Gladius Hispaniensis

I tried logging in again. I even tried the "forgot password" bit. No success. It still says Legio XX Valeria Victrix is not an existing member. Amazing.

Jimmy Page

No. It was Legio xx Valeria Victrix

Hip-Hop, Rap, Gangsta Rap, and corn fed white kids from places like North Dakota dressing like Tupac Shakur and talking like they grew up in some inner city ghetto all their lives. Also, when people gratuitously change place names. Bombay is now Mumbai, Burma is now Myanmar, Madras is now Chennai, Ceylon is now Sri Lanka. Really irritating. Also, being South Asian originally, I have a sentimental attachment to Bollywood movie songs from the 60s and 70s. I really despise the kind of trash they're dishing out these days over there. Unbelievable how much peoples' tastes have deteriorated. And the new generation that listens to that caca, they're even more irritating, especially when they deliberately avoid listening to older numbers just because of peer pressure. How much of a herd mentality can you get?

Just out of curiosity. I used to be a member of this forum under a different user name. That was back in 2005. (I still remember Northern Neill and Primus Pilus from back then).I tried logging in again this year under that username but I kept getting an error message saying no such user exists. And I am absolutely sure I was using the right password. So I had to register as Gladius xx. I wonder if old accounts that have been inactive for a long time get deactivated automatically?

Can you give us some examples Western? Sorry to sound so demanding but I'm really getting off on this fascinating topic and thirsting for more knowledge. Thx

I agree with Caldrail. Naming themselves as -son after their fathers does not seem to have been a Saxon tradition, even to this day among Saxons from Germany. That is why I assumed it was a Scandinavian tradition (Lief Ericsson readily comes to mind) carried on in England by people of Norse descent. Another off the topic digression - some historians are convinced that England would never have become the great seafaring nation that it did if it weren't for the substantial sprinkling of Nordic blood among its inhabitants. Seems to make sense. After all Romano-Celts and Anglo-Saxons, the people on the Island before the Norse incursions, were basically land- lubbers. What do fellow forum-members think of that?

Caldrail, how much of England did Danelaw cover? I imagine it must have consisted mostly of the parts of the Island facing the Continent. Off topic a little, but I'm guessing that Englismen with -son or -sen as surname endings might possibly be descended from these Danes, like Johnson, Andersen, etc.

And then there was the Kaminski Brigade. Kaminski was a drunken lout who collected a bunch of Nazi Ukranian sadists and thugs that went on a rampage during the Warsaw uprising. They were real heroes when it came to killing women and children but in combat these gangsters were the first to turn tail and run. Kaminski was eventually shot by the Germans.

And what about England itself?. Isn't that from Angle-Land meaning land of the Angles? If it is then I'm guessing the Angles probably were dominant over their Saxon and Jute cousins politically and culturally. Hope I'm not wrong there.

Caldrail I'm surprised wold is not there as in Cotswolde. I'm not an expert on this subject but I'm guessing that the word, sounding similar to the German word for forest, viz. wald, probably means the same thing and is probably of Anglo-Saxon origin.

Is there evidence for that?

Ave Well, let me see. When I was about 7 or 8 years old I read a book called "Julius Caesar and Roman Britain" published by Ladybird. That is what really sparked my interest in Ancient Rome. I don't know if the book is still in print - that was back in '75 - and there are a few inaccuracies in it as I recall, but it was a pretty good introduction to the subject for a youngster, and although I have developed other interests since then (WWII and I, Indian Mutiny, Ancient Greek history, Vietnam War etc.), my interest in Ancient Roman history can be traced back to that little book, and I heartily thank the publishers for it.

Ave I don't recollect the forts in Asterix in Corsica, but are you saying they are anachronistic as far as the era is concerned?

BTW, since we're on the topic of Asterix and Obelix, I want to know how many historical inaccuracies there are in those comics. I realize they are not supposed to have historical value but I want to know just for the heck of it. Let me point out a few that I noticed: The Colisseum was not around in Caesar's time. Legionaries probably did not wear the lorica segmentata type of armour in Caesar's time. Caesar was almost certainly not blonde. I believe the legionary helmets are also anachronistic. Both centurions and legionaries are shown wearing their swords on their left sides. IIRC only centurions did that. Anything else?

Which is probably why they don't sell well in the 'States.

Ave Here's a documentary I found in Youtube about the Battle of Thermopylae: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6BDHGa4CEY Enjoy!

The German Panzer crews remained excellent for most of the duration of the War but it is important to remember that towards the end they did go through a steep decline qualitatively. There were many reasons for this but mainly the high attrition and horrific casualties in the Eastern Front were responsible for this. Also Germany was suffering from chronic lack of fuel due to the Ploesti oilfields in Romania being captured by the Russians and the aerial offensive carried out on oil installations by the Americans. This meant that tank crews had less time to train (the Luftwaffe went through and identical problem). For most of 1945 Allied and possibly even Russian tank crews actually equalled the Panzermen in quality and possibly excelled them. Only the formidable quality of the German tanks themselves helped the situation a little.

It was Yamamoto and it was Harvard. He gave 6 months, not 3, until the tide turned. http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/reader/18553266...%3D#reader-link http://www.amazon.com/French-Army-1939-45-...im/1855326663/1 http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/attac...ern_europe1.htm http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php...b0929a631d2bacb Also read "The Other Side of the Hill" by B.H. Liddell Hart "To Lose a Battle" by Alistair Horne "The Fall of France" by Julian Jackson

Well, the sweep across Belgium and the Low Countries was actually the brainchild of Graf von Schlieffen but you are right in that the younger von Moltke implemented the plan in the Great War. He did not strengthen the right flank, which was Schlieffen's dying wish, and the Germans suffered consequently.

An additional point JR - the antitank guns the Germans used in the France campaign - the 37mm Pak, was a useless piece of junk. It's users referred to it as the door-knocker. This was really seen during the British counterattack at Arras, where the 7th Panzer Div came within an inch of defeat and the SS Totenkopf men actually broke and ran before the Matildas. It was the Germans' imaginative use of the 88mm Antiaircraft gun and the 105mms they had that saved the day. The Germans did not have a reliable antitank gun until the advent of the 50mm Pak

Julius Ratus, the PzIII was no match for the Matilda II or the CharB. The PzIV could but was not out in the numbers that it should have. Yes, you proved my point, the Germans made better use of their tanks, in other words they had a much better doctrine of armoured warfare. Potentially the Allied armies were stronger though - they were just misused - tanks being used in penny packets is a good example. I never compared the Stuka to any fighter. I'm just saying it's first appearance disconcerted the Allies so much they did not realize it's Achilles heel, it's slow speed and vulnerability to fighter attack. If they had this terrifying weapon would not have had half the effect it did. It was overrated because later ground attack aircraft in the War like the Mosquito, Typhoon and Thunderbolt were far more effective in their role and could also make mincemeat of any fighter opposition, something the Stuka just could not do.

Well, I did. I think the person you are referring to is General Joseph Gallieni. I googled him and this is what I got: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Gallieni I was right - he was a First World War general that died in 1916. He did not live to see the Second World War. If it's the incompetence of the French High Command that you were talking about earlier, the man you want is Maurice Gamelin.

The Stuka was a dive-bomber, not a fighter.

Gallieni? I think you mean Maurice Gamelin. Gallieni was not around in WW2. The book he should have read is Guderian's "Achtung Panzer". DeGaulle's book has nothing over that one in describing armoured warfare.