OT: Use of Captured Equipment

[rustysi]

ORIGINAL: Zorch

ORIGINAL: rustysi

ORIGINAL: Doggie3




KV-2. Used the same chassis as the KV-1 but had the larger turret and the 152mm gun.

Cheers,

Thanks, wasn't sure. Think there was a KV-1a which had a slightly longer 76.2mm gun, and there was the KV-85 with the 85 mike-mike gun. Just couldn't remember what they called that beast.

SU-85?

Yeah, the SU-85 can be seen further on in the thread, but I'm pretty sure the Soviets up-gunned the KV to an 85mm like the T-34.

[rustysi]

ORIGINAL: crsutton

This is a great video to watch. T34 being pulled out of a bog in near perfect condition. Note the German markings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNJ-acc9Qsk

Nice, hadn't seen that one before.

[rustysi]

Just checked. There was a KV-85 variant. Don't know how many examples were built.

[wdolson]

ORIGINAL: crsutton

This is a great video to watch. T34 being pulled out of a bog in near perfect condition. Note the German markings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNJ-acc9Qsk

Looks like an early version

Bill

[crsutton]

ORIGINAL: wdolson

ORIGINAL: crsutton

This is a great video to watch. T34 being pulled out of a bog in near perfect condition. Note the German markings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNJ-acc9Qsk

Looks like an early version

Bill

Yeah, there is quite the renaissance going on in Russia and Poland with vehicle recovery. Better detection methods and the vast amount of bogs and swamps make Russia a great place to find WWII era planes and tanks. Apparently bogs have a great preservation effect due to the almost total lack of oxygen in the mud and peat. Just search on you tube and you will see all sorts of amazing things coming out of the mud.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_ ... nk+salvage

[MakeeLearn]

Looking for that "Lost Nazi Gold Train".

[Leandros]

ORIGINAL: Alpha77

Really I hear this the first time, do you have a source for this KV2 Malta plan ?
BTW, at first I thought it was a KV2 turret planted on a Pz3 or 4 chassis.... but then I noted that in fact the
front of KV looks a bit like Pz4 in reality never noted that before... strange..

I didn't remember exactly where I had it from, except, of course, the background information
on my model. You can read "all about it here".:

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

And see pictures here:

https://www.google.no/search?q=russian+ ... IQ_AUICCgB

Another of many Axis mistakes - not to go for Malta.

Fred

[Revthought]

ORIGINAL: Leandros
Another of many Axis mistakes - not to go for Malta.

The biggest mistake of the Axis that was unrecoverable from at the outset, which relegates these other mistakes to the footnotes of historical mistakes, was thinking it was possible to wage war against 2/3rds of the industrial capacity of the world, when the Axis did not even account for the entirety of the remaining 3rd, and actually win.

For Germany, the Second World War ended on June 22nd 1941, and not content with the fact he had already been defeated by merely attacking the Soviet Union, Hitler took out an insurance policy on defeat on December 11th of that year with the declaration of war on the United States.

For Japan the Second World War ended on July 26th, 1941. And the militarists just decided to make their defeat as awful and terrible as possible on December 7th.

True stories.

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: Leandros

ORIGINAL: Alpha77

Really I hear this the first time, do you have a source for this KV2 Malta plan ?
BTW, at first I thought it was a KV2 turret planted on a Pz3 or 4 chassis.... but then I noted that in fact the
front of KV looks a bit like Pz4 in reality never noted that before... strange..

I didn't remember exactly where I had it from, except, of course, the background information
on my model. You can read "all about it here".:

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

And see pictures here:

https://www.google.no/search?q=russian+ ... IQ_AUICCgB

Another of many Axis mistakes - not to go for Malta.

Fred

I can hear it now:

H. Goering - "No need to send the Wehrmacht, Mein Fuhrer! My bombers will reduce Malta to dust and the survivors will kick out the British and hail you as their leader!"
A. Hitler - "Good work, Hermann! I was worried you might be allowing another Dunkirk there. Now I can send all my divisions to the Eastern front and get to the Pacific Ocean a year earlier!"

[geofflambert]

Albert Speer and a couple million more men of fighting age and who knows?

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: Leandros

Another of many Axis mistakes - not to go for Malta.

Fred

warspite1

I would have to question that assertion.

Any students of O’Hara here would, I imagine, not agree with it either. According to him the Italian Navy did a pretty good job of delivering supplies to North Africa.

He has a point. The exposed location of Malta meant that, as a naval base, the island was relegated in favour of Alexandria and Gibraltar as homes for the Mediterranean Fleet and Force H respectively. Malta was, for a very short time, a home for the cruisers of the Malta Striking Force, and these cruisers – together with a few submarines – cost the Axis convoys massively in late 1941.

But this did not last – a combination of RN losses and the Luftwaffe (Fliegerkorps X) moving in meant that Malta was once more too dangerous to house RN vessels. In any case it is said that the biggest problem the Axis had in North Africa was getting the supplies from Tripoli to the front and not from Italy to North Africa.

So if the supply of Rommel was – for a time in late 1941 and possibly late 1942 aside – not instrumental in the defeat of Rommel, what was so important about Malta – and moreover, what would the effect on the RN be if the British had decided to abandon the island?

Well the first part is relatively easy. Malta became important because the island became a symbol of defiance. Was there a more bombed piece of real estate than Grand Harbour and environs in the first half of the ETO? Malta's propaganda value as a George Cross winning bastion (in 1942?) was out of all proportion to her strategic value.

The second part is harder to answer for the simple reason that no one knows what the RN would have done with all the ships freed up and not lost. As seen above, the decision to keep Malta in the war probably didn’t hurt Rommel and co that much (they had myriad other problems….) but it sure as hell cost the RN.

How many warships, from carriers through battleships, cruisers, destroyers and submarines (not to mention fighter aircraft) were lost or badly damaged in the defence and supply of that island? Answer one helluva lot! Ark Royal, Eagle, Neptune, Manchester, Southampton to name five off the top of my head sunk – and the number of ships damaged provides a very long list indeed.

Of course Malta may have hurt the Axis had they tried invading. Especially if the Italians had the lead role in any such adventure…… Its difficult seeing the island holding out to a determined, co-ordinated attack - I just don't think such an occurrence would have made a difference for the Allies in a negative sense - (apart from propaganda value) there was only upside for the over-stretched air force and navy.

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: Revthought

ORIGINAL: Leandros
Another of many Axis mistakes - not to go for Malta.

The biggest mistake of the Axis that was unrecoverable from at the outset, which relegates these other mistakes to the footnotes of historical mistakes, was thinking it was possible to wage war against 2/3rds of the industrial capacity of the world, when the Axis did not even account for the entirety of the remaining 3rd, and actually win.

For Germany, the Second World War ended on June 22nd 1941......

True stories.

warspite1

On the economic argument, it could be argued equally that Germany lost the war in 1st September 1939 when Hitler decided to attack Poland despite knowing that the French and British had decided, after Czechoslovakia, that Poland was to be the line in the sand - the rubicon if you will.

That Hitler got an amazing break with the fall of France, simply allowed Hitler his little jaunt in the East (and his date with destruction at the hands of the Red Army), but otherwise, had the war in the west developed into stalemate, with the US backing the democracies, the Germans would ultimately have lost the economic war - just as in WWI.

[geofflambert]

Not to be contrarian but in my view Germany lost the war when they invaded the Soviet Union. The economic war was lost as soon as Germany started it against Pax Brittanica, long before WWI. It was hopeless from the outset.

[crsutton]

ORIGINAL: geofflambert

Not to be contrarian but in my view Germany lost the war when they invaded the Soviet Union. The economic war was lost as soon as Germany started it against Pax Brittanica, long before WWI. It was hopeless from the outset.

Holy cow! Has this thread gone AWOL....[X(]

[btd64]

ORIGINAL: crsutton

ORIGINAL: geofflambert

Not to be contrarian but in my view Germany lost the war when they invaded the Soviet Union. The economic war was lost as soon as Germany started it against Pax Brittanica, long before WWI. It was hopeless from the outset.

Holy cow! Has this thread gone AWOL....[X(]

Yes. I have MP's out looking at the moment....GP

[adarbrauner]

ORIGINAL: wdolson

ORIGINAL: crsutton

This is a great video to watch. T34 being pulled out of a bog in near perfect condition. Note the German markings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNJ-acc9Qsk

Looks like an early version

Bill

Not so much; the "standard" mass production version (for the 76 mm gun), with the exagonal turret.

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: crsutton

ORIGINAL: geofflambert

Not to be contrarian but in my view Germany lost the war when they invaded the Soviet Union. The economic war was lost as soon as Germany started it against Pax Brittanica, long before WWI. It was hopeless from the outset.

Holy cow! Has this thread gone AWOL....[X(]

warspite1

A great many do - this thread is hardly alone in that [;)] But at least, whilst it went off topic, it remained on topic from a WWII point of view at any rate [:)]

[Revthought]

ORIGINAL: geofflambert

Albert Speer and a couple million more men of fighting age and who knows?

Even Albert Speer was not capable of turning Germany and all of the occupied territory in Europe into a country whose industrial capacity could cope with the Allies.

[SheperdN7]

The use of captured equipment is actually one of the reasons I am starting to really warm to WitE, the sheer detail of even little abstract things is incredible.


As for the Pacific, I believe I read in Penguin History of WWII (revised edition) the Japanese captured a Bofors 40mm in Singapore and actually were quite impressed by it and produced ~2000 of them for home island usage. If only they put those bad boys on CV's, granted though I don't know how effective they would be without the allied fire control directors guiding them.

[wdolson]

40mm even manually guided would have been better than the 25mm they had on their ships.

Bill