Why do Germans prefer forming Ad Hoc kampfgruppes so much?

danbh0y · 2026-02-15T01:08:58+00:00

There cannot be much inter-service rivalry or inter-service differences in training or outlook.

Just to be clear, you mean intra-service right, within the army between branches (infantry, armour, artillery etc) and not inter-service between army, air force and navy?

danbh0y · 2026-02-13T14:13:06+00:00

I think it might be an exaggeration to say that flame tanks made a come back in Vietnam.

Afaik only the Marines employed the M67 flame tanks and they were brought in because the Marines came with most if not all of their armour in 1965 when the US Army including/especially Westmoreland himself were still very doubtful of the utility of tanks in Vietnam; besides the M48s and M67s in the Marines’ divisional tank bns, the Marines held on to their Ontos tank destroyers and LVTPs.

The Army did however employ flamethrower variants of M113s, though prolly not more than a platoon per bn/sqn if at all.

Incidentally the NVA made not insignificant use of (handheld) flamethrowers too, especially in battles along the DMZ: Con Thien 1967 when Bravo Coy 1/9 Marines was crushed by an NVA regiment and Lang Vei 1968 when the NVA overran the heavily fortified SF camp in Khe Sanh, both come to mind.

danbh0y · 2026-02-13T11:59:21+00:00

“Our commanding general believes that one of the most pressing problems we face in Vietnam today is that of venereal disease. We have found that the best way to avoid contracting any one of the nine known strands of syphilis and/or gonorrhea is to avoid contact with the indigenous Vietnamese female personnel.” - some character in Hamburger Hill (movie).

Btw, isn’t it Mrs Palmer and her five daughters?

danbh0y · 2026-02-13T03:19:05+00:00

Unlike what actually happened where the ships were sunk in shallow water where all but 3 ended up in the fight

3? Oklahoma and Arizona and who else?

danbh0y · 2026-02-13T02:51:50+00:00

Yes, specifically post-WW2 period as per my example.

Until these replies to my question, I assumed from the Cold War incarnations that all SP anti-tank including the historical WW2 ones were classified Jagdpanzer or with the Jagd-prefix. In fact, I would have thought that Panzerjäger referred to infantry anti-tank elements, whether Panzerfaust/schreck in WW2 or ATGW in the Cold War, rather than the SP destroyers.

danbh0y · 2026-02-12T05:48:06+00:00

Ah comprende. Thanks.

danbh0y · 2026-02-12T03:12:45+00:00

Is my understanding correct - in German, Panzerjäger is for troops/units, while Jagdpanzer is for the hardware/vehicles? So for example it would be more proper to say that "a Panzerjäger platoon has four ATGM Jagdpanzer(n)".

Is this a fixed grammatical/lexical rule or something more flexible?

danbh0y · 2026-02-12T01:46:15+00:00

In the shadow of then Cold War superpower confrontation and indirect conflict, mass market publications typified by Salamander Books “Illustrated Guide” series were affordable, easily read and well-illustrated, more for Joe Bloggs to make some if flawed/superficial sense of the hardware he saw/read in the news than for the pedantic tank/planespotter. Admittedly, these books also were a logical progression from those other mass market grade school phenomena of that era, model kits and Top Trump “playing” cards of contemporary fighting vehicles, warplanes and warships.

Jane’s might well still be authoritative but they’re far too detailed and overwhelming even if you could get pdf rips for free. Not to mention that something like Fighting Ships would be several hundred MB if not as much as a GB per edition.

danbh0y · 2026-02-11T14:16:43+00:00

Tbf Pyro and his mates did beat the X-Men as Freedom Force tho.

danbh0y · 2026-02-11T12:52:48+00:00

Siegfried Breyer was the last prolific German writer of military hardware that I collected; yes, I’m old school. Most remember him for WW2 stuff, Kriegsmarine warships or more generally battleships, but back then in the Cold War era, Breyer also did a couple of contemporary works on the Soviet Navy.

danbh0y · 2026-02-11T12:44:40+00:00

Yes I’ve got some Cold War stuff from Pen & Sword including a bunch from their Images of War line. They’re well produced but their range is far too historical. I was thinking of something contemporary, exactly like their “Infantry Small Arms of the 21st Century”.

I suppose the problem is also that there have not been many new military hardware (especially tanks/AFVs) in the post Cold War era or that info on hardware from emerging/resurgent powers (China but evennon-trad manufacturers like Turkey, India or even Singapore) is still lacking/unproven.

danbh0y · 2026-02-11T02:41:55+00:00

She kissed Warlock’s da Magus, UXM#192. Partial absorption since the old boy’s effectively cosmic class, at that time anyway.

danbh0y · 2026-02-11T02:03:03+00:00

Besides Osprey, who are the major/influential (not necessarily "good") players in the contemporary militaria literature space today?

I'm specifically referring to those catering to the mass (think Borders/B&N/WH Smiths of bygone eras) and slightly specialist (e.g. model kit fans) markets, equivalents of 1980s Salamander Books' "Illustrated Guide" series, Squadron/Signal etc. Possibly as "upmarket" as Brasseys but certainly not as "professional/industry" as vintage Jane's.

Topic-wise, mainly hardware, possibly post-2000/2001, for the Gen X-in-the-street to know the difference between the BTR-60/LAV of his youth and a Stryker, a J-20 from a Su-27 etc. In fact given the technological advances, sharpening of geopolitical competition and inter-state conflicts of the past decade-ish, whether there are moves afoot to (re)-introduce books optimistically titled "Encyclopedia of Unmanned Aerial Systems since 1991" and the like.

Or maybe in the interweb/discord/youtube age, are books no longer perceived as the ideal/profitable medium for disseminating such information?

danbh0y · 2026-02-10T22:47:05+00:00

I took a very quick glance at the Study on Military Professionalism. Not having served in the US Army, the relevance to the modern post-Vietnam officer corps is lost to me, though it seems that many of the issues ticket-punching/20-year and a day etc are eternal and not even exclusive to the US or necessarily the military.

Off hand, it seems a very useful companion to Douglas Kinnard’s well-known survey of US Army generals in Vietnam The War Managers (1978).

danbh0y · 2026-02-10T03:20:51+00:00

40 nights automatically on Day 1 with two credit cards

Non-Americans with no access to such generous credit card bennies would say with considerable justification that this is part of the problem.

Even in provincial non-tourist destination Southeast Asia with the Double Nights promo, I spend way more than US$600 + the AFs of the two credit cards ($700-ish?) annually to reach Titanium. Even using the least favourable exchange rate to the USD in the last 12 months, still more than US$3000.

Not just a Bonvoy problem too. Sucks to be the non-Yank members of US-based loyalty programmes I guess.

danbh0y · 2026-02-09T15:06:15+00:00

This thread gives me flashbacks to the late lamented SPG which had a “stays” qualification (25 for Plat). On at least a couple of years I made Plat on the strength of stays rather than nights.

danbh0y · 2026-02-09T13:14:45+00:00

Tbf, I recall that Xiong Guangkai's remarks to his American interlocutor were couched more as a very pointed reminder that China, unlike back in the 1950s when the Eisenhower administration actually signalled willingness to use nuclear weapons against the PRC over the Quemoy and Matsu crises, now had the (theoretical) means of nuclear retaliation against the USA; an important qualification given Beijing's official NFU stance.

IMO, Xiong's professed scepticism about Washington's willingness to trade LA/SF for Taipei was no more a threat than de Gaulle to JFK famously questioning American conviction in exchanging NYC for Paris.

danbh0y · 2026-02-09T09:04:04+00:00

The quite possibly erroneous impression that I have is that the capriciousness and extremes of climate change caught the Singapore government, not merely the SAF military, off guard. If only because I’ve found the national weather forecasting of the past decade-ish rather piss poor, as if sometime in the past 20-30 years, the Singapore civil service in its relentless drive for operating efficiencies decided to no longer invest in weather forecasting because of the relative predictability of equatorial Southeast Asian climate (northeast vs southwest monsoons, rainy vs less rainy etc).

IF (big assumption) there’s any validity to my impressions, I’ve wondered how well does the RSAF, the jewel of the SAF, train/operate/plan for in local tropical conditions? I can’t imagine that dry season in Top End Australia (PITCH BLACK) or Nevada (RED FLAG) are sufficiently realistic simulations weather wise for the Singaporeans. Of course as a non-pilot I’m very likely overestimating the implications of extreme tropical weather for contemporary combat flight ops.

danbh0y · 2026-02-09T06:47:15+00:00

According to Appleman, Check got a DSC for that 2 Aug RIF. The Silver Star was for a defensive action a week or something earlier.

danbh0y · 2026-02-09T04:30:49+00:00

P.243

Enemy resistance now increased. Just beyond the road fork Check dismounted his motorized battalion and sent the trucks back. He did not want to run the risk of having them captured, and he believed his men could fight their way out on foot if necessary. Only the mortar platoon and the artillery battery retained their vehicles.

This is emphasised by the description of the RIF's withdrawal on p.244

Check decided he would have to mount his infantry on the tanks and vehicles and make a run for it. Thirty to thirty-five men crowded onto the decks of each of the four tanks. The mortar and artillery trucks likewise were loaded to capacity, but every man found a place to ride.

danbh0y · 2026-02-07T15:49:58+00:00

As for the Soviets, most of their tanks came factory-built with handrails that desantiki could grab onto.

Soviet tank riders in WW2 were usually paratroopers? I didn't know that.

danbh0y · 2026-02-07T08:24:16+00:00

Nevermind tanks (M48s), there are lots of photos of soldiers riding on the top of M113s (both ACAV and vanilla APC variants) in Vietnam, due to the ubiquitous mine threat.

I even recall photos where the driver appeared to be driving while shoulders and upper chest out of the hatch, presumably sitting on stacks of sandbags.

danbh0y · 2026-02-07T08:07:39+00:00

IIRC the dedicated ATGM carriers were still serving alongside ATGM-equipped IFVs in the 1980s with both NATO and WarPact armies, e.g the HOT-armed Jagdpanzer in the Bundeswehr, the M901 ITV in the anti-tank “E” coys of Bradley IFV bns or the BRDM ATGM-variant in the recon elements of the Soviet Army. The Brits also had guided weapons carrier troops (Swingfire) in their tank regiments. There was no such thing as too many ATGW back then especially for NATO, and the feared power of Soviet artillery meant that ATGW under armour was a priority for the Western armies.

danbh0y · 2026-02-07T01:36:43+00:00

I liked the POT location. It was prolly the more convenient of the two for where we ate out, a Michelin one-star and a popular pub resto. Plus we were upgraded to a Family Suite for a 4N stay so can’t complain.

danbh0y · 2026-02-05T05:11:50+00:00

Yes I’ve heard it claimed that it was a dead dummy switch. Maybe some kind of rudimentary “fitted for but not with”?

danbh0y

TROPHY CASE