The Roswell Incident

[Accounting Troll]

There was one battle in the seven years war in which a certain colonial officer by the name of George Washington was frustrated by the tactics we were using. When our army came under fire by the French, the colonial soldiers took cover but they were beaten back in line by their British officers. How ironic it would have been if Washington had been killed back then due to British incompetance.

 

Massed artillery wasn't much good against barbed wire in WWI. We tried it at the beginning of the Battle of the Somme. It only cut the barbed wire in a few places and that was where the Germans concentrated their machine guns.

[Blehm 98]

you know, i remember reading somewhere that T-34s would sometimes charge Tigers and Panthers and ram them, without bothering to shoot.

So i would say that although Tigers were the superior(firepower and armor only) but the T-34 was overall much better, and it also had armor... I don't think russian tank commanders would charge into german tanks unless they trusted their armor

I don't know about 1-1 actually, but with infantry if might have been a different story

[FullAuto]

So i would say that although Tigers were the superior(firepower and armor only) but the T-34 was overall much better

 

The only advantage the T-34 had over the Tiger tanks was speed. That and overwhelming superiority in numbers, along with their infantry. I remember reading the memoirs of a German tank commander, and he said that a Tiger tank could take on and win any five of the main battle tanks fielded by any other army, but there always seemed to be six of them when it came to battle.

 

Massed artillery wasn't much good against barbed wire in WWI.

 

Exactly. We used artillery on barbed wire. I'm sure there were many better targets, and a bit of thinking into creating a better shell would have yielded a more effective wire cutter.

[Blehm 98]

yep, that is another thing lol

 

apparently their shells weren't very good at cutting wire(unless you got a direct hit)

now, the question is, why hit the wire when there are miles of little pathways that are partially underground behind the barbed wire full of troops running around? Answer that and you will have done something a few WWI generals couldn't figure out

 

The other question is What the heck is the logic behind throwing thousand(or in one case millions) of men to their deaths for no reason other than trying to capture a few hundred yards

[sir-roosio]

Unable to find a source image, but in WW1 the british developed a bayonet that incorporated a hook that could be used to grab hold of a barbed wire, presenting it to the barrel of your rifle, the soldier could then fire the rifle, and cut through the wire.

 

Dont know if id like to stand there making a bi enough hole whilst under german machine gun fire however. . .

[Accounting Troll]

Trouble was that you'd be shot for cowardice if you refused. The troops couldn't win either way. Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves contains some pretty harrowing stories of what life was like on the front line.

 

It's not surprising that the French army mutinied, and the British army came pretty close to an outright mutiny. There was one incident when some fresh conscripts met some soldiers returning from the front line, and they were horrified by the stories of everyday life on the front line. They mutinied, stole some wine and got drunk, and then burst into a nunnery and did some pretty unpleasant things there. The British and French authorities covered the incident up to avoid giving the Germans a massive propoganda victory.

[Blehm 98]

Yeah, world war one was terrible, that one battlefield i think i mentioned above, i think it was french and germans, over a million deaths, and the generals couldn't make strategies for crap, it is a very good thing that germans didn't make good tanks in world war one or we'd have a lot of problems

 

Even today, every year, they send some people out on that battlefield, and every year, they find new bodies to bring to a cemetary and new bombs and artillary shells and mines to dig up and bring back. pretty horriffic stuff

[JellyfishGreen]

you know, i remember reading somewhere that T-34s would sometimes charge Tigers and Panthers and ram them, without bothering to shoot. 

So i would say that although Tigers were the superior(firepower and armor only) but the T-34 was overall much better, and it also had armor...  I don't think russian tank commanders would charge into german tanks unless they trusted their armor

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I read a good book last year, "The Last Citadel" about the tank crews defending Stalingrad. The impression I got from the book was that you might as well ram the Tiger and shoot at point blank range, because the Tiger's range and armor would beat the T34 at stand-off distance. (IE. At greater than point-blank range, the T34's had to aim for the Tiger's turret only, because the front and side armor was too thick to guarantee a kill.)

[FullAuto]

The T-34 was the first ever tank to utilise sloped armour, a design innovation which the Germans quickly copied, and it was more than a match for every German tank before the Tiger.

The Tiger achieved something like a 10:1 kill ratio (the gun used was basically the dual-purpose 88 adopted for tank, and reported kills out to 1500m) but there were nowhere near enough of them.

[sir-roosio]

I'm sorry. . .the Germans landed at Roswell in T34's when??????????

 

I love it when a thread goes major-league off-topic! hehehe

[Blehm 98]

yes, they did, the so called UFO was actually a cleverly disguised flying russian tank, i remember the americans had one of those ideas a in WWII, the russians just finished it up

[Accounting Troll]

That would explain the coverup. After all, the Cold War had just started and the American government didn't want to cause a panic by admitting that the Russians could land flying tanks anywhere in the world. Suddenly the whole thing becomes clear...