World War Two
Published 7 Aug 2021The Axis Forces are on the move on the Eastern Front and in the Caucasus, but this week the Allies begin an offensive of their own: this week come Allied landings and attacks on Guadalcanal and nearby islands, the first American offensive against the Japanese.
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August 8, 2021
Guadalcanal – Allies Take the Initiative – WW2 – 154 – August 7, 1942
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Australia’s FAL-Based L2A1 Heavy Automatic Rifle
Forgotten Weapons
Published 21 Apr 2021http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons
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Many the nations that adopted the FAL (or L1A1, in Commonwealth terminology) opted to also use a heavy-barreled variant of the same rifle as a light support weapon. In the Commonwealth, this was designated L2A1 and it was used by Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The Australian model was build at Lithgow and supplied to the Australian and New Zealand forces, as well as being exported to a variety of other nations including Ghana, India, Singapore, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, and others (total Lithgow production was 9,557). It has a 21″ heavy barrel and a distinct folding bipod with wooden panels that act as handguard when the bipod is folded up. Doctrinally, the L2A1 was intended to be used in semiauto most of the time, with the bipod and heavy barrel allowing greater sustained semiauto fire than a standard rifle.
A 30-round magazine was developed and issued, but abandoned before long. It was found to be insufficiently reliable, interfered with prone shooting, and contributed to overheating of the guns. Interestingly, Australia also opted to not have an automatic bolt hold open functionality in their FAL type rifles. The control can be used manually, but the rifle does not lock open when empty. This was presumably done in favor of keeping the action closed and clean at the expense of slower reloading (the same compromise was made on the G3 family of rifles).
This particular example is a registered transferrable machine gun made on a Lithgow receiver imported by Onyx in 1985 with other Lithgow-produced parts, including a 1960 bolt, 1961 carrier, and 1961 lower receiver from an L1A1 originally exported to Malaysia.
Contact:
Forgotten Weapons
6281 N. Oracle 36270
Tucson, AZ 85740
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QotD: Clausewitz’s concept of “friction” in war
Everything in war is very simple, but the simplest thing is difficult. The difficulties accumulate and end by producing a kind of friction that is inconceivable unless one has experienced war.
[Military theorist Carl von] Clausewitz’s most enduring and insightful idea in On War is friction.
Friction explains why a general can have a plan for battle that looks perfect on paper, but falls apart in real life. Friction torpedos morale and slows down action.
Friction isn’t just one thing. It’s the accumulation of a bunch of little things. Says Clausewitz:
Countless minor incidents — the kind you can never really foresee — combine to lower the general level of performance, so that one always falls far short of the intended goal.
To help his readers understand friction in warfare, he gives an analogy from everyday life in the 19th century that we can still imagine parallels to today:
Imagine a traveler who late in the day decides to cover two more stages before nightfall. Only four or five hours more, on a paved highway with relays of horses: it should be an easy trip. But at the next station he finds no fresh horses, or only poor ones; the country grows hilly, the road bad, night falls, and finally after many difficulties he is only too glad to reach a resting place with any kind of primitive accommodation.
As the complexity in any endeavor increases, friction increases as well, because there are simply more opportunities for things to get mucked up. The bigger and more complicated the endeavor, the larger the amount of friction.
A factor that increases complexity, and thus friction, more than any other, is the inclusion of other human beings. Humans are the ultimate friction creators. Clausewitz notes that a battalion, by its very nature, will experience plenty of friction, because it’s made up of many different individuals who can interact with each other in a multiplicity of problem-producing ways. One soldier gets scared and runs, resulting in other soldiers catching the fear contagion and running. Before you know it, you’ve got an unplanned, chaotic retreat. Damn you, friction!
[…]
Thus, Clausewitz says, the first step to getting a handle on friction is to recognize its reality, and inevitability:
An understanding of friction is a large part of that much-admired sense of warfare which a good general is supposed to possess. … The good general must know friction in order to overcome it whenever possible, and in order not to expect a standard of achievement in his operations which this very friction makes impossible.
To keep friction from throwing you for a loop, you have to manage your expectations; you have to account for friction in assessing what you’re realistically going to be able to accomplish. Making this assessment, accurately gauging how much friction you’ll encounter, Clausewitz says, is a matter of instinct, honed over time and field-testing:
As with a man of the world instinct becomes almost habit so that he always acts, speaks, and moves appropriately, so only the experienced officer will make the right decision in major and minor matters — at every pulsebeat of war. Practice and experience dictate the answer: “this is possible, that is not”.
Even though it’s crucial to accept the inevitability of friction, this needn’t be a matter of resentful resignation. If friction is normal in any endeavor, then it is something to embrace, and even take a kind of pride in — a sign that you’re doing something, taking action, engaging in life’s heroic struggle.
Brett and Kate McKay, “Clausewitz on Overcoming the Annoying Slog of Life”, The Art of Manliness, 2021-04-27.
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August 7, 2021
HMCS Magnificent – Guide 142
Drachinifel
Published 14 Sep 2019The first ship of “Canada Month”, HMCS Magnificent, is the subject of today:
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August 6, 2021
Avro Canada CF-100 Canuck: Canada’s only domestically produced all-weather interceptor
Polyus Studios
Published 3 Oct 2017Support me on Patreon – https://www.patreon.com/polyusstudios
**I realize a few of you are having trouble with the way I talk and how I’ve done the sound mixing. Please note that this was my first video and I tried to get everything right as I learned to do it. That said, I obviously made some mistakes. I am just one guy making these things and I’m learning as I go. Feel free to check out my more recent videos where I have tried to correct the sound issues.**
The CF-100 is Canada’s only domestically designed jet fighter to reach service and to be built directly to RCAF specifications. In its day it was a competitive all-weather interceptor. The Canuck protected Canadian airspace from the threat of nuclear armed Soviet bombers for over a decade. This is the story of its development and deployment.
Aircraft mentioned:
Vampire F.3
CL-13 Sabre
CF-100 Canuck
CF-101 Voodoo
CF-105 ArrowResearch sources:
http://www.cmp-cpm.forces.gc.ca/dhh-d…
https://www.bombercommandmuseum.ca/aircraft/cf-100/
http://www.canadianflight.org/content/avro-canada-cf-100-canuck
http://www.avroland.ca/al-cf100.html
http://www.aviastar.org/air/canada/canada_canuck.php
http://www.rwrwalker.ca/caf_canucks.html
http://image-bank.techno-science.ca/d…
NORAD and the Soviet Nuclear Threat: Canada’s Secret Electronic Air War By Gordon A.A. Wilson0:00 Introduction
1:08 Initial Development
2:38 CF-100 Mk 1 and Mk 2
4:26 CF-100 Mk 3
6:51 CF-103 and Transonic Speeds
7:36 CF-100 Mk 4
11:33 CF-100 Mk 5
13:14 Velvet Glove and Future Proposals
14:28 Operational History
20:02 Conclusion#CF100 #CanadianAerospace #PolyusStudios
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August 5, 2021
The Ems Dispatch – The Outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War I GLORY & Defeat Week 1
realtimehistory
Published 13 Jul 2021Support Glory & Defeat: https://realtimehistory.net/gloryandd…
French and Prussian animosity have been swelling in the background since the German Wars of Unification started in the 1860s. The French Duc de Gramont hopes that a victory over Prussia could restore French prestige while Prussian Chancellor Bismarck needs a reason to fulfill his dream of German unification from above. When the crisis about the Spanish throne escalates with the Ems Dispatch, the die is cast and the Franco-Prussian War begins.
» OUR PODCAST
https://realtimehistory.net/podcast – interviews with historians and background info for the show.» LITERATURE
Arand, Tobias: 1870/71 – Die Geschichte des Deutsch-Französischen Krieges erzählt in Einzelschicksalen. Hamburg 2018Böhme, Helmut: (Hrsg.): Die Reichs-gründung. dtv-Dokumente. München 1967
Gall, Lothar (Hrsg: Deutschland Archiv). Kaiserreich Bd. I. o.O. 2007
Girard Louis: Napoléon III. Paris 1986
Mährle, Wolfgang (Hrsg.): Nation im Siegesrausch. Württemberg und die Gründung des Deutschen Reiches 1870/71. Stuttgart 2020
Milza, Pierre: L’année terrible. La guerre franco-prussienne septembre 1870 – mars 1871. Paris 2009
» SOURCES
Fontane, Theodor: Der Krieg gegen Frankreich Bd. I. Berlin 1873Louis L. Snyder, ed., Documents of German History. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1958
» OUR STORE
Website: https://realtimehistory.net»CREDITS
Presented by: Jesse Alexander
Written by: Cathérine Pfauth, Dr. Tobias Arand, Jesse Alexander
Director: Toni Steller & Florian Wittig
Director of Photography: Toni Steller
Sound: Above Zero
Editing: Toni Steller
Motion Design: Philipp Appelt
Mixing, Mastering & Sound Design: http://above-zero.com
Maps: Battlefield Design
Research by: Cathérine Pfauth, Prof. Dr. Tobias Arand
Fact checking: Cathérine Pfauth, Prof. Dr. Tobias ArandChannel Design: Battlefield Design
Contains licensed material by getty images
All rights reserved – Real Time History GmbH 2021
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Gordon Ingram’s Westarm .308 Battle Rifle
Forgotten Weapons
Published 2 Apr 2021http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons
https://www.floatplane.com/channel/Fo…
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In the late 1970s and early 80s, Gordon Ingram came close to producing a military rifle in one of the most convoluted international arrangements I’ve yet heard of. Prototypes were made in Italy using British raw castings, to be tested in Somalia as part of a project to build a rifle factory there with Dominican Republic expertise from the San Cristobal armory. Somalia actually ordered a large quantity of rifles in 7.62x39mm, but Ingram prototyped the design in .223 and .308 as well.
Mechanically, the rifle was essentially a scaled-up M1 Carbine with a long stroke gas piston instead of a gas tappet. The production guns were select-fire, but the handful or prototypes brought into the US were semi-automatic only, to meet import requirements. In .308, the rifle used FAL magazines, while the .223 ones used AR magazines and the 7.62x39mm ones AK magazines.
Unfortunately for Ingram (but predictably), the project fell apart as the result of financial corruption among the many interested parties. The Somali government ended up paying out something like $5 million US and all they got for it were 10 unreliable prototype rifles.
Contact:
Forgotten Weapons
6281 N. Oracle 36270
Tucson, AZ 85740
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QotD: September 1939 was pretty much the optimal moment for Germany to go to war
The German economy was already in poor condition, and it was the looting of Austrian gold and Czech armaments that gave it a temporary boost in what was effectively still peacetime. (The later looting of the Polish and French economies never made up for the costs of a full world war being in progress.)
Demographically German military manpower was at a height in 1940/41 that gave it an advantage over the allies and potentially the Russians, that would quickly evaporate within a few years. (Demographics was an important science between the wars, and many leaders – like Hitler and Stalin – made frequent references to it. The Russians in particular would start having more manpower available starting in 1942 … perhaps not a coincidence that Germany invaded in 1941?)
The Nazi air forces had a temporary superiority over the Allies in 1939 that was already being rapidly undercut as both the British and the French finally started mass production of newer aircraft. (By mid-1940 British aircraft production had overtaken the Germans, even without the French. If the war had not started in 1939, by 1941 the Luftwaffe would have been numerically quite inferior to the combined British and French air forces, even without the surprisingly effective new fighters being brought on line by the Dutch and others.)
German ground forces, while not really ready for war in September 1939 (half of their divisions were still pretty much immobile, and they had only 120,000 vehicles all up compared to 300,000 for the French army alone), were nonetheless in a peak of efficiency considering the Czechs and Poles had been knocked out, and the British and French were struggling to get new equipment into service. The Soviet short-term decision to ally with the Germans to carve up Eastern Europe (Stalin knew this was only a temporary delay to inevitable conflict), also allowed the Germans an easy victory and much greater freedom of action. Again, by 1941 British conscription and production, and French (and Belgian, and Dutch, etc.) upgrades and increases in fortifications, would have come a lot closer to making the German task next to impossible. (Even then it was the collapse of French morale after the loss of Finland — leading to the collapse of the French government – and Norway, that really defeated France, not vastly inferior divisions or equipment.)
A byproduct of an Allied ramp up might also have seen Belgium rejoin the allied camp in 1941, or at least make significant planning preparations to properly add its 22 divisions and strong border fortifications to allied defences if Germany attacked. (Rather than the hopeless mess that happened in 1940 when the allies rushed to rescue the temporary non-ally that had undermined the whole interwar defensive project …) Again, the Germans managed to find a sweet spot in 1939-40 that temporarily undermined long-standing interwar co-operation, and one that was not likely to last very long.
Similarly a delay of war would have allowed allied negotiations with the Balkan states to advance. The same guarantee that was given to Poland had been given to Yugoslavia, Rumania and Greece. (It is usually forgotten that Greece – attacked by Italy – and Yugoslavia – voluntarily – joined the British side at the worst possible moment in 1941. (Only to be crushed by the Germans … but with the interesting by-product of effectively undermining Germany’s chances of defeating the Soviets and occupying Moscow in the same year …)
Nigel Davies, “If the War hadn’t started until December 1941, would it?”, rethinking history, 2021-05-01.
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August 4, 2021
Oil – Hitler’s Only Chance to Win the War? – WW2 Special
World War Two
Published 3 Aug 2021Well, we all know by know that the Wehrmacht is driving into the Caucasus to try and take the Soviet oilfields, but how bad is their oil situation, actually? And how will they get it out of the ground if the Soviets sabotage the fields and wells? What exactly is the plan? Let’s find out.
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Tank Chats #118 | Churchill Mark IV & V | The Tank Museum
The Tank Museum
Published 12 Feb 2021The Tank Museum’s Historian David Fletcher discusses the Churchill Mark IV, a British heavy infantry tank used throughout the Second World War. Armed with a 6 pounder gun, this Churchill is known for its thick armour and great ability to climb steep inclines. The chat also covers the Mark V variant, which incorporated a 95mm Howitzer for close support roles.
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August 2, 2021
The World of the Franco-Prussian War – The 19th Century up to 1870 I GLORY & DEFEAT
realtimehistory
Published 30 Jun 2021Support Glory & Defeat: https://realtimehistory.net/gloryandd…
Welcome to the first primer episode for Glory & Defeat. In this first primer episode we will take a broad look at the industrial revolution and the emerging new ideologies of the 19th century: Communism and Nationalism.
» OUR PODCAST
https://realtimehistory.net/podcast – interviews with historians and background info for the show.» LITERATURE
Hobsbawm, Eric: The long nineteenth century. 3 Bände. London 1962-1987Kugler, Martin: “Fehleinschätzungen der Menschheit”, in: Die Presse v. 28.2.2010. o.S
Osterhammel, Jürgen: Die Verwandlung der Welt. Eine Geschichte des 19. Jahrhunderts. München 2009
Bruckmüller, Ernst et. al. (ed.): Putzger. Historischer Weltatlas. Berlin 2001
Staas, Christian: “Im Schatten der Schlote”, in: Geo Epoche Nr. 30. Die industrielle Revolution. 2008. S. 72-85
Bischoff, Jürgen: “Vorwärts durch Raum und Zeit”, in: Geo Epoche Nr. 30. Die industrielle Revolution. 2008. S. 56-71
» SOURCES
Engels, Friedrich: Die Lage der arbeitenden Klasse in England. Leipzig 1845» OUR STORE
Website: https://realtimehistory.net»CREDITS
Presented by: Jesse Alexander
Written by: Cathérine Pfauth, Prof. Dr. Tobias Arand, Jesse Alexander
Director: Toni Steller & Florian Wittig
Director of Photography: Toni Steller
Sound: Above Zero
Editing: Toni Steller
Motion Design: Philipp Appelt
Mixing, Mastering & Sound Design: http://above-zero.com
Maps: Battlefield Design https://www.battlefield-design.co.uk/
Research by: Cathérine Pfauth, Prof. Dr. Tobias Arand
Fact checking: Cathérine Pfauth, Prof. Dr. Tobias ArandChannel Design: Battlefield Design
Contains licensed material by getty images
All rights reserved – Real Time History GmbH 2021
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QotD: Western military superiority
Victor Davis Hanson, Carnage and Culture, 2001.
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August 1, 2021
Not a Step Back! – Wehrmacht Closes in on Stalingrad – WW2 – 153 – July 31, 1942
World War Two
Published 31 Jul 2021Operation Edelweiss opens with a blast, and as the Wehrmacht closes in on Stalingrad, Stalin issues that famous order. There aren’t just big actions in the East, the Japanese have landed in New Guinea, the Allies try one more offensive at El Alamein, and the Americans have locked in on Guadalcanal.
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Crown Colony class – Guide 144
Drachinifel
Published 28 Sep 2019The Crown Colony class cruisers of the Royal Navy, and many others, are today’s subject.
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QotD: Rudolf Gaida’s convoluted military career
Footnote in Martin Gilbert’s World in Torment: Winston S. Churchill 1917-1922, 1975.
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