French Hotchkiss D-Day pic.

[Brian Kowalski]

Saw this on the Life magazine color D-day pics page, thought i would share. Pretty neat picture.

[Turbo Archie]

Nice picture!!

Not sure I understand it though..
Didn't we bomb the crap out of that beach before we landed?
Not sure I would want to take up that position with that obsolete MG and no cover.


What kind of Mauser is that?

http://www.k98kforum.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=27712&d=1329148368

...

[RyanE]

The rifle looks like a Mannlicher, not a Mauser. I think it is a Dutch M95 infantry rifle. Very cool!

[Turbo Archie]

I wasn't going to post Mauser because I saw that TG, but did anyway.. doh!

:facepalm:


Still looks like a makeshift position set up after the invasion/bombing using obsolete weapons :facepalm:
Also looks like Bill is missing a box of grenades..


..

[ditch68]

Yeah, that grenade box is something.

Archie, think of it in a more "fluid" sense. Yeah, there were prepared positions, and so on. But Infantry combat is very fluid. Movement is constant, and emplacement and displacement is constant. Nothing good happens if you are sitting on your butt.

The position pictured could have been occupied for a whole 5 minutes or 5 hours before the gun was abandoned or the crew killed or captured, unlikely they sat there all morning taking a beating. Know what I mean? It is a photographic "snapshot" literally, but also just a snapshot of time. And not the entire whole of Normandy was left as a patchwork of shell craters that morning. Known hard positions were hit, but there is plenty of ground that just was left for infantry to deal with. Air power and artillery only goes so far, especially in 1944, not at all like today!

Jeff