Armor, Normandy: Building and using "Rhino" tanks in the field

[230RN]

Came across this video whilst browsing around for "stuff" on the hedgerow ("bocage") battles in the Normandy invasion.  Also shows removing land mines. Pretty high quality movie, given the great passage of time involved:

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=ac8_1411492104

Apparently the height (over 6 feet, usually) of the hedgerows were underestimated during pre-invasion aerial reconnaissance of the invasion site.  As a consequence, tanks could get over them, but their underbellies were exposed as they crested the berms.  This resulted in their being very vulnerable to anti-tank fire.

A sergeant named Culin came up with the idea that if "prongs" were welded onto the fronts of the tanks, they would grab the earth and hold the tank down to allow it to bust through the hedgerows instead of the treads making it climb over.

More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhino_tank

Especially the "Invention" section:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhino_tank#Invention

I found slight amusement in the fact that when they started building them on a semi-production basis back in England, the Brits called them "Mark I Prongs."

"Hey blokes, send us some more Mark I Prongs."

Terry, 230RN

[Devonai]

My Mark I is too deep in the bush, please advise further.

[TommyGunn]

Just what APS needs, an X rated thread.    Or is it ANOTHER X rated thread .......

[Boomhauer]

One of the maintenance officers, Belton Cooper, wrote that each device required 40 man hours to fabricate during the initial field production stages, and that they pushed around the clock to build them.

[AJ Dual]

My gut feeling on these is that the hedgerow teeth were probably a wash in terms of actual efficacy.  Whatever it saved them in terms of ripping through the hedgerows and keeping them nose-down with the frontal armor oriented was probably averaged out by the extra time the Germans sometimes had to fire at them while struggling to rip through rather than exposing their belly but doing it quickly.

I think it was effective because it was a big morale win, because whether or not it worked, it made both the Allies and the Germans think we had a "hedgerow solution" and were unstoppable.  We pressed on, and the Germans were made to feel the hedgerows weren't an advantage.

[Boomhauer]

My gut feeling on these is that the hedgerow teeth were probably a wash in terms of actual efficacy.  Whatever it saved them in terms of ripping through the hedgerows and keeping them nose-down with the frontal armor oriented was probably averaged out by the extra time the Germans sometimes had to fire at them while struggling to rip through rather than exposing their belly but doing it quickly.

I think it was effective because it was a big morale win, because whether or not it worked, it made both the Allies and the Germans think we had a "hedgerow solution" and were unstoppable.  We pressed on, and the Germans were made to feel the hedgerows weren't an advantage.

They also used breaching charges to blow holes through the hedgerows, so the rhinos weren't the only way to roll, although it did take time to set and use the charge.

[K Frame]

" Whatever it saved them in terms of ripping through the hedgerows and keeping them nose-down with the frontal armor oriented was probably averaged out by the extra time the Germans sometimes had to fire at them while struggling to rip through rather than exposing their belly but doing it quickly."

Apparently not so much, because prior to the use of the prongs, the Shermans were extremely limited in where they could move through a hedge row, if they could at all, and the Germans had the obvious fields of movement VERY heavily defended.

But they couldn't defend everywhere at once, and the Shermans worked in conjunction with advancing infantry, who scouted out the best spots for the tanks to push through the hedge rows.

There are more than a few stories of pushing through a hedge row and destroying an emplaced German gun before it could be brought to bear.

[Scout26]

In the first movie they seem to be all from the 2nd Armored Division (Patton's Own).  I caught glimpses of bumper numbers from 17th Engineers and 67th Armor and 702nd Tank Destroyer Battalions.

The Major General pictured would be Edwin Brooks.  Promoted to LTG in Sep '44 and given 6th Corps.  MG Ernest Harmon then went back to 2AD until Jan 45.  MG ID White led it through end the war.

[roo_ster]

" Whatever it saved them in terms of ripping through the hedgerows and keeping them nose-down with the frontal armor oriented was probably averaged out by the extra time the Germans sometimes had to fire at them while struggling to rip through rather than exposing their belly but doing it quickly."

Apparently not so much, because prior to the use of the prongs, the Shermans were extremely limited in where they could move through a hedge row, if they could at all, and the Germans had the obvious fields of movement VERY heavily defended.

But they couldn't defend everywhere at once, and the Shermans worked in conjunction with advancing infantry, who scouted out the best spots for the tanks to push through the hedge rows.

There are more than a few stories of pushing through a hedge row and destroying an emplaced German gun before it could be brought to bear.

This.

Shermans were road-bound much of the time in the hedgerows and when there was a place in the hedge they could bust through, they could easily be hit in the belly.  Given that the field delimiters were both levee/dyke with a hedgerow on top, I am betting much was impenetrable by wheels & tracks.  The rhinos multiplied the places where an armored vehicle could emerge (any field border / hedgerow & dyke with gentle enough slope and sparse enough hedgerow) that it would not allow the Germans to concentrate on the few roads through the mess.

So, not a miracle device, but not a placebo, either.  Effective enough that it monkeywrenched the German plans for defense.

[MechAg94]

That is what I had always heard as well.  It allowed the Shermans to cut through the hedgerows outside obvious roads and crossing where the Germans had already had their anti tank guns sighted.  The tanks could cut through and fire on the defenders before they could redirect fire. 

[230RN]

Deleted.   No, I am not bumping my own thread.  I had a question about roo_ster's phrasing.

[Devonai]

Are we not doing phrasing any more?

[Scout26]

That is what I had always heard as well.  It allowed the Shermans to cut through the hedgerows outside obvious roads and crossing where the Germans had already had their anti tank guns sighted.  The tanks could cut through and fire on the defenders before they could redirect fire. 

This.  Most of the German's anti-tank power in the Normandy Hedgerows were towed AT guns.  They were not easy to re-orient should a Sherman or three bust through the hedgerow on it's flanks or rear.   The Germans we excellent warfighters on the defensive.  However, once you had unhinged a section of their defensive scheme you could punch a pretty good hole in that defensive line (Although the Germans were also extremely good at defense in depth), but by using the Rhinos and continually flanking through fields and hedgerows to get behind the AT guns, the Allies were able to fight through the defense more effectively.   By use of the Rhinos in Normandy, Allied (and especially American) Combined Arms (Infantry, Armor, and Artillery) were able to break the stalemate and return to a war of maneuver.   

[230RN]

What they were up against in the hedgerows.

Came across these pics, dates unknown, of the hedgerows.  You can see the problem with estimating the heights from aerial surveillance photos as well as the innumerable fields they had to get through.

You would think that with all the very precise information the Allies were getting from la Resistance sources, they would have realized the problem in advance.  In addition, the Brits were very good at gathering information from the shadows in their reconnaissance flights over Germany.

In the first pic, I believe you can see a single bomb crater (or where something big went off) at the lower center edge of the image. 

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Rh3QhMDCiSU/Uavu01kl9CI/AAAAAAAAEHY/_3uv2E7kf9E/s640/puma19-NormandyHedgerowPlain.jpg

Hedgerows are not exclusive to France and Normandy.  England has a lot of them, and this one shows what a straight-down look with the sun fairly high in the sky looks like.

http://www.thisiscornwall.co.uk/images/localworld/ugc-images/275776/Article/images/19568393/5101507-large.jpg

This is one of the big errors made in the invasion.  Another major one was underestimating the tidal currents, which made many landing craft come in a mile or more west of their intended landing points and caused navigational difficulty with the floating tanks --when they floated at all.

SHAEF ("Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Forces," meaning "Eisenhower") had decided to go in at low tide, when most of the mines and obstacles would be visible... among other components of that decision.

Here's a fairly dramatic view of the shell craters at Normandy today.  That's Pointe-du-Hoc in the center background.  Somewhere I read that the outcropping got hit by artillery or rockets a couple of times and is now smaller than it was before the invasion!  These are the cliffs above Omaha Beach.  Utah beach is off  the pic to the left, East-Northeast.

http://blogs.denverpost.com/captured/wp-content/photos/dday39.jpg

Terry, 230RN

[K Frame]

Apparently the biggest problem that they had with the hedge rows wasn't the plants and stuff that had grown up, but with the dirt berms that were under the plants. A tank can generally bowl its way through a screen of hedges and small trees, but those rows had been growing in the same spot for as much as 1,000 years or more. Those berms were also loaded with stones that farmers had plucked from the fields over hundreds of years, making them even tougher.

This picture shows exactly what the issue was:

http://www.history.army.mil/images/reference/normandy/ts/md/227.jpg

That dirt berm appears to be close to 4 to 5 feet tall.

Here's a modern picture showing exactly what it was like in the hedgerows:

http://www.theliberator.be/SpecEvImages/D-Day2009/Hedgerows.jpg

This is a pretty good graphic that details the issues and resolutions:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/71659763@N00/3575929269/sizes/o/in/photostream/


There's also a VERY interesting takeaway point in this graphic -- the last bit of text in the lower right corner.

The prongs allowed the Shermans to grab into the dirt berm at root level and literally bulldoze its way through.

[Scout26]

Having been to Normandy, and seen the shell craters there at Pont du Hoc.  Not only are the shell craters (Mostly from battleship 14" and 16" guns), but the cliff itself.  It simply boggles the mind to think of climbing ropes and ladders to get up but also to do it as Rifle and  Machine Gun fire along with grenades rained down upon the Rangers is simply insane and suicidal.

Omaha Beach is where the Bradley came very close to throwing in the towel.

And this was against the German 2nd, 3rd and 4th rate divisions.  Imagine if the had been able to bring up re-inforcements (especially the Panzers from Pas de Calais). It might not have been "such a near run thing".

[K Frame]

The only 16" gunned battleship involved in the Normandy landings was HMS Rodney, and it was nowhere near Pointe du Hoc during the invasion. It was involved in covering British landings off Caen. HMS Nelson was also assigned to the Normandy support fleet, but it was held in reserve.

As far as I've been able to determine, the only battleship to fire on Pointe du Hoc was the USS Texas, which was assigned to the fire support "lane" that included the Ranger objective.