Picture of the day
- Thread starter jwhc
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Slow but heavy armor, but none of the armor is sloped and Germany made some of the worlds best anti-tank guns in WW2 so they where easy targets under most circumstances. Early war they where one heck of a monster to kill.
Pic pptys says captured British Churchill tank. Not sure if it is one of the Cdn. tanks captured at Dieppe. Used for propaganda or otherwise?
Almost certainly 'BERT' from the Dieppe raid. (notice the shot marks on the hull) though they did have 28 to choose from, some recovered for the ocean floor. None of the Canadian Churchills were knocked out due to German fire. They were either drowned or threw a track because of the pebbled beach. They continued to fire at the Germans despite being immobilized and in many instances simply couldn't elevate the gun enough to engage useful targets. No Calgary Regiment tankers were killed inside their Churchills.
Were Churchills any good? They were 'infantry' tanks (as opposed to 'cruisers') so their role was to plod at slow speeds alongside infantry. This they did well and their armour made them impervious to anything other than the biggest the Germans could throw at them. They did have one quirk. They were steered by a yoke instead of tiller bars. If the yoke was centred then all was good. However sometimes when the tank was in the shop idling with nobody in the driver's seat, the vibration would tilt the yoke one way or another engaging the drive and the tank would...driverless...start doing spins.
fat tony
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
Read that Woolwich Arsenal came up with the design with Vauxhall selected to make early protoypes & set up production. It was initially thought the European war would quickly enter a static trench warfare phase. Thus the original concept was to have sponson guns, then they changed to the strange set up with the low velocity three inch howitzer in the hull & two pounder in the turret. They even tried a vice versa set up with the turret having the howitzer & the two pounder in the hull. There probably was not one other Allied tank that morphed into so many exotic marks with maybe the exception of the M4. The last gasp of the type was in the Korean War where UN forces were supposedly pleased to have them in the order of battle.Australia requested one for trials & the general concensus was that they would have been ideal for jungle combat. None of them really made it to Pacific combat although the plan was to use them in number there. The Allied intel reports predicted there would be intense combat in Malaya had the Anglo-Japo war continued into 1946 & later. I did not check up on these claims which came from the usual online ource.
The list of Soviet complaints about the version with the hull howitzer said the muzzle blast from the howitzer would end up tearing the fwd track fenders off the hull!
The list of Soviet complaints about the version with the hull howitzer said the muzzle blast from the howitzer would end up tearing the fwd track fenders off the hull!
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fat tony
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
There is the hull of an old forgotten fishing trawler on the Dartmouth waterfront that got this treatment. Not much to look at. In addition there is a weird manmade spit of land jutting out from the Dartmouth side of the harbour generally pointing to the main shipping channel. It appears to have been cnstrctd of large rocks about four feet across along with misc. dirt. Iirc it was to do with the heyday of transatlantic cables. When I was a youth it was a source of mystery & speculation for me. It is maybe 500 m × fifty metres.
Dark Alley Dan
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Darkest Edmonton
Motor Gun Boat 502, Royal Navy:
Badass little thing. No torpedos, plenty of guns. If you ever get a chance to read up on Tommy Fuller, DSC and two bars, Pirate of the Adriatic, you should. An Ottawa lad in the service of the RN. Liked to board boats at night and take the boat, the crew, and the cargo back to base. Didn't have an eypatch, but really should have.
Badass little thing. No torpedos, plenty of guns. If you ever get a chance to read up on Tommy Fuller, DSC and two bars, Pirate of the Adriatic, you should. An Ottawa lad in the service of the RN. Liked to board boats at night and take the boat, the crew, and the cargo back to base. Didn't have an eypatch, but really should have.
Just under an hour, but a really interesting look at the development of gunships during Vietnam. I'd thought that the AC-130 was a post-Vietnam development, but it had actually been through several iterations, up to what is its most common current armament, by the end of the war, used for raiding the supply lines of the Ho Chi Ming trail.
Worth the watch if you have the time. Would really be nice to see the whole "Wings" series remastered in HD.
Worth the watch if you have the time. Would really be nice to see the whole "Wings" series remastered in HD.
The Stinger! Take an ANM2 Browning from an aircraft and slap the rear stock off an M1 Garand and the Bipod from a Browning BAR and you have this wonderful USMC invention!
I wonder what the poor bastard who had to lug it around thought of it? The Army had a similar 'lightweight' version of the Browning .30 MG.
Rate of fire about 1000 rpm, if I recall correctly, would have been entertaining.
Grizz
Not much heavier than a C5 which was very heavy to haul around........
fat tony
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
Motor Gun Boat 502, Royal Navy:
Badass little thing. No torpedos, plenty of guns. If you ever get a chance to read up on Tommy Fuller, DSC and two bars, Pirate of the Adriatic, you should. An Ottawa lad in the service of the RN. Liked to board boats at night and take the boat, the crew, and the cargo back to base. Didn't have an eypatch, but really should have.
I am supposing part of their job was plucking surviving Allied aircrew out of the water? Must have been violent waters in those uncertain days.
fat tony
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
I guess it is a memorial of the man who wielded one in the Pacific war. Not sure if he was the only one who had the light bulb come on about using it in this capacity. This gallant chap died while on a patrol.
Corporal Tony Stein.
Recent ceremony commemorating Corporal Tony Stein. Dayton's only Medal of Honor recipient in WWII.
An article on the anm2 .30/06 - they were used in .303 by the RAF during the Battle of Britain - if I am not mistaken.
https://www.americanrifleman.org/ar...power-in-the-pacific-the-stinger-machine-gun/
It is a shocking indictment of the corruption of the US arms procurement establishment in that era that US soldiers did not get a BAR with blatantly obvious and badly needed mod of quick change barrel.
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Rate of fire about 1000 rpm, if I recall correctly, would have been entertaining.
Grizz
1,350 rpm from what I read
Dark Alley Dan
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Darkest Edmonton
Yep, and raising hell wherever they could.
Little ships seem to engender a degree of "lateral thinking". The crews seem to have been pretty innovative and showed gobs of initiative.
Dark Alley Dan
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Darkest Edmonton
"OK, here's the plan - we mount rockets on a bren gun carrier. Then, using those rockets, we launch the carrier over obstacles. The Major says it'll work for sure. Ready?"
"Anyone seen the Major?"
