Jack Loydd

Portsmouth FC, Football, Kansas City Chiefs, Boxing, Music, Jack Daniels, Beer, History.

[England @England]

A warm @Chiefs welcome for our #ThreeLions 🥁

[Jack Loydd @JackLoydd]

@cinema4yu How are films like the great escape and a bridge too far not on here?

[Voices of WW2 @VoicesofWW2]

On this day in 1942, the Germans fired the largest artillery shell in the history of warfare.

It weighed seven tons.

The gun was called Schwerer Gustav, "Heavy Gustav," and it was the single most insane object the Wehrmacht ever built. It was 47 meters long. It weighed 1,350 tons. It fired an 800 millimeter shell, two and a half feet across the bore. It required two parallel railway tracks just to support its frame. Setting it up on those tracks took four days and 250 men. Operating it required 2,500 support personnel, including dedicated flak units and an entire battalion of guards.

Hitler had ordered it built in 1937 to crack the Maginot Line.

By the time it was finished, the Maginot Line had been bypassed and France had fallen. So Hitler decided to use it on Sevastopol instead.

Sevastopol was the Soviet Black Sea fortress in the Crimea. It had been under siege for 250 days. The defenders had withdrawn into concrete bunkers and naval gun emplacements blasted out of solid limestone by the Imperial Russian Navy in the 1850s. Some of the bunkers were a hundred feet below ground.

Erich von Manstein, commanding the German 11th Army, did not have the infantry to take Sevastopol by storm. So on June 2 he began the largest concentrated artillery bombardment in the history of warfare.

He massed more than 600 guns on a 22 mile front. He brought in two 600mm self-propelled siege mortars named Thor and Odin, each of which fired a shell longer than a man is tall. He brought in a 420mm Gamma mortar that had been built for the Kaiser in 1912 and put back in service for the occasion.

And in a custom-built railway cutting east of the city, on its dual track, Schwerer Gustav fired its first round at 5:35 in the morning.

The shell traveled 47 kilometers in the air and detonated against a Soviet ammunition magazine called the White Cliff. Soviet engineers had blasted the magazine 30 meters into solid rock under Severnaya Bay and believed it was indestructible.

Gustav fired nine shells at the White Cliff over the course of the day. The ninth one penetrated the rock and detonated the magazine.

Soviet survivors described a column of smoke and rock four thousand feet tall, and the whole of Sevastopol harbor lifting and falling like a tide. The bay itself shook for ten minutes.

The five-day bombardment that began on June 2 fired more than 42,000 shells into Sevastopol. The German ground assault on June 7 walked into a city where most of the defenders had been buried alive in their own concrete shelters.

When Sevastopol finally fell on July 4, the Soviets had lost 95,000 men captured and the Black Sea Fleet's land component had been wiped out.

Schwerer Gustav fired 48 shells in its only successful operation of the war. It was disassembled, moved north, and never fired in combat again. The Germans demolished what was left of it in a forest near Auerbach in April 1945 to keep it out of American hands.

It remains the largest piece of artillery ever used in combat.

It probably always will.

[Infostrix @Infostrixx]

Top 30 Greatest Military Movies Ever Made

1. War Machine (2017)
2. Saving Private Ryan (1998)
3. The Pianist (2002)
4. Apocalypse Now (1979)
5. Full Metal Jacket (1987)
6 Braveheart (1995)
7. 1917 (2019)
8. Downfall (2004)
9. The Great Escape (1963)
10. Platoon (1986)
11. Hacksaw Ridge (2016)
12. The Deer Hunter (1978)
13. Letters from Iwo Jima (2006)
14. Patto (1970)
15. All Quiet on the Western Front (2022)
16. Dunkirk (2017)
17. Glory (1989)
18. *Black Hawk Down (2001)
19. *Beasts of No Nation (2015)
20. The Longest Day (1962)
21. Fury (2014)
22. The Thin Red Line (1998)
23. Bridge of Spies (2015)
24. Enemy at the Gates (2001)
25. Lone Survivor (2013)
26. The Hurt Locker (2008)
27. The Covenant (2023)
28. A Bridge Too Far (1977)
29. American Sniper (2014)
30. Rescue Dawn (2006)

[bet365 @bet365]

The World Cup group stage schedule:

11th June - 8pm
12th June - 3am, 8pm
13th June - 2am, 8pm, 11pm
14th June - 2am, 5am, 6pm, 9pm
15th June - 12am, 3am, 5pm, 8pm, 11pm
16th June - 2am, 8pm, 11pm
17th June - 2am, 5am, 6pm, 9pm
18th June - 12am, 3am, 5pm, 8pm, 11pm
19th June - 2am, 8pm, 11pm
20th June - 1.30am, 4am, 6pm, 9pm
21st June - 1am, 5am, 5pm, 8pm, 11pm
22nd June - 2am, 6pm, 10pm
23rd June - 1am, 4am, 6pm, 9pm
24th June - 12am, 3am, 8pm, 11pm
25th June - 2am, 9pm
26th June - 12am, 3am, 8pm
27th June - 1am, 4am, 10pm
28th June - 12.30am, 3am

🤩 𝟭𝟬. 𝗗𝗮𝘆𝘀. 𝗧𝗼. 𝗚𝗼.

[James Holland @James1940]

New 4-parter on the @WeHaveWaysPod - the British Band of Brothers, in which @almurray & I follow the incredible story of the Sherwood Rangers, the single British unit with more battle honours than any other in the war. We’ll get through their entire story in time but we’re starting with D-Day and the fighting of June 1940. Amazing men. I’m in awe.

[Portsmouth FC @Pompey]

Winning the FA Cup twice isn’t for everyone 😏

[JC 🇮🇪🇺🇦 @jackcummins_9]

Shaughnessy is a big moments player.
Shaughs 7 Pompey goals

2-1 Wycombe 90+8
1-0 Carlisle 90+3
1-0 Bolton (Battle of top two)
3-2 Barnsley 89 (Champions)
2-0 Cardiff
1-0 Charlton
1-0 Ipswich

All headers, all at Fratton, 6 of them under the lights and all wins.

[Forgotten Pompey Goals @Pompey_Goals]

The moment this man was subbed on against Norwich our season has changed. Quality set piece for the goal against them, scored equalising goal vs Oxford, big block against Middlesbrough with shot going in, outstanding last night against Ipswich.

I’ve always backed him he’s my boy 💙

#pompey

[old memory @old_memory]

the room went silent

[Bernie @Artemisfornow]

Dear Rachel,

You forgot these…

unemployment – UP
Illegal immigration – UP
tax burden – UP
public sector borrowing – UP
nhs waiting lists – UP
inflation – UP
energy cost pressure – UP
council tax – UP
business insolvencies – UP
regulation / quangos – UP
welfare spending – UP
public sector pay bill – UP
net zero cost commitments – UP
asylum claims / backlog – UP
Social housing back log - UP
Shoplifting - UP
Early prisoner releases - UP

You’re welcome.

[Sky Sports Football @SkyFootball]

"For me, it's not a red card"
"It's a yellow, Oxford wouldn't be gutted if it was a yellow"

Tim Sherwood and Jamie Mackie react to Conor Ogilvie's controversial red card 🎙️