roqf77

but he first asked for it on 27th august if it took one week to plan market garden it wouldnot of took one week to plan comet. so it most likely would of started 1-3rd september. plus 9th and 10th ss divisions were engaged and there orders were to move back from engagement and head to arhem for rest and refit. There is no way of knowing if they could of turned up sooner than if they did. plus the units which slowed 30 corps would not of been there. it still may not of worked, but the major elements that brought market garden down wouldnot off been there.

yes buy it you know you want i mean what can be more fun than a group of british matildas blowing up 50-60 italian tanks........ Nothing ive found yet

true but that was previous to the deployment of 9th 10th panzer divisions. And before the break out of 80k german troops from antwerp. the point is the german defenders would not have even been at 1/4 strength. i will check but im not even sure if students troops were ready.

My source? Cornelius ryans a bridge to far. It doesnt state how it happenend whether or not the tiger brewed up simply it was abandoned. But i have read a few accounts piats knocking out tigers including a few in the bocage. It was not likely however a singular hit it was most likely tracked and then the gun was hit meaning the crew probably abandoned because there was not much reason to stay. Not massivly familar with infantry anti tank tactics but i would assume that they would go for mobility kills then possibly to disable. Im not sure about the piats ability to blow up tigers. i was simply stating the weapon at least convinced two crews enough to abandon there tanks.

Operation comet was the pre plan to market garden. It involved only the first para's and i think dempsy's second army. however it would of been launched about 2 weeks before market garden thus happening before the reinforcements and the break out of 80k germans from antwerp. purely theoreticaly but what do people reckon the chances of succses were?

by piats believe it or not

plus actualy i re read the section there were a number of tanks including 2 tigers destroyed in arnhem

didnt they stop using aphe after ww1 because it wasnt very good? i read this on one website but im not saying its true A.P.H.E. - Armour Piercing High Explosive Used by most countries until about 1935, A.P.H.E. was last used by the Soviet army in 1941/1942. This type of shell had significantly lower armour penetration capabilities than A.P. solid shot. It was thought that the shell would penetrate an enemy tank and detonate inside, with catastrophic results. In reality A.P.H.E. shells shattered on impact. Low quality Soviet A.P.H.E. ammunition gave German armour a significant edge in the 1941 campaign. Some A.P.H.E. shells are tracer detonated, but most are detonated by inertia and they are used as anti-aircraft shells. Their use against tanks may have been out of accident rather than design. Navies use A.P.H.E. shells against enemy ships, and their application to tank combat may have been a throwback to this naval method

oh i wasnt trying to correct you just posting what i had read on the website. Its quite good before i read i had no idea about armour barely new what rha was.

true but all im saying is the second rate troops werent all they had faced. in the end they were battered for a reason. You do make some good points though i understand and to a point i agree. If you dont mind answering what do you think would of happenend if monty was given the go ahead for operation comet when he first asked for it. Dont mean to argue bitterly with you so much but my grandad was in the duke of cornwalls light infantry.

Face Hardened Armour Face hardening (FH) is a method used to increase the armour hardness of the surface of armour plate. The rear side of the armour plate remains at its original hardness. Face hardening is carried out by taking a slab of RHA and heat treating it again, but on one side only. The heat treating is time consuming and results in a warped plate which must then be flattened in large presses. The Germans were able to handle plates up to and including 50mm thickness (with production oversizes up to 55mm), and tried 80mm FH on the early Panther glacis. Later on the Germans found a way to use a heavy electrical current flow through the steel to induction-harden one face. Both methods were used until the end of the war. The purpose of the hardened face is to shatter an incoming projectile’s head before it can penetrate. The Germans found it resisted Soviet uncapped AP and APBC projectiles quite well, when the armour plate thickness was around the same size or not too badly overmatched by the projectile (such as Pz.Kpfw.IV 50mm front armour vs. Soviet 45mm or even 76mm AP or APBC). Britain and the USA tested projectiles against FH armour as a matter of course until about 1943, but rarely used it on production vehicles because of its relatively poor resistance to German APCBC in comparison to RHA. The Germans were faced with APC and APCBC from the Western allies only, not the Soviets, so their decision to use FH armour weakened their tanks against Western guns but strengthened them against Soviet guns. ................................................. not me quote from website!

face hardend armour was rha armour but one side of the armour to a depth of a few mm was re heat treated to toughen up one side. better info can be found on the website i have linked on a previous post

fair point michael, completely off topic but what is your opinion on the mind body desinction and the argument of freewill and determinism or the freewill argument(its the same thing but it was on the course twice for some reason)?

plus thae paras at knoicked out a number of tanks including i think 5 tigers according to cornelius ryan. remember he spoke to both eisenhower and montgomery about the operation as well as browning well everybody involved, including some germans. if he says there were more than a ahnd full of tanks there then there were. quote... 10th SS in August: "22 August, 1944: All resistance in the Falaise Pocket ceases; Remnants of the division sent to Holland for rest and refit. Army Group B reports that the division has no tanks left and only four battalions of infantry." Feldgrau link Not much time to refit till 17 September quote........ true but in the book it mentions something about a dutch resistence report about a colum of tanks moving through arnheim. With numerous accounts of tank battles and the like. all im saying is bias can swing both ways If the defence was just old men and boys it seems you are suggesting then the operation would of been a resounding succses

i believe though it was all originaly black and white and re coloured.

oh yeah also im dyslecsic(no joke sorry if thats the wrong spelling i just cant be bothered to look it up). But like i said if that is the case, michael disregard my remarks about being arrogant it just sounded to me as an insult because from my education in philosophy(well it was religious education but we only picked up a bible 3 times in 2 years). It seemed as if you were implying that my posting was some kind of involuntary reaction and i was being compared to some form of animal, with no higher brain functions like say a venus fly trap. Dont worry i am also fussy.

ohy okay well sorry if that is the case. And i will just one question? what is the significence in reading it in less than ten minutes?

ive heard it on, the discovery channel, the history channel and the war walk documentry series on the bbc. although that was in france in 1940. as far as incoherent sentences go, people have understood them. And "semi-consciousness" goes, the very fact i posted on a wargaming websites message board more than once and very deliberatly means i cannot be anything other than fully conscious or i would not be able to do so. My advice to you michael is to think about what you are going to say before you say it next time. Perhaps taking a class as i have in philosophy then maybe you may truly appreciate the term "semi-consciousness". Then you may understand how truly insulting and arrogant that allegation is. or you could just grow up.

hmmm i remember johhny reb on the c64 that was a great game. i just loved being union and giving those confeds a beating

especialy as the british held out in north afrika against odds also in early north africa, as well as giving a very good acount of themselves in 1940 considering about 1/3 of there ammo was plastic "dummy" rounds. The americans reacted very quickly after pearl harbour i believe and the japanese were just nuts. Every country did something that can be described as super human if you want to see it that way. Logistics is as important as training if not more so. In normandy the british lost 1,875 tanks approx, this was made good by september and early pre market garden september at that were the germans i believe made 3,000 all year.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Pedantic mode activated >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Not to quibble but they actual chose the rifled barrel to fire hesh not the other way round. (at least thats what ive been told on good authority) The british army(well ministry of defence) claims in there tests the rifled barrel actualy has superior performence to the smoothbore. apparently i have been told the same is true of sabot ammunitiion in mod test the 120mm charms gun 's effective range is acctualy longer than the non-rifled equivelents(i think is a rheinmetal?) >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> PeDANTIC MODE TERMINATED >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Did somebody say rexford writes with a guy called livingston? Well i belive this is an exellent website based on there work at least partly explains alot very well http://gva.freeweb.hu/index.html goes through types of armour and there hardness and such. intersting information to as armour penetration of us guns were improved on the 90mm and 76mm i belive by removing the he filler and increasing propellent charge/ using a longer primer. this is also quoted in osprey's sherman 76mm 43-65 book.

if you are refering to the documents released over the iraq war the butler report proved that the allegations made over the fakeness of the 45 minute claim made by the bbc was not only a mis quote but andrew gilligan the reporter in question was drunk when he made the statement. Which he addmitted. that and the 45 minute claim in question was actualy taken directly from un weapons inspectors report the governmet simply removed the term battlefield from the sentence.

yes a bridge to far actualy! in the book of the same name by cornelius ryan, puts the strength of the german armour at the start of market garden at 51 armoured cars and . try and read books before you comment.

** With the possible exception of the garrissons left behind in the channel ports of France, Belgium and Holland that denied easy supply to the Allies. Not to wade into the argument antwerp was not opened earlier because of the ground work going into market garden.

my dad works at the mod and apparently according to one file they have its not top secret obviously) he said something like half of all mg 42's captured by the british in normandy had run out of ammo and been abandoned. Not a very efficient way to run a campaign man for man germans may have been better equiped but not so well supplied. On the whole it was not very fair but the germans were broken in normandy took 2-1 losses about half were captured so casulties were about 1-1. numbers whise i belive the germans actualy had the advantage for a while. the german troops may of been more effective on there own but how much of that is down to there improved equipment? how much of the allies better performence over the campaign was down to being better supplied? the only way to tell would bew reverse the situations i guess