Picture of the day

moonshot5 said:
A lot of pictures here...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukn...tmans-salvaged-WW1-archive.html?frame=2861436

DUSTMAN-BOMB_2861420k.jpg


A German soldier from the 2nd Battalion - 236 at the Somme

DUSTMAN-COSTUME_2861428k.jpg



Pictured here is a Royal Engineer in a 'home' made winter coat - probably a goat - taken in the winter of 1914/15 before winter coats were issued to soldiers
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Are we sure the coat is home made? I swear I've seen pics of troopies kitted like this...I think it's issue. Now that I think about it, I'll swear officers also wore a shoulder type cape of the same skin. Same, just shorter.

Hang on {stretching arms to begin googlefu}

*edit* Re: Questions on the German shell. I believe BRN big guns were 16"
 
Sharps '63 said:
I apologize to machman and any others who might have taken offence at my remarks. I tend to judge myself and others by a harsh yardstick. Self discipline was instilled in me early in life and became a corner stone of my being, along with taking individual responsibility for my life choices. This was reinforced by Regular Army service where "Not On My Watch" meant what it said - NO Excuses!
And yes, I have read from Nietzsche and von Clausewitz. Perfect philosophy with little or no practical application outside of the military, just as much liberal philosophy has little to no bearing on the military.
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I think you're bang on with your health advice. I don't do anything as challenging as you, but I've read of quite a few people who "cured themselves" of cancer by exercise and diet. The human body was not made to vegetate; we become congested and you might say 'constipated' on a cellular level when we don't move. Our lymphatic system has no heart to pump it around, it has only one way valves and it moves only when our bodily movement forces it to. Going for decades with minimal physical exercise is a recipe for ill health. It's nothing but abuse of the most amazing thing on the planet.
 
mkrnel said:
I also wonder how many veteran's bring back handguns and other collectables went into the trash and then landfill when the veteran passed on and his widow just wanted to quickly dispose of his old "Junk".
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Well, I know a certain country where those old widows are actively encouraged right now to turn in veteran 'bringback' handguns and rifles to be sent to the smelters so as to "get them off the streets"...
 
screwtape said:
Drache, any information to go with that photo about who those guys are and why they have that little deer rifle attached to the sidecar?
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Nimbus motorcycle with Dutch troops and a Madsen 20mm cannon mounted on the sidecar. Could be fired from the sidecar or taken off and mounted on the tripod.

Nimbus2_zpsb5384f37.jpg

Nimbus20mm3_zpsb82de45d.jpg
 
Nimbus was an interesting motorcycle. Danish, locally-made, had a 4-cylinder motor which changed configurations a few times over the years.

At the time that one was built, they had an OHC engine but no oiling to the head. There was a spring-clip rivetted to the strap-iron frame of the bike, clamped this oil-can onto the bike. You stopped the machine every few miles and squirted some oil onto the camshaft and valve-train.

Still, they were a nice sidecar machine and could pull all day.

They were smooth and VERY quiet.

Today, there are few enough of them left but the few which remain are treasured and sometimes you will see one, looking like new, whispering along the street.




BTW, Jerry in a previous photo was exhibiting a 38cm shell. Fifteen inches. British had a couple of siege batteries of 15-inchers in France. I have some photos around here of them firing; have to get Janice to post them for me. Oops! That's out, it seems. Oh, well.....
 
drache said:
Nimbus motorcycle with Dutch troops and a Madsen 20mm cannon mounted on the sidecar. Could be fired from the sidecar or taken off and mounted on the tripod.

Nimbus2_zpsb5384f37.jpg

Nimbus20mm3_zpsb82de45d.jpg
Click to expand...

smellie said:
Nimbus was an interesting motorcycle. Danish, locally-made, had a 4-cylinder motor which changed configurations a few times over the years.

At the time that one was built, they had an OHC engine but no oiling to the head. There was a spring-clip rivetted to the strap-iron frame of the bike, clamped this oil-can onto the bike. You stopped the machine every few miles and squirted some oil onto the camshaft and valve-train.

Still, they were a nice sidecar machine and could pull all day.

They were smooth and VERY quiet.

Today, there are few enough of them left but the few which remain are treasured and sometimes you will see one, looking like new, whispering along the street.




BTW, Jerry in a previous photo was exhibiting a 38cm shell. Fifteen inches. British had a couple of siege batteries of 15-inchers in France. I have some photos around here of them firing; have to get Janice to post them for me. Oops! That's out, it seems. Oh, well.....
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Thanks for the info guys. Neat old bike and that brings a new meaning to the term "mobile AA". Not to mention being a really heavy machine-gun for your infantry squad support.

What era is that? 1930s or immediate post-WW2?

Oh, and Smellie, how long is Janice out for?
 
During the Crimean War, the Brits acquired 'local pattern' kit to outfit soldiers unprepared for the Crimean winter. Fenton photographed many Officers and OR's wearing "Poshteens" of sheep and goat skins.
No less a personage than Lord Roberts wore a Poshteen on the NW Frontier.

plinker 777 said:
Are we sure the coat is home made? I swear I've seen pics of troopies kitted like this...I think it's issue. Now that I think about it, I'll swear officers also wore a shoulder type cape of the same skin. Same, just shorter.
Click to expand...
 
drache said:
Nimbus motorcycle with Dutch troops and a Madsen 20mm cannon mounted on the sidecar. Could be fired from the sidecar or taken off and mounted on the tripod.

Nimbus2_zpsb5384f37.jpg

Nimbus20mm3_zpsb82de45d.jpg
Click to expand...
The Nimbus is a very interesting looking bike. As smllie said, exposed lifters that needed oiling and the #3 piston had the habit of burning out as it was getting all the heat from the 2 in front and the one in the rear. They look like a farmer had made it out of strap iron laying around the yard. I would give my eye teeth for one.
 
Sharps '63 said:
During the Crimean War, the Brits acquired 'local pattern' kit to outfit soldiers unprepared for the Crimean winter. Fenton photographed many Officers and OR's wearing "Poshteens" of sheep and goat skins.
No less a personage than Lord Roberts wore a Poshteen on the NW Frontier.
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I've seen these Poshteens as well {though I didn't know what they were called}, but these "bunny" coats are what I was thinking of. This one is sheepskin, but I've seen the longer haired goat on artillery gunners from WW1 as well.
images


According to the attachments information, the overcoats were abandoned by the British Army early in the war in favor of a lined insulated leather overcoat (I always thought the "Great Coat" was wool!?}...anyhow, I can't imagine an overcoat like these were serviceable/useful in the mud of trench war. I can also recall the same type of coat that was perhaps sleeveless verses a "cape", amongst period gun crews.
 
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infideleggwelder said:
shell_shocked_reindeer.jpg

that looks like Beaumont -Hamel, that is definitely a caribou, with some photoshop planes etc whatever in there.
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Actually, it is a Reindeer...

The photo is a composite, of different photos the battle of Murmansk. Yevgeny Khaldei was a photographer for the Red Army, and it later came out that he had a penchant for "dramatizing" photos and/or enhancing them by making composites.

http://iconicphotos.wordpress.com/2009/05/21/shellshocked-reindeermurmansk/

...it was faked, according to “Witness to History: The Photographs of Yevgeny Khaldei”. During the bombing, a reindeer (later named Yasha) came out to be with the soldiers–the shellshocked creature didn’t want to be alone. During one of the air raids,Khaldei took the reindeer shot, but it wasn’t as dramatic as he assumed, so he later superimposed British Hawker Hurricanes, flown by RAF pilots to relieve Murmansk, and an exploding bomb to form a composite image.
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His most famous photo, "The raising of Red Flag over the Reichstag" was also staged - The actual first flag rasing had taken place two days earlier, but no one had been around to photograph it. Khaldei supposedly had 3 tablecloths he hauled around with him, that he had dyed red and painted a hammer and sickle on - that he would tie to whatever handy stick was lying around, hand to the nearest soldier, and get them to pose dramatically on/near whatever recent landmark had been conquered.

In a way, the "fakeness" of the photo tells a more interesting story than if it was genuine. It's a very good example of the propaganda uses that photos were put to, even back then. We tend to think of photo-shopping as a new thing, but photographers have been up to hi-jinks since, well, the dawn of photography. Add in political motivation and, you get a shot like this:

reichstag_original.jpg
 
grelmar said:
Actually, it is a Reindeer...

The photo is a composite, of different photos the battle of Murmansk. Yevgeny Khaldei was a photographer for the Red Army, and it later came out that he had a penchant for "dramatizing" photos and/or enhancing them by making composites.

His most famous photo, "The raising of Red Flag over the Reichstag" was also staged - The actual first flag rasing had taken place two days earlier, but no one had been around to photograph it. Khaldei supposedly had 3 tablecloths he hauled around with him, that he had dyed red and painted a hammer and sickle on - that he would tie to whatever handy stick was lying around, hand to the nearest soldier, and get them to pose dramatically on/near whatever recent landmark had been conquered.

In a way, the "fakeness" of the photo tells a more interesting story than if it was genuine. It's a very good example of the propaganda uses that photos were put to, even back then. We tend to think of photo-shopping as a new thing, but photographers have been up to hi-jinks since, well, the dawn of photography. Add in political motivation and, you get a shot like this:

reichstag_original.jpg
Click to expand...

What's quite interesting is when you ignore the 'flag raising' and look at the streets in the distant background. You can see vehicles, people walking across the streets at what looks like a normal pace, and clumps of people elsewhere. Obviously nobody is either under fire or even concerned about snipers anymore ... which would strongly suggest that that story is absolutely correct and this is a 'reenactment' taking place several days after the fighting in the area had ended.
 
grelmar said:
His most famous photo, "The raising of Red Flag over the Reichstag" was also staged - The actual first flag rasing had taken place two days earlier, but no one had been around to photograph it
Click to expand...

The first time the flag was placed was at the end of April but it was done at night. The Germans captured that flag. Days later the Russians controlled the entire building and Khaldei went to the roof with two soldiers to place a new flag.

The same sort of deal happened with the famous flag raising at Iwo Jima by US Marines.
 
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