What Are You Reading?

Very good letter, Terry. (It's great to know your pile name, by the way. )

Now let's see if the guy responds.

 

Mosier's reply.

Dear sir,

It is often quite difficult for peopole with fixed ideas,
regadrless of their educational background, to assimilate
new information that contradicts their deeply held beliefs.
This seems to be true in your case.

With all good will, then, I suggest you go back and read the
book. All the "errors" you point out are actually well
documented facts, and your inferences about German equipment
and organization are completely wrong, as I, and a number of
other people, make pretty clear.

You apparently don't understand the basic point about German
equipment and how it was distributed. That the French had
as many or more tanks than the Germans is well documented,
not only in French and German sources (including Guderian's
Memoirs), but by other military historians, e.g., Professor
Corum.

By later standards, neither side had much in the way of an
"armored division." As for the "balanced" nature of the
German divisions, I suggest you read Matthew Cooper. You
hardly have to rely on my research in the matter.

You seem to believe that books such as mine are not
subjected to all sorts of scrutiny by professionals in the
field--technical experts as well as military historians. My
French translator is a former army officer and tank
commander, who has gone over the book with the proverbial
toothcomb, as has the French historian who's writing the
introduction. An equally knowledgeable Austrian expert did
the same thing with the text after it came out. Both of
them have found minor mistakes, as have I. None of them
relate to the areas you declaim as being serious.

As I say, it is very hard for people to change deeply held
ideas, and I don't write this in the idea that you will
agree.

My suggestion is that you write your own book on the matter.

I appreciate you're looking at the book, and taking time to
write.

John Mosier

 

Can we create a new Holy Inquisition and burn this heretic in a pile of his own trashy books?

Just a suggestion…

 

I suggest everyone e-mailing him more examples of his profound stupidity to see to what depths he can sink in response. As for me I am done with him. The patronizing tone in his response says it all.....I'm a PhD and therefore I'm better than you, you lowly scum. Well, doc, I ain't one of your students and I know a hell-of-alot more about military history than you do, PhD or not.

 

Sorry, Friedrich - I missed your earlier post.

Urquhart's 'Arnhem' is a classic book and absolutely essential reading about the battle.

Please keep in mind that it was written in the 1950's and therefore doesn't have the benefit of later research ; one or two 'Arnhem myths' appear in this book and, because they were included here, persisted for a long time.

The book was of course partially 'ghost-written' by Wilfred Greatorex but even so, one feels the personality of Urquhart and maybe realise why he didn't rise to greater command post-war : he's quite forthright in his opinions of fellow-officers eg Browning, Horrocks and Thomas ( his comments about the latter are especially pungent ! )

It's a great book - you'll enjoy it !

 

On the Mosie et co businez:

The fact is that some writers even if they realized all the mistakes is that they need to make some kinda fuss about their book to make it sell. I´m not saying this is the only reason for all those horrible mistakes that he has made ( as we see it ) but I do feel sorry at times to read these claims that are totally horrendous.

For instance there was a book last summer here in Finland claiming ( to cut the long story short ) that the German help was not needed to stop the Russians from invading our country in summer 1944. The fact is that just without the Luftwaffe help( Stukas, Focke Wulf 190´s ) we would have been crushed (and we got panzerfausts and wheat and tanks ), so the book by this one fact alone is totally unnecessary. Even the author admits this Luftwaffe fact in his book.

But some authors decide to put some weird facts in their books to make it sell.... that is not good.

 

On Mosier, it's funny that I have read very similar comments about his 'The Myth of the Great War'. I'd decided to discount his work from any serious consideration after that anyway, and this new example only seems to reinforce that.

 

Beware of comments that take snippets from a book and present them without context.

And beware of those who make comments about books that they have not read.

The singular most important contribution by Mosier is his bibliography. In places where I have found Mosier's allegations to be difficult to believe, I have been compelled to read the books from which he makes reference. The list of references that Mosier offers is impressive. I have not read Fuller or Gaudet or SLA Marshall but I am sure that my understanding of the war or of war in general has been profoundly influenced by those authors. How many of us still believe that the bomber will always get through or that only one combat soldier in ten ever fires his weapon? Yet these truths were widely believed.

Revisionist history is precisely that. Uncomfortable as it may be, we always need to reevaluate truths and take a look at facts from a new perspective. As Hastings states in his recent book Armageddon, "most new books which claim to have uncovered sensational revelations about the war prove to be rubbish". Hastings has no qualms about re-writing the Battle for Germany from a new perspective- a portrait as he puts it, and not a history.

Mosier has not written anything new. He has only presented previously published information in a new light and with a new angle.

If his book provokes discussion as we see here, I'd say he did a very good job.

You owe it to yourselves to read Blitzkrieg Myth. And then read the referenced works.

 

Not so sure of this.

The DLM (Light Mechanized Division) had a TOE complement of 2 Tank Regiments, each with 180 tanks. This was supported by one Motorized Infantry Regiment consisting of three Infantry Battalions or about 3000 men.

It is not possible to equate the French armoured division with the German panzer division because of doctrine. French armoured divisions were intended to be used in concert with infantry divisions. Therefore the infantry component should have been much more prominent. At Hannut the problem was two-fold. Firstly one of the French regiments, the 3e DLM had a very high proportion of reservists and sustained heavy losses while the more experienced crews of the 2e DLM in the same battle had only light losses. In 1940, when the French crews were experienced with their tanks they were at the level of the German tankers.
They knew how to operate their tanks, even if it was a bit different than for a German crew. The 2e DLM in Hannut/Gembloux had rather light losses and proved to be a dangerous opponent. Many German tanks were knocked out but as the ground was later controlled by the Germans they could recover/repair the damaged ones unlike the
French which had also to abandon several tanks due to mechanical breakdowns.

A French tank is more intricate and becomes a deadly and efficient weapon only with experienced crews. A rookie crew will have several drawbacks. History has shown that the experienced French crews were at level with their German opponents.

In the battle of Hannut/Gembloux for example, the Somua S35 tanks could spread havoc among the German tanks, which often had to face a second Somua S35 squadron while trying to outflank the first squadron. In this battle, the French tactical regulation proved to be at level, the German tank formations being often attacked on their flanks or rear.

Secondly, German doctrine called for the Panzers to avoid French armour and attack elsewhere, thereby allowing the German anti-tank guns to destroy French tanks. Poor strategic co-ordination of French divisions and the lack of radios in all tanks impeded the French tank crews who often found themselves fighting alone amongst their comrades.

 

"the battle for iwo jima, 1945" - Derrick Wright

 

I have to agree with Major Destructions comments. Revisionisim is always hard to swallow especially whenthe excepted dogma appears so convincing. Some may remember the attack on John Terraine in the 50's and 60's when he started his research on The Great War. His work is now accepted and it is often argued that it didn't go far enough and their is a whole host of work doing that right now. I would recommend people read Mosiers work and form their own opinions. I for one am interested in reading it. It may be hard to swallow but in 10 to 20 years may be the wxcpeted version of events. We must remember that these are interpretations of the facts.

Back to the topic I have got Martin Windrows 'The Last Valley: Dien Bien Phu and the french defeat in Indo-China' on the go at the mo. Seems like an excellent read so far. A subject that doesn't see mcuh in the english language. A real sham IMHO.

 

I've got the Dien Bien Phu book as well, Mahross. Added it to my copy of Bernard Fall's 'Hell In A Very Small Place' bought years ago.

( BTW - sham or shame ? )

 

Shame Martin. Could also be considered a sham i suppose

 

See, this is where paying attention to what is written is so critical. I agree with much of what you say Major. The French tankers were no slackers and certainly took a good toll on the Germans.
But, I argued General Prioux could not hold the ground due to lack of infantry. In the DLM the BDP has three battalions of dragons porte. Each battalion has just two infantry companies. These are supported by a heavy weapons company and a AMR company. The former has heavy machineguns and some mortars, the later 10 AMR (typically Renault 33VMs) and a handful of motorcycle combinations. This realistically gives the DLM a large, well equipped, battalion of infantry (6 supported companies). These would have been backed primarily by 75mm M1989 guns and a few 105mm howitzers in the artillery regiment.
Thus, my assertion that the Corps de Cavaliere had about a strong regiment of infantry to hold the field which would have been insufficent.
Of course, as you also point out as I did, the DLMs and the CC were not by training or mission really acting as panzer divisions would. Instead, they carried out a traditional cavalry mission of screening. This is just one more reason the French failed to defeat the Germans in 1940...poor doctrine.

 

Frank Harrison:Tobruk (Yess!!)

Konrad Heiden: Der Führer

http://kevin.davnet.org/essays/heiden.html

Heiden also wrote in 1936 (!) a book named Adolf Hitler: The Age of Irresponsibility so this should be quite interesting...

 

who reads fiction at the moment I am reading a novel by Eric L Harry called 'Invasion' Lucky it is only fiction .

 

Just started reading "The Tank Killers" by Harry Yeide.

 

Just got in the mail the interesting title by August Karl Muggenthaler, quite OOP:

German Raiders of WW 2, a classic that everyone on their KM web-sites have copied for information, shame on them !

308 pages, a nice appendices, small dark pics.......sniff ..

the drawings of the boots themselves suck as they are overhead and it looks like a 2nd grader drew them.

the ships voyages are covered in 1/4 scale maps which should have been done full page size to see for us Opa's with poor eyes.

looks like a good read though...

Torpedos los !

 

Just reading the Japanese views on the Pearl Harbor attack:

 

Kai look interesting. Let me know what is like. Sounds interesting.

Latest on my table is Evgeni Bessonov 'Tank Rider: Into the Reich with the Red Army' A memoir of a Soviet officer during the Great Patriotic War.