> Allan Goodall wrote:
wrote:
> >> (My historian side demands I say this. My Canadian side still
Some things that are not so well known about Dieppe:
a) The Allies needed a practice run before D-Day. Many things (tactiocs,
methods, equipment) were tried out for the first time at Dieppe. Not
everything worked as planned. That, plus inept execution, made even the
Canadian's raw courage unequal to the task.
b) One reason for the raid was to cover a very secret operation to steal some
parts of a German Radar, vital for the Allied war effort. So vital, that the
sacrifice of an elite division would almost have been worth
it...
c) But the real kicker is that the operation above covered a VERY SECRET
INDEED operation to recover most of the French research data from the Curie
institute about Nuclear Fission, and a shadowy figure involved in German
Nuclear weapons Research. This probably saved the Manhattan Engineering
District nearly a year, and cost the Nazis any chance of
getting an A-bomb before 1950. This part was only revealed relatively
> Alan E & Carmel J Brain wrote:
...Snip...(JTL)
> So: Dieppe was an awful shambles, but despite this, the guys who died
> On Tue, 7 Apr 1998, Alan E & Carmel J Brain wrote:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to recall that they were supposed to
send a British unit that had actually trained for that sort of stuff, but
somehow got replaced with the poor canucks.
> b) One reason for the raid was to cover a very secret operation to
This doesn't compute. The allies had better radars all through the war. After
all, they invented the bloody thing. Why would they need to steal parts from a
German radar?
> So: Dieppe was an awful shambles, but despite this, the guys who died
In vain? It's a matter of definitions and viewpoints. You could say every
single German casualty (including 2-3 million civilians (* ) died in
vain, since they lost the war in the end. On the other hand, all sides had
countless soldiers whose lives at personal level wouldn't have been
greatly affected by the outcome of the war either way -- thus they all
died in vain from that viewpoint.
I'm sorry, but I can't see justification in war. Necessity, sometimes, but no
justification.
*) Before you ask, that includes post-war famine victims.
> On Tue, 7 Apr 1998, Alan E & Carmel J Brain wrote:
Because they needed to know how to _counter_ it. The Germans had some
very good radar systems, especially the ones which directed their night
fighters. They also used directional radio beams to guide their night bombers
to their target. These were largely ineffective latter in the war because the
English figured out how to spoof them so the bombers didn't know they were off
target.
> -----Original Message-----
There was this thing called the Bruneval raid too, in which British Para's
landed in France to steal parts of a radar and escaped by MTB.
- I feel a stargrunt Scenario coming on.
> Mikko Kurki-Suonio wrote:
> On Tue, 7 Apr 1998, Alan E & Carmel J Brain wrote:
For ECM reasons. Helps to design ECM if you have the threat system to test
against. Could be wrong on this, but commando raids on radar sites HAVE been
done for this very reason. (War of Attrition, Israel vs Egypt, ~1970)
On Tue, 07 Apr 1998 19:51:49 +1000, Alan E & Carmel J Brain
> <aebrain@dynamite.com.au> wrote:
> b) One reason for the raid was to cover a very secret operation to
Are you sure about this? This is the first time I've heard of this. This
sounds like you've got the Bruneval raid mixed in with Dieppe. As far as I
know, beside the Canadians and British landing on the main beach, there was a
British Commando raid to take out some gun emplacements overlooking the beach
(this commando raid was successful; one of the few bright sparks on the raid).
> c) But the real kicker is that the operation above covered a VERY
Again, I have doubts about this. A lot of the Curie research, including all
the uranium they had, was moved to Czechoslovakia. As for any raid stopping
the German A-bomb, the raid on the Norwegian heavy water plant set back
the uranium project. However, the Germans were never really on the right track
to
produce an A-bomb. While Hitler wanted a bomb, the German scientists
believed that coming up with a nuclear reactor was the first logical step.
They were pushing for this, in an fairly underpowered project, and weren't on
the right track for a bomb. I've read several places where Heisenberg, after
being captured by the allies and upon hearing of the Hiroshima bomb, did the
math to work out the critical mass needed for a bomb for the first time. He
was out by a couple of orders of magnitude.
The Germans weren't that far along in bomb research. Ironically, the Japanese
were quite a bit further ahead and might (though it's not very likely) have
built their own bomb...
> So: Dieppe was an awful shambles, but despite this, the guys who died
The raid wasn't in vain, mainly because the debacle was so complete that there
was a lot to learn from the raid. In particular, the lack of naval support
(which Monty had required while he was part of the planning, but which got
cancelled before the raid) was acute. During the D-Day landings,
overwhelming naval artillery support was available and probably turned the
tide (I'd hate to think what Omaha beach would have been like without naval
bombardment).
I hope this doesn't come across as being rude but why are you playing
wargames? Also, if you see that some wars are necessary that by definition
justifies them. Many wars have been unjustifiable but then
some have been - eg. WWII.
David Best
> ----------
> On Wed, 8 Apr 1998, Michael Sandy wrote:
> Because they needed to know how to _counter_ it. The Germans had some
Ok, I'll buy that... except I have a feeling it was more about night
*fighters* against allied bombers. German bomber capacity just wasn't big
enough to be of real strategic importance.
> On Thu, 9 Apr 1998, BEST, David wrote:
> I hope this doesn't come across as being rude but why are you playing
I find the question absurd. Academic interest in a subject doesn't necessarily
indicate any practical interest. I certainly don't have my lead guys killing
"commie bastards" (or any other dehumanizing description of a foreign Joe
Avegare) in anticipation of the real thing.
> Also, if you see that some wars are necessary that by
I meant that at a personal level, where war is essentially about killing
people for the crime of being of a certain nationality. We've yet to see
a war against machines or thoroughly corrupted Evil Empire Stormtroopers. Most
people dying in wars are average guys like you and me, who did nothing to
deserve it.
Yes, it was necessary to fight the invading Russians in 1939. But it wasn't
right to put a bullet through Oleg Average's head.
This may seem like splitting hairs, but once something is "justified" it
is soon "right" and the adorable excuses are right behind the next corner.
I think it is important to make the disctinction that some actions may
regrettably be necessary, but never right.
Hi Mikko!
At the risk of opening up a can of worms I'll reply to this. It may be an
uncomfortable question but it is by no means absurd and it's one that
wargamers (including myself) are often asked. I have no interest in fighting a
real war where people get hurt but I do enjoy playing them and have an
academic interest in certain periods and also it provides a harmless outlet
for aggressive tendencies. Usually those periods are where someone is
defending an area against invaders.
The reason I asked it of you was you stated that wars cannot be justified
which sounded like a pretty definite moral decision against war...period and,
I wanted to understand your position. I personally can justify some wars (they
are in the minority) and I enjoy playing the games. I agree that academic
interest in it doesn't necessarily indicate practical interest but from my
experience with people it is usually there to a certain extent (even if it is
very small). You say you don't have lead guys killing "commie bastards" but
you do have lead lead guys killing other lead guys. As for adorable excuses,
if someone comes to where I live and kills and rapes or tries to exterminate a
whole people then I'm sorry but that makes it "right" in my book to stop them.
Anyway this was not meant to be an attack on you or your beliefs but any
wargamer must be prepared for questions like this simply because we play at
making war. I would be happy to hear from you on this either by list if other
people want to discuss it or by private mail.
David Best
> ----------
it
> is soon "right" and the adorable excuses are right behind the next
I have to stop lurking for a bit ;-) My regiment was at Dieppe as well,
the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry. We've had many lectures on Dieppe and even
had 2 veterans from the battle give us their impressions and memories of it.
> From what I've heard and from what I've read, the main reason for
The reason Canadians made up a large part of the group was because they were
well trained and, as others mentioned, doing nothing at the time. One of the
veterans mentioned that it seamed as though they were over trained (this may
be because several training deaths occurred prior to Dieppe).
[quoted original message omitted]
Jorge Chavier, the author of WWII:Impact! once told me:
"Play at war, work for peace"
Seems a simple enough philosophy for a wargamer to live by.
Your quote sounds closer to another favorite at our club: "Peace is our
Profession, War is just a Hobby!"
--Pete
Thomas Barclay <Thomas.Barclay@sofkin.ca>
04/09/98 05:12 PM
Please respond to FTGZG-L@bolton.ac.uk
To: FTGZG-L@bolton.ac.uk
Peter spake thusly upon matters weighty:
> Jorge Chavier, the author of WWII:Impact! once told me:
Seems like a bastardization of "Prepare for War. Pray for Peace." which I
believe was (loosely) a famous quote from someone whose name escapes me at
this instant.
T.
> cancelled before the raid) was acute. During the D-Day landings, =
Yeah, those destroyers earned their pay on that day. I've heard, too,
that the first destroyers to go in _really_ close did so on their CO's
initiative. The skippers saw that the troops on the beach needed help, so they
went in until they were almost scraping bottom, and turned their guns on the
defenses. Considering how the navy frowns on their ships running aground for
*any* reason, it's nice to see a CO who realized that the troops' lives were
more important than any possible threat to his
career. Does anyone know who initiated this close-in support, anyway?
On Thu, 09 Apr 1998 14:08:56 GMT agoodall@sympatico.ca (Allan Goodall) writes:
> On Tue, 07 Apr 1998 19:51:49 +1000, Alan E & Carmel J Brain
I read something by the radar expert who went along on the raid, he had a team
with him who were instructed to kill him if there was any chance at all of him
being captured!!!! Needless to say he was VVVery careful!!! He was checking to
see if the Germans had found out about the "cavitron'
[they hadn't.]
Second, the way I heard it was that the troops were told that this was a
practice mission to test landing procedures, so not being stupid they left
their good weapons {brens?] at home and took some new ones with them to soak
in the salt water. They were in the boats when told this was the real thing.
The Bren gun were these stamped metal submachine guns and needed a lot of work
on them [ they had to remove the sprues and file down some of the bolt heads
to get the action to work smoothly and not
jam up all the time!!!] So they went into battle with very un-reliable
weapons and this was credited with killing a lot of troopers [the radar tech I
mentioned above reported this from his squad sargent {the one who was supposed
to kill him if things went bad.}]
> Thomas E Hughes wrote:
> I read something by the radar expert who went along on the raid, he
This is in accordance with my info. Also, it seems, SOP on such raids
(Brunneval is the most famous). Peter Ustinov directed a film about the
Boffins post-war which is a melange of real incidents, and includes this
one. Along with the Radar party, there was a group of 2 that 'dropped out' for
a few minutes, then came back as a group of 3 just before evacuation. In the
process they got a lot of the data which had been
Thomas spake thusly upon matters weighty:
> Second, the way I heard it was that the troops were told that this was
I always understood the Bren to be LMG material. Is it perchance the Sten you
are thinking of? (Probably from a somewhat similar design strategy....). I
can't see anyone equipping a large force with any large number of LMGs.
(Beyond what would be reasonable....)
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