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Operation Archery
Operation Archery, also known as the Måløy Raid, was a British Combined Operations raid during World War II against German positions on the island of Vågsøy, Norway, on 27 December 1941. British Commandos of No. 3 Commando, two troops of No. 2 Commando, a medical detachment of No. 4 Commando, a demolition party from 101 Troop (canoe) of No. 6 Commando, and a dozen Norwegians from Norwegian Independent Company 1 conducted the raid. The Royal Navy, led by the light cruiser , with the destroyers , , and , provided fire support.''London Gazette'', 2 July 1948. The submarine was in support as the force navigational check. and transported the troops. Also in support were Royal Air Force bombers and fighter-bombers. Objectives Central to the operation was the destruction of fish-oil production and stores which the Germans used in the manufacture of high explosives. Another intention was to cause the Germans to maintain and increase forces in Norway, which would reduce force ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis powers. World War II was a total war that directly involved more than 100 million personnel from more than 30 countries. The major participants in the war threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. Aircraft played a major role in the conflict, enabling the strategic bombing of population centres and deploying the only two nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II was by far the deadliest conflict in human history; it resulted in 70 to 85 million fatalities, mostly among civilians. Tens of millions died due to genocides (including the Holocaust), starvation, massa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sør-Vågsøy
Sør-Vågsøy is a former municipality in the old Sogn og Fjordane county in Norway. The municipality existed from 1910 until 1964 and it encompassed the southern part of the island of Vågsøy and a small area on the mainland just east of the island. The area is now located in the present-day Kinn Municipality in Vestland county. The administrative centre of the municipality was Måløy, where Sør-Vågsøy Church is located. Other population centres in the municipality are the villages of Holvik, Vågsvåg, Torskangerpoll, Færestrand, and Ytre Oppedal. Name The municipality was named Sør-Vågsøy because it encompassed the southern part of Vågsøy island (''sør'' means "southern" in Norwegian). The Old Norse form of the island name was ''Vágsøy''. The first element is the genitive case of ''vágr'' which means "bay" and the last element is ''øy'' which means "island". History Sør-Vågsøy was originally a part of the municipality of Selje (see formannskapsdistr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lofoten Islands
Lofoten () is an archipelago and a traditional district in the county of Nordland, Norway. Lofoten has distinctive scenery with dramatic mountains and peaks, open sea and sheltered bays, beaches and untouched lands. There are two towns, Svolvær and Leknes – the latter is approximately north of the Arctic Circle and approximately away from the North Pole. The archipelago experiences one of the world's largest elevated temperature anomalies relative to its high latitude. Etymology ''Lofoten'' ( non, Lófótr) was the original name of the island Vestvågøya. The first element is ''ló'' (i.e., " lynx") and the last element is derived from Norse ''fótr'' (i.e., "foot"), as the shape of the island must have been compared with that of a lynx's foot. (The old name of the neighbouring island Flakstadøya was ''Vargfót'', " wolf's foot", from ''vargr'' "wolf".) Alternatively it could derive from the word for light in reference to the presence of Aurora Borealis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Operation Anklet
Operation Anklet was the codename given to a British Commando raid during the Second World War. The raid on the Lofoten Islands was carried out in December 1941, by 300 men from No. 12 Commando and the Norwegian Independent Company 1. The landing party was supported by 22 ships from three navies. At the same time, another raid was taking place in Vågsøy. This raid was Operation Archery, on 27 December 1941, and Operation Anklet was seen as a diversionary raid for this bigger raid, intended to draw away the German naval and air forces. Background After the British Expeditionary Force had been evacuated from Dunkirk in 1940, the then British Prime Minister Winston Churchill called for a force to be assembled and equipped to inflict casualties on the Germans and bolster British morale. Churchill told the joint Chiefs of Staff to propose measures for an offensive against German-occupied Europe, and stated: "they must be prepared with specially trained troops of the hunter clas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quisling Regime
The Quisling regime or Quisling government are common names used to refer to the fascist collaborationist government led by Vidkun Quisling in German-occupied Norway during the Second World War. The official name of the regime from 1 February 1942 until its dissolution in May 1945 was Den nasjonale regjering ( en, the National Government). Actual executive power was retained by the Reichskommissariat Norwegen, headed by Josef Terboven. Given the use of the term quisling, the name ''Quisling regime'' can also be used as a derogatory term referring to political regimes perceived as treasonous puppet governments imposed by occupying foreign enemies. 1940 coup Vidkun Quisling, '' Fører'' of the Nasjonal Samling party, had first tried to carry out a coup against the Norwegian government on 9 April 1940, the day of the German invasion of Norway. At 7:32 p.m., Quisling visited the studios of the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation and made a radio broadcast proclaiming himself ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cryptanalysis Of The Enigma
Cryptanalysis of the Enigma ciphering system enabled the western Allies in World War II to read substantial amounts of Morse-coded radio communications of the Axis powers that had been enciphered using Enigma machines. This yielded military intelligence which, along with that from other decrypted Axis radio and teleprinter transmissions, was given the codename '' Ultra''. The Enigma machines were a family of portable cipher machines with rotor scramblers. Good operating procedures, properly enforced, would have made the plugboard Enigma machine unbreakable. However, most of the German military forces, secret services, and civilian agencies that used Enigma employed poor operating procedures, and it was these poor procedures that allowed the Enigma machines to be reverse-engineered and the ciphers to be read. The German plugboard-equipped Enigma became Nazi Germany's principal crypto-system. In December 1932 it was "broken" by mathematician Marian Rejewski at the Polish G ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coastal Artillery
Coastal artillery is the branch of the armed forces concerned with operating anti-ship artillery or fixed gun batteries in coastal fortifications. From the Middle Ages until World War II, coastal artillery and naval artillery in the form of cannons were highly important to military affairs and generally represented the areas of highest technology and capital cost among materiel. The advent of 20th-century technologies, especially military aviation, naval aviation, jet aircraft, and guided missiles, reduced the primacy of cannons, battleships, and coastal artillery. In countries where coastal artillery has not been disbanded, these forces have acquired amphibious capabilities. In littoral warfare, mobile coastal artillery armed with surface-to-surface missiles can still be used to deny the use of sea lanes. It was long held as a rule of thumb that one shore-based gun equaled three naval guns of the same caliber, due to the steadiness of the coastal gun which allowed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Telephone Exchange
telephone exchange, telephone switch, or central office is a telecommunications system used in the public switched telephone network (PSTN) or in large enterprises. It interconnects telephone subscriber lines or virtual circuits of digital systems to establish telephone calls between subscribers. In historical perspective, telecommunication terms have been used with different semantics over time. The term ''telephone exchange'' is often used synonymously with ''central office'', a Bell System term. Often, a ''central office'' is defined as a building used to house the inside plant equipment of potentially several telephone exchanges, each serving a certain geographical area. Such an area has also been referred to as the exchange or exchange area. In North America, a central office location may also be identified as a ''wire center'', designating a facility to which a telephone is connected and obtains dial tone. For business and billing purposes, telecommunication carriers def ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grenade
A grenade is an explosive weapon typically thrown by hand (also called hand grenade), but can also refer to a shell (explosive projectile) shot from the muzzle of a rifle (as a rifle grenade) or a grenade launcher. A modern hand grenade generally consists of an explosive charge ("filler"), a detonator mechanism, an internal striker to trigger the detonator, and a safety lever secured by a cotter pin. The user removes the safety pin before throwing, and once the grenade leaves the hand the safety lever gets released, allowing the striker to trigger a primer that ignites a fuze (sometimes called the delay element), which burns down to the detonator and explodes the main charge. Grenades work by dispersing fragments ( fragmentation grenades), shockwaves ( high-explosive, anti-tank and stun grenades), chemical aerosols ( smoke and gas grenades) or fire ( incendiary grenades). Fragmentation grenades ("frags") are probably the most common in modern armies, and when the w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ammunition
Ammunition (informally ammo) is the material fired, scattered, dropped, or detonated from any weapon or weapon system. Ammunition is both expendable weapons (e.g., bombs, missiles, grenades, land mines) and the component parts of other weapons that create the effect on a target (e.g., bullets and warheads). The purpose of ammunition is to project a force against a selected target to have an effect (usually, but not always, lethal). An example of ammunition is the firearm cartridge, which includes all components required to deliver the weapon effect in a single package. Until the 20th century, black powder was the most common propellant used but has now been replaced in nearly all cases by modern compounds. Ammunition comes in a great range of sizes and types and is often designed to work only in specific weapons systems. However, there are internationally recognized standards for certain ammunition types (e.g., 5.56×45mm NATO) that enable their use across different wea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
House-to-house Battle
Urban warfare is combat conducted in urban areas such as towns and cities. Urban combat differs from combat in the open at both the operational and the tactical levels. Complicating factors in urban warfare include the presence of civilians and the complexity of the urban terrain. Urban combat operations may be conducted to capitalize on strategic or tactical advantages associated with the possession or the control of a particular urban area or to deny these advantages to the enemy. Fighting in urban areas negates the advantages that one side may have over the other in armor, heavy artillery, or air support. Ambushes laid down by small groups of soldiers with handheld anti-tank weapons can destroy entire columns of modern armor (as in the First Battle of Grozny), while artillery and air support can be severely reduced if the "superior" party wants to limit civilian casualties as much as possible, but the defending party does not (or even uses civilians as human shields). Some ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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