History buffs, strut your stuff!

[Barbas]

I'm currently going through The Secret War, a book about various countries' intelligence-gathering efforts before, during and after World War II. It's a bewildering book that's almost equal parts believable and incredible. Roughly 90% of decrypted intelligence was ultimately useless or unused, while the remaining 10% often proved to be of so much value that the sometimes maddening quest and its costs were felt to be fully justified. Sometimes there were depressing draughts of information that lasted for months on end, as the civilian geniuses at Bletchley Park beavered away feverishly to produce something that would tip the balance against the Germany army, navy and air force. It is astonishing how much hung in the balance and how often disaster was narrowly avoided.

Before that, I read Tank Men, which was full of accounts of tank crews who served in the war. I'd heard some of the criticisms of Allied tanks before, but wasn't ready for how dark the stories in that book were. It was quite illuminating to read about how the Germans didn't have it all their own way as far as tank design went, and what it was like to be facing Tigers in a tank that had to crawl to within 600 metres to get its own gun in range. A particularly interesting phenomenon repeatedly raised was the bond that developed between the new, younger NCOs and the tank crews they commanded. The cramped, life-or-death conditions inside a tank overhauled the previously rigid command structures, and the combined arms tactics used by the Allies changed over time to match and surpass their Axis counterparts.

Anyone got any interesting historical snippets or accounts they've read about recently that they'd like to share?

EDIT: Wow. Death's got a shitload of paperwork.

 

[Neverhoodian]

Since we're on the subject of tanks, here's something I came across last year;
My historical forte is aviation, but I do enjoy me some tanks from time to time. Some of the info I already knew, such as the exaggerated effectiveness of close air support. I always suspected that popular opinion regarding Shermans was a bit harsh, but this provides a strong argument that most of it is flat-out wrong. I also didn't realize how exceedingly rare Tiger engagements were on the Western Front.

So yeah, don't break out the Ronsons yet. Ol' Shermie's not such a bad tank after all!

Spoiler

 

[CeeBod]

Back in the days when games came with big thick manuals (remember them?) I had a submarine game that came with more historical information on the development of WW2 anti-submarine warfare than I'd ever seen anywhere before, even in history books. I think it was Aces of the Deep, but I'm not sure which sub game it was as I annoyingly threw away all my old boxes and manuals during a house move. It had full detail on the development of Huff-duff ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-frequency_direction_finding ) early radar, enigma, depth charges, the evolution of convoy tactics, hunter-killer escort carrier groups, all sorts of stuff. I'm really kinda annoyed that I didn't keep it, and I'd love to know if there's an online copy of that original manual somewhere I could save as a .pdf or something - I've found several online versions that just give gameplay instructions without any of the historical data, so I'm not sure if it was a separate supplement or what that came with the game originally - it may even have been a different game altogether, but Aces of the Deep definately did come with a Kriegsmarine map that I remember having up on my wall so that I could see at a glance where I was being sent on patrol!

Moving away from WW2 and stuff I can't remember - I did find out an awesome snippet (or I thought it was awesome anyway!) of historical info that answered the nagging question "Why do we use all these base 12 numbers like 360 degrees in a circle, 24 hours in a day, 60 minutes in a hour, etc?". When I was told that we got all this base 12 stuff from the ancient Babylonians, I found that an unsatisfying answer, as it still didn't answer the why question to me - I look at my hands and feet, see 10 fingers and 10 toes, and base 10 makes sense, where the hell did 12 come from? Many years later I found something on Ancient Babylonian counting, which said that they used to use the thumb to touch each of the bones in the fingers - so each hand is a count of 12, because that's how many finger bones you have, so they also looked at their hands, but they saw 12/24 not 10. Simple change of perspective and it all makes sense! )

 

[DefunctTheory]

Since we're on the subject of tanks, here's something I came across last year;

Spoiler

My historical forte is aviation, but I do enjoy me some tanks from time to time. Some of the info I already knew, such as the exaggerated effectiveness of close air support. I always suspected that popular opinion regarding Shermans was a bit harsh, but this provides a strong argument that most of it is flat-out wrong. I also didn't realize how exceedingly rare Tiger engagements were on the Western Front.

So yeah, don't break out the Ronsons yet. Ol' Shermie's not such a bad tank after all!

Spoiler

Not only is the Sherman not a bad tank, there's a strong argument that it was the best tank of WWII. The only armored, turreted tank that comes close to it in terms of overall war effectiveness is the T-34, another tank that gets shit on frequently by Reich Armor Enthusiast.

I highly recommend the Chieftain's youtube channel, by the way. He does some really interesting real life tank reviews and walk arounds. You can also head over to worldoftanks.com to see some of his write ups on WWII statistics.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCp4j9Y9L6jie44iZroCb99A

I haven't read anything historically related an interesting lately, so I'll just, once again, recommend Ulysses S. Grants memoirs again, my favorite autobiography.

Now, users, recommend me more WWII and Civil War stuff! Do it!

 

[Barbas]

(Snip).

It was sure welcomed when it first came in, being pretty desperately required. Sadly, Montgomery was a bit too optimistic about the 75mm's performance going ahead. The Sherman certainly wasn't alone in suffering heavily in the bocage (against prepared and pre-sighted enemy guns). Slightly top-heavy and too high a profile, maybe, and consequently tall enough to make climbing in and out (or being carried in and out) of it exhausting during long operational periods. Probably more mobile and reliable than the thrice-damned British cruisers, though. And the reputation of the Tiger preceded it, so I can imagine that if there was even a hint of one it had serious potential to start a panic among Allied crews. "88" probably filled many a tanker with dread. And yer man makes a good point: facing it, from a distance, a quick assessment could pretty easily leave you thinking you were looking at a Tiger rather than a Panzer IV.

The reputation as "Tommy cookers" is another questionable one. I think it's that tank crews tended to shoot until they saw flames and took that as confirmation of a knocked-out tank (make sense; you don't want it shooting back). And hey, as an infantryman I can bet I'd take a Sherman, or even just a lump of mobile cover mounted on caterpillar tracks over no tank at all!

(Snip).

*Indignant splutter*. Well I should think that depends on which Sherman model you're comparing to which T-34 model!

(Snip).

I had a great manual for RCT 2 that detailed the history (and lethality) of roler-coasters, which was great (and which I lost years ago). I dunno about submarines and such, but you can have a nice Tiger manual: http://www.alanhamby.com/tigerfibel.shtml

 

[DefunctTheory]

SNIP

The T-34 was an amazing tank, but so was the Sherman. Both were mass produced in the extreme, but they each had their strengths. The T-34 had superior armor and eventually got some fairly powerful cannons, while the Sherman was better suited to long range operations (More reliable and way more comfortable for the crew) and had more desirable bells and whistles, like a stabilized main gun and a roomy turret that allowed an amazing rate of fire.

The 75mm doesn't deserve the bile people pile on it. It was capable of penetrating the majority of German armor, and it was an amazing anti-infantry weapon.

And it's likely that the M4 Medium's propensity for lighting on fire was caused by improper ammunition storage. Namely, its crews would jam cannon rounds into every conceivable nook and cranny they could find, both inside the tank and outside. Most tank fires were caused by ammunition bin hits, not fuel hits, which is bad news when your entire tank is one giant ammo rack. The introduction of wet ammo storage and officers that could say the words 'Stop doing that, dumbass' mostly solved the problem.

Like most weapon systems, the M4s biggest weakness was its operator. It caused a variety of other issues, like how the crews would sometimes 'uparmor' Shermans with sandbags and concrete, which actually increased the likelihood that the tank would get penetrated.

On an unrelated note, everyone should watch the movie Fury. Not that it's historically accurate or anything (Like many WWII movies, different aspects of it fly wildly between accurate and 'Hollywood Accurate'), the discussion just made it pop into my mind.

Spoiler

​

Das Boot is a good WWII movie too.

This unscheduled derail is now over.

 

[Barbas]

I had tank Top Trumps in one of my childhood hospital stays. Dominic, the kid in the next bed, threw up on them after he came round after his OP. Otherwise I'd have lots of facts for you all.

Funnily enough - I mean as in peculiar - I actually have a pack of playing cards with pictures of various mines on them that I...liberated from a serving relative's personal effects. They're not dead, they just weren't there to stop my pilfering when we were packing up at our last house. They were too cool to go in a box.

(Snip).

I read near the beginning of the book, as it detailed the arrival of tanks in World War I, that the infantrymen saw the much-battered and soot-blackened tank men as a whole new breed. Rather than professional soldiers, a lot were mechanically-minded tinkerers, workshop men and engineers. The same intrepid chaps and their ill-trained descendants entered Africa and Normandy with tanks that looked more like mobile homes, their hulls festooned with personal effects, helmets and kit bags. You can tell a chap's a thinker when he practices the First Available Surface method of filing.

 

[Fox12]

I read The Twelve Caesers, and let me tell you, that book is full of juicy gossip (which may or may not be reliable). It's one of the earliest history books ever written. Every chapter ends with the death of the Caesar, and a list of portents that foretold that leaders doom. For instance, one chapter claims that the statue of a goddess fell from its pillar, cracked on the ground, and then started laughing.

I also read a book about the War of the Roses. One day, on the eve of battle, there was a rare atmospheric event called an anthelion, where there appear to be three Suns in the sky. The army threw its weapons down in horror, until the general rode in front of them, claiming that it represented the trinity, and was a sign from God. It's easy to laugh at ancient religions, but when weird shit like that was happening, can you blame them?

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

Another fun Sherman tidbit: US Sherman crews had far more survivability if their tank was hit than British Sherman crews. The reason? British tank crews wore their soft cap when in the tank, while the US crews always wore their helmet.

Fun bit two: Another part of the myth of Sherman flammability came from seeing a lot of burnt out Sherman hulls on the occasion the German guns knocked one out. The reason for this is that German tankers and AT gun crews were under orders to shoot Allied tanks until they started burning, even if they were already knocked out. See, under most conditions, a knocked out Allied tank, especially the Sherman, could be repaired relatively easily, doubly so compared to German armor. However, if a tank caught fire, it was a total loss. Even if it could be brought back to working conditions, the heat of the fire permanently damaged the steel of the armor plate.

Fun bit three: If your regulation fitted German uniform was tailored correctly, you couldn't raise your arms above the shoulder without tearing the uniform. Yes, each Germain soldier had a custom tailored uniform. Yes, that's as crazy, and supply line bottlenecking, as it sounds. Said uniform was made of more individual bits of cloth than a three-piece suit. It did not generally come with camouflage options. Instead, the German forces issued camouflage smoks. Naturally, these limited access to the pockets and belt pouches of the wearer, because... well, because they're designed by Nazis. Camouflage for your individually custom fitted helmets were held on by a complicated system of no less than three hinges. Your camouflage was also limited to your branch of the military due to trademarking or copyright issues. Seriously.

 

[DefunctTheory]

Fun bit three: If your regulation fitted German uniform was tailored correctly, you couldn't raise your arms above the shoulder without tearing the uniform. Yes, each Germain soldier had a custom tailored uniform. Yes, that's as crazy, and supply line bottlenecking, as it sounds. Said uniform was made of more individual bits of cloth than a three-piece suit. It did not generally come with camouflage options. Instead, the German forces issued camouflage smoks. Naturally, these limited access to the pockets and belt pouches of the wearer, because... well, because they're designed by Nazis. Camouflage for your individually custom fitted helmets were held on by a complicated system of no less than three hinges. Your camouflage was also limited to your branch of the military due to trademarking or copyright issues. Seriously.

The Germans sure did have a hard on for making everything as obscenely complicated as one could possibly imagine.

 

[Hero in a half shell]

I've always loved the story of the Navajo Indian codetalkers - In the age of the Enigma machines and complex cyphers, the most successful allied code was simply setting two Navajo Indians on either side of a radio and having them talk in their own language to each other.

The complexity of the language, speed of dialogue and distortion from different dialects meant it was pretty much impossible for the Japanese to decipher their messages (Although I believe the Japanese did the same thing with some obscure native dialects).
It worked really well too, one of the Majors at Iwo Jima credited the success of taking the island to the secure and speedy communcation the Navajos provided!

 

[Albino Boo]

The early versions of the Sherman solved a tactical problem in the western desert. The British 2lb and 6lb gun had equal armor penetration to the German 37mm and 50mm guns but had no HE shells. This meant that German AT guns and the Flak 36 88mm guns could set up behind stationary German tanks and add their firepower with little danger. The turret mounted 75mm gun of the Sherman had HE shells and could surpress German AT guns, which lead to allied numbers becoming overwhelming. However when the Panzer IV FV2 and later models had the 75mm L48 gun which had better anti armor capabilities. The Italian campaign proved that which lead to the up gunning of the Sherman to 76mm in late 44. The Sherman E8 was equal to the late war Pz IV's, which formed the backbone of German tanks.

 

[Silverbeard]

I've always loved the story of the Navajo Indian codetalkers - In the age of the Enigma machines and complex cyphers, the most successful allied code was simply setting two Navajo Indians on either side of a radio and having them talk in their own language to each other.

It was a bit more complicated than that. They weren't just 'speaking their own language', they had an actual code. Navajos had to attend schools and classes to learn what the code for 'Japanese submarine' was, for example. They couldn't just gab that out over the radio.
This actually led to some accounts of Japanese soldiers being under orders to capture any American who looked like a native Indian because the common Japanese man couldn't tell the difference between American Indians and, say, Hispanics. A lot of Hispanic servicemen have horror stories of enduring torture while being told to break a code they didn't know in a language they couldn't understand.
Equally frightening (though unconfirmed) are rumours of American marksmen being told to prioritize targeting and killing American Indians who fell into the hands of the enemy over the enemies themselves- one assumes this order was issued to 'protect the code'. Still kind of unsettling to imagine how many American men stared down their sights at Indians in uniform and topped them.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

The Germans sure did have a hard on for making everything as obscenely complicated as one could possibly imagine.

It's baffling, especially considering their propensity for ignoring the details.

Like: The uniform mentioned above had a set of internal suspenders to fold up the belt that carried most of a soldiers gear. Why internal? External suspenders would make the soldiers look like farmers or something, we can't have that, tsk, tsk.

Later in the war, after hearing those suspenders were practically useless and the soldiers needed a sturdier way to carry more gear, they changed the uniform to have better external suspenders.

And yet... you see where this is going. They never stopped putting in the internal suspenders on newly made uniforms. The shitty suspenders that weren't even being used.

Fun fact that isn't Nazi-bashing: The Red Arny's winter park. It was big, soft, and very warm. It also came in only one size. If your's didn't fit, all you had to do was cut off the big ol' buttons it had and re sew them to fit where the button holes were. Sure, it made you look like a potato sack a lot of the time, but do you want to be fashionable or warm?

 

[MrFalconfly]

(Snip).

*Indignant splutter*. Well I should think that depends on which Sherman model you're comparing to which T-34 model!

This mostly depends on what the tank-crews themselves value the most (and that tends to be ergonomics).

All the T-34 variants have absolutely horrible ergonomics in common.

* There's no turret-basket (meaning, bigger chance for the turret-monster to grab some vital equipment, or a limb).
* No seat for the loader (meaning he has to follow the turret around, while it traverses, stepping over spent casings, risking tripping over, and being grabbed by the aforementioned "turret-monster". This lack of a seat and proper turretfloor is further compounded by the relatively high speed of the turrets powered traverse)
* The drivers compartment and fighting compartment isn't separated like in most tanks (meaning there's a risk of various heavy metal bits of the turret, interfacing with the heads of the driver and radio-operator/machine-gunner).
* The variants prior to the T-34/85 had the very serious issue, that the Commander had to pull double-duty as loader.

The only point at which the T-34 is qualitatively better would be armament, given that the T.34/85 has an 85mm gun, while the most heavily armed hole-puncher of the Shermans was following the Easy-8 programme with the wide tracks, HVSS suspension, and 76mm gun M1.

 

[Silverbeard]

I read near the beginning of the book, as it detailed the arrival of tanks in World War I, that the infantrymen saw the much-battered and soot-blackened tank men as a whole new breed. Rather than professional soldiers, a lot were mechanically-minded tinkerers, workshop men and engineers. The same intrepid chaps and their ill-trained descendants entered Africa and Normandy with tanks that looked more like mobile homes, their hulls festooned with personal effects, helmets and kit bags. You can tell a chap's a thinker when he practices the First Available Surface method of filing.

I dispute your fact and the writer who penned it in the spirit of sportsmanship, my good man.
By the time tanks became a common sight on WW I battlefields, virtually of the participant nations had exhausted their ranks of full time professional soldierly. Most soldiers on the field by that time were civilian draftees who came from a variety of backgrounds: Teachers, factory hands, farmers and more. I imagine they'd have gotten along swimmingly with the tankers!

In fact this might be a good time to share an anecdote I heard from my great grandad, who was an arty officer in the British army and fought all the way through to the second day of the Somme offensive. I preface this story by disclosing that I have no evidence to support it beyond the word of a very old man who may have had Alzheimer's by the time I was born and was old enough to understand him. Good? Good!
Most of Britain's heavy artillery had to be loaded from the breech (i.e, from the 'back' of the gun). This usually required placing the shell onto the rack and then shoving it up to the firing block with a long metal stick called a 'loading ram'. Traditional British army doctrine required all artillery crews to load and fire a minimum of five shells every minute, which required crews to do speedy work- typically in rotations because slinging 30 pound shells all day is hefty work.
As the war progressed, however, the metal loading rams became increasingly rare and hard to requisition: the army wasn't willing to spare metal sticks to its arty crews if the steel could be put to better use elsewhere. So the crews got wooden sticks instead which didn't last more than a week in the damp conditions of the French countryside. When a wooden loading ram fell apart, getting a new one could take up to a month and of course not having one wasn't an excuse to stop firing a heavy artillery piece. This wouldn't be a problem except that loading a shell without a ram meant that a man would have to place the shell and then physically shove the round onto the block with his own arm. Again, not a problem until one considers that repeated firings would cause the block, as well as the breech, to get pretty fucking hot- hot enough to literally burn the fingers and forearm of whichever poor bastard had the job of loading the shells!
The solution that our intrepid and ever-loyal arty boys came up with? If a loading ram became unusable, the crew would all draw straws and whoever got the shortest straw would take a shot of morphine in his arm and get to work loading the gun while trying not to look at his hand slowly getting burned to a crisp. When that shortest-straw guy's hand literally became unusable because of the burns, the next-shortest straw guy would take over, then the next and so on down the line until the fire order was concluded.
On the second day of the Somme my great granddad happened to pull the shortest and loaded his crew's gun for seven hours straight, likely sparing the rest of his crew from that grim duty for that day. By the end of it, he'd lost his index and ring fingers to gangrene as well as part of his thumb. It also proved to be his ticket home by way of a medical discharge and he never got tired of showing off his mangled hand to anyone who would ask- myself included!
So... that's my fact, I guess. Hope it was an entertaining read.

 

[Albino Boo]

The only point at which the T-34 is qualitatively better would be armament, given that the T.34/85 has an 85mm gun, while the most heavily armed hole-puncher of the Shermans was following the Easy-8 programme with the wide tracks, HVSS suspension, and 76mm gun M1.

The Sherman firefly with the 17pdr gun was the best hole puncher of the Shermans. The 17pdr firing APDS could go through the front armor of even a King Tiger. German standing orders made the firefly a priority target.

 

[MrFalconfly]

The only point at which the T-34 is qualitatively better would be armament, given that the T.34/85 has an 85mm gun, while the most heavily armed hole-puncher of the Shermans was following the Easy-8 programme with the wide tracks, HVSS suspension, and 76mm gun M1.

The Sherman firefly with the 17pdr gun was the best hole puncher of the Shermans. The 17pdr firing APDS could go through the front armor of even a King Tiger. German standing orders made the firefly a priority target.

The APDS of the British 17 Pdr was very good at punching holes. It just had the unfortunate issue, that you couldn't hit the broadside of a barn with it (see the US Army Gun trials at Isigny in France).

Apart from that, the Sherman Firefly itself had horrendous ergonomics compared with the Easy-6 and Easy-8. There was barely any room in the turret for the crew with that massive 17 Pdr in there (not to mention that the gunner basically had to reach up under the roof for the trigger, and down under the gun for elevation and traverse).

The US Army didn't like the Firefly, for the same reason they didn't like the M4A1 Sherman with a 76mm mounted in a quick-fix turret from 1942. They deemed them both combat-ineffective because of terrible ergonomics.

EDIT:

As a Tiger killing stopgap tank, the Firefly was great. However, as a main force tank, the Easy-8 was better. It had better ergonomics, which means the crew can fight more efficiently, and it had better suspension.

Arguably, the British tank at this level (being the M4A3E8, and the T-34/85) wouldn't be the Sherman Firefly, but rather the Tank, Cruiser, Comet Mk I (A34), which had a 77mm HV.

 

[Albino Boo]

The only point at which the T-34 is qualitatively better would be armament, given that the T.34/85 has an 85mm gun, while the most heavily armed hole-puncher of the Shermans was following the Easy-8 programme with the wide tracks, HVSS suspension, and 76mm gun M1.

The Sherman firefly with the 17pdr gun was the best hole puncher of the Shermans. The 17pdr firing APDS could go through the front armor of even a King Tiger. German standing orders made the firefly a priority target.

The APDS of the British 17 Pdr was very good at punching holes. It just had the unfortunate issue, that you couldn't hit the broadside of a barn with it (see the US Army Gun trials at Isigny in France).

Apart from that, the Sherman Firefly itself had horrendous ergonomics compared with the Easy-6 and Easy-8. There was barely any room in the turret for the crew with that massive 17 Pdr in there (not to mention that the gunner basically had to reach up under the roof for the trigger, and down under the gun for elevation and traverse).

The US Army didn't like the Firefly, for the same reason they didn't like the M4A1 Sherman with a 76mm mounted in a quick-fix turret from 1942. They deemed them both combat-ineffective because of terrible ergonomics.

You mean the people that that thought the M10 with paper armor and an open top was effective. All the ergonomics in the world does not mean a thing if you are dead. The difference between able to knock out a tiger and panther at average engagement range and not is the difference between life and death.