To: Jack Hydrazine
Stukas as flying artillery, mobile infantry, Hannomags, massed panzers.
I believe this is how Joachim Pieper’s outfit got the nickname ‘Blowtorch Battalion.’
They went through Russian villages quickly, firing them up, then hitting isolated Russian units from the flanks. Strange as it seems Guerdian & Co. may have coopted the tactic from the French, DeGaulle among others.
4 posted on
10/01/2013 7:25:04 PM PDT by
tumblindice
(America's founding fathers: All armed conservatives.)
To: tumblindice
The best ideas are always stolen.
5 posted on
10/01/2013 7:32:14 PM PDT by
Jack Hydrazine
(IÂ’m not a Republican, I'm a Conservative! Pubbies haven't been conservative since before T.R.)
To: tumblindice
It was actually Pieper who was called “Blowtorch’’ because of his penchant for locking women and kids and/or prisoners of war in a church or barn and then setting it on fire. It was a favorite tactic of the SS. Pieper got his in the though.He was living in France in 1976 and died when his home was firebombed. Suspicion had the Bader-Meinhof gang as the culprits. All in all a fitting and ironic end for the "Blowtorch''.
7 posted on
10/01/2013 8:32:41 PM PDT by
jmacusa
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