Heinrich Severloh The beast of Omaha

I understand completely what the counter argument is. My point is that it is simply wrong. You fellows are attempting to alter history to fit your groupthink notion for events at Normandy. I first heard of Hein Severloh circa 1970. There was a popular history concerning D-Day and he was mentioned in it. Due to business concerns, I had the opportunity to meet a lot of WW2 vets, US and German and occasionally other nationalities. I've always been interested in history because my greatgrandfather, who knew Jesse James, use to entertain me when I was a child with family history tales about him. I've written a book about Jesse and you will probably hear about it within a year as I am talking with a publisher about it. Lots of family photos and historical documentation.

 

Rational people who are basing their positions on a reasonably common group of facts will usually come to the same or at least similar conclusions. They also understand that a position based on fallacies and irrelevancies has no merit. Someone who insists on the same while ignoring facts and logic to the contrary is by any reasonable standard a troll.

Are you the individual who was here extolling a "documentary" you made not long ago? The similarities are compelling.

 

To confirm my understanding:

Severloh was so effective because of German machine gun technology and doctrine. 5 shots with an MG42 = 1 kill, and so forth. This means that every MG42 gunner on Omaha should have killed ~30-50 GIs per belt of ammo (more for the MG34, because of the more sensitive trigger)?

Thanks. Now I'm clear.

 

Yep, and because he said he fired 10,000 rounds then he was the only German machine gunner on OMAHA to fire 10,000 rounds. The problem is, Gockel fired his machine gun for at least an hour and a half before it failed, which means, since he was using a sustained-fire, water-cooled Polish CKM Wz.30...a variant of the Browning M1917, since Browning demonstrated the capabilities of that weapon by firing 10,000 rounds in under two hours, it is only "logical" that Gockel fired at least 7,500. So even of he was only half as effective as Severloh, then he of course inflicted at least 750 casualties. So two machine guns in a single position inflicted 2,250 casualties. If we take that as an average, then the 88 machine guns on OMAHA inflicted a total of 99,000 casualties.

Meanwhile, why was Severloh able to fire 10,000 rounds? Well, because his weapon had a high rate of fire, he fired it for a long time, and because the rounds were available. The last is probably the most important BTW. The unit of fire (Erste Muni-ausstatung) for machine guns in the Heer was 4,500 rounds and a division normally had available two units of fire with its units and in its supply train. However, divisions in the coastal defenses were allocated six issues, much of which were kept in the positions. So each of the five machine guns in WN 62 sited for anti-personnel use likely had at least 10,000 rounds easily available.

So then, why did the other gunners in WN 62 (except for Gockel) not fire 10,000 rounds? Well, first of all, we don't know if they did or did not. In the other positions Faust was KIA and Kwiatkowsky was WIA, putting their MG 42 out of the fight, Kieserling was KIA and his Wz. 30 MG put out of action, Schnichels was WIA and his Wz. 30 MG put out of action, Gockels' Wz. 30 was put out of action after about an hour and a half, and the crew of the AA MG position were either KIA (Schulte and Haeming) or WIA (Pieh). All between 0630 and about 1115 when the position was finally abandoned. Now at 1012, the heliograph at WN 62 reported only one machine gun still firing, likely Severloh's, which means that all the others were knocked out by then. So Severloh fired 10,000 rounds because he was firing for about five hours, i.e., 2,000 rounds per hour. So if the other four fired for an hour and a half, like Gockel, then they likely fired another 15,000 rounds. "Logically" that would mean they inflicted at least another 3,000 casualties, so the 16th Infantry and its attachments lost 5,000...which still ignores the damage done by ALL the other weapons systems in the German arsenal (and the simple fact that the 16th Infantry and attachments did not suffer nearly 100% casualties.

If WN 62 fired 25,000 rounds, then the other six, similarly equipped positions fired another 150,000 rounds and the riflemen in the positions fired thousands more...and the four 15cm artillery pieces aimed at OMAHA fired all their 600 rounds of high explosive, the 12 10.5cm howitzers their 2,700 rounds, and the 17 5 and 8cm mortars some 2,500 rounds, plus the contribution of the two 8.8cm, 11 7.5cm, 10 5cm, and 3 3.7cm guns firing directly at landing craft, tanks, and other vehicles. Then the casualties inflicted by the land and sea mines, those lost when their landing craft foundered, and so on. That combination of lethality inflicted some 3,686 casualties on OMAHA...but 54% of them were not inflicted by Hein Severloh.

 

For some reason I suspect Pocahontas and Jesse James were involved in the cover-up at OMAHA. Gee, I suddenly realized we're doing a variant of the old "Triple-Sekret Maisy Battery Cover-up" debate.

 

Here is a perfect example of the groupthink mentality! "Rational people who are basing their positions on a reasonably common group of facts will usually come to the same or at least similar conclusions." There are a lot of things WRONG with this statement. A prime one being that rational people come to very different conclusions many, many times every day! Nothing wrong with that. The problems come when one group of "rational people" decide that a different group of "rational people" are a bit wacko and decide to do something about it. They do this because they decide that another group has a "position based on fallacies and irrelevancies has no merit", moreover they are very, very careful NOT TO INVESTIGATE the other "rational people's" conclusions, because, Heaven forbid, they might be right! But, they cannot be right, because they are "ignoring facts and logic." The reality is that I have not ignored any facts, but have pointed out what I know to be facts and have done so in a logical way. I hate to burst your delusions, but I am definitely not a "troll", whatever that is. In my age group "trolls" were a part of Norse paganism.
Concerning a "documentary", I know nothing about it. If you are talking about Jesse James, I've just finished the book and it is not in print yet. If you are talking about Hein Severloh. I know nothing of any documentary. As to his legend,there is not much available in English. He is much more famous on the continent because of a book "WN62 Erinnerungen an Omaha Beach, Normande 6 Juni 1944". There are/were very many German and a lot of other nationalities, all veterans of the Wehrmacht, who were familiar with German machinegun tactics and have no difficulties in accepting his story as fact because the only thing different between what he did and what they did is scale in a single day. One old Wehrmacht veteran told me that he had served from 1939 to 1945 as a machinegunner and had killed thousands of men in combat, probably 10,000, maybe more, in Poland, France, but most in Russia over 6 years. He wasn't proud of it, he just did his duty.

 

DO NOT TALK ABOUT OR MAKE FUN OF MY FAMILY! They are my kin and I have the right to say what I want to about them! I'm also related to that old bastard Abe Lincoln. You can say any nasty thing you want to about him. I don't care. Leave the others out of this!

 

Wait...Weren't you just complaining about "freedom of speech"?

Yes, yes, you were just complaining about freedom of speech.

Welcome to the party, you liberal who has just had the hell scared out of him!


I would also remind you that you are the idiot that brought your "supposed" relatives into this in the first place. As if that would give you some kind of credibility in this debate - which it does not.

Life lesson pal...While your supposed relatives may have been very famous, you are an ass with zero credibility. Coming in here and raising a ruckus, then acting all indignant when someone challenges your opinion and questions your "facts" also does not convert anyone over to your point of view.

 

Wrong person! I am a great believer in freedom of speech and all the other rights on the Bill of Rights. Especially the 2nd one, the right to bear arms because it protects all the others.
As to my relatives previously mentioned, THEY ARE MY RELATIVES, but I was not the first to mention relatives, it was some hard headed individual who talked about his to "put me down". Did not work. You really need to pay attention to such trivia, otherwise people might get the idea that you are retarded because have gotten so many things wrong.

 

No...No you are not.

Proves it.

If you were a "great believer" in the freedom of speech, you never would have said such a thing...

You know...
by saying you are a great believer in the freedom of speech, and then immediately denying another such freedom of speech, as you say...

 

Yes! That is the theory this whole discussion is supposed to be predicated upon Forget the war movies and US army machinegun doctrine. The Germans have/had their own ideas about how things should be done. To them, there were "heavy machineguns", "medium machineguns" and "light machineguns". To fulfill these 3 roles, they wanted to do with a "universal" machinegun that could be modified by "add ons" to the basic design. Each type had a defined role. A heavy machinegun was lafette (heavy infantry tripod) mounted with glass optic sight and used for precise long range fire, generally from positions that could not be seen by the enemy. Indirect fire, like small artillery.
A medium machinegun was also lafette mounted and may or may not use the glass optic sight. Think medium range direct sight fire.
A light machinegun was bipod or AA tripod mounted. It was designed for short, under 500 meters, direct fire. Severloh used his MG42 (Some say MG34) as a light machinegun.

 

What you said about my family was "HATE SPEECH" as is NOT protected as "free speech"! Ask any lawyer.

 

So, if all ~80 machine guns on Omaha Beach each fired one belt of ammo, that would mean there were 2400 to 4000 Americans were killed - solely by machine gun fire, and all in the period of well under a minute?

Ok. Got it.

 

As usual, you have gotten it all wrong! A big goose egg to go with all the other ones on your report card!
First of all, I do not know if there were 80 machineguns on Omaha. I never said they were.
Second, I do not know how many machineguns were of the MG34/MG42 type.
Third, ONLY the MG34/MG42 type LIGHT machineguns could be used as precision weapons in the manner of Severloh.
Therefore only the MG34/MG42 machineguns used as light machineguns in the manner of Severloh can be counted as delivering 1 kill per 5 rounds.
Do try to get it right this time! I'm beginning to think you are defective.

 

This is farcical.

There were ~80 machine guns on Omaha.

You are seriously arguing with me that a MG34 / 42 on a lafette is not capable of being used as a precision weapon, yet the same gun on a bipod is?

Try not to let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

 

Actually, it is not HATE SPEECH.

Just because you hate it when people talk about your "supposed" family relations...Does not make it hate speech.

Your knowledge of the law rivals your knowledge of the MG-34/42...

Ask Rich, he will tell you.

Ask Rich, he will tell you.

But, that is not entirely true...Is it.

 

I've got a Fiver that says Shooterike will prattle on about the lafette's recoil activated cam...

 

Or perhaps the normal mode harmonics attributed to the specific densities, lengths, wall thicknesses and joint geometry of the components which form the lafette.