BlackSheepTwoOneFour

I wish you the best of luck on the book. I can't see myself spending $80 on the book but I will keep an eye out once my local libraries get them in their collection to borrow. Who knows... maybe Barnes & Nobles (if they stock them) will move them to the clearance aisle if they don't sell well within 3 years time of book release.

It looks interesting to read though.

 

That is me too. My hobby budget aint what it used to be. I'm definately a bargain hunter nowadays. But I am a big Sherman fan so hopefully things will work out.

I'm actually engaged and used my wedding fund to finance the travel and research for the book- have a wonderful fiance who believes in the book and supported me all the way in getting it to the finish line.

So you all would be contributing to my "domestic tranquility" in supporting the book when it comes out! Ha ha!

Best, Christian M. DeJohn

"When I get to heaven
Saint Peter's gonna say
"How'd you earn your livin' boy?
How'd you earn your pay?"
I'll reply with a whole lot of anger,
"I made my living as a CAVALRY TANKER!
Blood, guts, sex and danger
That's the life of a CAVALRY TANKER!"

"When I get to hell
Satan's gonna say
"How'd you earn your livin' boy?
How'd you earn your pay?"
I'll reply with a boot to his face
"I made my living sending souls to this place!"

Thanks, I stand corrected.  I have seen a bit of footage of our planes shooting rockets (the HVAR?) at tanks, and read where Rommel, et al. complained about what our airpower was doing to his precious panzers.   I just read a book on the battle of Kursk (Blood and Armor, great read) and it seems the Germans used airpower to great effect against tanks.  

Well I think that it's a matter of degree. Both were very deadly, aircraft do operate under a whole series of limitations.

pemihiker

Thanks, I stand corrected.  I have seen a bit of footage of our planes shooting rockets (the HVAR?) at tanks, and read where Rommel, et al. complained about what our airpower was doing to his precious panzers.   I just read a book on the battle of Kursk (Blood and Armor, great read) and it seems the Germans used airpower to great effect against tanks.  

 

Yes, the Brits were better at it. They had their 60lb rockets off of Typhoons from Normandy onwards, and in the late stages of the Desert campaign, Hurricane Mk II Ds with 40mm underwing guns. US aircraft at best had 20mm guns on early Mustangs, or mostly 4x, 6x, or 8x .50 cal.s. Great for soft skins but pretty harmless to buttoned up AFVs. The US did not start fielding the 5" HVAR until later 1944 or so. And rockets were far less accurate than gunfire. The dispersion gets worse with distance and getting close for an accurate shot puts the aircraft into the effective envelope of light AAA.

Yes, and three hours flight time for 15 seconds time over target does have an effect.

One of his last combat missions, you'll maybe remember this Hobbs, but my F-in-law flew four hours up to the Brenner Pass from Pisa Italy, made one firing run over a tunnel boring train, then flew four hours back.

The Hobbyist

...yes...

 

FWD: "SGT Christian DeJohn and the Cost of Standing up for Free Speech-"

https://www.thefire.org/sergeant-christian-dejohn-and-the-cost-of-standing-up-for-free-speech/ 

If anything, he should have wrote a book about the scandal surrounding the F-35. Talk about 9 years and billions of taxpayers dollars later, and it's still not perfect. 

From the book's Forward by COL David Johnson, AUS (Ret.):

"This is an angry book, and rightly so, based on the evidence author DeJohn has uncovered in his exhaustive research."

"DeJohn brings the voice of the American enlisted soldier into the discussion about the failure of one of the key US fighting vehicles of WWII- the M4 Sherman tank."

"DeJohn brings the pragmatic views of the Cavalry Sergeant to the Sherman tank controversy."

"As DeJohn eloquently points out, Allied tankers paid a heavy price of the US Army's prewar institutional failures."

Among the more bizarre online criticisms of our best-selling book "For Want Of A Gun: The Sherman Tank Scandal of WWII" is the claim that the Sherman tank- which often burned when hit- couldn't have been nicknamed a "Ronson," after the cigarette lighter that "lights every time."

The online haters and armchair quarterbacks are attacking the book by claiming that no GI, Tommy, German soldier, etc., could have used this slogan, because (they claim) Ronson advertisements didn't use it until the 1970s.

Hi Christian,

You've got some good reviews on Amazon. I really think you can let the book speak for itself at this point. Your tone of defensiveness doesn't do it or you any positive things.

If I had no prior knowledge of the book and saw it on Amazon, I'd probably buy it. As it is, now it becomes an exercise in "let's see what all the fuss is about".

Let your work speak for itself, sir. I'm an architect, if I were to defend my work I'd be running all over town.

Communications in that era were far different, and slower, than today. I can see some US soldiers being familiar with an advertising slogan from that era. Perhaps even some Commonwealth troops as well, if Ronsons were advertised and sold where they lived. But not any Axis troops. Especially the Germans. The press and radio was quite controlled by the Party from the time that they took power. I have read of the Germans calling the M4 the "Tommy cooker". 

But then again German tanks were also gasoline powered and burned quite well when penetrated. Their own complaints of the Mk.III and Mk.IV compared to the T-34 during the Barbarossa combat is testimony to that. And even into 1945, if you watch the well known footage of the Köln Cathedral Panther show that tank catching fire very quickly upon penetration. 

Thanks, brother- you're a class act! I'm sure more people in Houston would be safer if they were in buildings you designed!

Quite an adventure to have a book out, but the sheer personal hatred (especially from those who haven't read it) is stunning...I'm a disabled Army Veteran with relatives buried in Arlington, but I've rec'd online death threats and called a Nazi because I'm supposedly "unpatriotic" for looking at WWII in a fresh light, away from the decades of propoganda!

My wife and I were on our honeymoon when she noticed that one of the hatchet job "reviews" on Amazon was posted...four days before the book was even published! It came out 30 MAY, but this "review" was posted on 26 May. The Guiness Book of World Records needs to be calling him to document his psychic ability to "review" a 500-page book four days before it's published, without seeing or reading it.

AUSTanker

Among the more bizarre online criticisms of our best-selling book "For Want Of A Gun: The Sherman Tank Scandal of WWII" is the claim that the Sherman tank- which often burned when hit- couldn't have been nicknamed a "Ronson," after the cigarette lighter that "lights every time."

The online haters and armchair quarterbacks are attacking the book by claiming that no GI, Tommy, German soldier, etc., could have used this slogan, because (they claim) Ronson advertisements didn't use it until the 1970s.

In seconds, you can Google a Ronson cigarette ad from the Saturday Evening Post. Notice the slogan "Light Every Time." The date? 1927!! So by 1945, Allied and Axis soldiers would have familiar with this slogan for almost two decades.

Our book has over 1300 footnotes, extensively referenced- each individual chapter has more footnotes than most entire tank books. But why let facts get in the way of a good hate, right?

 

I did do some online research about this Ronson ad. This one-time ad was in 1929 where it says "It's a shame to take the money A Ronson lights every time".  This logo was not used again until after the war. So I really doubt that Allied and Axis soldiers would have been familier with an one-time ad from 10 years before the war started.

He is a link to some more info on Ronsons: https://tankandafvnews.com/2015/04/28/from-the-editor-lights-first-every-time/

I believe this was a myth created after the war. Kind of like calling a M4A3E2 assault tank a "Jumbo".

http://amps-armor.org/SiteReviews/ShowReview.aspx?id=4114&tf=4&sf=0&mf=-1&rf=-1&nf&df&p=1&s=-4

AMPS posted a review of this horrible book and it looks like it is full of errors.

Yup, reference back to my very first reply in this post.  It looks like I was pretty much on the mark.

Yeah, read the review yesterday. Thanks for posting it IWM. 

Confirms what I'd kinda figured about this book......