End Battle - SAVING PRIVATE RYAN - Based on TRUE INCIDENT ?

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JockCampbell41
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Re: End Battle - SAVING PRIVATE RYAN - Based on TRUE INCIDENT ?

#16

Post by JockCampbell41 » 05 Feb 2009, 18:40

Well... that's yet another one of Saving Private Ryan's 'historically accurate' tidbits...

It doesn't really make much difference - the 2nd SS was in the South of France mopping up partizans in a most brutal fashion en route to the battlefield, the SS and Panzer divisions were in the British sector, the Tigers and mis-identified 'panzers' attacked the town in a dramatic but ridiculous fashion and were killed by 'tankbuster' P-51s - there's not much that one can say is accurate in that last battle.

As for Wittmann's attack... well, that's what happens when you move armour into built up areas without infantry support. Considering how successful he was against the armour that day, that wasn't doing all too badly.

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Re: End Battle - SAVING PRIVATE RYAN - Based on TRUE INCIDENT ?

#17

Post by Polynikes » 13 Feb 2009, 22:27

jwong wrote:
On June 13, 1944 at 1300 hours a few Tigers and Mk IV tanks advanced through the town of Villers-Bocage WITHOUT infantry support and were easily destroyed by British infantry armed with sticky bombs, PIATs, and 6-pounder anti-tank guns.



I guess this shows that Germans are ONLY human.
the British sticky bomb wasn't just explosive in a sock covered in grease. Britain actually manufactured a crazy anti-tank bomb that an infantryman threw at a tank.

It came with the ball shaped head covered in adhesive.

One of the crazier inventions.


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Re: End Battle - SAVING PRIVATE RYAN - Based on TRUE INCIDENT ?

#18

Post by Virgil Hiltz » 14 Feb 2009, 01:59

The movie was a work of fiction based on the Niland brothers in Normandy, a true story. The units and weapons were not the basis and as it was based on the Fritz Niland story, full accuracy had to be avoided in lieu of legal action. Thus we get composite units and other inaccuracies to flesh out the human interest side of the story.

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Re: Sticky Bombs

#19

Post by Simon K » 14 Feb 2009, 02:21

Just as logical as the Germans using Teller mines against T34s before the introduction of RPATWs.

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Re: End Battle - SAVING PRIVATE RYAN - Based on TRUE INCIDENT ?

#20

Post by IvanSR » 14 Feb 2009, 19:35

The battle of Schmidt is a great example of how the American soldiers behave when they are attacked by German tanks in a town and have no antitank support, with the exception of few bazookas.

It's a great read, I recommend it to everyone.
Action at Schmidt

Sunrise on 4 November was at 0732. A few minutes before came the noise of enemy artillery pieces opening fire, and a hail of shells began to crash among the hastily prepared defenses in the southern edge of Schmidt. The shelling walked back and forth through the town for more than thirty minutes. Coming from at least three directions–northeast, east, and southeast–the fire was so intense that it seemed to many of the infantry defenders to originate from every angle.

In line to meet the expected enemy counterattack the 3d Battalion, 112th Infantry, as previously noted, was in a perimeter defense of the town. (Map IX)2 To the east and southeast Company L defended the area between the Harscheidt and Hasenfeld roads. To the south and southwest was Company K between the Hasenfeld and Strauch roads. Company I, with only two rifle platoons and its light machine gun section, had its 2d Platoon on the north and its 3d Platoon on the northwest. A section of heavy machine guns from Company M was with Company L and another with Company K, while the remaining heavy machine gun platoon was on the north edge of town covering an open field and wooded draw to the north near the 2d Platoon, Company I. The 81-mm. mortars were dug in on the northern edge of town near the machine gun platoon, and the battalion command post was in a pillbox just west of the Kommerscheidt road 300 yards from Schmidt. Antitank defense consisted of uncamouflaged mines hastily strung across the Harscheidt, Hasenfeld, and Strauch roads and covered with small arms and organic bazookas.

Probably the first to sight enemy forces was Company I's 2d Platoon on the left of the Harscheidt road. Shortly after dawn a runner reported to Capt. Raymond R. Rokey at the company CP that observers had spotted some sixty enemy infantry in a patch of thin woods about a thousand yards northeast of Schmidt, seemingly milling around forming for an attack. Having no communication with his platoons except by runner, Captain Rokey left immediately for the 2d Platoon area. Although the artillery forward observer at Company I's CP promptly put in a call for artillery fire, for some reason the call produced no result until much later.3

Company M machine gunners with the left flank of Company L on the east fired on ten or fifteen enemy soldiers who emerged from the woods and dashed for a group of houses at Zubendchen, a settlement north of the Harscheidt road. From here the Germans evidently intended to regroup and make their way into Schmidt. A section of 81-mm. mortars directed its fire at the houses, scoring at least one or two direct hits, and observers saw Germans crawling back toward the woods.

Other enemy infantrymen continued to advance from the northeast. Company I's 2d platoon employed its small arms weapons to repulse a wavering, un-co-ordinated effort, preceded by light mortar fire, which was launched against its northeast position, possibly by the group seen earlier readying for an attack.

A heavier assault struck almost simultaneously against the right-flank position of Company L along the Hasenfeld road on the southeast. Automatic riflemen with the defending platoon opened up as the enemy crossed a small hill to the front. A German machine gun less than fifty yards away at the base of a building in the uncleared southeastern edge of Schmidt returned the fire. When a squad leader, S. Sgt. Frank Ripperdam, crawled forward with several of his men until he was almost on top of the enemy gun, five enemy soldiers jumped up, yelling in English, "Don't shoot! Don't shoot!" Sergeant Ripperdam and two other men stood up to accept the expected surrender, only to have the Germans jump back quickly into their emplacement and open fire with the machine gun. Dropping again to the ground, the sergeant directed a rifle grenadier to fire at the machine gun. Ripperdam saw the grenade hit at least two of the Germans, but still the machine gun fired. One of the Company L men suddenly sprang erect and ran forward behind the slight concealment of a sparse hedgerow, firing his rifle in a one-man assault. The Germans shifted their gun and raked his body with fire, killing him instantly. Sergeant Ripperdam and the remaining men withdrew to their defensive ring, but the Germans too had evidently been discouraged, for there was no more fire from the position.

Holding the enemy to their front with small arms and mortar fire, the men on Company L's right flank could see Germans infiltrating on their right through the Company K positions. An enemy machine gun opened fire from a road junction near the uncleared houses on the Hasenfeld road and prevented even the wounded from crossing the street to the north to reach the company medics. On all sides of Schmidt except the north the enemy was now attacking.

Supporting artillery of the 229th Field Artillery Battalion was engaged in harassing fires until 0823 when the air observation post called for and received twelve rounds on enemy personnel in the vicinity of Harscheidt. A previous call from the forward observer with Company I still had produced no results. At 0850 American artillery joined the battle with its first really effective defensive fires, 216 rounds of TOT on a concentration of enemy tanks to the east, just south of the Harscheidt-Schmidt road. From that time on, artillery played its part in the battle, the 229th alone firing 373 rounds until 1000, and supporting corps artillery and the 108th Field Artillery Battalion of 155's joining the defense.4

Enemy tanks suddenly entered the battle, obviously determined to exploit the minor successes won by the advance infantry. With the tanks came other German infantry: five tanks and a battalion of infantry were reported along the Harscheidt road and another five tanks and battalion of infantry along the Hasenfeld road.5

The defenders of the two main roads opened up with their rocket launchers, but the enemy tanks rumbled effortlessly on, firing their big guns into foxholes and buildings with blasts whose concussion could kill if the shell fragments did not. On the Hasenfeld road, at least one Company L bazooka scored a hit on one of the tanks; it stopped only briefly, swung off to one side, and clanked on its methodically destructive way. Such seeming immunity demoralized the men who saw it.

The attack against Company K on the south had spilled over to the southwest, and was joined by other enemy infantry attacking from the west. Company I's 3d Platoon on the right of the Strauch road found itself under assault. A runner reported the situation to Captain Rokey, the company commander, who was still with his hard-pressed 2d Platoon on the north. Rokey sent word back for the 3d Platoon to withdraw from its foxholes in the open field to the cover of the houses.

Along the Harscheidt and Hasenfeld roads the German tanks spotted the feeble rows of mines, disdainfully pulled off to the sides, and skirted them. Then they were among the buildings of the town and the foxholes of the defenders, systematically pumping round after round into the positions. On the south and southwest the situation rapidly disintegrated. Company K's defenses broke under the attack.

American riflemen streamed from their foxholes into the woods to the southwest. As they sought relief from the pounding they moved, perhaps unwittingly, farther into German territory. They were joined in their flight by some men from Company L.

Another Company K group of about platoon size retreated into the Company L sector and there told a platoon leader that the Germans had knocked out one of Company K's attached heavy machine guns and captured the other. The enemy had completely overrun the company's positions.
The Company L platoon leader sent three men to his company command post in the vicinity of the church in the center of town to get a better picture of the over-all situation. The men quickly returned, reporting that they had been prevented from reaching the company CP by fire from Germans established in the church. The three men had the impression that everyone on their right had withdrawn.

The enemy tanks plunged directly through the positions of the 1st Platoon, Company L, in the center of the company's sector on the east. They overran the company's 60-mm. mortars and knocked out two of them with direct hits from their hull guns. Notifying the company command post that they could not hold, the Americans retreated to the woods on the southwest where they had seen Company K troops withdrawing.

Now the retreat of small groups and platoons was turning into a disorderly general exodus. Captain Rokey ordered his 2d Platoon, Company I, to pull back to the protection of the buildings, but the enemy fire was so intense that control became virtually impossible. The men fled, not to the buildings as they had been ordered, but north and west over the open ground and into the woods in the direction of Kommerscheidt, there finding themselves intermingled with other fleeing members of the battalion. It was difficult to find large groups from one unit.

In the Company K sector, 2d Lt. Richard Tyo, a platoon leader, had noticed the withdrawal of the company's machine gun section and 1st Platoon. On being told by the men that they had orders to withdraw, Lieutenant Tyo took charge and led them back through the houses of Schmidt toward the north and Kommerscheidt. On the way they passed two men from the company's 3d Platoon, on with a broken leg and the other lying wounded in his foxhole The wounded men said their platoon had gone "that way" and pointed toward the woods to the southwest. Tyo and his group continued north, however, and joined the confused men struggling to get back to Kommerscheidt. There was no time to take along the wounded. The headquarters groups of Companies L and K tried to form a line in the center of Schmidt, but even this small semblance of order was soon confusion again. Someone in the new line said an order had come to withdraw, the word spread quickly, and none questioned its source. A Company K man remembered the forty-five prisoners in the near-by basement, and two men headed them back double-time toward Kommerscheidt. The other men joined the mass moving out of Schmidt.

The 81-mm. mortar platoon on the northern edge of town had received its first indication of counterattack shortly after daybreak when a round from an 88-mm. gun crashed against the house near the dug-in mortars, seriously wounding a man outside the small building in which the mortar men were sleeping. The mortar men then joined in defensive fires on call from the rifle companies and were so intent on their job that they did not notice that the rifle companies were withdrawing. Well along in the morning a lieutenant from Company I stopped at their position and told them the rifle companies had all fallen back and enemy tanks were only a few houses away. Carrying the seriously wounded man on a stretcher made from a ladder, the mortar men withdrew. Once the with-drawal had begun, it lost all semblance of organization; each little group made its way back toward Kommerscheidt on its own.

The time was now about 1000, and with or without orders Schmidt was being abandoned. The battalion commander notified those companies with whom he still had contact that the battalion CP was pulling its switchboard and that they should withdraw.

Little could be done for the seriously wounded unable to join the retreat. The battalion aid station was far back, at the moment in the Kall River gorge. Several company aid men stayed behind with the wounded to lend what assistance they could. The bodies of the dead were left where they had fallen.

Most of the American troops who were to get out of Schmidt had evidently done so by about 1100, although an occasional straggler continued to emerge until about noon. By 1230 the loss of Schmidt was apparently recognized at 28th Division headquarters, for the air control officer directed the 396th Squadron of the 366th Group (P-47's) to attack the town. The squadron termed results of the bombing "excellent."6

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EKB
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Re: End Battle - SAVING PRIVATE RYAN - Based on TRUE INCIDENT ?

#21

Post by EKB » 26 Feb 2009, 15:47

JockCampbell41 wrote:Well... that's yet another one of Saving Private Ryan's 'historically accurate' tidbits...

It doesn't really make much difference - the 2nd SS was in the South of France mopping up partizans in a most brutal fashion en route to the battlefield, the SS and Panzer divisions were in the British sector, the Tigers and mis-identified 'panzers' attacked the town in a dramatic but ridiculous fashion and were killed by 'tankbuster' P-51s - there's not much that one can say is accurate in that last battle.

As for Wittmann's attack... well, that's what happens when you move armour into built up areas without infantry support. Considering how successful he was against the armour that day, that wasn't doing all too badly.
A quick check of the map tells us that the town of Carentan and the 17th SS Panzer Grenadier Division were in "the American sector" on June 13th, 1944. The 101st Airborne Division, with tank support, stopped the panzers there.

On the very same day, this time in "the British sector", the highly experienced 7th Armoured Division showed us what they were made of at Villers Bocage. They embarrassed not only themselves but the entire Allied Army, and especially General Dempsey, who later wrote "the whole handling of that battle was a disgrace".

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Simon K
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Re: End Battle - SAVING PRIVATE RYAN - Based on TRUE INCIDENT ?

#22

Post by Simon K » 27 Feb 2009, 04:20

But it was also a major breakthrough of the critical central sector which seriously alarmed the Heer.
If it had been ruthlessly exploited and treated more as a break through than an exercise in defensive box formations, then who knows? However the Allied material buildup had hardly begun. How many other ADs were available for immediate use I wonder?

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Re: End Battle - SAVING PRIVATE RYAN - Based on TRUE INCIDENT ?

#23

Post by Reset » 24 Mar 2009, 23:00

IvanSR wrote:The battle of Schmidt is a great example of how the American soldiers behave when they are attacked by German tanks in a town and have no antitank support, with the exception of few bazookas.

It's a great read, I recommend it to everyone.
Action at Schmidt

Sunrise on 4 November was at 0732. A few minutes before came the noise of enemy artillery pieces opening fire, and a hail of shells began to crash among the hastily prepared defenses in the southern edge of Schmidt. The shelling walked back and forth through the town for more than thirty minutes. Coming from at least three directions–northeast, east, and southeast–the fire was so intense that it seemed to many of the infantry defenders to originate from every angle.

In line to meet the expected enemy counterattack the 3d Battalion, 112th Infantry, as previously noted, was in a perimeter defense of the town. (Map IX)2 To the east and southeast Company L defended the area between the Harscheidt and Hasenfeld roads. To the south and southwest was Company K between the Hasenfeld and Strauch roads. Company I, with only two rifle platoons and its light machine gun section, had its 2d Platoon on the north and its 3d Platoon on the northwest. A section of heavy machine guns from Company M was with Company L and another with Company K, while the remaining heavy machine gun platoon was on the north edge of town covering an open field and wooded draw to the north near the 2d Platoon, Company I. The 81-mm. mortars were dug in on the northern edge of town near the machine gun platoon, and the battalion command post was in a pillbox just west of the Kommerscheidt road 300 yards from Schmidt. Antitank defense consisted of uncamouflaged mines hastily strung across the Harscheidt, Hasenfeld, and Strauch roads and covered with small arms and organic bazookas.

Probably the first to sight enemy forces was Company I's 2d Platoon on the left of the Harscheidt road. Shortly after dawn a runner reported to Capt. Raymond R. Rokey at the company CP that observers had spotted some sixty enemy infantry in a patch of thin woods about a thousand yards northeast of Schmidt, seemingly milling around forming for an attack. Having no communication with his platoons except by runner, Captain Rokey left immediately for the 2d Platoon area. Although the artillery forward observer at Company I's CP promptly put in a call for artillery fire, for some reason the call produced no result until much later.3

Company M machine gunners with the left flank of Company L on the east fired on ten or fifteen enemy soldiers who emerged from the woods and dashed for a group of houses at Zubendchen, a settlement north of the Harscheidt road. From here the Germans evidently intended to regroup and make their way into Schmidt. A section of 81-mm. mortars directed its fire at the houses, scoring at least one or two direct hits, and observers saw Germans crawling back toward the woods.

Other enemy infantrymen continued to advance from the northeast. Company I's 2d platoon employed its small arms weapons to repulse a wavering, un-co-ordinated effort, preceded by light mortar fire, which was launched against its northeast position, possibly by the group seen earlier readying for an attack.

A heavier assault struck almost simultaneously against the right-flank position of Company L along the Hasenfeld road on the southeast. Automatic riflemen with the defending platoon opened up as the enemy crossed a small hill to the front. A German machine gun less than fifty yards away at the base of a building in the uncleared southeastern edge of Schmidt returned the fire. When a squad leader, S. Sgt. Frank Ripperdam, crawled forward with several of his men until he was almost on top of the enemy gun, five enemy soldiers jumped up, yelling in English, "Don't shoot! Don't shoot!" Sergeant Ripperdam and two other men stood up to accept the expected surrender, only to have the Germans jump back quickly into their emplacement and open fire with the machine gun. Dropping again to the ground, the sergeant directed a rifle grenadier to fire at the machine gun. Ripperdam saw the grenade hit at least two of the Germans, but still the machine gun fired. One of the Company L men suddenly sprang erect and ran forward behind the slight concealment of a sparse hedgerow, firing his rifle in a one-man assault. The Germans shifted their gun and raked his body with fire, killing him instantly. Sergeant Ripperdam and the remaining men withdrew to their defensive ring, but the Germans too had evidently been discouraged, for there was no more fire from the position.

Holding the enemy to their front with small arms and mortar fire, the men on Company L's right flank could see Germans infiltrating on their right through the Company K positions. An enemy machine gun opened fire from a road junction near the uncleared houses on the Hasenfeld road and prevented even the wounded from crossing the street to the north to reach the company medics. On all sides of Schmidt except the north the enemy was now attacking.

Supporting artillery of the 229th Field Artillery Battalion was engaged in harassing fires until 0823 when the air observation post called for and received twelve rounds on enemy personnel in the vicinity of Harscheidt. A previous call from the forward observer with Company I still had produced no results. At 0850 American artillery joined the battle with its first really effective defensive fires, 216 rounds of TOT on a concentration of enemy tanks to the east, just south of the Harscheidt-Schmidt road. From that time on, artillery played its part in the battle, the 229th alone firing 373 rounds until 1000, and supporting corps artillery and the 108th Field Artillery Battalion of 155's joining the defense.4

Enemy tanks suddenly entered the battle, obviously determined to exploit the minor successes won by the advance infantry. With the tanks came other German infantry: five tanks and a battalion of infantry were reported along the Harscheidt road and another five tanks and battalion of infantry along the Hasenfeld road.5

The defenders of the two main roads opened up with their rocket launchers, but the enemy tanks rumbled effortlessly on, firing their big guns into foxholes and buildings with blasts whose concussion could kill if the shell fragments did not. On the Hasenfeld road, at least one Company L bazooka scored a hit on one of the tanks; it stopped only briefly, swung off to one side, and clanked on its methodically destructive way. Such seeming immunity demoralized the men who saw it.

The attack against Company K on the south had spilled over to the southwest, and was joined by other enemy infantry attacking from the west. Company I's 3d Platoon on the right of the Strauch road found itself under assault. A runner reported the situation to Captain Rokey, the company commander, who was still with his hard-pressed 2d Platoon on the north. Rokey sent word back for the 3d Platoon to withdraw from its foxholes in the open field to the cover of the houses.

Along the Harscheidt and Hasenfeld roads the German tanks spotted the feeble rows of mines, disdainfully pulled off to the sides, and skirted them. Then they were among the buildings of the town and the foxholes of the defenders, systematically pumping round after round into the positions. On the south and southwest the situation rapidly disintegrated. Company K's defenses broke under the attack.

American riflemen streamed from their foxholes into the woods to the southwest. As they sought relief from the pounding they moved, perhaps unwittingly, farther into German territory. They were joined in their flight by some men from Company L.

Another Company K group of about platoon size retreated into the Company L sector and there told a platoon leader that the Germans had knocked out one of Company K's attached heavy machine guns and captured the other. The enemy had completely overrun the company's positions.
The Company L platoon leader sent three men to his company command post in the vicinity of the church in the center of town to get a better picture of the over-all situation. The men quickly returned, reporting that they had been prevented from reaching the company CP by fire from Germans established in the church. The three men had the impression that everyone on their right had withdrawn.

The enemy tanks plunged directly through the positions of the 1st Platoon, Company L, in the center of the company's sector on the east. They overran the company's 60-mm. mortars and knocked out two of them with direct hits from their hull guns. Notifying the company command post that they could not hold, the Americans retreated to the woods on the southwest where they had seen Company K troops withdrawing.

Now the retreat of small groups and platoons was turning into a disorderly general exodus. Captain Rokey ordered his 2d Platoon, Company I, to pull back to the protection of the buildings, but the enemy fire was so intense that control became virtually impossible. The men fled, not to the buildings as they had been ordered, but north and west over the open ground and into the woods in the direction of Kommerscheidt, there finding themselves intermingled with other fleeing members of the battalion. It was difficult to find large groups from one unit.

In the Company K sector, 2d Lt. Richard Tyo, a platoon leader, had noticed the withdrawal of the company's machine gun section and 1st Platoon. On being told by the men that they had orders to withdraw, Lieutenant Tyo took charge and led them back through the houses of Schmidt toward the north and Kommerscheidt. On the way they passed two men from the company's 3d Platoon, on with a broken leg and the other lying wounded in his foxhole The wounded men said their platoon had gone "that way" and pointed toward the woods to the southwest. Tyo and his group continued north, however, and joined the confused men struggling to get back to Kommerscheidt. There was no time to take along the wounded. The headquarters groups of Companies L and K tried to form a line in the center of Schmidt, but even this small semblance of order was soon confusion again. Someone in the new line said an order had come to withdraw, the word spread quickly, and none questioned its source. A Company K man remembered the forty-five prisoners in the near-by basement, and two men headed them back double-time toward Kommerscheidt. The other men joined the mass moving out of Schmidt.

The 81-mm. mortar platoon on the northern edge of town had received its first indication of counterattack shortly after daybreak when a round from an 88-mm. gun crashed against the house near the dug-in mortars, seriously wounding a man outside the small building in which the mortar men were sleeping. The mortar men then joined in defensive fires on call from the rifle companies and were so intent on their job that they did not notice that the rifle companies were withdrawing. Well along in the morning a lieutenant from Company I stopped at their position and told them the rifle companies had all fallen back and enemy tanks were only a few houses away. Carrying the seriously wounded man on a stretcher made from a ladder, the mortar men withdrew. Once the with-drawal had begun, it lost all semblance of organization; each little group made its way back toward Kommerscheidt on its own.

The time was now about 1000, and with or without orders Schmidt was being abandoned. The battalion commander notified those companies with whom he still had contact that the battalion CP was pulling its switchboard and that they should withdraw.

Little could be done for the seriously wounded unable to join the retreat. The battalion aid station was far back, at the moment in the Kall River gorge. Several company aid men stayed behind with the wounded to lend what assistance they could. The bodies of the dead were left where they had fallen.

Most of the American troops who were to get out of Schmidt had evidently done so by about 1100, although an occasional straggler continued to emerge until about noon. By 1230 the loss of Schmidt was apparently recognized at 28th Division headquarters, for the air control officer directed the 396th Squadron of the 366th Group (P-47's) to attack the town. The squadron termed results of the bombing "excellent."6
I enjoyed reading this,but maybe you should have said this is how most infantry react when faced with armor without any adequate support not just American.

Also i don't get the spleen that is released on SPR.Its a work of historical fiction much like Sharpes Rifles.Wouldn't be much of a movie if all the paras and rangers were killed or driven off by the german armor in the first five minutes of the ending battle.If memory serves me most of the paras were killed after taking out the first tank and there were only three survivors left by the time reinforcements arrived.About the only Rah-Rah of the movie was the showing of the American flag and that was around the cemetery scene.

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Re: End Battle - SAVING PRIVATE RYAN - Based on TRUE INCIDENT ?

#24

Post by IvanSR » 26 Mar 2009, 00:22

Reset wrote:I enjoyed reading this,but maybe you should have said this is how most infantry react when faced with armor without any adequate support not just American.
You're right. I was in no way trying to say that American G.I. were cowards or what.

The final battle in SPR, however, is somehow distant from reality. It's like playing Medal of Honor on "Easy", with enemy bullets repeatedly avoiding you.

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Re: End Battle - SAVING PRIVATE RYAN - Based on TRUE INCIDENT ?

#25

Post by IvanSR » 26 Mar 2009, 18:21

Let me just add that the above extract comes from Three Battles: Anraville, Altuzzo, and Schmidt by Charles B. MacDonald.

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Re: End Battle - SAVING PRIVATE RYAN - Based on TRUE INCIDENT ?

#26

Post by Togodamnus » 18 Apr 2009, 01:37

Grabners assault on the bridgehead was an act of tactical desperation and an all or nothing gamble. This sort of thing often enough was successful assuming the bridgehead is only hastily prepared and without heavy weapons. Grabner was likely ordered to take or at least assault the bridgehead, figured it was only going to get harder as the minutes ticked by and the paras fully dug in and re-enforced. Grabner's force had once already passed over and cursorily cleared the bridge the night before, prior to the Brit paras eventual arrival.

Allied air support was always anticipated to arrive or be present at any moment during daylight hours; the incentive would be to gather up and go-- as opposed to form up and sit there, exposed for the 'Jabos' to find.

When not traveling or forming up and/or conducting assaults and maneuvers, vehicular formations or columns like Grabner's 'Aufclar' recon unit (like any motorized formation under duress) would be deployed into defensive positions or dispersed around staging areas and heavily foliaged and camoflauged; even when on the move the vehicles were draped and arranged with branches and leafy foliage for means of quick concealment in the event of air attack.

Grabner had his orders and his best option may have been an aggressive force-recon relying on speed, surprise and shock to either dislodge the paras (put to flight) or at very least clinch and fix them in close combat on that end of the bridgehead while holding the opposite end open for pending re-enforcement, while denying it to the Brits.

Frost's paras sat behind their Vickers 30 cal machine guns, PIATs and Bren guns and peered from cover, listening to the roar of approaching motors that were ominously echoing along the canals and causeways.

As abrupt and vigorous suppressive fire generated by Grabner's speeding vehicles overtook the crescendo of accelerating diesel engines, the defending paras optimized their counter by skillfully holding fire until the enemy was committed and out on the span with little cover.

Had it not been the professionally cool and expertly trained paratroopers opposing this assault, Grabner's charge may well have been enough to put 'average' citizen or camerade infantry into a libertine panic. It had worked or at least carried through against soviets in the past, as well the escape from the cul de sac of Falaise; but not with Frost's royal paras.

Such bold and apparently wild and reckless tactical behavior is in keeping with the reputation that the waffen ss had acquired for an aggressive, even maniacal battlefield presence.

One thing that can be considered and perhaps should be appreciated more by historians is the (little known) fact that personnel within many combat units of the axis military (especially elite units) were issued amphetimene tablets ('speed'); this and the philosophical and indoc (world view) training produced some truely maniacal combatants.

Issuance of stimulant tablets was a common practice with both the german and japanese troops and pilots during last three years of the the second world war. This an artifact of the impossible missions and expectations foisted upon axis war fighters as the war exponentially escalated. Allies also dabled in this but not to the extent that the axis.

I have often wondered to what exent these 'speed' tablets had an affect on axis troops such as waffen ss, falschirmjagers and japanese imperial marines or 'rikusentai' who were all known for maniacal and fanatical tenacity.

The paras opened up as the column strode amid bridge, tracers and PIAT rockets and mortars fire erupted along the column and shrouded the the bridge in smoke and dust as vehicles careened and bashed through those that been already wrecked. Within 3 minutes of Grabner's vehicle opening fire his column had been stopped, with only three vehicles forcing their way through, these being held at bay and isolated on Frost's side of the bridge. Frost's paras later knocked one of these out with PIATS and the other vehicles eggressed further up the street.

Image

All that being disclosed and considered, the attack on Frost's bridgehead has often been exaggerated to some extent.
It should be noted that in reality "Grabners charge" lost a total of 13 vehicles, 71 men killed, (and at least as many wounded) and 5 captured on and around the bridge.

Image
Four of the five prisoners from 9th ss recon battalion taken by Brit paras on Arnhem bridge on evening of 18 Sept 1944, the fifth prisoner was carried in a rain pancho by other four. These made their way off the bridge via Frost's side of the bridge. This photo is often mis-captioned as depicting captured 'snipers'.

A few vehicles including two puma armored cars actually crossed and passed through the Brit positions successfully.

These vehicles then took part in a two hour fire-fight before retiring to defensive positions further up the street on Frost's side of the Bridge.

During this spirited fire-fight between Grabner and Frost's forces there were determined attempts by the germans to provide cover fire and aid for survivors retiring from the bridge, this effort continued during that evening.

At the end of the day Grabner was dead (killed outright) and his 22 vehicle and 180 man roster was less than 40% of its former number.

The paras lost several dead and a dozen or so injured, Frost's men took 5 enemy prisoners from the bridge that evening.

All said, the event has been exaggerated and inflated in terms of both scale of attack and number of casualties to the aggressing force which was greatly outnumbered by the tenacious paras.

With pennants flying from his radio aerials, Grabner was only a captian when he was killed on the bridge, but he had since 1942 earned numerous combat decorations for his reckless escapades in the soviet union, including wound badges, two iron crosses and the 'german cross' in gold.

Grabner had been highly decorated in both the great advances and grim retreats of 1942 thru 1943 but by all evidences had remained a determined and enthusiastic combatant.

Sent to France for rest and refit, Grabner's 9th ss panzer division was hastily organized during summer of 1944 and sent into Normandy where it suffered heavily under naval gunfire and allied air supremacy.

On 24 Aug 1944, less than a month before he would be killed, Grabner had been awarded the 'knights cross' for his conduct (survival) during the ill fated Mortain offensive which had been foiled with air strikes and naval gunfire and subsequently outflanked by numerically and logistically superior allied mechanized forces.

During the ensuing retreat from the Mortain offensive and envelopments by allied armor, Grabner's unit was instrumental in finding a way out of the allied encirclement.

Grabner's unit, together with remnants of 12th ss 'HJ' Div and other scratch formations with armored vehicles (mostly ss and falschirmjags) held open a corridor through which the bulk of the battered (largely dismounted by this stage) german forces were able to escape the 'Falaise Pocket'.

Grabner then engaged allied forces as rear guard and forward (rear-ward) observer during the ensuing chaos of the allied 'breakout' and general Pattons' stampede across France thereafter.

On 30 August, the survivors of the panzer division (9th ss Panzer) to which Grabner's recon unit was attached was designated "Kampfgruppe Hohenstaufen" (taskforce Hohenstaufen).

On 2 September 1944 his recon unit was very successful in a defensive action near Cambrai that destroyed over 60 US tanks and vehicles in addition to 3 allied ground attack aircraft.

The action pitted Grabner's armored cars and half-tracked infantry (dismounted)with the remaining anti aircraft batteries from 'Kampfgruppen Hohenstaufen and Frundsburg' against a force of over 200 US shemans and m-10 tank destroyers and infantry, attended by allied artillary support and air cover.

Under heavy allied shelling and constant air attack, Grabner and his infantry repeatedly engaged allied armor and infantry while being covered by direct fire of 88mm and 20 mm anti-aircraft batteries and self-propelled flack guns of Kampfegruppen H/F.

Mistaking the fire from the german 88mm AA guns for that of panzers, the fast moving allied armored formation had come under the impression that the sudden ambush sprung by Grabner's dismounted grenadiers and half tracks was being pressed home by 'tiger tanks'.

While the AA guns claimed most of the tank kills, over a dozen sherman tanks were knocked out by Grabner's tank killing teams. At least four sherman tanks were knocked out of action or abandoned after being fired upon by puma armored cars which were often mistaken for panzers by flighty tank crews.

Grabner end up loosing all six armored cars together with some of his halftracks as well as some of the more experienced personnel and veteran peers from his heavily taxed recon unit.

Grabner himself was lighty injured after engaging tanks with his 'puma'.

With his vehicle on fire, Grabner had hastily bailed out while still attached with his headset/phone; in leaping from the turret he had sprained his neck as the headset was recoiled at the end of its tether.

The attack was stopped and repulsed with Kampfegruppen H/F evacuating under cover of nightfall and retiring to mainlines of resistance (MLR) and put into a reserve briefly before being rerouted to Arnhem area to regroup.

Image

Grabner may have still had injury during the time of his last combat. His unit was supposed to be on vacation (rest and refit) when he received his terminal directives at 0930hrs, Monday 18th September, 1944.
Last edited by Togodamnus on 23 Apr 2009, 23:59, edited 13 times in total.

spudgun
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Re: End Battle - SAVING PRIVATE RYAN - Based on TRUE INCIDENT ?

#27

Post by spudgun » 18 Apr 2009, 18:20

Togodamnus is their any truth that Grabner was using a captured Humber armoured car, at the time of the attack?, I'd always assumed he would was in a sdkf 222 as in the image you posted.

Reset
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Re: End Battle - SAVING PRIVATE RYAN - Based on TRUE INCIDENT ?

#28

Post by Reset » 18 Apr 2009, 23:20

What happens when lightly armed units run into armor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cisterna

I think the unofficial Ranger Motto of WWII was too light to fight and too heavy to run.

Though more indepth reading of the battle will show that many Ranger units went in knowing they were outarmed.

Theres a documentary on the fight somewhere with one lieutenant or Captain saying they knew they were going in to be killed after the initial engagement,but duty demanded that each company went foward.In his words "you didn't say no when it was your turn".

Togodamnus
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Re: End Battle - SAVING PRIVATE RYAN - Based on TRUE INCIDENT ?

#29

Post by Togodamnus » 19 Apr 2009, 19:02

I have no info on which vehicle Grabner was riding in that particular day, a Puma armored car is what my imagination conjures (a favored vehicle) but I have no real evidence. The 'movie' (BTF) showed him riding in a halftrack and standing there like a wooden mannequin until shot down and his vehicle set on fire.

I really dont know and could only identify one photo of Grabner in the form of a postcard portrait in dress uniform.

It was hard to find any info really.
Same as with the finer details of the ill fated Darby's Rangers expedition to Cisterna, not a lot of info available from allied side of lines and axis records are lost, horded or secreted somewhere.

The axis had a great deal of info and media coverage of the Darby Rangers debacle but this is somewhere out of reach to public in terms of actual 'combat reports' and after action reports, etc.

The axis even went to the trouble of 'parading' the captured rangers before the Flavian Amphitheatre (roman colosseum)it was newreel feature with the HG Div triumphant and fat boy Goring somehow being credited.

If I was in DC id be in the archives right now, there is still so much info and details that havent yet come to the light of the modern day.

Polynikes
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Re: End Battle - SAVING PRIVATE RYAN - Based on TRUE INCIDENT ?

#30

Post by Polynikes » 25 Apr 2009, 04:28

Togodamnus wrote:I have no info on which vehicle Grabner was riding in that particular day, a Puma armored car is what my imagination conjures (a favored vehicle) but I have no real evidence. The 'movie' (BTF) showed him riding in a halftrack and standing there like a wooden mannequin until shot down and his vehicle set on fire...
And here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiiUJ4sD ... playnext=1

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