History Blocks

Happy new year, my friends!

"Fury an Easy Eight"

"The Hetzer in the Fog of War"

"A Russian Winter"

"Christmas Truce" World War 1.

"Between the Pines"

“Back through the Ardennes” After the failure of the Ardennes Counteroffensive (16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945), more commonly known as the Battle of the Bulge to the Allies, the Third Reich’s defense of the Western Front crumbled and was in retreat towards Germany. In a twist of fate, the Third Reich would retreat from the same location from which they successfully invaded Western Europe 4 years ago.

German military operations were aimed at denying the Port of Antwerp to the Allied forces, encircling, and destroying the Allies armies; and subsequently forcing the Allies to negotiate a peace treaty that will be favorable to the Axis powers. Strategically, the Ardennes Offensive was one of the most influential battles in WW2 that changed the tide of war in Europe against the Third Reich. It was also the last major counteroffensive launched by the Third Reich in the Western Front.

The Tiger II tank first appeared on battlefield on 18 July 1944 during the Battle of Normandy in France against the Allies. During the Ardennes Offensive, at least 150 Tiger IIs were distributed to 4 heavy panzer units. Most of them were lost during the counteroffensive.

The Tiger II was also informally known as the King Tiger or Konigstiger in German. A little less than 500 Tiger II were built in 1944-45. They were mostly used by German heavy tank battalions of the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS. It was an extremely expensive tank to build. At 800,000 Reichsmark, a Tiger II tank costed as many as three and a half Tiger I or the American Pershing tank.

The Tiger II was an impressive tank but appeared too late and too few to affect the outcome of the war. Depicted in the picture is a Tiger II tank at the Western Front.

“Fists versus Guns” The Boxer Rebellion between 1899 and 1901 marked the peak of anti-foreign sentiment in Qing China that had built up after half a decade of foreign incursions from the First O***m War in 1839 through to the Sino-Japanese War of 1895. The uprising was initiated by Chinese militias formed around members with martial arts background. Hence, the westernized name, Boxer.

The Boxers targeted mainly foreigners and Christians in northern China, destroying properties and the movement became increasingly violence towards foreign persons. By mid-1900, convinced that they were protected by divine forces and invulnerable to fi****ms, the Boxers converged on Beijing to "support the Qing government and exterminate the foreign devils". Initially, the Qing government paid lip service to quelling the rebellion but changed to one increasingly supportive of it. In June 1900, Empress Dowager Cixi, in the name of the Qing emperor, declared war on Britain, Russia, France, Germany, Italy, Austria-Hungary, USA and Japan. The foreign legations in Beijing were besieged and an international force of some 56,000 men and 50 warships from the Eight-Nation Alliance was dispatched to lift the siege.

The international force reached Beijing within 2 months, forcing the Qing court to flee westward to Xi’an. Beijing, Tianjin, and other cities in northern China were occupied for more than a year by the international force under the command of German General Alfred Graf von Waldersee. On 7 September 1901, the Qing government signed the Boxer Protocol effectively ending the Boxer Rebellion. China had to pay 450 million teals of silver in reparations. It was said to have been computed based on 1 teal of silver each for the population of China at that time.

Depicted in the picture is a joint artillery position of the international expeditionary force in action. It comprised of German, French, and British units.

“Porsche Tiger” Tiger (P) or more formally VK45.01 (P) was the design proposed by Porsche for a German heavy tank. In 1941, German automobile manufacturers, Henschel and Porsche, were invited to submit proposals for a heavy tank equipped with the high velocity 8.8 cm Kwk 36 L/56 gun to be housed in a Krupp turret. Henschel’s design eventually was selected and was mass produced as the renowned Tiger 1.

About 100 chassis of the Tiger (P) were built, of which about 90 of them were converted into the Ferdinand/Elefant heavy tank destroyer. Only 1 completed Tiger (P) served in combat as a command tank for the 653rd Heavy Panzerjager Battalion that was formed in 1943. It was said to have been deployed during the Battle of Kursk (July-August 1943). It was lost on the Eastern Front.

The Tiger (P) was powered by gasoline-electric engines as opposed to the more conventional gasoline drivetrain used in the Tiger 1 and other German tanks. The underdeveloped use of electric engines in tanks, difficulty in securing sufficient materials for the mass production of gasoline-electric engines as well as the Tiger (P) being less maneuverable than Henschel’s prototype during trials were some of the reasons commonly said for Henschel’s design being chosen for mass production.

Note: Tiger (P) depicted in the picture was built by Cobi Afrika Korps.

“One small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind” On July 20, 1969, the Apollo 11 Lunar Module Eagle landed on the moon’s surface with astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin onboard. They were the first humans to land on the lunar surface and Apollo 11 (July 16–24, 1969) was the first spaceflight that have landed men on the moon.

Between 1958 and 1965, both the USA and USSR have launched numerous unmanned missions to the moon. The first man-made object to touch the moon was the USSR's Luna 2, on September 13, 1959. The first of these missions were ‘impact’ missions where the spacecrafts were crashed into the moon. Second were the ‘flyby’ and ‘orbit’ missions which retuned many photographs of the lunar surface. Many of these early lunar missions have failed, but they have paved the way for the success of Apollo 11 in 1969. The USSR's Luna 16 unmanned mission also managed to return with lunar rock samples the following year in 1970.

To date, a total of 12 men have landed on the moon; all of them were American astronauts. The last moon landing mission was by Apollo 17 on December 14, 1972. In addition to the great technological developments made after WW2, the political and military race between the USA and USSR during the Cold War had undoubtedly propelled men’s quest for space.

Since the early-2000s, men’s interest in the moon has returned with China leading in the number of lunar missions. The USA, EU, Japan, India, and Israel have launched unmanned missions to the moon, with a mix of successes and failures since. In 2017, NASA’s Artemis Program was set up under the Space Policy Directive 1. The program aims to return American astronauts to the Moon, specifically the lunar south pole, in the mid-2020s. The program was endorsed by the Biden Administration in February 2021.

“FIBUA” Fighting in Built Up Area is the term for military operations in urban population centers such as towns and cities. The presence of civilians and the complexity of urban terrain complicate operations. Artillery and air fire support superiority are often negated in the urban setting if civilian casualties were to be limited. In addition, maneuverability of armored forces is often constrained and vulnerable to ambushes by infantry anti-tank weapons in built up areas.

In WW2, the means employed to achieve success in urban operations were often unrestricted. Blanket artillery and aerial bombardment often preceded ground operations. Many major cities were laid to waste. Despite the enormous amount of indirect fire support employed in many WW2 urban battles, significant fighting was still carried out on the ground by infantry troops supported by vehicles such as the Russian SU-76M self-propelled gun depicted in the picture.

One of the more well-known and ferociously fought urban battles was the Battle of Berlin (1945). Most of central Berlin comprised of city blocks, wide straight roads, and amenities buildings. Following arguably the largest artillery bombardment in history was the ground advance of the Red Army into Berlin. Learned from its urban fighting experience on the way to Berlin, the Soviet organized its forces into mixed arms tactical combat groups of supported by field guns and infantry support vehicles that are suited for urban fighting. The Third Reich’s defense involved placing snipers and machine guns on high floors against the Soviet infantry, and panzerfausts in the cellar to ambush Russian tanks. The battle was essentially fought house-to-house, roof-to-roof at extremely high cost to both militaries and the civilian population of Berlin.

Note: Background credits to an unknown artiste who had colorized an actual WW2 photo.

“Stukas” were one of the most recognizable icons of the lightning war (Blitzkrieg) launched by the Third Reich during the early period of WW2 in Europe. Close air support provided by dive bombers or medium bombers was an important tactic in Blitzkrieg to rapidly disorientate the defenders’ defenses in support of the armored and motorized ground units breaking through the opponent's defenses and finally annihilating the opponent in a decisive battle.

The Third Reich’s military successes during WW2 were said to have rested heavily on the Luftwaffe’s control of the skies. Generally, the Luftwaffe was ability to control the air in the early phases of the war until 1941 when air superiority begun to tilt in favor of the Allies. Allied air superiority became a significant hindrance to German operations during the later years of the war.

Stuka (Sturzkampfflugzeug, German for “dive bomber”) is the popular name for the iconic German dive bomber, Junkers Ju 87, introduced in 1936, first used in the Spanish Civil War (1937) and was in the service of the Luftwaffe until the end of the European war. The Stukas were highly successful close air support aircrafts. They led the air assaults in the invasion of Poland in September 1939. Stukas were also critical to the Third Reich’s military actions against Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France in 1940.

However, the Stukas required air cover from fighters such as the Messerschmitts for them to operate effectively. Once the Luftwaffe lost control of the skies, the Stukas became vulnerable to Allied fighters. An estimated 6,000-7,000 Stukas were built between 1936-1945.