Tall grasses on the Allied side of the bridge gave their company cover.

That side was recently abandoned by the Germans in preparation for the explosive collapse of that bridge. The German defenders were shocked at the appearance of his uncle;s company charging the bridge.

His uncle’s company arrived at a fortuitous time to take the lightly defended bridge before enemy engineers triggered the explosions. They may have been a scouting company for heavier units in the division. Not really geared for direct combat. However the slowdowns across various rivers after D-Day was understood by all. The Germans commonly destroyed bridges in their retreat to stall pursuit by Allied forces.

@cwo-marc

The engineer did mention that his distant uncle’s company had two very devout lay Catholics in addition to the chaplain. His company / bridge survived the planted , triggered explosives, owing to the “Guardian Angel(s)” of any one or more members of that company.

The engineer told us the story of how Germans being habitually over precise, that factor worked against them in the explosive collapsing of this particular bridge in the middle of combat. The German explosives engineer was apparently untrained in setting timer offsets to the various trigger charges. Miniscule offset times using the same amount of explosive dynamite should have set sufficient torsion forces across the bridge to tear it down. Whether his uncle’s company was charging across or not at the time of explosions was not important. The over precise uniformity of explosions between the bridge and the support pillars resulted in its entirety of separation and launch. The landing of its entirety while still passable, was miraculous.

Another detail: The uncle was still able to hear his sergeant yell “Charge!!” through the loud ringing of his ears from the explosive noise. It was one of those movie-esque slo-motion memories.

I heard a story from an old engineer back in the 90’s.
After D-Day. Western US and British allied forces were getting stalled at various rivers past the landing sites. Every bridge was critical, but the Germans often collapsed them before allied forces could use them each time.

This engineer’s uncle twice removed told a story of how his unit captured a “Miraculous Bridge”. They scouted the bridge that Germans were nearly done rigging with explosives. The lieutenant ordered its taking and the entire company rushed in from the near side on foot. The Germans had a machine gun nest on the other end of the bridge. Somehow they were a bit slow to start firing. About half of the company was on the bridge when deafening explosions sounded from below in unison.

This started the slowest 2 seconds of his uncle’s life…
The entire bridge went airborne instead of collapsing. The uncle explained to him that there must have been some exactly uniform timing and uniform calibrated amount of all the explosive placements along the bridge supports underside. If they were offset by just a split second each, then the collapse would have proceeded as expected.

The uncle could see around how his entire company was moving in slow motion as the background scenery showed them in motion as if from the basket of a hot air balloon. He particularly noticed the company chaplain was kneeling, head down in prayer. He could not hear that prayer.

Then he heard and felt the crash of the entire bridge back down the supports. He heard the slow motion sound of his sergeant shouting “Charge !!!” He heard other yells from the men of his company. All of them rushing forward to the other end of the bridge. He saw the stunned Germans, unable to fire or effectively hit much against the infantry charge.

The Americans took that bridge that day.
Heavy equipment and tanks were able to cross it within the next few days.

Weeks later, they got news that particular bridge finally collapsed. Other bridges have since been rigged along side that Miracle Bridge to keep the heavy equipment, while several pontoon bridges were on either side to keep the masses of men moving toward new fronts.

I suspect the bridge is somewhere in France.

I vaguely recall the engineer retired soon after telling my team that story (or tall tail). The oil company then suffered layoffs, so I ended up in battery research, out of state, never to see those same guys again.

Internet searches for this same bridge story come up empty.

Can anyone here come up with more details on this Miracle Bridge story ??

@Tizkit
SB is worthwhile when you gain Heavy Bomber tech and no naval targets are available.
Bomber naval attacks can destroy a lot more enemy IPC value compared to land battles and strategic bombing.

The IJN should have started out using kamikaze tactics early instead of waiting until they got desperate.

The army medical teams were also very slow in development of biological super weapons.  Assuming the Navy bought them enough time - Whole islands could have been infected, if not major allied shipping and ports.  Refugees escaping Japanese combat areas could be weaponized as disease vectors.

A steady stream of cement into the English Channel should turn it into dry land after six years.  A lasting peace treaty w Stalin allows the panzers to roll up the big island / peninsula.

http://www.kongregate.com/games/Baldurans/warnet-knights-cannons?acomplete=warnet

hex map
turn based
limited line of sight
fog of war
Range and melee units
terrain effects
more production sometimes helps you to win

some tutorial help / not enough to claim any victories.

This episode shows that Sansa Stark was about two to three steps ahead of her mom.

Katelyn found out about the red wedding betrayal after Rob’s army already got drunk.  way too late… But Rob did not much heed his mom’s warnings before approaching the Twins anyway.

Sansa warns Jon and Davos about how manipulative Ramsey can be, but that gets drowned out by how they gotta save Rickon and unite the Northern houses.  She is gone on the morning of the battle.

Rickon shows what a lapdog hostage he became.
What, no rage against his captors ?!?!? 
Did he have any clue that to run  to his " brother " would give Ramsey a big “game” opportunity to capture or kill them both?

Hurrah, Hurrah, great show!  Fans are happy! accolades for the HBO Production team.
Let’s focus on 3 aspects/inconsistencies of the battle struck me as very odd:

I guess it would have been very bad for ratings if Rickon took a blade off of Ramsey’s belt to attack the Bolton commander.  Win or lose, Jon’s army would have started off under better order.

The Wildlings and Ser Davos saw the Bolton shield and long spearmen just run the pincer envelopment on them undisrupted.

After instinctively fighting the whole morning , they all of the sudden decide to stop in amazement at the synchronized running of the Bolton heavy lancer units ?!?!?

To get so far out of the zone, would be like the Cleveland Cavaliers freezing in midcourt to allow the opposing basket ball team lay-up after lay-up.

Sansa and Petyr appear well composed and well rested as the knights of the Vale charge onto the field.
Not panting, sweaty, or urgently worn out looking for where the knights can save her brothers.
It must have been a leisurely horsetrot that morning, no hurry at all.

Fans may just be glossing over these big battles, long overdue in the series.  I expect you guys, fellow experts in war and battle, would have watched the youtube replays about as critically/studious as I did.  I mean, a few parts just did not seem right, so I had to watch it a few times over to narrow down what seemed so wrong.

@wheatbeer:

@Linkon:

I would not like to tell these future grandchildren that my generation allowed a bunch of communist to chaotically divide yet another country as they took over.  That would be a sorry excuse for them not growing up here in the USA.

Can you explain what these comments have to do with the Confederate flag?

The division of the USA is a grave matter. 
Painful for the citizens in the 1860’s.

Painful for the free world in the 2010’s.

The former confederate flag is but one aspect of how the harmony of our union, is getting disrupted.  A house divided, can soon crumble.

@calvinhobbesliker:

@Linkon:

I do hope that my future grandchildren get to grow up in the same great country I did.

These future grandchildren may have to grow up singing some national anthem that I do not yet know…

I would not like to tell these future grandchildren that my generation allowed a bunch of communist to chaotically divide yet another country as they took over.  That would be a sorry excuse for them not growing up here in the USA.

BTW,
I sense very little love and a lot of finger pointing in the above posts.
The communists are very good at getting other peoples fingers pointed at each other’s throats.

I don’t think the word “communist” means what you think it means.

I mean communist to be the same as Ronald Reagan.

In his eyes, our nation was supposed to be “as a city upon a hill”

This positions the USA to watch over and sound the alarm whenever tyranny threatens our security.

The communists can maneuver and manipulate other parts of the world more freely when our nation is distracted or weakened to the point of lethargy.

The understanding back then, was that communism was external to the USA.  However, the sad reality now is that communists reside within our borders, and socialists (currently undeclared communists) act as about half of our elected government.