In a measured and civilised respones to 'Werepossum' (I'm sorry, what exactly is a possum? My Biology is focused around African ecosystems at the moment.)I will attempt to epostulate on my own points

The Cromwell, while having a degree of mechanical faults, was nonetheless an excellent tank and more to the point faster than anything the American army fielded outside of the M10/18 series.

The churchill was, by Normandy,armed with the same 75mm gun as the sherman and cromwell tanks. CoH is innaccurate by fixing it with a 6-pounder gun.

The M10/18 series tank destoryers were awful in Normandy. Open topped tanks are a poor design, and the 76mm gun was nothing to brag about. The only effective varient was the 90mm armed M36, and even then it was outmatched by the Firefly and Achilles.

The navy failed, as you point out, by dropping the DD tanks too far from the shoreline and causing the tanks to sink, thus creating the hideous casualties on the beaches. That is why Omaha had such high casualties.

And my last point about Patton is that the media seem to have created this image around him that he was some-sort of latter day Alexander whose progress shamed Montgomery, which is partially true given that Patton did move faster than Montgomery, but what a great deal of the historians fail to note is that the german defences were much heavier in the North of Germany as that was the area of greatest industrial concentration, wheras Patton was campaigning in an area of limited strategic importance to the Germans.

But my point about the BAR- pure crackhead. Don't know whats up there, but the only difference would be that the Bren would have greater accuracy in long range engagements- I suspect certain people are altering my posts when I'm out of the room.....

Anyhow, I do still agree with cheese pavilion- people tend to fotget America's contribution to the rest of the, and it is a shame that so much mockery is and can be directed towards such a nation....

Hey on a lighter note I am really impressed by the Canadian fervor I see. 10 Years ago Canadians really didn't feel such overwhelming pride in their country.

I think the change comes from the US, so thanks. It is hard to be constanly inundated with how good a country is without getting a little torked out of shape especially when that country is right next door. (I'm lookin at you good ol US of A).

Now in regards to how people seem to not appreciate or forget about the US's sacrifices in the past that is not the case. Most of us UN countries are aware and appreciate what you did. I being Canadian myself thank you. That is not the issue, What is the issue is that often times Americans make others feel like they are the only ones to have done anything of merit in the past 100 years.

Yes Canada is a peaceful country, but we are changing as I type this. It may not be evident for years to come but Canada and its citizens are changing, mostly as a result of fear of being overwhelmed by the US. That is why we pride ourselves on our victories.

I live close to Hamilton Ontario where Laura Secord ran to warn us colonists about the americans running up here and where my forefathers kicked some american colonial ass. Now could the US F canada up now? Of course, 10 times the population and economy built on an industrial war complex. Cmon, we really wouldn't have a chance but that also doesn't mean we would give up easily.

Remember most Canadian's are in a little way crazy mothers.

Oh yeah and I had relatives that fought for the Highlanders in WW2. They were nuts, seriously crazy.

But anyway thanks for bringing a smile to my face fellow crazy canucks.

Oh and yeah I still love the US for many things since I lived there for a while but man Bush as a president thumbs down man.

I love my country as much as any other person (USA all the way!) but I am not a xenophobic jerk who alienates other nations or generalizes all other nations. I fully understand not everyone thinks that the U.S. is just a bunch of morons with guns running around, but every one of those people who do think that make everyone else related to them look bad. But again, I try not to alienate based on origin, but everyone else seems to do it to Americans, and then wonder why they don't seem to care about other countries. Also, Bush sucks.

Evil Lawyer:
But the U.S. mainland was never threatened directly and the war was never brought home to the States like it was to us on a regular basis.

Yes, it was. There are several reports of German U-boats camping in along the coast, within sight of major cities such as New York, and torpedoing ships. Also, There were many fears of an Invasion force hitting California or other states on the Pacific coast. San Pedro, California, actually ended up having a "Phantom Raid" in which the lookouts saw something in the sky, assumed it was a Japanese bomber Squadron, and spent over twenty minutes firing blindly into the air. I know this because they celebrate it every year as a memorial to the veterans of World War II. And we also have a cove which is unofficially referred to as "Jap Cove" because a Japanese Submarine grounded on the rocks, within a mile of the shore.

Yeah, I've been undecided for a while now, but this is the thread that convinced me to give up patriotism, it seems to just numb your thinking. I'm a bit of an Anarchist anyways.

BTW though, if we're ever invaded by someone I don't think is worthy of ruling the world... We can fight guerrilla warfare too.

I dunno, The land of the Strong and Free is pretty small population-wise.

Darth Mobius:

Evil Lawyer:
But the U.S. mainland was never threatened directly and the war was never brought home to the States like it was to us on a regular basis.

Yes, it was. There are several reports of German U-boats camping in along the coast, within sight of major cities such as New York, and torpedoing ships. Also, There were many fears of an Invasion force hitting California or other states on the Pacific coast. San Pedro, California, actually ended up having a "Phantom Raid" in which the lookouts saw something in the sky, assumed it was a Japanese bomber Squadron, and spent over twenty minutes firing blindly into the air. I know this because they celebrate it every year as a memorial to the veterans of World War II. And we also have a cove which is unofficially referred to as "Jap Cove" because a Japanese Submarine grounded on the rocks, within a mile of the shore.

You forgot to mention Operation Pastorius.

Hmmm... Take the weekend off and the thread grows by 2 pages and changes hands from colonial combat to the second world war...

If we're talking WW2 I would just like to say that Canada got the shit deal in Battlefield 1942. Only ONE map with Canadian troops, and they all sound Scottish, not Canadian... I don't really mind Scottish, rather like it, but that isn't how we sound. There was a thread going on about games and propaganda, well leaving Canada out of BF1942 is PURE propaganda. We were in more infantry engagements than the US, but the US got 1/3 of the maps. Juno Beach anyone? Canada was the ONLY ally to reach their target on D-Day and made the furthest way into France. Where's my BF1942 map for THAT fight?

Hmmm... Any basement programmers here interested in doing a Battlefield 1812 mod? I know this PERFECT song for the loading screen : D

Speaking as an American I was taught in middle school that no one won the war of 1812 and it just ended. Seriously.
That was the extent of my education on the war of 1812, and frankly I wonder occasionally if I was taught the "saving face" American version.

I was also taught that the pilgrims and the Native Americans were best friends, that Custer was "a sort of dessert" and that the founding fathers were a bunch of demigodlike saints in silly wigs.

Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to go post angry letters about governemnt conspiracies on supremacist forums and polish my gun/moonshine collection.

Fondant:
In a measured and civilised respones to 'Werepossum' (I'm sorry, what exactly is a possum? My Biology is focused around African ecosystems at the moment.)I will attempt to epostulate on my own points

The Cromwell, while having a degree of mechanical faults, was nonetheless an excellent tank and more to the point faster than anything the American army fielded outside of the M10/18 series.

The churchill was, by Normandy,armed with the same 75mm gun as the sherman and cromwell tanks. CoH is innaccurate by fixing it with a 6-pounder gun.

The M10/18 series tank destoryers were awful in Normandy. Open topped tanks are a poor design, and the 76mm gun was nothing to brag about. The only effective varient was the 90mm armed M36, and even then it was outmatched by the Firefly and Achilles.

The navy failed, as you point out, by dropping the DD tanks too far from the shoreline and causing the tanks to sink, thus creating the hideous casualties on the beaches. That is why Omaha had such high casualties.

And my last point about Patton is that the media seem to have created this image around him that he was some-sort of latter day Alexander whose progress shamed Montgomery, which is partially true given that Patton did move faster than Montgomery, but what a great deal of the historians fail to note is that the german defences were much heavier in the North of Germany as that was the area of greatest industrial concentration, wheras Patton was campaigning in an area of limited strategic importance to the Germans.

But my point about the BAR- pure crackhead. Don't know whats up there, but the only difference would be that the Bren would have greater accuracy in long range engagements- I suspect certain people are altering my posts when I'm out of the room.....

Anyhow, I do still agree with cheese pavilion- people tend to fotget America's contribution to the rest of the, and it is a shame that so much mockery is and can be directed towards such a nation....

A possum (an opossum, properly) is a marsupial scavenger, roughly cat sized. I didn't realize any continent was without its possums!

The Cromwell was certainly faster than any American tank of the era. It would have been a great tank for North Africa, but perpetuated the faults of all the British cruiser tanks. The most important fault was the vertical nose plate the Brits insisted on using all the way to the excellent Centurian, which virtually guaranteed that a shot striking the nose plate would penetrate. It could be argued that it's as good as or better than the Sherman, certainly better in the right situation, but my point was the comparison to the Pershing which was a much better tank all around.

If memory serves most of the Churchills at Normandy were equipped with six pounders, the Shermans were equipped with the much better 76mm (much higher velocity than the 75mm, which was designed under the persistent and ludicrous US and UK belief that tanks supported infantry while tank destroyers and anti-tank guns fought tanks), the Cromwells were mostly equipped with the meh 75mm (bored out 57mm if I remember correctly), and the occassional Sherman Firefly conversion had the excellent 17-pounder (which was arguably a better anti-tank weapon than the 90mm M3, with flatter trajectory and higher ammo storage at the expense of slightly lower kinetic energy and penetration and a smaller HE charge.) And I don't recognize "CoH" - is that a person or book or game or?

I certainly agree that the M10/18 series tank destroyers were awful in Normandy, where combat was linear and at point-blank range, and that open-topped and lightly armored tank destroyers were a dead end design overall, yet they performed admirably after the Normandy breakout. Many M18 and M36 battalions had kill numbers equal to the better Sherman (and Cromwell) tank battalions, since they could run faster and the Tigers and Panthers easily penetrated Western tank armor anyway. Even in Italy the M10 served well with its 76mm gun, much better than the Sherman's short-barreled 75mm which had problems even with the Mark 4 Panzer. You are right that the 76mm gun was nothing to brag about, but it was the most powerful the M18 was capable of mounting (several were trialed.) The Sherman probably couldn't have mounted the 90mm M3 gun since it was trialed and rejected, although that might have been due to the antiquated ideas of the staff at the Armor Board as mentioned above. (Why on Earth your own side would think losing five tanks to take out one German tank was an acceptable ratio has always escaped me.) The Sherman Firely (mounting the British 76.2mm 17-pounder) was a decent tank, less speed and worse armor than the Panther but more mobile and reliable and at least capable of engaging the Panther at equal range. I've never understood why the USA didn't build that exclusively. I don't remember much about the Achilles - wasn't that the US M10 tank destroyer with the second generation (77mm, shorter breach block) 17 pounder? If that's the case then I would expect similar performance to the M36, which was basically an M10 with the 90mm M3 gun.

I still disagree about Patton and Montgomery; Patton was brilliant and Montgomery was totally overrated. Market Garden was probably the worst planned and executed Allied operation of the war, with the possible exception of the Dieppe Raid, and many historians think it was aimed more at stopping Patton's advance (by stopping his supplies) than at the Germans. Certainly most of the plans advanced by Montgomery required stopping Patton's advance and diverting his supplies to Montgomery as a primary requirement. In addition, read the German accounts and correspondence from during Market Garden; the German high command could not believe the Allies would stop Patton and put the main effort behind Montgomery, whom they regarded as a plodder. (Except Rommel; I think he made a believer of Rommel.)

Most people forget that although Montgomery certainly planned and executed an excellent battle at El Alamein, it was Auchinleck who took a retreating, demoralized, and outnumbered army at El Alamein and stopped Rommel cold. Montgomery beat him, true, but only with a massive advantage in manpower and firepower. For that matter, what the hell happened to O'Conner? He was probably the best Western Allied general of the war, and after winning 95% of the war in North Africa against a more numerous and somewhat better equipped foe, his forces were totally stripped away and he practically disappeared. Had O'Conner not been stopped, there would have been no battles at El Alamein for Auchinleck or Montgomery; the war in North Africa was won.

Anyway, we've hijacked the thread, so I'll shut up and give you the last word.

The reason Montgomery lasted was that he was popular and liked by Churchill, all the others weren't. Now here come the part where I get lynced, but Churchill was not the great war leader. He certinally kept moral of both the public and the armed forces up but when it came to dicition making he was lucky if he had 1 good idea in 10, and sadly he could never tell which was the good idea.

Also unlike other commanders, Montgomery at least could give you an idea on how bad the upcoming fight was by counting the number of cricket references he made in his speeches. The more times we would knock Gerry for a six, the more likly you would not survive.

AS for tanks the whole conversation is pointless as the best allied tank was the Russia T34 which went on to be the insperation for the German King Tiger tank, which I have seen and they are teriffying looking machines, and every modern tank since.

Okay-

@werepossum- now I remember what a possum is. Thanks for reminding me.

O'Connor was captured by the germans, and only escaped around 1943 I think, thus kyboshing his progress up the chain of command. He onyl ever made it to brigade colonel I think.

The Sherman and Cromwell were both armed with the 75mm general-purpose gun- the shermans got the 76mm upgrade at around early 1945, by which it was too late for a lot of them, and didn't help against the Panther-Tiger series vehicles anyway.

CoH-refers to the popular world war two simulator comapny of heroes, which shows the churchill to have a 57mm 6-pounder gun when in fact at the timeof the normandy landings it was using the same general-purpose 75mm gun as all the allied tanks.

The Comet and the Pershing were both the only 'heavy' tanks the american or brits used. And the Comet was a cruiser tank primarily, so it's armament was lighter.

Plus the Pershing was extremely expensive to produce, wheras the cromwell-sherman series tanks were much cheaper and easier to transport.

Also, the main reason the Firefly was not produced in numbers was due to the low availability of the 17-pounder AT gun, which was both expensive and in high demand by both the infantry and Armoured divisons everywhere.

The achilles was a M18 with a 17 pounder gun mounted in the turret.

And now on to the main event- the Patton/Monty showdown.

Now, I shall explicitly state this. Patton always appears to be the better general. But it must be remembered that Patton's field of opeations was the Southern part of France and germany, area's that were much less built up and much less well-defended than the Northern areas Monty was operating in- to say, he had far less resistance to contend with, and for good reason. Even if he had been given all the resources, all he would have taken would have been the south of France and the South of germany- areas that are strategically unimportant comparedto the Ruhr valley, Silesia and Northwestern Germany in general- the industrial heartland of Germany.

Market Garden was a cockup due to a combination of atrocious luck, bad tactical decisions, and intelligence failure, like the armoured relief force being a bunch of morons, and the fact that the SIS knew that there was a Panzer division right on top of Arnhem but neglected to inform Army Group Headquarters.
The fact is that Market garden itself PROVES that Montgomery was not a plodder- it was a very decisive plan, and if it had payed off would have saved a lot of blood for the allies.

@AUNIU- The T34 was an excelletn tank, but was employed so poorly it achieved a loss ratio of some 13-to one against the Tiger, where the Sherman was a mere 8-to-one.
One the tige- it was an excellent defensive weapon, but was not the forerunner of modern tanks. I beleive that honour must go to the panther, a much better tank all around and nearly as feared as the Tiger.

And yes, the Tiger is bloody scary.

NO the Tiger is scary, the King Tiger goes beyond that. So much so that when I have been listening to personal statements from soldiers, those who didn't go up against them talk about their fears of them, while those who did fight against a King Tiger just go quiet.

Australian WW2 Trivia

In one battle, after the retreat of the australian forces, the japanese records showed they believed they had driven off 1200 defenders of an airstrip... The japanese force had in fact been held off by 77 raw recruits.

the 'Rats of Tobruk' held their namesake city (Typical australian behavior, they get insulted and it becomes their favorite nickname) from the german general 'The desert fox' Rommel and his bigger, better trained, equipped and mechanized force... and they had reliabele and numerable supplies unlike the Rats (no build up here folks, we were fucked) for [insert time here, i cant be bothered looking this up]

Australians at gallipoli ran head-long into machine gun fire in a suicide charge because a digger knows no fear, and really, how tough is a machine gun anyway? they got a holiday in their honor because they had such huge balls. (before anyone feels the need to ask why we celebrate this, we don't, we remember it, and there's a big difference)

Also, Australian special forces kick the pants off all the others, so HA!

Ultrajoe:
Australian WW2 Trivia

In one battle, after the retreat of the australian forces, the japanese records showed they believed they had driven off 1200 defenders of an airstrip... The japanese force had in fact been held off by 77 raw recruits.

the 'Rats of Tobruk' held their namesake city (Typical australian behavior, they get insulted and it becomes their favorite nickname) from the german general 'The desert fox' Rommel and his bigger, better trained, equipped and mechanized force... and they had reliabele and numerable supplies unlike the Rats (no build up here folks, we were fucked) for [insert time here, i cant be bothered looking this up]

Australians at gallipoli ran head-long into machine gun fire in a suicide charge because a digger knows no fear, and really, how tough is a machine gun anyway? they got a holiday in their honor because they had such huge balls. (before anyone feels the need to ask why we celebrate this, we don't, we remember it, and there's a big difference)

Also, Australian special forces kick the pants off all the others, so HA!

Careful there were a lot of New Zealanders at Gallipoli as well

I beleive everyone ran into machinegun fire in the first world war. It was sort of part of the deal, along with Biplanes and monstrous artillery.

A Username Not In Use:

Careful there were a lot of New Zealanders at Gallipoli as well

noted: ANZAC's at gallipoli, but the Kiwi's did it because they're all mad to begin with.

Ultrajoe:

A Username Not In Use:

Careful there were a lot of New Zealanders at Gallipoli as well

noted: ANZAC's at gallipoli, but the Kiwi's did it because they're all mad to begin with.

Well thats a given as the British Empire became the biggest in the world by making sure its army was made up of either nutters, hard bastards or that unique combination like the scots, mad hard bastards

The way I always heard the war described was (sort of) as follows...

The Americans were worried about the British presence in the north, they wanted to both prevent an invasion to retake the colonies and "liberate" the oppressed british subjects in Canada. They largely took advantage of the distraction provided by the Napoleonic Wars in Europe to invade Canada. The Canadians (specifically the people of Ontario and the Quebecois) didn't exactly want to be liberated so they fought back using the local militia , Guerilla warfare and low urban density to our advantage, holding off the Americans until the British finished off Napoleon, turned their attention back to their colonies and decided to defend their colony as well as teach the "upstart" Americans a lesson by counter invading.

Canadians like to use this as a point of pride (beating the Americans) when all we really did was hold the line until the British Army came and saved our butts from the Big Bad America beast.

PedroSteckecilo:
Canadians like to use this as a point of pride (beating the Americans) when all we really did was hold the line until the British Army came and saved our butts from the Big Bad America beast.

Sometimes holding the line is enough to achieve the goal of the war.

I think we Americans had not yet learned that driving an enemy out of your place is much easier than driving an enemy out of his place.

CanadianWolverine:
... seriously, Clinton got impeached for promiscuity, why they hell hasn't Bush (and Company) been handed his ass yet with far more serious impeachments?

Clinton didn't get impeached for the said promiscuity, he got impeached because he lied about it.

werepossum:
[quote=PedroSteckecilo]I think we Americans had not yet learned that driving an enemy out of your place is much easier than driving an enemy out of his place.

No offense, but if we look at Iraq, Americans still haven't learned that. How long did they say that was going to take again?

The war was really a stalemate. Both sides had immense losses, and important places burned. America: White House. Canada: York(present day Toronto). Britain+Canada got their way by not having land taken, and having some bill passed by Britain was suppossed to appease Canada and America, but since imformation traveled so slowly back then, especially between oceans, there was another battle, and America won, making them think they won the war.

I'd like to set as a side note that American troopers were behind in the times until WW1 and even then they weren't top-the-line (in training equipment, ta-ta-tac-tactics, or leadership) that didn't become a reality until MUCH later, like WW2 as America didn't want to end up making the same mistakes, but they were still behind until they read a few news reals and caught up with the fact that the Germans were using blitzkreig. American fighting tech still wasn't all that ahead of the curve until right after the Cold War, as they found they and the Russians were the only ones who built up (as severely) during that time, and even then the only thing making them better than others was the freakishly good pilots, infantry and use of helicopters to move forces faster than ever.

Not until the F-15 and the M-1 Abrams replaced previous vehicles did the Americans claim any kind of technological superiority over anyone else, and due to a lack of funding we are still using these (the F-22 is an F-15 with about 25 years of aircraft design added on, which makes it really good, and the M-1A2SEP is the M-1 with better computers a bigger gun, 1 major design change and a handful of smaller ones, which ain't too bad either, but useless in the fights we are having right now.) Aside from flying first other countries usually keep up with Americans' fliers, aside from pilot skills (like I've said we have freakishly good pilots).

At least that's on the ground and in the air, the American Navy has almost always been ahead of the curve, as early as our civil war the ironclads put us on par with everyone, but the innovation of the turret put us ahead by a number of years (at least until someone from another country saw it and tried to make their own, which wasn't very long)

Would this be a bad time to point out that the main cannon and the engine form an M1 Abram were orginally designed for the German Leopard MK2.

Also it was only for a short time in the late nineteenth century that America became an inovative ship building country, earlier than that Spain was the leading the way in ship development, than in the twentieth century Germany lead the way in ship building.

Civil War was 1861-65 thats latter half of the 18th century, also I will admit American ships weren't spectacular during WW1 or 2 only thing truly separating them from everyone else was the numbers (specifically number of ships generated in a short period of time) and in WW2 the decision to base the fleet around aircraft carriers instead of battleships.

Kovash86:
Civil War was 1861-65 thats latter half of the 18th century, also I will admit American ships weren't spectacular during WW1 or 2 only thing truly separating them from everyone else was the numbers (specifically number of ships generated in a short period of time) and in WW2 the decision to base the fleet around aircraft carriers instead of battleships.

First in the 1860's while Monitor was the future of ship development, she was slow, not sea worthy and had limited storage facilities for ammunition. The leadng ships in Navel design at the time were HMS Warrior and HMS Black Prince, both of which were Ocean going, optional steam powered propultion, limited range only but a unique advantage compaired to other ships, had breach loading rifled cannons, and facilities to shoot shells filled with molton iron, which is fucked up.

Only because the Japanese failed to sink the carrier fleet, which was their primery target, in the attack on Pearl Habour resulted in that desiction as it was quicker to adapt to a carrier fleet than it was to wait for new battleships to be designed and build.

Also seperation in numbers. In the First World War the entire American Navy made up a single squadron in the combined Allied navy, the Royal Navy made up eight. In the Second War the large numbers came about because of the Washington Navel Treaty that ensured that every other navy from both the Central Powers, and the Allieds, with the exception of the American navy were to be limited in size and weight, hence Germany's development of the deadly pocket battleship, and Britian' "Cherry Tree" ships Nelson and Rodney.

Now you have unnecessay large navy, but with no Empire or other overseas territories to defend or police, they seem to be a monumental waste of money.