Picture of the day

Dark Alley Dan said:
Lighting people on fire is a hell of a way to kill them, and while killing most folks, no matter the method, is pretty much the definition of "inhumane", there are methods that are more inhumane than others. Killing people with fire is goddamned cruel, no matter the delivery method.
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I give you thermobaric munitions, the modern day version of napalm and flamethrowers.
 
fat tony said:
WWII media - often recycled. . .

Anschlusstears.jpg
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Sudeten German weeping with joy over German troops enter Czech. The lesson is never divide ethnic groups amount nation States, it's the pretext for the next war. Witness Ukraine.
 
^Yep, that was my point in posting it. This edited pic was widely publicized through massively distributed copies of the coffee table war #### book: "Life Goes to War" in the pre internet historical period. IIRC, in that publication, it was implied the woman was crying at being forced to give the 3rd Reich salute to the mean conquering Germans. The original pic has a # of citizens to her right and left who are laughing with joy while saluting. WWII era media is often not a reliable source of accurate historical information. Queue the Captain Obvious memes.
 
Dark Alley Dan said:
True, and so equally horrible, just more effective.

Lighting people on fire is a hell of a way to kill them, and while killing most folks, no matter the method, is pretty much the definition of "inhumane", there are methods that are more inhumane than others. Killing people with fire is goddamned cruel, no matter the delivery method.

Anyhow, pictures. I'm sure the French appreciated having captured French tanks included in the victory parade in Paris in 1940...

german-victory-parade-wwii-drcw2t.jpg


Name that tank.
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All true but... Always a but. Say you are fighting in the Pacific. You clear out a pill box with conventional weapons, still ugly, and 5 minutes later the Japs are shooting into your back from the same pillbox. You can use a flamethrower and not get shot in the back afterwards. What would you do? Defensive emplacements where often set up with walls corners etc so grenades, satchel bombs and the like were of limited effectiveness. Flamethrowers would deal with this. Yes flamethrowers suck but I would rather burn the enemy than die myself. It is very easy to say what is appropriate when you own life is not on the line. Remember the Japanese military was very brutal and certainly didn't adhere to the rules of war. They killed pretty much everyone including their own soldiers and would rather die than surrender. I find it tough to find fault with the use of whatever weapon will minimize casualties on your own side..
 
Did Canada last use the lifebuoy flamethrowers, or the US style flamethrowers? It would be interesting to know if any are still in the C.A.F. supply system.

Until recent times, the Army still had access to the 60 mm mortar & white smoke rounds. To my mind the combination was ideal for certain types of requirements. However, Canada's high command in combination with CF defence contractors decided the 60 mm was useless, to be replaced with fancy 40mm grenade launchers. I am glad I won't ever have to find out the hard way which weapon system is real world and which is a fantasy.
 
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"Don't shoot! Let 'em burn!" American GI on Omaha Beach in 'Saving Private Ryan' after a German bunker was hit with a flamethrower.

Nothing nice about ANY aspect of war. I just finished a very good account of the battle of Midway. THOUSANDS of USN and Japanese Imperial Navy sailors died terrible deaths, trapped below decks in stricken ships, many sealed off by their own Officers in attempts at saving others. That is not a way I'd like to die.

"No poor bastard ever saved his county by dying for it. He did so by making the other poor bastard die for his." Paraphrasing General Patton USA

War is hell. Those that don't want to play, feel free to leave the dirty work to those who can hack it. And thank God for them!
 
fat tony said:
Did Canada last use the lifebuoy flamethrowers, or the US style flamethrowers? It would be interesting to know if any are still in the C.A.F. supply system.

Until recent times, the Army still had access to the 60 mm mortar & white smoke rounds. To my mind the combination was tailor made for clearing out bunkers. However, Canada's high command in combination with CF defence contractors decided the 60 mm was useless. I am glad I won't ever have to find out the hard way which weapon system is real world and which is a fantasy.
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We haven't used them for a long time. When I was serving in 1 Bde HQ in Calgary 40+ years ago I got a call from a guy in the oil business who wanted to borrow one to clear the weeds off of the berms surrounding some bulk oil tanks. I suggested that he might try some less aggressive method as oil and flame don't go too well together. ;)
 
donor said:
Somua S-35.Likely one of the best allied tanks in 1940 but in essence upsized,upgunned and much better armored successor of FT-17 idea.Good for WW1,not very good for much faster WW2.
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It's a 1930s tank used as intended in 1940 (not counting Axis use), not a 1944 or 1945 tank. I am not accusing you of this, but all too often you see misinformed people comparing infantry tanks to cavalry tanks to light tanks, and tanks from later eras with ones from earlier eras, all the while thinking their comparisons are just fine.
 
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RRCo. said:
Not surprising since it was the "Vlasov Army" or "Russian Liberation Army" (ROA) which liberated the city, more than the mostly communistic partisans, who then turned on the ROA men and began seizing them and handing them over to the Soviets. A lot good that did the Czechs.
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The "Vlasov Army" consisted of captured soviet troops who switched sides and put on German uniforms. They signed their own death warrants the minute they did that. Whatever played out in Prague was merely an interlude before their inevitable demise.
 
When you look at the numbers, the 'western' front was a side show. Might have been a 'bigger' sideshow if the 'united nations' in Italy hadn't occupied as much of the German capacity as it did.
 
Sharps '63 said:
So how do you feel about air dropped Napalm? What's the difference other than the method of delivery? Both capitalize on the human fear of death by fire.
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somewhere I read that the incendiary bombs dropped at Dresden were mixed with HE to amplify the effect and hasten the firestorm..many civilians were caught in the blast area of the incendiary devices and as a result had the material (I presume phosphorous) imbedded in and under their skin. To escape the extraordinary pain of the material literally burning in their bodies they went to a river where they tried to stay immersed in the water to prevent the material from burning while German medical personnel attempted to find a treatment...eventually they were euthanized (shot) to put them out of the misery!
 
grelmar said:
The "Vlasov Army" consisted of captured soviet troops who switched sides and put on German uniforms. They signed their own death warrants the minute they did that. Whatever played out in Prague was merely an interlude before their inevitable demise.
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You would have to know a good deal about Russian and Soviet history to put those facts in any perspective. I'm not to going offer a seminar, but all Soviet PoWs were told they were traitors just for being captured. Maybe start with "Against Stalin and Hitler", by Wilfred Strik-Strikfeldt. You can probably get it on inter-library loan.

Most ex-PoWs got at least 10 years in the GULAG if they survived to be recaptured. There was a battalion of Georgian volunteers" on Texel Island who turned on the Germans in 1945. Ostensibly the Soviet Government treated them like heroes, but the fate of the the remaining 200 when they got home I don't know. Apparently they got special treatment by virtue of being Georgians like Stalin and Beria and because the regime didn't want western Europeans to figure out how such people were really handled.

If you have the Gulag Achipelago by Solzhenitsyn there's quite a bit in there too. "The Minister and The Massacres", and "The Last Secret" are a couple of other titles off the top.

Once the Russians found out what the Germans had planned for them, they fought for their country. Most were not fighting for the regime at all, most secretly hated it. Even in 1943 hundreds of recently captured Russian officers signed up for a "Russian Liberation Army" Think about it: 1943.
 
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