The Real Tank Genius Of WW2 - Percy "Hobo" Hobart
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This video is less funny, i just found the topic super interesting. Lemme know what you thought. I appreciate the feedback
Do a video about that one time we’re 155 Irishmen fought against 4000 Congolese
You got a cross over with the line crosser let’s gooo
Please do a video on admiral Willis Augustus Lee jr.
You liked my last message, but just in case, plEAASE do a video on Léo Major my man.
Honestly do whatever interests you that’s what has brought so many people to your channel. I may be a history nerd but certain people in war like this is super fascinating.
I like how Hobart’s funnies go from “that’s kind of a wacky way to solve a problem” to “that bunker offends me, remove it” and “cleanse their sins in fire”
"Well, that escalated quickly" in armor form.
This made me have the evilest laugh
The Emperor protects
Align reticule, press trigger, make dead.
As for the "it offends me" part, ask BUFF when you need to rearrange terrain. Betty doesn't tell him to "pull up" just informs him that the ground needs to go down.
Well said!
Every single time I see a TFE video, I stop what I'm doing and watch it.
Thanks for explaining history in a way that the American education system won't. I am so much prouder to be an American with the information you give me.
I literally clicked the notification button for this video the second it popped up
Not only the way it's taught but the information left out. It's all about controlling information.
I stopped my live stream to watch this.
I concur.
Gurl same
I am a Guide at the Tank Museum in Bovington, we have several "funnies" and other vehicles from 79th Armoured Division. I was so pleased to see this video as I am a little bit of a Sir Percy Hobart Fanboy and it is great to see him finally get some recognition for the genius that he was.
I wonder if it might be worth getting Nick to do a "Safe for Public Viewing" version and running it on a loop in the museum. If you guys do it they could use it at the Combined Services Museum in Maldon too
As an American, I find it wholly offensive that I was never taught a single thing about this man in any of my history classes in high school. I chalk it up to the failing public education system in the United States. I never even heard the name “Sir Percy Hobart” before watching this video, now I absolutely MUST read every book I can find on the man.
I was at Bovington Camp, Junior Leaders Regiment in 1969. Loved the Tank Museum, we could get in free with the uniform or I.D.. spent hours in there at weekends. I suspect I wouldn’t recognise it now though.
Bovington tank museum is fantastic! I visited a few years ago highly recommended 👌
@@willymac5036How old are you? I'm 69 and I never heard of Hobart in school either. But, my interest in all things military lead me to learn of him.
"Hobart's Funnies" is exactly the right amount of British understatement for the name of a unit that sails their goddamned tanks onto shore, hits the ground with chains to blow up your traps, builds their own bridges _on the fly_ and sets you on fire from another time zone.
It's funny... Because it's not.😅
I think there's a term "It's funny when you're not the butt of the joke".
Considering tanks themselves got their name when British said they were water tanks as a security measure but then just kept it as an official designation that sounds about right
Hobart's Funnies were straight out of the British psyche of the time. Look up Ben McIntyre's account of Operation Mincemeat, based on a mad idea by a bloke called Ian Fleming. Or Barnes Wallis's 5 ton bomb that bounced across water. Or the wooden Mosquito bomber. Or Frank Whittle's development of the jet. Or the development of radar.
Imagine being the infantry position being overrun by a flail tank. What a terrifying way to go.
I'm British and knew nothing of this man! Thank you for educating us all in something and someone that absolutely should not have been brushed under the carpet...
You knew nothing because the same clique that comprised the officer corps also determined the curricula at schools around the nation.
Persona non grata are rarely celebrated by the peerage and gentry regardless of how much they contribute to the success of the nation.
Seriously? I knew at least about Hobart's Funnies, and I'm an American.
The bitchy officers had probably something to do with it.
I heard about the funnies long ago but I had no idea about the tactics. You Brits, from what I've seen have some incredible engineers who are always doing quirky things that actually work. If we had those tanks before D Day we would have had alot less white crosses in Arlington
Same here, I'm a Brit and have never heard of this man
I’ve noticed through the years TFE gets more and more passionate about this content. He’s gone from being more “funny” to being a little “funny” and a ton more serious. It’s been exciting to watch his evolution with his content. I used to watch him because he’d make me cry laughing. Now I watch him because I’m excited about what he will teach that day. You’re doing an amazing job, don’t stop.
Hell yeah, dropping less profanity, so the kids can Actually Learn HISTORY.
13:10 amphibious tank
14:00 road Placer tank to roll the (probably) not so red metal carpet (silly looking but effective)
14:56 weed/mine/barbed wire wacker tank
15:34 tank with bigger gun (not much to joke about that wasn't said)
16:00 flamethrower tank (extra scary if you are out in the open)
16:31 bridge tank, just drop a bridge on the hole they made
16:52 stick filler tank
👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼
@@jwdundon I mean as a child I learned history from people swearing and smacking me upside the head to make sure I was respectful.
I work as a Paramedic in the UK. A few years ago I attended a gentleman of 97 with a somewhat minor complaint. Saw a regimental picture and asked if he'd served. Found out he'd been a junior officer in command of a group of 4 crocodile tanks that landed on D-Day and proceeded to fight through northern France. He was one of the most interesting gentlemen that i've had the pleasure of meeting in this job. So much respect.
the best part about that generation of vets is that they don't demand respect for simply being. a hat with a certain ship on it or some number for a division that would otherwise mean nothing unless you knew.
always respectful, humble and dangerously funny if they get a chance
One of the biggest reasons I left the Marine Corps was bad leadership. The handful of great leaders I had were all shit on by command. I have so much respect for them and leaders like Percy Hobart, I can barely articulate it. These men are constantly being harassed, mocked, and even having their careers ruined by the very military they are trying to serve. Yet when their country calls, they put their lives on the line without hesitation. They deserve every bit of praise we can heap upon them. Percy Hobart deserves to be remembered. Thank You for honoring him.
I appreciate the depth on your comment. Thank you for your service, however long or short it was.
I also appreciate your double-spacing after a period.
@@Hazaerdt You MUST be an English teacher or at least a typist/typing instructor of some sort. We used to get beaten up SEVERELY by our teacher over those double spaces if we didn't do it properly. I took typing in High School back when the Apple IIc was the instructional tool of choice. Now, I put them in without even thinking twice. It does make for a much more reader friendly text though.
@@leftistsarenotpeopletry to be concise instead of your typing speed POG.
I recall a book by a Marine sniper from the early battles of Afghanistan and Iraq who was pioneering the use of "humvee's" as mobile sniper nests. He had been working on it since the 90's, and was given the runaround by many officers who eventually stuck him with a logistics battalion. In that battalion was a man he chose to nickname "Officer Bob", a walking breathing CF who could always be counted on to give the wrong orders.
When I hear about bad command officers, I now always think "Officer Bob." Anyway, the sniper's tactics worked and soon it was being used to give cover to the grunts advancing in the front line.
@@leftistsarenotpeopleDouble spacing after a period was taught by a few while I was still in school, but it was completely done away with by the print industry decades ago and is actually grammatically incorrect. It was just something some teachers asked for because they found it easier to read.
The flail tank has always been a favorite of the funnies for me. The idea of just going “screw you, I’m just going to harvest your mines” amused me.
I've been saying that the Brits invented the flail tank because they had a problem with mines on the beach. Now the Brits have a problem with idiots in orange vests. Just saying. :-)
Now, technically, using the flail-o'-doom on German infantry is one of the few times that yes, it's a war crime _even the first time_ but you can't tell me you don't kinda wanna.
@@Archris17 Sometimes when life gives you a flail you gotta thump a few guys.
@@Archris17 i mean, it's not like the bodies will be recognisable after the tanks go over them so anyway
@@Archris17I guarantee at least one German found himself meeting god after a flail tank driver saw him.
There's a line in Apocalypse Now where they say something to the effect of, "Command wasn't mad that Kurtz defected. They were mad because he was winning the war on his terms and not on the military's terms."
It's a tale as old as time. happens in corporate too.
and that saying can be said for Rommel, wanting to win the war his terms helped end his life
My grandfather, an American infantryman in North Africa, never spoke about the war. One time got serious and said, "Those weak fu*kers couldn't organize their way out of a paper bag. They needed a tough 'Limey' to come up with a plan for them and then they needed drugs to get the balls to do it!."
Now I know who he was referring to.
Thank you to your grandfather for being a American Hero. Im learning now that we had a lot of badass mofo's out there doing this stuff and I feel like a bad American for not knowing this.
Oh yeah, the meth chocolate
Thank you for your contribution. I am going to acknowledge your posting by adding something many people do not know about Winston Churchill: he was half American!
His mother was Jenny Jerome, who was daughter of Leonard Jerome, a wealthy American businessman.
You're welcome.
@@mauricestevenson5740ahhh because he’s half American that’s what makes him so great?
@@louissanderson719 half great
I’ve watched almost all material on WW2 and have always thought Hobart’s inventions and tactics were CRIMINALLY underrated. He single-handedly created modern armored warfare. Thank you so much for highlighting this!
Ok..
I hear you …
German blitz… stolen from lessons learned of British
Tell me how Monash fits in
Need to know
No hobart single handidly created the concept of the armored engineering vehicle. The germans created modern armored warfare to the point the US military literally copied rommel during gulf 1 evwn going ao far that they had pictures of rommel around to make people remember.
@@Banthisyoutube-zs6sx That's because everybody knows about Rommel.
If you were to ask somebody if they knew about Erwin Rommel, chances are they would.
Ask them about Hobart, they'd more than likely just go "Huh?"
@@airplanemaniacgaming7877 this is very true i remember hobart more for his specialist vehicles and cause i am a tank nerd. As far as ideas go Hobart may have come up withbit but he couldn't execute and i would argue execution is more important. Anyone can say "hey this would be a really awesome thing" but if you can't bring it to life......its just a fantasy. Semantics i know but life runs on semantics. Now we can blame british high command this is true butbit was the germans that said "this is some good shit" and built a gameplan around it. With the execption of the desert rats the brits really weren't that successful tankwise. Blame ot on the detioration of the wehrmacht in europe, point to the far wider use of fighter-bombers by the allies, just chock it up to the bocage. The western allies really only had the african theatre to have eastern front-esque armor battles. And thw germans shit kicked the americans at kasserine and rommel almost had the brits in egypt. But i am armchair quarterbacking here.
He’s literally the definition of “if it looks stupid and works, it isn’t stupid.”
Aka something the US Marine Corps would like to hang out.
@@ardantop132na6 I mean they loved the Bazooka tank I imagine they'd love every single one of these things as well.
@@adarkwind4712
Marine: "I love it but it needs a little something..." (slaps on an extra .50cal) "Perfect!"
@@GhostBear3067 🤣 it's funny because it's true.
@@adarkwind4712 The marines would 100% have tried running a flail tank into a Banzai charge...
This is *no* overstatement... You are doing a service to history and humanity with this style of content and stories.
I mean they are good videos, but that’s to far lol
@@MKZ3003
I disagree. He is telling the true stories of how individuals made contributions that won the wars. My history classes never mentioned any of this and said it was sheer numbers and logistics that won those wars when in truth it was individual rogue men who found a better way to do battle that actually made a huge difference. Percy's teaching of his men in Egypt the how's and whys of their campaigns are still used very effectively today.
@@elonever.2.071 I don’t care if you disagree, you’re wrong
@@MKZ3003 No... No it's not. In an age where it's trendy to be ignorant as hell. Ignorance makes a population gullible or desperate. A gullible or desperate population is capable of all levels of sheer insanity. Just look at how people behaved during all of 2020. The ruinous effects are still felt today.
*For those that don't know history are DOOMED to repeat it.* History shows this so damn often it should be an official law of physics! But the opposite is also true, as many scholars have said, "those that *know* history are destined to shape it." That is the power of the knowledge of history.
EDIT: That willful ignorance makes you even more dangerous to civilization as well...
As a Brit myself and a bit of an amateur military historian, I wanted to say "Thank you..." I did know about Hobart, but am grateful you are bringing his story to hundreds of thousands of other people. He should be celebrated in British history more than he is. My own interest stems from my Grandfather being a tanker (Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry). He'd never talked about the war, the only time was our conversation the final time I visited him before he passed away. I'd just returned from a business trip to Milan, he off-handedly commented that he'd finished the war in Northern Italy. I pushed him and he opened up a little about his experiences. He'd been in Crusaders, M3 Lee/Grants and then M4 Shermans - variously driver, loader and gunner. From El Alamein through North Africa, then Sicily and all the way up Italy. He was a little dissapointed that the liberation of Rome by Allied forces had barely a mention. Of course it had coincided with D-Day. He liked the Sherman - easy to operate, easy to repair and it kept going. Lost 3 of them, all to losing a track. Two because of A/T mines, the other an anti-tank gun.
I find it fitting that the two tanks he's best known for are the minefield meals on wheels mace machine, and the flamethrower so souped up he convinced the Germans "you know what, maybe this IS a warcrime..."
one Brit officer approached a German bunker under a white flag of Parley. He told the German officer he had a flame thrower tank. The germans had a choice, they could fight, and he'd have them all roasted alive, or they could surrender. He politely asked for their surrender because he didn't want to burn them all to death.
they surrendered.
@@MrSGL21 I would think everyone would start telling the germans that even if they didn't have one.
@@skurdibbles7913but what if they do have one. I don’t want to fight a flamethrower tank
@@MrSGL21 A similar thing happenned in the pacific war. It did not go well for those british officers.
@@KingofDiamonds117 A sane offer does not go well when fighting indoctrinated nutjobs who want to die for "honour" .
The war didnt end well for the Japanese did it.
America's approach in WW2 - Effective Weaponry/Tech and Strategy.
Britain's approach in WW2 - Chicanery/Trolling and Shenanigans
'You got trolled, you got trolled, you're in the Hague'
My 2 favourite trolls by the British
1. A British pilot escaped a POW camp, dressed in full gear, because he created a fake id that said he was a Bulgarian spy. So he walked out the front gate. The name he used?? “I. Buggeroff”
2. The Germans built a decoy airfield somewhere in France. Timber planes timber everything. It was all fake. The day after it was completed the British dropped a timber decoy bomb on it. As a way of saying “we know and you’ve wasted all your time.
Case in point, the De Havilland DH98 Mosquito.
British Intelligence pretty much clowned on the Abwehr and left it more compromised than a one dollar whore.
In gaming terms:
America - Pure OP with lots of money
Britain - Troll the enemy until they ragequit.
If you want to keep the British officer streak up you definitely need to do a video on "Mad Jack" Churchill, a British officer in WWII that went into battle with a longbow, broadsword, and bagpipes. When he participated in the landings in Norway he was reported as playing the bagpipes while landing on the beach and only pausing to throw grenades at the Nazis.
I think dankula did a mad lads video on him
I think Fat Electrician already did one on Mad Jack
Also got the last reported longbow kill in warfare
I'm asking because I don't know: landings were in Norway? or Normandy? For all I know it could be both.
@@julieenslow5915 there were in both Norway and Normandy but in this case I do explicitly refer to Norway in December of 1941 or about 2 1/2 years before June 6th 1944 (D-day Normandy).
As a former Royal Engineer, the antecedents of the ‘funnies’ are still part of the armoured Engineers,bridge laying and other gap crossing methods, incidentally the troops who carried out the beach survey prior to D-day were a Sapper Officer and a SNCO
After listening to this, I agree with you. Not only is Hobart the father of modern tank warfare. He's the father of modern combat engineers. So many things I've seen in a modern combat engineer battalion are copies of Hobart's funnies.
16:01 The Petartd's shell contains roughly 28 lb of explosives. For reference, the Churchill's standard 76mm HE shell contianed just 1.5 lb.
"THAT'S A LOT OF DAMAGE!!"
"We had a problem that we couldn't send enough bang to the enemy, so now we decided to just throw the whole canister of it into them"
Modern ish would be a CEV, right,
@@mikethurman3147 Yup! :D
As usual, you knocked it out of the park again! I wish more people would take the time to research history the way you do. At 45 years old, I've acquired more historical education from your videos than I ever did in high school. Your information is prudent and to the point. Your delivery is clear and concise. If I had to critique any part of your videos, it would be possibly finding a way to offer a version without the language so educators could use your videos in a school setting. I personally have zero issue with the language, I swear just as much. I'm only saying that, because I truly think that your delivery and lack of boring filler could truly spark some interest in history to a generation that is not receiving a proper and engaging education. Please keep doing what you're doing, brother! Sorry for the book report. Lol
Im working on having older videos censored and ill launch a clean channel
@@the_fat_electrician Curious why you would want to have them censored. Just leave them up and use your other channel. It wouldn't be TOO hard to edit previous content with a little different lexicon.
@@the_fat_electrician welp THAT'S gonna cut the video run time in half! 🤣
@@chipsawdust5816 no that is what im doing like all my videos stay up but ill have clean versioms om a diff channel
@@the_fat_electrician Does that mean you’ll change your name to “the kidnap resistant electrician”?
The Crocodile utilized fascinating tactics. Although they had very limited juice, they would start firing as they advanced while the Germans were out of range. Seeing the fire coming closer, Germans surrendered. The tankers also would do a “wet spray” dousing the Germans in petrol so that they knew the next shot would be burning agony. The Germans often surrendered.
"Hans!"
"Ja?!"
"Zey brought ze flammenwerfer!"
"Scheiße!"
Lindy Beige did a video on the crocodile, by the numbers it's the most effective weapon of the war.
The thing is, we do know about Hobart's Funnies here in the UK, in fact we had an entire department of the British War Office dedicated to insane specialist weapons. Officially the Office of Miscellaneous Weapons, more commonly called The Wheezers and Dodgers, they were a crack team of madmen, who's entire brief is to come up with inventive solutions to problems.
So... Q section but for the military?
@@francisphang242 Pretty much. There biggest project was the so called Mulberry Harbours. Basically, in order to maintain the supply lines following D-Day, the allies needed harbours to dock supply and troopships, but all the harbours on the French coast were still in German hands. So, the OMW, designed pre-fabricated, floating harbours that were towed across the English channel, moored and sunk into place, to serve the allied supply chain, until the French ports could be captured.
That is the most American solution to that problem and I am both pissed and thoroughly impressed our limey cousins came up with it first.
Now THAT would make a great movie!
@@annebishop9634 One of their members especially would be worthy of a movie. Jasper "The Amazing" Mescaline, a stage magician in civilian life joined the OMW after offering his services to the war office.
Initially thinking he wanted to put on shows for the troops to keep morale up, he demonstrated what he was offering by camouflaging an entire bunker in the middle of an open field, using his skills as a stage magician and the inspecting officer apparently only found the bunker after literally tripping over it.
He would then go on to use his skills in stage illusion and misdirection all through the war, with his biggest trick being making the entire Suez Canal disappear.
When people ask how Britain went from the largest empire the world has ever seen, to ‘that little island off the coast of Europe that everyone pretty much ignores’… it’s examples like this that I point out. As a Brit I am consistently ashamed of how well we award conformity and mediocrity over innovation and forward thinking.
America is doing the same thing and it pisses me off! Well.. to be honest, we're awarding the lowest in the damned barrel, not even mediocre! I have to take a break from thinking on it because it is just so infuriating that it turns me into a bit of a hag 😂. Like my grandma when she got old and crotchety lol!
Here is the question. How do we honor these doers (WWII} that made a great safe society for us? For myself, It’s just about you community and being a part of that. I do think values have been changed for no ones benifit.
@@capeclint by making your environment a product of you rather than you being a product of your environment.
Oh and remain dangerous and free
Hobarts rule. Yes.
We became the biggest empire on the planet and paved the way for the Industrial Revolution because of forward thinking. By the end of the war, we were out of money the empire was just a pointless waste of time by that point.
The best part of this is the method behind the Sherman Crab.
"Oh so the ground is trying to kill our soldiers too? BEAT THE GROUND INTO SUBMISSION."
Mine-killer tanks to this day still use the basic mine flail chain spindle in the front. It's a perfect example of getting the idea perfectly the first time.
@@DVAcmeI think the only real next step is some form of wave or energy device that would trigger mines at a distance, but until that, the flails will feast
@@drd675 **smiles in Mine Clearing Line Charge**
That's some straight up HFY story material - "When humans both weaponized the ground and then beat it into submission"
my respect for Churchill just doubled
It was Churchill who sent Montgomery to Africa too. Churchill had a number of problems of course and wasn't liked in parliament (people either remembered his involvement with the disaster in ww1 or his other things, but he also champioed the tank in ww1), but during the war he was the leader needed
@@bionicgeekgrrl Not great on the societal aspect of being a Head of State. A lot of issues with workers rights, colonialism, etc.
However, he was the man stubborn enough and crass enough for that War.
Churchill was the right man in the right place at the right time. He's still a man with many issues.
At the end of the day, Churchill remained a soldier first, a statesman third.
@@drd675 the German propaganda tried to depict Churchill as a unstable belligerently drunk thug who could be ready to go off at any moment and make everything worse for everyone, the allied forces loved the idea of this Tommy gun wielding, mob boss like leader of men who’s constantly on the sauce and ready to go at any moment.
Hobart retained control of his funnies. They were lent out and had to be returned after use. Crocodile tanks would often give german bunkers an unignited squirt, and if the terrified petrol soaked soldiers didn't surrender, then they got a hot squirt.
The two greatest contributions to allied success were the Mulberry harbours and PLUTO (pipeline under the ocean).
20,000 people walk into a shop within 30 minutes of the store opening.
This guy and his stories are awesome.
One hour , 63 ,400 + views .
3 hours and over 120k people came by.
I tend to double dip his content. My watch time on his videos are probably around 190%-210%.
Deviance due to good or bad "for sponsor videos."
7 hours. 225k
16 hours and 333.5k visitors.
@@elonever.2.071 A day ago and 401k. Awesome.
A Fat Electrician episode always brightens my day 😊
Especially when his wife has a cameo. I always die laughing.
@@michaelmartin4874 Yeah that always cracks me up, definitely need and episode with her as a guest host, that be fun
The cool thing is, is some of the concepts that Hobart funnies used are still in use today. Our Engineers still use mine flails(Rollers?) and bridge layers because it works. So we can thank a British Armor officer for laying the foundation for all of modern armored warfare.
It was also a British officer who developed the Bailey Bridge. Basically an erector set that let you assemble pieces to make a bridge strong enough to cross tanks in just a few hours. Yet each of the individual pieces were small enough to be man handled into place by 6 guys with no need for cranes or other machinery (all though the engineers would take the heavy equipment if it was on offer;).
Except HE DID NOT. What TFE fails to mention here is Hobart was part of the 'all the army needs is tanks' crowd. He literally believed Artillery and Infantry were obsolete. He was one of those who proposed the Tank carrier, and if you think that is a ground vehicle acting as a tank carrier much as aircraft carriers do for aircraft you would be absolutely right. Yes, he actually proposed the idea. Seriously.
The development of British Armoured Doctrine was not down to one man, it certainly was NOT down to Hobart and Hobart alone. The man did have some genuinely good ideas, but he also has some abjectly shit ones as well.
Hobart was not sidelined because the British senior Officers were throwbacks ignoring a genius, he was sidelined because he was an unmitigated douchebag that literally no one could work with unless he deemed they thought similarly to him. The guy was a complete tosspot.
Laying the foundation for modern warfare my pimpled arse....
@@alganhar1 Could you point out the source for those ideas? Sounds like it could be an interesting read.
Loved the point about old school British officers not wanting the enlisted men to think, just shut up and soldier. One main strength of the U.S. military is empowering and listening to the enlisted soldiers. There is always a push back by some entrenched officers, but good officers and staff leaders pay attention to their enlisted personnel. As so many of your videos show, it is the guy whose life is on the line who finds a new, better, bolder way to destroy the enemy!
My father was a Desert Rat, he was in Tobruk then took a tour of North Africa with some friends, as he put it, followed by Greece and Italy! He would not talk about the detail, I think it was pretty bad. He used to get angry at people taking democracy and freedom for granted. An amazing role model.
Thank you for an very spirited bio of Hobart. Dad was of that mould.
Man, he is a perfect example of someone who puts the mission and greater good over personal glory. Nearly every move he took both made his country's military better and took the spotlight off of himself at the same time. This guy should be talked about more, and held up as an example to all officers
You are honestly more educational to watch than almost every single history class I have ever had the displeasure of attending.
Thanks from a Brit to a Yank for telling the story of Percy Hobart. One of the Greatest of the greatest generation.
It's amazing how the aristocracy thinks that military leaders, a.k.a. those who lead bands of men into places to savagely administer unhealth care to their opposition, should have agreeable personalities.
Right!?
In short, the more human they are, the harder they are to control and the aristocracy would rather control you and tell you what to do then actually take care to remind themselves that you are a human being that can do way more than what they think you can do.
When it really comes down to it, all the officers do is point the infantry in the right direction and try to stop them from committing war crimes. It's just strategic baby sitting.
Welcome to Modern Corporate Middle Management.
Sounds a bit like my experience in the trades, too. Sometimes the undeniably best workers can be rough around the edges and get screwed because others often see their own dislike of a man's personality more than they see his skill and quality
"You told me you took installments" Absolute GOLD!!! I am dying over that.
So say I'm a complete fuckin moron but, what does that mean?
@@RickyDeanGaming8 inches but not all at the same time.
Hands down the funniest shit I've heard all month and it's the 7th 😂😂😂😂
@@RickyDeanGaming I salute you for asking this question in my stead, if you are a moron so am I! Morons stand together!
Fully sent me on that one
I thank you immensely for shining a light on this unsung absolute badass of modern warfare. I was a tanker in the U.S. Army, and I learned about him in training. My platoon sergeant in basic was a fan. It's sad that history is often written by the wrong people, and some of our greatest warriors are forgotten as a result. That is why I appreciate what you do on this channel. These people deserve their stories to be told.
You SGT was a smart man :)
Percy Hobart lived in my village in England. A few years ago, the owners were rebuilding the kitchen, and found numerous press-clippings and old newspapers under the floor, written about Hobart. The lady of the household then wrote a novel called "only the good boys" with Hobart as one of the central characters!
The one thing interesting about Hobart’s funnies is that we still use a form of them today. The TFE is right about Hobart fathering modern tank combat and using these speciality vehicles in conjunction with mechanized combat today. There are breacher vehicles with a blade on front and no main gun on essentially a M1 chassis. The same with the bridging track. While we don’t have the flamethrower tank Bradley’s and strikers often have mortars incorporated with them. Funny how a man’s ideas which were belittled by his opponents and peers are now a integral part of the modern battlefield
One thing to mention is that Churchill AVREs (Armed with the petard mortar) and Churchill Crocodiles would work in tandem in a pretty based and terrifying way. The Petard would crack the concrete of a bunker, and the crocodile would fire upon it, causing the flaming fuel to seep into the bunked through the cracks.
Ah yes, the
*“Their Shelter Shall Become Their Tomb.”*
Strategy.
It never ceases to amaze me how up their own ass senior officers and politicians are when it comes military matters and they will go so far out their own way to put down good ideas just to preserve their own egos.
Of the seven deadly sins, Vanity is by far the most dangerous it stokes Greed, breeds Jealousy, and feeds Wrath.
@@msihcs8171 Remember Pride from Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood. There's a reason he was the eldest and most powerful among his siblings. The author of the story knew that pride was the strongest sin and what it could do to a man was scary.
And every other organization on the face of the earth. People are PETTY.
It's called protecting their little fiefdoms. Nothing new its an age old problem even in 2024!
"Scientific Progress is made one fuberal at a time" is a famous quote for a reason. There is no one more dedicated to holding up new ideas than the former champions of new ideas that have become the old ideas.
I have a BA in Military and Diplomatic history. While I was aware that German armor tactics originated in the UK, I was unaware of all the contributions of Hobart. I mainly knew him for the "funnies" but not his pre-war contributions to tactical theory. Thank you.
Makes you dig for more information n history because bias has caused innaccurate history to be written.
Most people know the names Rommel, Patton and Eisenhower. Very few know who Monty was.
It's funny how having the wrong political opinion can get you deleted from the history books. And yes, cancel culture goes back that far.
I've been a POG for 20 years but am blessed enough to know many tankers and I've never heard of Percy Hobart until today.
You're doing military history a favor and frankly should be teaching this stuff at the academies.
Unfortunately, you're far too Hobart to receive that honor.
Please keep this up as this history needs to be taught.
Figures British officers would promote stupid tactics like dragoon tanks. This is up there with “not taking cover while under fire” and “generally acting nonchalant on the battlefield.” Because a corpse is very inspiring to the men
Or, like they show in Band of brothers, the british tank commander saying "We can't bloody well shoot something we can't see" even though the troops were telling him just blast a hole in the building. Tank is on the other side.🤦♂️
Like, yeah. With bombs blowing up, bullets flying everywhere, the literal WORLD is at war, but we stopped you because we thought it would be funny to get you to blast a hole in a house.
The incompetence of British officers as the rule rather than the exception is exaggerated. You dont get to build the biggest Empire the world has ever seen by being led entirely by idiots and duffers who dont know how to innovate and adapt.
15:50 "You told me that you would take it on installments" LMAO
Very well done, Nic. So few people know so little about "Hobo". Yes...he wrote the book. Yes...Guiderian read the book, then loaned it to Rommel. Yes, Hobo trained the 2d, and the 79th. Yes, Hobo 'designed' the DD dual drive, the flotation device, the Flail and the Crocodile.
But you made a very important point near the end. Because the 79th became the SF of tanks, and a division was split into squads, AND accomplished everything they were tasked with, they received no notice. Truly sad in my humble opinion. Thank you ever so much for telling this story. I was tickled silly to see the thumbnail because I KNEW you'd give Hobo's story justice.
I'm a 62 year old Navy vet who prides himself on his historical knowledge and This is the first I've ever heard this guy's name.
Well done buddy.......well done.
Tut Tut
I am British, I knew a bit about him as in his inventions and tactics saved countless lives and that his efforts were most forgotten or given to others but I did not know that his men were split between different regiments and divisions. Thank you for sharing this as with out people like you TFE history will become lost to us and made what makes people feel good.
Thank you for all your hard work every video is amazing, support from Scotland
Some historical badasses that you could cover:
Lauri Törni: the finnish soldier that hated russian so much, he joined 3 different armies to keep fighting them.
Mad Jack Churchill: the man who fought in ww2 with a bow and sword.
John Paul Jones: the scottish pirate during the revolutionary war that stole british ships and gave them to america. He's credited with being the father of the US navy.
JPJ also invaded England one time
That's a "no" on John Paul Jones. He raped a 10 year old Russian girl during his time in Russia. An investigation found that the girl's accusations were founded. The American and French governments pressured Russia and Catherine the Great into only exiling him, rather than charging him. Jones' defence was that the 10 year old girl was a whire who lived in a brothel and was asking for it.
Any military greatness takes a backseat to the rape of a 10 year old girl.
It is a crime against humanity that only one of those listed has a Sabaton song after them.
*Törni.
I'm fairly certain Mad Jack is actually credited with being the last man to kill another combatant via Longbow.
Other interesting developments by Hobart was the bulldozer tank which as the name implied was a British Cromwell tank with its turret removed and a massive dozer blade mounted on the front, other tanks includes the double onion, a metal frame to pole mounted to a Churchill, armed with one or more satchel charges and can be used to breach solid walls allowing a tank or infantry to bypass a choke point or breach into an enemy compound with ease
"Tankify that shit!" approach
@@Psycorde we need a tank wiafu anime where the characters are just tanks much like how those anime where the characters are boats, planes, guns hell even inanimate objects like a rumba BUT WHY NO TANK GIRLS? Imagine an anime similar to let’s say UPPOTTE full of schoolgirls who due to some magical BS or some science fiction Gobbidy gook where certain tanks ever built suddenly gets a soul, in said soul then develops into a high schooler where they go to learn and develop their tanky skills and the MC’s Harem abilities, such as the generally over inflated and egotistical abrams Chan who comes from a very wealthy family, but is a bit of an air head about is, simply by throwing tons of money at a given problem, but is someone who can be very much relied on to protect her friends and much like her cousin the Canadian leopard 2a6 can looks somewhat similar to her sister the German leopard 2a6, however CAN Chan wears glasses and speaks with a Canadian accent all the while possessing a timid and shy personality, only to become a hot headed berserker whenever she’s angry and becomes incredibly violent.
The leclerc is a petite character who’s hyper energetic and is fast as hell, all the while possessing a sort of airheaded aloof sort of personality whilst having a carefree personality whilst sharing similar personalities with her Italian friend the C1- ariete who unlike Lercerc is similar in terms of personality traits but lacks the sort of energy or over going or hyper energetic characteristics of the leclerc but is a fantastic climber and is cautious around others but opens up whenever there’s food involved and gets apocalyptically enraged whenever she hears someone snapping pasta or runs away whenever chally Chan tries to cook anything
Heading off to britian chally Chan is a sort of dignified and respectable woman who Carries the air of nobility around her, but much like Misaki from TO ARU NO RAILGUN, Chally Chan despite her refined personality and demeanor is in fact very very bad at sports, however she is the best when it comes to accuracy and uses a sniper rifle whilst the others use a rifle type weapon in the form well guns, whilst chally uses something similar to say a Martini Henry rifle which for those who are unaware are single shot rolling block action rifles similar to the US lever actions however unlike their America counterparts the Martini Henry fires a .303 and is a single shot rifle but is very powerful and very accurate, where Chally would have to manually reload after every shot using two piece ammunition much like what she uses in real life, whilst possessing the best accuracy she lacks any form of endurance or cross country and has a mass chest 😂.
The German leopard 2a7 has a medium style haircut but also wears a monocle 🧐, shes strict, uptight and has a drinking problem as well lacking much in the way of a sense of humor and tends to not get much in the ways of jokes and tends to either over engineer or think things through, leading to Leo Chan to over ponder a joke or situation even though everyone has already moved on and left her behind, kinda like those characters who despite having a massive harem can’t tell whether or not the girls actually like him despite their many attempts to attract him he still remains ignorant towards their advances.
And that’s the basis of a tank highschool anime, again be it like UPOTTE where girls are born as guns and go to a special school or you can do it like strike witches where certain school kids are given tank like abilities and are trained at a school in order to fight off an alien invasion, in which no one wonders why isn’t anyone concerned over the fact that they’re using child soldiers or the fact that the fate of the world rests on a bunch of children, the power of friendship and their absolute thirst for their male teacher😂, but hey as long as it’s not that sort of romcom typical slice of life anime where the MC, is incredibly popular for some reason or another and has a bunch of teenage girls thirsting over him with a massive rack then please just don’t buy if it’s a show simply about tanks and a cross between their countries stereotypes as well as their own culture and personality’s based in a fictional universe where aliens are invading but their only hope are bunch of child soldiers being sent out to defeat them much like darling and the frankk then I’m all too happy to see something like that become a reality 😂
An interesting thing about the Sherman Crab is that oftentimes the flail would simply eat the mines it hit, smashing them to pieces before they could detonate. The same thing happens with modern day mine clearing flails. Yes, they're still around today! If it ain't broke, don't fix it!
The flails & the bridge aren't "armor" anymore but moved to engineering companies and still used everywhere. I wonder if he's taught more there then armor school. Went through basic at Knox in 02-03 and didn't hear his name mentioned.
That's because American Army officers don't like to give credit to other military officers!
Hobart really went into his interview, and when asked "where do you see yourself in 5 years?" Man said "doin your wife"
😂😂😂
Makes you wonder if the interviewer went home 5 years later & found a guest was already there.
As a Brit I love how you don’t shit talk us like some Americans do and recognise some of the cool shit we did
Game recognize game
We criticize your higher leadership, like we criticize our own higher leadership. There's some fucking amazing stories about the british side of WW2 that never get mentioned. My fav is one of the Scot antiheroes who literally walked out of a POW camp, twice, and told the guards to fuck off when they caught up to him, AND THEY DID!
@@the_fat_electricianI love your videos. Keep up the good work.
I mean considering how often you guys like to do that to Americans it isn't to much of surprise
@@phoenixmastm Say WHAT?!
Scottish Badass:"Fook off"
Nazi Prison Guard:"... Not paid enough for this shit. You know what? Fine!"
Probably my favorite thing about Hobart’s Funnies is the fact that (with one or two exceptions) almost every single one of Hobart’s inventions is still in use today with the British and American militaries in one form or another.
and every other nation who has tanks...
It’s honestly a failure of history teachings and borderline a crime that Percy Hobart is not talked about or respected the same as other generals. I didn’t know about him at all until this video. Thank you for giving him his flowers.
Nick, wonderful job bringing Hobart to the popular side of WW2. I knew of him and his "Funnies". But the way previous historians addressed him was as a man given command of a prototype design unit, not as the real leader of men as you have shown him to truly be. I blame the British Army's Officer Corps for that false portrayal. I knew about the failure of the US DD Sherman's on Omaha, but their failure was the failure of the Navy dropping them too far out in choppy seas, not a failure in the design. Thanks again, Brother!
I have also heard that the crews may have stowed extra ammunition, weighing the tanks down and making them more vulnerable to rough seas. Not that I wouldn’t have done the same…
To be fair to the British officers of the time, when they did listen to him and adopt his tank doctrines, they took massive casualties. His misconceptions on armoured warfare hurt both the tactical and strategic level. He was an out of the box thinker though and so was right at home in the experimental branch.
@@tomasdawe9379 Honestly sounds like skill issue on the other officers at the time. If not out right sabotage to make the man look bad.
@@NEEDbacon 100% a skill issue, very few officers in the theatre had tank experience. That is why they called Hobart in.
They listened to his policies, adopted his doctrines and suffered needless casualties.
Hobart was a good theorist and troop trainer, but let his ideas of armoured independence run away from the reality of war.
When working with/under another experienced armour commander, who could provide common sense he was fantastic.
Though this will most likely be 'shadow banned,' here goes anyway:
* First, I'd submit that this is the Most In-Depth, Most informative video pertaining to just how impenerable the "Atlantic Wall" also known as "Fortress Europe" really was but for Major General Percy Hobart's Occams Razor approach to Every Defensive Measure the German Military thought up to defend the Western Approach to Europe from an Allied Invasion of France against Germany. Too bad that Germany didn't have Percy Hobart on their side because I think even God Himself was Against Operation "Overlord" from the beginning:
* The British Military with it's Prideful Pretentious arrogance tried to rid itself of Major General Percy Hobart and had they succeeded may have ended "Operation Overlord" in disaster, this video proves that it would have failed.
* A Live-Fire practice exercise for the Invasion called 'Operation Tiger' ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exercise_Tiger) on April 27, 1944 turned into an actual battle that resulted in the KIA of 749 American Army (551) and Navy (198) service members by Friendly Fire and encounters with German E-Boats patrolling the Channel out of the port of Cherbourg. The German E-Boats had spotted the LST's of the U.S. Navy just outside Lyme Bay in the South of England where the Landing Exercises were taking place. Not a good Omen for "Overlord."
* The weather reports for that first two weeks of June were very limiting for the invasion and only for a small window of calm on the 6th did the invasion succeed at all because a Major storm on the 19-20 destroyed the Mulberry artificial harbors.
There are many other reasons, actions and opportunities and even Acts of God that may have been He helping Germany out instead of letting His and Christianities Main Enemy be running the World into WW 3 as they are today because even though the world has been brainwashed to believe otherwise about Germany, all they fought and died for was to Destroy Communism and see Western Civilization thrive and exist while others were intent on Destroying it as they may well succeed in doing very shortly.
Used to go to Normandy most years from 1990-1995 for the D-Day week.
Recall one year on the ferry, over there was a Tanker veteran with some family along....
Got talking to him. He was one of the Funnies crews. Best ferry trip ever. Amazing stories about his service in the specialist tanks models. He was very surprised when we knew all the model names and even some snippets of unit history.
That was the great thing about the trips then, plus the WW2 events in general.... there'd be WW2 veterans to talk with & swap tales.
Hobart is like the college professor you ACTUALLY WANT to take when taking a class that’s known to be difficult, and all the other teachers just read off of the stupid power point without actually explaining. God bless you Percy Hobart 🫡
The real scary thing about the Churchill Crocodile? Unlike most other flame tanks, the flamethrower replaces the hull machinegun, not the turret maingun.
So even if you shoot the trailer fuel tank or it runs out of scary burn juice, you still have a fully-functional Churchill tank to deal with... A huge heavy tank with almost as much armour as a King Tiger and none of the transmission problems.
Also the Brits had another flamethrower vehicle, the Wasp.
Basically you take a Universal Carrier, which is essentially a tracked battlefield taxi designed to go in, drop off ammo and extra dudes, pick up wounded and leave, and you replace the seating and cargo space with a flamethrower and pressure tank.
So if you were A Brit in WWII and you wanted armoured flamethrower support it came in two flavours: The featherweight and the heavyweight, and both of them were 100% going to ruin someone's day.
@@AusFirewing had a ford v8 lump and was light weight, they could take off going over hills, most bust the exhaust because when they landed they'd twat the exhaust pipe and rip it off xD
and could climb insane hills and go over massive ditches
@@AusFirewing there isn't enough money on the planet to get me to drive that into combat. It had to attract ALL the enemy rounds from everything with line of sight. And it doesn't have any armor to speak of.
@@ImezRuezOnly thing is: it requires the Germans to have the weapons handy to take it out at range, or to get close enough to use other weapons. Meanwhile you can convince them that getting too close is a very.....bad idea.
To his credit Geuderian took the tank deep strike idea and added the communication between air and Infantry to create the combined arms that we all know and love. Britain was still a bit too posh and reserved to allow air and ground forces to work together.
Sir Percy couldn't think of everything
Which is ironically considering the commonwealth forces of Australia and Canada used combined arms in some of the most successful attacks in WW1
You know a video’s good when the fat electrician is serious in the beginning.
Must have been fat that brought me here.
I think you'd probably like the story of Robert Blair "Paddy" Mayne. He was a capped professional rugby player for Ireland, lawyer, amateur boxer, his party piece was a standing backwards jump onto a fireplace hearth and was one of the founding members of the SAS with a penchant for punching English officers and ripping apart BF109s by hand when he didn't have any bullets or explosives left.
I'm guessing you've been watching 'that' TV series.
@@marktaylor6491 Not sure what TV series you're referring to but I don't watch TV anyway so nope! I live near where he was from.
@@MacMeaties Shame, because if you did. I would have recommended to you the excellent 'SAS: Rogue Heroes'. It's about the founding of The SAS in the desert during WWII. It features paddy Mayne as one of its three main characters, and yes. He is the stuff of legends.
@@marktaylor6491 oh nice, I'll have a look for it, bound to be on a streaming service somewhere!
Hi, i was nearly in tears watching your piece about 'Hobarts Funnies' My dad landed on D Day and was part of the 79th armoured division. I visited Normandy last year, and saw where he landed. Interestingly, Churchill said, that D Day was successful owing to some ingenius tank modifications! It is wonderful to see that you have done your reasearch so well, the conribution of the Funnies and Hobart is little known and very understated. I was brought by one of the guys who used that kit. Just as an asside, by dad was kept back for the invasion of Japan after Germany surrendered, the funnies would have been used there too. the last entry in his army paybook said 'Far East 1'. Very proud of him and very emotional. Thanks Mate!!
You're not fooling us anymore you're turning into a real historian , brilliant story well told and one I didn't even know ,and I'm a Brit
If he was my history teacher I’d have a hard time skipping class. Lol. He makes it funny and interesting and highlights a lot of stuff that they glossed over in school.
I can not express to you how much I appreciate real, straight history. I had never heard of the man before and.. wow. You don't have to be funny all the way through when your content is compelling.😊
We still have a bridge carrying tank today, actually, and the mine flail thing. This man’s ingenuity has truly lasted the test of time. I can imagine, that when things kick off more seriously, that someone has a plan to attach a flame thrower to an abrams.
You’ve got an incredible storytelling gift. It’s your intensity and your ability to carry the excitement it’s contagious.
My father was WW2 history junkie. I grew up with books everywhere on it. One year of your channel has been more broadly informative than my dad's entire library. Also I am assuming that is your wife in the cameo. The Burns-Allen style snark is hilarious.
That reference is probably over the head of anyone under 35. I like it.
Weird part is that I read a book on WWII (one of those DK Eyewitnesses books) that had the inflatable tanks, the road tanks, the bridge tanks, the flail tanks, the flame tanks, and even mentioned the stick bundle tanks. Not a word about Percy Hobart.
Establishment doesnt like him its sad
The book I've got that mentions the Hobart's Funnies mentions them as 'Hobart's Funnies', but yea, no info on the man behind them.
Bro you are one of the best examples of how history should be taught. Listening to you teach is equivalent to learning things in a flow state learning capacity. The way you connect everything together, the way you hold the listeners intrest, the passion you have while teaching all of it is truly a gift man. If teachers model themselves after your teaching methods history wouldn't be so easily forgotten. You are truly an artist in what you do and its been awesome seeing you grow from where you started to now! Thanks for doing what you do!
13:29 I don't remember where the quote came from but, "If it's stupid and it works, it ain't stupid." 😂
Time to drop everything and learn some history!!!
I just finished an unhinged ramble to my wife about how awesome your videos are. She was mostly just like " ....okay?" 🤣
Hobart also developed the first killdozer. They took a d7 and armored it. It was the only big cat dozer with a hydraulic blade in ww2 if i recall properly all the others used an overhead cable operated unit
Yeah the army used the international td25 with overhead winch to run the blade
@jakeford7688 I'm sure somebody built one at one point but I've never seen an international with an overhead cable blade. Most of the ww2 ones I've seen were hydraulic blades. I think they had already started using Bucyrus erie blades. Same with Allis Chalmers and the little Clark airborne dozer. Cat was the only one to hold so stubbornly to cable blades at that point. Having run both styles from that Era the cable blades do grade a lot easier.
Hey, just a Side here, just started watching the Old movie, A Bridge Too Far and Guess What? At the beginning of the movie they're showing Old footage of D-Day and Wouldn't you know, There's Hobart 's Tanks spewing Fire! Amazing!
The more i learn about history the more i see how little the Germans can actually take credit for. Almost every achievement they get credited for in WW2 is wrong. Thanks for educating me in an entertaining way
A certain amount of credit is due for being cognizant enough to recognize effective ideas objectively, allowing their officer corps to develop those ideas and being willing to grant a large amount of control to individual commanders at every level.
You know who else is famous for that? The US military. Who will freely admit to doing the same.
@@TheNerdForAllSeasons do you care to back that statement up about the United States because we give credit to Erwin Romell for our tanks tactics that we used to defeat Iraq. Also, we gave credit to the United Kingdom for giving us all the components necessary to assemble a radar, and for teaching us how to build a radar.
So I’m gonna need you to come with proof for the last accusation
It's the combination of everything that made the German tactics genius. They took pieces from many different armies and pieced it together.
@@theawesomeoone6read the comment again, slowly this time, and actually understand.
The statement isn't the us military comes up with it's own shit, the statement was the us military copies good ideas and freely admits it
@@Demonslayer20111 so what you’re saying is you can’t back it up like I thought stay in your place clown.
Awesome story! The early years of WW2 was basically British lads who knew better just disregarding their superiors and proving their ideas in the field. The battle of Britain pretty much was won by pilots telling the RAF higher ups how to fight an air battle. The SAS completely derailed the Nazi advance in Africa and still had to fight the leaders just to continue to exist.
Not quite right - Battle of Britain was won because Dowding's air defence system was so far ahead of anything the Luftwaffe could conceive of that the basic architecture is still in use today, by basically everyone. The BoB was won the moment the Germans thought they'd start it.
The SAS was disbanded after the war too only to be brought back years later when they realised they couldn't fight a modern war without special forces.
I’d love to see a wwii movie that switches between the beaches so you can see Omaha going wrong at the same time as the others were going right
That would be really cool
Fun fact, yes Juno Beach was the second deadliest beach, and it was in fact the Canadian Beach, and it was completely taken in record time due yes in part to Hobarts Tanks but also to Canadian brave men dying. In fact Canada went to England and then to China to fight at the onset of WW2.. yet no one mentions our Grandfather's contributions when making movies , videos etc. or lists us as one of their important allies..
Yes! Hobart's Funnies! British ingenuity at its finest!
Having a great love of tanks, Hobart was a topic I know of. He furthered most WWII tactics but Romel used combined tactics and Gerdarian and Patton made it work through logistics. Hobart deserves credit, but the geniuses that stood on his shoulders can't be robbed of their work.
True, he got the definition of Blitzkrieg a bit wrong, it's the tactic of the whole army and not only of the armored divisions and it would still be Blitzkrieg without the tanks.
@@patrick3426kind of hard to really do as much of Blitzkrieg when a large chunk of it requires the armour to roll in to deal with whatever cant just be bombed or circumvented.
@@airplanemaniacgaming7877 depends, using Blitzkrieg with the Stormtroopers in WW1 was a lot better than the other tactics xD
All three deserve major credit on their individual accomplishments in the realm of effect tank warfare, for sure.
Things that we still use in the militaries of the world to this day include mine flails, armored bridgelayers, and petard tanks, all folded into combat engineer duties.
Some places in the world might still have flame tanks.
This man has single handedly taught me more about WWI and WWII than any history teacher ever.
Hobart's Funnies are some of the best unsung heroes of the armored warfare game!
I'm so glad you did a video of this man. The bull (Winston) is still the insignia used with 32 Engineer regiment (I served with them). There's an AVRE on the beaches of France that was pulled out of the ground and to this day gets painted and maintained by the members of 32 Engr Reg. That tank drove into an anti tank ditch, bogging itself down and made itself into a makeshift bridge for the others.
As I said in a Tweet, if I ever met you I would of told you about this man for maybe a vid. Glad he's been given the spotlight.
0:38 If you're British or from the Commonwealth (like me, greetings from New Zealand), and enjoy military history, Hobart is a man you know well.
Yeah, Australian here. Know him well.
Haha, yes the 'Funnies' man
Another kiwi and yes know him well
🇬🇧 Here with a Dad who landed on Gold Beach in 69th Brigade and I of course, know Hobart The Flail tank was indispensable.
Am I the only one thinking the Marine Corps would love this guy?
18:54 , as a Canadian with a grandfather who piloted a landing craft on Juno, I just want to flex and say that we also made it to our first day objectives, pushing further in land than anyone else despite the second-most fortified beach. We were the only force to do so. Our boys fought hard.
Its a stark contrast to Canada today. How the mighty have fallen.
my great grandfather and great uncle both served they just didn't enter France till the 10th and in July of 44 my great uncle was killed they where in the royal Winnipeg rifles there engineer core made landings on juno tho witch is cool
Canadians were pretty fucking awesome in both world wars, in WW1 one of their "snipers" (technically wasn't a real thing at that point) had the record for most kills at the end. His name is Francis Pegahmagabow (Sabaton also has a song about him, Ghost in the Trenches). My dad is Canadian, and is very glad that he got out of there when he did though.
As an American who spent a lot of time in Canada……. I still feel that if push came to shove you Canucks will raise to the occasion. Maybe not right away, but our neighbors to the north still have some spunk in them. All that being said, I understand your frustration
Don't worry, buds. Apples don't fall far from their trees, and those tough men and women from the 30s had to rise to the occasion, and we can still do that today.
Trust me, we in the US feel the same about the state of our country 😭
Great content! By coincidence I'm reading a book from the UK called "The Story of the 79th Armoured Division." It's pretty amazing. The forward was written by Field Marshall Montgomery, and an excerpt on the 79th reads: "The record of the Division is unique and its contribution to the winning of the campaign in northwest Europe has been incalculable. For this the Division owes much to its fine commander, Major-Gen. Hobart, whose great enthusiasm and sound judgment forged this weapon: now so well proved in battle."
Stories of ppl (animals, reckless) are super interesting, and your telling some of the less common ones. The dirty, nitty gritty instead of the 1000 ft view makes for a different format from most. A single person can make a difference. Making some of the old TikTok into longer video would be cool too.
My first request for an extension would be the M19 grenade machine gun. I definitely want to hear more about the kid who designed it.
Great video as always, This one hit close to home for me as my Granddad was in the Desert Rats. He was one of those guys who wouldn't talk much about the war but I do know he caught a bullet in his spine at El Alamein. He was told at the time that it had been removed and he later returned to Duty. However, in the 1960's he started getting back pain and doctors found the bullet was still logged in his spine, and that's where it remained until he died in 2011.
Omg!!
My great uncle was one of the original Desert Rats too. Dude was super gay but that kind of thing was sort of explained away in those days 😂. He was decorated I think on more than one occasion though. I think they were decorated when they survived their besieging 🤔. When as he would tell my dad: “we were pissing port wine” because they were that dehydrated that they were just pissing blood. The local Arabs would bring them food and because of the custom there whatever you had you had to share with your guests. So they’d managed one day to catch a desert hare or something like that. They’d got done cooking it when some of these Arab men arrived who wanted to sit with them just to meet at talk basically. So they had to share this one hare with them which he said you could tell the last thing they wanted was to eat their food when they were starving but they gave them “gifts” to make up for it, they had dates and anything else they could give. Something about gifts circumventing the etiquette 🤷♂️. Anyways he was also decorated for an occasion when he was driving a truck in a convoy one day when they began being shelled. The truck in front was hit and the shrapnel decapitated the man next to my great uncle in the passenger seat. He jumped out of his truck while still under shellfire. Grabbed all of the survivors from the truck that took the hit and fucked off again. I used to love hearing the stories when I was a kid.
That old TV show was one of my favorites, as a kid.
Over 30k views in less than an hour.
That's how it's done.
Thank you for everything, TFE.
1984, Erlangen, 2-81 Armor, my battalion commander gave an hour long monologue on Hobart during our weekly officer professional development session. We were enthralled.
Red Lions!
Your CO was a smart men.
Thank you, Fat Electrician!!!
Love the history lesson!
I dont mind if they’re funny or not. I just like learning about stuff I’ve never heard about
Rejoice all ye faithful! For the Husky Lightning Manipulator has blessed us once more!
Someone's been hitting the thesaurus. 😉
Gonna have to remember that one.
@danielseelye6005 I've been doing a different name for every single video for about 3 months now lol
I'm an American tanker, though I'm out I'm a tanker still, anyway, this man is incredible and it sucks we never learned about him in tank school. The US Army told us to fight like Rommel with our tactics. I had no idea a Brit was responsible for inventing the very way I fought and kept my crew and I alive.
Tank warfare is one of the few things we brits invented that were still very good at 😂😂
Rommels' doctrine was amazing. On paper. Many crews failed this doctrine.
Those Germans opened up your ww1 tin cans with the recoiless rifle but yeah if I wanted trench dominating tanks I would give the brits a hollar they slaughtered.
Churchill AVRE was amusing too. Why didn't you guys but your 2x2 bofors in a tank!? The Canucks put one in a Sherman! Never got to see combat though
Whew them 20mm 2x2 BOFORS dont play around.
Also loved how the RAF wooden gunboat (hurricane mk.II) flexed hard on the waffle in the battle of britan
Thank you for actually giving the British some recognition, this was a brilliant watch mate 👍, he was a genius & indeed the founder of "Blitzkrieg".
The "You said you took installments!" gag was hilarious! A great redux of the classic "Gimme 12 inches and make it hurt!" joke! Loved it!
Thanks for this! I always wondered who the farmer/grunts were in WWII that came up with those crazy tanks, never thought it would be just one guy. Not to mention the fact that he gave the Germans the blueprint for blitzkrieg! Love this stuff!