PzKpfw I Ausf. A in Spain
Check out some pre WWII Italian armor here: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-vetscor/1280986/posts
The Spanish Insurgents keep moving forward.
Reply #2 is another story by Herbert L. Matthews, and it sounds a little implausible:
The defenders had rifles and one machine gun, but no extra ammunition and of course no food or water. . . The Insurgents cut loose at them with everything they had, which meant heavy and light artillery, tanks in waves and columns of men. But the defenders beat back everything. Six tank assaults were driven off, which was a considerable feat, considering that no anti-tank guns were available.
Those must have been some pretty crappy tanks.
Reply #3Concerns the fate of Insurgent spies caught by the Loyalists. "Fascist Hymns?" Somebody remind me - who are the good guys in this struggle?
German tanks in the Spanish Civil War were Mark Is [twin MGs in the turret], and the Mark II[i mg, ix 29mm cannon]. Both were very luightly armored. Although the Germans used them [in incewasingly diminishing roles] in 1940, and 1941; they were being superceded by the Mark III[50mm cannon, and the Mark IV[75 mm howitzer, replaced w/ longbarrel 75mm gun], as well as the t38 [Czech model] p-anzer.
Italian tanks were either tankettes [like Bren carriers, but far less robust] or tanks that should have, in Italian, been called the equivalent of ‘crap’. Italian tanks in North Africa had sandbags in them to stop enemy rounds.
They could have gone to the hills, returning when the Insurgent wave swept by, but they chose to flee with what little belongings they could carry, abandoning their homes. That may be a commentary on what the Spanish peasant thinks of the Insurgents. . .
On the other hand:
The condemned were Carmen Tronchoni, 22 years old, a State employee; Jose Vielsa and Carlos Garcia, both majors in the regular army and professed Rebel sympathizers.
God bless Franco.
Let's see, before Franco invaded the Republicans were executing priests and monks, raping and murdering nuns, looting churches, taking over private businesses and in imprisoning the owners and managers.
Then Franco's troops invaded and began to systematically execute all mayors, town councilmen, union leaders, anybody who was denounced by anybody who owned a blue shirt (Spanish blood feuds can go back a long time) and oh yes, almost of anybody they captured who had a bruise on their right shoulder.
Good guys? What good guys.
“Those must have been some pretty crappy tanks.”
Found it! They were Soviet T-26 tanks, several hundred shipped by Stalin to the Loyalists:
http://libraryautomation.com/nymas/soviet_tank_operations_in_the_sp.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-26
PzKpfw I Ausf. A in Spain
Check out some pre WWII Italian armor here: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-vetscor/1280986/posts
The fascists were supported by Hitler, the loyalists by Stalin, so who were the “good guys”?
We tend to forget, if we ever really knew, because we look at 1938 through the telescope of 1939 - 1945.
And we see Hitler's conquest of Europe coming, and we see the Holocaust coming, and we see the future deaths of around 35 million Europeans, who didn't necessarily have to die in agony.
And so we consider Hitler to be the Great Satan personified, while Stalin still today is sometimes old “Uncle Joe.”
But the reality of 1938 was vastly, vastly different.
In 1938, Hitler had five concentration camps, with maybe 30,000 prisoners, who were treated roughly, but not mass murdered.
In 1938, Stalin had nearly 500 Gulags, with millions of prisoners, of whom about a million per year perished.
In 1938, Hitler had invaded no one except the German Rhineland and German Austria, both of which apparently welcomed Hitler's troops.
In 1938, Stalin had already conquered all of the non-Russian republics of the Soviet Union, and had even already invaded Poland (in 1923 if I remember right. The Poles kicked his *ss out).
So, in 1938, most serious observers (i.e., Churchill) were only beginning to understand that Hitler represented the more dangerous IMMEDIATE threat to western civilization.
Many, understandably, saw Hitler as the antidote to Stalin's horrors.
No one then, and few even today fully understood that Stalin was the Old Master and Hitler his precocious young pupil.
Imho, of course...