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John Kettler's Omnibus Post


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I saw a review

 I really really want to see it.

Erwin i forget the name but a google search will reveal it - there was a BBC show where a lipreader read what was being said in old newsreels.  In a famous one of a haggard looking Aussie carrying a severely wounded comrade on his back hes telling the camera guy "fu*k off" hehe

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Just went and saw the 3D version with spousal unit.

She wanted to see it but then found it boring (so maybe not for sigothers).  I very much enjoyed it, and it was well worth seeing it in 3D. 

Peter Jackson gives a good on-camera interview about why and how they used modern tech to accomplish the tasks like to making the projection speed correct, the colorization correct, and yes, employed lip readers so we can now hear what was being said.  Apparently, he is a WW1 buff and has tons of WW1 uniforms and gear etc.  Gotta love his sense of humor when he reveals that to get authentic sound of artillery guns moving etc. that he reveals nonchalantly that he owns a personal collection of heavy WW1 guns "as one does"...

The only odd aspect is that thru most of the doc it seemed like the participants (interviewed in the 1960's) were almost having a good time.  There are harrowing photos of dead and rotting (all colorized) and some mention of the horror.  But, no one with psych damage was interviewed about any really horrible personal experiences that they found shattering.  "It was all in a day's work" and "I wouldn't have missed it for the world" seemed to be what one takes away from the film(!).  

Nonetheless, a remarkable achievement by Jackson's team and definitely highly recommended for breathing so much "new life" into the WW1 footage.  Stay after the credits for a short doc about how they made the film itself.

 

 

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After watching this marvelous British training film courtesy of the AWM (Australian War Memorial), am in love with the 2 Pounder! The first time I saw a picture of it, it looked like an ill-conceived baby 88, but it's anything but ill-conceived. It is a marvel of ordnance design and engineering in which rigorous attention to detail is in evidence at every turn, including the ability to fire both from wheels and deployed, super quick into and out of action, 16 rounds on the gun itself and more on the truck (96 total), ROF of 20 rpm,  trebly redundant firing system, optical scope (with training sight to get into scope's FOV) and iron sights, specific camouflage equipment for the gun and more. When the narrator said the projectile was a shell and specifically used the phrase "explodes inside" to explain how it kills the tank, I was shocked. The only real issue I have with this film was the complete absence of firing on tanks or tank armor panels, showing impacts and aftermath. After watching this, would be willing to bet you could fight the gun, if necessary. While it's true the 2 Pounder, like most guns of its ilk, was rapidly outpaced by enemy armor advances, it was a first rate weapon given the original design threat. 
 

Regards,

John Kettler

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As some of you may know, am a huge buff of the Roman legions and gladiators. Delight in historically accurate re-enactor groups. But I found something new and marvelous in that genre, but spanning Byzantine period-Renaissance. It's called the Armored Combat League and would make those SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism) pansies wet themselves in abject terror. The weapons are blunt but these are real weapons delivering full strength strikes with everything from armored fists to poleaxes and two-handed maces. Got exposed to this through a History Channel show called "Knight Fights,"where you see that broad span depicted, resulting in all sorts of weapon and armor changes, but the competition real deal is full or partial plate armor. 

Here's an intro, including an interview with the founder of the sport in America. 

https://www.nbcsports.com/philadelphia/video/armored-combat-league

Here's Team USA, led by the same guy, in international combat.

Regards,

John Kettler


 

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Wanted to add that the atmospherics in the show completely change the vibe, for the arena is made of rustic planks, the floor of dry dirt, and the lighting simply has to be seen in terms of the way it makes every detail of the armor and equipment stand out, and some of these fighters look as if they just stepped out of a time machine. The net effect is to turn the fully war ready knights into fearsome brooding, intimidating and truly scary presences. Watching these men fight, it's easy to see why the knights dominated in battle. 

Regards,

John Kettler

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Note how few rounds are with the tube (believe six in toto) assigned to the attacking infantry company, and any discussion of further ammo supplies was lost because the film and resulting video ended prematurely. Given all the mortar firing footage I've seen, found it odd that the CW types replaced the muzzle cover after every single shot, since I'd never seen that happen before, including, am pretty sure, for the highly limited footage I've seen of this mortar type in action.

Regards,

John Kettler
 

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Michael Emrys,

No, but the VO specifically said it was to keep rain out of the barrel.

Erwin,

NO such reason was mentioned.

Below please see a wholly new to me main gun F-Kill pic, on a Tiger 1, no less. It's quite clear, from the nature of the damage, that this was caused by a projectile through and through which so overstressed the cannon barrel that part of it sheared clean off.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2230376720616235&set=gm.2241339692748888&type=3&eid=ARCTgUNbyhaIaIgyOYCgu82A25znzeLy58IzqXQn-ERgDsn-RNXWtWlBft6CsHxjmyNWlui0to8rkWBo&ifg=1

Regards,

John Kettler
 

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Was doing some research on hangings for war crimes and crimes against humanity and found a good quality video on YT of the hangings in Lansberg, Germany in 1947. Barely did I have the video playing when I looked down and noticed this stunning and first comment on the execution video by Seep Stoxreiter PhD. Wanted to preserve it while I could remember to do so. Quite the read. Video title is  MUNICH. [No. ] 191 HANGINGS AT LANSBERG, GERMANY. Wasn't sure whether a link would be acceptable to Mods.


"Let me add my thoughts to this video from a different perspective. My father was in the Waffen SS. Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler. Rank Captain, Tiger tank commander. And in 1944, one of the select few to guard Hitler himself. He was present when Stauffenberg unsuccessfully tried to assassinate Hitler, although he was not in the same room. He knew all of the big wigs, Goering, Himmler et al. He told me a few stories about them, but kept most things to himself. Growing up in Austria in the 50's and 60's I found that most men I met were very unfriendly and bitter people. Had no idea then why. My father never managed to readjust to civilian life and battled to keep a steady job as he was so thoroughly brainwashed by the Nazis (btw, he was tall, blond with blue eyes. The perfect candidate for the SS). And he had very little education before he joined the SS. He was a very arrogant man, looking down on everybody else. He treated me and my brother really bad, taking out his frustration on his kids. Things got so bad that I developed some psychological problem which took me years to overcome. Same with my brother. He is also psychologically damaged, joined the French Foreign Legion for a brief stint before he managed to desert while in Africa! As soon as I finished my Engineering Degree I emigrated to a English speaking country where I was able to shake off my rather sorry childhood and become a very successful Engineer and business owner. Porsche in garage and Helicopter in the hangar. My son and my grand kids don't speak a word of German. When I compare the Austrians/Germans to the people in the English speaking world, and I have traveled extensively there, I always found them very friendly and open minded wherever I went. That is in stark contrast to the bitter and often downright nasty behavior of the people I left behind. That will explain the many nasty things the Nazis and their supporters did. Not only to the 'Enemies' but their own people. Hundreds of thousands of Germans were sent to the extermination camps as well, don't forget that. People with handicaps or genetic disorders were also gassed. Times of course has changed in Europe and the younger generation is more open minded. But there is still a very strong following of the Nazi ideology in the area I grew up. Remember Jorg Haider? Look him up. That's the place I left. Still hankering back to the 'Good Old Times'. So whenever I see one of these war criminals being hanged I have very little sympathy. I had to flee the Nazis myself and that was in 1971!!."

Regards,

John Kettler

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A guy in my local game group (minis) posted this. It's all about "Bazooka Charlie," is the most information I've ever encountered on him and what turns out to be the astounding damage he did with not supposed to be armed bird. The doc has marvelous footage (including new to me shots of the  Puma) of German armor at Arracourt, and the damage this man did to the Panzers verges on incredible, yet was officially credited. Essentially, he destroyed or immobilized an entire company equivalent by himself! Tiger 1s and Panthers. A comment says that Carpenter became a history teacher after the war, and that his bird, after a time as a civilian plane after the war, was found, identified as his aerial steed and is being restored by the Collings Foundation, whose specialty is antique aircraft! 
 

 

Regards,

John Kettler

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Came across this, and thought many here would enjoy seeing it. I'm a big fan of war art, and these are but a few pics from soldier Victor Lundy's set of eight sketchbooks he donated to the Library of Congress. Internal link will take you to everything that was in them. The sampler covers many sketches of things he saw while recovering after being wounded at age 20 in Normandy.

https://mymodernmet.com/victor-lundy-wwii-sketchbooks?fbclid=IwAR3k3b3lrmj9_LhXpEps1NO4KycCVxs2mdCfLCsckvdlgQzYN_AwKMuBZiw

Regards,

John Kettler

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5 hours ago, John Kettler said:

A guy in my local game group (minis) posted this. It's all about "Bazooka Charlie," is the most information I've ever encountered on him and what turns out to be the astounding damage he did with not supposed to be armed bird. The doc has marvelous footage (including new to me shots of the  Puma) of German armor at Arracourt, and the damage this man did to the Panzers verges on incredible, yet was officially credited. Essentially, he destroyed or immobilized an entire company equivalent by himself! Tiger 1s and Panthers. A comment says that Carpenter became a history teacher after the war, and that his bird, after a time as a civilian plane after the war, was found, identified as his aerial steed and is being restored by the Collings Foundation, whose specialty is antique aircraft! 
 

 

Regards,

John Kettler

quite a clever and courageous man. B) Exploiting german fear for spotter planes calling in Arty. or swarms of FB!

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RockinHarry,

My fear of artillery would've ceased to be a Weapons Tight issue at the point where  a vehicle was either near missed or hit by a bazooka rocket or rockets. In my world, active threats have absolute priority over potential threats. Am surprised that after the first attack merely having the plane in a ground attack flight profile wouldn't have been enough to go Weapons Free. 

"Alarm! Jabo ! Alles Waffen. Feuer!" or something similar, since I winged it on the German. If vehicles, would expect a clock reference and if infantry, unit's front, left, right, or rear for orientation. Frankly, I'm still processing what this man was able to achieve with his highly effective field expedient ground attack system. The truth of the matter is that his individual performance outshone by leaps and bounds the known overall historical effectiveness of CAS rocket attacks vs armor. Moreover, I seriously doubt there was a pilot in IX TAF who ever got as many kills, maybe even absolutely, as Carpenter obtained in a handful of sorties.  Does anyone here have any data on Allied tank buster aces who got their AFV kills with rockets? If so, am dying to see it.

Regards,

John Kettler

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On 2/2/2019 at 11:24 PM, Erwin said:

Also in theaters now (even in 3D!) is Peter Jackson's (Lord of Rings trilogy etc) homage to WW1 "They Shall Not Grow Old" doc that is getting rave reviews.  Even spousal unit #1 expressed interest in seeing this(!)  :blink:

https://www.polygon.com/2019/2/1/18206812/peter-jackson-documentary-wwi-they-shall-not-grow-old-review

What a fine review, and how great of Peter Jackson to restore all 100 hours of film despite using only some presumably much smaller part of it! Thanks for sharing this.

Regards,


John Kettler

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Returning to Bazooka Charlie, back in my military aerospace days, part of my work was CAS analysis for Maverick. Consequently, things like flight envelopes, missile performance, initial altitude, flight profile, release altitude and such were all essential info. Wonder whether similar data still exists for his attacks, especially dive angle, open fire slant range to target, number of rockets launched per pass and from what stations and intervals, convergence distance for launchers (presuming the techniques used for aligning MGs and cannon were used) and number of passes per sortie. Can absolutely guarantee both his altitude and slant ranges were small fractions of Tiffies, Thunderbolts, etc. His airspeed was likely something around a third of those planes, too, and his pullout altitude could easily have been under 100'. In fact, I found a great book excerpt taken from Robert Dorr's Hell Hawks showing that  during BoB, P-47s were pulverizing the Panzers with delayed action bombs dropped from 100'!  Extreme flying caused by very low cloud cover and US forces in extremis. Recall, too, that Patton had ordered that 3rd Army soldiers, because the bazooka was so inaccurate, not fire at over 60 yard range. Don't know the P-47 rocket launch range yet, but the footage is still useful. Does anyone have that book devoted to tankbusting aircraft and has lots of diagrams, attack profiles and such? If so, please see if you can find out (and tell us) what the  typical rocket attack profile and launch range were for 4.5 inch rockets armed P-47s, P-38s and P-51s. Thanks!

Regards,

John Kettler
 

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