Sapper Tanks Inland: Infantry Support Tank History

At the dawn of the 20^th century, Armies around the world began to adapt machines to the conduct of war which had previously been human and animal-muscle-powered though with chemical firearms--essentially a one-way engine to propel projectiles. Later on, reciprocating engines burning fossil fuels were found able to propel armored boxes on tracks that could rumble over mud, trenches, wire and overcome enemy firearms, this invention was called the "tank".

The tank, the brainchild of Royal Engineer Lieutenant-Colonel Edwin Swinton, had first appeared on the battlefields of the First World War as a combat engineer's tool for breaching the German defensive fortifications on the stalemated Western Front. It was felt that if Soldiers, armored only with cloth fatigues, could not do the job, perhaps a tracked, steel-armored "engine of war" could. After all, specialized assault engineering equipment had been used in siege warfare to breach hostile fortifications since antiquity by Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar (indeed, back to Ashurnasirpal II and the Assyrians). These early tanks were, in fact, more akin to the recently retired M728 Combat Engineer Vehicle (CEV) than the medium and later heavy, defensive tanks that have become dominant since the beginning of World War II. These first tanks were "sapper vehicles", frequently crewed and commanded by combat engineer personnel. They were designed to breach barbed wire obstacles, employ fascines (an ancient engineer implement for filling in gaps) and "bust" hostile bunkers by direct-fire. They were not intended to "joust at tournament" with other tanks, rather they were "battlefield bullies" whose mission was to destroy anything that held up an infantry advance.

Note that these sapper tanks did NOT have a turret (see artwork above) and a gun to duel other tanks as some today try to mis-define what a "tank" is. However, there is an even greater miscalculation which has placed us at the dawn of the 21^st century in an even more precarious position, where the viability of ground maneuver and the survival of the United States is now in question: the idea that the tank is an implement of a non-battlefield functional "Armor" branch and thus has lost its relevancy in the competing demands of bureaucracy and dire battlefield tasks. The tank is actually a COMBAT ENGINEERING VEHICLE when its used to breakthrough for infantry. Tanks that exploit the breakthrough and lead the way for the infantry in maneuver are CAVALRY VEHICLES. However, as described in detail in my previous article, "Heavy Tanks, Helicopter Fighter-Bombers" the U.S. Army made a fatal mistake in 1940 by failing to fire Chief of Cavalry General Herr who wanted to stick to animal horses and instead created a work-around non-battlefield functional "Armor" branch that is neither Combat Engineers nor Cavalry. The cost in WWII would be thousands of U.S. maimed and dead. The ultimate cost may be the survival of the United States.

VIDEO & WEB PAGES: British Infantry Support Tank Development

PART 1: British tanks breakthrough in combined-arms warfare and win WW1, then they go to sleep in the 20s/30s and the Germans take their reformer's ideas, infantry support tanks only have to go 4 mph plus lack of funds equals atrophy

Mathilda 1's finest hour saves BEF at Arras in 1940 with its good armor causes Germans to pause offensive long enough for BEF to escape at Dunkirk to fight another day

PART 2: much bigger 12 mph Mathilda 2 can't be penetrated by Italian weaponry leading to victories in North Africa, but it doesn't have a HE shell to destroy enemy positions to help infantry, just destroy other tanks, German 88mms could knock them out, small Valentine tank very reliable but still too slow to battle other tanks act as cavalry but not heavy armored to do infantry fire support, 1/3 of all British tanks made in WW2 were Valentines, Churchill tank with very long chassis was designed for trench crossing of WW1, not properly tested was mechanically unreliable

PART 3: forgot to have water drainage holes, problems fixed by '42, not prone to catch fire like Sherman, lots of escape hatches, roomy to live in, Dieppe raid beach small pebbles even Churchills couldn't traverse, Experimental Churchill unit does well at Alamein and later in Tunisia because it can go up very steep slopes, able to withstand the German 88mms!,

PART 4: panzerfaust type AT weapons force tank-infantry cooperation, 4:20 EUREKA!! in open country the tanks lead, in closed country, the infantry must lead! Dieppe raid forced development of Hobart's "Funnies"; AVRE shot 290mm bunker-busting "dust bin" shell, seawall defeating bridge/ramp layer, fascine bundles to fill-in ditches, flails to detonate minefields, trailer fuel tank flame-thrower tank finished off bunkers cracked open by dustbin shells, Germans would surrender just on sight of a Crocodile flame-thrower tank, only tank with adequate armor to withstand Panther/Tiger hits on front, German tanks smooth and quiet compared to our running gear, Allied tank guns inadequate, Super Churchill "Black Princes" too late for WW2 but ready for Korean war where they went up steep hills well

Sapper Tanks From the Sea: British Army Pioneers Amphibious Warfare--not the USMC

"Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fall, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth lasts for a thousand years, men will still say, "This was their finest hour!""

--Winston Churchill on Warding off German Amphibious Attack--which they called off, so much for "amphibious inevitability" the USMC pontificates for themselves

It never ceases to amaze us what incompetent liars U.S. marines are as well as their camp followers.

When I was in, as I progressed in knowledge of actual, factual military history and practice, the USMC bullshit fed to me became more and more untenable. I had thought I had gotten the most of it until I read British tank expert, David Fletcher's Vanguard of Victory: The 79^th Armoured Division which details the actual history of modern amphibious warfare which dates back to World War 1---with the British Army NOT THE UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS. Talk is cheap and the USMC was only talking in 1915 while the British Army actually did amphibious landings at Gallipoli. The amphibious operation was indeed a failure, but it was the British not the USMC who tried it first in the Industrial Age against machine guns and artillery. That the British Army used multiple amphibious movements to thwart our land-locked Continental Army during our war for Independence and that Washington crossed the Delaware to do a surprise attack and that it was the French Navy who put an end to this advantage so we could win the war does not register in the brain housing group of the AmeroFascist U.S. marine morons who boast that they invented amphibious warfare and are who we owe our freedom too. All lying bullshit. That Union Army General McClellan landed troops by sea to threaten the Confederate capital, Richmond or that Grant/Sherman used sea maneuvers to do "maneuver warfare" in 1863 at Vicksburg also doesn't show up on the weak ego radar screens of U.S. marines. Its become increasingly clear that the USMC is a charlatan racketeering outfit that cannot do amphibious warfare because its too busy drooling over themselves in mirrors wearing dress uniforms. When marine commandant, Al Gray ordered these narcissists to wear camouflage uniforms each day to stop having orgasms over themselves, they responded during the last month of his tenure by wearing dress uniforms to work at HQMC to spite him. What a bunch of egoclowns.

If you think this is all a fiction, consider that in 1991 the 4^th MEB COULD NOT LAND ON KUWAITI OR IRAQI BEACHES because Saddam had dropped a few thousand sea mines into the Persian Gulf by trucks backed up to the water's edge and by small boats. The vaunted USMC were stopped by mere sea mines. WHAT HAD THEY BEEN DOING WITH ALL THE $$$ BILLIONS WE HAVE GIVEN THEM during the intervening years after Vietnam?

They were not preparing for amphibious warfare, or any form of warfare as a matter of fact.

Reading Fletcher further, one realizes that the British having a vast overseas empire whose strength was its Royal Navy had every reason to pursue amphibious warfare developments while their American cousins were land-locked and without any imperial impulses until of late thanks to the selfish Neo-Cons. After their Gallipoli misadventure, the British realized they cannot continue to do amphibious operations by simply landing foot-slogging infantry--which is exactly what the USMC does. They realized as far back as WW1 that they needed to mechanize amphibious assaults to overcome beach obstacles and this takes THOUGHT, WORK and MONEY which U.S. marines are not interested in doing one iota. The British realized that if they persisted with pre-industrial age beach landings of foot troops from boats they'd either a.) get slaughtered or b.) not be able to do the mission in the first place. The racketeering USMC is perfectly content with a and b forms of failure as Iwo Jima and the aborted Kuwaiti Desert Storm landings prove.

Fletcher reveals that the British planned to land by large pontoons Mark IV female and male tanks (the British who invented "marines" invented the tank, too) pushed by gunboats onto Belgium and attack the German rear in concert with a land push up the coast.

Operation HUSH

When the land push bogged down, the amphibious maneuver was cancelled but amazing technical progress was made in tanks with ramps to drive over sea walls, tanks with spiked tracks to overcome sand and mud as well as winches to lift guns and supplies. All of this is a TECHNOCRACY of thinking professionals with their hands dirty on a daily basis doing trials and experiments, tinkering with gear like good Northern Europeans with "Yankee Ingenuity" which is NOT the MORONOCRACY that the USMC has created of lazy, southern rednecks who think everything is about their personal ego and bodily self-validation--which lead to their defeat in the Civil War. The bottom line is that today, if an enemy obstacles and mines its beach shores, the USMC cannot land there except by heavy casualties as its not progressed at all from its deficient WW2 practices and is in many ways weaker since we lack naval gunfire battleships and close air support aircraft guided by observers in the air. The USMC has no counterpart to the British who had actual swimming tanks of many variants to include "male" fire support types with guns. The USMC persists in just bloated amtracks trying to carry too many men at one time rendering them as huge targets and somehow hopes what few M1 Abrams heavy tanks they have will somehow make it to shore by unarmored vulnerable LCAC hovercraft.

Fletcher says the number one thing the British learned about amphibious warfare is that SPECIALIZED TASKS NEEDS SPECIALIZED MEANS--the exact opposite of the lazy human body ad hoc mentality of the USMC which doesn't want to prepare for anything in advance if it requires mechanical gadgetry and takes away their narcissist time mowing lawns, polishing floors and chasing chicks in dress blue uniforms. When the USMC drops its parade ground crap it thinks all it needs to do is foot slog with hand weapons--the same disease the socially-conscious British Army types had before WW2 that resisted the efforts of reformers like J.F.C. Fuller, B.H. Liddell-Hart and Percy Hobart to properly mechanize on land let alone from the sea. Fletcher makes another profound remark:

"Since there was no specific body charged with development, ideas burst forth or fizzled out according to the whim of individuals or units".

This was the situation before the wars when despite it all, the British Royal Marines were using flat-bottom landing craft to land light tanks. What was the USMC doing? Nothing. It was still having foot-slogger infantrymen hop out from wooden boats. With WW2 underway, blood baths at Tarawa and Dieppe lead to the USMC using the tracked amtrack (amphibious infantry-carrying tanks) in greater quantities and the British to make ALL of their fire support and infantry-carrying tanks swim themselves to shore and not be clusterfucked several at-a-time in a flat bottom landing craft having to expose itself to drop non-swimming vehicles onto the enemy fire-swept beach. Once ashore, they would need a host of special task tanks to defeat mines, wire, walls, strong points and the earth underneath them. The British made the effort the USMC has never made to date---and this discrepancy is telling. In future days it will be fatal. Its not even surprising that it again was the British Army--not the USMC--that did the world's first helicopter air assault from ships in the 1956 Suez Canal operation, they have been the real leaders of amphibious warfare all along.

Sapper Tanks from Air, Sea and Land: Percy Hobart saves the Day in Europe with Maneuver Warfare and Combat Engineer Tank Forces

"You ask, What is our policy? I will say; "It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us: to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy." You ask, What is our aim? I can answer with one word: Victory-victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory there is no survival."

Young Percy Hobart

The men that created the tracked tank, Colonel Ernest Swinton and legendary Lord of Admiralty, Sir Winston Churchill who sponsored it, were joined in the 1920s by a man who almost lost his life when his spotter plane was shot down---decorated WWI Royal Engineer veteran-turned-armor corps officer, then Major Percy Hobart. Hobart was spotted from the air by another aircraft crew and saved by a daring ground rescue. In the 1930s, combined air-ground arms visonary, Hobart created the world's first tracked tank experimental brigade, gave its men the distinctive black beret and outfitted their vehicles with wireless radios. This mailed, mobile "fist" became the WWI-style trench breakthrough enabler, making the mechanized infiltration dreams of B.H. Liddell-Hart and J.F.C. Fuller a working reality. He made essentially a tank cavalry force. But as the clouds of war loomed over the pacifistic west, the clear-thinking and straight-talking Hobart made many powerful British Army egomaniac officer enemies resistant to innovation who wanted to perpetuate slow infantry linear war along with the horse cavalry with its class distinctions and by 1939 as a Major General, he was forced out of the Army! When Germany attacked lead by men like Guderian who incorporated Hobart's ideas fully, its light tracked, mechanized panzer 2D formations infiltrating cross-country through Allied WWI-style lines were led by assault pioneers glider-landing onto Belgian forts and Airborne parachute troops taking key mobility corridors by 3D maneuver from the air. As the Germans swept across Europe and infiltrated through Allied lines and encircled them, Hobart's other creation, the 7^th Armored Division "Desert Rats" withdrew to Dunkirk where thanks to a heroic, desperate and doomed tank-infantry counter-attack at Arras gave the Germans just enough pause so that the British Army was able to escape back to England, saving the war effort. Yet while Britain was on the verge of ruin, her greatest fighting General, Percy Hobart was a Corporal in the Home Guard until one man made a difference and saved a nation, perhaps even the free world. Military theorist and WWI Captain Liddell-Hart wrote to Churchill directly and reminded him that Britain's greatest tank General was now a Corporal in the home guard during England's hour of need due to ego and greed.

The courage of Hobart and his humility to not give up, but to serve his country even as an enlisted Corporal is without equal and is worthy of a Hollywood saga like the recent film, "Gladiator" where a General becomes a foot Soldier and eventually leads a fight to save his country, except this time its all true. As Hobart's 7^th Armored Division rebounded with new tanks and defeats the Italians and Afrika Corps in North Africa, he is called back to active duty at Churchill's orders and builds the 11^th Armored Division which blazes a trail across Europe. But England, unlike the U.S., had been stung by mechanized, large-scale, total war not being ready for a major nation-state war, lulled into smug complacency fighting small, colonial wars in the 1920s/30s where some aircraft bombing and some armored car motorized infantry was thought to validate Army force structure and readiness.

However, by 1942, the anti-tank mine had become such a threat to armored vehicles in North Africa, that once again, sappers in cloth fatigues were forced to take the lead in the breach. Thus producing the seemingly absurd situation of cloth-clad sappers clearing the way under fire for the thick-skinned tanks. For this reason, the questions of how to effectively clear or neutralize Axis mines were ones that continually exercised the minds of many combat engineers in the Middle East. As the 7^th Armored fought across Africa, Sicily and Italy it became readily apparent that something was amiss; tanks and men were being lost by the thousands to landmines, obstacles, strongpoints, and could not fly to get into positions of advantage deep in the enemy's rear to unhinge him. The British Army was slamming into an alert enemy creating counter-measures, head-on and losing thousands of men from a nation that never was the same after losing a generation of manhood in the trenches of WWI and thus, couldn't afford the losses. The tank as a form of cavalry was in use, but the tank as a form of offensive combat engineering had not been fully developed.

LTC William Schneck writes in his technical report on the breaching Operations at El Alamein that British Engineers began to devise sapper tanks in their own workshops in desperation not unlike today's "Junkyard Wars" cable-TV program except if your device works you don't die in battle:

Dieppe: prequel to the USMC's future--amphibious defeat on defended, obstacle-laden beaches via ad hocery

Today's beaches can be defended by not only obstacles and sea and land mines, but by guided munitions in a surveillance strike complex. Massing surface ships with thousands of marine victims trying to relive WW2 beach landing glory is fatally unsound as General Gavin warned us in 1947 in Airborne Warfare and later in 1958 in War and Peace in the Space Age. He wisely advocates using submarines as the launch platforms for amphibious assaults. Yet, the incredibly dumb American marines still want to charge defended beaches straight-ahead into sea/land mines, obstacles in even more bloated amtracks than their WW2 predecessors absurdly claiming that high water speed will help when the fact is they are still going to a location where the enemy is waiting in ambush and/or in a defense-in-depth. "Over-The-Horizon" (OTH) assault only helps the Navy's amphibious surface ships from being sunk IF the enemy lacks basic anti-ship missiles that can be launched from a pick-up truck or a business jet. Instead of this linear, frontalist madness, smaller amtracks based on M113 Gavins that can FLY OVER MINES AND OBSTACLES by VTOL helicopters and STOL/parachute drop fixed-wing aircraft significant distance outside of the range of enemy guided munitions not just OTH line-of-sight---to include transport seaplanes---should land in an unpredictable, NON-LINEAR fashion deep behind enemy lines and take beaches from the inside-out with light tank/infantry shock action, and then do "maneuver warfare" AKA non-linear warfare inland. Talk is cheap; a foot-slogging and truck road-hopping marine corps is all TALK and no action when it comes to doing maneuver warfare.

However, this mechanical assistance bruises the weak USMC ego so it wants to foot-slog from overly complex V-22s and deposit some walking-victim rifleman ashore to be overwhelmed and die at the hands of the enemy's mobile reserves. This is total unprofessional ignorance of the lessons learned fighting the competent Germans while doing combined Airborne-Amphibious operations which is to deploy Paratroopers en masse to shield amphibious landings from counter-attacks; such Airborne operations is a Congressionally-mandated mission but the egomaniac gyrenes are not interested. The U.S. Army has more landing craft, anyway and should pick up the torch the USMC has dropped and improve joint logistics-over-the-shore (JLOTS) to effect STRATEGIC MANEUVER. The Army has more amphibious warfare expertise than the USMC and most importantly, actually THINKS about what its doing if it hasn't turned a practice into a self-serving racket to take advantage of these lessons to forge maximum Airborne-Amphibious Maneuver Warfare capabilities:

There are two ways of landing troops on a defended beach IF you get even this far. One is to rely on a combination of bombardment and rapid movement to land assault troops as far up the beach as possible, trading perhaps lower human casualties for higher material loss. This technique is favored by the U.S. [dumbass] marine corps but as the record shows their frontal assaults are bloody--to themselves.

The other is to land troops when low tide exposed obstacles and made mine clearance easier, but at the risk of higher casualties among the assault units but fewer material losses among landing craft and other specialized or hard-to-replace equipment

For D-Day the latter course was chosen as extensive reconnaissance had shown the extent of German defenses and the risk they posed to landing craft at high tide. The British response to this decision, as well as the lessons learned at Dieppe, was to develop a number of specialized armored vehicles that could support the first wave of infantry and breach the German coastal defense line.

Dieppe Debacle

PART 1: German Army defeated by the Earth in Russia, Stalin asks for Allies to attack Germany from west to relieve pressure, Dieppe raid will be division-sized raid, Royal Navy can't protect big ships from air attack so no big gun cruisers/battleships were available to bust German guns (sound familiar as our Iowas sit unused?), paras will get this job

The deciding factor for the British Army was the disastrous amphibious raid at Dieppe in 1942 where tanks couldn't get off the beaches and infantry were slaughtered without adequate on-scene fire support. If something wasn't done to fix this immediately, there would never be a forced-entry onto France to oust the Germans and win the war. If the Allies delayed, there was good chance that the excellent German scientists and engineers could develop an atomic bomb, jet aircraft and ballistic missiles to deliver them and the Nazi "Third Reich" could really indeed last 1,000 years. The allies needed a man that understood combat engineering and tanks who could create an entire Armored Division of them with sapper devices to breakthrough Hitler's western wall being built by the enemy's technotactical genius, Field Marshall Erwin Rommel.

That man was Major General Percy Hobart.

LTC Schneck writes:

VIDEO: D-Day Secrets

So in top-secrecy and utter desperation, Hobart created the 79^th Armored Division, symbol the bull's head. The Division was composed of entire units with a single specialty type vehicle to solve basically one battlefield problem type. Its critical that readers understand this attention-to-detail. In 1942, there was simply no time to rebuild the entire Allied Army to improve vehicle and equipment with totally new designs to overcome the countermeasures the Germans had been throwing at them. There was no time. The simple steel-construction armored vehicle technology was not sufficient to make multi-functional vehicles. There was just enough time however, for a Division's worth of specialty vehicles to be adapted from existing vehicles that could act as specialty spearheads to overcome the battlefield problems the Germans created and then hope that this TEMPORARY relief would be just enough so the as-is forces could then proceed and fight the types of combats their designs were optimized to perform.

1942 Army Problem---------------------->Specialty Solution

Need Enabler

Fly------------Airborne light units by parachutes/gliders

www.combatreform.com/airbornetanksnoexcuse.htm

Fly or Swim:

Clears Drop and Landing Zones to makes airfields for Airborne 3D maneuver forces, clears beach of obstacles for 2D maneuver forces

P.S.: Yes, Virginia these are "tanks"--anything that is TRACKED and ARMORED is a tank.

Swim-----------Amphibious Tanks (swim selves) Landing Craft (swim others)

Amphibious medium Duplex Drive (DD) medium tanks

Amphibious Armored Personnel/Vehicle Carriers: "Buffalos"

British LVT-4 with Polsten 20mm autocannon

The American-made LVT-4s were not available until after the D-Day landings, and were used extensively therafter by the 79^th.

www.geocities.com/armorhistory/amphibiousinfantrytanks.htm

Landmines--------------Flail medium tanks "Crab"

Mine Rakes/Plows

Rocket line Charges "Conger" and Vehicle-Emplaced Bangalore (VEB) pole charges "Snake"

Obstacles

Soft sand bogging down wheeled trucks-------------Matt-laying medium tanks

Destroyed and Inoperative vehicles-----------High water fording tanks "BARV" Beach Armoured Recovery Vehicles

Ditches/Sea Walls-------------------Fascine bundle dropping medium tanks

Medium tanks with overhead ramps "Ark"

Strongpoints and Steel Girder Obstacles-------AVRE medium tanks with Petard demolition guns shooting "Dustbin" shells

Enemy inspiration: the German Sturmgeschutze turretless assault gun light tanks were THE MOST SUCCESSFUL GERMAN TANKS of WW2. Their doctrine of infantry having their own light tanks capable of following them wherever they go like the British concept that gave the Churchill tank is correct, and the lazy American turreted, medium tank-for-everything mentality which has morphed into Tiger heavy tank clones of today THAT CANNOT GO WITH INFANTRY INTO CLOSED TERRAINS, stranding them to foot-slog and use wheeled trucks is unsound. Details:

www.geocities.com/armorhistory

Flame-thrower medium tanks "Crocodiles"

Automatic weapons fire----------"Kangaroo" medium tank Armored Personnel Carriers

Sherman medium tank turrets were removed to create open-topped Armored Personnel Carriers with better protection than light Bren gun carriers but less cross-country mobility, though they were the lightest and most mobile of the narrow-tracked Sherman family

Night Fighting---------------------Vision-blinding "Canal Defense Light" (CDL) Grant Medium Tanks

Before the age of lasers, the British could temporarily blind foes with powerful searchlights fitted to surplus Grant medium tanks. Since the D-Day landings were made during the day, it was not until late in the wear that CDL units got into combat action. They were available for night combat to keep 30 Corps moving to link up with the British Paras at Arnhem but nobody thought of using them to help.

On the evening of June 5th, 1944 the skies over France were filled with criss-crossing anti-aircraft fire as the Airbornes of America and England performing as "3D cavalry" parachuted and glidered into France to seal off the invasion beaches as a screening and covering force from enemy counter-attacks.

So far so good.

As morning's fog lifted, so did naval gunfire and aircraft bombing runs, leaving the Germans intact on the beaches ready to repel the Allies just like they had two years earlier at Dieppe. But this time, emerging from the water were Duplex Drive (DD) amphibious M4 Sherman medium tanks whose 75mm guns began barking high-explosive shells into German gun positions at point-blank range. Sherman flail tanks beat the sand ahead, exploding mines as the 79^th Armored Division's elements spread throughout the Sword, Gold and Juno beaches stormed ashore and overwhelmed the unexpecting Germans under well-laid smokescreens. As more sea landing craft arrived, dozens of "Hobart's Funnies" drove ashore laying mats for wheeled vehicles, filling in ditches and finishing off pillboxes with projected demolition charges. In a matter of hours, the British were 10 miles inland with light casualties.

D-Day SITREP as of 2400 Hours on June 6, 1944

American Luck at Utah, Near Disaster at Omaha Beach

"You can always count on Americans to do the right thing-after they've tried everything else."

--Winston Churchill

The American 82^nd and 101^st Airborne landings sealed off Utah beach and the sea landings came ashore with few casualties. But at the junction of the Anglo and American beaches, Omaha beach---things were desperate; the aircraft had bombed too far inland and had hit nothing, there were no smokescreens and the men were getting clobbered by murderous inter-locking fire from the dug-in Germans high on the bluffs. Fortunately a grassfire had created a defacto smokescreen and some infantry had made it ashore. The others, overloaded with gear, foot-slogged and plopped onto the beaches and either died or got up and took matters into their own hands ala Saving Private Ryan since their superior officers had failed to provide them a winning hand. While General Omar Bradley considered pulling off the beach, American National Guard General Norm Cota found a group of Combat Engineers and Rangers and asked them to "lead the way". At great human cost, an explosive breach was made by direct hand emplacement through the vertical bluffs and Americans poured through the hole.

Supreme Allied Commander, General Eisenhower wrote:

Liddell-Hart reports in his book, The Tanks that the U.S. 70^th, 741^st and 743^rd Tank Battalions were trained by Hobart to operate DD Shermans. On D-Day, two companies of DD Shermans were launched prudently 2 miles from shore and all except 2 made it and rendered valuable fire support on Utah beach. 2 entire BATTALIONS of DD Shermans were to launch for Omaha beach; one battalion launched too early drowning everyone except for 2 tanks and the other battalion completely chickened out and did not launch at all. Someone should have been court-martialed for the cowardice of launching too early and murdering a bunch of men and for not launching at all. We know for a fact from official Army photos (see below) that at least one of the prematurely-launched American DD Sherman amphibious tanks reached Omaha beach and offered supporting fires and continued up to the cliffs until knocked out. Of course this doesn't fit into the foot-slogger, hero-worship of a movie like "Saving Private Ryan" and was not depicted.

However, the lesson to have specialty combat engineering tanks in the assault was not learned by the Americans, as General Hobart pointed out in his final post-war report on the 79^th Armored Division.

American Stuart Light Tank Knocked out by German Land Mine

The Americans by doctrine, had failed to develop a Combat Engineer tank ethos because such clear thinking and doing was stultified by tanks being developed under a vague "Armor" branch without a solid battlefield function and direction. U.S. Armored units were/are a quasi-combat engineer breakthrough force (couldn't storm beaches) and a quasi-cavalry force able to cover the main body from German heavy tanks, it was something in-between. It was in essence another main body needing specialty engineer armored tank support! To screen ahead for German tanks, General MacNair's "tank destroyers" units with anti-tank guns on open-top turrets roamed ahead but were never in enough quantity and the right places. Hobart had lent the Americans some DD Sherman amphibious tanks but a coward running the landing craft let them off too far from the beach and most sank. A few were able to land on Omaha beach and make a small difference. Had they arrived in force, the DD tanks could have saved the majority of the 2, 000 lives lost on Omaha beach. The dumb USMC still doesn't have any amphibious tanks to do fire support yet claims its amphibious warfare skilled---its more like they will get killed. On June 6, 1944, the U.S. Army's lack of mechanization-for-mechanical-advantage troubles were just beginning.

Moving inland, without optimal Combat Engineer tanks, the U.S. Army ran into French farm irrigation hedgerows and couldn't cut through the thick vegetation. Meanwhile the Germans with heavy, defensive tanks and shaped-charge anti-tank rocket ("Panzerfaust" and "Panzerschriek") teams ambushed American medium tanks while our infantry duked it out with their infantry, rifle-versus-rifle, machinegun-versus-machinegun, grenade-versus-grenade.

While this was taking place, the British Army found the limitations of their Army doctrine and equipment trying to take the cross-roads city of Caen. While they had superb specialty 2D maneuver axis combat engineering armor and a 3D Airborne infantry to force an entry ashore, their tanks in a cavalry role had not kept up with the Germans in ballistic and armor development and their medium offensive tanks were decimated by heavy defensive and turretless light tanks hiding in hedgerow vegetation and immune to their main gun fires while themselves having longer ranging and more powerful guns. The British Firefly 17-pounder anti-tank gun equipped Shermans were few in number and the Germans attacked them first--ALL Allied Sherman tanks should have been fitted with 17-pounder (76.2mm) guns so all could kill even heavy German tanks. A cavalry force must be able to screen ahead and cover, but this is only a temporary remedy; something must be coming from behind to actually solve the battlefield problem at hand. With a medium tank with a gun only capable of infantry breakthrough (quasi-combat engineering) support and not heavy, defensive tank destroying, British tank losses were horrific. Realizing the problem was the low-velocity gun on the Sherman medium tank, the British retrofitted more high-velocity 76.2mm gun "Firefly" tanks as a stop-gap measure as WW2 went on while the dumb American tankers died waiting for the 90mm gun M26 Pershing to enter the war too late. A German heavy-tank killing gun could have been fitted to a HULL of an American light tank chassis starting as far back as North Africa had we payed attention to the success the German STUGs were having as tank destroyers and assault guns for their infantry. Today, we have no excuse for not having turretless, STUG light tanks.

Operation Cobra: the Normandy break-out made possible by field-expedient combat engineer devices

Since the British were far better mechanized to withstand German heavy tank attacks since they had 17-pounder (76.2mm) guns fitted to their "Firefly" Sherman medium tanks while American tanks had ineffective 75mm guns, Operation Goodwood, the taking of Caen by Montgomery's Armies drew away German panzers so Patton's 3^rd Army could break-out at St. Lo from bocage country. Of, course Patton never thanked Montgomery for this.

In the south, a U.S. Army enlistedman finally came up with the solution; optimize the tanks we have to be better adapted to overcome the terrain. T/SGT Cullins welded steel hedgerow cutters to the front of the M4 Sherman tank and discovered a way to breakthrough just in time as American heavy strategic bombers, having little success bombing Germany into surrender were brought in to carpet-bomb the way ahead for the American 1^st Army. The strategic bombs used in a focused, tactical manner had devastating effect on the Germans (Billy Mitchell would have been proud) and Patton's 3^rd Army poured through to run free around the German Army to collapse and encircle it as a giant offensive cavalry formation. The British took Caen, and supplies began to flow from its ports and the British and Americans raced across France. What is not well known is that the Germans laid 100,000,000 (MILLION) land mines in France. But thanks to Hobart's flails, they were negated to such a degree that by the time the Allies reached Germany the enemy had figured it was futile to lay landmines if flails would just blow them up, thus thousands of lives were saved, a success-by-prevention you'll likely never read in a newspaper or history book.

What was not realized in either the American or British Armies as they raced to Germany, was that serious water and fortified obstacles lay ahead. While Patton used cavalry-type maneuver to try to find a less defended way to get around obstacles and enemies to encircle and "bag them"; when he ran into them like at Aachen, he did not have combat engineers with specialized tanks to overcome enemy resistance mechanically and had to rely on hand-emplaced engineer actions resulting in heavy casualties and loss of time, nor did he have tanks that could swim. Even Patton needed bridges built for him to cross, though he wished he had a parachute brigade or even dozens of artillery spotter planes to fly across and drop men off to secure the far banks.

So where was the 79^th Armored Division at Arnhem?

"The British always lose every battle--except the last one"

Vyvyan Adams, Men in our Time

http://books.google.com/books?id=uY-MwzNZRQ8C&pg=PA12&lpg=PA12&dq=the+british+always+lose+every+battle+except+the+last+one&source=web&ots=xAeCLNbhQX&sig=eFtujcmyMDE9cguLWis--BJFu4s

Adams elaborates further..."by and large and always when her independence is at stake, Britain does prevail in the final stages of wars. The last battle is the battle to win...Must we always, it may be asked, move so slowly into action that nine battles have to be lost before we win the decisive tenth?"

By 1944 the allied supply lines were over-extended and a focus of main effort had to be chosen to direct supplies to weight either the U.S. or British advance. With a fuel pipeline in place from England, General Eisenhower chose to back Montgomery's plan to 3D maneuver U.S./Anglo Airborne Divisions ahead to take bridges over the major rivers in Holland (Operation Market) while the 2D force of XXX (30th) Armored Corps (Operation Garden) rushed up a single, narrow highway to relieve the Paratroopers and cross the bridges. So the question arises, where was the 79^th Armored Division in all this? If they had the 79^th's Combat Engineer tanks which could swim, and tracked transports to ferry men and vehicles across why did the British Army need the bridges?

Wikipedia [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Market_Garden] reports:

The terrain was also ill-suited for the mission of XXX Corps. Little contingency had been made in the event of blown bridges along the route.

Montgomery initially suggested Operation Comet, a limited airborne coup de main to seize the bridge in Arnhem on September 7, but weather postponements and a fluid enemy situation made it evident that Arnhem was too distant a target for an unsupported airborne attack. Comet was replaced by a more ambitious plan that bypassed the Siegfried Line, crossed the Rhine with large-scale forces, and trapped the German 15th Army between Arnhem and the shores of the IJsselmeer. This would also isolate the V-2 launch sites that were bombarding London and Antwerp. However, the plan aimed the British Second Army northwards through terrain with numerous water obstacles; this moved them away from the U.S. First Army.

WW2 Mystery: A Bridge Too Far or We Didn't Go Far Enough? P4

Here is the crux of the issue and why we noted that the existence of a specialty 79^th Division provided TEMPORARY relief to an Army's mobility problems. At Normandy, the 79^th had to perform only one major act, get the Army ashore. At Arnhem, there were 4 major rivers to cross. Where was the 79^th?

Reactive Funnies

Their official history on the bottom of this web page shows during Operation Market-Garden they were fighting to take the channel ports on the left flank of the British and Canadian armies. However, by day 4, with LTC Frost's men removed from the north side of Arnhem bridge, the rest of the 1^st British Airborne division that couldn't reach them because they dropped too far away and didn't Hamilcar glider-land light tanks or Bren gun carriers with big guns to act as mini-STUGs to blast a way open were still holding a defensive perimeter over the Rhine that could have been reinforced by LVT-4 Buffalo personnel and vehicle carriers and DD Sherman swimming tanks--had Hobart's men been asked to provide them. The DD Shermans could have warded off the German tanks with the help of fresh infantry delivered by the Buffalos--some of which had Polsten 20mm autocannon and flamethrowers to assist. We know wheeled DUKW amphibious trucks crossed the Rhine to deliver ammunition to the 1^st Airborne's Osterbeek perimeter but got stuck in the mud. Why not send in Hobart's tracked funnies with some mats? In fact, a Buffalo could swim across a smaller Bren gun carrier with troops inside!---so a few handfuls could go back and forth delivering a growing amount of infantry shielded from German fire by their carriers to effect terrain and firepower dominance. Higgins boat landing craft could also be trucked to the south bank of the Rhine river and debark Bren gun carriers/infantry, too--in fact M3/M5 Stuart light tanks could also be ferried across this way. Why wasn't a contingency plan in place in case one of the bridges couldn't be secured for whatever the reason (blown up, too many Germans defending it etc.) to get tanks and troops across knowing failure to get just one river crossing jeopardizes the whole mission? The British Army had the world's most powerful amphibious armored force in existence, perhaps to date, yet one gets the feeling the planners of Operation Market-Garden perhaps for reasons of weak ego vis-a-vis Hobart getting yet another triumph or whatever--did not seem to even CONSULT HIM OR THEM on how to force a river crossing while they had been doing such things constantly over the water-sunken edges of Europe ever since breaking out from Normandy 2 months before. The official 79^th Armoured history (at bottom of this web page) gives scant mention of Arnhem, as does prolific author and protégé of Hobart, Major Kenneth Macksey in his book Armoured Crusader. There were several options to get tanks across the Rhine, and Montgomery, Horrocks and Browning tried none of them! Thus, the failure at Arnhem is on their hands, too!

Where was General Montgomery as Market-Garden was going sour?

Why didn't he intervene and dispatch some of Hobart's amphibious funnies to salvage success at Arnhem?

The map above derived from General Gavin's maps shows how Hobart's Funnies could have made Market-Garden successful even with the loss of the Arnhem road bridge to the east.

Pro-Active Funnies

If Market-Garden had planned all along for amphibious carriers and tanks, and the 79^th detachment forces across the first river, the 2^nd, 3^rd and 4^th bridges might be blown up by the enemy. Then, the 79^th would have to force a river crossing 3 more times against an alert enemy, but they are better prepared to do this then what actually took place--Paratroopers in flimsy boats had to paddle across when engineers couldn't erect a Bailey bridge across in a timely manner.

General Gavin Asks Major Julian Cook to Assault Nijmegan Bridge

Nijmegan Bridge Boat Assault

Hobart's Unemployed CDL Tanks Not Used: Night Fighting, Anyone?

General Hobart trained his armored divisions, the 7^th, 11^th and 79^th to fight at night. Apparently the rest of the British armored units "didn't get the memo". What of the 79^th CDL beam light Grant medium tanks? What were they doing? Playing checkers? Why didn't Montgomery put them to work to keep the XXX/30 Corps advance going during the night?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Market_Garden

Wikepedia reports:

The common doctrine for armour at that time was to halt at night, and although some night attacks had been made with armour by 21^st Army Group in Normandy during Operation Totalise, no attempt was made here.

Despite the capture of Nijmegen bridge and the clearing of the town on the previous evening, the Guards Armoured Division did not begin their advance until some eighteen hours later, at noon. Lieutenant General Brian Horrocks claimed he needed this delay to sort out the confusion among his troops that had resulted from the battle in Nijmegen. This was a controversial decision that has been examined often in the years since.

Gavin's diary comment was: "Had Ridgway been in command at that moment, we would have been ordered up that road in spite of all our difficulties, to save the men at Arnhem." The historian Max Hastings wrote "It reflected poorly on the British Army...".

The actions of XXX Corps have also been questioned. Their advance was characterized by what was widely perceived, at the time, as a lack of drive. For example, XXX Corps did not jump off until mid-afternoon of the first day and were delayed by pockets of German resistance and the need for engineers to replace the bridge destroyed at Son. They arrived at Nijmegen on September 19 when the plan called for them to be in Arnhem by that afternoon. Their major unexpected delay arose from the need to support the 82^nd's assaults on Nijmegen and its bridges. After the river had been crossed, the Guards waited 18 hours to resume their advance; in the words of Colonel Reuben Tucker (commander of the 504^th) the Guards "...stopped for tea". While not literally true, Tucker's statement summed up the view some U.S. troops had of the XXX Corps units. Ridgway added that he was "much dissatisfied with the apathy and lack of aggressiveness of the British forces".

The point for us today is that having a specialized force is NOT the optimal answer to an Army that lacks its own full 2D mobility even if its on hand. The optimal answer is that an Army must be able to 2D swim and 3D fly itself and not need bridges in the first place. The result was that by the time the 2D maneuver XXX Corps arrived to link-up with the 3D maneuver Airborne, the Germans had reinforced the far back of the Rhine such that even if a crossing was forced there was no easy path to the industrial heartland of Germany to end the war Sherman-style with flying columns of mechanized cavalry. Montgomery was trying to use the 3D Airborne to take bridges by coup de main as a work-around for the weakness that his Army couldn't 2D swim. He should have realized his plan wasn't working and dispatched some of the 79^th Armoured's swimming APCs/tanks to secure the breakthrough over the Rhine river and pour on through later with bridges for non-swimming tanks. That the WW1-style linear British Army was content to use Arnhem as a bulge to advance their front lines and continue to plod slowly to Berlin is further indictment to the lack of military competence for modern, non-linear war that ignored and sacked General Hobart who was offering ways to prevail in the new ways of war.

Months later, the 79^th's specialized tanks were brought forward and the Rhine river was crossed after a massive Airborne drop of Paratroopers to secure the far bank. Soon WWII was over.

Here is how the WW2 Germans in LIGHT tanks coped with river crossings. Note that all the British had to do at the Osterbeek pocket was to gain the heights and stop enemy direct fire and indirect fire observation and BUILD A BAILEY BRIDGE. They already had the BRIDGEHEAD.

River Crossing: German Assault Pioneer Style

Part 1: Fascinating conceptual presentation using animation; engineers act as terrain cavalry for main body, More excellent outboard motor to push assault boats fast across the water to the far bank means less exposure to enemy fire than paddling as 82^nd Airborne had to to cross Waal to take Nijmegan bridge, minimalist ferry concept pushed by motor assault boat at least gets towed AT guns across, ferries become pontoon bridge

Part 2: pontoon bridge enables excellent Czech-built 38T light tanks and pioneers in motorcycle sidecars to cross, Dragon's teeth tank obstacles blown up, rubber boat to cross another small river where a girder bridge is projected across, minefield encoutered they launch some form of smokescreen shell to mask themselves as the bangalore torpedo some wire and mines to make a breach, smoke grenades used liberally, flamethrower and pole charge against a pillbox

River Crossing: American Style: Wait Until You are in a Jam

101^st Loses Bridge that Slows 30 Corps Advance

I Need 60 Feet of Bridge...

Rebuilding the Son Bridge

When the Rhine was crossed belatedly in 1945, Hobart's Funnies lead the way, so there's no excuse why the year before they hadn't been employed. Even American tankers swam across in their own DD Sherman tanks of the 739^th Medium Tank Battalion. Of course, after WW2 such units were de-activated and the equipment and the skills to counter mines, obstacles and swim was lost.

Battle of the Rhine

In the following videos, you will see Hobart's Funnies in action but not specifically noted by the documentarian's verbage. You'll see LVT-4s brought in by trucks, swimming across German rivers, Sherman tank mine flails, Churchill tank flamethrowers etc. Notice the smoke pots to create smokescreens for optically masking assault vehicles during the river crossings. These videos will give you the "BIG PICTURE" of where the Arnhem failure fit in, and the terrible aftermath.

Courageous FDR: failing health desires WW2 to end realizes British and American Alliance must stay strong

General Eisenhower: politician, not tactician, bungles war termination

Germans hope v-weapons and counter-attack British-American alliance to shatter it stop them at Siegfried line

Antwerp port taken but river seamined covered by nearby Germans on nearby land, Operation Market-Garden to outflank Siegfried line, but British bungle it

Order of Battle

The Siegfried Line, not bypassed at Arnhem must be pierced, lowlands leading to port of Antwerp cleared by Canadians with Hobart's Funnies leading with amphibious tanks/apcs

The Bulge

Advance to the left Rhine: Operation Veritable

Operation Plunder: Ground part of British Army right Rhine River Crossing

Allies meet Russians at Elbe River

Russians take Berlin

General Hobart After World War II Continues to Innovate with Engineer Tanks

"Don't be content with things as they are, the earth is yours and the fullness thereof"

--Winston Churchill

Many pundits even the otherwise sound Simon Dunstan condemn the British tank design categories of WW2--the slow infantry support tank--some with combat engineer devices, the light tank for reconnaissance, the cruiser medium tank to exploit breakthroughs the infantry and support tanks gained because these tank types were not optimized for tank duels. Of course British generals didn't value tanks, they wanted to foot-slog and fight war at a snail's pace! However, going to the other extreme that EVERYTHING revolves around the tank and tank-versus-tank combat is just as misguided. The heavy metal idiots don't understand that the mistake of the British General officer majority in WW2 was NOT that they didn't want to duel other tanks, it was that they wanted to FIGHT LINEAR WARS WITH INFANTRY BREAKING THROUGH THE ENEMY'S LINES slowly instead of breaking in and fanning out quickly with mechanized mobility to collapse the enemy from within Hobart blitzkrieg-style--which is NON-LINEAR WARFARE. An example of this was Operation Market-Garden. As bad as this operation was planned and equipped, an easy victory was possible by sending XXX/30 Corps to another bridge over the Rhine that was undefended and circles back behind the Germans fixated on the British Paras holding the Arnhem road bridge. General Montgomery rejected this request by the suddenly daring instead of cautious Corps Commander, General Horrocks.

Wikipedia reports:

Arnhem bridge was not the only available Rhine crossing. In fact, had the Market Garden planners realized that a ferry was available at Driel, Frost's paratroops might well have secured that instead of the Arnhem bridge, making a profound difference in the campaign because at a shorter distance away from their western drop and landing zones--the whole of the 1^st Brigade could have concentrated to hold the Osterbeek heights instead of just one battalion farther away at the road bridge. In this case, Arnhem was "one bridge too many". The commander of XXX Corps advocated another course of action. About 16 miles (25 km) to the west was another bridge similar to Arnhem, at Rhenen, which he predicted would be undefended because of all the efforts being directed on Oosterbeek. This was in fact the case, but the corps was never authorised to take the bridge; if they had, it is almost certain they would have crossed unopposed into the rear of the German lines. By this time, it appears that Montgomery was more concerned with the ongoing German assaults on Market Garden's lengthy 'tail'.

For an example of what medium tanks can do against foot troops in "rear" areas, the following film clip from "Kelly's Heroes" is instructive:

The heavy-tank-o-philes folks fail to understand the operational art that wins battles and wars and instead see tank warfare against their mirror images as some sort of "ultimate" in self-validation. Wars are about VICTORY not ego trips. The heavy tank egotists buy into the "universal" one-tank-for-everything non-sense that is now known as the "main battle tank" (MBT) for a "main battle area" ie an area you are defending--which is a HEAVY TANK mentality driven by the fear of tankers being hit and incinerated by German medium-heavy 46-ton Panther and 50-60 ton Tiger tanks that were ON THE DEFENSIVE that were made heavier to compensate for a lack of numbers to attain overmatch over the swarms of American Shermans and Russian T34 30-ton MEDIUM tanks attacking them. We have simply switched places with the Germans of late WW2 with our tank designs awaiting a replay of the eastern WW2 half of the final offensive. LTG Gavin rightly condemns this "deification of heavy armor" in 1954 as being out-of-touch with physical planet earth reality where there is much closed terrain not passable by medium-to-heavy tanks that need man-made strips of firm open terrain--called roads/trails which are easily blocked and ambushed by more mobile enemies like the North Koreans, the Red Chinese and the Vietnamese.

Most tank enthusiasts today don't get it; the mistake in the British tank categories was that they did not have a category of tanks to destroy other tanks--the TANK DESTROYER. If they had trouble fitting a heavy tank killing gun in a turret with equal 2, 000 meter range of the German 88mm, THAN DO WITHOUT A TURRET and place the gun in the hull like a STUG that was the German's most successful tank because of its lightness for mobility and low silhouette meant it was not spotted before it killed its high silhouette Allied tank.

However, with tankers driving tank development out of self-centered desires for individual self-preservation ("Mech Pussies") what is needed to WIN BATTLES according to necessary FUNCTIONS got lost in the shuffle for a tank that could withstand a direct hit of a German 88mm gun yet be faster than the slow Churchill infantry support tank and have a turret to swivel 360 degrees for tank dueling peace-of-mind. The British couldn't do this in WW2 at medium tank weight of 40 tons so the result was the 57-ton Centurion HEAVY tank, an excellent tank for firm OPEN TERRAIN but hardly an "universal tank" for everything a mechanized army needs to do. This dangerously false idea that ALL tanks must be heavy and capable of withstanding a main gun hit of an enemy heavy tank has destroyed OFFENSIVE MANEUVER WARFARE capabilities in the West by saddling us with tanks that cannot operate in closed terrain and can only move in open terrain at enormous fuel costs.

Got Cavalry? IDF Centurion heavy tank stuck in mud even in open terrain

We CAN make a light-to-medium tank able of withstanding a direct hit by an enemy main gun IF WE ARE TURRETLESS and not squander power/payload efficiency with a turret. The amazing Swedish "S" tank is proof of this. The entire force including the main body can SWIM across lakes and rivers and wouldn't need bridges avoiding Arnhem-like fiascos.

We are now stuck with DEFENSIVE heavy tanks with huge turrets asking to be blown off that are ill-suited to go overseas in the offense to get bandits that hide in closed terrains and populations and that if they are used to defeat an enemy nation-state army lack an effective cavalry in light tanks that can keep moving in all terrains, to include patches of open terrain where its too soft for medium-to-heavy tanks to not get stuck in.

World renowned tank expert, David Fletcher writes in his Vanguard of Victory: the History of the 79^th Armoured Division:

The Specialized Armour Development Establishment

The wartime activities of the 79th Armoured Division ceased when Germany capitulated; they never went to the Far East. Similar equipment was employed in the war against Japan, the Americans making extensive use of amphibians in the island campaigns and the Australian Army developing what they called "Circus Equipment", based on the Matilda, which mirrored much of what had been used in Europe.

The return of peace separates the Citizen-Soldier from his professional counterpart in that the former discards his uniform as soon as possible while the latter carries on with his duty. So it was with Hobart; he saw the post-war world as another challenge and his faith in the peculiar services -of specialized armour encouraged him to continue its development. With War Office approval, he established a new organization at Woodbridge in Suffolk, with an amphibious wing at Gosport in Hampshire which was known as the Specialized Armour Development Establishment, SADE. It lasted for six years. The dual tasks were to improve existing equipment and develop new ideas.

Despite the fact that it was hardly used during the war, the CDL idea was continued. An automatic carbon-feed system was designed to obviate the need for manual replacement and a more compact form of light was produced for fitting to the turret of the new Centurion tank. This had the advantage of retaining the tank's main armament so that special types of tanks were not required. An alternative system using mercury vapour lights was also tested on a Cromwell.

The Churchill Crocodile, which again saw service in Korea, was modified in various details. The internal controls for the flame projector were improved and the pressure system for fuel delivery was changed to eliminate leakage which had bedevilled the wartime models. The Crocodile trailer was fitted with floatation apparatus which permitted it to be towed by a DD tank and a prototype Centurion Crocodile appeared. However the trend was towards self-contained tank flamethrowers instead of trailers so no further versions of Crocodile were made.

The Sherman Crab had more than vindicated its potential and by the end of the war a Mark II version, which was better able to follow ground contours, had been evolved. SADE experimented with smaller diameter rotor drums to reduce the incidence of damage by blast and a reduction gearbox was inserted into the rotor drive on a Mark II in order to reduce the flailing rate. This was in answer to a German practice of linking pairs of mines as an antidote to Crab. The problem of station keeping between flail tanks in action was investigated in a variety of ways including the unlikely expedient of chaining two tanks together; needless to say, this was not a solution that worked very well. Other minesweeping options were tried using rockets and jets. The jets, 5-inch ATOG type, of the kind used for assisted lift-off on aircraft, were mounted at the front of a tank. Starting with single and triple mountings, the theme was extended until a Mark IV Churchill appeared with no less than twelve of them on an angled framework. They could clear mines alright but they burned out too quickly and further development was not considered worthwhile.

The unit employed was a W2/700 gas turbine which was mounted on the nose of the tank at an angle, pointing downwards. It was worked up to full revs at which time the tank moved slowly forwards against the mines. The blast from the jet carved a shallow trench in the soil and the offending mine was thrown some 8 metres (9 yards) without detonating. However, results varied to such an extent that this scheme, too, was soon abandoned.

Numerous detail improvements were also made to the DD Sherman. Special driver's periscopes [EDITOR: we'd use micro-cameras today to improve driver vision through the floatation screen] were tried and remote control machine guns were mounted on the rim of the screen. The most impressive devices, however, were connected with the beaching trials. These were a continuation of the experiments conducted on the Maas. Two different schemes were examined. One was another Straussler idea called Gin-and-It, suggesting that it was conceived in a bar! It consisted of a complicated ~ arrangement of canvas on tubular metal frames which extended from the bow of the tank upon landing and formed a solid path across the mud. An even more spectacular solution was rocket egress. It involved further use of the ATOG rockets mounted, eight a side, on the tank. If it became stuck in the shallows, the rockets were fired and, in theory at least, the tank leapt ashore. The results were reasonably successful, unlike the Gin-and-It, which failed every time, but somewhat overawing to on-lookers due to the amount of flame which enveloped the tank at the critical moment. On dry land A TOG was tested for unditching and an unmanned Universal Carrier did some spectacular rocket-assisted departures from a muddy hole.

Returning to the DDs, it is interesting to note that the Kangaroo idea was developed to the extent that a Sherman DD Kangaroo was built, or at least converted from a redundant service tank. The idea was eminently practical but never developed. At the same time an American amphibious device, the T12 system, was tested. This employed vast rubber pontoons attached to the sides of the tank. The main advantage was the fact that the tank could fire while afloat, but it was impossible to launch it from an LCT because of the great width. The American LVT and its British equivalent were tested with a variety of fittings, including a flame-throwing system called Sea Serpent.

The wartime Churchill AVRE was gradually replaced in service by a new version based on the Mark VII, mounting a 6.5 inch demolition gun, while improved types of fascine, using lighter materials, were developed and at least one tank was fitted with a fascine-launching platform above the turret.

Improved versions of the ARK appeared with longer, wider ramps, and one version, known as Woodlark, launched its ramps by rocket like the Great Eastern.

Even an august body like SADE was not entirely free from flights of fancy - quite literally, in one case. This was the famous gap-jumping tank, which was designed to fly across impassable obstacles. The object was to lift tank bodily into the air by means of rockets. This device, tested first on a carrier and subsequently on another turret-less Valentine, consisted of a battery of rockets which were fired together to catapult the tank through the air. No problem was encountered in lifting the vehicle off the ground; the difficulty was getting it to land the same way up. Quite what happened in the air was never clear since the tank was invisible in a cloud of smoke, but despite a series of tests the stability problem was never solved.

The Specialized Armour Development Establishment, which later became known as the Specialized Armour Establishment (SAE), lasted until 1951. Its final report, the cover of which still sported the famous bull's-head device, revealed the great range of ideas that it had been connected with, from prosaic improvements in rapid refueling to the advanced concept of using television for reconnaissance purposes. But it also records a trend to deviation that exceeded its brief. On one level, it got involved in the user trials of a new quarter-ton truck called the Land Rover which, with suitable modifications, it reckoned an adequate substitute for the Jeep! On quite another level it undertook a far-reaching assessment of the modern fighting tank itself.

Arguing that recent increases in size and weight would in time prove prohibitive, the SAE produced a design and a full-sized wooden mock-up of a revolutionary light tank which took advantage of the most up-to-date, indeed futuristic, developments in engine and weapon design coupled with ingenious new proposals for crew stations. This move brought it into competition and conflict with the official War Office body charged with such matters, which no doubt hastened its closure. The mantle of its more "legitimate" work passed to the 7^th Royal Tank Regiment at Bovington, while General Hobart retired.

History was bound to repeat itself. The Centurion was the last British tank to appear in a variety of specialized versions including A VRE, ARK and DD. True, some of its functions have been taken over by the versatile Combat Engineer Tractor, but others have vanished altogether, although the memory lingers on and the fighting in the Falkland Islands has aroused new interest in mechanical minesweeping.

General Hobart's Last Tank: A Light One

It is important that the world's greatest tank innovator, Major General Percy Hobart's last tank be examined in DETAIL. Here shown for the first time to the world is the LIGHT tank Hobart and his men concluded necessary. It looks like.....

A M113 Gavin!...with possibly a rear car like a Bv206....

Serial 89

Task NO. 11 (UNORTHODOX TANK)

REQUIREMENT

1. It is apparent that further development of armoured fighting vehicles, if continued on present orthodox lines, will impose unacceptable restrictions on fire power and will reduce tactical and strategic mobility to a dangerously low level.

2. It was decided therefore to examine the possibility of designing an A.F.V. which, whilst providing better armour protection and a reduction in size, would still fulfil the present specification.

DESCRIPTION

3. As a result of the various considerations which are discussed at length in the Final Report (Volume II, Report No. 65), the conception was formed of a tank consisting of three separate and distinct compartments for the crew, the armament and the engine.

4. The crew of three are housed in a heavily armoured compartment where all sighting, firing, direction keeping, navigation and telecom instruments are ready hand, easily maintained and replaced. In the closed down state the compartment might be heat and sound controlled and thus provide collective protection against and bacteriological attack; it would also divorce the crew from fire risks.

5. The greatest economy in space and weight is obtained by getting rid of the orthodox turret and housing a solid gun in a mounting. The gun is therefore mounted in the separate armament compartment, is remotely controlled and would be loaded by fully automatic means; this automatic loading would of course only be possible by the employment of the solid type of gun, using bi-fuels as propellant and thus dispensing with the cartridge case.

6. The prime mover envisaged is an engine on the Stirling (or Philips) principle which, besides other attractive characteristics, offers the advantage of a smaller shorter engine with few auxiliaries.

7. The complete vehicle would be built up from the three sections, each portable on its own suspension.

RESULTS

8. The situation on the 1st June, 1950, on the disbandment of S.A.E. was as follows:-

(a) Layout of the crew compartment had been finalised.

(b) Design of the optical system for the crew and armament compartments had been completed.

(c) Design of the electrical fire control system had been completed. This equipment, and the optical components, were under production at Messrs. Barr & Stroud of Glasgow.

(d) The hull wooden mockup, with range finder and vision device mockups, had been completed. This formed the design basis for the steel frame (nearing completion) which was to be fitted into a gutted Challenger chassis for field trials.

9. The project was handed over to F.V.D.E. on 1st June, 1950.

REPORT

10. See Vol. II Report No. 65.

-168-

ORIGIN

1.

(a) A long-standing requirement for AFVs and other WD vehicles is a prime mover better than the conventional IC and CI engines. The improvements required are better torque-speed characteristics (particularly at low r.p.m.), higher power-weight ratio, higher overall efficiency, simpler construction and maintenance, silence, ability to use lower grade fuel, easier starting, immunity to extremes of ambient temperature, and long life.

(b) During World War II, PHILIPS of EINDOVEN (Holland) revived the closed cycle hot-air engine originally invented by Dr. STIRLING early in the 19th Century. The PHILIPS engines, though small, were very quiet and made good use of the high theoretical efficiency of the closed-cycle; this type of engine has a speed-torque characteristic similar to that of a series electric motor. These qualities make it attractive for use in WD vehicles.

DESCRIPTION

2. The engines built in the 19th century did not realise the high potential efficiency of the closed-cycle. The great superiority of the PHILIPS engines is due to their highly efficient heat regenerator, which is essential to true isothermal expansion.

3. Because of the promise shown by these engines SAE took an early interest in their development and progress has been continually watched with the object of trying them eventually as prime movers for AFVs.

4.

(a) In this country SRDE are in close liaison with PHILIPS and are experimenting in the building of small engines of about 1/5 BHP for 150 watt charging sets. Their main object is to keep their engineers in touch with problems and techniques.

(b) PHILIPS are experimenting with engines of larger sizes. They have built a 325 HP 4-cyl 1500 r.p.m. version, which, however, is presenting development problems about which they are somewhat reticent. The larger sizes promise to show the following advantages over conventional 10 and 01 engines:-

(i) "Series" torque-speed characteristic.

(ii) Low weight.

(iii) Simple construction giving easy maintenance.

(iv) Silence.

(v) Ability to use low-grade fuels.

(vi) High efficiency.

CONCLUSIONS

5. The factor in 4(b)(i) above should make it possible to eliminate the conventional gearbox. PHILIPS have always stated that very low grade fuels can be used. Although in practice this is NOT true of the small engines, on account of the small burners necessary in the external heaters, it should apply to the larger sizes. The high efficiency is very important, as it offers chance of much bigger operating ranges for AFVs.

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Report No. 65

S.A.E., R.A.C., FINAL REPORT

ON TASK NO. 11

REQUIREMENT

1. It is apparent that further development of armoured fighting vehicles, if continued on present orthodox lines, will impose unacceptable restrictions on fire power and reduce tactical and strategic mobility to a dangerously low level.

2. The great size and weight of these vehicles and their complexity in may well produce a crippling load on available industrial resources.

3. The enormous demand for skilled labour in production of such massive and complicated equipment may absorb a disproportionate amount of man hours for this task, leaving an inadequate force of skilled. labour available to the Army for maintenance and repair. in the field.

4. The original specification given in War Office Policy Statement No. 1 was in its essential points by FV 201, but only at a weight of 55 - 60 tons and a width of 13ft. The transportation of vehicles of this weight and size present:

great difficulties in that not all ships are constructed to lift such weights, and transporters for land movement have to be so large as to cause traffic difficulties. In addition, such vehicles aggravate the military field bridging problems and the width may severely hamper the tactical movement of armies in the field.

5. If components such as armour, armament and power plants, in their present stage of development are utilized, there would appear to be only two possible methods by which an A.F.V., which is an advance on present tanks, could be produced, viz:-

(a) The addition of armour to provide better protection.

(b) A reduction in size whilst retaining the present specification.

6. The F. V. 201 Series gun tank is now in the region of 55 tons in weight. Any appreciable increase in weight to give thicker armour would lead to all the well known troubles associated with overloading.

7. The second method would be to reduce the size whilst still retaining the armament and armour thickness. A worthwhile reduction in size can only be obtained by reducing the size of the fighting compartment which would mean less ammunition and a more cramped fighting chamber.

The number of rounds at present carried is considered to be a minimum and space available for loading and fighting cannot be reduced to any worth-while extent without seriously affecting the fighting efficiency.

8. It is therefore clear that unless some fundamental advance is made in either armour of less specific weight, or armament of less bulk, or power plants with greater power/weight ratio, we are unlikely to achieve an A.F.V. which is superior to the present series.

9. Any big improvement in performance, therefore, can only be achieved by breaking away from existing ideas and practice.

OBJECT

1C. To investigate a new approach to the problem of tank design.

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DISCUSSION OF THE PROBLEMS INVOLVED

11. Main Factors

(a) Armament.

(b) Mobility.

(c) Armour.

12. Armament

For A.P. fire the gun should be capable of defeating 12 inches of armour at 2,000 yards but 1,500 might be acceptable, For H.E. the filling should constitute a substantial increase in payload, about 25% of the weight of the shell or better.

13. The rate of fire, single aimed shot, should be not less than 8 rounds per minute and this rate should include time for selection, loading and firing.

14. The importance of the development of a specially designed tank main armament cannot be over emphasized. To demonstrate the type of weapon required S.A.E. made and fired some 80 rounds of 4.5 inches Schulman A.P. and H.E. shells from a Mk.II 4.5 inches How. This invention of Dr. J. Schulman of Cambridge University was selected for the following reasons:-

15. As the Schulman projectile has not been tried out at M.V's above 1,000ft/sec basic data of its behavior at supersonic speeds has not yet been established.

Its stability depends on the relation between the diameter, length, density and velocity; as theoretically the Schulman has no yaw at ejection., it could therefore be boosted, but this has still to be proved under controlled firing trials.

16. Economy in space is of paramount importance in limited weight. The biggest offender against this economy is the ordinary cartridge case where only one sixth of the volume is occupied by cordite, and the size of their cases is increasing at an alarming rate with each increase in size of gun. It is for this reason that a liquid propellant offers such advantages.

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17. Much work is now being done on the development of liquid bi-fuels; oxidants are:-

(a) Liquid oxygen.

(b) Nitric acid.

(c) Hydrogen peroxide.

Kerosene is the most popular fuel and in each case represents some 5% of the total volume employed. With the employment of bi-fuels a flat pressure/time curve, can be obtained and thereby a great saving of space can be achieved.

18. It is not claimed that the Schulman projectile is the only answer but it is maintained that some similar solution of attack of armour by chemical energy will be found provided the time and money is spent on development.

Mobility

19. Although placed second in importance to armament considerable advances are required in:-

(a) Speed - 40 miles in 2 hours, mixed going.

(b) Fuel range - 200 miles.

(c) Ground pressure - 8 lbs per sq. in.

20. The normal driving clutch and gearbox should be eliminated by the employment a prime mover giving a much wider torque speed range. A specification of 50 lbs ft. of crankshaft torque per ton weight of vehicle is called for, and a torque characteristic similar to a series wound electric motor is required.

The Prime Mover

21. When fully developed an engine on the Stirling principle appears to give characteristics called for in the specification of mobility. This selection made for the following reasons:-

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22. It seems highly desirable that some better prime mover be found which will give the torque and fuel economy characteristics required for tank propulsion; the Stirling engine is the only principle, as far as is known, which is sufficiently far advanced to be worth development at present.

Armour

23. (a) Within the frontal 60 degree arc. The equivalent of 6in. or better.

24. Armour, placed in order of priority after Armament and Mobility, was not given further detailed consideration at this stage as the allowable weight was so dependent on the tentative and unproved components of the other two factors.

THE FINAL CONCEPTION

25. As a result of the various considerations discussed above the conception was formed of a tank consisting of three separate and distinct compartments for the crew, the armament and engine.

26. Greater efficiency can be obtained by having the crew of three in a separate compartment where all sighting, firing, direction keeping, navigation and telecom instruments are ready to hand, well protected and easily maintained and replaced. In the closed down state the compartment might be heat and sound controlled and thus provide collective protection against gas and bacteriological attack; it would also divorce the crew from ammunition and fire risk.

27. The greatest economy in space and weight is obtained by getting rid of the orthodox turret and housing a solid gun in a mounting. With the gun in a separate compartment, remotely controlled, it would be essential to provide fully automatic loading; this would of course only be possible by the employment of a gun of the solid type using by-fuels as propellant and thus dispensing with the cartridge case.

28. The prime mover envisaged, besides the attractive characteristics detailed previously, offers the advantage of a smaller shorter engine with few auxiliaries.

Composite Construction

29. The vehicle would be built up from three sections each portable in its own suspension. Pending present investigation of the optical layout - no detail work or thought has been given to suspension.

30. Theoretical weights are as follows:-

(a) The fighting compartment - 14 tons.

(b) The magazine loader and mounting - 6 tons.

(c) Engine compartment - 18 tons.

31. The advantages of this construction are:-

(d) The complete vehicle is transportable by rail, but in sections ordinary road transport could be used and any ship's derricks could handle the smaller loads as ordinary merchandice.

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The Immediate Object

32. To produce a working mockup which will enable the principle of indirect vision coupled with remote control of the main armament to be demonstrated to the user so that it can be ascertained whether the principle for such a design is acceptable the user or not. .

The General Design

33. Certain limitations were imposed on the practical application of the general design, by lack of adequate workshop facilities, personnel and finance, with the result that the design details had to be built up on certain existing components obtained through official channels. These major components were:-

34. For the purpose of this study, using the Challenger Chassis, the engine compartment was ignored and all design effort was concentrated on the Crew and Armament Compartments. Again as the automatic loader was tied closely to the Schulman projectile I which was still in the experimental stage, it was decided that, to fulfil the immediate object, only the fire control and optical gear should be - produced for the armament compartment; this would enable the user to formulate opinion on the lines laid down in para.32 above.

DETAILS OF THE DESIGN

35. The Commander is seated on the near side of the hull and is provided with a rotating vision cupola.

36. In the cupola are mounted seven wide angle episcopes, each episcope giving a total horizontal field of 900 and a total vertical field of 4-4-0; these figures nearly double those obtainable with the present type of episcope. The actual instruments to be used are the American M13B1 plastic periscope with glass faced entrance and en t windows.

37. Also mounted in the cupola is a 50 cm stereo rangefinder complete with two:

2in. magslip transmitters (angle of sight and tangent elevation) which are connected to the main fire control system. To the immediate right of the Commander is the' eye-piece unit for the 41 basic range finder and on it, for use by the Commander's an eye-piece to enable him to take range through this rangefinder.

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38. The 4' range finder can also be used as an observation instrument. For this reason the field has been split so that the inverted portion accounts for only 3/8ths and the remaining 5/8ths of the field is upright.

39. The Commander's seat is adjustable for three positions - down; when using the main R/F eye-piece; normal when observing through the episcopes or when using his stereo R/F; up, when observing with head out of the open hatch.

40. The escape hatch is located, as normally, in thereof of the cupola.

41. The cupola is power operated and, in addition, there is an overriding control to enable the Commander to take control of the gun turre