----- Original Message -----
From: "Geoff Winnington-Ball" <gwball@sympatico.ca>
To: "Richard Notton" <Richard@fv623.demon.co.uk>
Cc: "MV List" <mil-veh@skylee.com>
Sent: Friday, October 19, 2001 12:19 AM
Subject: Re: [MV] Band of Brothers
The inimitable Spinning-Ball and esteemed list people,
> McStolly,
>
> We here in North America have so far seen seven episodes. Trust me, they
> just keep getting better! I remain sitting, stunned, in front of the
> tele for a good few minutes after each one.
>
Indeed it is proving to be highly enjoyable and very well done, we have just
seen part 4, there is a disadvantage though in being a trifle knowledgeable
and interested in MVs plus personal contact with some of the MV
support/supply people who made it, you can see the joins as it were. The
producers of course do not and cannot cater for the MV anorak.
I am puzzled though about the Harley (or was it an Indian) in the earlier
part, it would seem the US use of sidecars was exceedingly rare, the sidecar
was attached correctly for the UK drive on the left and its style was a very
recognisable domestic Watsonian attachment of the 50's and 60's; perhaps one
of our American chums into motorbikes could help out here.
> I just wish we could do the same for the Britis/Canadians/Commonwealth.
> Maybe one day. It would be equally outstanding, BoB having set the
> precedent.
>
Perhaps, it takes people of the stature like Hanks and Spielberg to get this
sort of project off the ground and to achieve the backing needed, this
invariably starts in the US where the industry is strong and the finance to
be had, naturally the storyline has to be from an American view since this
is the source of cash and major intended revenue earning.
An epic dealing with the British/Canadian effort would be an uphill struggle
to get started, perhaps you, me and the expert Ballards could have a go with
some German consultancy from "The Baron Paulus von Hocking", let me know how
many million $ Canadian you can raise. . . . . . . .
This has led to a worrying skew of popularly perceived history with the
plethora of semi-documentary and very powerful films dealing with one side
of these issues only, for example BoB has again led to the uninformed view
often heard that the British and Canadian forces simply sat around Caen
whilst the US advanced swiftly, whereas in fact this was a planned operation
to hold the German armour, so successfully deceived to wait at the Pas de
Calais, in order that a swift pincer encirclement could be achieved, and it
was. It is a pity that all bar a few minutes of film exist covering the
three British/Canadian D Day beaches, the rest having been lost in a
processing error at the time. Having attended the Omaha memorial I am also
slightly ashamed the British Government has never seen fit to fund a similar
dedication, the numbers would be higher though and currently these sites are
scattered around the area in fragmented form largely tended by the French.
Having attended the dedication and contributed to the Churchill now placed
on Hill 112 it is obvious that the detail of operations around this area and
time need some effort to unearth, seriously bitter fighting with huge losses
it certainly was. The Churchill driver veteran I spoke with made light of
his experience, broadly on cresting the rise of Hill 112 the first AT shot
destroyed the turret, killed the turret crew and had most of the remains of
the commanders head go down the back of his neck, the almost immediate
second shot carried off the gearbox selectors, at which point he decided
fighting with one gear and the hull MG was largely useless and retreated.
Lets not forget also, leaving aside politics or who's "right", the Wehrmacht
was a small army by this time, a substantial amount had been disbanded after
the fall of France, the losses in Russia were huge and between 1939 and 1945
the total German armour production was 1/4 that _of just the UK_, push-over,
certainly not, effective and efficient fighting force it certainly was.
It was noted that BoB correctly noted the losses for Operation Market Garden
at the end of part 4, British and Canadian losses were very heavy again, the
plan was bold and sensible but let down by faulty intelligence, which
happens, and a total loss of communications which under the circumstances
was unforgivable when you look at the detail.
For the benefit of the technical and the Ham Radio Ops amongst us, the
Wireless Set No. 76 was designed for airborne operations and was a simple
transmitter of 9 watts using six crystal controlled channels and an
associated R 109 receiver, the whole station including batteries, antenna
and guyed mast sections to support the 1/2 wave antenna could be air dropped
in two containers, breaking down into a four man load. Crystals were in
very short supply and no spares could be provided, until later in the war no
crystals below 3 MHz were available for the 76 set. The drive level in the
76 set was known to be too high for the crystals in use and these failed in
short order, firstly the sets were operated on the night frequencies as the
day channels had failed (on HF you need to use different frequencies for day
and night over long distances owing to the characteristics of the
ionosphere), then, as expected the night crystals also failed leaving the
operation with no medium/long-haul comms at all.
In other respects the operation was quite well equipped, the very effective
17pdr AT guns were Dakota transported along with the rugged Morris
Commercial CS8 15cwt truck as a load carrier and gun tractor, we have seen
original documents showing how these are partially dismantled and
shoe-horned into a Dakota.
> This is the best [military] thing to hit the airwaves, ever. I'll be in
> perma-withdrawals when it's done...
>
Indeed, very good it is and we look forward to the remaining 6 episodes,
perhaps we shouldn't whinge too much about vehicle accuracy and being left
out of these productions, these very good efforts have their multi-million
dollar budgets spent over here, plus 99.99% and 44/100ths of the audience
are stunned with the very believable vehicle accuracy, lets be fair, no
museum or person is going to let a film crew play fast and loose with their
Tiger, SdKfz 251, etc., the A27M Cromwell and the Grizzlies were real
though, as
are some Opel Blitz 3, 6 - 6700A trucks. (Usually 3 Cromwells were deployed
with a M4A4 Sherman V Firefly to provide balanced firepower, the 17pdr
Firefly being all but useless against anything other than armour and the
A27M's AP shot being weak but its HE and canister handy for everything
else.)
Richard
Southampton - England
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Dec 07 2001 - 00:36:26 PST