Any military history buffs here?

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We invented the jet engine, you know. (More or less at the same time the Nazis did.) But ours actually served in the war.

By William Craig. Its interesting to read the book, as you can see the bits they decided would work in the film.

no... i think it was the panzer IV

I really must start writing these tidbits down. I remember bits, but not where I read them.

The 42 model T-34 had steel tired wheels and made an awful racket, and was subsequently fitted with rubber for at least the front road wheel arms,and oft as not the last too. Supply issues often led to a mix and match policy.

The "frozen tiger" issue often came about because Tigers in particular has interlocking and overlapped wheels, which when stationary, could easily become frozen together, usually through being packed full of crap. The Russians were sometimes given to timing attacks for early morning specifically because of this. Tigers had rubber "tires" as well.

Basically, the Germans simply had not prepared for a winter war the likes of which they got caught in, and much like Napoleon before them, got battered to hell as much because of the weather as any other factor.

If anyone ever comes across a website/information on the Hungarian involvement on the Eastern Front during World War II, I would appreciate it. Thanks!

http://www.hungarian-history.hu/lib/thou/thou16.htm

http://www.ww2incolor.com/forum/archive ... -3458.html < this thread has several links

Thank you!

Thanks, I don't remember where I read that. I read an article regarding the Tank battle of Kursk in a magazine, perhaps that's where. By the way, Kursk is fascinating. Largest Tank battle ever?

I read that series, kinda liked the aliens (love ginger meself) but thought that it would have made a good book, singular. So much padding and faff.

For the tanks thing, well, the "quantity" Sherman and T34 were the war-winners (with added bonuses for the Firefly and /85). Them and antitank airpower. The "quality" tanks are all very well but they weren't the important ones.

Tank development at the moment is at an interesting phase, I think. The T-90 is just more of the same, although as Russian armour enthusiasts are keen to point out, the poor combat record of the T-72 is down to inferior specification on export models and poor tactics of their users. The Abrams, well, ho-hum, it's getting quite old but still damn good. Challenger 2 is probably the best protected tank out there; the Merkava has a chequered combat history; the Leopard 2 is largely unproven. The Leclerc is just weird, all firepower/mobility and no armour. The Italian Ariete I've no idea, looks fairly run of the mill, the Indians seriously messed up their tank development and are going over to T-90s. The South Korean K2 looks to be very good, don't know about the Japanese Type 10, looks so-so. Current Chinese ones seem pretty rubbish, NK ones are laughable. Various ex-eastern bloc types are doing incremental improvements to the T-72, but hey, they're still (at least) a generation out of date.
Anyway, it doesn't look like anyone really knows what they want from their tanks. Kinda ironic that the upgrades to the Abrams are taking it towards the role of a Great War infantry tank. ^^

*ahem* Oh well, do disagree. I talk a lot of crepe sometimes. Military hardware is just the prime example of the Devil having all the best tunes... "um, yeah, so this airliner holds 97.812 passengers and can fly 577km from each wing tank... oh who cares, let's go back to looking at the jet fighter pew! pew!"

It would be interesting to see how well these various makes fare against one another. We know Challenger 2 can take T-72, but can it take an Abrams? I say yes. Or vice versa.

For a while there was a playstation game called Panzer Front, which allowed you to field a "theoretical next stept" Nazi tank against an Abram's, and I'm sure you could try Tigers and such against them too.

I can see the excuse for the T-72 working, but its mighty ironic. After all, thousands of Russian tanks far superior to the German ones got creamed because of hideous doctrine. Though I do recall a tale of a KV-1 sitting in the middle of a field for a couple of days and pasting everything that came near it.

For the past few years, as a hobby, I've made historical war games using the Civilization II game as a basic template. It has a series of in-game editors that allow for changes in almost everything, from maps to mathematics to graphics.

Here are the completed releases;

Age of War, 1900-1950
Age of Crusades, 1000-1250 AD
Age of Imperialism, 1870-1920
Italian Wars, 1494-1544
Panzer Battles on the River Chir, winter 1942
Age of Charlemagne, 712-830 AD
The Modern Age, 1483-1740
American Empire,1860-1900
Dracula of Transylvania

I've released incompleted versions of these;

The Mexican Civil War
Age of Bronze
Fall of Rome
Battle of the Five Armies

Several others are still in the beginning stages;

World War Two in Europe
Age of Muskets
The Desert War

There is a brilliant graphix design guy in Wales who provides me with superbly crafted and historically accurate military unit graphics. I've studied warfare and history in general since childhood. Some of the games cover an entire era, usually focusing on arms races, new technologies, and balance-of-power politics. Others are tactical exercises like the Panzer Battles on the River Chir, which came from Von Mellenthin's book "Panzer Battles." Others are pure warfare scenarios with multipolar diplomacy. I can provide links if anyone is interested. Civ II is an older game though. The newest versions of Civ (4) include moving graphics and are flashy, but lack the necessary depth and in-game editors to allow modification and game building, which is why I use the old one.

my personal fave plane now is still BUFF...

B-52 Stratofortress

or the

F-117 Nighthawlk

I always favoured the ME-262 for sheer grace and quality lines. Some of the Russia MiGs are very pretty. Personal favourite for sheer shock and awe has to go to:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_Vulcan

Having lived less than ten miles from a base that flew these big scary buggers, I've seen (heard and felt) the business end more than a little.

I'm mostly into the Warring States of Japan, WWII in Pacific and The American Civil War here. I have done research in the Pacific Theater of WWII because the aircraft carrier comes of age. F6F Hellcat, F4F Wildcat, SBD Dauntless, SB2C Helldiver, TBF Avenger, TBD Devastator and F4U Corsair. Now those planes are legendary than most modern aircraft.

Ive always used the engines from the Vulcan in mai skeches of bombers... the in wing intakes look sooo cool