Dimitri > Recent Status Updates

What's the ultimate trial for the 13 inch armour of a single super Dreadnought? 20 minutes of point blank fire of 20 German cruisers & battleships together.

the Q turret [of HMS Lion] was manned by the Royal Marines under Major Francis Harvey. He was mortally wounded and had lost both of his legs. But in the last moments of his consciousness he retained the presence of mind to issue crucial orders to flood the magazine [but first] for his Sergeant-Major to report the situation to the bridge.

I hear Sean Connery: "American style shooting: fire enough bullets and hope one hits the target." when looking at British gunnery at the Dogger Bank: many of their crews were convinced during the battle that they were raining shells down on their enemies, mistaking the German gun flashes for the detonation of their shells, which in fact were whistling harmlessly well [by a 1000 yards] over their intended targets.

“It was their tragedy that they tried to guide Russia back into the 17th century just as it entered the 20th century.” - Figes on the last two tsars.

"Left the beach at 6 a.m. Through nullah to reserve trenches. awfully hot. no grub. long march. done up. snipers and big guns. flies ! " - diary entre for Lt. Aitcheson, Royal Munster Fusseliers, 31 july '15.

[Apart from For God and Country] there were other factors related by Turkish veterans as, for example, their bitterness against the black Senegalese soldiers with their dreadful knife (coupe-coupe) and 'unfair use' by the British of "Flechettes", metal darts dropped from plane on any concentration of troops.

"Until... from S Beach to the Aegean a trench-embattled no-mans's land had been forged... So much for the hopes of politicians, the plans of generals and the gallantry of men."

Let's engrave that last phrase on the Stone of Rememberance, underneath "THEIR NAME LIVETH FOR EVERMORE".

You can switch this around to talk about the Ottomans as well : "They had found that they were not, on this historic day, to stride across the peninsula, but the Turk would learn that to check their invasion was one thing, to throw them into the sea quite another"

Minesweepers, demolition parties & French eyewitnesses. It's definitely beyond Anzacs & Battleships.

If I read lazy translations from German like "Torpedobootes" or "U-bootes" one more time I'm clubbing this Aussie airliner over the head with his own book!

The power of slander by the press, embodied by "the Daily Prophet" and the encrochment of bureaucratic totalitarism, personified by Dolores Umbridge, serve as powerful allegories in our age of digital democracy.

Even in a magic world, politics and bureaucracy lead to corruption and power plays. People die for real.
The series is maturing nicely along with its main character.

Haig considered Loos to be the second worst ground for an offensive in Picardy, after the Somme...did he forget that by next spring ?

Neuve Chapelle : first British Western Front offensive and Murphy-esque blueprint of everything that would never be fully solved in 14-18. It wasn't all Haig's fault, though.

If Falkenhayn knew of the artillery-based advantage to the defenders in the West, why didn't he approve plans to attack Verdun on both banks ?

Two Front War : the world's deadliest juggle !

"There remains only France" ; Falkenhayn's familiar words at Verdun. But he already identified Britain as the main enemy, who might even continue the fight after the defeat of her continental allies, as First Ypres winded down.

We don't think we can win by a short war.
But we know we can't win a war of attrition.

A fact of German strategy that interwar authors and WWII archive-bombing made hard to see.

the battle of the Bulge begins. Reading, reading, waiting for that always-reprinted piece of dialogue again :
"Come on out ! This is the Fourth Armoured !"
"326th Airborne engineers! Damn glad to see you !"

Hipper's battlecruisers give chase to the north, still exchanging blows with the 15-inch guns of four fast battleships of the Queen Elisabeth Class. The main body of the Hochseeflotte races behind to keep up. Beatty's battlecruisers succesfully lure all into the waiting embrace of Jellicoe's Dreadnoughts as he deploys into battle formation.

DUNN DUNN DUNN.....

"thanks to the Kaiser, after Helgoland Admiral Von Ingenohl had to wage a naval campaign with one hand tied behind his back"
- so, no more unauthorised large-scale sorties unless Wilhelm says so. Just like Frederick I, he probably didn't like to see his favourite toy broken ?

Or not. Try those western mountains. Enter a dozen Habsburg Mountain units and two armies to wrestle control... from the central mountaintop of Mačkov Kamen. Enter your typical WWI carnage as point-blank artillery meets tightly packed infantry and gallant bayonet charges in a small area.

Big blocking fountains to your left, big fordable rivers to your front. your only lifeline to the outside world is right behind you. Easy defensive strategy !

It's all subs and destroyers until somebody destroys a sub...

Everything that was wrong with our bloody ships today arcanely analyzed. The Royal Navy was a giant which never could afford to believe it was too big to fail in a time of imperial overstretch: unreliable wireless & insufficient gunnery training at high speed due to fuel restrictions.

Between instant doubts among the commanders (Sosabowski...) distant drop zones, ignored intelligence on two armoured outfits combined with the known German talent for ad hoc counter-attacks and the continous penny-dripping of companies into the Arnhem road bridge objective area... I'll never understand 100% why this Garden thing was greenlighted !