The Great War
Published on 23 Nov 2017After stopping the offensive at Passchendaele, the British Army launches another, albeit more limited, offensive. Almost 500 tanks are put into place and the initial success is remarkable. But the Germans had been training in anti-tank warfare and are supported by fresh troops from the Eastern Front.
November 24, 2017
Tank Corps Unleashed – The Battle of Cambrai I THE GREAT WAR Week 174
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November 23, 2017
Tank Chats #20 Mark IV
Tank Museum
Published on 13 May 2016Mechanically the Mark IV tank was the same as the Mark I but it had thicker armour, improved fuel supply and modified sponsons with slightly shorter guns in the Male version.
Mark IV tanks went into action for the first time in the summer of 1917, they were the mainstay of the Tank Corps at Cambrai in November and fought through to the end of the war with 7th and 12th Battalions of the Tank Corps. It was a male Mark IV tank which won the very first ‘Tank versus Tank’ action in April 1918 by knocking out the German A7V tank Nixe.
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November 21, 2017
Jagdkommandos – Austria-Hungary’s Special Forces in WW1 I THE GREAT WAR Special
The Great War
Published on 20 Nov 2017The Jagdkommandos were Austria-Hungary’s special assault troops during WWI. From their pre-war origins, these troops had to adapt to modern war, and did so with some success. However, towards the end of the war their successes turned to failures and the Jagdkommandos faded into relative obscurity compared to their German and Italian counterparts.
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Otto von Bismarck – VI: Germany! – Extra History
Extra Credits
Published on 18 Nov 2017You would think that capturing the Emperor of France would end the war, but… no. Who could Bismarck negotiate with? Eventually he forced an interim government to cave to his demands, and at the same time convinced the rest of the German states to unite with Prussia.
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QotD: The naval “rule of three”
The RN [Royal Navy], and every other seagoing Navy out there operates its ships on a rotational basis. This simple concept can best be described as ‘the rule of three’. Namely, for every ship that is on the front line at sea right now on live operations (e.g. fully stored, fuelled and munitioned and operating under a specific operation), you require a further two ships in the pipeline. The first is the one that’s just come home and gone into refit or lower level readiness. This is because the crew need to take leave, parts need replacing and the ship needs maintenance. The second is the ship that will replace the ship deployed, and this vessel will usually be in some point of the force generation cycle, which involves final bits of maintenance, trials, basic sea training and more advanced sea training and any other targeted work to get her ready to sail. This is a complex process that takes many months to fully prepare a ship to sail.
Over a couple of years life, a ship is programmed by the RN planners (a special breed of people possessed of wisdom, foresight and very little hair left at the end of their tour) to come out of a refit, work up, complete all trials and training, deploy for 9 months, return home and then wind down before going in for the next cycle of refit and repair. This cycle is either repeated, or broken up by the occasional deep multi-year refit to extend her life or fit major new equipment.
In simple terms this means that to keep 5-6 ships deployed, you need a force of roughly 17-18 escorts at any one time. Possessing 19 escort ships does not mean that 19 ships can go to sea on operations. It means you have got the ability to keep 5-6 ships deployed on station indefinitely.
This may sound a technicality, but is actually really important to understand. What distinguishes the RN from a lot of coastal navies is that sustaining this sort of deployment is routine business – the RN accepts that it goes to sea across the globe and plans this as a routine activity. For many navies, an ‘out of area’ deployment is a major investment of time and support and training, and is something that may occur once every 4-5 years, not every day of the year.
Sir Humphrey, “No – the Royal Navy is not a global laughing stock”, Thin Pinstriped Line, 2017-09-15.
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November 20, 2017
Cambrai: The Tank Corps Story | The Tank Museum
Tank Museum
Published on 17 Nov 2017100 years on from the Battle of Cambrai, The Tank Museum presents a documentary on the moment the Tank Corps delivered one of the greatest advances of the First World War. This is the full-length version of Cambrai: The Tank Corps Story.
As the regimental museum of the Royal Tank Regiment, The Tank Museum is using the World War One centenary to draw attention to the struggle, sacrifice and ingenuity of the early tank men.
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November 19, 2017
Development of British Tank Tactics 1917 I THE GREAT WAR Special
The Great War
Published on 18 Nov 2017The Battle of Cambrai 100 years ago was one of the pivotal moments for the British Tank Corps and tank combat in general. For the first time, the tanks were deployed in a way that they could play to their strengths.
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November 17, 2017
The End Of Passchendaele – Fighting in Petrograd I THE GREAT WAR Week 173
The Great War
Published on 16 Nov 2017The Anti-Bolshevik forces in Russia are trying to fight back last week’s revolution. The Battle of Passchendaele ends after 3 months of fighting and at least 500,000 casualties on both sides. The British are still advancing on Jerusalem and the Italians set up defences behind the Piave river.
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November 16, 2017
Housing woes in the downtown core
A timely and clearly heartfelt plea by Eleanor Shaw that only needs a brief preface from Colby Cosh:
Some of you will read this without ever knowing it is satire, despite this helpful disclaimer https://t.co/uPSqMrCrts
— Colby Cosh (@colbycosh) November 15, 2017
All I want are the same things my parents wanted – a good job, a loving partner and a two-bedroom live/work space with balcony in a nice area of the world’s third-richest city.
It’s easy for the Gen Xers and Baby Boomers. To them, with low property prices in areas considered ‘undesirable’ at the time and interest rates between five and 15 per cent, getting a mortgage was easy.
But for us, those opportunities have gone. To live anywhere in London, even somewhere unsexy, is prohibitively expensive. All the nice houses are already owned by older people with better jobs, a situation surely unique in the history of the world.
And it’s not just London. In all the other cool cities around the UK – Edinburgh, Bristol, Manchester – stylish city-centre properties suitable for fashionable twentysomethings are priced far, far beyond our reach.
[…]
The government must act now to build affordable properties for millennials, and support us during our tough first decade in the capital as we work our way up in our careers until we have cleared our debts and are pulling in seven figures.
Then, and only then, can we sell our London homes to developers and move to massive houses in the country.
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15 British Sweets Everyone Should Try – Anglophenia Ep 22
Anglophenia
Published on 7 Jan 2015From Cadbury Flake to jelly babies, Siobhan Thompson shows us the British candies we should all try at least once.
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QotD: Carrier cynicism
If you are a follower of UK defence matters, then it seems to be traditional that you must be find a reason, any reason, to naysay and be downbeat about something good. The recent sailing of QUEEN ELIZABETH (QEC, and of course, not yet an HMS), is a good example of this. There were tweets and moans aplenty about an aircraft carrier supposedly without aircraft, about it being empty for years across a barren flight deck with tumbleweed and adrift deck hockey quoits the sole occupants, and of course that’s assuming a 17-year-old hacker hadn’t somehow taken charge of the ship using its SHOCK HORROR Windows XP system that’s not actually connected to the internet to somehow do something bad. This is without mentioning the near orgasmic levels of excitement the media wound themselves up into with the prospect of the vessel running into the side of the dockyard or being stuck under the Forth Bridge.
In reality the opening days of the QE’s sea trials could not have gone better for the Royal Navy and the MOD. An outstandingly effective PR operation managed to secure a great deal of national media coverage of this event, and most of the main papers had photos of the ship at sea. Some highly astute programming ensured that a pair of Type 23 frigates and a pair of Merlin helicopters were immediately available to ostensibly provide cover, but arguably in reality provided the nation with several years of stock footage of British carrier groups at sea. Within a couple of days the first landing was achieved, thus slaying the ‘but she’ll have no aircraft’ argument, and the internet is awash with glorious photos of the biggest warship ever built outside of the United States of America at sea. To top it all off, some sharply pointed jibes towards the Russians by the Secretary of State for Defence managed to elicit a strong reaction, suggesting the Bear is not as thick skinned as it wishes to portray itself to be.
Sir Humphrey, “Some Brief Thoughts on QUEEN ELIZABETH sailing”, Thin Pinstriped Line, 2017-07-03.
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November 15, 2017
The Man Whose Tank Collection Got WAY Out Of Hand | Forces TV
Forces TV
Published on 29 Oct 2017We take a trip to Cobbaton Combat Collection to meet the family with over 70 military vehicles!
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November 14, 2017
The Last Hussar – August von Mackensen I WHO DID WHAT IN WW1?
The Great War
Published on 13 Nov 2017August von Mackensen was one of the most prolific generals of World War 1. He served with distinction on the Eastern theatres. The Gorlice-Tarnow Offensive, the conquest of Serbia and Romania were all possible thanks to him. He was raised with the belief in Prussian glory and held onto this belief even after the war ended.
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Why the Vikings Disappeared
KnowledgeHub
Published on 17 Feb 2017The Vikings were infamous in the Middle Ages for their raids against the coasts of Northern Europe. Their age however was quite brief in the span of time, only 300 years. What caused the end of the Vikings?
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November 13, 2017
Otto von Bismarck – V: Prussia Ascendant – Extra History
Extra Credits
Published on 11 Nov 2017The northern German states now looked to Prussia for leadership, but that power brought increased attention from their enemies. Bismarck engineered a war with France by striking at Napoleon III’s pride and wound up winning a runaway victory to secure Prussia’s diplomatic power.
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