John D Salt

Duncan's text states that there are archives in Germany and Russia that receive many enquiries each year about German servicemen still missing from WW2. Passing mention of the existence of an archive is not what any scholar would understand by reference to a source. Yet you make the amazing claim that Duncan cites "authoritative sources". Unless there is a whole bunch of notes lurking somewhere in a pop-up window my browser suppresses, he does no such thing. Now, as to the "first-hand quotes"; where are these, I ask myself? There is a scholarly tradition of citations of the form "Professor fFarnes-Barnes, personal communication", but this is used sparingly, and only in the case that personal communication has, in fact, occurred. Duncan does not claim that the individuals he named communicated personally with him. I do not know how you conclude that these are "first-hand quotes". They look to me to have the same degree of scholarly soundness as "A friend of a friend", or "A bloke down the pub told me". As to "etc.", I have no idea what you are talking about, and suspect that you have simply run out of things to mistake for references to sources. I'm not saying it is. It is however very clearly your fault to seek to misrepresent the site as containing "firsthand quotes and authoritative sources cited". You seem to be committing this kind of careless error of fact with remarkable frequency in this thread. You said that aerial bombardment of cities in WW2 was a war-crime, which is false. You claimed that USAAF bombing was substantially more accurate than Bomber Command's, which is false. You said that the use of Q-Ships was against the laws of war, which is false. You said that Dorosh has a mannequin dressed in an SS uniform, which is false. You said that the U-boat skippers involved in the Laconia incident were convicted at Nuremburg, which is false. Most of these you have been corrected on, and in at least two cases you have accepted the correction, but are you really entitled to demand that other people take your arguments seriously when you are so lamentably slapdash in putting them together? I shall return to this point further on. This indicates merely that the VHO can transcribe accurately (and cite sources; score one for scholarship). Let me do a spot of transcription from my own selection of bits from Lindbergh: "Taxi to Capitol for appointment with Byrd. We went into Garner's office adjoining the chamber and talked for fifteen minutes about the tension which is developing in Europe and the course the United States should take if war should start over there. We are both anxious to avoid having this country pushed into a European war by British and Jewish propaganda, of which there is already too much." "Walked to Bill Castle's home at 6:00—about ten minutes from the Anchorage. Fulton Lewis was the only other person there. The three of us had dinner together and discussed the European situation and the action this country should take if war breaks out over there. We are disturbed about the effect of the Jewish influence in our press, radio, and motion pictures." "Most of the Jewish interests in the country are behind war, and they control a huge part of our press and radio and most of our motion pictures. There are also the "intellectuals," and the "Anglo-philes," and the British agents who are allowed free rein, the international financial interests, and many others." "It is difficult for me to understand Flynn's attitude. He feels as strongly as I do that the Jews are among the major influences pushing this country toward war." "The amazing thing is not that we are so close to war but that we have been able to hold the war forces back as long as we have. Their ranks include the American government, the British government, the Jews, and the major portion of the press, radio, and motion-picture facilities of the country." Are you still impressed by his trustworthiness as a factual source? Or might he have had some reason for spinning the scuttlebutt he heard to suit his own ends? The idea of seeking to draw some kind of moral equivalence between the Nazis and the United States is not exactly a novelty for right-wing extremists. On similar lines, I note that the allegations of torture being used on those accused at the Nuremburg trials come from the VHO site, which quotes, at second hand, William Langer and Joe McCarthy. You are apparently happy to accept these utterances uncritically, and take it as an established fact that torture was used. Should we take anything Langer says at face value? True, he got off his pre-war conviction for fraud on a re-trial. One might perhaps think that his crackpot claim that Winston Churchill fought against the USA in the Spanish-American war was just his little joke. But I think when he says of the Nuremburg trials: "These war-trials were decided on in Moscow and they are carried on under Moscow principles. These trials were essentially the same as the mass trials held in the 1930s by Stalin when Vyshinsky used treason trials to liquidate his internal enemies. At Nuremberg the Communist used war crimes trials to liquidate their external enemies. It is the Communist avowed purpose to destroy the Western World which is based on property rights" [source: ]http://www.spiritone.com/~gdy52150/betrayalp10.htm] …one might think that he is entitled to his opinion. Or, more rationally, one may think he is a barking moonbat of the far right whose statements should be treated with the extreme caution usually reserved for puffer-fish. As to Langer's pal "Tailgunner Joe" McCarthy, apart from his disgraceful and insane behaviour during the witch-hunt years, anyone who has read Mike Reynolds' excellent "The Devil's Adjutant" will know that McCarthy was the attorney who defended Joachim Pieper over the Baugnez (Malmedy) massacre. Maybe you imagine that defence lawyers have never tried to get their clients off with false charges of mistreatment, maybe you think that an SS thug like Pieper would not stoop to telling fibs to save his skin, but I don't happen to share either opinion. Detestation of genocide isn’t much of a qualification. Holocaust deniers hate genocide so much they even wish it out of existence. Consider McIvan's elegant and scholarly refutation of Stalin's Organist's canard about Kiwis massacring a German field hospital. It clearly took vastly more effort to produce than did the original mendacious allegation. I have seen the allegation repeated several times on the net, and not always so promptly or so well refuted, so I'm sure that plenty of people less capable of critical thinking than McIvan have come to accept it as true. Now, here are two techniques that I have observed are favourites with holocaust deniers on the web (and indeed elsewhere). The first I shall call "argument by exhaustion". The unfortunate fact is that fools can make more assertions than wise men can check and correct. This is a fact that Nazi apologists rely on; eventually, people simply become too fatigued to refute their nonsense, and it becomes accepted by the mentally lazy as if it were the truth. A classic example is Herr Doktor Goebbels' assertion that it was the British who first invented the concentration camp in the Boer War; not true, but so widely repeated by now that it may as well be. Another example is George Hardy, a Jew-hater and holocaust-denier who used to (and for all I know still does) inhabit the soc.history.world-war-ii group. He would frequently produce some piece of abject tommyrot, such as, for example, the allegation that Winston Churchill deliberately starved half the population of the Netherlands in 1944. When challenged to produce his sources, he would bluster, whinge, dodge, and, eventually, once his hide had been nailed firmly to the wall, fall silent. A few weeks or months later, he would come out with precisely the same line, as if the refutation had never happened. The second technique I shall call "the respectability fork". This seeks to draw real historians into debate on the absurd claims of the holocaust deniers. The real historian is caught in something of a cleft stick. Taking the time to refute their arguments item by item implicitly confers respectability on them (IIRC there is a discussion of this in "Telling lies about Hitler"), and, what's more, they then ignore the refutation and proceed to "argument by exhaustion". Refusing to enter into debate with them denies them the intellectual respectability they crave (and cannot obtain by other means), but leaves it open to them to claim that "our opponents cannot answer these points". You may not be deliberately using "argument by exhaustion", but with the steady stream of slapdash and incorrect claims you have made, it would be hard to tell the difference between your postings and those from someone who was. You have specifically demanded that your interlocutors engage with the purported facts you have taken from pro-Nazi sources. You may not be deliberately using "the repectability fork", but it would be hard to tell the difference between your postings and those from someone who was. Many of the accusations you have made I have seen made repeatedly by Nazi sympathisers, and many of the sources you quote with apparent approval are specifically Nazi sources. I, of course, being full of the milk of human kindness, am always willing to apply O'Hanlon's razor in cases such as these. But you really cannot be surprised if people refuse to engage in debate with you when you demonstrate such a staggering lack of basic critical thinking in relation to material from a holocaust-denial site. Having given you a pretty full explanation of why I think you are committing some pretty elementary errors, I do not propose to continue this debate any further. I agree entirely with Andreas, and if you cannot engage your critical faculties sufficiently to question the stuff promulgated by the VHO, I really have nothing further to say to you. There are doubtless adequately-documented cases of war crimes by Allied forces, and there may indeed be considerable interest in discussing them, but I doubt that anything useful will ever come of golloping up the vapourings of Bartling, Lindbergh, David Duke, and senators Langer and McCarthy with wide-eyed credulity. All the best, John.

An interesting collection, to be sure, and there are two important things to notice about it. One is the gross disproportion between the number, scale and sadism of Allied and Axis war crimes reported. The other is that the author does not seem to give any references to his sources. I would bet a pound to a penny that the author is merely quoting Bacque, quite probably in good faith -- thanks to its sensationalism, "Other Losses" did enjoy a brief popular vogue before it was soundly debunked by professional historians, and Bacque exposed for the liar he is. I'm sure the VHO site makes extensive use of Bacque, too, although it should be glaringly obvious even to the most wilfully obtuse that their aim is deliberately to further a pro-Nazi, jew-hating, holocaust-denial agenda. Now, the fact that a site, or two sites, or seventeen sites all quote Bacque does not provide a scintilla of corroboration to Bacque's crackpot thesis; it is just the same lies being repeated over and over. What "authoritative sources" are these? I can find no references to any sources of any kind anywhere on the site. I do, however, recognise the same old Nazi-apologist ****, even when it is served up in new bottles. I beg leave to doubt that Jason or Mike are dismissing things "out of hand", as both possess a very considerable amount of relevant historical expertise. I expect they can see right through the new bottles, too. I understand that you have, to put it at its mildest, a high degree of credulity when it comes to thinly-supported propositions. However, you really shouldn't be at all surprised that you provoke somewhat negative reactions if you persist in trotting out long-discredited nonsenses which are known to have a distinctly malodorous provenance. Oh yes, and did I mention that Bacque is a liar? All the best, John.

When have you ever seen me holding shandy? All the best, John.

Fie on't, an accursed double-post!

Yes, but the regiment from Hants is properly and officially abbreviated as "Hamps" (see e.g. Joslen). And although the nickname is far from official, this may be the only case in which the spelling "Hampsters" is correct. Shandy? Yeeetch. All the best, John.

Be aware that the terrain around V-B has changed quite a bit since June 1944 (partly courtesy of Bomber Command). All the best, John.

Obviously true, at least until mankind attains god-like perfection. One needs, however, to exercise a certain level of critical thinking when considering these "blots". There are a number of neo-Nazis who are not above deliberately fabricating allegations of war-crimes, apparently in an attempt to convince the feeble-minded that "both sides were as bad as each other", as for example the accusation that 47 Commando murdered German coastal gunners on Walcheren. And, aside from the infamous Barralong incident, what rules do you imagine the Q ships were violating? One only needs to run up the colour at the instant of starting the attack, not before, and the use fo false colours has been accepted as "legitime ruse de guerre" since almost forever. "Controversial" only in the sense of "outrageous tommyrot", I think. "The crackpot Bacque" (as John Keegan described him) has also written "Crimes and Mercies", and the sequel is every bit as dishonest as the original, if not more so. There is no doubt that a lot of Germans suffered greatly in the aftermath of the war, but it shows little respect for their experience to distort and misrepresent it in order to create phantasmagorical and mendacious allegations against Eisenhower, the US Army and (how did you guess they were going to feature?) the Jews. But not, if one is concerned about war crimes, actually illegal, at the time. To return to the original poster's theme, it might be interesting to consider what made bomber crews, willingly participating at great personal risk in a campaign to "de-house" German civilians, on occasion jettison their bombs in open fields on the way home because they could not get a clear view of the target. All the best, John. [ February 02, 2006, 04:05 PM: Message edited by: John D Salt ]

Indeed, probably candidates (along with the PIAT) for least recoilless shoulder-fired weapon of the 20th century. All the best, John.

That depends which expansion if the letters we are talking about. There are three interpretations of the letters РПГ (RPG): Ручная Противотанковая Граната (Ruchnaya Protivotankovaya Granata): Hand-held Anti-tank Grenade, as in the RPG-43, or the US reverse-engineered HAG (anyone else remember that?). Ручной Противотанковый Гранатомёт (Ruchnoy Protivotankoviy Granatomyot): Hand-held Anti-tank Grenade-launcher, for reuseable launchers such as the RPG-7 or RPG-16. Реактивная Противотанковая Граната (Reaktivnaya Protivotankovaya Granata): Rocket-propelled Anti-Tank Grenade, for disposable launchers such as the RPG-18, RPG-22, RPG-26 or RPG-27. All the best, John.

That'll be Operation "Wild Oats". Here are some extracts from PRO document WO 171/392, 1 Abn Div War Diary, which are unfortunately not as useful as they would be if read in conjunction with a map on the theatre grid and the traces referred to, but still give some idea: "Notes on GOC's verbal orders - Operation "WILD OATS" (dated 11 Jun 44) INTENTION 1. 1 Airborne Div will prevent enemy from withdrawing from CAEN 0268 in the direction of EVRECY 9259 and in conjunction with 7 Armd Div will destroy him wherever he is found METHOD 2. 1 Para Bde with under comd 1 A/Tk Bty 1 Para Sqn RE 16 Para Fd Amb One Sec Pro will drop on DZ A (see Trace 'A') and: (a) seize areas A and K for subsequent glider landings (see Trace 'A' attd). ( seize area NW of EVRECY and east of ODON River 9161. © be prepared to operate in conjunction with 22 Armd Bde (7 Armd Div) in area BOUGY 9161 - GAVREUS 9161. (d) provide one company for occupation of ESQUAY 9460 and protection of Div HQ, until released. 3. 4 Para Bde with under comd 2 A/Tk Bty 4 Para Sqn RE 133 Para Fd Amb One Sec Pro will drop on DZ E and: (a) seize area about Pt 112 9561 and approaches from CAEN. ( be prepared to operate with 22 Armd Bde (7 Armd Div) in area around BARON 9462. 4. 1 Airlanding Bde with under comd One pl 9 Fd Coy RE 181 A/L Fd Amb will land in LZ H, move to conc area about ST MARTIN 9760 and: (a) seize and hold area ST MARTIN 9760. ( be prepared to operate in wooded area MELTOT 6862 - BULLY 6959. © recce and picquet crossings over the River ORNE within area BULLY-ETAVAUX 0062. [Paragraphs 5 to 12 snipped; mention is made of using 30 Corps artillery in support] TIMINGS 13. 0330 hrs 21 Ind Para Coy land. 0420-0510 hrs Parachute force lands. 0530-0630 hrs Glider force lands. DATE 14. The operation may be required to take place on 13 Jun or it may be postponed to a later date. The operation will not take place on 13 Jun without confirmation from Comd Second Army, who will make his decision not later than 1900 hrs 12 Jun. ALTERNATIVE OPERATION 15. It is possible that the Div may be required to land and operate in an area east of CAEN instead of according to the above plan..." The Divisional War Diary then contains the following messages from 1 Abn Div Tac HQ to various recipients, with date-time: "121027 TAC 26. SECRET. WILD OATS postponed 24 hrs. all preparations will be completed by tonight. Ack. 131308B TAC/30. SECRET. WILD OATS postponed further 24 hrs. All Ack. All inf. 14 1030 TAC35. SECRET. WILD OATS postponed 24 hrs. gliders will be unloaded at 141200 and reloaded by 151200. containers will NOT repeat NOT be loaded until further orders are received from this HQ. Ack. all infm 15 0045 TAC 38. SECRET. operation WILD OATS at present suspended but may be called for at 48 hrs notice. no glider landing till further orders. orders ref unsealing of camps follows. orders for unloading containers and return of parachutes later. Div HQ rear infm Recce Sqn. Div HQ main infm CRE ADMS and all transit camps. all infm 17 1700 TAC 49. SECRET. WILDOATS is dead. Div to remain at three days notice. ACK. all infm" When one considers the similar chopping and changing before cancelling operation "Comet" in the breakout and pursuit, one can imagine that 1st Airborne were positively bursting to go by the time "Market-Garden" came round. All the best, John.

And no doubt these folks can also explain why I have seen a single 7.62mm round hitting a water-filled 50-gallon oil drum knock it right over (it was explained to us before the demonstration that a 50-gal drum full of water was about the same mass and density as a human target). Muscular spasm in the oil-drum, perhaps? Or was it surprised? I look forward to the amateur physicists explaining why a 122mm round can knock the turret off a target tank without knocking the turret off the firing tank. I think the word "impulse" might need to feature more in the physical explanations before they become entirely convincing. All the best, John.

The following is a passage from page 192 of "The Imperial War Museum Book of the Desert War 1940-1942" (Adrian Gilbert, Book Club Associates, 1992), citing Ralph Bagnold, the founder of the LRDG: "We had a water ration of three pints in winter and four in summer. It was really enough if one was careful and lived at the bottom of one's spare gallon of water, instead of at the top like most people. Everybody has a spare gallon of water in their bodies. Most people in hot weather want to drink and they overdrink. They perspire freely and waste water which does no good and doesn't cool you at all. But if you keep to the bottom of the spare gallon your perspiration only moistens the skin to provide evaporation and cooling. If you don't sweat so much you don't lose salt. We had no trouble with lack of salt whereas on the coast they did." If the LRDG made do on a ration of three to four pints (1.7 to 2.3 litres), then it seems clear to me that one litre is inadequate, and I find it hard to imagine how anyone ever thought it a sufficient ration. 24 litres, however, seems to me to be a lot of work for the loggies (and the Engineers if they have to provide water points). I think it was SPI's "Campaign for North Africa" that included logisitics rules covering water supply, and had a penalty for Italian units because their rations required more water to cook (lots of pasta). I think this factor also accounts for the high incidence of surrenders rather than fights-to-the-death in mobile desert warfare; once you are out of water, there really is not a lot you can do about anything. I further suspect that this fact has contributed somewhat to the unjustified reputation of the Italians as invariably poor soldiers. I also suspect that the British Army's habit of tea-drinking must have stood it in good stead in the desert, as hot drinks have a longer-lasting cooling effect on the body than chilled ones. All the best, John.

The outline orbats at the back of Messenger's "The Tunisian Campaign" say that an infantry battalion's ATk platoon should have 4 guns in Eighth Army, 8 guns in First. Mark Bevis' "British and Commonwealth Armies 1939-43" (Helion & Co, Solihull, 2001) gives all British inf bns of the time 8 guns in 2 ATk pls. The book is quite detailed, but badly lacking in references to sources, and seems to have drawn mostly on Nafzigerry things Rune has already seen. FWIW, Bevis gives a different org for the sabre squadrons of Blade Force, saying each had a Sqn HQ of 2 x Valentine 2-pdr or 2 x Crusader CS, 2 troops of 3 x Crusader III and 1 x Crusader II, and 2 troops of 3 x Valentine 2-pdr and 1 x Valentine 6-pdr. All the best, John.

Uh, that would be "Mine, Anti-Tank M1" rather. I'm surprised that a man of your experience would make that mistake. Ah, feet of clay again. Tsk, tsk. Michael </font>

I found the review too flowery by half, but I suppose literary pretensions are expected of the reviewers in the TLS. The bit of the review that most struck me was the phrase "the more we learn about the Soviet Union, the more we realize that the term totalitarianism simply does not fit the bill". I am baffled as to what the reviewer thinks we have discovered that might cause us to think that the USSR was anything other than totalitarian. If the Soviet Union was not an example of a totalitarian state, then I don't know what the hell a state has to do to qualify. All the best, John.

Sounds a lot like the description that civdiv gave: John: Do you have any examples? It seemed that most of the infromation was just repeated and to my untrained eye didn't appear obviously incorrect. Do you have time to elaborate? </font>

Indeed, and Keith Douglas, one of the leading poets of his generation, was killed on active service with the Sherwood Rangers while conducting a dismounted recce. One of the things that very sharply limits the use of light recce vehicles in CM is the inability to do what they would have done in real life, namely have the vehicle commander dismount and take a shufti on foot. "Recce isn't done by vehicles, recce is done by people who ride in vehicles." All the best, John.

I agree. If it's the map on page 220, the map symbol labelled "11BR" has a brigade size indicator. You'll notice that 1 Para has been labelled "1BR", so I think it's just being used to mean "British". All the best, John.

Although "Panzertruppen" does indeed give good orbat and strength information for armour units (and specialised armour elements, such as Funklenk and Sturmmorser companies), I can find no mention in it of any recce or panzergrenadier units. All the best, John.

The site includes, mirabile dictu, a manual on the elusive 37mm spade mortar. It confirms that, yes, they did indeed expect you to use it as a spade. The date of the manual, 1942, is later than I expected. It gives the first details I have seen for this weapon, namely range of 60m to 250m, and overall weight of 1.5Kg; unfortunately it doesn't seem to give the bomb weight anywhere. Nor are there any details of the proposed scale of issue. Now I hope someone unearths manuals for my other favourite weird Sovet weapons, the Kartukov ampulomyot and the LMG rocket-mine... All the best, John.

There was certainly armour engaged at other times and by other units close by, and Messenger mentions combat between Blade Force (which lost six tanks) and Groups Luder and Hudel on the morning of 1st Dec. However, he states clearly that "in the afternoon of 1 December Fischer launched his frontal attack against the Hampshires. It was, however, made up of infantry only and the Hampshires were able to beat it off." He mentions tanks being used against 2 Hamps the next day. The 3rd of Dec was of course the day on which Major "Pat" le Patourel earned himself a Victoria Cross, awarded "posthumously", although it was later dicovered that he had survived, and he went on to become a Brigadier. Somehow, both Messenger and Atkins seem to forget to mention this. I can't find the full citation on the web at the moment, I'm sure it must be soemwhere, but if not I have it in a book. A bit more on the Hampshires can be read at http://www.pauljerrard.com/hampshireR/hamps2ndBn.html which gives the battalion's starting strength at Tebourba as 689, a bit less than 90% of book strength and so probably what one would expect for a fresh full-strength unit with 10% LOB and a modest sick list. The battalion seems to designate its rifle companies W, X, Y and Z instead of A, B, C and D. All the best, John.

Hah, fat chance! I'm, afraid my resources are painfully thin in the matter of mine warfare. In particular, I have twice the square root of bugger-all on US mines, although I am prepared to bet that "Anti-Tank Mine M1" will be the designation of the most commonly-used beast. For British ATk mines, I have the following information, for the Mk II and Mk IV from "Hanbook on the British Army 1943" (Chamberlain and Ellis, Military Book Society, 1975, a partial reprint of TM-30-410, for the Mk V from an illustration in "Warfare Today" (Bacon, Fuller and Playfair, Odhams, undated but probably 1943) and for the No. 75 grenade ("Hawkins mine") "The Encyclopedia of infantry weapons of WW" (Hogg, A&AP, 1977): ______________Mk II____Mk IV____Mk V____No. 75 Height________3.25"____5"_______5"______6.5" Diameter______7.5"_____8"_______8"______? Weight________8lb 4oz__4lb______?_______2lb 4oz Filling_______12lb_____8lb 4oz__8lb_____1lb 12oz The "Handbook" says that the Mk I and Mk III mines are obsolete, and no longer issued, and the Mk. II is noted as being obsolescent. It also states that "A mew model, Mk V, which has a spider top similar to the U. S. mine and eliminates certain disadvantages of previous marks, is being tested". However, the illustration (by Lesley Ashwell-Wood, a name some people may recall from their boyhood) in the Odhams book shows the Mk V as visually indistinguishable from the Mk IV, and certainly with no "spider top". The "Handbook" says the Mk IV is fuzed for a pressure of 320 lbs. It says that the divisional supply coy carry 1,232 Mk II or 880 Mk IV mines. This does not seem many, as the Odhams book says 600 mines can be carried in a 3-ton lorry. PRO document WO 291/808, "The effectiveness of Br. Mk V (standard) AT mines and No. 75 grenades against German Mk V tanks", has some things to say about the inadequacy of these mines against Panther. It says that the Mk V mine is certain to break a Panther track only if it bursts entirely within the width of the track. If it bursts at the edge, the tank will still be mobile 3 times out of 4. Two No. 75 grenades ("Hawkins mines") are insufficient to break Panther track; three are needed. The following probabilities of stopping a Panther are given for different mine densities in a minefield panel 50×20 yards: Density_________Mk V mine______3 × No. 75 grenade 1 mine/yard________52%______________25% 2 mines/yard______100%______________50% I'd be a bit suspicious about any claim of 100% general stopping power for any minefield. All the best, John.

Not me, that much is certain. However, Charles Messenger's "The Tunisian Campaign" (Ian Allan, 1982) says that thay had landed at Algiers only a week before and hurriedly sent up to the front, so I would imagine that they ought to be pretty much at full strength. What attachments they would have from 1 (Gds) Bde, though, I can't tell. As far as I can make out from the above source and "An Army at Dawn", the action of 2 Hamps on the 1st of Dec was infantry vs infantry on both sides. Blade Force's armour was in action in the same sort of area from the 25th on, fighting First Army's first tank action. As far as I can tell from Messenger, Blade Force consisted of the following elements: 17th/31st Lancers B Sqn Derbyshire Yeomanry (armoured cars) B Coy 10th Rifle Brigade 1 Bn Parachute regiment US 1st/1st Armor (Stuarts) 1 x Battery 25-pdrs 1 x Battery 6-pdrs 1 x Troop 40mm Bofors 1 x Troop Royal Engineers US 175th Field Artillery Bn (25-pdrs) 17th/21st Lancers are stated to have three squadrons, each with 6 Crusader Mk IIIs (6-pounder), 12 Valentines (2-pounder) and 2 Crusader CS (3-in how). Not what you asked about, I know, but I hope it might be of some interest. All the best, John.

You're right, the site is wrong. This site is also very badly mistaken on a number of other points, and the author has shown no inclination to correct mistakes when pointed out. I suggest that anything from this source should be trusted about as far as you can spit a large rat (or nutria, if you prefer). All the best, John.

Hardly at all, if you consider that 1. The original article caused so much offence to our American cousins by pointing out that there is more to modern warfare than killing lots of people, and 2. The offending article was published in a magazine called "The Economist". All the best, John.