British and CW infantry training (US question too)

[flamingknives]

The max elevation of the 25 pdr isn't very much, especially compared to mortars, unless you start pushing them into holes in the ground.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by flamingknives:

The max elevation of the 25 pdr isn't very much, especially compared to mortars, unless you start pushing them into holes in the ground.

And that has been done.

Michael

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by JasonC:

As for Sicily topography, Mt. Aetna is 10,000 feet. The majority of the center and north of the island is seamed by hills and steep cuts in from the coast, with the elevation changing from sea level to 500 meters to 1000 meters to 500 meters again, in the space of 10 miles.

I spent several years living in countryside much like that. Not as high, the maximum elevation would not have exceeded 1,000 meters, I don't think. But it was also more wooded than I think Sicily is. Lots of fairly steep gradients where altitude would range over 400 meters in the space of half a mile. Lots of hills and lots of ravines and canyons. Not many paved roads. Lots of narrow defiles.

I often imagined what it would be like to try to move an army through there against any kind of armed resistance. It would have been worse than the Ardennes. Much worse.

Michael

[flamingknives]

Originally posted by Michael Emrys:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by flamingknives:

The max elevation of the 25 pdr isn't very much, especially compared to mortars, unless you start pushing them into holes in the ground.

And that has been done.

Michael </font>

[JonS]

Back to Hate Training:

This from Tim Harrison-Place (2000), Military training in the British Army, 1940-1944, Cass, page 57:

The dangers of extensive live firing compounded concerns over the wisdom of battle drill harboured by the War Office. Apart from anything else, prescribed safety precautions were not always properly observed. But there was a further element in the battle school formula that caused very great unease. This was the hate training, practised at Chelwood Gate and Barnard Castle and at divisional battle schools. Hate training was an attempt to whip up among students an extreme hatred of the enemy. Quite whose brainchild it was is not clear, but Wigram, who was Jewish and thus had good reason for his apparently unusual degree of Germanophobia, undoubtedly favoured and promoted it. Major A.E. Marshall, attending a Barnard Castle course in the spring of 1942, described a platoon attack exercise with live defending fire in which the urgings of the instructors were interspersed with cries of ‘Kill! Kill! Kill!’, ‘The filthy Hun in England's green and pleasant land’, and ‘Hate! Hate! Hate!’ Such practices could become comical. The Times correspondent reporting on Chelwood Gate in November 1941 described a 'burly subaltern of the London Irish [almost certainly an instructor] who, his shirt torn to ribbons and brandishing a fighting knife at the heels of the pack, conducted a private hate campaign. “Hate! Hate!” he yelled once in the face of two solitary cows.’ The report continued: ‘there was no doubting from their curses that the students’ blood was up’ the very purpose of the hate training. Further to inspire hatred of the Germans, students were shown photographs of German atrocities and heard special lectures on the subject. Closely connected to this was a variant of battle inoculation training that endeavoured to acquaint students with the gore of the battlefield, for example by splattering them with ovine blood at the appropriate moments in bayonet training." Students were also taken on trips out to local abattoirs. Lieutenant Colonel T.F. Main, a psychiatrist attached to the GHQ Battle School, opposed such methods. Incidents of vomiting and fainting among students induced Barnard Castle to drop it in March 1942. But it continued at divisional battle schools. Blood and hate methods attracted considerable criticism from senior commanders, such as Montgomery and Lieutenant General C.W. Allfrey, GOC V Corps, both of whom condemned it as un British, and from politicians and clergymen. In May 1942 Paget ordered an end to it.

Regards

Jon

[ May 08, 2005, 01:33 PM: Message edited by: JonS ]

[JonS]

Remember that the 25-pr is a gun-how, at least partly so that it would overcome some of the crest restrictions seen in weapons like the 18-pr. Max elevation on the 25-pr is 45°. Less than a mortar to be sure, but not to be sneezed at.

[Wartgamer]

I take it that the 4.2 inch mortar is a weapon of British design and not the US weapon?

[cassh]

The Wigram letter looks like the original as I know it. A complete copy of it is included in the appendix of Formans book To Reason Why.

Just had a look through some notes and Photostats taken from PRO and realised that actually there was a fair amount of evidence about both hate training and battlefield inoculation.

One thing that came up quite a lot was the use of German weapons being used by DS to familiarise the students with the sounds of battle. They taught them basics like the difference between enemy and friendly weapon sounds, and what those sounds meant(rounds passing over from behind, passing nearby, coming at you) and exploitables (MG-42 barrel change) etc.

JonS - I promised you a copy of my dissertation on British Army Training 1940-44, and have not yet delivered. I shall digitise it tonight when I get back (or start at least). If anyone else would like a copy just email me. I think you'll all be able to rip it to bits, but I still feel its basic conclusions are correct. Namely, the battle drill movement invigorated the doctrine debate in the British Army and attempted to move the focus away from an artillery led doctrine to an infantry led one, and that this movement was stifled by some senior Generals such as Monty. In this way Befehlstaktik (command push) remained firmly in place over Auftragstaktik (command pull or mission tactics).

[flamingknives]

Originally posted by Wartgamer:

I take it that the 4.2 inch mortar is a weapon of British design and not the US weapon?

Yep.

[Wartgamer]

The exact opposite is true of the US 4.2 mortar. It was actually prefered for close in work due to its accuracy.

The remarks about incediaries is interesting.

[Wisbech_lad]

On the hate courses.

Anecdote from my biology teacher - who had been in Operations Research during the war (after working on rose hip syrup!)

Shortly after the war ended in Europe, he went on a course with many combat vets - sort of a demob course. They were shown a film on "why it was worth fighting" - basically a documentary on the concentration camps and final solution. So far, so good. Films were then shown on how the other allies had helped.

For some reason, the Soviet film also had an update on "recent soviet advances in knowledge" This included a description and footage of Pavlov's experiments.

At this point, many soldiers walked out, vomitting, expressing hatred of Russians... They had become blase about horror of war, but to deliberately vivisect dogs was way, way beyond the pale. The film was quickly deleted from the course

(apologies if anyone takes offence over "beyond the pale", I do not suggest that the Irish vivisect dogs...)