Posted on 08/06/2008 6:36:41 AM PDT by DemonDeac
Has anybody considered the possibility that these tanks were deliberately dumped over the side AFTER the war? The dive location is listed as West Sussex — which is probably where the divers are staging from. The actual location of the tanks is only given as ‘The Channel’. They could be anywhere.
The Brits dumped a lot of war material in the ocean afterwards. Since these tanks were basically obsolete DURING the war, I expect these would have been the first to go.
As for this line, “Historians discovered the tanks fell overboard when a landing craft capsized on its way to the Normandy beaches on June 6, 1944.” — I’d like to know more about the ‘Historian’ and his/her methodology. Normally you’d start with serial numbers & try to trace the tank from manufacture to its delivery to a specific unit. Then you move to which landing craft it was loaded onto, etc.
This looks like an ‘educated guess’ to me. Probably correct, but you never know.
BTW, that’s pretty good Viz for the channel. Makes for pretty good pix.
Hard to believe that a crew of five fit in that small of a tank.
“They discovered that the tanks were specially adapted for exclusive use by the Royal Marines Armoured Support Group in Operation Overlord.
Mrs Mayor then trawled through the National Archives and discovered that a landing craft carrying two Centaur tanks capsized in bad weather on June 6, 1944 on its way to battle.
All the Royal Marines and crew aboard were rescued but the tanks, along with two armoured bulldozers and a field gun plunged to the sea floor.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2504563/D-Day-tanks-found-on-seabed.html
Please thank your Dad for me!
Read about swimming Shermans.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M4_Sherman
At first I thought this was one of those tanks that had a skirt and was supposed to float (it also had a propeller and a tall exhaust and inlet stack). The problem was they were overwhelmed by the waves and a lot sunk. I don’t remember how far they were from the beach when they were put in the water.
That’s what I was talking about.
Driver & Assistant Driver/Machine Gunner were in the hull. Tanks of this era were pretty tough to maneuver & required some manhandling of the controls.
In the Turret you’d have the Commander, Gunner & Loader.
This is pretty basic crew layout for a medium/heavy/main battle tank that survives to this day, except that power boosted controls pretty much eliminates the need for an assistant driver. Russian tanks utilize an auto-loader to eliminate the 3rd man in the turret.
Here’s the crux of the problem. Tank crews are expected to do a lot of their own maintenance. Reducing the crew size to fewer than 4 means that tanks disabled for minor reasons will be lost for extended periods until support/maintenance units can come up.
Joe D- Thanks for the additional info!
I do know that a number of Sherman DD tanks sank like rocks along with their crews just off the Normandy beaches during the assault.
ping
Two tons lighter than a Sherman, does it qualify as a medium or heavy main battle tank.
The M26 Pershing a 41 tons was designed as a heavy tank (latter downgraded to a medium tank).
Looks like three are half way in the tank, maybe they drew straws as to who got to stay all the way in.
BTTT
Ping out after I get home today, abb.
I’m no expert, but I think that the proper way to think about it is that Tank Classifications were defined more by tactical role than physical design. Since form-follows-function, you get general charactaristics (Gun Calibre, Armor, Engine Power, Radius of Action) that tends to hold for each class, but with notable exceptions.
The Medium Tank Class kind of morphed into the Main Battle Tank as I understand it. The US never really built a true heavy tank until the M1 Abrams. But by this time the Heavy tank class had fallen into dis-use, so the M1 family is referred to as a ‘Main Battle Tank’.
Looks like a Tiger knock off.
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Note to Ike:
Tanks don’t float.
As the opening scenes of Saving Private Ryan showed, a lot of men drowned during D-Day before they even got a chance to fire a shot.
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