Topics created by ABWorsham4

@ABWorsham4

Hi AB

Started Forsyth The Fox a few weeks ago. Only about an hour in. Triplea keeping me busy and hockey playoffs going now, so be a bit before i finish it :)

I played it myself when I was 17-20 in the 80s… I got my kids to play earlier this year at 8 and 10… but I think they were more interested just to play a game with daddy, than what the game was… they haven’t played again… I got an older friend of mine to play with me once, but his schedule is so busy, even though he liked it, he can never make the time… So I have a game I really love, customized, got extra maps and units for it, and I’m having a really hard time finding anyone to play with.  Might try again with the kids later, but for now, they’re probably a tad too young… back to Risk until they are ready for A&A again.

@wittmann:

Have fun, Worsham.
Kill Italy and it will be easier for  the Allies. You might need an Allied bid for this. The Axis have it easier, with the generous Axis NOs.

Great to hear from you!

We often forget that the conclusion of the war was not a known element.

As stated, Peleliu mattered little in the end, but if something had gone wrong somewhere else, it may have been the cornerstone of allied victory.

It most certainly caused Japan some level of strategic/logisitical grief, and it’s one more piece on the board the americans could seize to strengthen their offensive.

As for publicity stunts… PHI was a must. The U.S. said they would return, and everyone believed it.  If the U.S. had not returned… that would have been a costly political enterprise.

I know it’s really different by my wife picked up the USA trails to rails spin-off. We havent played it but if it’s as good as it looks well probably pick up the merchant’s of Europe game too. There is anothoer game in the series but I think it’s OOP that is based on Germany.

My first experience playing Catan and it’s expansions was not a good one as I really dislike the people I played it with some initial and it was a bit of a rollover so it left a bad taste in my mouth.

That said I saw an expansion that made me want to give it another go that involves sea exploration and combat.

@wittmann:

Waterloo (200 year anniversary in June), by Bernard Cornwell.  Is an easy read and right up my alley.

Apologies Worsham: I have just noticed you said WW2 material.
I still have: Hitler’s Panzer Armies on the Eastern Front (by the bed), but have not opened it for 10 days. It is not the sort of book you can read cover to cover.

Any books are fine. I like to get pointed to good reads.

@CWO:

@ABWorsham:

Lets remember, had the Germans not invaded Greece then Rommel’s adventure in Africa is much different. His role would have been to save Tripoli, instead of counter-attacking and driving to Egypt.

I’m not sure Greece was the cause.  As I recall, when Hitler originally sent Rommel to Africa he basically gave him orders to simply dig in and hold the line.  If that was indeed Hitler’s intention, then he made a serious mistake in his choice of generals because Rommel was definitely not a dig-in-and-hold-the-line kind of commander.  Rommel was even prepared to interpret his orders in creative ways which technically adhered to their letter but not to their spirit: for purposes of paperwork, for example, he described first major offensive in North Africa as simply a "reconnaissance in force."  He ended up routing the British and driving them practically back to Egypt – and with those kinds of results, of course, Hitler was happy to overlook the fact that Rommel hadn’t done what Hitler had wanted him to do.

All true.

Had the 6th Australian, 2nd New Zealand and British 1st Armored been in North Africa instead of Greece, Rommel may have been forced to ‘obey orders’ with his 5th Light Division.

I voted for the RN fighting for Malta whatever. Understand that Malta was a vital part of the UK’s efforts to interrupt supplies to N Africa and so defend the Suez canal and thus the UK’s whole middle east position. I am presuming this was understood at the time - but that’s an assumption others may challenge.

Not really a weapon but a crucial life saver would have been a mirror or a small Perescope.

Try to look arround a corner in urban fights!

The Italian ones are new to me, only because they were never discussed.  However there are plenty of records of the ones in action during the Phillipines and South Pacific Campaigns (JFK, etc.) which gave them plenty of heroic press.

Happy Christmas Friend.

I believe the Condors accounted for 400,000 old shipping sunk, the plane was in such small numbers they were used with hesitation.

These planes flew over Spain to spot Gibraltar to Freetown convoys and the dramatic Malta convoys.

He would be housing Hitler himself, not helping Germany. And yes it would be stupid to announce they were holding Hitler. He would be taken in secret, probably until death.

Just wondering if Franco would be willing to take him in, which im guessing is a no.

@Narvik:

@pfc_pander:

Just saw Fury also.�  I give it a 8 out of 10.�  I wonder if we killed as many Nazi’s in during the war by hip firing as they did in the movie.�  Great tank battle though.

The statistics of casualties from WWII says that 60 % were killed or wounded by artillery shells. 10 % by Tanks, and 10 % by aircrafts. 20 % were killed by infantry weapons, but I don’t remember the exact numbers. Machinegun fire killed more men than minefields. Hip firing with sub-machine guns was a typical close combat weapon to use in towns and cities. The same with hand grenades, bayonets, fieldspade and battle axe. Sniper rifles took some % too. I figure less than 5 % were killed by hip firing in the real war, but in Hollywood movies maybe 80 %. Looks cool though…… Kids love it

I get hip firing with submachine guns or automatic weapons at close range and maybe even at mid/long range.  Hip firing a semi auto rifle (M1 in this case) I don’t get.  Looks dumb in movies when they do it.  At least no one was pulling grenade pins with their teeth.

Evening Worsham. Excuse my delay in answering your post.
I had not heard of either tank. I voted for the Japanese one, as they could have been used to defend Japan against an amphibious attack (if it had happened).
For Italy, the P26 came too late. It  did not have the technology to get it into production early enough to tilt things in its favour. It was relying on the Semovente and big guns mounted on lorries. The Germans were Italy’s armoured force.
Thanks again.

Battle of the Bulge, because of the movie LOL, even though it had almost nothing to do with the historical Battle of the Bulge.

@wittmann:

Don’t worry Worsham. You are very passionate about the subject and I am still learning.
Sorry I did not check and discreetly tell you by PM.
Hope you are having a good weekend. The 4th tomorrow….

Thank you for the kind words.

@CWO:

I can’t recall the details, but Peter Perla’s book The Art of Wargaming decribes a professional wargaming exercise conducted by the British army a few years (about five or ten, I think) before WWI.  The scenario included a German violation of Belgian neutrality and a British expeditionary force being sent to the Continent.  The exercise apparently revealed that Britain had an inadequate military transportation capacity to deal with such a situation in a satisfactory amount of time.  Perla speculates that the British officer who played the role of Britain in the wargame must subsequently have experienced a disconcerting sense of deja vu in 1914 when he saw a very similar scenario being played out in real life.

The Officer was Henry Wilson, a future Field Marshal and Director of Military Operations. He was capable of looking at a map, and thus saw that clearly the Germans would come through Belgium (though he, like the entire French High Command, assumed it would just be through the Ardennes instead of the whole on flanking attempt that it was).

After the initial Moroccan Crisis and increasing tensions with Germany, Wilson was probably THE key figure in organizing Anglo-French military cooperation. Wilson eventually had plans to move the entire BEF (all six divisions, plus the cav) to France and be fully ready for combat by no latter than M-15 (the Germans expected them on M-12). The organization was essentially flawless, however political dithering and fears of German invasion eventually screwed it all up and we had the 4 divisions plus the cavalry moved over that we all know about.

As to the question: Britain was not going to sit back and let Germany assume hegemony over the continent, just like she hadn’t let France assume hegemony over the continent 100 years earlier. The Liberals would dither, and it could take awhile, but with men such as Churchill in charge of their military, Britain was going to war.

Also, MANY people don’t seem to know, that regardless of the government, the British military and foreign offices took war with Germany as a matter of fact, to the point where they had a treaty with the French (kept secret from the government) that the Royal Navy would assume responsibility over the entire French Atlantic coast in the event of war with Germany, allowing the French to concentrate their fleet in the Med. Lord Grey had the wonderful task of informing Parliament that they were duty bound to guard the French coast from any German excursion. Needless to say the liberals took it well  :-D

Italy was openly hostile to Austria-Hungary. No way she was going to fight for Austria-Hungary in an offensive war.

That said, even if she did. Ask yourself, if the weak and ineffective Hapsburg army could curb stomp the Italians for 3 years, what makes you think the French would have any sort of difficulty?  Not to mention the barely functioning Italian economy would have collapsed within a few weeks due to British naval blockade. Italy would have been not but another corpse for Germany to be shackled too.

@ABWorsham:

Churchill proposed an invasion of Northern Norway and Sweden in 1939 to remove half of Germany iron ore. As a new leader he did not have credibility to get this invasion quickly planned before the Germans reacted.

How does the war progress if the Allied Expeditionary Force invades Norway and Sweden?

I was reading this over again. I don’t think it would be possible with an Allied invasion during 1939. Since the mountains are pretty much impassable during winter, which is from October to April, the invasion would have to be done from the start of the war in September and finished before October. This was not likely to happen. The first window of opportunity opened in November when Russia attacked Finland. But in the case of Finland, snow and ice was a necessity for a successful campaign, since that part of Finland is impassable swamps and marshes during summer. In Norway it is the other way around, since mountains are impassable during winter. And that give Britain a first possible D-day on April 8th 1940, the day before Germany did actually attack Norway.

The reason Britain did not attack on April 8th is IMHO that they got reports of a German breakout into the sea, so they ditched the infantry already onboard, and sailed to intercept the German fleet. But as w know, the Germans had then walked down the gangway in all major Norwegian ports. And they could do so because the ports were not defended. But here comes the twist. Next day Britain sailed in 25 000 troops bound for the Narvik area, but they was not able to kick out the 1900 Germans, because at that time Britain lacked landing ships and landing crafts. And you can not amphibious assault a defended coast without landing crafts, as proven in the Normandy landings 1944.

So basically the 25 000 Allied troops sat in the port of Harstad waiting for landing crafts to be build and this took 7 weeks, before they ware able to invade Narvik late in June , by then defended by 40 Germans. In the meantime 10 000 Norwegians equipped with winter gear and trained in mountain warfare, were pushing the bulk of the Germans towards the Swedish border.

I figure, if the Brits had landed in Narvik April 8th 1940 and walked down the gangway as friends, the Germans would for sure be cut of from the iron ore. But if the Norwegian socialist government had declared war, then I cant see how the Brits could have been able to break out from Narvik and cross the mountain range over to Sweden. None of the total 35 000 Brits, French and Polish soldiers in Norway 1940 had winter equipment nor training in mountain warfare. The last blizzard was in may, and they would be stuck in Narvik until then, surrounded by a Norwegian mountain division. And on the other side of the border, 320 000 Swedish soldiers, also trained in winter and mountain warfare, would wait for them, protecting the iron mines. So Churchills plan could only work if Norway and Sweden did cooperate volunterely