Sgt Joch

I'm surprised no one mentioned today is the 70th anniversary of operation "Husky", the invasion of Sicily... ...I guess it's not as sexy as D-Day.

You seem to be basing your info on Rexford's book. Rexford has done some interesting research, but not everyone agrees with his conclusions. Everyone agrees there was a "shatter gap", but not everyone agrees it can be reduced to a simple formula. For example, Rexford's theory of "shatter gap" against Tiger/Panther armor is based on a very small number of tests: http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=990 You also have this classic exchange between JasonC and Rexford: http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=898 I tend to agree with JasonC that actual combat shows better result for 76 mm ammo than Rexford is willing to admit. There is also this interesting article which summarizes the 1944 live firing tests: http://worldoftanks.com/en/news/21/chieftains-hatch-us-guns-vs-german-armour-part-1/

Market Garden is coming along nicely.

No one will argue that CMx2 is perfect, just that it is way more "realistic" than CMx1.

nice! thanks Juju, this should round out all the missing small arms.

three Qatloos on the earthling from Vermont!

I am currently reading the history of the Canadian Army in Italy and came across an interesting anecdote. In december 1943, the Eighth Army was pushing up the Adriatic coast and Kesselring was running out of reserves. He pulled the reconnaissance battalion from the HG division west of the Apennines and sent it to cover a sector just west of Ortona. On december 23rd, Kesselring received a phone call from Goring who chewed him out for committing "his division" piecemeal and demanded that it be used as a compact force. Despite this, the battalion stayed in the Ortona sector. So Goring was keeping informed about the tactical use of the HG division and Kesselring, technically his subordinate in the Luftwaffe, had no problem ignoring his wishes.

Hi, I regularly swap in and out USB devices and I have a Thrustmaster Cougar which I occasionally use. I also use win 7 64 bit. I have never had one trigger a license issue. I am sure the help desk will be able to help you sort out the problem.

The HG appears to have been better than the average Luftwaffe field unit, certainly better equipped than regular Panzer divisions. The division suffered heavy losses in Tunisia, but had ample divisional reserves in the med theater, something which ordinary Heer divisions lacked. The division had been brought back up to full strength by july 1. The division also had a Tiger unit with 17 tanks attached as an organic unit on july 9, again very unusual for a Panzer unit. However reports from the Tiger unit are not complimentary to divisional staff. 10 tigers were lost in the first 3 days through inadaquate planning/scouting. They were pushed too far forward, bogged on soft ground and could not be recovered due to enemy fire. However, Panzer offciers regularly complained that infantry officers did not know how to properly employ tanks, so it is not necessarily a HG problem. The divisional commander, Paul Conrath, was a Luftwaffe officer who according to Kesselring, lacked the necessary experience in handling modern combined arms. nervertheless, reports from allied units do not seem to show that the HG performed less well than other German units in Sicily. It did however suffer heavy losses and had to be rebuilt once again, once it was evacuated back to the italian mainland.

Kesselring was the overall theater commander over German forces in the Med: army, Luftwaffe, Navy, as such he commanded Luftwaffe, Navy and Heer units. However, he was more of a strategist and administrator. He does not appear to have interfered in ground operations, other than setting the overall strategy. He certainly had good political and bureaucratic skills since he managed to stay in his post for so long and was forgiven acts which got other commanders fired. For example, he ordered the final evacuation of German forces from Sicily on his own initiative, before OKW and Hitler had made a final decision.

Its from Wray's article on German defensive doctrine on the Russian Front. I don't think the Luftwaffe was his primary focus. http://usacac.army.mil/cac2/cgsc/carl/download/csipubs/wray.pdf However, you have other articles/studies which show that due to steady attrition of aircraft, the Luftwaffe had an excess of ground support personnel by late 41 which led to various plans on how to use this manpower.

on the origins of the Luftwaffe infantry divisions:

the official canadian military history of the Italian campaign is available online: http://www.cmp-cpm.forces.gc.ca/dhh-dhp/his/oh-ho/detail-eng.asp?BfBookLang=1&BfId=25#archived

welcome to the forums, the more the merrier.

Ah yes, the good old persecution complex: poor little old me, not everyone agrees that this momentous issue I raised in apocalyptic tones is a mistake or a bug. This is a public internet forum, nuff said. Within that context, it is one of the milder ones. If you really want to see reactionary, try having a reasoned discussion about flight models on the "Rise of Flight" forum.

you have other sources that arrive at pretty much the same conclusion, for example: http://uploads.worldlibrary.net/uploads/pdf/20121011222013airpower_against_army_pdf.pdf USAF carried out six weeks of airstrikes against the 3 Republican Guards divisions camped along the Iraq-Kuwait border with B-52s, F-16s, A-10s and F-111s, sometimes as many as 450 sorties per day: Pilots and BDA even at the time showed that it was difficult for pilots to identify valid targets due to Iraqi camouflage/deception efforts. At the beginning of the ground offensive, U.S. HQ estimated the 3 RG divisions had been written down to: Medinah (54%), Tawakalna (55%) and Hammurabi (77%). However, when U.S. forces came into contact with the Republican Guards, notably at 73 easting, it appears the bulk of the RG divisions were still there. After the war, efforts were made determine who killed what, but many destroyed Iraqi vehicles were hit by multiple weapon systems which made this difficult. However comments from Iraqi prisoners seem to indicate that the air offensive did not cause substantial damage, i.e: It should also be noted that the 3 RG divisions made no effort to move during the entire air offensive, they had no effective air defences and the USAF knew exactly where they were. Now it is true that targeting systems/weapons in 2015ish will be more advanced than in 1991, but it does show the problems faced by air power alone in effectively attacking ground units.

Atkinson? no I believe we have had discussions before that he is on the "light" side, much like Stephen Ambrose. The problem of course, is finding historians who can write. Glantz's research may be top notch, but no one would ever accuse him of writing a page turner. plus, very little is written on the italian front. "D-Day Dodgers" by Dancocks on the Canadians in italy is supposed to be very good, but it is out of print and hard to find.

Mark Zuelkhe? He is more of a general author looking for a popular subject matter rather than a serious historian and has been known to have a lot of factual errors in his book, especially the early ones. Considering the speed at which he churns out his books, I am not sure how much in depth research he does. For a good book on the Canadian Army, I would recommend Terry Copp's "Fields of Fire" and "Cinderella Army". However, both only deal with NWE.

I found a july 1945 article on the U.S. 240 mm howitzer which shows the RoF at 2-3 shells every 2 minutes. However, when you look at its size and the loading procedure (the shell alone weighs 360 lbs. and the 90lbs bag of powder is loaded separately), that is probably a theoretical maximum. http://books.google.ca/books?id=PiEDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA76&dq=popular+science+1945+%22Biggest+Gun+On+Wheels%22&hl=en&ei=_erMTJrSG4Gknwf_vIkn&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=popular%20science%201945%20%22Biggest%20Gun%20On%20Wheels%22&f=false

I had read somewhere that the forces used in the offensive could have extended the war for another six weeks. 3-4 years ago, I was at a business supper and happened to be sitting next to an older gentleman who had emigrated to Canada from Belgium after the war. After a decent interval, I asked him about the war. It turns out his family had a farm somewhere between Bastogne and Liège and he was 14 in december 1944. One day, german officers arrived and requisitioned one of the rooms in the house to use as a HQ. They were very formal and correct and he says he was very impressed by the leather coats they wore. After two days, the germans left and the Americans arrived. The Americans were very generous and gave them blankets and food. The Americans did not stay long since they were chasing the Germans. A few days after that, a british unit came through which "requisitioned" a lot of the stuff the Americans had given them. He was very impressed by the Germans and Americans, not so much by the British. I also asked him about may 1940 when he would have been 9-10, but he had no real recollection of the Germans coming through.

I 'm sure the fact that he was taking crystal meth did'nt help.

Hi, which unit? The interface is a bit confusing. Each U.S. unit, for example, is supposed to have a radio but there is no icon to represent it, unlike the PDA or FBCB2 which not every unit has.

Form Hitler's point of view, the choice was either gamble in the Ardennes and perhaps pull off a miracle or do nothing and commit suicide in his bunker on june 15, 1945 instead of april 30th. sort of a no brainer..

On the effectiveness of U.S. airpower, you also have to remember that most operations have taken place against countries that have no effective air defences. When the U.S. goes up against a competent military, the effectiveness of air assets goes way down. In Kosovo 1999, NATO conducted a 78 day campaign against Serbia. The Serbs had an integrated air defence system built around SA-3s and SA-6s. Despite an all out campaign to take out the Serbian air defenses, NATO only managed to take out a small chunk with the result that NATO air ops were limited during the entire campaign: -NATO aircraft had to generally stay above 15,000 feet which limited their ability to spot ground units. -high value recon/surveillance assets had to be placed well out of SAM range which limited their effectiveness: -NATO aircraft stayed at least 5km away from roads which limited their ability to spot enemy vehicles. This also meant that the mobility of Serb army units was not seriously hampered (i.e. this is not Normandy 44;)): -NATO had to allocate more aircraft to SEAD missions leaving less to carry out actual strikes: -NATO was never able to really spot, let alone strike at Serbian army units: http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj02/sum02/lambeth.html plus, the equipment used by the Serbs was not even top of the line for 1999, the current air defense assets of the Russians are much more potent. Even in 1991, there is evidence that the claimed effectiveness of air against ground units was exaggerated. The Russians went to Iraq shortly after the war and found that most Iraqi AFVs were only destroyed after they came into contact with coalition ground forces, few seem to have been destroyed during the initial air offensive. http://fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/documents/deserted/deserted.htm so, despite what the airpower advocates claim, it is a "fantasy" to believe that U.S. air assets would get a free ride against Russia.

Churchill was one gentleman who knew how to wield the english language like a scalpel: http://www.winstonchurchill.org/learn/speeches/quotations/quotes-faq