What are you currently reading ?

Started by goat major, 03 November 2012, 06:40:05 PM

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FierceKitty

Quote from: Ithoriel on 19 July 2020, 09:49:17 PM
Alas, it's a historical treatise not a work of fantasy.

If only they'd made Maximus Decimus Meridius a wrestling coach not a gladiator he could have strangled Commodus in the bath. :)

Since the advent of the Internet (NSFW filter: disabled), the market for that kind of "Roman" movie has fallen to bits.
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Orcs

20 July 2020, 08:49:27 AM #3376 Last Edit: 20 July 2020, 08:57:34 AM by Orcs
Panzer Killers: Anti-tank Warfare on the Eastern Front by artem Drabkin

This is an interesting book. The intro give organisation details, and then each chapter is a first hand account of a Russian veteran.

If the veterans are correct in their memories.

1 The 45m A/T gun had APDS ammunition available in more than adequate amounts. With this it was able to take on even Panthers if side on.
2 They often used Fragmentation or Canister shells against infantry
3 Part of the standard armament of the crew was a DP Machine gun
4 They were still actively using A/T rifles in 1943 in the antitank role although they knew they were fairly ineffective. They aimed at Tracks, vision slits and where the turret joint the hull

Due to 1-3 perhaps stats should be increased to 3/50 A/T and 2/50 AP, certainly for the later 1942 upgrade of the 45mm


The cynics are right nine times out of ten. -Mencken, H. L.

Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but of playing a poor hand well. - Robert Louis Stevenson

hammurabi70

Quote from: Orcs on 20 July 2020, 08:49:27 AM
Panzer Killers: Anti-tank Warfare on the Eastern Front by artem Drabkin

This is an interesting book. The intro give organisation details, and then each chapter is a first hand account of a Russian veteran.

If the veterans are correct in their memories.

Looks as if it is an interesting book but I note that a few reviewers doubt the veracity of it; what was your impression of it?

Steve J

The following site is full of a wealth of info on the Eastern Front, with plenty on AT capabilities of various guns, shells etc. One thing I learnt was the drop in the quality of German armour as the war progressed, thus allowing for say the 45mm aT gun being able to penetrate the larget tanks. Well worth visiting.

http://www.tankarchives.ca/

kipt

Finished "Ordeal By Fire: An Informal History of the Civil War" by Fletcher Pratt (very prolific writer, doing military and naval history and fiction with L. Sprague de Camp.  Also did the Fletcher Pratt Naval War Game rules.  Our king of writer).

Very entertaining history of the ACW.  His style is lively and he throws in words and phrases evidently from his time and that of the ACW that gives a good setting.  Words like "antimacassar"  used in "a room of red plush and antimacassars" and this in the first paragraph of chapter one.  An antimacassar is the little piece of cloth or embroidery that goes over the back of a chair to protect it - who knew?

Phrases like "poor as Job's turkey"  which is a phrase I found in Google.

The book reads like action itself and I recommend getting a copy.  I like it enough to get a paperback copy for a friend's birthday present.  Unfortunately the paperback does not include the maps (so I made copies for him).  Not super accurate maps however.

Orcs

Quote from: hammurabi70 on 23 July 2020, 08:41:40 PM
Looks as if it is an interesting book but I note that a few reviewers doubt the veracity of it; what was your impression of it?

I have not finished the book yet.   I found the organisation  bit at the beginning fairly tedious, Only really of use if you want to build complete antitank regiments for your forces.

The rest of the book is about individuals personal experiences. You are not told how long after WW2 the interviews were, so you cannot even guess at how good the persons memory is.  I suspect the various actions and memories have blurred together a little over time.  Some of the stories told may have happened to others or been embellished. Others are definitely remembered in a way that shows Russia and its forces in a positive way

However I do not think the veterans are deliberately trying to mislead.  My Ex-wife's uncle came fro Prussia and fought in the trenches defending the Normandy beaches.  Some of his memories were crystal clear 50 years later and the stories he told never varied between tellings.   Either he had an incredible memory or the experiences had been burned deep into his brain. He carried his hatred of the Canadians to the grave, after they machine-gunned his unit when they tried to surrender. He was at the end of the trench and saw it coming, so dived to the floor of the trench and lay under his dead comrades until dark.

So  these memories have been formed at a time of extreme stress. When they would either be indelibly printed on the mind of the person, or studiously put to the back of their mind either knowingly or  subconsciously to protect their mind.

Some confusion is caused as they all refer to any German SPG as a "Ferdinand" , probably in much the same way as allied troops in Normady thought all tanks were Tigers.

What does come across is the conditions and difficulties, that the soldiers faced, their everyday problems and difficulties. I would take the book as a good insight into the daily life of these brave men.

If your interested in personal account  better book is "D-Day in German Eyes" Volumes 1 and 2 ". Theses are pesonal accounts recorded by a journalist for the German forces magazine "Signal". He initially interviewed the men in 1944 a few months before D-Day. the articles were never published and in 1954 he went back and tried to find the men he had interviewed or their comrades.  His notes were found by his son in 2000 when he died and published as two books.

I bought all  of the above books for Kindle for between 99p and £2.99



 
The cynics are right nine times out of ten. -Mencken, H. L.

Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but of playing a poor hand well. - Robert Louis Stevenson

fsn

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kipt

Finished "Gettysburg: A Novel of the Civil War: by Newt Gingrich and William R. Forstchen.  Great book.  Some time ago I read the third volume in the series (gift of a friend) and liked that so much I bought the first two volumes.

In this, Lee winds the first day of Gettysburg (follows history here) but then takes Longstreet's advice and does a flank march to his right and actually takes up the Pipe Creek position that Meade had originally thought he would occupy.  It is a good position, and the Army of the Potomac batters itself to pieces trying to get though.  So the book ends with the North in sad array and heading east, with what is left of it, to the Susquehanna river.

Reading the next now.

monkeynut

Just received my latest purchase this morning by courier, 27 volumes of Time- Life's The Civil War. As beautiful as I remembered them when I first started to collect them in the 80's by monthly subscription, "tea cards of ACW generals" included.First set sold on when I moved home, what a "mistaka to maka "
Still worth the wait, can't wait to work my way through the lot.

P.S Leon ,an order on the way for a few ACW figures.
🐵

Ithoriel

I'm currently watching the 1990's series "The Civil War" on the Tivo box and enjoying it as much as first time around.

I do hope we're not going to see a rerun of the actual event come November - I would enjoy that much less!

I sometimes think the world is a much darker, more polarised and more dangerous place than it was when I was younger ...... then I remember I spent my teens, 20s and 30s wondering if we were all about to be vaporised in a nuclear holocaust ... plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.
There are 100 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who can work from incomplete data

DaveH

Now rereading Jack Vance's Dying Earth stories. Excellent stuff.

It does feel like politics in many countries has become even more polarised since the 1980s, though remembering the Thatcher years it is not like things weren't pretty strongly polarised then. It was more that the early 2000s things became quite centrist in the UK with policy differences being much smaller between New Labour and the Cameron Tories.

Funnily enough the cold war situation in Europe was fairly stable as I think all the leaders understood how bad a failure of diplomacy would be with the nuclear weapons.

flamingpig0

Quote from: DaveH on 03 August 2020, 09:52:07 AM
Now rereading Jack Vance's Dying Earth stories. Excellent stuff.


One of my favourites.
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 H.P. Lovecraft

"We don't want your stupid tanks!" 
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My six degrees of separation includes Osama Bin Laden, Hitler, and Wendy James

mmcv

Quote from: DaveH on 03 August 2020, 09:52:07 AM
Now rereading Jack Vance's Dying Earth stories. Excellent stuff.

Quote from: flamingpig0 on 03 August 2020, 11:36:36 AM
One of my favourites.

I came to him quite late myself, but was interesting to see where so much of modern fantasy was influenced.

kipt

Finished "Grant Comes East: A Novel of the Civil war" by Newt Gingrich and William R. Forstchen.  This is volume 2 of a series of 3.  now I have finished all of them, but out of order.

In this, Lee has won Gettysburg and has moved on Washington.  Sickles is reorganizing the Army of the Potomac and Grant has been made Commander of all the Union armies.

Lee doesn't take Washington but lures Sickles out by taking Baltimore.  Sickles does lose his leg, but also his army.

Fast and exciting reads.  A very good series if you have any interest in the ACW.

sultanbev

"Due to 1-3 perhaps stats should be increased to 3/50 A/T and 2/50 AP, certainly for the later 1942 upgrade of the 45mm "

Not quite, it's APCR (or HVAP in American parlance) not APDS, and the extra penetration was only obtainable over shorter distances. The shrapnel was really a canister round.
So the upgrade for the 45mmL46 M37 anti-tank gun or any T-26/BT tanks surviving past 1942 would be 3/20 for anti-tank, and 2/10 for the canister. But they would retain the 2/50 anti-tank and 1/60 anti-personnel factors. This is the problem with most "special shots", as it would give most AFVs and guns mutliple factor entries in the charts.

I have included special shot where relevant in the BCKIV army lists I'm writing. For example 6pdrs in NW Europe often had 24x APDS rounds per gun as standard allocation, giving them 5/50 and 4/60 for anti-tank values, as well as anti-personnel at 2/60 for HE.

The PTRD41 remained in use until 1948 in Soviet armies, and was standard issue in North Korea and China into the early 1950s.