both at a dozen tons lighter....... the German L48 75mm was approximately as powerful as the US 76mm - the problem was the gun. the Stug had a low profile and reasonably good armour that made it very tough, but the Pz-IV was very weakly armoured with only 50mm on the turret front - the Sherman did not have an "overwhelming advantage" - but it was also at no great disadvantage, if any. Which is what you expect from tanks of similar era and weight! No it didn't. The 75mm was a great improvement over the 37mm of het Stuart.......but no improvement at all over the 75mm of the Sherman and worse than the 76mm. Which does not make the chaffee a great replacement for the Sherman - it makes it a great replacement for the earlier light tanks! the Sherman was NOT supposed to be a "breakthrough" tank - it was always designed to be a MEDIUM tank - in particular it was optimized for combat against infantry with its medium velocity but high HE capacity 75mm gun as part of an infamous combat philosophy that saw tank destruction as being the job of specialized tank destroyers. And in that role it remained very good for the entire war! What's more with the addition of a decent AT gun it became a good tank destroyer too! It's a good light tank no doubt - but it came too late to have any material effect.

Have to laugh at he concept that the Chaffee made up for all the shortcomings of het Sherman - with the same or smaller gun it as no better as an artillery piece, and it had lighter armour at 38mm max, so was even more vulnerable including to the smaller AT guns than the 88's. The Sherman had plenty of shortcomings - but it was actually quite well armoured - it's turret front was usually 4" (102mm) from memory - as much as a Tiger 1's front hull! It's glacis was usually 89mm at 49 degrees - miles ahead of the Pz IV of any variety. the problem with the armour wasn't the armour - it was that the German AT weapons had very good performance - after all they'd had to deal with Russian HEAVY tanks...and the Sherman was only a medium! Comparing it to the Panther and Tiger is like saying the German Pz-III was useless because it was outclassed by the KV-1, or the Spitfire was a failure because any jet was faster than it!

It very much depends on the criteria, and unless you are going to publish those then there is little chance of agreement. For example I'd drop the Tiger several places and maybe even chuck it completely - too big, to heavy, too immobile, and having a bad rep with the opposition doesn't make up for it. I'd also ignore the T-26 - it's heyday was in the Spanish Civil war and Nomohon, and apart from numbers it has nothing going for it after 1939. Where's the KV-1?? A formidable machine in all respects in the early war and the forerunner of all soviet heavy tank development all the way to the T-10! And the Comet - at last the Brits get more than 1 dimension right leading right to the Centurion immediately post-war. I'd get rid of the Char B - wrong tank for the wrong war! The Souma might rate a low rank - it would be higher but for the turret!!

I don't know what the supposed controversy is - I have no doubt that the USSR had a pan for an offensive war with Germany........just like the USA had a plan for initiating a war with the UK in the 1920's - it's just basic military planning. So freakin' what?? Suvorov's only contribution was suggesting that the USSR was actively planning to do so in a time frame that was only shortly after Barbarossa - 6 July 1941 to be precise! Most serious analysis places the prospect as being 1943 or later.

Can't be brand spanking new - I saw it recently here in New Zealand and we never get stuff before anyone else! But it is good - I especially enjoyed the story about how they developed incendiary ammo.

Here's a contemporary newspaper report from New Zealand about this action - good stirring Victorian stuff! And a map from the Australian Light Horse website showing the location

The US froze billions of Iranian funds after the hostage crisis - they would probably collect from those. Also the timing may relate to reported plans to free up some of those funds as relations improve.

the divisional artillery was not used, and the rest of the artillery support landed on the start lines - did you not read that??:confused: Casualties did not always start with the debacle of being shelled by your own artillery!

Yeah but it wasn't really a whole division attaching a Chateau: So now we're down to 2 half-battalions....and they formed: -source so the "Division" is actually only half of 1 brigade, attacking on the frontage of 4 companies! And it being 1917, the attack was, of course, a total screw up.... Plus although the Chateau had been hammered by artillery and was little more than a pile of bricks, the subsurface shelter had not been damaged, and it had been heavily fortified. Casualties were heavy - this source is the history of the Otago regiment, which had about 400 officers and men involved - of these:

Nothing heavy to lighten up about

Knockers is world wide slang (and I've never heard of the NZ usage given there)- there was no confusion on my part. the link with knockers/breasts was immediately obvious, but neither funny nor clever - it was also immediately obvious that the term was being used for something other than breasts. didn't see any humour in it at all - still don't.

And what is your point? By the look of it wild rice is a plant that grows, well...wild. Overharvesting could probably destroy it, hence the restrictions on the size of the threshers used, and also on the size of the canoes allowed and the prohibition on using any form of mechanical device in the harvest. Here's the statute It is no different from statutes limiting the weapons you can use to hunt ducks, bag and season limits, restrictions on using flys to fish for salmon, and a zillion other similar laws.

That link doesn't work for me

I prefer this one:

oops and double oops!

Wasn't Guy Fawkes invented bonfire night - it goes back at least as far ass Joan of Arc!!

Completely different from the Mounties one - the Mounties have one of the "flat panels" facing directly forwards - the lemon squeezer has a crease pointing forwards. ..sheesh!! Alternatively no - they are all just your basic "slouch hat" as worn for hundreds of years or with the cap formatted in different ways - they aren't actually even materially different from the Tricorne and Bicorne - those forms have the brim folded up rather than the cap pushed in.