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#201: Re: What are you reading? Author: Therion,

Posted: Wed May 11, 2011 6:56 pm
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Anja Snellman - Pet Shop Girls. Lovely book.

Here's a trailer:
http://vimeo.com/6980597

#202: Re: What are you reading? Author: MajorFrank,

Posted: Sun Jun 05, 2011 8:37 am
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A book by Donald Burgett called Seven Roads To Hell - A Screaming Eagle at Bastogne.

Recently read Currahee! - A Screaming Eagle at Normandy by Burgett. There are two other books by him about Market Garden and the end of the war in Germany.

#203: Re: What are you reading? Author: mooxe,

Posted: Sun Jun 12, 2011 4:31 pm
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mooxe wrote (View Post):

"Death Traps: The Survival of an American Armored Division in World War II " by Belton Y. Cooper

Ok just finished this one. I'll list off whats most memorable to me.

This is a good book detailing how weak the Sherman really was. Cooper is an Ordanance Office in charge of keeping track of his tank divisions vehicle losses. He had full knowledge of every Sherman knocked out tank from Normandy to VE day.

- His division suffered a 580% casualty rate for Shermans.
- Sherman tanks were routinely lost in the 10's per day
- Tank crews during the Bulge were so limited that some tanks went into action with only 3 crew
- During the crew shortage, infantrymen who were destined to be replacements were placed as tank crewman with some of them recieving little over 24hrs of training in a tank
- The maintanence battaltions attached to the divisions were incredible. They followed the battle fixing any Sherman tank that could be fixed and pressed them back into combat

Reading this book you will get an idea on how large a division is, and how small the fighting portion of that division is. Maint and support accounts for a massive percantage of all ranks.

Its a good book. Copper's memoirs with some added in strategic overview. You will come out of it with an understanding of how the Sherman came into existance and how pitiful it operated on the battlefield.

#204: Re: What are you reading? Author: Priapus,

Posted: Sun Jun 12, 2011 6:08 pm
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580% casualty rate? How is that possible? Is that compared to enemy losses?

#205: Re: What are you reading? Author: kawasaky, Location: Zagreb, Hrvatska

Posted: Sun Jun 12, 2011 6:13 pm
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Priapus wrote (View Post):

580% casualty rate? How is that possible? Is that compared to enemy losses?

Easy, it would mean that the division lost 5,8 times it's formational number of tanks.

#206: Re: What are you reading? Author: Dima,

Posted: Sun Jun 12, 2011 10:55 pm
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Quote:

This is a good book detailing how weak the Sherman really was.

like every other tank in any country Smile

.
Remember Loza memoirs about T-34 and Sherman Wink

Quote:

You will come out of it with an understanding of how the Sherman came into existance and how pitiful it operated on the battlefield.

IMO, you should not take Cooper's explanations and descriptions as an ultimate truth, better read Hunnicut regarding appearance and operations of Sherman tanks. Especially taking into account his (Cooper) description of how M7 were fiighting Smile

.

Anyway, that's the problem of the most of memoirs as authors always tend to express their experience as the only correct and same for every other personnel.

#207: Re: What are you reading? Author: matthewhalos, Location: Davao City, Philippines

Posted: Sun Jun 12, 2011 11:12 pm
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I have just finished reading David Webster's memoir of his time with Easy Company of the 506th PIR, 101st Airborne Division titled "Parachute Infantry"

#208: Re: What are you reading? Author: Priapus,

Posted: Mon Jun 13, 2011 4:21 am
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kawasaky wrote (View Post):

Easy, it would mean that the division lost 5,8 times it's formational number of tanks.

That still doesn't mean anything. How much action did the formation see? What were the percentage losses for german and russian tank formations as a basis of comparison?

There are 3 kinds of lies; lies, damned lies and statistics.

#209: Re: What are you reading? Author: Dima,

Posted: Mon Jun 13, 2011 6:45 am
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Quote:

That still doesn't mean anything. How much action did the formation see?

no matter how much action did it see, for the specific period - Normand to V-day - they lost 5,8 times the amount of tanks they had initially.

Quote:

What were the percentage losses for german and russian tank formations as a basis of comparison?

pretty same for the RA, lesser percentage for the Germans.

#210: Re: What are you reading? Author: MajorFrank,

Posted: Sat Jun 18, 2011 9:32 pm
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matthewhalos wrote (View Post):

I have just finished reading David Webster's memoir of his time with Easy Company of the 506th PIR, 101st Airborne Division titled "Parachute Infantry"

Really? I read that very recently. Not terribly action packed but good descriptions of the real events, makes BoB the series look a bit tame.

That book Soldaten that I think Dima had read is next on my to read list. Many good recommendations in this discussion.

#211: Re: What are you reading? Author: mooxe,

Posted: Sat Jun 18, 2011 10:29 pm
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One book I can't reccomend is Lost Victories, memoirs of Field Marshall Erich Von Manstein. I made it about 1/3 through before I quit. It was too much strategy talk for me. Nothing really heart pumping, just a grand overview of the war. It would be a excellent read for those that like politcal/strategic side of German WW2 history.

#212: Re: What are you reading? Author: Dima,

Posted: Sun Jun 19, 2011 5:50 pm
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Quote:

One book I can't reccomend is Lost Victories, memoirs of Field Marshall Erich Von Manstein.

I believe that was my first memoir of the German officer - can't pretend i understood everything that time (was like 14 or so), but the amount of information in book got me start thinking criticly about the WW2 history knowledge we were getting in schools in Russia Smile

#213: Re: What are you reading? Author: Dima,

Posted: Sun Jun 19, 2011 5:51 pm
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Quote:

Not terribly action packed but good descriptions of the real events, makes BoB the series look a bit tame.

they are lame, especially if you've read the BoB book, but still are very cool :)

Quote:

That book Soldaten that I think Dima had read is next on my to read list. Many good recommendations in this discussion.

no, I didn't read it - just read the article at Spigel.

#214: Re: What are you reading? Author: MajorFrank,

Posted: Sun Jun 19, 2011 11:13 pm
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I liked Webster's book. I haven't read Ambrose's BoB-book but I've heard some negative stuff about Ambrose himself.

A couple of books I've read some time ago that are at least interesting in some ways are:

Carell, Paul. Stalingrad: The Defeat of the German 6th Army.
Chuikov, Vasili. Battle of Stalingrad and Fall of Berlin.

The thing that's strange about Carell is that he, in the book that's written after WW2, still refers to Hitler as 'the Leader', Führer I guess in German. Makes you think that the guy is still an unrepentant nazi.

#215: Re: What are you reading? Author: Dima,

Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2011 5:27 am
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Quote:

The thing that's strange about Carell is that he, in the book that's written after WW2, still refers to Hitler as 'the Leader', Führer I guess in German. Makes you think that the guy is still an unrepentant nazi

well, he was die hard nazi and used to be one of the top nazi propagandist Smile

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

#216: Re: What are you reading? Author: kawasaky, Location: Zagreb, Hrvatska

Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2011 10:39 am
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Dima wrote (View Post):

Quote:

well, he was die hard nazi and used to be one of the top nazi propagandist Smile

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

Generally, I despise those folks who, after losing the war, or later when the [so called] communism collapsed claimed that they never were in either of the parties, nor their symphatizers.
I read a couple of his books, and despite being a nazi those are fair works.

mooxe wrote (View Post):

One book I can't reccomend is Lost Victories, memoirs of Field Marshall Erich Von Manstein. I made it about 1/3 through before I quit. It was too much strategy talk for me. Nothing really heart pumping, just a grand overview of the war. It would be a excellent read for those that like politcal/strategic side of German WW2 history.

On the other hand I would recommend this book, although one has to be careful not to buy Manstein's pretty picture of himself and his moral integrity (which he lacked altogether).

#217: Re: What are you reading? Author: Dima,

Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2011 8:04 pm
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Quote:

I read a couple of his books, and despite being a nazi those are fair works.

definetly better than Beevors overall Wink

#218: Re: What are you reading? Author: Therion,

Posted: Tue Jun 21, 2011 8:12 pm
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I just finished reading a book of memoirs of the last living Russian sailor from Tsushima.
One thing that puzzled me is how the Japanese treated P.O.W.s back then - they took them to Japan, held them in comfortable condition, taught them Japanese culture and language, allowed them to move freely, go on trips, etc.
It's kinda shocking that it's the same country which later commited the rape of Nanking and many other atrocities.

#219: Re: What are you reading? Author: kawasaky, Location: Zagreb, Hrvatska

Posted: Tue Jun 21, 2011 10:16 pm
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Nearing the end of Gilles Kepel's "Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam", and it is a superb read in it's category. The book deals with the expansion and decline of the Jihadist movement throughout past 50 years, and provides understanding why it is attractive to some portion of Muslim population.

#220: Re: What are you reading? Author: mooxe,

Posted: Tue Jun 21, 2011 11:27 pm
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If I read you correctlty, is it in decline now?

Close Combat Series -> The Mess

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