His designs were copied all over Europe (Cold War, thousands of rivers across the continent, minefields at the Iron Courtain) like the flagel/mine-sweeper and bridge-layer tank.
PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, PAUSE THE VIDEO IF YOU ARE GOING TO TALK!!!! ITS VERY ANNOYING TO TRY TO LISTEN TO EITHER YOU OR THE VIDEO, I CAN BARELY HEAR EITHER ONE, EVEN IF I TUNE THE OTHER ONE OUT!!!!!!
The Polish high command and officer corps is severely underrated in world war 2. If you gave them France’s resources in 1939, the war is probably over in 1940.
@@NastyNate18B my apologies, I should’ve clarified exactly what I meant. If the Polish high command and officer corps were in France, with the French army, Air Force, and navy, assuming they had the full loyalty of their men and there was no language barrier, and Germany was still occupied for several weeks in Poland, the war would’ve been over by the end of 1940.
Mr. Terry’s students are fortunate to have a rock star for a teacher.. I don’t think many history teachers would admit they never heard of General Hobo and they learned a ton from a guy on TH-cam.. I have no doubt Mr. Terry puts the work in to make history interesting for his students and will add General Hobo, his men and his funnies into his curriculum giving General Hobo, his men and funnies their due credit and his students will be more knowledgeable in return . I was looking forward to this reaction and it didn’t disappoint..
19:30 its not really mines that are still around just unexploded ordenance in general. we cleared out the mines long ago because we had maps of all the mine fields. its the aircraft bombs and artillery shells that dug into the ground that are still an issue.
The only thing is that the Germans burned most of their documents so some of the minefields don’t have maps anymore. But you are basically 99.99% right with your statement.
I had a cousin who visited Vietnam in the early 90s. She was taking a bicycle tour through Asia. She was warned that under no circumstances was she to leave the marked paths. There was so mu8ch unexploded ordinance left over form the Vietnam War leaving the marked paths was very unsafe.
Fun fact about the Sherman Crab tank: the standard engine wasn't powerful enough to run the flail, so a second Sherman engine was mounted in an armored box strapped to the outer hull of the tank. Also, the Duplex tanks are still visible on Normandy. I remember talks of one being raised and restored, but I haven't heard anything since.
The British used the Churchill tank as the basis for many of the "Funnies." The US senior officers recognised that it would take too long to wait for the British to supply the funnies, and then to train US troops on how to use them. Even simple things such as driving the tanks was made more complicated because the driving position was on the right for driving on British roads. Spares would also complicate the logistics train. The DD tanks were based on Sherman tanks, so were deemed OK to be used. The weather conditions were stormy on D-day, but the Royal Navy had been training with the British Army for months, and understood the limitations of the DD tanks. The US Navy were less familiar with the tanks, so launched them more than a mile or off the beaches losing almost all of the tanks launched Omaha beach. A US officer saw what had happened and ordered the remaining tanks to be landed directly on the beach. Of course this resulted in delays in getting tank support onto the beaches. On the other hand, the Royal Navy realised the problems and launched their DD tanks only a few hundred yards from the beaches, thus ensuring that almost all the tanks made it to the beaches. One of the designs for a Funny, was a tank with a ramp on top of the turret. It was a bit like the bridging tanks, but the ramp was a bit smaller. It was used to create a route off the beach where there was a blockage with the sea wall. The tank was driven straight to the wall, and the ramp angle was adjusted hydraulically from inside the tank to make it simple for the supporting tanks to drive up the ramp and over the sea wall. If there was a big drop on the landward side, the next tank would be a bridging tank which made a ramp on the landward side so the following tanks could have a safe landing!
Liddell Hart said of him: "To have moulded the best two British armoured divisions of the war was an outstanding achievement (7th armoured and 11th armoured), but Hobart made it a "hat trick" by his subsequent training of the specialised 79th Armoured Division, the decisive factor on D-Day."
I actually served with people who drove “bridge tanks” in the Army National Guard. As you can imagine with all that weight and hydraulics, they break quite often, but I’ll be damned if it wasn’t one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. And, quite honestly I’m just learning now this is what they were created for, but it makes sense
Hobart’s Funnies are certainly well know here in the U.K. My WW2 veteran Dad was full of stories about them as I was growing up. Another useful tool from the time was the Bailey Bridge. Mr Bailey was from here in my home town of Rotherham Yorkshire England. According to both British and American Generals it took two years off the length of the war. The Bailey Bridge was easy to transport and quick to assemble by unskilled soldiers. There are many still in use today around the world including here in Rotherham.
Percy Hobart: I've got ideas for these specially designed tanks. Most British officers: We don't care, your ideas are stupid. The rest of the British officers and The Americans: WE WILL TAKE YOUR ENTIRE STALK
Tanks were so named, as the British were worried that the Germans would discover what they were up to, so they told the workforce making them that they would be " mobile oil tanks ", and the name Tank came into common use ..
based on wikipedia: None of the other designs was used, because it was thought that they required specialised training and an additional support organisation. Also, the Americans were reluctant to make use of funnies based on the Churchill tank as they did not want the logistical complexity of adding another tank model to their inventory. After D-Day, American forces did make limited use of the Sherman Crab mine-clearing tank. i wonder if hobart would have made more sherman funnies if asked.
The main problem with radios in WWI was that wireless technology hadn't advanced enough that a wireless transmitter as small and light enough to be carried by one guy, so most electronic communication was done over a wire connection, which was frequently cut by debris or artillery fire. Believe it or not, carrier pidgeons really were the most reliable and lightweight form of communication...
@@jeannettesilva4242 Higgins boat was the LCVP landing craft that carried mostly men ashore on D-Day. What Wandering Writer is talking about is the DUKW amphibious truck...which are still used in a lot of places to give sightseeing tours of rivers and other calm shores...but Hobart had nothing to do with the design or construction of the DUKW. 💯👍
@@iKvetch558 I AM ARMY TRANSPERTASHIN THE DUCK IS NOT ONE OF THE FUNNYS I HAVE BEEN ON A ARMY LMSR ATACKED TO A DUCK TO BE PULLED A SHOR FOR OVER THE SHOR TRANING IN THE ARMY! HAVE A NICE DAY! YOU DONT KNOW WHAT A DUCK IS!
@@jeannettesilva4242 LOL...I know that the amphibious vehicles that they use in Boston are DUKW and are nicknamed "ducks" and they were not designed by Hobart. And I know that the Higgins Boat is also called the LCVP. I did NOT say that the DUKW was one of the Funnies. You should STOP SHOUTING by capitalizing EVERYTHING...and you should find a much better english translator, because the one you are using is nearly nonsensical.
History was one of my favorite classes. Do you remember a book series called "You were there at .........", and I think it said "with Walter Cronkite" after the main title. Where you were was at the battle of Guam, the build of the Panama Canal and places like that. Good reaction. Thanks for sharing.
As a civilian who works a management position, despite my less than stellar social skills and general discomfort with people as a whole, I've never led a team that didnt love me by the end of it. The reason? I'm not just gonna tell you what to do, I'm going to teach you how and why. Because the more i empower you to achieve the goals of the team, the more valuable you are to me, and the more confident and capable you know you are.
I watched a TV series in the early 1970s called World at War narrated by Sir Laurence Olivier. They certainly showed many of Hobart's Funnies in the D-Day episode. It was timely because many of the veterans on both sides were still alive to be interviewed. It would be nice if it could be downloaded onto TH-cam but many episodes would violate TH-cams community sensitivities - er - standards.
Several episodes of The World at War cannot be shown before 9pm at night in Britain, due to the subject matter: the concentration camps, Okinawan Islanders leaping off cliffs rather than be captured alive, etc.
Fun fact : Juno Beach was the Canadian Beach, 2nd deadliest beach, and it was taken in record time, YES thanks in part to Hobarts Tanks, and Canadas brave men... yet America and Europe know nothing about our Grandfather's contributions, and leave them out of all lists of their allies.. btw Canada went to England and China at the first onset of war. We didn't wait 3 yrs till Pearl harbor..
Really interesting is how the challenger 2 tank mainly have had a near perfect record. If anyone British is here like me and you wanna see tanks. Bovington tank museum is a wonderland it just keeps going. And they drive em around sometimes. Dunno if it's tank blanks or what but man was it loud the 1 time I've been ❤
I’m a huge fan of the Fat Electricians content. I love learning about what other countries were doing during these wars especially the unsung war heroes. As an American we always learn about our own but never some of our allies
I've got a friend in France that grows grapes for wine that will send my little circle of weapons grade stupidity a picture of "his haul" saying that he's plowed up a nice amount of cast iron... this is a regular thing when he plows up a field lol.
@MrTerry friendly suggestion bro, if you hit pause while the person is talking you could try to back up , just 2 or 3 seconds so we dont miss the point they are making. I enjoy your interjections, i imagine you are a good teacher, so don't stop doing them, just maybe give the back up a try, if you want. Cheers !
I always wondered about the history of the flail tank, the crocodile tank, and the mortar tank in the Company of Heroes games came from. Now I know why I love upgrading my tanks with a flail and/or Crocodile attachment and they are supper effective if you have ever played those games.
Cavalry was, arguably, not obselete until the mid-to-late 30's. Decreased effectiveness doesn't make a military tool obselete. The development of a superior alternative does. Tanks couldn't replace cavalry for recon and exploitation until they became mechanically reliable and fast enough to replace the horse. That took quite some time. Some people, like Hobart and Patton and Guderian, could see the writting on the wall before everyone else. That's why they are regarded as visionaries.
Early in WW1 a British cavalry regiment saw a perfect target - unformed infantry and charged. The Germans were unable to set up any defence in time and were completely vulnerable. But the British charged was stopped by a wire fence. It wasn't even barbed wire.
Can I recommend some videos from the fat electrician the bunker busting bomb that ended desert storm, the M50 antos “the thing” and the greatest attack jet you’ve never heard of
As a small island with limited resources we had to invent thinking outside the box, hence Hobarts funnies, Operation Fortitude, Mulberry Harbours, PLUTO, the man who never was & Montys double. All worked out nicely.
On the land mine issue, I grew up near the Royal Ordinance Factory in north London. As a kid, the bomb squad were a constant presence due to the volume of bombs the Germans dropped on my area trying to blow it up. I'm sure most construction crews had the bomb squad on speed dial.
The Crocodile is definitely the most terrifying tank, possibly of the entire war. Just the fact it could shoot flames for 80 seconds straight for 250m is terrifying, not including the fact it's a tank. It's not a backpack unit that is fragile and could be shot by the enemy and instantly disabled.
Combined arms warfare first used involving Air power in combination with infantry, tanks and artillery at Cambrei in WW1, was the literal model for Blitzkrieg that the Germans perfected in the 30s.
So when TFE is talking about British tank commanders are operating their tankers like Dragoons I think he may be confusing some stuff, as British tank doctrine was already set by this point. So I think where he may get the idea of them being treated like cavalry and infantry together comes from the fact that at the time the British separated/refrenced their tanks in two ways; cavalry tanks and infantry tanks. Cavalry tanks were stuff like the crownwell, crusader, Stuart, comet, etc. fast mobile tanks that can flank enemy positions and break through enemy lines quickly. - note these units would usually be designated under the title of Hussars or Light Dragoons and such taking of both the history of the previous cavalry reguments history, but also as it kind of designated there role as light fast harassers who on seeing fragile forces could fall upon them. The second type was infantry tanks such as the Sherman, M3 Lee, Matilda, Valentine, Churchill, etc. These tanks were designed to be much slower to be able to stay with the infantry and on many occasions fight enemy bunker and tank positions as needed. - these units would usually earn the designation of dragoons to represent there close cooperation with mounted infantry units (note by mounted I mean in either universal carriers, half tracks or trucks) who would deploy from their vehicles to do their jobs and fight the enemy while the tanks supported them or sought off the enemy armour Problem was that tank doctrine early in the war was instead of having tanks operate alongside the infantry they were to operate along or ahead of the infantry independently. As such many times during the early African campaigns these tank regiments would be sent ahead to attack objectives or German and Italian tank forces and beat them in battle. Problem was 99% of the time they went to fight these tanks and would immediately run into the hands of dug in German infantry regiments with their anti-tank battalions nice and set up in open kill zones who’d actually end up annihilating most of the British armour with German tank forces usually coming into counter attack or clean up. As for the “drivers and crew fighting outside the tank” I think this may be due to him accidentally confusing British cavalry and infantry tanks with infantry support vehicles like the universal carrier that was a small armoured vehicle with a driver and machine gun and a area in the back that could carry 6-8 men comfortably tho there are times where they were known to carry many more. - other uses were as recon and artillery/aircraft spotter vehicle or as actual infantry support platforms with either light mortars placed inside or with their primary machine gun usually upgraded to a vickers if not already and a second bren light machine gun set up in the back compartment on a nice little stand (they also occasionally replaced this with anti-tank rifles in Africa and Italy when facing light armoured forces or half tracks). As such where he may be wrong on the whole “get out and fight” may be with these above as infantry units would be assigned to serve inside armoured divisions however wouldn’t give up their primary regiment designation (I.e. the Ox and Bucks, York and Lancaster, Highland Light, Scot Fusiliers, etc) but would retain them alongside the armoured regiments inside however may all fall under stuff like the 7th Armoured Division. - in addition this mistake also comes through media and boom writing. Like through all wars, many people like to generalise stuff or equipment (think how many times the media has said the criminals were carrying machine guns and it’ll show you a couple AK’s or AR-15’s and maybe a Uzi and such and your like “but actually those are rifles and sub-machine guns”) and the same does get applied to stuff like the Universal carrier in which instead of referring to it as a light armoured support vehicle many would just call it a light support tank or stuff like that. Which can give the weird impression when you read about certain combat encounters where a full regiment lost 20 tanks but you look to where the combat losses are and find most were in the supporting infantry who lost their universal carriers or dingos and such, no proper major tank losses mostly just light vehicles but the guy writing the reports doesn’t want to go to into detail. As such I do think TFE does give a false impression as to the problem going on with British tank warfare at the time. As by this point the main fight wasn’t between “we want horse men and not tanks” as literally everyone who came out of WW1 knew horses just wouldn’t cut it in future warfare, but the debate was between “should tanks be cavalry tanks or infantry tanks”. I.e. some ex-cavalry troopers and more aggressive commanders wanted the new tank designs to essentially replace the idea of the cavalry but as more mobile and armoured troops who could go out ahead of the enemy, flank/burst their lines and even duel enemy armour if squared up with. Other commanders wanted infantry tanks that were slow and more armoured that could essentially break through enemy front line positions and duel enemy armour, allowing the infantry to follow up into the already broken lines and clean up after and secure the positions (think how the treated WW1 tanks). The problem was and that got leaned in Africa was that tanks couldn’t operate efficiently enough without infantry and artillery support (I.e. combined arms) as such they would actually change to doctrine to reflect this. Mid-late war doctrine for cavalry tanks was to advance ahead of mobile forces until they came upon enemy forces at which point they’d begin to hunker down and set for the next stage. If the enemy was weak and easily able to be driven off/destroyed (say a small group of half tracks, armoured cars, infantry or even tanks that are caught completely unaware and are not set for combat and are not set up in entrenched positions) they can engage them. If the enemy is showing a sign of challenge that could prove hazardous to the unit, then they should report the situation to command who can then divert artillery and infantry to support and as a combined unit plan and execute a strategy to defeat the enemy force. An exception to the above is if during the wait the enemy force breaks their defence and proves to make themselves easy targets, then a decision can be made to engage the targets and either weaken or wipe them for their mistakes. Another one could be for troops to engage for a short period of time and disable/kill/route key assets of an enemy’s defence before making a hasty retreat - I.e. your accompanying firefly notes a panther in one hedge and has target on it, a couple of your tank commanders note some hidden machine guns and you have target in a light AT gun. You can all choose to quickly engage these targets, disable their use and then scoot away from combat to relay the information and form into a combined arms unit again. For infantry tanks their duty was the same, to support the infantry however even closer. No going in ahead but alongside letting both sets of eyes and firepower support the other. If enemy tanks are come upon they may engage the enemy if required but such things should be instead reported upon and left to supporting tank hunters/destroyers that may be sent up in support - tho if none are available said tanks can still engage but they may have more ability to move about or be assisted by infantry forces doing so.
They didn't have two way radios in tanks during WW1. Mk Vs (1917) used semaphore signal panels mounted on top of the tank hull to communicate with each other on the battlefield. Apart from inventing the practical concept of the tank for WW1 battlefield conditions during 1915, by the end of the war in 1918, the British had already developed and used : MKs I, II & III APCs & Supply Tanks, MK IV & Mk V Fascine & Crib Carriers, Mk V* Bridge & Ramp Carriers, Engineer Vehicles fitted with Winches & Crane Jibs, Mobile HQs fitted with Wireless & Telephone systems, Mobile Observation Balloon masts, Field Gun, Ammunition & Stores Carriers. Mk VIII was a new, larger design Gun Tank built for 1919, MK IX was a purpose built APC - one still exists at the Tank Museum, Bovington, UK. BTW : Percy Hobart was a cousin of Bernard Montgomery. My ears are having trouble keeping up with the speed of this guys mouth :)
in 1977 I was talking to an ex German Paratrooper of WW2 . He told me something about war films that came out after the war , he said you see infantry advancing behind tanks and German useing machine guns agenst them he said we never did that , he told me they weighted untill the tanks and infantry were in the open then used mortars on them in air burst mode aiming behind the tanks . Time it right distance to time and you use a mechanical timed fuse you can get a round to explode 25 to 30 off the ground giving a greater spread of shrapnel
Not just WW2 mines, there are entire regions in Northeast France that are considered "Zone Rouge" (Red Zones) loaded with UXO (Unexploded Ordinance) from The Great War.
@@sector986 No. Juno Beach was pretty flat. A lot of houses as the beach became land, and a lot of German pillboxes and bunkers designed to look like houses. The cliffs you are probably thinking about were at the western edge of the invasion beaches. As I recall the Rangers climbed them, to find the guns they were supposed to take out were logs placed to look like guns. They were frustrated to say the least.
It is absolutely insane, but I can't seem to even find Hobart's papers in any reference source. Granted, I'm sick at present, but still - I should come up with something. The only thing I can find is opinion pieces and reviews.
The bundle-of-sticks tank would've been perfect for the invasion of Italy. It should also be noted that on D-Day there actually were DD tanks at Omaha and Utah beaches, just not in some areas of Omaha beach.
Mr. Terry. Got a curious question. Are you actually teaching 1900's era history in history class? I'm 52 and when I went to school, we rarely ever made it up to the 1900's let alone WW1 and the depression. It didn't matter if it was world or US history we just never made it that far. I mean, particularly with US history, year after year, we spent so much time from the early natives and the migration to the Americas to the late 1800's that the 1900's were an afterthought that we might get to a couple of weeks before year end. Don't know if it was because of time or maybe 80 or so years ago wasn't considered "history" enough to actually be taught in a history class. If so, I'm envious as it always frustrated me as I find early 1900's history so fascinating.
Keep in mind the main reason you never heard of hobart was the british officer class that continued to put down his contributions. He was not as well celebrated in his own land as he should have been.
"That sounds stupid" I had to chuckle as we used that exact strategy in my cavalry unit in Iraq. Show up in armored vehicles, leave the armored vehicles for Reasons? Then do the mission.
I thought it was amazing that the ww1 unknown soilders was given a Medal of Honor and a victoria cross. The guy was probably just built house for a living or something and a couple years later he's the most decorated soilders on earth without anyone knowing what he did.
7:18 In WW2 the French were _still_ using carrier pigeons and despatch riders - since security of communication was _far_ more important than timeliness. It made Guderian's job so much easier. 19:40 The average is that one French agricultural worker is killed by WW1 munitions each year - a century on... 27:35 Inflatable army - we laugh at your inflatable army ! The Brits had a mass of Lancaster bombers of 617 Squadron flying in tight formation pretending to be an invasion fleet approaching Pas-de-Calais.
Half the reason France fell so quick, iwas because thier tanks never had radios. The french tanks was better gunned, better armoured and had about 1000 more tanks in thr North easten region of france. 3.5k to germanys 2.5k. the issue was tactics and a huge part of thst is communications.
Love your reaction videos to Nick, the fat electrician. One thing I find a bit disconcerting, however, is when you don't pause the electrician's video while you are talking. I am sure you miss some of what he is saying and I am missing what both of you are saying.
Confined arms Theory was theorized in World War I based on application of the tanks and their deficiencies. Hobart didn't create blitzkrieg any more than General J. F. C. Fuller did in "The foundations of the Science of War." The application of theory of combined arms to mechanized warfare was first used at the Battle of Cambrai in 1917. Hans Guderian cited all of these.
The official name of the first Tanks was ‘Land Ships’. Winning the contract to manufacture was the company Foster’s of Lincoln England. Forster’s had to come up with a cover story to maintain the secret. When asked they claimed that the Land Ships were meant to carry water into the front lines. When the first Land Ships arrived in France all the paper work Called them Water Tanks. The solider’s believed it and dreamed of hot baths. The cover name of Tank stuck.
Baron von stuebon about the American revolutionary army “in Europe you tell a man to do a 5th, and he will do it, in America you tell a man to do a thing, then you they’ll him WHY, 5en when he understand why, THEN he will do it”
His tactics are still applied today, maybe not the flamethrower part. But, the US Army has armored vehicles that will do all sorts of things to get troops and other armored vehicles to the frontlines when there’s a bridge out, a road out, or just need help in general. That’s where the combat engineers come in. I don’t know what vehicles they exactly; all I know is I was assigned to act Leonardwood which is combat engineering school for the army. I was just there for training vehicle operations for the USAF. But, lots of great dude there that know how to fuck shit up.
I am glad he did this video I always loved tanks so I did know of hobo I never new the full story as I was just young lad to likes and still likes tanks of all kinds for design functions and forms lol
You think Hobart contributions are understated and unrecognized general Jacob Devers is even more obscure even though he was the most successful US general of ww2
@MrTerry With Sir Winston Churchill, he actually never really had that big of a classist attitude. His dad shipped him off to boarding school asap, then thought he was to stupid to do anything worth while so sent him to military school. After this he was a war correspondent in Cuba, India and later South Africa, and he fought in Sudan as soldier. He was captured and held as a POW in the Boer War and escaped and became a national hero. This was all before he ever once stepped foot in the halls of parliament. He wrote books about what he saw and was honest about not just the good but the bad thigs the British army did, and really rubbed a lot of generals the wrong way because he exposed them. This actually came back to bite him later on when he was in charge of the Navy, and is one of the many reasons of the massive disaster that was the Dardanelles Campaign. as some of the primary generals undercut him at every step of the way. So when he finally did become the Prime Minister he was fully aware of this problem in the military after years of experience and sought to correct it.
I think it's worth pointing out that Brits giving things funny names isn't necessarily us being derogatory about them, but quite often is us being affectionate towards them.
And nowadays we have things like MICLIC mine clearing tank that shoots out a rope of explosives to clear mines. However, Hobart isn’t the only unsung hero. While the men and women on the front often get the credit and recognition, the true heroes are the logistics personnel who keep them fed and supplied so that they can fight. Throughout history logistics personnel are often forgotten, but they are the backbone of just about everything.
Inflatable tanks and the Ghost Army were inspired by the British fighting in North Africa (Operation Bertram, before El Alamein in 1942)where we had pioneered the concept. Trucks, tanks, guns, planes, storage areas and even dummy pipelines. Sorry 😁Omaha was certainly the bloodies beach, with difficult terrain, but not the most heavily defended. Sword, protecting Caen, was very heavily defended and in depth. The Funnies played a major role in breaking tough German beach defences and strongpoints on Gold, Juno and Sword pretty quickly. Churchill Crocodiles were leant to US forces to help them finally breaking Le Harve - Germans surrendered after a few demonstrations.
In the netherlands the explosive ordance group still destroys 5 a 7 explosives every day its just normal oh found a bomb call the cops and wait on the army to either explode it on location or transport it and exploded it.
Yes the war would have gone _very_ differently indeed if my country had used or even been aware of how truly effective the "Blitzkreig" tactic _actually_ was, along with many other tactics Hobart invented. For one we could have developed countermeasures, which would have meant Germany wouldn't have been able to sweep across France so quickly, necessitating the scrambled rescue of our troops from Dunkirk. It also would have meant we could use the tactic against Germany first. And both of these things would have meant D-Day would never have had to happen ... which also means the USA would never have had to actually become fully involved in WW2 (and then suffered so many losses at Omaha beach and throughout the war in general) and would have instead just stuck with what they were doing up until that point, which was supplying Britain with resources to help reinforce them without fully committing boots on the ground (very much the same as what they are doing with Ukraine right now) - at least on the German front. Pearl Harbour would likely still have happened as that was an entirely separate incident with an entirely separate cause behind it, but the USA forces and resources wouldn't have needed to be split between essentially two separate all-out wars at the same time and your country would only have had to focus on Japan. Which very well could have meant with all those extra soldiers and resources you _wouldn't_ have lost in Europe being available to fight the Japanese and end the war soon enough that nuclear bombs would never have been required to bring an end to that particular conflict. It also would have very likely shortened the war by a considerable amount, meaning far less people would have died in total during the war - not just Allied and German soldiers and civilians but potentially even Jews since they would have been liberated from the Concentration Camps much much sooner. And even further, one could argue Britain beating Germany sooner would have meant no invention of the V1 and V2 bombs since those were late inventions - so no rocket invention, _and_ since it too was invented much later into the war no German work on inventing the nuclear bomb, which the USA would then go on to copy and perfect (and the USA wouldn't have taken the former Nazi scientists behind the rocket and the nuke, so not only no nuclear bombs developed but also potentially no space race afterwards, and no conflict with Russia over management of Berlin after the war so no Cold War either). Sorry for the wall of text, but I love thinking about the "what-ifs" and untying the complex connected threads of cause-and-effect of historical events.
The UK equivalent to the US National Guard would be the Territorials. The Home Guard were more of a citizen militia to add bulk to the defence of Britain in case of land invasion. Edit: Actually I'm wrong, they're called the Army Reserve now.
The British military not having had the opportunity to use Hobart's tactics wasn't the problem. They actively worked against him and refused to study and adopt his methods, which could have been used to counter the German Blitzkrieg.
Which modified tank was the best of Hobart's Funnies?
I'm personally quite attracted to the flail tank since it has a simple yet brilliant way of taking out the insidious threat of land mines.
His designs were copied all over Europe (Cold War, thousands of rivers across the continent, minefields at the Iron Courtain) like the flagel/mine-sweeper and bridge-layer tank.
@@Eboreg2 Hobart only adapted the flail design to the Sherman...he was more of a popularizer than the inventor. 👍
PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, PAUSE THE VIDEO IF YOU ARE GOING TO TALK!!!! ITS VERY ANNOYING TO TRY TO LISTEN TO EITHER YOU OR THE VIDEO, I CAN BARELY HEAR EITHER ONE, EVEN IF I TUNE THE OTHER ONE OUT!!!!!!
The deployable bridge
Fun fact: In Poland the old guard part of the military is called "concrete". A fitting name for something, that once sets in won't budge.
The Polish high command and officer corps is severely underrated in world war 2. If you gave them France’s resources in 1939, the war is probably over in 1940.
@@DarkLobster69 Definitely greater than 0% chance, but not greater than 50%.
@@DarkLobster69 ok chill out buddy
@@NastyNate18B my apologies, I should’ve clarified exactly what I meant. If the Polish high command and officer corps were in France, with the French army, Air Force, and navy, assuming they had the full loyalty of their men and there was no language barrier, and Germany was still occupied for several weeks in Poland, the war would’ve been over by the end of 1940.
@@DarkLobster69 I have to very respectfully disagree. Although your argument is a very American style argument, I can't get behind it lmao
6:35 Like what Fat Electrician once said, "If it looks stupid, but works. Then it isn't stupid."
"This is bullshit!"
-guys getting the bad end of said "bullshit"
I think that's one of Murphy's Laws of Combat. :)
Mr. Terry’s students are fortunate to have a rock star for a teacher.. I don’t think many history teachers would admit they never heard of General Hobo and they learned a ton from a guy on TH-cam.. I have no doubt Mr. Terry puts the work in to make history interesting for his students and will add General Hobo, his men and his funnies into his curriculum giving General Hobo, his men and funnies their due credit and his students will be more knowledgeable in return .
I was looking forward to this reaction and it didn’t disappoint..
19:30 its not really mines that are still around just unexploded ordenance in general.
we cleared out the mines long ago because we had maps of all the mine fields. its the aircraft bombs and artillery shells that dug into the ground that are still an issue.
Mines are easy to track. Falling freefall bombs are hard
The only thing is that the Germans burned most of their documents so some of the minefields don’t have maps anymore. But you are basically 99.99% right with your statement.
I had a cousin who visited Vietnam in the early 90s. She was taking a bicycle tour through Asia.
She was warned that under no circumstances was she to leave the marked paths. There was so mu8ch unexploded ordinance left over form the Vietnam War leaving the marked paths was very unsafe.
Fun fact about the Sherman Crab tank: the standard engine wasn't powerful enough to run the flail, so a second Sherman engine was mounted in an armored box strapped to the outer hull of the tank.
Also, the Duplex tanks are still visible on Normandy. I remember talks of one being raised and restored, but I haven't heard anything since.
The British used the Churchill tank as the basis for many of the "Funnies." The US senior officers recognised that it would take too long to wait for the British to supply the funnies, and then to train US troops on how to use them. Even simple things such as driving the tanks was made more complicated because the driving position was on the right for driving on British roads. Spares would also complicate the logistics train. The DD tanks were based on Sherman tanks, so were deemed OK to be used.
The weather conditions were stormy on D-day, but the Royal Navy had been training with the British Army for months, and understood the limitations of the DD tanks. The US Navy were less familiar with the tanks, so launched them more than a mile or off the beaches losing almost all of the tanks launched Omaha beach. A US officer saw what had happened and ordered the remaining tanks to be landed directly on the beach. Of course this resulted in delays in getting tank support onto the beaches.
On the other hand, the Royal Navy realised the problems and launched their DD tanks only a few hundred yards from the beaches, thus ensuring that almost all the tanks made it to the beaches.
One of the designs for a Funny, was a tank with a ramp on top of the turret. It was a bit like the bridging tanks, but the ramp was a bit smaller. It was used to create a route off the beach where there was a blockage with the sea wall.
The tank was driven straight to the wall, and the ramp angle was adjusted hydraulically from inside the tank to make it simple for the supporting tanks to drive up the ramp and over the sea wall.
If there was a big drop on the landward side, the next tank would be a bridging tank which made a ramp on the landward side so the following tanks could have a safe landing!
Liddell Hart said of him: "To have moulded the best two British armoured divisions of the war was an outstanding achievement (7th armoured and 11th armoured), but Hobart made it a "hat trick" by his subsequent training of the specialised 79th Armoured Division, the decisive factor on D-Day."
All it takes is the will of a single man
And a good welder 😂
An austrian painter lived by those words
"There is no problem a small amount of well placed explosives, cannot solve."
- Sappers
But war, war never changes
@bigyang5847 and he died by them, too.
I actually served with people who drove “bridge tanks” in the Army National Guard. As you can imagine with all that weight and hydraulics, they break quite often, but I’ll be damned if it wasn’t one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. And, quite honestly I’m just learning now this is what they were created for, but it makes sense
America was like. You had us at flamethrower tank😅
As an American, agreed!
Armour AND fire??? Well hell yeah
Hobart’s Funnies are certainly well know here in the U.K. My WW2 veteran Dad was full of stories about them as I was growing up. Another useful tool from the time was the Bailey Bridge. Mr Bailey was from here in my home town of Rotherham Yorkshire England. According to both British and American Generals it took two years off the length of the war. The Bailey Bridge was easy to transport and quick to assemble by unskilled soldiers. There are many still in use today around the world including here in
Rotherham.
It's counterpart, the Motte Bridge, was less popular.
Walton on trent has a Bailey bridge, Even has it’s own facebook page
Percy Hobart: I've got ideas for these specially designed tanks.
Most British officers: We don't care, your ideas are stupid.
The rest of the British officers and The Americans: WE WILL TAKE YOUR ENTIRE STALK
I believe it's called the fascine because it was named after Roman fasces which was a bundle of sticks carried by Roman statesmen
The new tank still has all those options that Hobart came up with on the M1 Abrams platform
The Brits always used the older, less useful tanks for the 'funnies'. It conserved scarce resources.
I think the phrase you are looking for to describe the upper class british attitude is a "Sense of propriety"
False superiority
Tanks were so named, as the British were worried that the Germans would discover what they were up to, so they told the workforce making them that they would be " mobile oil tanks ", and the name Tank came into common use ..
I heard it was water but either way
The Hobart designs would've been really useful if mass produced by the US for stuff like the crossing of the Rhine
based on wikipedia: None of the other designs was used, because it was thought that they required specialised training and an additional support organisation. Also, the Americans were reluctant to make use of funnies based on the Churchill tank as they did not want the logistical complexity of adding another tank model to their inventory. After D-Day, American forces did make limited use of the Sherman Crab mine-clearing tank.
i wonder if hobart would have made more sherman funnies if asked.
@@TheSimmr001 And it'd probably take too long to adapt the add-ons to American tanks.
The main problem with radios in WWI was that wireless technology hadn't advanced enough that a wireless transmitter as small and light enough to be carried by one guy, so most electronic communication was done over a wire connection, which was frequently cut by debris or artillery fire.
Believe it or not, carrier pidgeons really were the most reliable and lightweight form of communication...
Literally the first Tweets
Thanks to Hobo, we have duck tours in Boston. Very cool guy
@jeannettesilva4242 what? That sentence gives me a headache
And Seattle. And here it got people killed due to bad maintenance on those old military vehicles.
@@jeannettesilva4242 Higgins boat was the LCVP landing craft that carried mostly men ashore on D-Day. What Wandering Writer is talking about is the DUKW amphibious truck...which are still used in a lot of places to give sightseeing tours of rivers and other calm shores...but Hobart had nothing to do with the design or construction of the DUKW. 💯👍
@@iKvetch558 I AM ARMY TRANSPERTASHIN THE DUCK IS NOT ONE OF THE FUNNYS I HAVE BEEN ON A ARMY LMSR ATACKED TO A DUCK TO BE PULLED A SHOR FOR OVER THE SHOR TRANING IN THE ARMY! HAVE A NICE DAY!
YOU DONT KNOW WHAT A DUCK IS!
@@jeannettesilva4242 LOL...I know that the amphibious vehicles that they use in Boston are DUKW and are nicknamed "ducks" and they were not designed by Hobart. And I know that the Higgins Boat is also called the LCVP. I did NOT say that the DUKW was one of the Funnies.
You should STOP SHOUTING by capitalizing EVERYTHING...and you should find a much better english translator, because the one you are using is nearly nonsensical.
Just saw this yesterday and was hoping you'd cover it, should be a fun time
History was one of my favorite classes. Do you remember a book series called "You were there at .........", and I think it said "with Walter Cronkite" after the main title. Where you were was at the battle of Guam, the build of the Panama Canal and places like that. Good reaction. Thanks for sharing.
As a civilian who works a management position, despite my less than stellar social skills and general discomfort with people as a whole, I've never led a team that didnt love me by the end of it. The reason? I'm not just gonna tell you what to do, I'm going to teach you how and why. Because the more i empower you to achieve the goals of the team, the more valuable you are to me, and the more confident and capable you know you are.
I watched a TV series in the early 1970s called World at War narrated by Sir Laurence Olivier. They certainly showed many of Hobart's Funnies in the D-Day episode. It was timely because many of the veterans on both sides were still alive to be interviewed. It would be nice if it could be downloaded onto TH-cam but many episodes would violate TH-cams community sensitivities - er - standards.
Several episodes of The World at War cannot be shown before 9pm at night in Britain, due to the subject matter: the concentration camps, Okinawan Islanders leaping off cliffs rather than be captured alive, etc.
Fun fact : Juno Beach was the Canadian Beach, 2nd deadliest beach, and it was taken in record time, YES thanks in part to Hobarts Tanks, and Canadas brave men... yet America and Europe know nothing about our Grandfather's contributions, and leave them out of all lists of their allies.. btw Canada went to England and China at the first onset of war. We didn't wait 3 yrs till Pearl harbor..
This was a great video and a great reaction/commentary from you Mr Terry! 👍
Really interesting is how the challenger 2 tank mainly have had a near perfect record.
If anyone British is here like me and you wanna see tanks. Bovington tank museum is a wonderland it just keeps going. And they drive em around sometimes. Dunno if it's tank blanks or what but man was it loud the 1 time I've been ❤
I’m a huge fan of the Fat Electricians content. I love learning about what other countries were doing during these wars especially the unsung war heroes. As an American we always learn about our own but never some of our allies
I've got a friend in France that grows grapes for wine that will send my little circle of weapons grade stupidity a picture of "his haul" saying that he's plowed up a nice amount of cast iron... this is a regular thing when he plows up a field lol.
@MrTerry
friendly suggestion bro, if you hit pause while the person is talking you could try to back up , just 2 or 3 seconds so we dont miss the point they are making. I enjoy your interjections, i imagine you are a good teacher, so don't stop doing them, just maybe give the back up a try, if you want. Cheers !
I always wondered about the history of the flail tank, the crocodile tank, and the mortar tank in the Company of Heroes games came from. Now I know why I love upgrading my tanks with a flail and/or Crocodile attachment and they are supper effective if you have ever played those games.
I recently went to the bovington tank museum and seeing those tanks in person was an experience
Hobart and you are both right about teaching
Cavalry was, arguably, not obselete until the mid-to-late 30's.
Decreased effectiveness doesn't make a military tool obselete. The development of a superior alternative does. Tanks couldn't replace cavalry for recon and exploitation until they became mechanically reliable and fast enough to replace the horse. That took quite some time.
Some people, like Hobart and Patton and Guderian, could see the writting on the wall before everyone else. That's why they are regarded as visionaries.
Early in WW1 a British cavalry regiment saw a perfect target - unformed infantry and charged. The Germans were unable to set up any defence in time and were completely vulnerable. But the British charged was stopped by a wire fence. It wasn't even barbed wire.
Can I recommend some videos from the fat electrician the bunker busting bomb that ended desert storm, the M50 antos “the thing” and the greatest attack jet you’ve never heard of
As a small island with limited resources we had to invent thinking outside the box, hence Hobarts funnies, Operation Fortitude, Mulberry Harbours, PLUTO, the man who never was & Montys double. All worked out nicely.
And the entire Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.
lmfao bro you were the British empire, not some lowly small island. What you talking about?
@@ayreface1 Guess *why* they became the British Empire.
Actually haven't seen either version of All Quiet On The Western Front, both are definitely on the list of movies I want to watch but haven't yet
Actually there are 3 movies a 1930, 1979, and 2022.
I haven't seen the new one, I have seen the 1979 it was good imo.
I wish i had mr terry for history class
I had a teacher that was just like him. Was absolutely amazing. The man had a loving passion for history and it made class so fun.
On the land mine issue, I grew up near the Royal Ordinance Factory in north London. As a kid, the bomb squad were a constant presence due to the volume of bombs the Germans dropped on my area trying to blow it up. I'm sure most construction crews had the bomb squad on speed dial.
The Crocodile is definitely the most terrifying tank, possibly of the entire war. Just the fact it could shoot flames for 80 seconds straight for 250m is terrifying, not including the fact it's a tank. It's not a backpack unit that is fragile and could be shot by the enemy and instantly disabled.
Combined arms warfare first used involving Air power in combination with infantry, tanks and artillery at Cambrei in WW1, was the literal model for Blitzkrieg that the Germans perfected in the 30s.
So when TFE is talking about British tank commanders are operating their tankers like Dragoons I think he may be confusing some stuff, as British tank doctrine was already set by this point.
So I think where he may get the idea of them being treated like cavalry and infantry together comes from the fact that at the time the British separated/refrenced their tanks in two ways; cavalry tanks and infantry tanks.
Cavalry tanks were stuff like the crownwell, crusader, Stuart, comet, etc. fast mobile tanks that can flank enemy positions and break through enemy lines quickly.
- note these units would usually be designated under the title of Hussars or Light Dragoons and such taking of both the history of the previous cavalry reguments history, but also as it kind of designated there role as light fast harassers who on seeing fragile forces could fall upon them.
The second type was infantry tanks such as the Sherman, M3 Lee, Matilda, Valentine, Churchill, etc.
These tanks were designed to be much slower to be able to stay with the infantry and on many occasions fight enemy bunker and tank positions as needed.
- these units would usually earn the designation of dragoons to represent there close cooperation with mounted infantry units (note by mounted I mean in either universal carriers, half tracks or trucks) who would deploy from their vehicles to do their jobs and fight the enemy while the tanks supported them or sought off the enemy armour
Problem was that tank doctrine early in the war was instead of having tanks operate alongside the infantry they were to operate along or ahead of the infantry independently. As such many times during the early African campaigns these tank regiments would be sent ahead to attack objectives or German and Italian tank forces and beat them in battle. Problem was 99% of the time they went to fight these tanks and would immediately run into the hands of dug in German infantry regiments with their anti-tank battalions nice and set up in open kill zones who’d actually end up annihilating most of the British armour with German tank forces usually coming into counter attack or clean up.
As for the “drivers and crew fighting outside the tank” I think this may be due to him accidentally confusing British cavalry and infantry tanks with infantry support vehicles like the universal carrier that was a small armoured vehicle with a driver and machine gun and a area in the back that could carry 6-8 men comfortably tho there are times where they were known to carry many more.
- other uses were as recon and artillery/aircraft spotter vehicle or as actual infantry support platforms with either light mortars placed inside or with their primary machine gun usually upgraded to a vickers if not already and a second bren light machine gun set up in the back compartment on a nice little stand (they also occasionally replaced this with anti-tank rifles in Africa and Italy when facing light armoured forces or half tracks).
As such where he may be wrong on the whole “get out and fight” may be with these above as infantry units would be assigned to serve inside armoured divisions however wouldn’t give up their primary regiment designation (I.e. the Ox and Bucks, York and Lancaster, Highland Light, Scot Fusiliers, etc) but would retain them alongside the armoured regiments inside however may all fall under stuff like the 7th Armoured Division.
- in addition this mistake also comes through media and boom writing.
Like through all wars, many people like to generalise stuff or equipment (think how many times the media has said the criminals were carrying machine guns and it’ll show you a couple AK’s or AR-15’s and maybe a Uzi and such and your like “but actually those are rifles and sub-machine guns”) and the same does get applied to stuff like the Universal carrier in which instead of referring to it as a light armoured support vehicle many would just call it a light support tank or stuff like that.
Which can give the weird impression when you read about certain combat encounters where a full regiment lost 20 tanks but you look to where the combat losses are and find most were in the supporting infantry who lost their universal carriers or dingos and such, no proper major tank losses mostly just light vehicles but the guy writing the reports doesn’t want to go to into detail.
As such I do think TFE does give a false impression as to the problem going on with British tank warfare at the time.
As by this point the main fight wasn’t between “we want horse men and not tanks” as literally everyone who came out of WW1 knew horses just wouldn’t cut it in future warfare, but the debate was between “should tanks be cavalry tanks or infantry tanks”.
I.e. some ex-cavalry troopers and more aggressive commanders wanted the new tank designs to essentially replace the idea of the cavalry but as more mobile and armoured troops who could go out ahead of the enemy, flank/burst their lines and even duel enemy armour if squared up with.
Other commanders wanted infantry tanks that were slow and more armoured that could essentially break through enemy front line positions and duel enemy armour, allowing the infantry to follow up into the already broken lines and clean up after and secure the positions (think how the treated WW1 tanks).
The problem was and that got leaned in Africa was that tanks couldn’t operate efficiently enough without infantry and artillery support (I.e. combined arms) as such they would actually change to doctrine to reflect this.
Mid-late war doctrine for cavalry tanks was to advance ahead of mobile forces until they came upon enemy forces at which point they’d begin to hunker down and set for the next stage.
If the enemy was weak and easily able to be driven off/destroyed (say a small group of half tracks, armoured cars, infantry or even tanks that are caught completely unaware and are not set for combat and are not set up in entrenched positions) they can engage them.
If the enemy is showing a sign of challenge that could prove hazardous to the unit, then they should report the situation to command who can then divert artillery and infantry to support and as a combined unit plan and execute a strategy to defeat the enemy force.
An exception to the above is if during the wait the enemy force breaks their defence and proves to make themselves easy targets, then a decision can be made to engage the targets and either weaken or wipe them for their mistakes.
Another one could be for troops to engage for a short period of time and disable/kill/route key assets of an enemy’s defence before making a hasty retreat - I.e. your accompanying firefly notes a panther in one hedge and has target on it, a couple of your tank commanders note some hidden machine guns and you have target in a light AT gun. You can all choose to quickly engage these targets, disable their use and then scoot away from combat to relay the information and form into a combined arms unit again.
For infantry tanks their duty was the same, to support the infantry however even closer. No going in ahead but alongside letting both sets of eyes and firepower support the other.
If enemy tanks are come upon they may engage the enemy if required but such things should be instead reported upon and left to supporting tank hunters/destroyers that may be sent up in support - tho if none are available said tanks can still engage but they may have more ability to move about or be assisted by infantry forces doing so.
What I learned in the Army was these two things…1. Keep it simple, stupid. 2. Practice doesn’t make perfect if you’re practicing wrong.
I’m pretty sure the British was using dummy tanks before the Americans was
They didn't have two way radios in tanks during WW1. Mk Vs (1917) used semaphore signal panels mounted on top of the tank hull to communicate with each other on the battlefield.
Apart from inventing the practical concept of the tank for WW1 battlefield conditions during 1915, by the end of the war in 1918, the British had already developed and used : MKs I, II & III APCs & Supply Tanks, MK IV & Mk V Fascine & Crib Carriers, Mk V* Bridge & Ramp Carriers, Engineer Vehicles fitted with Winches & Crane Jibs, Mobile HQs fitted with Wireless & Telephone systems, Mobile Observation Balloon masts, Field Gun, Ammunition & Stores Carriers. Mk VIII was a new, larger design Gun Tank built for 1919, MK IX was a purpose built APC - one still exists at the Tank Museum, Bovington, UK.
BTW : Percy Hobart was a cousin of Bernard Montgomery.
My ears are having trouble keeping up with the speed of this guys mouth :)
in 1977 I was talking to an ex German Paratrooper of WW2 . He told me something about war films that came out after the war , he said you see infantry advancing behind tanks and German useing machine guns agenst them he said we never did that , he told me they weighted untill the tanks and infantry were in the open then used mortars on them in air burst mode aiming behind the tanks . Time it right distance to time and you use a mechanical timed fuse you can get a round to explode 25 to 30 off the ground giving a greater spread of shrapnel
Not just WW2 mines, there are entire regions in Northeast France that are considered "Zone Rouge" (Red Zones) loaded with UXO (Unexploded Ordinance) from The Great War.
The Canadians laneded mostly on Juno Beach, suffered horrific losses of young men, as with all nations who participated in the d day landings.
Canadians were also the only landing that reached all its first day objectives.
@robgraham5697 yup. That is very true.
Weren’t the Canadians the ones that also had to climb up cliffs?
@@sector986 No. Juno Beach was pretty flat. A lot of houses as the beach became land, and a lot of German pillboxes and bunkers designed to look like houses.
The cliffs you are probably thinking about were at the western edge of the invasion beaches. As I recall the Rangers climbed them, to find the guns they were supposed to take out were logs placed to look like guns. They were frustrated to say the least.
@@robgraham5697 perhaps I’m thinking of Gold beach.
If only he and Patton would have been listened to more the boys may have actually been home by Christmas
It is absolutely insane, but I can't seem to even find Hobart's papers in any reference source. Granted, I'm sick at present, but still - I should come up with something. The only thing I can find is opinion pieces and reviews.
Looking at the bobin initially, something I've heard before rang through my brain: if it looks stupid but it works, then It's not stupid.
14:41 As a fella who’s now been out of school for longer than he was in school, PLEASE pass that message along to your Math teacher colleagues.
The bundle-of-sticks tank would've been perfect for the invasion of Italy. It should also be noted that on D-Day there actually were DD tanks at Omaha and Utah beaches, just not in some areas of Omaha beach.
Mr. Terry. Got a curious question. Are you actually teaching 1900's era history in history class? I'm 52 and when I went to school, we rarely ever made it up to the 1900's let alone WW1 and the depression. It didn't matter if it was world or US history we just never made it that far. I mean, particularly with US history, year after year, we spent so much time from the early natives and the migration to the Americas to the late 1800's that the 1900's were an afterthought that we might get to a couple of weeks before year end. Don't know if it was because of time or maybe 80 or so years ago wasn't considered "history" enough to actually be taught in a history class. If so, I'm envious as it always frustrated me as I find early 1900's history so fascinating.
If I'm not mistaken the original Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 showed the bridge tank in action during the campaign.
Those inflate-o-tanks looked real from just 50-100ft away. Operation 'Bodyguard' and 'Fortitude' were an overwhelming success.
Keep in mind the main reason you never heard of hobart was the british officer class that continued to put down his contributions. He was not as well celebrated in his own land as he should have been.
"That sounds stupid" I had to chuckle as we used that exact strategy in my cavalry unit in Iraq. Show up in armored vehicles, leave the armored vehicles for Reasons? Then do the mission.
I thought it was amazing that the ww1 unknown soilders was given a Medal of Honor and a victoria cross. The guy was probably just built house for a living or something and a couple years later he's the most decorated soilders on earth without anyone knowing what he did.
U.S. Army retired here. Retired in 2017 with 22 years in. We keep coming back because we're already too messed up to do anything else.
In regards inflatable tanks, see Jasper Mascaline magician s contribution to the war in the desert. He did manage to camouflage Suez canal
Not to long ago some construction had to be done in Britain and they found a unexploded 2k pound bomb pretty insane
The German 7th Panzer Division was the one called the "Ghost Division" (with Rommel in vcommand)
The desert fox, 1951.
Patton, 1970.
Hobart, unmade.
Complete the trilogy!
The Chieftain just did a video on an inflatable tank.
7:18 In WW2 the French were _still_ using carrier pigeons and despatch riders - since security of communication was _far_ more important than timeliness. It made Guderian's job so much easier.
19:40 The average is that one French agricultural worker is killed by WW1 munitions each year - a century on...
27:35 Inflatable army - we laugh at your inflatable army ! The Brits had a mass of Lancaster bombers of 617 Squadron flying in tight formation pretending to be an invasion fleet approaching Pas-de-Calais.
Half the reason France fell so quick, iwas because thier tanks never had radios.
The french tanks was better gunned, better armoured and had about 1000 more tanks in thr North easten region of france. 3.5k to germanys 2.5k. the issue was tactics and a huge part of thst is communications.
Love your reaction videos to Nick, the fat electrician. One thing I find a bit disconcerting, however, is when you don't pause the electrician's video while you are talking. I am sure you miss some of what he is saying and I am missing what both of you are saying.
Confined arms Theory was theorized in World War I based on application of the tanks and their deficiencies. Hobart didn't create blitzkrieg any more than General J. F. C. Fuller did in "The foundations of the Science of War." The application of theory of combined arms to mechanized warfare was first used at the Battle of Cambrai in 1917. Hans Guderian cited all of these.
I would contend that not only water but ay terrain 'anomaly' a mountain deep valley ( I know valleys and canyons normally have rivers LOL)
The official name of the first Tanks was ‘Land Ships’. Winning the contract to manufacture was the company Foster’s of Lincoln England. Forster’s had to come up with a cover story to maintain the secret. When asked they claimed that the Land Ships were meant to carry water into the front lines. When the first Land Ships arrived in France all the paper work Called them Water Tanks. The solider’s believed it and dreamed of hot baths. The cover name of Tank stuck.
25:33 better than carrying the bridges, I suppose. But then again, carrying bridges sometimes results in superpowers, so...
Baron von stuebon about the American revolutionary army “in Europe you tell a man to do a 5th, and he will do it, in America you tell a man to do a thing, then you they’ll him WHY, 5en when he understand why, THEN he will do it”
Mr. Terry, you should really watch or read about the ghost army. It is mind blowing!
His tactics are still applied today, maybe not the flamethrower part. But, the US Army has armored vehicles that will do all sorts of things to get troops and other armored vehicles to the frontlines when there’s a bridge out, a road out, or just need help in general. That’s where the combat engineers come in. I don’t know what vehicles they exactly; all I know is I was assigned to act Leonardwood which is combat engineering school for the army. I was just there for training vehicle operations for the USAF. But, lots of great dude there that know how to fuck shit up.
The US Asiatic fleet tends to get overlooked as well for its role in WW2
Crazy they can do all this in such little time but our roads take years to fix a hole
It was the battle of Britain and the RAF that saved Britain.
30:01 Hobart’s heroes
I am glad he did this video I always loved tanks so I did know of hobo I never new the full story as I was just young lad to likes and still likes tanks of all kinds for design functions and forms lol
You think Hobart contributions are understated and unrecognized general Jacob Devers is even more obscure even though he was the most successful US general of ww2
Ahh, the Sherman Flail. Great for mine and wire clearing.
This man literally came up with transformers before transformers
@MrTerry With Sir Winston Churchill, he actually never really had that big of a classist attitude. His dad shipped him off to boarding school asap, then thought he was to stupid to do anything worth while so sent him to military school. After this he was a war correspondent in Cuba, India and later South Africa, and he fought in Sudan as soldier. He was captured and held as a POW in the Boer War and escaped and became a national hero. This was all before he ever once stepped foot in the halls of parliament. He wrote books about what he saw and was honest about not just the good but the bad thigs the British army did, and really rubbed a lot of generals the wrong way because he exposed them. This actually came back to bite him later on when he was in charge of the Navy, and is one of the many reasons of the massive disaster that was the Dardanelles Campaign. as some of the primary generals undercut him at every step of the way. So when he finally did become the Prime Minister he was fully aware of this problem in the military after years of experience and sought to correct it.
I think it's worth pointing out that Brits giving things funny names isn't necessarily us being derogatory about them, but quite often is us being affectionate towards them.
Mr. Terry: "What about the bridge carriers?"
Me: "Hang on, you are 5 minutes ahead of the story"
Loving the extra details an insight from these vids.
This guy is the british Tank Commander version of Admiral Yi Sun Sin
The WHY is the most important question to consider. Without it, what's the point of learning it?
And nowadays we have things like MICLIC mine clearing tank that shoots out a rope of explosives to clear mines.
However, Hobart isn’t the only unsung hero. While the men and women on the front often get the credit and recognition, the true heroes are the logistics personnel who keep them fed and supplied so that they can fight. Throughout history logistics personnel are often forgotten, but they are the backbone of just about everything.
Amateurs talk about tactics, professionals talk about logistics.
@@MichaelCook-f8y yup
Sometimes I wonder what Tsun Tzu would think of modern warfare technology and tactics.
We got these issues Great Britain hold my beer and watch this
Inflatable tanks and the Ghost Army were inspired by the British fighting in North Africa (Operation Bertram, before El Alamein in 1942)where we had pioneered the concept. Trucks, tanks, guns, planes, storage areas and even dummy pipelines. Sorry 😁Omaha was certainly the bloodies beach, with difficult terrain, but not the most heavily defended. Sword, protecting Caen, was very heavily defended and in depth. The Funnies played a major role in breaking tough German beach defences and strongpoints on Gold, Juno and Sword pretty quickly. Churchill Crocodiles were leant to US forces to help them finally breaking Le Harve - Germans surrendered after a few demonstrations.
Churchill being humbled in ww1 saved the world in ww2
Those cavalry officers should have been reduced to the rank of corporal and made to be the first ones to charge the beaches of Normandy.
You and TFE go great together
In the netherlands the explosive ordance group still destroys 5 a 7 explosives every day its just normal oh found a bomb call the cops and wait on the army to either explode it on location or transport it and exploded it.
Call of Duty MW2 showed a modern bridge tank in action
Yes the war would have gone _very_ differently indeed if my country had used or even been aware of how truly effective the "Blitzkreig" tactic _actually_ was, along with many other tactics Hobart invented. For one we could have developed countermeasures, which would have meant Germany wouldn't have been able to sweep across France so quickly, necessitating the scrambled rescue of our troops from Dunkirk. It also would have meant we could use the tactic against Germany first. And both of these things would have meant D-Day would never have had to happen ... which also means the USA would never have had to actually become fully involved in WW2 (and then suffered so many losses at Omaha beach and throughout the war in general) and would have instead just stuck with what they were doing up until that point, which was supplying Britain with resources to help reinforce them without fully committing boots on the ground (very much the same as what they are doing with Ukraine right now) - at least on the German front. Pearl Harbour would likely still have happened as that was an entirely separate incident with an entirely separate cause behind it, but the USA forces and resources wouldn't have needed to be split between essentially two separate all-out wars at the same time and your country would only have had to focus on Japan. Which very well could have meant with all those extra soldiers and resources you _wouldn't_ have lost in Europe being available to fight the Japanese and end the war soon enough that nuclear bombs would never have been required to bring an end to that particular conflict.
It also would have very likely shortened the war by a considerable amount, meaning far less people would have died in total during the war - not just Allied and German soldiers and civilians but potentially even Jews since they would have been liberated from the Concentration Camps much much sooner. And even further, one could argue Britain beating Germany sooner would have meant no invention of the V1 and V2 bombs since those were late inventions - so no rocket invention, _and_ since it too was invented much later into the war no German work on inventing the nuclear bomb, which the USA would then go on to copy and perfect (and the USA wouldn't have taken the former Nazi scientists behind the rocket and the nuke, so not only no nuclear bombs developed but also potentially no space race afterwards, and no conflict with Russia over management of Berlin after the war so no Cold War either).
Sorry for the wall of text, but I love thinking about the "what-ifs" and untying the complex connected threads of cause-and-effect of historical events.
Even if we had known we would have had to convince the French before using the tactics in France. We were acting under their command there.
The UK equivalent to the US National Guard would be the Territorials. The Home Guard were more of a citizen militia to add bulk to the defence of Britain in case of land invasion.
Edit: Actually I'm wrong, they're called the Army Reserve now.
Many of the Home Guard had military experience from WW1
Well actully Patton's fake army was due to a british magician.
The British military not having had the opportunity to use Hobart's tactics wasn't the problem. They actively worked against him and refused to study and adopt his methods, which could have been used to counter the German Blitzkrieg.