The Battle of Normandy

[Stonker]

It has only taken me 12 years to get round to this, and this seemed like an appropriate moment to do so.

I have today uploaded to Scribd (so you can download it for free) a 19-page transcript of an address I heard delivered in May 2001 to the War Discussion Group at Sandhurst, by Dr Russell A Hart, entitled 10 Myths of the Wehrmacht in Normandy. Literature, it ain't, Informative - it is.

Find it by using the link below:

THE_Stonker on Scribd

There's other WW1 and more contemporary things there too.

 

[Deleted 20555]

In colour...

 

[1&12]

Old, old thread with altzheimers I know, but the Tiger 1 shown 1.5 mins in has them vertical tube type cover things on the exhausts.
Were Tigers fitted with those used in Normandy? I thought they were a North Africa, maybe Russia thing?

 

[Goldbricker]

Old, old thread with altzheimers I know, but the Tiger 1 shown 1.5 mins in has them vertical tube type cover things on the exhausts.
Were Tigers fitted with those used in Normandy? I thought they were a North Africa, maybe Russia thing?

Standard Armored exhaust cover

 

[1&12]

Standard Armored exhaust cover

Right, ta, I just had an idea that the Tigers had a different exhaust system N Africa / europe.

 

[Goldbricker]

Right, ta, I just had an idea that the Tigers had a different exhaust system N Africa / europe.

Well Early Tigers had the Feifel Air clear system on the rear plate with hoses on the engine deck-
Feifel filters | TIGER1.INFO

Tiger Tank in action – WalkAround

 

[AlienFTM]

Well Early Tigers had the Feifel Air clear system on the rear plate with hoses on the engine deck-
Feifel filters | TIGER1.INFO

Tiger Tank in action – WalkAround

If you look at Tiger 131 at Bovvy, you'll see the exhaust shroud is full of MG bullet holes. This specimen didn't have many miles on the clock when it was abandoned after a 6pdr round jammed the traverse.

I'd posit that when an exhaust needed working on, they simply didn't bother putting the damaged shroud back on, so that as time went by, with or without shroud was a lottery.

 

[1&12]

Well Early Tigers had the Feifel Air clear system on the rear plate with hoses on the engine deck-
Feifel filters | TIGER1.INFO

Tiger Tank in action – WalkAround

That's probably what I'm thinking of as used in N Africa, not Normandy.

 

[1&12]

If you look at Tiger 131 at Bovvy, you'll see the exhaust through is full of MG bullet holes. This specimen didn't have many miles on the clock when it was abandoned after a 6pdr round jammed the traverse.

I'd posit that when an exhaust needed working on, they simply didn't bother putting the damaged shroud back on, so that as time went by, with or without shroud was a lottery.

That one was the one the old 1/35 and 1/25 plastic kits by Tamiya were based on in the 70's.
It is shown in wartime photos bearing the 1st Army shield insignia after capture, has a workshop modification of a stirrup type step welded on the front.
Still got the old 1/25 model half completed somewhere in the garage, and the very warry and colourful box art from the lid. Never got around to framing it.

 

[Goldbricker]

That one was the one the old Tamiya 1/35 and 1/25 plastic kits by Tamiya were based on in that 70's.
It is shown in wartime photos bearing the 1st Army shield insignia after capture, has a workshop modification of a stirrup type step welded on the front.
Still got the old 1/25 model half completed somewhere in the garage, and the very warry and colourful box art from the lid. Never got around to framing it.

I first built the 1/35th scale version and painted it battleship grey like the "German" tanks in the henry fonda Battle of the Bulge movie

 

[1&12]

Never got the 1/35, I had a non running motorised 1/25 - the vibrations from the two little motors or whatever used to shatter the sockets that the axles sat in.
Used some kind of "Daz" clay to represent Zimmeritt.

 

[AlienFTM]

That one was the one the old 1/35 and 1/25 plastic kits by Tamiya were based on in the 70's.
It is shown in wartime photos bearing the 1st Army shield insignia after capture, has a workshop modification of a stirrup type step welded on the front.
Still got the old 1/25 model half completed somewhere in the garage, and the very warry and colourful box art from the lid. Never got around to framing it.

I seem to recall Churchill had 131 shipped back from Tunisia, marked up as 1st Army, then exhibited, if not round the country, certainly up and down the Mall, with the message, "Tiger? Fearsome? Hardly, we're already parading them on our streets."

 

[1&12]

I first built the 1/35th scale version and painted it battleship grey like the "German" tanks in the henry fonda Battle of the Bulge movie

I can't remember what they actually used in the film - Chaffee's? Patton's?

 

[Stonker]

I can't remember what they actually used in the film - Chaffee's? Patton's?

M48s and M60s, from memory.

On rolling, scrub covered terrain with nothing in sight that even remotely resembled the Ardennes, which did not prevent the director from posing his tanks on forward slope positions, in line abreast, duelling at ranges more appropriate for a 9mm pistol.

Great art?

I think not.

 

[Bubbles_Barker]

My favourite Tiger in Normandy:

Le Plessis Grimoult - destroyed courtesy of a fortunate 2" HE bomb straight down the hatch from A Coy 5 DCLI!

 

[baboon6]

M48s and M60s, from memory.

On rolling, scrub covered terrain with nothing in sight that even remotely resembled the Ardennes, which did not prevent the director from posing his tanks on forward slope positions, in line abreast, duelling at ranges more appropriate for a 9mm pistol.

Great art?

I think not.

1&12 is right, M24 Chaffees for the American tanks (some were indeed in service in December 1944), M47 Pattons for the Germans. Yeah it was a movie I liked as a kid but probably one of the most inaccurate War movies ever made, and not just because some of the hardware was the wrong type. Robert Shaw was good though.

 

[Stonker]

Robert Shaw was good though

In From Russia With Love.

Nobody came out of Battle of the Bulge with an enhanced reputation.

 

[exspy]

My favourite Tiger in Normandy:

Le Plessis Grimoult - destroyed courtesy of a fortunate 2" HE bomb straight down the hatch from A Coy 5 DCLI!

Not wanting to start a flame war, but are you saying that a 2" mortar bomb had enough power to dislodge a Tiger turret from its base? That would be one mighty bomb.

Cheers,
Dan.

 

[Bubbles_Barker]

Not wanting to start a flame war, but are you saying that a 2" mortar bomb had enough power to dislodge a Tiger turret from its base? That would be one mighty bomb.

Cheers,
Dan.

A 2" mortar bomb plus a load of 88mm? In through the hatch - boom! A big secondary and there you are.

 

[Nato Standard123]

A 2" mortar bomb plus a load of 88mm? In through the hatch - boom! A big secondary and there you are.

Well said BB, Most real squaddies would suss that ,but this is what happens when you let civvy biffs post on warry threads...they talk bollocks