John Kettler

Something I wanted to note ref the Russian war movies and series in which there is a love interest, competition for females and such. Unlike the US and most forces, the Red Army had female combat medics, plus nurses and doctors at all levels. Women also served on AFVs, gun and mortar crews, antiaircraft crews, infantry, in comms, in supply, as mechanics, artificers, traffic direction, MPs, as snipers and more, including a tiny, relative to the Red Air Force, contingent of fighter and bomber pilots, other aircrew, ground crews and such.  Further, you had dancers, singers and musicians traveling about and doing USO type shows for the troops. Unlike Hollywood, which arbitrarily sticks a romance into a movie to make it appealing to women, in the Red Army things happened organically. I have a book on my shelf right now in which the commander of a half platoon and later a platoon of regimental guns connected so strongly with a nurse who cared for him after he was seriously wounded that they married during the war! Further, because of where her field hospital happened to be positioned, he got to see her a number of times during the war, too. I know of another case in which a husband and wife were on the same ISU-122 crew, she as commander and he as driver mechanic. There is a transcript of an ongoing navigation argument as to how to reach the Reichstag during the Battle of Berlin. Encounters with women in the Red Army occurred at a vastly higher rate, but likewise, I'll be the first to admit that the hottie count in the Russian war movies and TV series is not generally borne out by available imagery of many of these ladies! That the GPW was a horror beyond measure for those on the sharp end I don't dispute, but I can't help thinking about how the presence of so many women was beneficial to those men and that it made real and immediate the very notion of fighting to save the sacred Rodina. The Motherland!

Regards,

John Kettler

If you don't mind breaking down an epic war film into CM sized chunks, may I recommend the monumental Battle of Neretva? Based on a crucial battle which did take place and pitted Tito's partisans against Germans, Italian and Chetniks, this has many action which could be treated as discrete CM fights. 

If you haven't seen the probably 1000+ person, astounding Battle of Neretva, featuring a breathtaking cast list, spectacular terrain, lots of different structures ranging from huts to multi-story buildings and big churches, then are you in for a unique experience, starting with location (the Balkans, specifically, Yugoslavia). Has multiple nationalities all speaking in their languages (English subtitles throughout) , so much military hardware the Internet Firearms Data Base missed lots of it, including VISMODs (VISusal MODifications; think SPR Tiger 1) and AFVs I couldn't identify at all, lots of usual and unusual artillery, combat of every size and sort. This movie was made in the late 1960s, before digital FX, so the human hordes are real people, not clones of a few. The print's not very good, but gets better later in the film. Based on my own experience, it won't take long before you're so swept up in the film you really don't pay much attention to image quality.
 
Regards,

John Kettler

Probus,

As far as I'm concerned, watching 1944 with English subtitles is the way to go, for you get to hear the actual languages used, facial movements match the words, and it's altogether more believable, even intimate. This has been my position on foreign language war movies ever since I got to experience the difference between good subtitles and dubbing, which often is awful in every important aspect (pitch, pace, pause, inflection, pronunciation and more) and frequently has only half a butt at best. Have seen Das Boot with subtitles and dubbed. Had to turn off the latter, for it was ridiculous and had nothing of the mood, feel and presence of the one I'd call real. English dubbed samurai movies should be outlawed as a form of torture, too!

Regards,

John Kettler

Probus,

As far as I'm concerned, watching 1944 with English subtitles is the way to go, for you get to hear the actual languages used, facial movements match the words, and it's altogether more believable, even intimate. This has been my position on foreign language war movies ever since I got to experience the difference between good subtitles and dubbing, which often is awful in every important aspect (pitch, pace, pause, inflection, pronunciation and more) and frequently has only half a butt at best. Have seen Das Boot with subtitles and dubbed. Had to turn off the latter, for it was ridiculous and had nothing of the mood, feel and presence of the one I'd call real. English dubbed samurai movies should be outlawed as a form of torture, too!

Regards,

John Kettler

Freyberg,

For a real rip-snorter of a battle, find and watch the amazing Chinese film The Factory/The 800. Believe I saw it on Amazon Prime. It's a fantastic fight (super duper Pavlov's House), but if someone could depict the action through CM, it would rate a personal visit from Steve AND Charles, including having to explain to them where the Japanese AFVs came from. Here's the real Sheng Factory then and now.
 
Here's a clip from The Eight Hundred.
 


Regards,

John Kettler

Grant was 5'8, 2 inches above the average height of the time, and during the war, his weight was a svelte 130lbs. However, he was physically powerful; while working for his father-in-law in Galena neighbors were stunned to watch him toss 100lb burlap bags onto a wagon. Some other interesting factoids:
*He was not especially studious at West Point and read a lot of novels available to him in the library. It was said of him that he never read a lesson over more than twice and did not actually "study" it. He excelled in mathematics.
*In the heat of battle, when his staff officers were full of anxiety, Grant calmly smoked his cigar and never lost his composure. His nerves of steel were a wonder to all around him. He could write dispatches while shells burst around him and never flinch. 
*Grant was very thin during the war, weighing only one hundred and thirty-five pounds. He was a very sparse eater. He abhorred red meat of any kind, and the sight of blood made him ill.
*He had a superstition of retracing his steps.
*Grant did not believe in holding formal councils of war. He felt that they "divided a responsibility that would at times prevent a unity of action." He listened to the advice of his staff, and then, upon reflection, made the final decision himself. No one knew of his decision until it was put into effect.
*Grant was tone deaf and could not recognize any of the light airs of the time; military music was especially annoying to him.
*During his lifetime General Grant suffered intense migraine headaches which were sometimes reported as bouts of drunkenness.
*Reticence has long been associated with Ulysses Grant. Although he was an avid listener, in the relaxed company of friends, he could actually be a raconteur.
https://libguides.css.edu/usgrant/home/upclose
Quote Share

What a great thread! Quote Investigator looked into the alleged Lincoln quote and turned up all sorts of goodies. LOng piece, but thoroughly documented and well worth the read!

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/02/18/barrel-of-whiskey/

On a separate note, I feel safe in asserting that no one could top Winston Churchill when it came to incredible alcohol consumption daily coupled with equally incredible high functioning. Here's an analysis from one Scott Alexander on Quora. The analysis concludes Churchill consumed almost twice as much in a day as the NHS recommended for a week!

https://www.quora.com/How-much-alcohol-did-Winston-Churchill-drink-per-day?share=1
 
Scott Alexander Williams , former Volunteer Coordinator at Volunteer Edinburgh (2014-2017) Updated 3 years ago · Author has 64 answers and 184.2K answer views How was it possible for Winston Churchill to drink so much and still function at such a high level? He was very likely a high-functioning alcoholic, judging by his daily intake.
Churchill, like most Prime Ministers, had a fairly rigid daily routine that he stuck to as closely as possible. The reason for this is fairly straightforward, as PM he had to make hundreds of decisions (most of which were quite important ones too) every day, as well as react to events pretty much as they occurred. In such a situation, it’s quite possible for you to be too busy thinking about how to respond to the latest inelligence report to decide what you want for breakfast, and if you aren’t careful you’ll be running behind schedule before the morning newspapers arrive. This is a phenomenon called decision fatigue, where the more decisions you make in quick succession, the poorer their quality gets. In a job as serious and stressful as running a country, it’s important to eliminate as many unnecessary decisions as possible from the day to day routine, so you don’t waste precious brain power on things that are irrelevant in the bigger picture.
In Churchill’s case, he rather famously took this to extremes, which often made him look quite eccentric - for example, when asked by the White House Butler what he wanted for breakfast each morning, he asked for the same thing to be served every day - a tumbler of sherry waiting for him when he woke; followed by a breakfast of fruit, orange juice, a pot of tea, “something hot” and “something cold” when he was ready. It’s rather telling that he had little concern for the food (provided the quantity was sufficient) but had very clear opinions on what drinks should be served. His drinking followed a fairly regular schedule, with specific drinks at particular intervals throughout the day:
7:30am - the aforementioned glass of sherry when he woke. Around 10–11am - whisky (Johnny Walker preferred) and soda, mixed very weak to begin (only about a thimbleful of whisky in the bottom of the tumbler) but topped up over the course of the morning (and likely getting progressively stronger) until shortly before lunch. 1pm - Churchill would drink a pint of champagne (Pol Roger by preference) with his lunch (usually 3–4 courses) or claret, if champagne wasn’t available. He would often finish his meal with a digestif of brandy (90-year old cognac was his preference). 3:30pm - 5pm - more whisky and soda, to the same method as above, in advance of his daily siesta. 6:30pm - he would awaken to more whisky and soda while he got ready for dinner. 8pm - dinner (nearly always with company) usually meant an aperitif of sherry, with wines paired to each course, or champagne as a default fallback, followed by a digestif of brandy or port. 10pm - after dinner, he would usually enjoy drinks with his dinner guests - typically the same port or brandy enjoyed at the and of the meal. 2am - one last glass of cognac as a nightcap before bed. Looking at the above list then, in a typical day, Churchill might consume:
2 glasses of sherry = 1.8 units 4–5 shots of whisky = 4 units 2 pints of champagne or equivalent wine = 13.5 units 3 glasses of brandy = 4 units 2 glasses of port = 1.8 units Total = 25.1 units That’s almost DOUBLE the recommended maximum WEEKLY intake according to the NHS (14 units). With a daily intake that high sustained for such a long period, he was almost certainly an alcoholic.
But the question wasn’t about what he drank (which is something the questioner presumably already knew) but how he continued to function in spite of such a high intake. There are a few reasons for this, and the timetable above is relevant to it - but first we need to discuss the nature of alcoholism.
Alcoholism is a physical addiction to alcohol - this is different to many other commonly cited addictions that are psychological in nature, e.g. gambling or sugar. Alcoholism results in significant, measurable changes to the body’s biochemistry, an alcoholic’s body literally becomes dependent on a regular alcohol intake to function. Withdrawal symptoms can be extremely serious, including depression, anxiety, irritability, tremors, sweating, nausea, poor coordination, hallucinations and even seizures. Meanwhile, as with most physical addictions, the body’s ability to filter out and process the drug improves over time, meaning that increasingly higher doses are needed to obtain the same positive effects from ingestion - this is what leads most alcoholics to continue drinking more and more until they either stop drinking, get hospitalised or die.
Churchill’s solution seems to have been quite basic - it is the same kind of approach taken by smokers who are attempting to quit. You see, the biggest problem with any kind of drug dependency is that the withdrawal symptoms are generally so severe they can incapacitate you, and leave you unable to function normally. However, for most long-term addicts, the dose required to feel the drugs effects is also high enough to severely incapacitate due to the negative physiological side-effects of the drug. When people are trying to quit, then, they need to be slowly weaned off the drug, with enough of the drug in their system to prevent the side-effects from being too bad, but without reaching a sufficiently high level to feel the high either. This is the basic idea behind nicotine patches, which help smokers to quit by releasing a steady, low-level supply of nicotine into the bloodstream. This isn’t supposed to be sufficient to deliver the “hit” that smoking a cigarette would, but instead keep just enough nicotine in the bloodstream to stave off the withdrawal symptoms. The idea is that the addict starts off with a higher level of the drug and slowly reduces it over time, allowing their body to slowly adjust to lower levels of the drug being present in their system.
Looking back to Churchill’s routine then, we can see that he mostly spaced out his drinking evenly throughout the day, with higher levels accompanying meals and before bed. This is pretty much the kind of thing you would see from a smoker using the “patch and inhaler” method for quitting. The whisky and soda is the patch - providing a constant low background level of alcohol to keep him from experiencing withdrawal symptoms, and higher levels with meals to counter the effect of food, which can delay the introduction of alcohol into the bloodstream by absorbing it in the stomach. This constant supply over the course of the day would have continuously supplied his body with alcohol at least as quickly as his liver was able to process it, thus keeping any withdrawal symptoms at bay. The only time he’d have been likely to feel the effects of alcohol withdrawal would have been immediately after waking, as his body would likely have been able to purge most of the alcohol out of bloodstream overnight. This explains his insistence on taking a sherry first thing in the morning before breakfast (i.e. on an empty stomach) to get a quick burst of alcohol and stave off any negative withdrawal symptoms.
This explains the lack of withdrawal symptoms, but what about the opposite problem - why wasn’t he drunk all of the time? Surely most people with that level of alcohol intake would be completely soused?
Actually, the only reason we might regard his intake as being particularly high is because we generally lack any frame of reference. Nowadays we’re used to the idea of consuming alcohol in single sittings, but this is a fairly modern concept. Historically, the idea of going out on a Friday or Saturday night and drinking half your bodyweight in alcoholic drinks would have seemed simply barbaric and uncivilised. Alcohol was popularised in Europe as it was generally safer to drink than most water supplies, and it was cheap and easy to produce pretty much anywhere in the continent. It was often much less concentrated than it is nowadays, and was served with almost every meal, as well as being consumed between meals too. It wasn’t until the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when the importance of sanitation became fully understood, and reliable clean water supplies became widespread, that the traditional approach to alcohol consumption began to decline, and it began to be seen more as something pleasant to be enjoyed in its own right, akin to smoking, rather than a normal part of daily life. Churchill’s life straddled the boundary between these times - for him, alcohol would have been present in his life from an early age, but already by then it was no longer the necessity it once was. He would certainly have been no stranger to the idea that controlled drinking throughout the day was less likely to result in drunkenness, which would have been seen as irresponsible and foolish behaviour, if not quite as socially stigmatised as it has become nowadays. Indeed Churchill was once famously accused by Bessie Braddock of being drunk in the House of Commons, inviting his infamous reply “Bessie, you are ugly. But tomorrow I will be sober, and you will still be ugly.”
So Churchill’s drinking wasn’t always sufficient to keep him sober, but equally, it was rarely copious enough for him to be thoroughly drunk. Between the increased tolerance he no doubt had due to his high consumption, and the fact that he spread his drinking out so evenly throughout the day, it’s unlikely that he was routinely drinking enough to be impaired. In fact, in a rather amusing account, a Telegraph columnist by the name of Harry Wallop once tried to emulate his drinking[1], but surrendered by 9:30pm, concluding that “I wasn’t roaringly drunk at all, but I was feeling queasy.” So it is quite probable that after a lifetime of maintaining this routine, Churchill actually felt considerably more able to function with his daily intake than he did while sober. Certainly there are accounts that he gave up drinking at various times in his life - mainly to prove to himself and others that he could - although accounts vary as to how successful he was at this.
So yes - he was likely a high-functioning alcoholic, meaning that by all outward appearances, he functioned better with alcohol than he would have without it: although I doubt the same could be said for his liver.
EDIT (12/02/18): having read some of the other answers and comments, I think there’s also an important distinction to be made here between a “drunkard” and an “alcoholic”. A drunkard is a person who drinks too much, either as a one-off, or out of habit, generally to the point of inebriation (“drunkenness”). An alcoholic is a person who has a physical addiction to alcohol. Many drunkards are alcoholics - but not all of them. Similarly, many alcoholics are drunkards - but not all. In fact, I would be very surprised if there was more than a 50% overlap between these two groups. Someone who drinks solely to get drunk is certainly a drunkard, but if they only do it once a month and have no addiction to alcohol (i.e. don’t experience symptoms of withdrawal throughout the remainder of each month) then they are clearly not an alcoholic.
A high-functioning alcoholic, almost by definition, will generally have coping mechanisms in place that avoid drunkenness as much as possible, due to its negative social connotations. The stereotypical image of the red-nosed sot with a mostly empty bottle in hand just doesn’t apply to these people -it isn’t who they are, and it undermines our understanding of what’s really going on with them. Churchill was almost certainly not a habitual drunkard - like many he enjoyed being tipsy in good company now and then, but for the most part he controlled his drinking in a way that ensured it wasn’t noticeable to those who didn’t see him with a glass in his hand. There was almost certainly a degree of myth-building around him too - he knew that a rumour that he could drink like a fish wouldn’t harm his reputation provided he took care not to appear drunk in public (saving the Commons apparently, although PMQ’s does tend to have an air of last orders on a Saturday night about it). However, even a “light” day usually saw him consuming more than the current NHS recommended weekly maximums, meaning he was almost certainly an alcoholic - it’s simply incredible to think that couldn’t have developed a dependency with so high an intake.
High-functioning alcoholics aren’t actually that uncommon, as the body can adapt to the higher background levels of blood alcohol easily enough, provided the person in question doesn’t go straight from being teetotal to consuming their recommended weekly maximum every single day. The problem is the unseen damage that slowly builds up. Just because someone isn’t drinking enough to make them drunk, doesn’t mean that they are fine either. Leaving aside cancer and pulmonary risk factors which steadily increase over time, cirrhosis of the liver can take decades to reach the point where it begins having an adverse effect on the rest of the body, largely due to the liver’s amazing degree of redundancy and resilience compared to most of our organs (although considering one of its main purposes is to clean random toxins out of our blood as quickly as possible, this is probably an essential evolution). This is a double-edged sword though, as it means that by the time problems begin to emerge, the organ can be on the verge of complete failure. As a result, high-functioning alcoholics can be at greater risk, as the very coping strategies that help them to hide the severity of their problem from others can make it harder to reach them in order to provide the targeted help they desperately need.

Regards,

John Kettler

I love April 9th. Great cast. And it just so happens that it is also the day my mum was born. According to family legend Jorrocks informed Paddy of her birth.

chuckdyke,

That was the first title I could come up with. Am thinking this might be East Germany, for I don't get Russian from what little I see of the architecture.

Regards,

John Kettler

From one Robert Mordor comes this, er, reinterpretation of the Nebelwerfer projectile.



Regards,

John Kettler

The article below is a meticulous dissection and analysis of what turns out to be the myth presented as fact of what happened to Robert Capa's D-Day pics and the purported disaster that destroyed most of them. The piece is long and meticulously provides the best available factual information, considering that highly vested parties control most of the primary source material and allow access only to those who serve their individual and organizational agendas. Among other things, it refutes the commonly held belief (depicted in Saving Private Ryan) that GIs near and behind the German hedgehogs were pinned down and being ripped to pieces. Turns out they were combat engineers there specifically to demolish hedgehogs in their sector and clear the ways for waves of landing craft to come.

https://medium.com/exposure-magazine/alternate-history-robert-capa-on-d-day-2657f9af914

Regards,

John Kettler

To me, this is glorious to see and hear. It even shoots, which is more than I can say for a privately owned one which was savaged by a nonchalantly applied cutting torch used on the underside of the gun barrel about a foot in front of the mantlet. The guy doing it didn't say a word. Just went to work and cut a ragged narrow oval hole clean through the bottom of the gun barrel. Wanted to cry a bit and scream at the same time. Hate to see military artifacts, especially functioning equipment, destroyed like that. And while I understand the Yugoslavian government's position on Nazi relics, I nevertheless  decry, in a separate instance, not only the destruction of rare SS Handschar steel fez helmets by removing the helmet badges altogether, but by the utter inability to restore them later by reassembly, for it's categorically forbidden to send out Nazi emblems, etc. These rare helmets have thus been permanently mutilated. As a lover of history, whether what happened was good, bad, or indifferent, we are the poorer because these rare artifacts have been permanently damaged.
 


Regards,

John Kettler 

To me, this is glorious to see and hear. It even shoots, which is more than I can say for a privately owned one which was savaged by a nonchalantly applied cutting torch used on the underside of the gun barrel about a foot in front of the mantlet. The guy doing it didn't say a word. Just went to work and cut a ragged narrow oval hole clean through the bottom of the gun barrel. Wanted to cry a bit and scream at the same time. Hate to see military artifacts, especially functioning equipment, destroyed like that. And while I understand the Yugoslavian government's position on Nazi relics, I nevertheless  decry, in a separate instance, not only the destruction of rare SS Handschar steel fez helmets by removing the helmet badges altogether, but by the utter inability to restore them later by reassembly, for it's categorically forbidden to send out Nazi emblems, etc. These rare helmets have thus been permanently mutilated. As a lover of history, whether what happened was good, bad, or indifferent, we are the poorer because these rare artifacts have been permanently damaged.
 


Regards,

John Kettler 

This movie is about the stunning achievements of Captain Semyon Valievich Konalova in his KV-1 (real KV-1C in film). In a way, this movie, set in 1942, is aspirational in terms of CMx2 games to come from earlier in the war than CMRT, but on the other end, it has T-34/76s of models which served to the end of the war and factory fresh T-34/85s. Not CGI tanks. Real ones! Unlike Fury, this gets into the nits and grits of armored warfare down to the level of cannibalizing tank wrecks on the battlefield for vital parts, desperate improvisations, technical repairs under crude field conditions and more. There shouldn't be Panzer IV/Hs (too early), but the skirt armor hides the telltale Russian running gear. The film nicely depicts the second war the Soviet soldiers were fighting, a draconian system in which political officers were sometimes more dangerous than the Germans! 
 
Regards,

John Kettler

For years now, JasonC has sought to get people to understand how and why artillery is the biggest killer on the battlefield, yet tabulations and graphs of ammo expenditure lack real impact for most people, but I bet this won't. This should give a perspective on just how many shells were being fired. This is a WW I pic, but the point remains.



Regards,

John Kettler

This important video, by a lifer in the Australian Army (retired RSM) combat veteran, describes what PTSD is, his own experiences with it, how the Australian Army handles PTSD, and offers his thoughts on why warming is safe for those diagnosed with PTSD. He says in the video that he found Modern Warfare wargaming in miniature distressing (specifically mentioned MGs), so shied away from it and instead got into Napoleonics. These days, he also does WW II skirmish gaming. He notes that not only do and have combat veterans played wargames, but that some not only played but wrote rule books. The ex-RSM isn't the only one who shies/shied away from Modern Warfare, especially of the WoT persuasion. One retired Army lifer I know who did multiple tours in Iran and Iraq wouldn't watch video of a Ramallah skirmish done in miniature or CMSF2 video. Fine with WW II. Am of the opinion that this has a lot to do with WW II being emotionally and chronologically distanced in ways that WoT simply isn't. Believe WoT hits too close to home, especially when things like IEDs and VBIEDs are depicted. Also, would argue that, as far as computer games go, FPSs would be far more triggering than CMx2, unless played in RT. One of my previous neurologists was of the professional opinion that strobes, smash cuts and other highly dynamic imagery not only weren't good for people who'd had a TBI but anyone.
 


To understand where I'm coming from, I've never served, let alone been in battle, but I have felt the wind of a bullet barely passing over my skull while out plinking, have looked at the wrong end of a loaded weapon pointed at me in a firing range incident (shooter had a jam and turned around, loaded gun in hand), have two TBIs, the second from a trip and fall last year and mercifully tiny; have survived four major wrecks (two of which required a year to recover from), one of which resulted in PTSD and left me so traumatized it took weeks of biofeedback treatment before I was car functional again, for I was deathly afraid of getting hit, flinched from car doors slamming and jumped from backfires. To this day simply getting into a car, truck or van makes me nervous. And in the same time frame of the car wrecks, I also had two nervous breakdowns from sustained hyper stress in my military aerospace jobs. I find FPS games (even short game review clips) overwhelming in terms of processing but also outright painful in my head, and when I was functional enough to play CMBS, my first outing with it when the turn played was so overwhelming and shocking that I despaired of ever being able to play it and felt I might've wasted a big chunk of change. What saved me was the ability to replay the turn and simply get comfortable with the lightning pace and lethality compared to WW II, for it was all I'd ever known in CMx1 or CMx2. Unfortunately, downstream cognitive effects from the first TBI have prevented me from playing CM of any sort for well over a year, and there have been protracted periods where even CoC was beyond me, too. These have nothing to do with PTSD, but they most definitely have massively affected my ability to engage in not only my favorite G-Rated activity, but to relieve a great deal of stress by playing and socializing. 

Regards,

John Kettler

 

This important video, by a lifer in the Australian Army (retired RSM) combat veteran, describes what PTSD is, his own experiences with it, how the Australian Army handles PTSD, and offers his thoughts on why warming is safe for those diagnosed with PTSD. He says in the video that he found Modern Warfare wargaming in miniature distressing (specifically mentioned MGs), so shied away from it and instead got into Napoleonics. These days, he also does WW II skirmish gaming. He notes that not only do and have combat veterans played wargames, but that some not only played but wrote rule books. The ex-RSM isn't the only one who shies/shied away from Modern Warfare, especially of the WoT persuasion. One retired Army lifer I know who did multiple tours in Iran and Iraq wouldn't watch video of a Ramallah skirmish done in miniature or CMSF2 video. Fine with WW II. Am of the opinion that this has a lot to do with WW II being emotionally and chronologically distanced in ways that WoT simply isn't. Believe WoT hits too close to home, especially when things like IEDs and VBIEDs are depicted. Also, would argue that, as far as computer games go, FPSs would be far more triggering than CMx2, unless played in RT. One of my previous neurologists was of the professional opinion that strobes, smash cuts and other highly dynamic imagery not only weren't good for people who'd had a TBI but anyone.
 


To understand where I'm coming from, I've never served, let alone been in battle, but I have felt the wind of a bullet barely passing over my skull while out plinking, have looked at the wrong end of a loaded weapon pointed at me in a firing range incident (shooter had a jam and turned around, loaded gun in hand), have two TBIs, the second from a trip and fall last year and mercifully tiny; have survived four major wrecks (two of which required a year to recover from), one of which resulted in PTSD and left me so traumatized it took weeks of biofeedback treatment before I was car functional again, for I was deathly afraid of getting hit, flinched from car doors slamming and jumped from backfires. To this day simply getting into a car, truck or van makes me nervous. And in the same time frame of the car wrecks, I also had two nervous breakdowns from sustained hyper stress in my military aerospace jobs. I find FPS games (even short game review clips) overwhelming in terms of processing but also outright painful in my head, and when I was functional enough to play CMBS, my first outing with it when the turn played was so overwhelming and shocking that I despaired of ever being able to play it and felt I might've wasted a big chunk of change. What saved me was the ability to replay the turn and simply get comfortable with the lightning pace and lethality compared to WW II, for it was all I'd ever known in CMx1 or CMx2. Unfortunately, downstream cognitive effects from the first TBI have prevented me from playing CM of any sort for well over a year, and there have been protracted periods where even CoC was beyond me, too. These have nothing to do with PTSD, but they most definitely have massively affected my ability to engage in not only my favorite G-Rated activity, but to relieve a great deal of stress by playing and socializing. 

Regards,

John Kettler

 

British ordnance manuals covering far more than WW II. Some pre-date 1900, but others go at least into 1970. Even better, some analyze foreign weapon performance. German grenades, anyone?

http://www.bulletpicker.com/british.html

Regards,

John Kettler

British ordnance manuals covering far more than WW II. Some pre-date 1900, but others go at least into 1970. Even better, some analyze foreign weapon performance. German grenades, anyone?

http://www.bulletpicker.com/british.html

Regards,

John Kettler

The Iraqi Army, post-Saddam was supplied with the, relatively speaking,  monkey model of the Abrams, the M1A1 ,which did not have the HA (DU) armor array, but instead the original siliceous core armor array of the first production M1s. Given this, the computerized FCS is nowhere nearly as good as on the current US models, either. That said, what we delivered was to full US standards then, but then was a decade ago.  The Chobham armor was compromised some 40 years ago by the agent in place aide to German minister Gunter Guillame. Even so, following the, er, wholesale transfer of these tanks to ISIS, the US mounted a determined effort to kill as many of them as possible, for they were still far more dangerous and tougher than the T-72s ISIS had.

https://www.army.mil/article/64944/iraqi_army_receives_last_shipment_of_abrams_tanks

Returning to Pantsir, the chief reason Pantsir exists is to protect mobile assets in the Russian homeland, starting with close AD )vs aircraft, cruise missiles and guided munitions) of strategic SAMS, which can be rapidly torn down, moved and set up. Trucks are much faster and cheaper than tank sized AFVs, so that was the principal design driver. Also, Pantsir helps protect mobile theater and strategic ballistic missiles.

Regards,

John Kettler
 

The Iraqi Army, post-Saddam was supplied with the, relatively speaking,  monkey model of the Abrams, the M1A1 ,which did not have the HA (DU) armor array, but instead the original siliceous core armor array of the first production M1s. Given this, the computerized FCS is nowhere nearly as good as on the current US models, either. That said, what we delivered was to full US standards then, but then was a decade ago.  The Chobham armor was compromised some 40 years ago by the agent in place aide to German minister Gunter Guillame. Even so, following the, er, wholesale transfer of these tanks to ISIS, the US mounted a determined effort to kill as many of them as possible, for they were still far more dangerous and tougher than the T-72s ISIS had.

https://www.army.mil/article/64944/iraqi_army_receives_last_shipment_of_abrams_tanks

Returning to Pantsir, the chief reason Pantsir exists is to protect mobile assets in the Russian homeland, starting with close AD )vs aircraft, cruise missiles and guided munitions) of strategic SAMS, which can be rapidly torn down, moved and set up. Trucks are much faster and cheaper than tank sized AFVs, so that was the principal design driver. Also, Pantsir helps protect mobile theater and strategic ballistic missiles.

Regards,

John Kettler
 

This is the most detailed training film I've ever seen on the fieldcraft of sniping. While there are many tricks of the trade which simply can't be done in any CMx2 game, I think it does an excellent job of  depicting how to make the best use possible of cover and concealment. Also, I think that a lot could be done to improve the appearance of sharpshooters. Finally, something I had a devil of a time finding stills of is there in abundance. This is the use of narrow slits in paper or other materials to block telltale lens glare. That phenomenon is called retroreflection and can easily get you spotted and killed on a real battlefield. In the GPW, the leading cause of Red Army sniper deaths wasn't counter snipers but mortar fire, because that was how to make snipers go away without own  people getting shot in the head. IN German but translated on the fly in VO.
 

Regards,

John Kettler

Bubba883XL,

HIghly recommend Panzers and the Battle of Normandy, by Bernage.

Everyone who hasn't read it should read Frontsoldaten, by American history prof Fritz. This is the Landser's war told from interviews, letters and even Landser veterans who went on to write about their experiences in novels. Deem it not just one of the most important books about WW II ever written, but one of the most important military books ever written, for this is the distilled essence of men at war, mostly in the titanic struggle on the Eastern Front.  If you would understand how the Gerrmans were able to understand how the German soldier was able to fight on and on and on, the answers lie here, and some are pretty shocking. 

Regards,

John Kettler

This is currently the weirdest military jinx story I've ever read. Would love to get feedback on this piece from out current and former armored troops.

https://www.militarytimes.com/off-duty/military-culture/2021/05/20/why-tankers-are-terrified-of-apricots/?utm_campaign=Socialflow+ARM&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&fbclid=IwAR2BZ6i6OVwgVeTUkQUMaBVneayZ6B0ep_tzyJNZZlPnGmwzThtK6tsQvUw

Regards,

John Kettler

It is annoying when you find something interesting on the net, but then when you try to find it again it has either disappeared, or you can't quite remember how you found it in the first place. It happens to me quite a bit with local history. 
Hopefully one day someone will find an answer to your query.