John Kettler

Thought at first this was some weird SF remake of Joan of Arc, but it's actually Brigitte Helm who was the robot in Fritz Lang's "Metropolis" in 1927. Believe they are trying to cool her off between takes under blazing hot film lights. Regards, John Kettler

Just finished the superb and superbly named "You Have No Choice" which has pretty much everything lacking in most American war films. Wehrmacht, SS, partisans, NKVD reydoviki and so much more figure into the complex, richly detailed plots and subplots. The sheer ugliness and brutality of the Eastern Front is unsparingly depicted, too, starkly contrasting with the beauty of Russia in the spring, in a nation torn within itself. Regards, John Kettler

Wicky, Quora has the quote, together with a wealth of other material on the immense value of Lend-Lease to Russia. Thanks for unearthing what you did in response to what I found. Anyone interested in the US end of Lend-Lease or Lease-Lend should see what HyperWar has. It gets right down to how many bazookas we sent and how many rockets for it, broken out by type. The Diary of Major Jordan is a must read, too, for it details what the Soviets were not only stealing from us (things like entire blueprints for defense factories), but traitor Harry Hopkins was forcing us to let them pass unhindered through the very same means used to deliver Lend-Lease! This included nuclear materials being sent over the outraged objections of General Groves, who ran the Manhattan Project. Regards, John Kettler

Writing as someone who grew up reading C.S. Forrester's Hornblower series, later Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin novels and many others, not to mention a stack of films, many old B/W types, this was quite the recalibration to watch--in a marvelous and most informative way. Have also been a student since childhood of the actual warfare, tactics and weaponry of the period of the Age of Fighting Sail. Even so, this doc exposed me to veritable worlds of new information, sources previously unheard of, perspectives never before encountered. Can't say enough good things about this doc. My sole issue is that they didn't make it a series! Regards, John Kettler

Found this little treasure of a biography of Lyudmila Pavlichenko, with 309 kills, the most lethal female sniper in recorded history, and third overall. Pproperly speaking, she killed 311, but two were from qualifying to graduate from the otherwise all-male sniper school. Anyone for the real Indiana Jones? May I present the amazing Giovanni Battista Belzoni. John Kettler

Own very few translated Russian military books, but HSU Loza's excellent Fighting For The Soviet Motherland does contain one such incident. It was early in the war, and the frontoviki had been shattered by a Panzer attack and were fleeing in disarray. The NKVD ordered his Lend-Lease armored unit near, but behind the front lines, to form a blocking detachment, and when the men appeared, the initial fire was directed over their heads, but when they didn't stop, it became aimed fire at them. After taking a bunch of casualties, the men turned around and went back to the front, at which point fire was ceased. Loza was sickened by the whole thing and thought the poor soldiers, who were completely overwhelmed by an attack they had no means to stop, got a really raw deal. Can anyone provide other such examples? Am drawing a clear distinction here between battlefield action and finding a frontovik behind Russian lines without suitable orders, a pass, etc., and summarily executed. Those stats are readily available, but I know of no such breakdown for men shot down in their tracks on the battlefield by blocking detachments. Am especially interested in hearing from our Russian and Ukrainian colleagues, as well as others who can read Russian or other relevant languages. Regards, John Kettler

Did you know Kubinka's Panther is a runner? This is glorious, for the tank is still in its original paint and Zimmerit. Must see! The Comments offer some pithy commentary on certain things said in the video. Nevertheless, am still in a state of treadhead bliss! Regards, John Kettler

Erwin, You, sir, have a real future in comedy. Hilarious reply! This situation cries out for Monty Python treatment. Regards, John Kettler

Erwin, That's because they're not proper English bugs! But here's what you've missed. Be sure to enjoy the pillar of grasshoppers and the fact the Forbes article writer doesn't know what UV light is. https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2019/07/29/las-vegas-invasion-grasshoppers-swarms-may-last-weeks/#4f08a6667dc9 Regards, John Kettler

Don't know what movie this is from, but unless there's been a tsunami, it would appear that merely not being in the ocean is inadequate against the Great White. Regards, John Kettler

While researching something else I found Soviet Hammer, an info packed blog on scads of Soviet and topics, though primarily military, from as far back as Suvorov's march to Paris and at least into 1991. https://soviethammer.blogspot.com Last night I found the amazing site COVERT SHORES, which deals chiefly with global naval Spec Ops, but it also covers other types of small subs, stealth naval craft and littoral warfare goodies. The Soviet Naval Spetsnaz article is terrific, but a major shock came when I learned the same renowned Italian unit that sank HMS Valiant in Alexandria and attacked British shipping in Gibraltar--nearly attacked New York harbor in 1943. http://www.hisutton.com/Decima-MAS_attack_on_New-York.html Regards, John Kettler

While researching something else I found Soviet Hammer, an info packed blog on scads of Soviet and Russian topics, primarily military, from as far back as Suvorov's march to Paris and at least into 1991. https://soviethammer.blogspot.com Last night I found the amazing site COVERT SHORES, which deals chiefly with global naval Spec Ops, but it also covers other types of small subs, stelth craft and other littoral warfare goodies. The Soviet Naval Spetsnaz article is terrific. But did you know that Italy's renowned Decima MAS--the frogman unit which sank the HMS Valiant at Alexandria and attacked British shipping in Gibraltar on their two-man chariots, very nearly attacked New York City in 1943? Gasped aloud when I read this, having never seen or heard so much as a whiff. http://www.hisutton.com/Decima-MAS_attack_on_New-York.html Regards, John Kettler

Welcome to the resurrection of the dead! On March 10, 2015 in this thread I posted what Premier Nikita Khrushchev's said about the absolute criticality of SPAM to Soviet Victory. I went on to say that he did this from the position of having been Stalin's personal STAVKA envoy to the Front commanders, so was then in an excellent position to understand the food situation for the Red Army. In glancing at comments for a Russian video in which the narrator drives a Panther tank, I found this also authoritative quote. "Now they say that the allies never helped us, but it can't be denied that the Americans gave us so many goods without which we wouldn't have been able to form our reserves and continue the war. We didn’t have explosives, gunpowder. We didn’t have anything to charge our rifle cartridges with. The Americans really saved us with their gunpowder and explosives. And how much sheet steel they gave us! How could we have produced our tanks without American steel? But now they make it seem as if we had an abundance of all that. Without American trucks we wouldn’t have had anything to pull our artillery with." - Marshall of the Soviet Union (second in command to Stalin himself), Georgy Zhukov There is also a quote I've seen where Stalin is demanding to know where his A-20s are and saying how vital they are to the war effort. Regards, John Kettler

Brother George sent me this fabulous video on the WW II German helicopters, their stack of world records, operational use (!), and a post war trans Channel flight the narrator deems as significant as Louis Bleriot's fixed wing first crossing. Never have I seen so much on German helicopters. Regards, John Kettler P.S. Back in the 1970s, I was a rabid player of AH's Panzerblitz, for which someone developed a German helicopter air assault module. Never did get to play it, though. Sigh. Could've really ruined Ivan's day with those counters.

Mord, Thanks! Seem to be seeing all sorts of Cthulhu stuff lately, including a rather disturbing Reebok commercial. Regards, John Kettler

Wanted to pass the word about the site and FB page for a UK-based living history group depicting GD's recon force. Shows all kinds of weapons and gear, much unknown to me, using historical pics, color photos (including StuG commander in hatch: crisp color pic), vehicle artwork, brief descriptions of various things and topics, some OT but interesting. Site's well done but hard to read. Tech and weapon performance data minimal, though. http://www.panzeraufgd.co.uk/index.html Regards, John Kettler

With Spec Ops troo apparently coming at some point, this offers, I think, some great scenario possibilities. It is a look at the equipment and capabilities of what was then Naval Spetsnaz. Since, like US SEALs, these guys have been known to arrive from the sea and do nasty things once ashore, I felt this was both appropriate and most informative. This article, and the to me incredible amount of material on inshore ops on the rest of the site, too, is pure gold and would've gone straight into my intel fies in my Threat Analyst days. That good! http://www.hisutton.com/Naval Spetsnaz in Hybrid Warfare.html On a separate note, judging by some of the posts here, I need to do some serious back reading. Regards, John Kettler

jtsjc, Appreciate the info! As a boy, I cut my teeth on Donald Burgett's harrowing Currahee! and its unforgettable hot potato game which he somehow survived. Have yet to read his second book, but brother George tells me it's really good. Regards, John Kettler

On July 17th, I posted about huge clouds of flying ants in the UK and how they were so numerous they could be tracked by weather radar. Gusss what? Inside Edition just ran a piece on something similar, except it's Las Vegas and grasshoppers. Apparently, the reason for the astronomic of also trackable hordes of them is that the combination of rain and high heat caused in explosion in their population, but why Las Vegas? It's not like having vast wheat fields to feast on. Turns out they are drawn the the cities vast amount of light at night, to the point where many hotels have killed a lot of the bug attracting lighting. So numerous are these insects that they're flying into people's mouths, cover the sidewalk and more. Tourism has been badly affected, because people just can't handle it. This grasshopper invasion is expected to last a week. Regards, John Kettler

It's probably a good thing there's a photo of this unique birthday cake, for the celebrant may not remember a thing! Regards, John Kettler

Badger73, You're most welcome. Am in the process of getting my own game table ready and on the CoC Wargame FB group, there is layout after layout after layout, all stunning, each distinctly different in approach, making me feeling acute GTIS (Game Table Inadequacy Syndrome) which I typically express in terms of talking restraining myself from burning mine.The one here is a sterling example of what I mean. At least part of what you see here is scratchbuilt. Regards, John Kettler

Brother George sent me this, and it's superb, not only because of the painstaking analysis--with some real surprises--but because there's a farmer (?) with pieces from the wreck of his tank, including one that fits exactly into the damaged turret floor shown in a photo taken right after the war. This is the actual ground shown, with many of the buildings from the war period still there and positions of some structures now gone shown in relation to the known positions. There is a plethora (1400+ comments), many political-polemic, but there's some serious meat, too. See SW6 and Paul Bantick in particular. The first is near the top, the latter will take a bit of scrolling down below the initial page of visible comments. Be sure you Show All Replies so you don't miss him. I deem this doc, barring some amazing new discovery to be about as good as it's going to get on who killed Wittmann and from where. Didn't know he was called the Black Baron, but the forensic reconstructions and research were far more interesting and informative than the doc I saw years ago called "Who Killed the Red Baron?" Regards, John Kettler

Badger73, What a royal pain that is. Let's see if brute forcing the matter works. This is the first batch. If people want more, please let me know. Text is from the OP. This is the map before anything is on it. Don Avis Today we’re at La Fière as the 82nd Airbourne attempt to hold off the German 91st Air Landing Brigade on DDay. Regards, John Kettler

In case people didn't see this, there is a major movie in the works specifically on the fight for La Fiere. Written by Dale Dye (yes, him, whose credentials include 30 novels), it is intended to show what the paratroopers and glider infantry did before the troops hit the beaches. https://www.warhistoryonline.com/instant-articles/tom-hanks-2.html?fbclid=IwAR39nQLkxIWXOpXfq3D4pvxt0Pkbx2jYTZ8hVU4gJxbF9xjnVfdUd7DZtwU On a related note, some of you may find seeing La Fiere wargamed in miniature of interest. A JOP is a Jumping Off Point. They may be loosely thought of as spawning points, but there is no respawn. These are merely covered locations under friendly control. Loss of even one can be crippling because of it what does to deployment possibilities. There is a patrol phase before the battle proper in which both sides seek to advantageously position their JOPs while constraining the foe's. Three pics here. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2633329096700273&set=pcb.2339703402912516&type=3&theater&ifg=1 Seven more here with battle begun! https://www.facebook.com/groups/1444501242432741/search/?query=la fiere&epa=SEARCH_BOX Regards, John Kettler

Read this book online. Most of it was set in Normandy and concerned a Major whose name began, I believe, as Cr something or other (Cross, Crossley, Crosier, etc.). He was a British officer in a named regiment bearing one of those regional names which was shortened to a single syllable. Posted about it because not only was it a great account but because it described several CM level actions in considerable detail. It also went into the wastage a unit in the line underwent, including snipers, an "O" group wiped out by a single German mortar shell through singular bad luck, people run over by vehicles, etc. A feature in the book I know I mentioned was the explicit statement that attacking units were issued shovels, to facilitate rapid digging in before the inevitable German counterattack. In that OP or elsewhere, someone posted a pic of a British (?) section led by a piper during EPSOM. I specifically noted that one soldier had a shovel and tied that directly back to what I'd read in the book. Am hoping someone can tell me what that book was, both so I can let my CoC colleagues know and so that I have that info for my files. Would love to read it again, too. It's an important low level account of the fighting there. Regards, John Kettler