HOME | DD
tuomaskoivurinne β Loyal Edmontons in Ortona 1943
Published: 2009-12-24 04:36:03 +0000 UTC; Views: 6358; Favourites: 77; Downloads: 72
Redirect to original
Description
acrylics 2009,Canadians fighting their way through this little coastal town in Italy, against stubborn German resistance, December 1943.
The original in colours, is a Christmas present to ~PavelKirilovich .
Related content
Comments: 48
Against fallschirmjΓ€gers, by the looks of the fallen German helmet (model 1936) on the ground, in front of the two chappies.
π: 0 β©: 1
Well spotted.
π: 0 β©: 1
Hi! I added this in my faves 'cause I'm from Ortona and I like to see this remembrance of history.
π: 0 β©: 1
Thank you very much!
π: 0 β©: 0
Wow. Never seen someone to Canadian WWII soldier art before, and from Alberta for the matter. Epic art.
π: 0 β©: 1
You need to thanks my friend ~PavelKirilovich for that 
π: 0 β©: 1
Sweet. I'll check it out asap.
π: 0 β©: 0
that is a Thompson submachine gun? and the other is a Lee Enfield, huh?
great job.
π: 0 β©: 1
Sorry for the late reply, didn't spot your question 
As a detail in the right corner foreground, the German paratrooper helmet (as Ortona was defended by the troops from 1. FallschirmjΓ€ger-Division).
π: 0 β©: 1
yes.. I saw the german helmet with the eagle... great detail.
π: 0 β©: 0
Canadians are a tough bunch that know how to get the job done - and you did a great job illustrating this feeling! :3
π: 0 β©: 1
Thank you. Bit boastive comment
π: 0 β©: 1
Yep, Vimy ridge is another example of that (and, yes, I'm quite biased
π: 0 β©: 1
And Passchendaele.
π: 0 β©: 0
Ah Ortona, mouse holing the whole way through the blasted city for German MGs and snipers covered the streets.
Also more bloodier for the U.S. division meant clear Ortona for the Canadian there instead shot past Ortona and went to Rome, leaving Canada in their wake to clean up German positions they passed. Reason for this is the U.S. General wanted to capture Rome before anyone else did to be famous. Saddly, when he did take it, it was June 6, 1944, D-Day. So no one gave a rats ass about Italy anymore, the people were interested in the new Normandy front.
π: 0 β©: 1
At least the Fallschirmpioneer were so professional that we only had to clear one side of the street. They'd fall back to prevent themselves being cut off - so we'd fight our way up one side, and they'd fall back out of the houses across the street. That fucking Yankee, Mark Clark, should be resurrected and then killed again. He threatened 8th Army - of which Canadians were a part - that if our elements entered the city ahead of his he'd fire on them. FSSF was in the town first; so at least Canadians got in there with the Americans.
Tuomas: Kiitos. Looks great.
π: 0 β©: 2
it not toe first time it happened in that war, did you knw that canadian forces were ordered to stay out of the rhine even though we were combat ready? Freaking patton wanted the fame!
π: 0 β©: 1
1 Canadian Field Army couldn't have forced a crossing of the Rhine; we were too tied up finishing the job in the Netherlands. Montgomery's ham-fisting of the Scheldt battles in favour of his one-legged, blind, retarded pet MARKET-GARDEN ensured that the Canadians weren't going to be able to get across the Rhine first; likewise Montgomery shot 21 Army in the foot with GARDEN, hence Patton getting across first. Unlike Clark's fetishism with Rome, the rush to cross the Rhine didn't have to do with politics, just who had the ability to actually get there first. Patton, to his credit, never threatened to fire on 21 Army units crossing ahead of him.
π: 0 β©: 1
actually, there was a canadian armored unit that was sitting at full combat readiness near the rhine, but they were ordered not to cross over and engage fleeing german armored units. patton crossed at remagen not long after.
π: 0 β©: 1
Which armoured unit? AFAIK both CABs and the two CADs in NW Europe were occupied supporting the infantry divisions working their way through the Netherlands.
π: 0 β©: 1
that i don't know.
π: 0 β©: 1
Alright, a shame. I'm planning to write a paper about this next term and I'd love to know which division or armoured brigade was staged to force the Rhine. The paper basically covers the beginning of Canada's history blowing America to keep their spoilt six year old of a government happy.
π: 0 β©: 1
yeah, well, i'd love to know too! my grand-dad fought in Korea and he learned to despise US troops for their stupidity there.
π: 0 β©: 1
The Korean War confuses me, mostly because it's the one war I can never put myself in the shoes of the supreme commander for. MacArthur won the war... then pressed up to the Yalu and pissed off the Chinese and almost lost the war again until everything stabilized on the Jamestown Line.
Motherfucker: Learn to recognize when you've won.
π: 0 β©: 1
nah, MacArthur was removed from command BECAUSE he wanted to fight China as well (in fact, he was pressing for total victory and even wanted to nuke china) So truman threw him out and put some other dude in place. When China entered the war, he went crazy over it.
π: 0 β©: 1
A large part of why that war ended was because the UN was willing to nuke China over South Korea. Seems pretty crazy to contemplate these days, doesn't it?
π: 0 β©: 1
well, not really. Nukes weren't as high-tech as today's and the effects of nuke warfare weren't really fully known until the M.A.D scenario became known to both NATO and the warsaw pact. Back then it was just the biggest gun around, destructive, but still a gun. today it's more like a doomsday/ last resort/ apocalypse type thing but back to China, i thought Russia made the chinese back off?
π: 0 β©: 1
It's not so much that nukes weren't suspected of being enormously destructive if used en masse, the theories about fallout and so on after examining the Hiroshima and Nagasaki deployment sites and with the New Mexico test ranges first come around in 1945/46. It's that the Russians didn't have them and nor did the Chinese, so we (we being the United Nations) thought we could shove our dicks in everybody's face.
The Soviets reined in the Chinese largely because they realized we were serious about turning them into a parking lot and a couple of irradiated Sczechuan restaurants.
π: 0 β©: 1
true, the manhattan (am i spelling this right?) project results where a bit clear.... when a canadian soldier, with his eyes closed, and with his hand over them, could see a US soldier's thooth fillings trough the back of his helmet covered head.... there's a probleme.
to be fair, the Korean war was a true pissing conteste between NATO and the warsaw pact, the first one in fact!
π: 0 β©: 1
That is exactly what the Korean War was. My theory is that Stalin was testing the UN's resolve. Things were shaky then, especially as the UN drew down its military forces dramatically to save the budget. WWII had practically bankrupted everybody, except the US.
For an excellent study of Canada's involvement with nuclear weapons, I suggest "Learning to Love the Bomb" by Sean Maloney.
π: 0 β©: 1
i'll look it up,i AM in a library after all...... but, do you know the french title?(if it was written in french).
and since you seem to know a lot about the subject... could you confirm to me that canada had nukes unitl tye 1970's under that guy with the name i can't spell (deifenbaker of somthing)?
π: 0 β©: 1
I don't think this is the kind of book that would have been translated into French, more's the pity. Look up Sean Maloney's works and you'll find what you need, I suspect, it's one of his more prominent pieces.
Canada participated in nuclear weapons research as part of the ABC alliance (America/Britain/Canada) and Canadian observers were invited to a number of atomic tests. This was a big deal, politically. Nuclear weapons were stationed on Canadian soil, and from the late 1950s onwards to the mid 1980s, Canadians had nuclear warheads to be used in AIR-2A rockets (note: not a missile, a rocket, as it's unguided) to kill Soviet nuclear bombers, and American-supplied "Lulu" depth charges (depth bombs) which were also nuclear. Canada had a tactical ballistic missile battery in Europe with the 4th CMBG, and 2nd AD CF-104 pilots were trained in attacking targets with freefall and parachute-retarded nuclear bombs. Canada, unequivically, had the bomb.
It was a huge clusterfuck to get to that point, and a bigger clusterfuck getting away from it. Our governments since MacKenzie King are easily the worst thing to have happened to Canada.
π: 0 β©: 1
i agree, one a number of counts (as a Quebequer(me)... i am sure you know full well what i am talking about here). so we had nuclear weapons, hmm, didn't know about the missile battery in europe. i will defenatly look up that book.
π: 0 β©: 1
We had a small battery of two launchers in Europe, with the other two in Canada for training/reserve purposes. The equipments were American in origin, I don't remember their type. I suspect the name is "Honest John."
π: 0 β©: 1
ha... tatical lauchers. not a nuke, per se, but enough to blow a whole Russian tank regiment a new asshole if aimed well.
π: 0 β©: 1
Don't disparage the tactical ballistic missile systems, the Russians had a number of very good ones. Hard to find, with good accuracy and quick set up time, firing from random spots in the forest. Scud is a shitty weapon but subsequent weapons ("Scaleboard," "Saber", "Scarab", "Spider" and so on) are significant improvements: NATO lagged behind considerably, though ours still carried nuclear warheads.
Oddly, my reference book does not cite Canada as a final user of the MGR-1A/-1B (M30/M50) TBM. The "Honest John" carried a variable-yield nuclear warhead, 5 to 25 kilotonnes. It could also be fitted with HE, chemical, or cluster (in South Korean service) submunition. A 25kT warhead will wreck anybody's day, including that of a major city. While kilotonne class warheads aren't considered "city killers" like the megatonne-plus warheads, I'd certainly not want to be living where I did in Calgary (on the outskirts) if one was to detonate over the Calgary Tower. American TBM developments are annoyingly behind British ones; the English Electric "Blue Water" system was much better than the Firestone Corporal/Sperry Sergeant (subsequently Honest John mostly matched Blue Water's performance, something like eight years later), but the Cpl and Sgt had the good fortune to be American developments.
And as we all know, especially from the story of how NATO got 7.62x51mm instead of 7x43mm, what has the good fortune to be American becomes everybody's breakfast.
π: 0 β©: 1
humm, electric systems are not a specialty of mine but i agree that the US keeps pushing their half-assed gear all over NATO, thank god the europeans started to get their weapon plants running again in the sixties!
π: 0 β©: 1
The M60 was not a very good tank. Disturbing that the M48 and M60 formed the core of NATO's armour strength until 1984-ish, while the Soviets were consistently fielding rather good tank designs. T-64 in particular was well ahead of its time, and the T-62 promised to be very nasty to NATO vehicles until the introduction of Chobham armouring and the 120mm gun. The Egyptians, of course, fucked up the T-62's deployment but what can you expect from Arabs? Too proud to listen.
The French AMX-30/32 and German Leopard 1 were not well enough armoured, but both rather mobile and reasonably well armed, though not any better than the later incarnations of the M48/M60 series. If British tanks had gotten to their battle positions, they would have done all right provided that they didn't have to move afterwards; their greatest weakness was mobility.
π: 0 β©: 1
aye, the cheftain was a monster in tonnage, but it's gun and armor were top-notch. As for the soviet tank design, the t-80 is an expensive way to kill three people in a hurry. in fact, i only consider the t-55/t-62 and t-90 threats to NATO, the rest are just updates going downwards.
π: 0 β©: 1
That would be a very ignorant view of Soviet tank development history. The Chieftain (and subsequent Challenger designs) all have poor drivetrains, driver accomodation, and engine power for their weight. The heavy armour and powerful gun are their only saving features: so as long as the British get rolling early enough, presumably by consulting the Crystal Ball to see when the Soviets are going to launch their attack so they can leave for their battle positions six hours beforehand, the tanks will be all right.
T-55, arguably, was the least threatening tank to NATO. It was a straight evolution of WWII concepts, best thought of as what happens if you cross the concepts behind an IS-2 or IS-3 and a T-34/85 in an effort to eliminate both predecessor vehicles and have the new tank do everything. At the time it was introduced it had a number of advantages over NATO armour, but at the time it was introduced many NATO nations were still using surplus Sherman tanks of various models. There was nothing new with T-55; its key features were all extant on existing Soviet designs: low shape, good mobility, hard-hitting gun, well shaped armour and reasonable thicknesses.
T-62 is interesting because the vehicle was equipped with a 115mm smoothbore gun and the first successfully fielded APFSDS round - prior to this, all guns had been rifled. It was intended to "shoot in" attacks by the T-55, mostly after the Soviets realized that NATO tanks had better fire control systems and an inherant advantage in sitting still, often in prepared positions, enabling them to engage effectively before the T-55s could cover their own advance with the fire from their 100mm guns. The T-62s would seek a decent position and then sit tight and shoot up NATO tanks as they became visible, until the T-55s were close enough to engage effectively themselves. The aforementioned T-62 failure on the part of the Egyptians was because the Egyptians ignored the advice of their Soviet advisors - the guys who had designed the tank and developed the doctrine for its use - and decreed that the T-62s would be spread out amongst the T-55 units to boost their firepower, and were to attack with the T-55s. This mimicked the deployment of Firefly Shermans (Shermans with the 17pdr OQF) with Commonwealth tank regiments in WWII, which you may be familiar with. It was a failure because of the different terrain and different tactics being employed.
T-64 was a legitimate game-changer. It had a good automatic loader, a 125mm smoothbore gun, excellent mobility and armour. It had good optics, an advanced fire control system, and was one of the first tanks fitted with explosive reactive armour. It was also very expensive. Its progenator is the T-80 series, which likewise is a good tank. You can see the regard the Soviets had for this line of vehicles in that unlike T-55/62/72, they were not exported extensively. They were issued to the best units the Soviets had available, and fear of this tank is largely responsible for driving all 1970s and 80s tank development in NATO, causing us to create bitchin' awesome machines like Leopard 2, Abrams, LeClerc, Challenger.
T-72 was not. Largely, it was taking the ideas of the T-64 and turning it into a mass-production vehicle with inferior optics, FCS and armour. It was dangerous largely because it was equipped with a similar 125mm gun firing powerful ammunition. The T-72 was exported in a great many configurations, some of them incredibly bad. Many tanker veterans of the Gulf War report "manual T-72s", which they explain to be T-72 tanks with no power traverse, meaning the turrets were hand-cranked! Sold with these horrible "monkey model" vehicles was the first ammo designs in service for the 125, with inferior accuracy and penetration to Russian service ammunition. Armour was also of lesser quality, with East German T-72B tanks (as supplied by the USSR to a reliable Warsaw Pact ally) being markedly superior to the examples found in Iraq. This gives rise to the "Soviet/Russian tanks are universally shit" myth which perpetuated from 1991 onwards. It's a dangerous thing to think, as unlike aircraft where the Soviets did not have the advantage or parity for quite some time, that has changed.
T-80 is the evolution of T-64. Some things were better, some things were worse. Notably, of the T-64 and T-80, most had gas turbine engines. These were very fuel-intensive. Not quite as bad as the Abrams engine which takes eighteen gallons simply to turn on, but certainly not as fuel efficient as other Soviet vehicles. T-80B was not a huge improvement over T-72B, the real advantages start accruing with the BV and T-80U model tanks.
T-90 is, in the words of one of my friends, "The stopgap that will not die." It's dead-ended, inferior to late model T-80 tanks, and is just soaking up industrial resources. Because it exists, it stymies the ability of the Russians to develop new tanks, though the Ob.640 tank was seen again recently on a test range, which is brilliant news as that vehicle promises to be something quite novel for Russian tank design though it is an evolutionary change rather than a radical change. It is a derivative of T-72.
π: 0 β©: 1
well, that is QUITE a text wall. but thanks! i fell smarter already (i really need my weapons encyclopedia again!)
π: 0 β©: 1
Great Chinese Text Wall.
π: 0 β©: 1
I'll put this in the mail as soon as possible. I'm waiting for the Christmas traffic to calm down a bit.
π: 0 β©: 1
There's a major lag at Customs with all of the in/out traffic, so I am waiting to mail your package as well. The package I sent to my woman (sadly spending this Christmas apart due to studies, but not next one!) is still at Customs, as far as I know.
This man is not amused. Good thing I don't know who to kick in the crotch to get the package through Customs, or they would be kicked in the crotch with such force that they enter orbit.
π: 0 β©: 0
Or maybe Detroit 2010...
Solid work and has emotion.
π: 0 β©: 0