Picture of the day

Jim, we can tell that you were Air Force from the position of your left hand on that weapon. :p According to the BREN Pam, "The left hand should grasp the small of the butt with an overhand grip of the fingers, and with the thumb underneath". Good on you and I hope that you get to try it out again.

I served from 1964 to 1996 and have worked for the Army as a civvy contractor doing simulation and events based based tactical training for the past 18 years. Over the past 50 years I have known and worked with three generations of soldiers incl the WW2 and Korea vets who were the officers and Snr NCOs in my early years, my own generation and today's generation, some of whom were the sons and daughters of my contemporaries and who now wear stars.

We are all products of our time, so it's tough to make across the board comparisons about the motivation and proficiency of generation A versus generation B or C. I learned a huge amount from those old vets and I like to think that I was always smart enough to shut my cakehole and listen to what they had to say. They were great teachers and a big help. They had their own share of dead wood, but on balance they were great. I can still remember one major, a vet of the Italian and NW Europe campaigns, who was my boss back in the '60s. He was a drunk, never a falling down billy- goat type of drunk, but he did have a drinking problem for sure as he used to go for lunch in the officer's mess bar every day and have 3 whiskies and 2 beers in addition to his standard hamburger and fries. I always marvelled at how effective he was after lunch and used to wonder what he would have been like had he not been such a lush. I have to admit that I was pretty unforgiving with the "boozy browns" during my time and I think that there is much less toleration for it today. A man is better ahead to go home to his family after work instead of pi$$ing it up in the mess every day. One thing is for sure, the big personnel cuts of the early '90s forced everybody out into the light and there were few places left for the drunks, welfare cases, the fatties and the sick lame and lazy to hide. Carrying these people along meant that somebody else was going to do their deployment or overseas tour for them and that became painfully obvious to everyone. I had a number of heart to heart talks with my troops around this time and told them to be honest with themselves and everybody else and urged them to leave if they were not in a position to serve without restriction, because they were eventually going to get caught and go for the chop.

I've tremendously enjoyed working with the soldiers of the past 3 generations and I have to say that I find the young officers and NCOs of today to be fit, bright, focussed and well motivated. I feel that they are more than up to carrying on the traditions of yesterday and that we are in good hands with them. Admittedly, I only see them on the job and don't need to deal with personnel problems any more. No doubt these are still there. They always will be, but I'm pretty satisfied with what I see on the overall.

Back to the C2 versus BREN. I often though that it was a pretty stunning decision for us to abandon the BREN for the C2 so soon after all of the painful lessons of WW2 and Korea on how much more effective an LMG or any air cooled MG is when it fires from an open bolt and has a quick change barrel feature to keep it cooled down in protracted fire (check "yes" for the BREN, check "no" for the C2).
 
SNOW

Men training at Shilo, Manitoba in Canadian snowsuits, 20Mar45.
 
Ganderite said:
I wonder if the cadets today get to shoot some real guns?

I had done a lot of shooting by the time I joined cadets, but I still have good clear memories of cadet shooting. Fond memories.
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When i was in during the 80's we shot the LE #7, LE #4, and the C1. (1984-1990) Now adays, they mostly shoot air rifles, and the Army cadets will get to shoot C7's at summer camps (I believe)
 
Sharps '63 said:
There is a recently released book by a Canadian author on the raison d'etre behind the Dieppe raid - the capture of an Enigma code machine. Well worth reading.
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interesting, by the time of Dieppe didn't "we" already have 2 or three captured from weather stations or supplied by the Poles?
 
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Chuck3436 said:
I'm here for pictures, not cranky old men trying to argue who has longer stretched out balls playing hero on the internet.

Take your walker back to the old folks home and show some respect to our modern forces, of whom there are many on this board.

Insulting troops because you think you have more machismo got passe soon after vietnam vs the ww2 vets

Get with the times old man.
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Going to have to give you a thumbs up friend, I hear 'Old timer ' stories all the time at work. When other folks tell them about someone they carry weight ; when you tell them about yourself....strictly lost glory days is all.
 
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Donny Fenn1 said:
interesting, by the time of Dieppe didn't "we" already have 2 or three captured from weather stations or supplied by the Poles?
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Yes we did, by that time we had an early one from the Poles, 3 or more advanced (extra encoding wheel installed) captured from subs and weather stations and one from a radar station. That was not the purpose of Dieppe. Dieppe was propaganda and Mountbatten career managing exercise, nothing more. The intent was to prove that joint ops was meaningful even under a commander whose only prior command experience was losing his destroyer to aircraft. As intended with battleship and air support, it would have been easy in, easy out. But the RCN would not committ their battle wagons and RAF would not draw planes from defense of UK or the Germany bombing to support the operation. So the op was not joint and the troops landed after a small bombardment of light cruisers that did not suppress anything but did wake up every German for 10 miles around. The result is now history. The only good thing that came out of it was Mountbatten was sent to Asia and Joint Ops was given back to SHAEF with all USA, UK and Canadian services alloted to Joint Ops were made subordinate to Joint Ops Comd.
 
Right........

Ever heard of the strategic corporal? That is a new TV/Internet based concept that didnt exist 20 years ago.

or the fact the average soldiers humps a ton more gear than 4-6 mags in webbing with no hard plates and khaki jackets.

If 90% of modern soldiers couldn't qual as jumpers/pathfinders/JTF, how on earth are the ranks of those companies not filled with 59 year olds?

Hold onto old glory and dismiss the new. That will serve you well.
Donald Mackenzie said:
Most of those old hacks, would out soldier....... All of the today overweight wimpy soldiers, Not talking about JTF2, or Para ,Pathfinders. Which 90%% of you Modern soldiers would NOT be able to quantity for, There was nothing wrong with the C2 or the GPMG, Maybe to heavy for the Modern Girl Type soldiers. In 1974 in Cyprus,2CDO had to send a patrol out to rid the area of snipers, Of 10 men on the Patrol 6 carried C2s, There were no more sniper Action, after Patrol came back.
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Sharps '63 said:
Read the book. I loaned mine out or I'd give you the ISBN number and correct title. You'll be even more proud to be Canadian.
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"Enigma Pinch" theory

Research undertaken over a 15-year period by military historian David O'Keefe uncovered 100,000 pages of classified British military archival files that documented a "pinch" mission overseen by Ian Fleming (best known later as author of the James Bond action espionage books), that coincided with the Dieppe Raid. No. 30 Commandos were sent into Dieppe to steal one of the new German 4-rotor Enigma code machines, plus associated code books and rotor setting sheets. The Naval Intelligence Division (NID) planned the "pinch" raid with the intention to pass such items to cryptanalysts at Bletchley Park to assist with the Ultra project.[32] The presence of other troops landing at Dieppe was to provide support and create a distraction for the commando units attempting to reach the German admiralty headquarters and capture the Enigma machine.

The introduction of a 4th rotor in 1942 was preventing cryptanalysis of the German naval Enigma, and led to a strong resurgence in German U-Boat attacks on the vital Atlantic convoys coming from North America. Thus the Allies were eager to get their hands on one to discover (and exploit) any weaknesses in the new system. However, the raid was a failure and no machine was obtained. The new German naval Enigma code was not cracked until December of that year and was of the most serious concern, as Britain would have literally starved without the food-stocks arriving by naval convoy.
 
Holy hell, that's a lot of jawing in a pic thread, more so in one ostensibly dedicated to WW2 pics and conversation about them.

Here, look at this.

bren04.jpg


As a dedicated cyclist, I find perverse pleasure in this... :)
 
I saw the movie, "The Imitation Game", which centers on the efforts to crack the Enigma code, on the weekend. There was the usual amount of Hollywood license taken, but overall I thought that it was a pretty good flick. It sure caught the sense of urgency and out of the box thinking that was involved in breaking the code. It was focussed around a portrayal of Alan Turing, the complex English mathematical genius who was instrumental in doing this. I'd recommend it.
 
Dark Alley Dan said:
Holy hell, that's a lot of jawing in a pic thread, more so in one ostensibly dedicated to WW2 pics and conversation about them.

Here, look at this.

bren04.jpg


As a dedicated cyclist, I find perverse pleasure in this... :)
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As an avid recreational cyclist, I also find perverse pleasure in this!

What would modern hipsters think of these guys pioneering the original fixie single gear/no brakes bikes :p
 
My Grandfather was a pilot / navigator. He then flew a transport glider mission to Crete, transporting radar equipment along with the enigma machine. His mission changed to command the radar base. He was in charge of the enigma code machine that was later destroyed along with the base (demolition). The next order was to march back to Germany to fight the Russians.
His memoir describes the Enigma in great detail.

This is a photo from my grandfathers plane he piloted. Photo taken by the gunner/recon photographer. I posted this in another thread not to long ago

Fliegergruppe Cottbus, Staffel II, 19/10.35 (19/10/1935)
Pre-war monoplanes: Heinkel He-46c reconnaissance fighter, aka: "the flying cloths line". Unarmed in this photo.
location of the photo: Fürth Germany.

 
fraserdw said:
"Enigma Pinch" theory

Research undertaken over a 15-year period by military historian David O'Keefe uncovered 100,000 pages of classified British military archival files that documented a "pinch" mission overseen by Ian Fleming (best known later as author of the James Bond action espionage books), that coincided with the Dieppe Raid. No. 30 Commandos were sent into Dieppe to steal one of the new German 4-rotor Enigma code machines, plus associated code books and rotor setting sheets. The Naval Intelligence Division (NID) planned the "pinch" raid with the intention to pass such items to cryptanalysts at Bletchley Park to assist with the Ultra project.[32] The presence of other troops landing at Dieppe was to provide support and create a distraction for the commando units attempting to reach the German admiralty headquarters and capture the Enigma machine.

The introduction of a 4th rotor in 1942 was preventing cryptanalysis of the German naval Enigma, and led to a strong resurgence in German U-Boat attacks on the vital Atlantic convoys coming from North America. Thus the Allies were eager to get their hands on one to discover (and exploit) any weaknesses in the new system. However, the raid was a failure and no machine was obtained. The new German naval Enigma code was not cracked until December of that year and was of the most serious concern, as Britain would have literally starved without the food-stocks arriving by naval convoy.
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True. The point the book made was that the message of the Dieppe raid being a dress rehearsal for D-Day was a lie. The raid was also a prime example of a snafu going fubar once the start line of a military mission is crossed.
 
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