WWII training film on weapons/effects

[Battlefront.com]

That bid about being 20m up in a tree to take out a Pak was hilarious! The relative height the sniper would have to be at to get a shot over the shield would be incredibly rare to find in real life. Plus, isn't the first lesson a soldier learns in fighting is never, ever, in a billion years get up into a tree on the edge of a clearing? If the enemy doesn't see/hear you climbing and pick you off then, he'll probably see you shooting 20 rounds. And if he doesn't, then he'll have another chance to see you on the way down.

Ah, but I'm just nit-picking

One of my favorite training films of all time was the US Army film claiming the MG42's "bark is worse than it's bite". It tried to convince soldiers that they could rush the damned things with a toothbrush and come out on top. The film was specifically designed to try and get US soldiers over their fear of the ripping sound. The problem for the film makers was, that ripping sound often had a shredding effect on the buddy next to the guy who was their target audience. In other words, the soldiers that knew to be fearful of the MG42 were also the same guys that saw what effect the buzzing sound had.

The film basically said, keep your head down and the MG42 will either jam, overheat, or run out of ammo. And when that happens, you rush at it on the assumption that he has no friends looking after him while the barrel is changed or more ammo loaded into it. I dunno about you guys, but I wouldn't want to rush a MG42 with a Carbine or Garand only to find out that he has a friend with a MP44 with a nice field of fire.

The other thing the propaganda film forgot to mention is that an experienced MG42 crew can swap a barrel out before someone even thinks it's a good time to advance. At the very least it would be changed long before you got yourself into an advantageous spot.

Oh, and of course they didn't mention that the Germans gunners might "play dead" so that gullible Doughboys who just watched a film might all stand up and become much better targets for a perfectly operational MG42!!

Steve

[silverstars]

That bid about being 20m up in a tree to take out a Pak was hilarious! The relative height the sniper would have to be at to get a shot over the shield would be incredibly rare to find in real life. Plus, isn't the first lesson a soldier learns in fighting is never, ever, in a billion years get up into a tree on the edge of a clearing? If the enemy doesn't see/hear you climbing and pick you off then, he'll probably see you shooting 20 rounds. And if he doesn't, then he'll have another chance to see you on the way down.

Actually, now that you mention that part, I'm starting to wonder if a certain Sgt. from Easy company of 506th Rgt., 101st AB Div. remembered this training film during his Brecourt Manor firefight.

[Battlefront.com]

heh... good reminder of why things make the history books. If history books documented soldiers doing things the "right" way they would be extremely long and boring. Much more interesting to focus on the guy who managed to pull off something that shouldn't have worked. After all, I'm sure there was no training film that suggests running onto the back of a burning tank and shooting at hordes of advancing infantry from a completely exposed position. Or the best way to dispose of a grenade that's thrown into your foxhole is to lie on top of it, yet a certain SGT did just that and got to star in his own movie after the war

BTW, that SGT you mention didn't have a happy time leisurely plinking Germans like the guy in the training film did. From what I just read (forgot about this one!) he shimmied up a tree, said "OH GOOD LORD, this is a bad idea" as the bullets cracked around him. He jumped down and then used what he saw to an advantage, not his rifle while in the tree. Recon by tree climbing is different than trying to actively take on an enemy from a tree. Sniping from trees is an art which a couple seconds of a training film ain't likely to teach!

I tried the sniping from a tree fort thing in paintball once. I was hanging on the backside of the tree for a long time unable to go either up or down. But when my idiot friends finally started trying to assault the fort we were up against the morons inside forgot about me. The guys on the parapets wished they hadn't got distracted because I cleaned them off If those were bullets coming at me instead of paintballs I would have been picked off before I did squat because the tree was my only protection and even then paintballs kept hitting me but not breaking. As we saw in the demonstration film, .30 cal rounds don't tend to bounce off of trees much less flesh

Steve

[JonS]

I was surprised at how smoky the 30-cal ammo is/was (which would be yet another reason not to go firing your rifle from up in a tree)

[silverstars]

The smokiness was a problem endemic to U.S. Small arms ammunition during the war. German and Japanese ammo didn't have as much of issue with as we did, and many people on this forum(in the CMBO days) brought up this fact and how it led to the US being spotted more quickly then their Axis counterparts when firing from an ambush position.

which of course will probably lead to the standard "will this be modeled" questions....

[Waycool]

The tree born soldier was Sgt. Carwood Lipton Easy Company. Recently I finished Dick Winters Beyond Band of Brothers book and he also mentioned Lipton in the tree during the Brecourt engagement. Btw I enjoyed Dick Winters book well worth a read for all the fans of the Band of Brothers book/mini series.

[Vark]

Interesting to note that in both the German "Men against tanks" and this US film the opposition are always equipped with out-dated equipment. Be it the leather coated Soviet tankers or the WW1 style 1918 storm trooper helmeted Germans with packs and bedrolls!! Does anyone know if the Russians produced similar efforts, I know their use of written threat updates was very efficient but what about the use of celluloid?

[Dietrich]

Is the best use of infantry to have them stand tall and blast away with rifles at strafing aircraft?

No. AFAIK, encouraging the men to use their personal weapons to fire at attacking aircraft was as much for the preservation of morale as for the chance of a lucky 30-cal round scoring a worthwhile hit.

actually from the look of the round barrels they were MG34s, which did have a lower ROF the the Teutonic Buzzsaw.

From what I heard, all the German MGs in the film looked like their ROF was correct (assuming it would be harder than it's worth to make the guns actually fire slower), but the sounds they dubbed over sounded more low-pitched than I've ever heard from an MG34 or 42, more like a heavier-caliber MG, perhaps even a 50-cal.

I was personally amused at the narrator throughout the film, but especially at the "the 57mm will destroy any german tank at any angle" line.

If by "any tank" the narrator means a Panzer III or IV, rather than a Tiger or a Panther. (Though, as I understand it, the 57mm certainly could put the hurt on a Tiger's or a Panther's side armor from close-ish range.)

The narrator's similar claims about the bazooka whitewashed over the bazooka's characteristic ineffectiveness against the armor of the Tiger and the Panther. A contemporaneous photo shows a bazooka-armed GI kneeling partially behind the cover of the corner of a building and taking aim at the front of a Panther. It's clearly a staged shot, since not only would the bazooka have little chance of penetrating the Panther's front armor, but the GI would be inviting fire from the Panther's bow MG. If the GI knew his stuff (and if it wasn't a staged photo) he would have waited until the Panther had cruised past and exposed its side.

That bid about being 20m up in a tree to take out a Pak was hilarious! The relative height the sniper would have to be at to get a shot over the shield would be incredibly rare to find in real life. Plus, isn't the first lesson a soldier learns in fighting is never, ever, in a billion years get up into a tree on the edge of a clearing? If the enemy doesn't see/hear you climbing and pick you off then, he'll probably see you shooting 20 rounds. And if he doesn't, then he'll have another chance to see you on the way down.

Ah, but I'm just nit-picking

The film assumes not only that a non-sniper would climb up into a tree on the edge of a clearing but that the Pak's crew would not, upon taking their first casualty (or just upon realizing they were under fairly accurate aimed fire) promptly hunker down behind the gun's shield. Now, I don't claim to know the penetration effectiveness of 30-cal ball rounds against metal of the quality and thickness that the Pak 40's shield was made out of, but I do know (and I think this can be seen in the film) that the Pak 40's shield was actually two sheets of metal spaced about a certain small amount (I'm not sure of the exact measurements), which provided greater protection than a single sheet of metal as thick as the two put together. Also, the film assumes that one or two of the Pak's crew would not return fire with their Karabiner, once they realized the enemy aimed fire was coming from not that far away.

The film basically said, keep your head down and the MG42 will either jam, overheat, or run out of ammo. And when that happens, you rush at it on the assumption that he has no friends looking after him while the barrel is changed or more ammo loaded into it. I dunno about you guys, but I wouldn't want to rush a MG42 with a Carbine or Garand only to find out that he has a friend with a MP44 with a nice field of fire.

Or even an MP40.

Better would be (assuming the terrain was in any way favorable) to crawl within grenade range and flush out the MG team with a frag or three.

The other thing the propaganda film forgot to mention is that an experienced MG42 crew can swap a barrel out before someone even thinks it's a good time to advance. At the very least it would be changed long before you got yourself into an advantageous spot.

I imagine that not a few GIs were unpleasantly surprised at how quickly an MG42's barrel could be changed. Assuming that the pauses between an MG42's bursts could vary from half a second to five or more seconds, a good MG42 team could swap out a fresh barrel in fewer seconds than they might pause between bursts. By the time some sergeant realizes "hey, they've stopped firing," the MG-Schütze-Eins has already slid the fresh barrel into place and is working the charging handle.

Oh, and of course they didn't mention that the Germans gunners might "play dead" so that gullible Doughboys who just watched a film might all stand up and become much better targets for a perfectly operational MG42!!

Actually, someone did mention such a tactic, but not until the Dec. 1944 issue of Intelligence Bulletin:

At first the Germans used only two men to a machine-gun nest, but later on they began to use three men. The third man would stay hidden in case there should be an Allied attempt to take the machine-gun nest. If such an attempt was made, the two German soldiers who were visible would walk out in front of the machine-gun nest, holding up their hands to be searched. When Allied soldiers were engaged in the searching process, the two Germans suddenly would drop to the ground, and the third German, concealed in the machine-gun position, would start firing.

[zwobot]

Actually, someone did mention such a tactic, but not until the Dec. 1944 issue of Intelligence Bulletin:

Interesting link. I'm undecided about how much to believe from this report as it does not state how many NCOs or officers observed those behaviours. But nothing in this report sounds completely unbelievable, so... I'd better say: how much of the things said there can be assumed to be a common German tactic, e.g. "The crew bailed out immediately, and we thought the tank was out of action. However, the gunner remained in the vehicle. After we had stopped watching this particular tank, the gunner fired two rounds at us"

[handihoc]

Great stuff. Makes my query in another thread about the effectiveness of contemporary

.50 cal penetration power seem rather dumb. Really looking forward even more now to CM:WW2 - it's been too long since I found a WW2 game I could really get to grips with.

[Skinnedpuppy]

I think the question to ask is what year is this film from, that would answer a lot of the questions posed so far

[JonS]

I think the question to ask is what year is this film from, that would answer a lot of the questions posed so far

Based on weapons and equipment seen, and usage, I'd say late 1942.

[Battlefront.com]

That was my impression too.

Steve

[Dietrich]

Interesting link. I'm undecided about how much to believe from this report as it does not state how many NCOs or officers observed those behaviours. But nothing in this report sounds completely unbelievable, so... I'd better say: how much of the things said there can be assumed to be a common German tactic

True, there's isn't much concrete info per se. These wartime "intelligence" briefs ought to be taken with a grain of salt, as well as compared to the info furnished by the 60-plus years of post-war correlative research. I suppose several or even many of the tactics described would reasonably be considered "outliers" (of which made has been made in other threads), things that did happen but not so often that one would be right to worry about them all that much.

Based on weapons and equipment seen, and usage, I'd say late 1942.

Did the US have access to Pz IVGs as early as late 1942? If yes, would they captured one themselves, or would they have been shipped one by the British (or perhaps even the Soviets)?

I'd be more inclined to date the film at mid or late 1943. By then the US would have had several months of direct contact with German forces so as to have captured rifles, MGs, grenades, uniforms, trucks, and even a Pz IVG. But that's just my assessment.

[Vark]

I'd date it late 42, early-mid 43, in the film the M6A1 rocket, for the bazooka, has the conical head, by late 43 the US had adopted the improved M6A3 with blunt nose and different tail fin assembly.

[Battlefront.com]

The US had a lot of stuff shipped over from combat in Italy and North Africa. Piece of cake since the ships were going back to the US from there practically empty. Most of the stuff went to Aberdeen Proving Grounds.

Steve

[silverstars]

I imagine "Tunisgrad" provided a large bulk of captured equipment.

[JonS]

An lot of kit changed hands in early December 1942.

[Battlefront.com]

Yup! The US equipment went from US hands into German hands then back into US hands again along with a lovely load of German stuff

Steve

[John Kettler]

Good stuff! While I doubt the average GI carried .30 cal. AP, I have read that the BAR gunners typically did, precisely for cover busting. Audie Murphy stood on the burning deck of a TD, not a tank. Very interesting M9A1 firing footage! Was familiar with the rifle frag grenade launching procedure shown, though. Frangible grenade's British counterpart would be SIPP (Self-Igniting Phosphorus Projectile), in hand thrown form. Had never seen WP wound image before. Ick! That said, please, please, please give us WP in the Normandy game!!! Knew about the regimental 105s, but had never seen that kind of firing sequence. Loved the roadblock demolition and the AT gunfires vs. fortifications! Have long known the 81mm mortar had a heavy and light projectile. Given mass and trajectory of former, I'm not surprised delay fuzing would easily pierce two feet of overhead cover. Was unaware an M1 could fire right through a 12" thick oak, but was aware that NATO 7.62 could saw through a telephone pole. Had never seen the M1 vs. Stahlhelm series, but was familiar with the earlier .45 sequence. Really enjoyed the radio-controlled Mark IV Special! Note that the guy in charge was offset from the line of fire in the 57mm case, because of the much greater blast and obscuration that the 37mm generated. Regarding modeling of smokeless, flashless propellants for Germans as opposed to what U.S. had, please, please, please model this, since it a) was a factor and was so reported by American combat soldiers as being an issue on numerous occasions. See, for example, Steve's story of the MG-42 that couldn't be spotted from only 200 yards away and the damning report sent to Ike on our weapons vs. the Germans.

Regards,

John Kettler

[JonS]

Yup! The US equipment went from US hands into German hands then back into US hands again along with a lovely load of German stuff

I was actually thinking of El Alamein

[John Kettler]

Forgot to mention that the shield of the Pak 40 was specifically designed to defeat the Russian 14.5mm antitank rifles. The guy up the tree is therefore well advised to shoot exposed personnel and components, assuming, of course, the LMG equipped security team protecting the Pak 40 doesn't shred the tree and him with it!

Regards,

John Kettler