Top 10 Inventions Of WWII

(Herr Oberst @ Feb 10 2006, 05:44 PM) [post=45584]Jim, I think we dropped our DD tanks too far out and they sunk in the swells. That's why there wasn't any armour at Omaha to support the initial landings.

Thanks for bringing up the funnies Sapper.

I think the crocodile would have been particularly effective.

I remember hearing that the US commanders kid of hurumphed at the funnies. They were highly effective for the British...oops we should have used them. They would be vulnerable to heavy AT fire...but would have overall made the op more effective.
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Agreed on the DDs. But what does that have to do with missing an opportunity? We had LCTs too. Most of them got caught up on the underwater obsticles of morning invasion. Shermans could have defended themselves. An M7 could have but artillery rounds straight through the openings of the fortresses without even being completely on the beach. Roll up a small number of M7s off of the LCTs and the Germans would have fled the bunkers even before the infantry got there. Then you can remove all the obsticles you want without having your engineers shot at. Funnies can't do any of that. I fail to see it's utility. Even if it had utility that something else wouldn't it was a one trick pony. But blaming losses at Omaha on not having Funnies is beyond the frey.

If I had the chance to be in one or the other, I would rather have something that could defend itself and supress the enemies fire. Removing anti-tank obsticles is just not that big of a deal. We did it just fine with engineers so why waste money on a piece of equipment that doesn't buy you anything and stands a good chance of becoming a tank block that even the engineers couldn't remove? Just my personal opinion. I would have preferred a formation of B-17s to clear the beach in one fell swoop. That was the US plan, the engineers were a backup if the weather didn't hold.

[trumpetplayer992]

The Garand was a great gun

[Glider]

'We had LCTs too. Most of them got caught up on the underwater obsticles of morning invasion. Shermans could have defended themselves. '

[/i]
'An M7 could have but artillery rounds straight through the openings of the fortresses without even being completely on the beach. Roll up a small number of M7s off of the LCTs and the Germans would have fled the bunkers even before the infantry got there.'

I don't think so. The open top M7 would have its crews shot to pieces from MG's firing down from the cliffs. I would suggest the Shermans armed with 105's would be a better alternative.

'Then you can remove all the obsticles you want without having your engineers shot at. Funnies can't do any of that. I fail to see it's utility. Even if it had utility that something else wouldn't it was a one trick pony. But blaming losses at Omaha on not having Funnies is beyond the frey. '

What I think you are missing was the range of funnies. We had ones that layed track on the beaches so the tanks wouldn't get bogged down in soft sand. We also had others that enabled the tanks to climb sea walls. It was the combination that allowed the British armour the ability to move and support their troops. It was the lack of such tools plus of course the failure to land the DD tanks that forced the PBI to managed with little if any support.
In addition to the Funnies we had a range of landing craft that were armed with 25pd or 17pd guns in turrets that could land with the landing craft and give direct fire support to the troops on the beaches targeting the bunkers. Again the American infantry were without this aid and were on their own.
What cannot be doubted was that a lot of American Lives were lost because of the failure of the Senior Officers to take advantage of what was available.

'If I had the chance to be in one or the other, I would rather have something that could defend itself and supress the enemies fire. Removing anti-tank obsticles is just not that big of a deal.'

Removing the Anti Tank obsticles was key. Without it all the armour in the world might as well be on Mars for all the help they can give.

'We did it just fine with engineers so why waste money on a piece of equipment that doesn't buy you anything and stands a good chance of becoming a tank block that even the engineers couldn't remove?'

The USA did it just fine because by saving money you lost lives and that is not a good combination. The Engineer losses were huge and a lot more than the would have been with adaquate support.

'Just my personal opinion. I would have preferred a formation of B-17s to clear the beach in one fell swoop. That was the US plan, the engineers were a backup if the weather didn't hold.'

Ask any infantry man of any country of their confidence of any heavy bomber raid clearing a path trough defences like that and I strongly suspect that they would invite you to go first. It never worked on any landing anywhere in WW2. The bombs wouldn't be big enough or concentrated enough and it would be almost impossile to co ordinate it with the landing.
You might want to ask the Bomber crews of their confidence in the Naval ships holding fire. They were notoriously trigger happy and the bomber crews would be sitting ducks.

[i]

[Herroberst]

The Garand was a great gun[/b]

Have you ever fired one?


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Synthetic Oil

Germany produced many thousands of tons of Synthetic Oil using coal[/b]

IG Farben

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Thanks, Geoff

Seems to me you're the only one to come up with a top ten list. Gnomey agreed.

Anyone else? Bueller?

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Jim, The crocodile does a good job of getting men out of Bunkers.

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I think that the German Infrared scope was a top contributor to warfare (ZG 1229 Vampir)

I had to say the first cruise missile(V-1) and the forefather of the ICBM (V-2)

I am in agreement with Spidge

The open top M7 would have its crews shot to pieces from MG's firing down from the cliffs.[/b]

You were typing the same time I was thinking about the scene from Saving Private Ryan when the MG 42s
go through the assault troops in that Higgins boat like a deck of cards.

(Herr Oberst @ Feb 10 2006, 10:55 PM) [post=45604]Jim, The crocodile does a good job of getting men out of Bunkers.
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Well, not if the guys in the bunker have panzershreks and panzerfausts or an 88 mounted there. A panzerfaust does a better job of getting the men out of a crocodile especially if they have to move it within 80 yards of a target. To do that effectively you need to back off out of range of their anti-tank weaponry.

The M7s and other variants have front shielding so they simply stay low and aim through its optics. It would simply not miss at that range. The principle of suppressive fire is that when you are firing at the enemy, he does not dare raise his head to fire back, especially if he is firing 105mm HEs at your sector. That’s a heck of a demolishing round coming every five seconds or so. Artillery has a very profound affect on soldiers. You are not going to sit there like a sitting duck holding on to a MG-42 while 105 rounds are blowing the positions to the right and left of you to smithereens working its way to you. It's not only time to stay down but time to get out of Dodge. Same thing when the Sherman’s made it to shore, game over for MGs. No one is going to sit there and fire an MG when a tank is aiming to vaporize you if you do. But, if you have something against an M7, then use a Sherman. It's still more functional and lethal than a "Funny". The “Funny” was not an offensive weapon. In an attack you have to move and you have to hit the enemy before he hits you. The enemy would laugh if you tried to move that thing up close enough to him to dislodge him. If he is gone from the morning heavy aerial bombing and navy shelling like it was on the British beaches, it probably doesn’t matter what you use, you no matter what you use, you could say it “worked for the Brits”.

Keep the subject in focus. The subject of my response was that the American's were foolish to eschew the Funny and choose what they believe was better weapons to do the job, not, did it work in the case of the British invasion. It's already been stated that it did. What was good enough for Sword, Juno, and Gold, would not necessarily been good for Omaha. They were not the same type of battles at the water’s edge where the obstacles were. If we couldn't get a Sherman (DD or LCT) to shore at Omaha, surely you are not suggesting we could have gotten a Funny to shore are you? Again, something keeps getting lost in the counterarguments here. There was nothing magical about a Funny that would have gotten it to shore to "save the day" at Omaha. If a Sherman gets to shore the game changes. You can't say that about a "Funny". There is a good possibility it would quickly be turned into scrap iron due to its inability to defend itself or supress fire.

Also keep in mind, the American’s and the British had two almost completely different doctrines of armor usage. I will be posting some new revelations on these differences when I get finished with the book I am reading. It is quite eye-opening. More to come on that issue...

[angie999]

(Herr Oberst @ Feb 10 2006, 10:44 PM) [post=45584]Jim, I think we dropped our DD tanks too far out and they sunk in the swells. That's why there wasn't any armour at Omaha to support the initial landings.
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Some of the armour at Omaha was landed by LCT. For instance, in the Easy Green and Dog Red sectors, A Coy, 743rd Tank Battalion, was scheduled to land by LCT at H-hour.

[sapper]

The Funnies!
What must be remembered is that Hobart’s funnies came in many different guises, From flails, to tanks that fired huge explosive charges, to bridging, And those that carried huge bundles of chestnut palings to fill gaps. The whole range of AVRE had something pretty much for any situation. But it all had to work in unison with the rest of the forces.

Where the British scored so highly was the organisation. For example: the British army had dedicated teams of assault engineers to land before anyone else, with the task of clearing the beach obstacles. This they did. Unfortunately the water and tide driven by the wind made a much higher watermark than anticipated, narrowing he beach area considerably. Therefore the landing area was reduced.

During this time the Assault Engineers continued to make the beach obstacles safe, by continuing to swim amongst the defences removing mines and shells, as the tide rose even higher, many of those men while still carrying on with the tasks were drowned.

But their sacrifice made everything possible. At about the same time other dedicated Assault demolition and Assault mine clearing teams landed with task of creating mine free paths, from the beach to the lateral road. With the explosive charges (Beehives) to remove or destroy any enemy concrete gun, or defensive positions.

All that was completed as ordered. It must be remembered that nowhere on the Normandy Invasion Coast, did there exist the strength of enemy defences that the Assault troops had to face on Sword Beach.

I know that in American circles, Sword Beach was looked on as “Easy” never was. The heaviest enemy defences, and in depth.

The following from one of the assault ships log, lays this misinformation to rest, what follows later, is Stan Hough’s record taken from the log of one of the ships that carried the Assault craft. Princess Astrid. Bless her! She hit a mine in the channel after the war and sunk!
The Princess lost 4 out of her 8 Assault landing craft.
Princess Charlotte lost 7 out of 8
MV Victoria lost 5 out of 6.
Prince Henry lost 5 out of 8.
Finally Prince David lost all 8.
On reflection, the loss of 29 Assault craft out of a total of 38 with only 9 saved, hardly bears out the idea of an "Easy landing" In passing, the continuous rain of films and documentaries over the last 60 years about the war, have created a rather one sided view, at times having very little do to with what actually took place. But, such is the power of propaganda that these myths are assumed to be true and become fixed as part of the Legend of D Day.

One of those huge defensive positions was “Hillman” 650 meters by 450 meters. Successfully breached by Lt Arthur Heal C de G, from My RE Company. In the company of the infantry.

I suppose it would be well to name these companies that gave so much.
5th Assault Regiment Royal Engineers
629th Field Squadron Royal Engineers
263rd Field Company RE
246th Field Company RE
17th Field Company RE
253rd Field Company RE
79th Assault Squadron RE
591st Para Squadron RE

With that in mind, the question must be asked? Would bloody Omaha ever have happened if they had adopted these special dedicated assault Engineer teams? In my mind they were unprepared, and paid a terrible price for that. That gives me no satisfaction at all. It just seems such a terrible shame that so many young men had to perish.
Sapper

[Glider]

Top ten inventions

Penecillin
No one would deny this.

Development of Jet Engine
More development was packed into those few years than at any time

Education
WW2 was the first war to use highly complex equipment at every level in all the armed forces. The vast majority of troops had neve driven a car before the war. In the war these ill trained and educated people in their hundreds of thousands, had to learn to build and maintain hugely complex engines and other electrical equipment. A significant achievement

Electronics
Radios, radars, sonar all these were improved many times during the war.

Computers
Didn't exist before the war apart from in theory.

Infantry Weapons
Almost all armies started with bolt action rifles and an LMG, plus an anti tank rifle. By the end all major armies (Britain excepted) were heading towards, SLR's, assult rifles, GPMG's and deadly anti tank weapons

Rockets
Again these didn't exist before the war. By the end you had a large range with V1, V2 down to the aircraft launched rockets for ground attack.

Guided Weapons
The first smart bombs and guided weapons were being tested and in some cases used. What we see today started then.

Navigation Aids
Again before the war it was little more than guesswork with some radio bearings. By the end of the war there were a number of aids that allowed accurate long distance flights.

Synthetics
Big topic this but there were all sorts of synthetic items in production from clothing to oil and rubber. To a large degree these came from nowhere.

For what its worth thats my ten.

(angie999 @ Feb 11 2006, 05:44 AM) [post=45627]

Some of the armour at Omaha was landed by LCT. For instance, in the Easy Green and Dog Red sectors, A Coy, 743rd Tank Battalion, was scheduled to land by LCT at H-hour.
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Yes, I stated this in post #21 above. The primary problem at Omaha (as I understand it) was the inability to get armor ashore NOT the fact that they didn't have "Funnies". My claim is that on Omaha, had a "Funny" have been unloaded on the beach it would not have been successful because of the direct fire on it and its ability to suppress enemy fire 100s of yards away. I just don’t buy that it was the negligence of not using it that caused so many Omaha casualties.

[angie999]

(jimbotosome @ Feb 11 2006, 04:18 PM) [post=45639]

Yes, I stated this in post #21 above. The primary problem at Omaha (as I understand it) was the inability to get armor ashore NOT the fact that they didn't have "Funnies". My claim is that on Omaha, had a "Funny" have been unloaded on the beach it would not have been successful because of the direct fire on it and its ability to suppress enemy fire 100s of yards away. I just don’t buy that it was the negligence of not using it that caused so many Omaha casualties.
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I certainly agree that the issues at Omaha beach are much mor ecomples than whether ot not there should have been specialist armour. However, this is taking us way off topic. There is an old Omaha thread on the board which I will find and bump to the top so that we can continue this there.