Picture of the day

AP said:
I believe those are jodhpurs and would extend to ankle height - they would be tight fitting from the knee to ankle (usually no puttees) to avoid chaffing while mounted (presumably on a horse or polo pony) — there are also riding breeches that end around the knee and use a tight fitting high boot (but I have also seen knee high puttees substituted for full wellingtons which are expensive) - either way they would be worn by ‘mounted’ troops. This form of dress is sometimes carried over by cavalry/armoured units whose officers would claim to bring ‘tone’ to a battlefield without which it would ‘simply be a common brawl’ — pompous aholes!! ���� There are photos of Patton wearing jodhpurs — in deference to his riding prowess (he was a very capable military pentathlete) AND also to his cavalry/armoured service.
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The soldier on the left is definitely wearing puttees. You can see the wraps. I believe that Italian infantry wore puttees as well.
 
Ganderite said:
I recall dropping practice depth charges from a RCAF Neptune in the 60's. It carried several pounds of high explosive. After a few direct hits on our target subs (RCN) that did some damage, the payload was reduced to about 1.5 pounds. Still a significant bang.

We used them for practice. Not used in conjunction with a sonobouy.

OUR PDCs had a safety wire, so were safe until deliberately dropped. They could be dropped "safe" too (jettisoned).
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One & one half lbs is approaching 81mm shell territory. Thank you for the scarce info on these munitions. It appears they were dual use. I do not know whether the device in the CWM link is of the type in the nefarious incident. It seems at some point a sonobuoy incorporating an explosive charge was adopted.
 
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Sharps '74 said:
The soldier on the left is definitely wearing puttees. You can see the wraps. I believe that Italian infantry wore puttees as well.
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yes you are right — puttees. Well quite interesting trousers! Of course, as you know, the Canadian Infantry (and other Corps) also wore puttees - I still have a few sets of ‘Fox’ puttees.
 
AP said:
yes you are right — puttees. Well quite interesting trousers! Of course, as you know, the Canadian Infantry (and other Corps) also wore puttees - I still have a few sets of ‘Fox’ puttees.
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Guy Simonds was big on aping the Brits and started the Cdn Guards as well as the puttees. I hated the stretchy issue OD puttees and was happy to buy and wear the wool Fox puttees when I was commissioned.
 
purple said:
Guy Simonds was big on aping the Brits and started the Cdn Guards as well as the puttees. I hated the stretchy issue OD puttees and was happy to buy and wear the wool Fox puttees when I was commissioned.
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When I joined the Milita in 1971 , as the Army Reserve was called in those days , we were wore battledress for parade , with puttees, and trouser weights , and a web belt with the regimental cap badge , where it hooked together
 
purple said:
Guy Simonds was big on aping the Brits and started the Cdn Guards as well as the puttees. I hated the stretchy issue OD puttees and was happy to buy and wear the wool Fox puttees when I was commissioned.
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I dont believe Gen Simmonds was alone in emulating the Brits. I found numerous receipts in my fathers records including several from Burberry’s for a ‘Trench coat’ dated 1941 - at that time I think most officers were picking up numerous bits and pieces of British sourced kit .. even shooting sticks were pretty much de rigueur for officers on tewts. Even F&S fighting knives were acquired/issued to Canadians.
General Simonds was my first Hon Col. - he had married the widow of a former Regimental officer which made him a member of ‘the family’ as it were. I had very little contact with him as you may imagine but I was impressed with his effort to engage in discussions with very junior officers and liked him.
 
fat tony said:
Lest we forget. They were not really practice depth charges, they were part of the active sonar weapon system, it was possibly a way to throw the enemy off although the concept is similar to seismic survey technology which is common knowledge.
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The technique is called explosive echo ranging whereby small explosive charges were used to create a sound source that could be bounced off a target submarine and the echo used to triangulate it's position with passive sonobuoys. As in the Jezebel and Julie system.
 
Apparently it was optimal in very deep water, not so good for use in shallower waters. I did skim some info where it was claimed the Russians at least developed a version of active sonar more suited to shallower waters.

ASW is a very interesting area of weapons technology. A lot of systems must work flawlessly together to get the result which is a shattered submarine heading to the bottom with the crew. It is largely out of sight, out of mind for a good percentage of society.

The series of incidents in Swedish littoral waters in the late Cold War come to mind. There was a good deal of speculation with Swedish authorities remaining largely silent on the details.

They did manage to force a Soviet sub into a shallow area where it became lodged on a shoal for a time. I guess this qualifies as one of the more questionable incidents of that era.
 
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I wore the Uniform between 1957 and 1963.
Royal Rifles of Canada.

I still suffer from poor circulation in my legs.
The cause...Puttees wound too tight, to keep the trouser weights from dropping out the bottom.
But.... We did look pretty sharp on parade Eh!

x westie said:
When I joined the Milita in 1971 , as the Army Reserve was called in those days , we were wore battledress for parade , with puttees, and trouser weights , and a web belt with the regimental cap badge , where it hooked together
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fat tony said:
Apparently it was optimal in very deep water, not so good for use in shallower waters. I did skim some info where it was claimed the Russians at least developed a version of active sonar more suited to shallower waters.

ASW is a very interesting area of weapons technology. A lot of systems must work flawlessly together to get the result which is a shattered submarine heading to the bottom with the crew. It is largely out of sight, out of mind for a good percentage of society.

The series of incidents in Swedish littoral waters in the late Cold War come to mind. There was a good deal of speculation with Swedish authorities remaining largely silent on the details.

They did manage to force a Soviet sub into a shallow area where it became lodged on a shoal for a time. I guess this qualifies as one of the more questionable incidents of that era.
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In Canada, our planes carried depth charges (WW2 surplus), an active torp, a passive torp and 2 pods of FFAR rockets with anti-tank warheads. It was a difficult task to kill a sub.

The Americans, flying the same aircraft as us, also carried a nuclear depth charge. This is a game changer. Close is good enough.

I was annoyed that we had nuclear warheads for anti-aircraft but not for anti-sub.

I have a picture somewhere that I took from the glass nose of a Neptune. It had 2 HUGE radial engines, plus 2 small jet engines we used for take off and climb power.

Our attack altitude was 20 feet. A sub would not see much of us, until it was too late. We would be doing around 350 mph.

At 20 feet we had to pull up a bit to turn.

350 mph at 20 feet is a rush. We left a rooster tail.
 
For the picture of the troops in the ruins of Pompei, they are Italian and German. The Italian troops can be distinguished by the puttee’s and their version of the side hats.
 
Reminds me of the Pictures on the wall at the old DCRA clubhouse in Connaught.
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If this was an American campaign you would not hear the end of it. Ironically the Canadian Army units were sent to fight in NW Europe before the Italian campaign ran its course. Eventually Canadian Army units advanced into an area with a confusing maze of valleys, gulleys, swamps, ridges, etc. Canadian and German units literally ran into each other with no warning. Madness. It is a crime info on the battles is not so easy to find.
 
fat tony said:
Apparently it was optimal in very deep water, not so good for use in shallower waters. I did skim some info where it was claimed the Russians at least developed a version of active sonar more suited to shallower waters.
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The problem with sonar generally in shallow water, whether active or passive, is that there are many variables that interfere with the efficient propagation of sound. Rocky, uneven bottoms that you tend to see in shallow water leads to scattering and reverberation effects. There also tends to be a lot of ambient noise, such as wave action, in shallow water. If it is shallow water along a coast, for example, with a lot of freshwater entering the ocean, you can get wide variations in temperature and salinity. Which also affects the propagation of sound.
 
fat tony said:
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If this was an American campaign you would not hear the end of it. Ironically the Canadian Army units were sent to fight in NW Europe before the Italian campaign ran its course. Eventually Canadian Army units advanced into an area with a confusing maze of valleys, gulleys, swamps, ridges, etc. Canadian and German units literally ran into each other with no warning. Madness. It is a crime info on the battles is not so easy to find.
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The Italian campaign ran for less than a year before it was eclipsed by D Day and fighting in NW Europe as the decisive ground campaign by the western allies. Italy was always regarded as a peripheral campaign, and kind of a supporting attack which would draw German forces away from the main efforts in NW Europe and the Eastern Front.

Unfortunately the geography of Italy makes it a defenders paradise where small forces can obstruct and delay much larger forces. At the end of the day it was a question of just who was being diverted in Italy, the Germans or the Allies. The terrain never changes; as Hannibal demonstrated the best way to enter the Italian "boot" is from the top rather than from the toe.

The US also had considerable numbers of forces engaged in Italy, but the military and public focus shifted to NW Europe after D Day. Forces were skimmed away from Italy as the campaign in NW Europe progressed incl 1 Cdn Corps which was relocated in early 1945. There is a lot of reference material on the Italian campaign, but its just not as popular as the main effort in France and Germany. That doesn't diminish the efforts of the troops in Italy one iota, but its tough to find people who have visited the Cdn battlefields in Italy to the same extent as in France, Germany and Holland.
 
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