where does the ronson nickname come from?

[Michael Kenny]

One final note: The posting by Mr. Waleed Y. Majeed



download/file.php?id=466599

Compare it to a real add

[Sheldrake]

These are two very telling quotes, as they seem, at least to me, to display a certain lack of understanding of
the historical situation that existed in the United States Armed Forces during WW2. To put it simply, serving
officers and enlisted men were under discipline, that is to say, they had to obey orders, and not express any
opinions or make any statements that could be considered either contrary to good military discipline and order,
or could in any way be construed as interfering with the prosecution of the war of the war effort as a whole.

In other words, officers and enlisted men were to keep their mouths shut, under pain of demotion or court
martial.

Paul old chap,

I am a Brit not an American. Whatever constraints may have applied to US servicemen, British servicemen were aware that they part of a citizens army of a democracy. They had rights and exercised them.

All debates in the House of Parliament are recorded in Hansard. This link is to the record of a debate on the war situation on 2nd August 1944 - when the Battle of Normandy was still underway. https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/1 ... rSituation
There is a debate about the quality of allied armour. Church has to respond to some robust questions from the member for Ipswich Major Stokes (Lab) Yup he is a socialist politician, but part of the family that invented the 3" Mortar.

Churchill quotes Montgomery

"In the fighting to date we have defeated the Germans in battle, and we have had no difficulty in dealing with the German army once we had grasped the problem. In this connection British armour has played a notable part. The Panther and Tiger tanks are unreliable mechanically and the Panther is very vulnerable from the flanks. Our 17-pounder guns will go right through them. Provided our tactics are good we can defeat them without difficulty."

Around column 1534 Stokes gets the floor and raises a point raised with him by a serving soldier, actually Bob Crisp RTR.

I spoke to a friend of mine, who is the commander of a squadron of a very famous regiment, about the relative merits of the Sherman tank, of which we have heard so much to-day, and the Tiger. He told me: "I know what happens, because it has happened to me twice. My squadron, goes over and bumps into one of these Tigers. There are four bangs and there are four of my tanks gone."

Note no Ronson. no light every time. Just one tiger will take four shermans. But this is the essence of the Sherman debate - first raised in parliament during the the war. Both quotes are essentially true.

[Richard Anderson]

These are two very telling quotes, as they seem, at least to me, to display a certain lack of understanding of
the historical situation that existed in the United States Armed Forces during WW2. To put it simply, serving
officers and enlisted men were under discipline, that is to say, they had to obey orders, and not express any
opinions or make any statements that could be considered either contrary to good military discipline and order,
or could in any way be construed as interfering with the prosecution of the war of the war effort as a whole.

In other words, officers and enlisted men were to keep their mouths shut, under pain of demotion or court
martial.

Paul old chap,

I am a Brit not an American. Whatever constraints may have applied to US servicemen, British servicemen were aware that they part of a citizens army of a democracy. They had rights and exercised them.

Sheldrake, there is a very good reason this critter was banned, but apparently no good reason he was let back in, and I highly recommend you put he/she/it on ignore, so then you only have to read such drivel second-hand, as I do. :roll:

Interestingly enough, despite this apparent draconian stricture against American soldiers saying a word about anything at anytime, the whole "Great Tank Scandal" (as I term it in Chapter 19 of For Purpose of Service Test), was originally sparked by a

"newspaper article by Chicago Daily News Service reporter Jack Bell, published on 24 November, which described the Battle of Puffendorf on 17 November. There the 2d Armored Division was rocked by a strong counterattack from the German 9. Panzer Division and 506. schwere Panzer Abteilung, which were strongly equipped with Panther and Königstiger tanks. Twenty to thirty of the powerful German tanks struck Lieutenant Colonel Paul Disney’s Task Force 1 of CCB and forced it and other elements of CCB back to Puffendorf, where the newly deployed 90mm GMC M36 of the 702d Tank Destroyer Battalion was finally able to hold the German attackers at bay. At the end of the day, the 2d Armored Division lost eighteen medium and seven light tanks destroyed and about the same number damaged and out of action. Personnel losses were also heavy, 56 were killed, 281 wounded, and 26 missing in action. An unnamed officer told Bell,

…we won because of sheer numbers. The men had too much will to win for Jerry to stomach. We knew we were licked tank for tank, but the boys went in for a free-for-all, ganging on the Tiger until they knocked him out.
…American tanks cannot beat Germans in open combat. The Panther and Tiger armor will repel our tank gun shells while their 7 and 88mm guns will shoot straight through our best armor.

Sergeant Louis Weir told Bell the only answer was a tank with a 90mm gun. The officer and at least thirty other tankers agreed. At the same time, Weir told Bell that on firmer ground – the fields around Puffendorf were seas of mud after days of rainfall – the faster and more maneuverable American medium tanks could “out-slug” the Germans. "

This apparently illegal conversation was published in the Chicago Daily News and then reprinted in various other newspapers in November and December 1944, across the United States and led of course to mass courts martial. :roll: It also sparked Hanson Baldwin to publish his own article on 28 November, based upon his recent visit to the front and his more extensive three-part expose in the first week of January 1945, which is what led to Eisenhower's reaction, resulting in I.D. White's letter containing Sergeant Earley's and others remarks. Oddly enough too, well it was apparently illegal for American soldiers to do anything other than to keep their mouths shut, the problems and complaints were also very well documented by the 12th Army Group Armored Section.

Note no Ronson. no light every time. Just one tiger will take four shermans. But this is the essence of the Sherman debate - first raised in parliament during the the war. Both quotes are essentially true.

Nope, nor in the well-documented, if illegal :roll: record of American soldiers not keeping their mouths shut...at least until the 1970s and 1980s after PanzerBlitz and other Avalon Hill and SPI war gaming companies created the term as an article of faith among those who get their history from war games. About the same time the actual historic "it takes three Shermans to knock out one Tiger" found in the Baldwin controversy was transmogrified into its currently accepted form, "it took five Shermans to knock out one Panther". Now add in those who like to Photoshop "fake news" as "evidence" for their deranged worldview and you get the endless repetition of this theme.

[Richard Anderson]

It is quite informative, and worth reading.

Sadly, it simply repeats much of the misinformation Charles Baily comprehensively exploded 44 years ago.

It is neither.
To start with this is what he considers a 'reference':

Worse, he apparently made a dive into RG 156 Records of the Office of the Chief of Ordnance, Executive Division Historical Branch, Military Historical Files, but apparently misread or misunderstood most of what he found there. However, it is at least head and shoulders better than Death Traps.

[Michael Kenny]

Look closely and you can see where the LH track and part of the transmission cover was cloned over to the right and the kink in the glacis where a new bit was added. .

[paulrward]

Hello All ;

To Mr. Michael Kenny:

Yes, Mr. Kenny, to your shocked surprise, I used MicroSoft Paint to alter an image to present a satire of
the Ronson Advertisement, And you are SHOCKED, SHOCKED ! to discover how I did it !

Tell you what, Mr. Kenny, if you look really closely, I mean REALLY CLOSELY, at the image, you can see
the face of God. The REAL face of God. Seriously. Give it a try.

Amused beyond All Belief

Paul R. Ward

[R Leonard]

For a modest fee I'll sell you the plans for the "Ronson Gun" a staple of amusement at an obscure military college outside Lexington Va in the early 1970's.

[paulrward]

Hello All :

to Mr. Sheldrake :

I am a citizen of the United States, not a Brit. We are a free people ( That's right, we are Citizens of the United
States, not Subjects of the Queen of Great Britain ) But, in Wartime, things change.

If you ever saw the production of Band Of Brothers, there is a scene where Captain Sobel is trying to punish
Lt. Winters. You can watch it on YouTube here :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGoshEMp_-w


Note how, early in the scene, Lt. Winters informs Captain Sobel that, " From 09:30 to 09:55, I was censoring
the enlisted mens' mail.... " That's right. He was reading each letter, removing offending passages,
or rejecting entire letters, from enlisted men to their loved ones back in the USA.

Here is a sample of a envelope of a letter from a service person overseas that was censored and passed. Note
the stamp on the envelope, over which is the signature of the officer who reviewed the letter.

censored

Mr. Sheldrake, I don't know if this was done in the British Armed Forces, but it sure as hell was done in the
U.S. Armed Forces.


As for Articles and Press Items being ' illegal ', Mr. Anderson apparently does not realize that there was, in fact
an official Office of Censorship. On December 19, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order
8985, establishing the Office of Censorship and conferring on its director the power to censor
international communications in "his absolute discretion." The office was headed by Byron Price, former
executive news editor at the Associated Press, who, as it was said, " Imposed censorship on the Press, and
made them like it !"

Wartime Correspondents had to be accredited by the Military to go overseas to report on the war. This
accreditation could be ' pulled ' at any time, by almost any officer, and, with little or no appeal, the reporter
would be sent home.

If you would like to see more about U.S Military and other censorship, here is a very fine historical thesis presented
to the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College by Paul L. Aswell, Capt, USA, entitled WARTIME PRESS CENSORSHIP BY THE U.S. ARMED FORCES : A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE , You can find it at:

https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a227383.pdf

Some very relevant sections start around page 71.


Now, it must be remembered, when a reporter for the Chicago Tribune reported on the outcome of the Battle
of Midway, including the composition of the Japanese forces that he had gotten hold of when an naval officer left
a copy of a classified radiogram on his desk by mistake, the reporter was summoned to Washington, interrogated
at length, and only escaped being tried for espionage and treason by the Navy's desire to let the matter die out
lest the Japanese realize we were reading their JN25 coded messages. However, the reporter did not leave the
continental United States for the remainder of the war. He was ' dis-accredited ' by the armed forces as a War
Correspondent.



As for Mr. Anderson's somewhat disjointed comments, obviously when the General commanding SHAEF instructs
two subbordinate generals to consult with their officers and enlisted men and give him their opinions, then
when the generals inquire of their officers, and the officers inquire of their enlisted men, the actions are
covered under the nature of the order. ( I would think that this would be fairly obvious to someone who claims
to have nearly omniscient knowledge of the history of the armed forces of the United States, but apparently I
am wrong on this ) Now, had the two Armor Generals, or their officers, or their enlisted men gone off and
begun holding press conferences with reporters in which they openly condemned the M4 Sherman's low quality
armor and underpowered armament, and if the reporters had then tried to send the stories home to their
newspapers in the United States, that would have been a problem for which either the Field Press Censors of
the Office of Censors in London were well prepared to address.


Also, just as a word to everyone on this Forum: there is a difference between ' Illegal ' and ' Unlawful '.
Mr. Anderson should learn that difference, and that will keep him from misusing the two terms.


What is important about Eisenhower's inquiry is that it provided him with information that he was NOT getting
from his chain of command, i.e., that the M4 Sherman was vastly inferior to the heavier German tanks it was
starting to run into, and that there was a significant morale issue among his troops. After all, when you
have Sergeants saying they " haven't any confidence in the M4.", then you know you have a problem. As we
all know, the U.S. Army is actually run by Sergeants. The Officers are there strictly for window dressing....


Respectfully :

Paul R. Ward

[Michael Kenny]

So a man who posts a reference that he describes as ' quite informative, and worth reading'

that states :

" After quickly replenishing with fuel and ammunition, Wittmann
returned in time to join four other Tigers of his company in dispensing further destruction upon survivors
of the 4th County of London Yeomanry around Hill 213. In another action in the streets of Villers-Bocage
later that day, Wittmann’s Tiger was subsequently disabled by far more alert opposition."

Which is complete and utter fiction says the proof of the use of the Ronson slogan is the complete absence of any mention of it during WW2.
That a vast army of censors was employed so as to keep this slogan from reaching the public. Lunatic Conspiracy Theory craziness!

[Michael Kenny]

After all, when you
have Sergeants saying they " haven't any confidence in the M4.", then you know you have a problem.

Like the lack of any confidence in the M4 shown by Corbin below?

Some quotes from Duel in the Mist 3 page 211 22 December 1944 involving a tank of Task Force Lovelady and a tank of Kampfgruppe Peiper in the Belgian town of Parfondruy:

US veteran Charles R. Corbin recalls:

...I went upstairs in a house on a hill behind us to observe better. There under our nose was a large German tank in some trees. After telling Plummer and Edmark we got artillery on it and flushed it out where one of Company D's tanks had a clear shot at it, and shoot it he did, but three balls of fire bounced off of it and it backed away never moving its turret. It had to be a Mark VI Tiger. It made us all wonder and I know the tank gunner was shaking his head, feeling helpless, as it backed up the railroad on our left flank. I had seen our 75s bounce off Mark V tanks before, the last time near Roetgen where they wiped out several of our tanks...



The tank was indeed a Tiger Ausf.B, number 133 of 1./s.SS-Pz.Abt.501. TC SS-Oberscharführer Werner Wendt relates his side of the engagement:
Quote:
...I started again in the direction of Stavelot trying to give my best. About fifty meters in front of the edge of the town my driver suddenly swung around our tank. The interphone isn't working, I don't know what happened. The driver drove back at full speed, passing the command post in the direction of Petit Spai. About 100 meters in front of the bridge we drive into the ditch. Only now can I see the reason for the sudden turn-around of the driver. We have received a hit into the turret ring. The shell had bounced downwards into the hull, torn off the hatch of the radio-operator, and killed the radio-operator...Fragments had destroyed the steering gear and the gearbox, oil was leaking. As the driving mechanism and gear shift was conducted by oil pressure the failing oil pressure caused the tank to run out of control. The Tiger was totally immobilized.

The tank was blown up and was a total loss.


Or the lack of any confidence in the M4 shown at Sailly, August 28 1944

La Battaille Du Vexin, Bruno Renoult, page 70.


Our tanks continued to advance by firing all their guns on the enemy's armor, which were soon riddled with impacts none of which penetrate as I will see later. Seriously manhandled we saw the crew evacuate the tank…………..

Tiger 301, sPz Abt 503.German view:

…………around noon it was hell, we were harassed by artillery and anti-tank fire under repeated blows. I suppose that a projectile ended up penetrating, because Tiger (TII)was on fire, we evacuated immediately but our radioman. Klaus Ricke, seriously injured, was transported to Sailly to the aid station of a cloister (Prioress of Montcient) where he was treated, but it was already too late and Ricke died. Our Panzer had been hit 18 times


Tank caught fire and was a total loss

And of course let us not forget 75% of hits on a Panther penetrated.

[paulrward]

Hello All :

To Mr. Michael Kenny :

Two very interesting accounts. But, studying them carefully, the conclusions are not necessarily so clear cut.

In the First Accoount, Corbin describes how, first, they called in an artillery strike against the Tiger, and then it
left cover without moving it's turret. Then, it was hit three times by ( I assume ) M4 Shermans, and the type of
gun used is not specified , and then the Tiger, which has not moved it's turret, retreats, to subsequently be
abandoned by it's crew due to shrapnel damage to it's drive system. The question is, was the damage caused
by the M4s, whose shell hits were clearly seen by the writer to have bounced off, or by the earlier artillery strike ?
If the Turret Ring were hit during the artillery barage, then that was when the damage to the drive system
occurred, and the turret ring strike also immobilized the turret, which was why, when the Tiger simply left
cover and retreated without firing. In other words, the only real danger to the Tiger in this case was apparently
the Allied Artillery, the M4s proved to be, at most, an annoyance.


In the Second Account, Renoult states that the Tiger in question was struck 18 times, he thought, without
any penetrating hits. Then it caught fire, and I will assume that it was one of the aforementioned 18
hits that resulted in that fire. But, Mr. Kenny, think about this for a moment: If only one hit in eighteen
is a penetrating hit, then that means you are counting on an event that happens only 5.6 % per of the time !

This is not roulette, where you put your money on one number and hope for the best. Here, the stakes are
life and death for you and your tank crew, and you, in this account, are admitting that less than 6 % of the time,
WHEN YOU HIT THE TIGER, you get a kill ! How many times does a Tiger, or a Panther, have to fire at an
M4 Sherman to get a penetrating hit on the front glacis ? Once ? Twice ?

Mr. Kenny, I am an engineer by profession, I have learned to analyze data and make judgements based on
the numbers presented. In these two accounts, the numbers do NOT add up for the M4 Sherman. The Tigers,
and, from all of the records, the Panthers too, outclassed it.

And look back at the First Account:

I had seen our 75s bounce off Mark V tanks before, the last time near Roetgen
where they wiped out several of our tanks...

And the Second Account :

Our tanks continued to advance by firing all their guns on the enemy's armor,
which were soon riddled with impacts none of which penetrate as I will see later.

Man, that really makes the M4 Sherman sound like a Super Tank to me ! The rounds from the M4's either bounce
off or fail to penetrate. And these are YOUR chosen accounts, which I assume you picked in order to make the
M4 Sherman look good !

In other words, a crew on an M4 Sherman going up against a German tank had to count on what the U.S. Air Force
refers to as ' The Golden BB' - which is a pretty slender reed to stake your life on - or on being able to call on
their preponderance of Artillery or that waiting Cab Rank of P-47s just waiting for some action. But, we are
not talking here about Artillery or Thunderbolts, we are talking about M4 Shermans. And, Mr. Kenny, you
still haven't presented any reason for an M4 crew to be confident. Just fatalistic.

Respectfully :

Paul R. Ward

[Michael Kenny]

I am an engineer by profession, I have learned to analyze data and make judgements based on
the numbers presented.

Good. That means you understand what '75% of hits on a Panther penetrated' means .

that really makes the M4 Sherman sound like a Super Tank to me !

Does it? I am wondering why you came to that conclusion because I do not remember anyone saying anything about the M4 being a 'super-tank'. I think I am beginning to understand why you think that terrible paper you linked was 'quite informative, and worth reading'.

In the Second Account, Renoult states that the Tiger in question was struck 18 times, he thought, without
any penetrating hits

As you say-'he thought'. If he had examined all the photos of the Tiger he would find there are a lot less than 18 strikes. It caught fire so it would be safe to assume something penetrated. It burned, the crew fled and one died.

I picked two incidents where we have accounts from both sides, the Tigers are identified and the evidence is rock-solid-but still you tried with 'alternate reality' explanations as to why the Tigers were destroyed.

[Sheldrake]

Hello All :

Note how, early in the scene, Lt. Winters informs Captain Sobel that, " From 09:30 to 09:55, I was censoring
the enlisted mens' mail.... " That's right. He was reading each letter, removing offending passages,
or rejecting entire letters, from enlisted men to their loved ones back in the USA.

Mr. Sheldrake, I don't know if this was done in the British Armed Forces, but it sure as hell was done in the
U.S. Armed Forces.

The British had censorship, but it would be a foolhardy officer who censored a letter written to a Member of Parliament by a constituent raising a matter of national concern. Matters raised in Parliament are protected by Parliamentary privilege. That is why Stokes could raise a matter that the Army and Government would have preferred to remain secret.

[Hans1906]

So what is the damn question, about the "Coffin On Wheels".

Link: https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/ ... trap-59012

https://www.google.com/search?q=sherman ... era&hs=4R7

Hans1906

Former screenshots have nothing to do "with the Sherman, lighting on the very first hit!"

[Richard Anderson]

So what is the damn question, about the "Coffin On Wheels".

Maybe the question is what motivates people to continually cite ignorant tripe from internet bloggers, such as this...

"Most tanks at the time ran on diesel, a safer and less flammable fuel than gasoline. The Sherman’s powerplant was a 400-horsepower gas engine that, combined with the ammo on board, could transform the tank into a Hellish inferno after taking a hit."

That is factually incorrect in every particular. It then "quotes" a movie, and Death Traps, which is a marginal memoir and factual nonsense.

https://www.google.com/search?q=sherman ... era&hs=4R7

Gee, look, I can Google too!

https://www.google.com/search?q=tiger+t ... era&hs=4R7

Former screenshots have nothing to do "with the Sherman, lighting on the very first hit!"

I might agree if I had any idea what you were trying to say.