Read Impasse (The Red Gambit Series) Online
Authors: Colin Gee
Impasse (The Red Gambit Series) (87 page)
FUSAG | Acronym for the First US Army Group, a phantom formation set up to mislead the Germans for the Invasion of France. |
G2 | Military Intelligence branch of the Irish Army. |
Garda | The Garda Síochána, the Irish police force. |
GAVCA | Grupo de Aviação de Caça [Portuguese] Translated literally means ‘fighter group’, the 1st GAVCA serving within the Brazilian Expeditionary Force. |
GAZ | Gorkovsky Avtomobilny Zavod, Soviet producers of vehicles from light car through to heavy trucks. |
Gebirgsjager | German & Austrian Mountain troops. |
Gestapo | GeheimeStaatsPolizei, the Secret Police of Nazi Germany. |
Gewehr 43 | Sometimes known as the Kar43 or G43, it was the German Army’s automatic rifle. Some were modified to accept ST44/MP43 magazines. |
GKO | Gosudarstvennyj Komitet Oborony or State Security Committee, the group that held complete power of all matters within the Soviet Union. |
Grease gun | US issue submachine gun, designated the M3. Cheaper and more accurate than the Thompson. |
Green Devils | Nickname for the German Airborne troops, the Fallschirmjager. |
Greenhorn | An inexperienced soldier |
GroβDeutschland | German Army unit, considered to be it’s Elite formation. Sometimes mistaken for SS as they wore armband, although on right arm, not the left as SS formations did. |
GRU | Glavnoye Razvedyvatel’noye Upravleniye of Soviet Military Intelligence, fiercely independent of the other Soviet Intelligence agencies such as the NKVD. |
Haft-Hohlladung magnetic mine | Often known as the Panzerknacker, this was a hollow charge magnetic AT mine. |
Halifax, Handley Page | British four-engine heavy bomber |
Hauptmann | Equivalent of captain in the German army. |
HEAT | An anti-tank shell, High-Explosive Anti-Tank. |
Hellcat Tank-Destroyer, M18. | US tank destroyer armed with a 76mm gun. Capable of high speed. |
Hero of the Soviet Union award | The Gold Star award was highly thought of and awarded to Soviet soldiers for bravery, although the medal was often devalued by being given for political or nepotistic reasons. |
Hetzer | Jagdpanzer 38t was a light tank destroyer with a 75mm gun on a fixed mount. Highly successful vehicle on the proven Czech 38t chassis. |
Hispano | Swiss in origin, the full name is Hispano-Suiza 404 autocannon. It fired a 20mm shell, increasing aircraft firepower over the normal machine-guns. |
Hitler Youth [Hitler Jugend] | Young males organisation of the Nazi Party. |
HNoMS | His Norwegian Majesty’s Ship. |
Horsch 108 | German transport that served throughout WW2 in a variety of roles from officer’s car to ambulance. |
HVAP | High-velocity armour piercing. |
IL-4, Ilyushin. | Soviet twin-engine medium bomber. |
IR | Infra-red, a technology that the Germans pursued late in the war. |
IRA | Irish Republican Army |
IS-II | Soviet heavy tank with a 122mm gun and 1-3 mg’s |
IS-III | Iosef Stalin III heavy tank, which arrived just before the German capitulation and was a hugely innovative design. 122mm gun and 1-2 mg |
ISU152 | Using the chassis of the IS-II, the ISU152 could serve as either mobile artillery or a heavy tank-destroyer. The shell had the capability of removing the turret from any vehicle in the German inventory just by its kinetic value alone. |
JagdPanther | SP version of the Panther tank, armed with the 88mm gun. |
JagdPanzer IV | SP version of the Panzer IV, armed with the 75mm gun. |
Jeep | ½ Ton 4x4 all terrain vehicle, supplied in large numbers to the Western Allies and the Soviet Union. |
Job tvoyu mat | With apologies, this is translated in a number of ways, and can mean anything of the same ilk from ‘Gosh’ through to ‘Fuck your mother.” |
Kai | Sometimes known as Kye, the drink has many different recipes. Generally speaking, it had a base in bars of chocolate to which boiling water was added. Certainly, many recipes add condensed milk, sugar when it was available and Pusser’s, a very alcoholic Naval rum. |
Kandra | Knife, sometimes double-edged, originating in Siberia. They had various forms but many resembled the Kurki of the Nepalese hill men. |
Kangaroo | Allied infantry carrier, either converted from a tank, mainly M4 Shermans and M7 Priest SP’s, or purpose built from the Canadian RAM tank. |
Kar98K | German standard issue bolt action rifle. |
Katorga | Soviet penal system, also accepted as a noun for a place of hard servitude. |
Katyn | 1940 Massacre of roughly 22,000 Polish Army officers, Police officers and intelligentsia perpetrated by the NKVD, Site was discovered by the German Army and much propaganda value was made, although in reality there was no sanction against the USSR for this coldblooded murder. |
Katyusha | Soviet rocket artillery weapon capable of bringing down area fire with either 16, 32 or 64 rockets of different types. |
Kavellerie | German translation of Cavalry. |
Kerch | Soviet peninsular that juts out into the Black Sea, known in English as the Crimea. |
Kilmainham | Prison located in Dublin, Eire. |
King Tiger tank | German heavy tank carrying a high-velocity 88m gun and 2-3 machine guns. |
Kingdom 39 | The Fairytale Kingdom in Russian Folklore. |
Kradschutzen | Motorcycle infantry, term also applied to reconnaissance troops. |
Kreigie | US slang for a German prisoner of war. |
Kreigsmarine | German Navy |
Kriegsspiels | Wargames |
Kukri | The curved battle knife of the Gurkha soldier. |
Kuso | Shit [Japanese] |
LA-7 | Single-engine Lavochkin fighter aircraft, highly thought of despite poor maintenance history. |
Lavochkin-5 | Soviet single-engine fighter aircraft. |
Leutnant | German Army rank equivalent to 2nd Lieutenant. |
Lightning, Lockheed, P38 | US twin-engine fighter, most successfully used in the Pacific Theatre. |
Lisunov Li-2 | Soviet licenced copy of the DC-3 twin-engine transport aircraft, |
Little Boy | Uranium based fission bomb. |
Lockheed Hudson | US built aircraft, originally designed as a light bomber. It found usefulness as a Coastal Command patrol and anti-submarine aircraft, a transport, a trainer and even for clandestine missions into Occupied Europe. |
Luftwaffe | German Air Force |
Lysander, Westland. | British single engine monoplane designed for Liaison activities, but best known for its use in ferrying agents into Occupied Europe. |
M-10 | Known as the Wolverine, this US tank destroyer carried a 3” gun with modest performance. It was subsequently upgunned in British service, and the more potent 17-pdr equipped vehicles became known as Achilles. |
M13/40 | Italian light tank with a 47mm gun and 3-4 machine-guns. |
M-16 half-track | US half-track mounting 4 x .50cal machine-guns in a Maxon mount. For defence against aircraft at low level it was particularly effective against infantry. |
M18 Hellcat | US tank destroyer armed with a 76mm gun. Capable of high speed. |
M1Carbine | Semi-automatic carbine that fired a .30 cal round, notorious as being underpowered. |
M20 | US 6x6 Armoured utility car, which was basically an M8 without the turret. |
M20 Utility Car | turretless conversion of the M8 Greyhound, with a .50cal in a ring mount and with the hull .30cal removed. Used mainly in Td battalions as a command vehicle or cargo carrier. |
M21 | M3 halftrack with an 81mm mortar mount, providing mobile fire support. |
M24 Chafee | US light tank fitted with a 75mm gun and 2-3 machine-guns. |
M26 Pershing | US Heavy tank with a 90mm gun and 2-3 machine-guns. Underpowered initially, it had little chance to prove itself against the German arsenal. |
M3 Halftrack | US standard half-track normally armed with 1 x .50cal machine-gun and capable of carrying up to 13 troops |
M36 Jackson | US tank destroyer armed with a lethal 90mm gun. |
M37 HMC | Expected to be a replacement for the M7, the M37 was a 105mm Howitzer mounted on a converted M24 Chafee chassis. |
M3A1 | Often known as the Grease Gun, issued in .45 or the rarer 9mm calibres with a 30 round magazine. |
M4A3E2 Jumbo | Additional armour version of the M4A3, occasionally upgunned to the M1 76mm but mainly equipped with the standard M3 75mm. Vehicle was slower because of the extra weight. |
M4A3E8 | M4 Sherman armed with the 76mm HV gun. |
M4A4 | US medium tank, last of a number of developments, Armament ranged from 75mm through 76mm to 105mm Howitzer. |
M5 HST | US fully-tracked high-speed artillery prime mover. |
M5 Stuart | US light tank equipped with a 37mm gun, and capable of high speed. |
M8 Greyhound | 6x6 Armoured car with 37mm main gun and 1-2 machine-guns. |
Maior | German Army rank equivalent to Major. |
Mamont | Russian word for Mammoth. |
Manhattan Project | Research and development project aimed at producing the first atomic bomb. |
Marmon-Herrington | Built in South Africa, this vehicle went through a series of upgrades, from Mk I to Mk IV and carried a range of weapons up to and including a 2pdr main gun. |