Percy Hobart's weird and wonderful WW2 Tanks ...

[dogtag]

From Major General to Corporal to Major General:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...xhibition.html

Turin, Hobart, Barnes Wallace, Mitchel and other such men
had a great deal to do with winning the war.

[Vern Humphrey]

But the dual drive Shermans didn't work all that well. On D-Day the Stonewall Brigade, the 116th Infantry, Virginia National Guard, had 42 dual-drive Shermans. Forty one of them sank on the run to the beach.

[dogtag]

Can't win 'em all Vern.

[blackhawknj]

The DD Shermans were released WAY too far out, they were meant for river crossings, not to be used on the high seas.

[togor]

Imagine being in the driver's seat of a motorized iron coffin in heavy channel surf on D-Day, hoping that the flimsy canvas wall high above you doesn't give way. Your deliverance is to make it to the beach where you're now in range of the German guns. Even a 20 year old kid who still believes in his own invincibility shows some real balls in doing that.

[blackhawknj]

No different than a 20 year old kid jumping out of a C-47-at night. Or fighting Chinese hordes in zero degree weather. Or in a Vietnamese jungle.

[togor]

Point taken but different guys liked their odds sliced differently. Some preferred the armor of a tank, others would rather be outside. Climbing into a B-24 in Europe in the fall of 1943 was also special.

[Vern Humphrey]

The DD Shermans were released WAY too far out, they were meant for river crossings, not to be used on the high seas.

Exactly right. The Army Air Force was supposed to bomb the German defenses. The Air Force wanted to fly at right angles to the beach. The Navy was afraid they'd drop their bombs too soon and hit ships -- they wanted the Air Force to fly parallel to the beach. The Air Force refused, citing heavy anti-aircraft fire. The result was a stupid compromise -- the Air Force would not release their bombs until over the beach. Since the planes were flying about 250 mph, bombs released over the beach sailed over the German defenses and exploded behind them -- doing little damage.

The Navy, to make assurance double sure, backed off. When the troops boarded the landing craft, and when the tanks were launched, they could not see the land -- it was over the horizon. And the seas were very rough -- there had been a storm through the day before.

Forty-one of 42 dual drive tanks sank, and the landing craft got all intermixed, many of them landing in the wrong place. Once ashore, company commanders could not find their platoons, battalion commanders could not find their companies, the terrain where they landed was off their maps, and A Company was landed a mile away from the rest of the regiment.

The Stonewall Brigade suffered 50% casualties that day. For every two men who set out for the beach at dawn, by sundown one of them was dead or wounded.

[M1Tommy]

Interesting, and umm, imaginative, some of those.....

Just FYI, this fellow has some interesting videos about different tanks. I believe I have watched all the videos to date:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPbRkrF8Oh8

Tommy

[blackhawknj]

Theodore Roosevelt Jr. insisted on going ashore in the first wave of the 4th Infantry Division at Utah Beach, they found themselves about a mile from where they were supposed to be-and in a gap in the German defenses. He told his troops "We may as well begin the war here!"