Rommel's Deathtrap - Biggest Bunker in Normandy. 

Thank you for your comment, do you know if your dad actually had any equipment, because a lot of the soldiers attacking the site had no weapons.

@@PanzerPicture he was very lucky in that he landed on DZ V with his equipment/leg bag. He was a rifleman in 12pln C company, Lt Jeffersons pln. He became a mortarman at St Come when they finally had a mortar but not enough men

Say big thx to youre Dad , from 36y old Belgian (flemish) guy

@@stony9974 I wish I could, he passed in 2012 but thank you anyway

@@dougmoodie8713 oh my condolences. You can be very proud! We here need to thank those men/women everyday! Greets

'Sword" wasn't armed like Omaha & was commanded by 1 or 2 elder Troop's almost every troop was HJ who retreated before ( the Canadian's Landed) They fought for less than 20 minute's then had tea. The Big Shots were on Vacation. They never thought anyone would invade during the Storm that preceded the attack.

​@@akatripclaymore.9679Omaha was the most heavily fortified indeed.

It sure is.

Flak

Den Haag and the Zeeland area, those a great job in restoring, but also demolished a lot the last few years, it's wierd that way.

The Longest Day was childishly simple, rather silly, and VERY unbloody. Ridiculous but good family film stuff at the time.

Thank you so much for your comment 👍 I glad you found it informative my friend.

De maps maken is ook een van de leukste dingen om te doen, blij dat iemand er net zo enthousiast over is als ik zelf.

@@PanzerPicture cool man. Waar maak je de kaarten mee in je videos?

De Maps maak ik in photoshop.

Who was your grandfather with - which regiment?

Thank you Alex, I'm glad you enjoy watching the video.

Thank you Rick.

was it silenced by the brits or the french resistance or cause they ran out of ammunition?

@@amossutandi The British small artillery destroyed the 88, after some attempts by other small artillery pieces brought up on the beach and destroyed by the 88. What resistance. The real resistance there was the communist resistance, and it was fully engaged in slowing the armoured divisions - SS and regular army, from moving north to intercept the beach-heads. When success seemed probable, the resistance expanded as if by magic. As happened in Holland and elsewhere. See what Bernard Haitink ha to say about it!

Thank you for the comment and sub, I will have a look at your channel tomorrow because it looks interesting and RU-vid is totally broken with searching for stuff, so you never really find what you want to see.

Thank you Maurice.

There is much more to lovely Normandy than the war tours and dreadful cemeteries.

@@terencefield3204 I'm well-aware of that, Brother but, this was MY military pilgrimage. The gang had just enjoyed a months R&R lapping up the best of France, then it was 4 days all about me, me me.

Bloody right anall mate

Thank you 👍

Thank you for the comment 👍 and I'm glad you enjoyed watching the video.

Inderdaad.

Thanks 👍

Thank you for the comment and sub, I'm glad you enjoy watching the video.

They are indeed and seems that many people forget about this part of the movie, but I remember it the most, just like the Airborne Church tower scenes.

@@PanzerPicture I am going to watch it again! A good excuse! = )

Should read - hindsight bias , Wikipedia - also Rocket J Squirrel quote “military intelligence , a contradiction of terms”

Believe the plan was , the Germans would run out of ammunition

My understanding of history IS that the reason Normandy succeeded was because of the Destroyers pushing close to the coastline and used their 5" guns to give fire support to the landings .

Hindsight does cloud things. While we now know what fortifications were where, on D-Day itself, they didn't, & you wouldn't always know which were manned, or had the most dangerous weapons in. Naval support was used. There are recorded instances of concrete bunkers being destroyed by them, but they would be tiny targets to guns & sights designed to hit a large ship from far away. The most known is when the US destroyers supported at Omaha, when they had to almost ground to get close enough. At other places, cliffs were destroyed by naval gunfire so that men could scramble up them. You may also have an issue with trajectory of high velocity shells, compared to your location out at sea. In one instance, a British battleship did kill a whole German platoon with a single shell (they were moving up to reinforce the beach defences), so it did work. Landing troops would be supposed to have had various fire support, most noticeably tanks, SPGs & artillery. In close would be their various MGs, grenades, mortars, flamethrowers & satchel charges. Inaccurate Bazookas & PIATS could also be used, but they were designed for very close range only while remaining concealed. Setting up a tripod mount isn't what they're designed for (recoilless guns used on jeeps etc came later). Obviously, due to the bad weather/release point of DD tanks at Omaha, the first waves had very little armoured support. British troops had all manner of 'funny' tanks. The US were offered these specialised support tanks, but declined them, just going for DD tanks & SPGs. Troops did get a lot of support, D-Day took years to prepare for, & it did actually work. Bombing isn't as easy as you make it, especially against small camouflaged bunkers, when you're flying at a couple of hundred miles an hour, in bad weather, with the German defences firing at you. Small errors in the plane can throw bombs way off course, & you don't want big holes on the beach.. Burning targets would also reduce visibility. They should have practiced more, but the planes were already being used daily for standard softening up of key locations along the Atlantic wall, so didn't. Allied bombing coordination could have been a lot better. On tactical strikes it was good, but when using medium & heavy bombers, from different commands, they just hadn't developed this enough, as they hadn't used it much before. 14" guns would make massive holes in a beach. You actually need the beach to be undisturbed to allow tanks & vehicles to cross. There are reports of tanks falling into shell holes on the beach & getting stuck. Once the bombers had dropped their loads, you would have a lot must dust & fires making visibility far more difficult. Smokescreens & burning items would be drifting across the beaches to.

These were build by a plan, they had specialized names, but they could be modified to the landscape.

Most of the clips were from 'The Longest Day.'

Thank you 👍

The British had tanks.

@@PanzerPicture eitheir way, they didint go to far, for the Next 2 months.

The allies had broken the german engima codes in 1941. So yeah they knew about a lot of stuff before it happened.

Whilst the Axis could have won WW2, in the West, the Germans (as the main country) had a lot of problems not usually discussed;- - It's economy was in ruins in late 1939. They looked strong, but were actually bankrupt (they had spent everything on building up the armed forces & war economy), & couldn't get certain products. Only by putting their national debt onto conquered countries could they continue. - The Axis had a massive shortfall in oil/fuel for it's war machine (this had never happened before when coal & horse fodder had been the most important for centuries). Hitler understood this, & knew Germany needed Soviet oil. Germany had to attack in 1940 before it's prewar stocks ran out, & only got as far as it did in in 1941 due to taking all the conquered countries strategic fuel reserves. Germany & Rumania couldn't produce enough for themselves, but also had to provide for Italy as well. You'll see a massive fall in territory taken between 1941-42-43 as the Axis didn't have the fuel to traverse vast distances, even when they did have the attacking initiative. - Germany's main power source was coal, which meant when German Army got away from railway locations, it didn't have enough fuel or lorries. A lot of lorries in Barbarossa were ex British captured at Dunkirk, or from occupied countries. They wore out, broke down & couldn't be replaced. - The Allies controlled world trade & access to markets for a lot of the important materials. - German industry, planning & reserves was dedicated to winning by Autumn 1942 at the latest. The fuel supply actually ran out the first time in August 1941 (when the German Army head of Supply said it would, but no one listened to him).When this plan failed, they didn't really have a 'Plan B', except hope that the future 'wonder weapons' & Allies suing for peace after high casualties would save them. - The Axis 'Intelligence' departments completely underestimated both the strength of the Allied armies & industrial power, & the abilities this would give them. - The Allies had far better weather reports & military intelligence. The soviets from late 1942 kept tricking the Germans into where they would attack, & the forces involved, & the Allies managed this to, in the Mediterranean & French invasion location. - Germans had very advanced technology (like the V weapons & Jets), but the Allies also had their own, like penicillin, sonar/asdic, homing torpedoes, mulberry harbours, DD & other specialised armoured vehicles, code breakers, beach surveyors, 4 engine bombers, landing ships, radar, latest manufacturing techniques allowing quickest builds, PLUTO, medical services, specialist aircraft bombs, atomic weapons etc. In June 1944, the Germans believed the bad weather front over the channel meant an invasion wouldn't happen, which is why a lot of their commanders (not just Rommel), weren't at their commands (at least one went off to see his mistress). The Allies didn't attack earlier, as they felt they weren't ready & the German defences and infrastructure hadn't been reduced enough. The Allies knew they had to win the race to get supplies/divisions to the new front. The Allies actually cancelled the invasion on the 5th June due to the bad weather (so it was weather, not Rommel), & afterwards, the rough seas still sunk most of the Omaha DD tanks & some on other beaches.

And the rain is acid and the these spray cains are dangerous and the Ozone Layer is going away and the globe is warming and the sea is rising and the climat is changing, I wonder what it will be in 10 years 😂

@@PanzerPicture none of that has stopped Your ignorance is absolutely pathetic

The Americans were also slaughtered and people love the underdog story.

Maybe 🤔 more men died on Utah and Omaha then all the other allied beaches combined. I find Britts having an inferiority complex when it comes to World War II.