Archived I'd like to see this used at a house vote on gun control (magaimg.net)
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Posted by: antiliberalsociety
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Archived I'd like to see this used at a house vote on gun control (magaimg.net)
submitted ago by antiliberalsociety
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[–] i_scream_trucks 0 points 9 points 9 points (+9|-0) ago (edited ago)
im trying to look this up myself. It looks like there is a whole bunch of stuff being conflated.
Only WWII reference of 'nightingale' i can find is this which was a recording of nightingales that almost had to be cancelled because you could hear RAF bombers flying in the background (listening to it now cant hear them but its a long sound clip) and they were worried germans might hear it and pinpoint where theyre coming from. or the other thing i can find is a book about two sisters in occupied france called 'Nightingale'
HOWEVER -
This is absolutely feasible and actually makes perfect sense that something like this would be built. Especially when you think about -
Operation Fortitude/Bodyguard which involved tens of thousands of inflateable tanks planes cannons armoured cars etc been constructed and then placed in a couple of different places around england, (Edinburgh to imply an invasion of occupied Norway was being readied, and around hte south coast to imply an invasion at Calais) to do a number of things - 1) to confuse the fuck out of any germans who might be watching into believing that forces were amassing in places other than near Southhampton (which was where a good part of the genunie normandy landing force was being stationed) and 2) to make the germans believe that the amount of materiel available to the allies was vastly bigger than it actually was, was a legit thing and did happen.
Youe also gotta remember, the coasts of england and france are easily visible to each other on a clear day especially between Dover and Calais (motherfuckers actually swim that shit. Too many people actually do multiple round trips between the two in the same swim fucking mad bastards), at ground level, by telescopes, so it wouldnt be too difficult to get up a bit higher and get a better look a bit further past the coast. You just didnt want to fly over unless you had to because you risked being shot down. German aircraft taking off from the coast of France had a maximum loiter time of 30 minutes as it is, anything after that they would be ditching in the sea or in a field in the UK. And the RAF raped the fuck out of the Luftwaffe as it was thanks to Chain Home and... well... the fact their backs were against the wall.
Another thing to remember, was during Normandy, toy clickers were given to every soldier that they were actually using to announce to people around htem they were friendlies, so the use of sounds and stuff like that to confuse or aid in battle. absoutely was done. Another example was 'Window' which confused the fuck out of German radar stations... all that involved, was dumping tons of shredded aluminium out of a bomb bay door when they came into range of german radar, germans shat themselves thinking massive armadas of tens of thousands of aircraft were coming over in huge formations which meant they couldnt actually pinpoint the genuine article. The point i make here, is that anything and everything that could potentially be used as an advantage, was, the simpler the device, the better. Think of the sock bombs in 'Saving Private Ryan' sock, plus axle grease, plus the explosives from mortar shells = stickybombs sticky enough to stick to tank treads long enough to blow a hold in the side of the tank - that shit was also legit and borne out of necessity as were australian bully beef can grenades in WWI.
Half of the reason Normandy even worked started off by a very recently deceased body being dumped into the english channel with a few genuine looking documents on it that made hitler believe the invasion was going to be back up around calais, and he sent Rommel and his tank brigades away from Normandy. That dead body was actually a very recently dead criminal, but they had to get exactly the right kind of looking body, in exactly the right condition, in exactly the right size, to be able to match it to genuine traceable military documents and history of a real living person, and the person had to have died of something that looked absolutely legitimate for them to end up A) with those kinds of documents on them and B) to end up in the middle of the english channel in just the right place so the germans found them and didnt instantly jump to the conclusion that someone was fucking with them it had to absolutely look legit, make sense, and in a way where they didnt even think about why that person was there at that time, so the germans legit thought they had stumbled across important intel rather than disinformation which both sides were brilliant at. (The germans learned from the Russians, the brits had been doing it as a matter of military policy for centuries)
48 hours notice for hitler of confirmation of invasion forces massing would have been an absolute unmitigated disaster for the allies and would most likely have resulted in them being wiped out on the beaches. Instead, they were able to create a beachhead, and get off those beaches before Rommel could get to the coast and infantry divisions could be backed up by extra troops. By the time the invasion was on, it was already too late and the allies broke out from the beachheads before re-inforcements could arrive. The Bosch French (german allied occupied french) didnt for the most part even fire a shot, they surrended instantly anyway (theres a couple of interesting stories about that, once french regiment being wiped out due to a miscommunication, the ranking officer was ready to surrender and didnt want shots fired, one of his juniors mishead and gave the order to fire, they engaged, and they got wiped out by the english), and the rest is history.
So TL;Dr im a bit of a WWII buff, ive heard lots of stories, havent heard the one OP is on about, definitely havent heard of a 'Nightingale' operation or invention (there is currently an Operation Nightingale with the UK armed forces but thats to do with getting injured or disabled veterans into archeological digs as rehabilitation) but it absolutely sounds like a totally legit thing that would not only have not been all that difficult to build but absolutely makes sense that you might use something like that as a very fucking scary diversion tactic, especially if it goes on for a half hour... throw a few of them around and it would absolutely sound like you had a major battle brewing.
I mean fuck, Barnes Wallis built a backwards spinning bomb to bounce over torpedo nets so it will come to rest against, then sink to the bottom of a dam wall to take out the dam (Dambusters/Operation Chastise, attacks against the Mohne, Edersee, and Sorpe dams to try and flood the entire Ruhr industrial area, great movie, great operation, even better 'Go' code - "Nigger") plus the gear they needed to fly it at exactly the right altitude so it would actually do the job they wanted, so building a little wooden board with enough explosives on it to simulate a battle would surely be small bikkies here.
What it all achieved was the first successful amphibious landing from england into france in 800 years
LEL BUT ALL OF THAT IS IRRELEVANT BECAUSE I MISREAD AND DIDNT SEE ITS A REFERENCE TO THE VIETNAM WAR - Operation Nightingale - US Vietnam war related op throws up a recruitment drive for nurses for vietnam, and 'the nightingales song' just gives the same hit on the book about a bunch of us military people, no link i can find refers to an explosive device of any type let alone the aforementioned powder train so id be willing to bet it exists/existed but its either known under a much different formal name or it wasnt an actual military issued thing per-se, just something knocked up in the field they gave a nickname to, but again, still a totally legit thing to do i would think.
Sorry for text wall, i was enjoying the research :D
[–] DeliciousOnions 0 points 2 points 2 points (+2|-0) ago
I was enjoying your text wall so much I forgot it was Vietnam as well!
[–] satisfyinghump ago
'Sorry for the text wall' are you kidding?!?!?! This was by far one of the most informative and exciting comments I've ever read on voat!!! And I'm glad you ignored the original post was about Vietnam and you posted mostly about ww2!!! Such interesting facts, and infectious. The way you write, it's clear you are extremely excited and interested about this topic.
Again, thank YOU!!! I myself love this sort of military history, not just conventional weapons but adhoc ones created on the front lines for some specific threat, or the insane logistics of creating a plan that's along the lines of a fucking prank (inflatable tank column haha!!!) Is impressive.
If you wouldnt mind typing a bit more, you have any books youd recommend to someone like me, who enjoys this historical stuff and would love to learn more about it. Any titles would be appreciated!!!
Btw that "dam buster" bomb was incredible, I saw some special on it on tv and just thinking about it makes me see how difficult the problem was. A bomber flying forward must be able to drop a bomb that does NOT continue forward, and it needs to jump and it needs to go backwards. Hehe... some geniuses we had back then!
Thanks again for the fun & informative post!
[–] i_scream_trucks 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago (edited ago)
Ill get digging. Gimme half an hour or so.
Thanks for your comment by the way, its rare i get one like that. Ive always been right into military history... and actually older european history.
Ill try and remember a few books ive read. If you can find anything that is written by or has been waved anywhere near Adolf Galland thats a good start (Germanys top fighter ace in WWII, he liked to write and was involved in quite a few post war movies, i think he was one of the technical advisers for the fucking incredible "Battle of Britain") - "Reach for the Sky" by Paul Brickhill tells Douglas 'Tin Legs' Baders story... he was a double amputee that was still a fighter ace. Hrm.... yeah... ill get back to ya.
Thing is about WWII stuff, theres fucktons of whacky conspiracy theories (hitlers UFOs, Vril, etc) but theres so much legit interesting stuff that honestly you dont even need to get into the fantasy stuff... and most of the lesser known but backed and evidenced stories actually explain most of the really whacky conspiracy theories anyway.
EDIT - Some books for ya -
Eagle Day - Richard Collier - has a bunch of first hand eyewitness accounts of the Battle of Britain.
Roald Dahl - Flying Solo - he actually talks about his experiences in the armed forces transporting aircraft around (my grandfather had the same job, delivering finished Spitfires to outfits in North Africa)
The Odessa File - Fredrick Forsyth (fiction but tells the tale of SS officers hiding in plain sight in post war germany, talks about 'Die Spinne' and german ratlines including references to the catholic church who offered assistance to fleeing nazis based on an apparently legit organisation.
If you want to understand what Australians are all about and why we think a little bit differently to americans and the british, look up anything thats close to a biography that involves 'Gallipolli' - A decent film to watch which gives you an idea of what it was like for us is Mel Gibsons first movie, literally 'Gallipolli' - Put it this way, Churchill himself then First Lord of the Admiralty landed ANZAC troops up against sheer cliff faces with a pissy little bit of beach overlooked by tens of thousands of ottoman turks as a 'diversion' so british troops could land at Souvla bay further up the coast, which they did, without any kind of battle what so ever. They then refused to send british troops to back up the Anzacs who were literally getting murdered and that resulted in months and months of sheer murder. Thats pretty much the birth of independant australian culture right there. We didnt have to fight the UK for our freedom, we had to fight the enemy so that the british didnt have to for our freedom. By the time the other colonies had to start taking up arms against the british to get their freedom (think the Malayan emergency) we were given ours wholesale without any kind of argument. We did our time in the Boer War, WWI, WWII, Malaya, then when we finally shook off england america drags us into Vietnam. Another anecdote that tells you what it was like for us was - Australian soldiers were forced to eat british rations that were not the newest stuff that was supplied to the armed forces, while when they were able to actually overrun turkish trenches they found..... Australian bully beef. Turkish soldiers were eating australian made food that had either been bought through suppliers or stolen from the british QMs and supply trains, while australians werent even getting the fresh shit rations, which in the heat of the dardannelles, just got worse and worse over time.
The Charge - David W Cameron - Tells the story of the last bayonets out cavalry charge in history. 4th Australian Light Horse Brigades charge against the Ottomans at the Battle of Beersheba. Had the battle not been won on that day, the entire african campaign would have been lost due to literally no water for the allies. It had been pretty much fought to a stalemate, so the aussies got on their horses, fixed bayonets, and went fucking apeshit, covering the ground, managed to break straight through their lines, turned, outflanked the turks, and terrorised the fuck out of them. Beersheeba and its water source fell, which allowed Alamein to fall, then the rest of Palestine, and alllowed the british to claim victory over the entire middle east. That cavalry charge is celebrated yearly here in melbourne across the street from 'Victoria Barracks' at the Cenotaph (i used to be a senior security guard at that barracks, very very fucking old place built during boer war, lots of very very interesting and old graffiti in the flag storage room below the flagstaff above the entrance. was very proud to have the job or raising the Australian and Tri-Forces ensign most days i was on duty.)
Oh, im not sure if there is a book for it but there is a movie starring David Jason called 'All The Kings Men' which is based in gallipolli, tells the story of the 1/5th batallion Norfolk regiment, BEF - The original story was that 230 soldiers walked out into smoke on patrol and were 'never seen again' but in actual fact got split apart and massacred in several different places, kind of originally got told as a 'sad mystery tale of a missing military division' but when you actually read into it is absolutely a case of british military incompetence inexperience and ineptness allowing them to first get lost, then divided, then picked off bit by bit until they were all done. Theres a bit of a sad movie with David Jason that pulls the heart strings a bit (especially because i love that dude) but the story they tell is horseshit. Still, decent movie if taken with a grain of salt.
The Machine Gunners - Robert Westall. I think its more focused at young adults and kids but by fuck did i love this book when i was a kid. Tells about a bunch of kids during the blitz in London, they come across a downed HE-111 and take the machine gun from it (and a flight cap from a very dead pilot), build themselves their own little military fort, and start make believing in theyre part of the war.... im not sure if im misremembering it but i think part of the plot was they actualyl accidentally shoot someone with the gun (proper turret machine guns here, not infantry) very cool book.
I could probably think of a bunch more but theres a start if youre interested in any of htat. They were just the first ones off the top of my head.
Enjoy.
[–] Awisegrasshopper ago
Nice work! I don't mind walls.
[–] VicariousJambi ago
I found the book
It's called "SOG: A Photo History Of The Secret Wars"
https://www.amazon (dot) com/SOG-Photo-History-Secret-Wars/dp/1581605978
But I'm having trouble finding anything on the nightengale devices
[–] i_scream_trucks 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago (edited ago)
im willing to bet it was something that was made up in the field as an ad hoc device by an explosives expert and was never a formal military issued thing in itself. This is vietnam war era and we are well past knowing about agent orange and the kinds of shit that caused, i doubt there would be much 'top secret' stuff from back then left to reveal, and even so, that kind of thing you wouldnt think of really needing a hell of a lot of er... protection to keep it a secret, its just a bang board not some secret squirrel knew kind of radar, or some kind of holographic projector device AKA Quaid in Total Recall, so if it was a legit thing, it would be listed somewhere with some kind of model/serial number, or its just something that was cobbled together in the field as a bright idea borne out of necessity.
wouldnt be a hell of a lot different to throwing a grenade to one side, or over the top of an enemy, not to try and kill them with the grenade, but to make them think the grenade has come from a different direction and get them moving the direction you want them to - or for intimidation, if you ad cut communications lines in you might get, "holy fuck Thahn Nguyen what sized fucking army just took on the units at our flanks? fuck thats a lot of gunfire man..... and i cant get a hold of them over the radio... i think we fucked now, do we get the fuck out because we about to be wiped out by a massive OPFOR or do we hunker down and see just how large it is?"