Picture of the day

The airsoft/reenactor/what if crowd love calling this a self propelled gun. Guffaw. Its prime mode of transport was locomotive on rr line. The self propulsion was only for maneuvering it from the railhead over a painstakingly prepared roadbed to the emplacement, which was also laboriously prepared.

The prime mode of transportation for panzers was also by rail. The Germans went out of their way to limit the road miles of all their tracked vehicles, to keep wear and tear and maintenance to a minimum. Carius discussed this several times in "Tigers in the Mud." Tracked vehicles were still, essentially, in their infancy in WWII, and the German High Command was well aware of their manufacturing limitations. They knew there were no easy replacements for their vehicles, so they coddled them as much as possible.

Panzer advances, especially on the Eastern Front, were often delayed for weeks or longer while corduroy roads were built up to allow the transit of the panzers with a minimum of wear on the vehicles.

The Karl Gerat took this to extremes, but in many ways it was just an extension of how they managed their entire tracked arsenal.
 
Mark I wasn't any faster than Karl Gerat yet nobody doubts it's self-propelled.

Barrel that short must have caused enormous muzzle blast.I wonder how far away crew must have been for safe shooting.Did they run for coven in makeshift bunkers for every shot?How far away?
 
Seems the mortars were having trouble in Warsaw. Sometimes the mortar bombs did not go off as planned. These were mostly the anti fortification bombs. Apparently they needed to meet quite the deacceleration force to work. Normal buildings did not meet this requirement. Thus at least one (well documented) and possibly two of the mortar bombs were disarmed by AK combat engineers & the explosives turned against the former owners.

'When you have a hammer". . .
 
The prime mode of transportation for panzers was also by rail. The Germans went out of their way to limit the road miles of all their tracked vehicles, to keep wear and tear and maintenance to a minimum. Carius discussed this several times in "Tigers in the Mud." Tracked vehicles were still, essentially, in their infancy in WWII, and the German High Command was well aware of their manufacturing limitations. They knew there were no easy replacements for their vehicles, so they coddled them as much as possible.

Panzer advances, especially on the Eastern Front, were often delayed for weeks or longer while corduroy roads were built up to allow the transit of the panzers with a minimum of wear on the vehicles.

The Karl Gerat took this to extremes, but in many ways it was just an extension of how they managed their entire tracked arsenal.

All those super guns were shipped by rail, in pieces. Some assembly required and a lot of planning. :)

Grizz
 
Any know if they used bag charges or a casing? videos only show the projectile being loaded, or was the charge in the base of the shell?
 
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Witold Pilecki

Volunteered for a mission to arrange to be captured and sent to Auschwitz to gain intelligence and organize resistance within the camp. Somehow managed to survive the experience and after more than 3 years in the camp he escaped, and went on to fight in the Warsaw uprising, and other feats of general bad@ssery.

Double crossed and executed by the Polish communist government after the war. After his kangaroo court show trial was finished and he was handed his death sentence, his statement to the court:

I've been trying to live my life so that in the hour of my death I would rather feel joy, than fear.

Final words at the gallows:

Long live free Poland
 
Not Canadian but still worth respect

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Francis Sherman “Frank” Currey (born in 1925), one of four living Medal of Honor recipients of the WW II. During the war he was a technical seargant, and he earned his Medal of Honor for his action in Belgium during the Battle of the Bulge, 1944. Citation:
He was an automatic rifleman with the 3rd Platoon defending a strong point near Malmedy, Belgium, on 21 December 1944, when the enemy launched a powerful attack. Overrunning tank destroyers and antitank guns located near the strong point, German tanks advanced to the 3rd Platoon’s position, and, after prolonged fighting, forced the withdrawal of this group to a nearby factory. Sgt. Currey found a bazooka in the building and crossed the street to secure rockets meanwhile enduring intense fire from enemy tanks and hostile infantrymen who had taken up a position at a house a short distance away. In the face of small-arms, machinegun, and artillery fire, he, with a companion, knocked out a tank with 1 shot. Moving to another position, he observed 3 Germans in the doorway of an enemy-held house. He killed or wounded all 3 with his automatic rifle. He emerged from cover and advanced alone to within 50 yards of the house, intent on wrecking it with rockets. Covered by friendly fire, he stood erect, and fired a shot which knocked down half of 1 wall. While in this forward position, he observed 5 Americans who had been pinned down for hours by fire from the house and 3 tanks. Realizing that they could not escape until the enemy tank and infantry guns had been silenced, Sgt. Currey crossed the street to a vehicle, where he procured an armful of antitank grenades. These he launched while under heavy enemy fire, driving the tankmen from the vehicles into the house. He then climbed onto a half-track in full view of the Germans and fired a machinegun at the house. Once again changing his position, he manned another machine gun whose crew had been killed; under his covering fire the 5 soldiers were able to retire to safety. Deprived of tanks and with heavy infantry casualties, the enemy was forced to withdraw. Through his extensive knowledge of weapons and by his heroic and repeated braving of murderous enemy fire, Sgt. Currey was greatly responsible for inflicting heavy losses in men and material on the enemy, for rescuing 5 comrades, 2 of whom were wounded, and for stemming an attack which threatened to flank his battalion’s position. http://bit.ly/2ImfyZ6

He knew to shoot and move…

Reading Medal of Honor Citations is quite something. Read any of them and you will certainly see why they were awarded. Read John Basilone's for Guadalcanal. The show The Pacific didn't even come close to doing him justice. I figure they probably deliberately toned it down as nobody would have believed it. Also read his Navy Cross Citation for Iwo Jima, I figure if he didn't already have it he would have been awarded an MoH for Iwo.
 
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Sir William Samuel Stephenson
Sir William Stephenson from 1942 passport.jpg
1942 passport photo
Born William Samuel Clouston Stanger
23 January 1897
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Died 31 January 1989 (aged 92)
Goldeneye Estate, Paget, Bermuda
Nationality Canadian
Other names "Little Bill"
Occupation Industrialist, scientist, inventor, businessman, soldier, pilot, spymaster
Height 5 ft 5 in (1.65 m)[1]
Spouse(s) Mary French Simmons
Spying career
Allegiance Canada
United Kingdom
Service British Security Coordination
Rank Captain
Operation(s) World War I, World War II
Codename(s) Intrepid
Sir William Samuel Stephenson, CC, MC, DFC (23 January 1897 – 31 January 1989) was a Canadian soldier, airman, businessman, inventor, spymaster, and the senior representative of British Security Coordination (BSC) for the entire western hemisphere during World War II. He is best known by his wartime intelligence codename Intrepid. Many people consider him to be one of the real-life inspirations for James Bond.[2] Ian Fleming himself once wrote, "James Bond is a highly romanticized version of a true spy. The real thing is ... William Stephenson."[3]

As head of the British Security Coordination, Stephenson handed over British scientific secrets to Franklin D. Roosevelt and relayed American secrets to Winston Churchill.[4] In addition, Stephenson has been credited with changing American public opinion from an isolationist stance to a supportive tendency regarding America's entry into World War II.[4]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Stephenson
 

Poland, Czechia, pretty much any eastern European nation after the war suffered a second conquest. The Soviets made a point of rounding up and liquidating partisans and freedom fighters who'd fought against the Nazis, because they had no interest in having nationalist freedom inclined independent thinkers kicking around.

The governments of the Western allies knew exactly what was going on, and basically let eastern Europe twist in the wind out of political expediency. The Soviets were villains, but the West allowed it by turning a blind eye.
 
Everyone who studies this stuff knows about George Beurling. But who remembers Vernon Woodward, DFC and Bar?

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"Woody" Vernon Crompton Woodward DFC and Bar RAF (22 December 1916 – 26 May 2000) was a Canadian fighter pilot and flying ace with the Royal Air Force during World War II. With 18 and 4 shared destroyed, 2 unconfirmed destroyed, 3 probables, and 11 damaged, Woodward tied Henry Wallace McLeod as Canada's second highest scoring pilot of the war.

A good, thorough bio here: http://www.century-of-flight.net/Aviation history/WW2/aces/Vernon Woodward.htm
 
Poland, Czechia, pretty much any eastern European nation after the war suffered a second conquest. The Soviets made a point of rounding up and liquidating partisans and freedom fighters who'd fought against the Nazis, because they had no interest in having nationalist freedom inclined independent thinkers kicking around.

The governments of the Western allies knew exactly what was going on, and basically let eastern Europe twist in the wind out of political expediency. The Soviets were villains, but the West allowed it by turning a blind eye.

British intelligence actually tried to help at least some of the Forest Brothers in the Baltic but most operations were betrayed by Kim Philby and the other communists scum.
 
Poland, Czechia, pretty much any eastern European nation after the war suffered a second conquest. The Soviets made a point of rounding up and liquidating partisans and freedom fighters who'd fought against the Nazis, because they had no interest in having nationalist freedom inclined independent thinkers kicking around.

The governments of the Western allies knew exactly what was going on, and basically let eastern Europe twist in the wind out of political expediency. The Soviets were villains, but the West allowed it by turning a blind eye.

The thing to realize is that the Russians were not our allies. We simply had a common enemy. My dad couldn't go back to Poland after the war because he was with the Brits. That made him an enemy of communism.
 
The thing to realize is that the Russians were not our allies. We simply had a common enemy. My dad couldn't go back to Poland after the war because he was with the Brits. That made him an enemy of communism.

I had Polish officers working for me in the UN in the bad old Cold War days who weren't even aware that Poles had fought with the western allies. I went on leave to Europe during this time incl a visit to Normandy. I brought back pics of the Polish monument near Falaise which was a big eye opener for them. They were even more surprised when I told them that the Polish Armoured Div had been part of First Cdn Army in NW Europe.:eek:
 
My father was liberated by Poles, he was in northern Holland where it was deemed safer at the time and children were sent there. He saw lots of Canadians afterward though.
 
British intelligence actually tried to help at least some of the Forest Brothers in the Baltic but most operations were betrayed by Kim Philby and the other communists scum.

I've never been able to wrap my head around how someone could so deeply betray his own family, friends, and country, as Philby did. The wreckage that man left in his wake is astounding.
 
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