von Lucke

I did that on purpose to show off my tank - which is nicer than yours. </font>

OOhhh! OOhhh! I have a question! What's with the seemingly more surrender happy TacAI? I'm getting quite a few more POW's then before. Also, I'm seeing initial sound contacts for guns show up as infantry markers (you have to click on them for a "gun?" indicator). Only after they've fired off a few more rounds does the generic towed field piece show up. Is this intentional?

Because I am special. Now give it a rest. Whinger. One could think you are a pom. </font>

Really? I was under the impression that there was a work around for this: A piece of string was looped around the projectile and fastened to either side of the launcher. Strong enough to hold the projectile in place while you tilt it down, but it will break when the PIAT is fired. </font>

Really? I was under the impression that there was a work around for this: A piece of string was looped around the projectile and fastened to either side of the launcher. Strong enough to hold the projectile in place while you tilt it down, but it will break when the PIAT is fired.

How come my M3 doesn't look like your M3? Note missing door firing port and length of 75mm gun.

This site has some basic info from the early war, up to '41.

Perhaps so, but there will always be a warm place in my heart for the P-61. (A bit of trivia: The recon version of the P-61 was designated the F-15).

Ermmmm, in what context exactly are you using the term "out"ing while speaking of men with their pants down around their ankles? I don't want to even think about where the "too big for their britches" analogy comes into all that... (Oops, too late!)

I got that beat! I got that beat! 1.15 GB!

"Desert Victory", 1943. British documentary covering the build-up to the el Alamein battle, and the subsequent push to Tunisia. Actually recieved an Oscar nomination for best documentary. Not bad, in a war-time propoganda sort of way.

When it comes to naming their martial technology, I've always thought the Japanese had the edge. Some examples: Battlecruiser named The Invincibility of Buddhism, a battleship named Land of Divine Mulberry Trees. Aircraft carriers tended to be named after mythical dragons or phoenixes (phoenixii?) --- though one, the Ryuho, means both "Dragon and Phoenix"! My favorite, though, has to be the Mizuho, which literaly translates as "juicy rice ears". The Wind Class destroyers had some fairly poetical appelations: "Wind of an Arrow's Flight", "Wind Dancing in Branches", "Wind over the Restless Sea", "Wind from a Sword Stroke", "Flag-fluttering Breeze", and my fav: "Wind From a Swamp". A few more DD names that I like: "Mist Veil Through Which Only a Shade of the Moon is Visible", and "Pretty, Small Waves Raised by a Zephyr", "Dawn, But Still the Moon Remains in the Sky", "Light Spring Rain Before the Leaves Bud", "The Shimmering Mist that Rises from the Earth on a Hot Day". Warrior-poets indeed.

Yes, by all means let's look at it. The southern flank of the front rested on the Qatara Depression, a large salt marsh surrounded by steep, high cliffs that was all but completely impassable to modern armies. I don't think anybody seriously thought the way to attack that position was to send a major part of your army south of the Depression where it would be cut off from the rest of your army. That would invite defeat in detail.</font>

Interesting that you'd say that, since just about every CinC in the British Army had had their formative experiences in the Great War. The difference with Monty was, having spent most of WW1 as a staff officer, his experience of WW1 wasn't as stark as most. For instance: By the second day of el Alamein (Op Lightfoot), with most of his infantry and all of his tanks still stuck in the minefields --- and a day short of their first day objectives --- the division commanders of X (Armored) Corps concluded that it was hopeless, and sent word up the chain of command that they thought the attack should be called off. Generals Lumsden (X Corps) and Leese (XXX Corps, infantry support for X), went up to 8th Army HQ in the middle of the night to put it to Monty that they should fall back to the original start lines. Monty heard what his corp commanders had to say, and then told them that if his armored commanders were not prepared to fight their way out to the objectives, he'd replace them with leaders who would. Previous 8th Army CinC would have flinched from giving such an order out of fear of repeating the unreasoning obstinancy of World War 1 commanders. Not Monty. When Monty told his commanders to screw their courage to the sticking place and drive on, it was the psychological turning point for 8th Army. As for Monty cribing Auchinleck's battle plan, that's something of a myth. "Lightfoot" was all Monty. Just look at it: Where any other desert commander would have done the conventional thing, and swung around the minefields to the south, 8th Army drilled straight through the heaviest defenses up north. The initial objectives were way more optimistic than they should have been --- and that was Monty all the way, too. Everybody wants to compare Monty to Patton --- easy to do, them being so opposite. Personally, I think the American general Monty should be compared to is MacArthur. Both came up through staff positions, both "political" (in the sense that they were very status conscious), both had a flair for the dramatic, both liked the sound of their own voice, both loved and reviled at the same time.

The dense acumen of yr obviously infallible argument has overwhelmed any attempt I could make to counter. But, in the spirit of the above post, I'll make an attempt: Nyah-nyah --- does not!

Don't think so. First design proposal came 13 June, 1940 (OCM 15889). Pilot turrets (on M2 chassis) were first demonstrated 20 December, 1940. Production drawings were 90% complete at this time (including the Grant - whose characteristics had already been established). Initial design was completed 1 February, 1941. First pilot moved under its own power, sans turret, 13 March 1941. It arrived at Aberdeen Proving Grounds where the turret was installed on 21 March. First production pilots did not arrive until 5 May, 1941. </font>

Clams are very nice, yes --- i.e.; "happy as a clam" --- but not quite so jolly as mussels. [ October 21, 2003, 06:44 PM: Message edited by: von Lucke ]

Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious.

Check THIS out! A Political Map of Africa Showing International Boundaries and Railways. Published by the Geographical Section, British War Office, 1914. Revised, 1940, reprinted 1941. In glorious technocolor! With zoom feature! Ohhhh --- I loves me some maps...

Strangely enough, I happen to be reading Susan Travers' (only woman to serve in the legion etrangere) auto-bio right now, and she has some info on this subject. She was with the Free French expedition to take Dakar in Sept 1940. After that was repulsed, they (DeGaulle and the FF troops), went to Sierra Leone, French Cammeroon, Gabon, and then the Republic of Congo. She spent about a month in Brazzaville, where she said, the colons were pro-Vichy, but she never mentions the FF troops or their British liasons having any problems. From this, I would assume that Congo was, defacto, on the Allied side from about Oct 1940.

The 90th was about 60 miles east, at Bardia, faking-out the British as to Rommel's intentions. The Trento Division was at Tobruk, besieging the 4th South African Bde --- from a safe distance, south of the defenses.

Actually, this is the first I'd heard of it. AFAIK, in June of '42, all the Axis paras in the Med were sitting in Italy preparing to invade Malta come July. It wasn't until Op Herkules was called off, that the Folgore Division and Ramcke's FJ Brigade were deployed to Libya --- mid-July to August --- a month after Tobruk. But that's not to say some Axis commandoes couldn't have air-dropped into Tobruk in an attempt to secure the fuel dumps there. The Italians actually had a paratrooper school in Tripoli, and at the start of the war in North Africa had two battalions of Colonial Paratroopers formed up --- only to loose them in rear-guard actions in '40 and '41.

At the time of surrender, there were 19,000 British, 10,500 SA, and 2500 Indian. 32,000. As for the Axis, I don't have an exact OOB, but I do know the divisional dispositions: The Italian Sabratha, Trento, and Brescia Divisions were screening the defenders, respectively, on the west, south, and east perimeters. It was the Trieste, Ariete, 15th Pz, and 21st Pz Divisions that took an active part in the breakthrough. At this point (1942), the Italian armored divisions consisted of a tank regiment, a motorized infantry regiment, and an artillery regiment, + engineer, AA, recon companies, etc.; say around 8500 men, full strength. The German Panzer divisions were aranged in similar fashion. Say, 35,000 men, all together then. But then, you have to take into account that the Axis forces had been fighting almost non-stop for over a month, so subtract 20%. Say about 28,000. 28,000 men in four divisions (plus the entirety of the 8th Fliegerkorps, and a corps worth of arty) focused on one Brigade of around 2800. You can force a pretty big hole that way. [ October 18, 2003, 07:34 PM: Message edited by: von Lucke ]

The M3 was designed, developed, and put into production in slightly less than six months --- no doubt something of a record. Check out the M2 Medium tank that the M3 was based on. Looks like a Stuart on steroids (it has four MG sponsons --- one on each corner of the hull): [ October 18, 2003, 07:08 AM: Message edited by: von Lucke ]

Ritchie's supposed cautioning to "pay special attention to the western perimeter" seems belied by the dispositions of the defenders: The most experienced Commonwealth units were deployed to the SE (where the main attack fell), while the least experienced (2nd SA) were deployed to the west. Seems like somebody (Gott?) was expecting Rommel to repeat his 1941 attack plan. There's also this communique from Ritchie to Auchinleck (0100 hrs, 20 June): "There have been no signs today of any effort except with small recce detachments to press eastwards towards the frontier. I feel that having removed our air threat from Gambut group of aerodromes he is likely to turn his main attention on Tobruk..." The Germans would begin the assault at 0520. As for the Mahratta battalion facing the full brunt of the 15th / 21st Panzer alone, it should be mentioned that previous to that, they had also been pounded for almost 3 straight hours by every gun and aircraft that the Axis forces could muster. Any wonder they didn't put up much of a fight? Once the Germans began to exploit their breakthrough, von Mellenthin (Panzer Battles) indicates the German surprise at the weakness of the SA artillery response --- and an even greater surprise at the piece-meal counter-attacks by 32nd Tank Bde and 201st Guards Bde. Like I mentioned before, a more centralized command that had the defenders working as a unit, instead of individual brigades, was what was required. [ October 16, 2003, 12:49 PM: Message edited by: von Lucke ]