Naval History Forums

It's true that radio Intel came from a wide variety of sources but it was all filtered through Ultra. For the most part when we think of Ultra it is Engima deciphering and that was indeed a war winning achievement by the Allies, especially post 1942. An interesting example of this comes from the pu...

The B-24 was also very useful in the Pacific where its long range made it quite effective in island hopping campaign.

I wonder if a comparison of the Consolidated B-24 and the Lancaster might be more appropo, since both were true heavy bombers. I think the Lancaster still comes out on top in bomb lifting capacity at least until the B-29 entered the scene, but the latter was a completely different generation of bomb...

It is difficult to compare the two bombers as they were almost of different generations. The Lancaster was a wartime bomber introduced in 1942 at a time when nocturnal missions were the norm and it was felt that defensive armament and armour could be kept to a minimum and thus allow the greatest pos...

The emblem does come from the Bismarck coat of arms. The azure or blue field of the shield symbolizes fidelity, piety, and sincerity; the clover leaf or trefoil represents the Holy Trinity; and the three oak leaves represent strength and age or longevity, and taken together with the azure background...

Yes indeed. Stepping up in calibre was the logical choice for the AA defence of the British Isles, something the Germans had decided for their own Flak defences a bit earlier. As early as the Spanish Civil War, Luftwaffe studies indicated the calibre would have to be upped from 8,8cm to 10,5cm to co...

I suspect, part of the reason for not easily letting go of the 3,7's by higher command was that in the tank actions of 1942 the 6-pdr was making an appearance and this helped even the score between British AT units and the tanks of Rommel's Panzerarmee Afrika. The 6-pdr could deal with most German t...

the 3.7-in AA could be used in an anti-tank role, and was authorized to do so in emergencies, such as when about to be over run, but on the whole the weapon was not well suited to anti-tank use. For one, it was about 2000kg heavier than the German Acht-Acht, making it a difficult weapon to move arou...

One interesting aspect of the P47 that took me by surprise, was when it was coming at you in a strafing run with the engine throttled back, it hardly made any noise at all during the approach until the pilot opened fire.

One of the aspects of air combat was the top speed was never the best turning speed. Top speed was useful in intercepting or breaking off action, but most combat was done at considerably less than a plane's theoritical maximum speed. As Dave says, the P51 excelled in its ability to maneuver without ...

If I recall, TBS monitoring was begun in the RN about 1941-42, but only became generally available about 1943-44.

The P51 had the range for long escort missions, which was probably one of its most important assets. However, if I were going to be assigned ground attack missions I would prefer the P47. The air cooled engine was much more rugged and could sustain damage that would have made it unlikely for a P51 t...

The Baron researched if any Enigma traffic had given away information to the enemy during the operation and discovered that a Luftwaffe engima message intercept indicated that Bismarck was making for France. Bletchley Park had been breaking into Luftwaffe Enigma messages fairly regular since June 1...

Normally, the radio used was a Lorenz transmitter and receiver utilizing a key and morse code rather than a voice system which would tend to be too short ranged except for ship-to-ship or ship to air transmission. If security was a concern, messages between ships in visual sight of one another could...

That Rommel, had he survived the war, might have stood trial, either in the de-nazification courts or one of the lesser military tribunals following the main Nurnberg trials is a statistical possibility. Of the German WW2 Field marshals, a total of 26, Rommel, von Bock, von Busch, Model, von Greim, ...