Originally Posted by MontyB

Fortunately I am a Kiwi we don't have to be nice about British failures because they usually cost us or the Australians dearly.

Well you Kiwi's will wear those funny bloody hats.

The one thing that came out of the Dieppe raid was the development of Hobarts Funnies for D Day.

Among the many specialist vehicles and their attachments were:
Crocodile - A Churchill tank modified by the fitting of a flame-thrower in place of the hull machine gun. An armoured trailer, towed behind the tank, carried 400 Imperial gallons (1,800 litres) of fuel. The flamethrower had a range of over 120 yards (110 m). It excelled at clearing bunkers and it was a strong psychological weapon.

AVRE - Armoured Vehicle, Royal Engineers was a Churchill tank adapted to attack German defensive fortifications. The crew of six were drawn from the Royal Engineers, except for the driver who came from the Royal Armoured Corps. One of the RE crew was a demolitions NCO sapper responsible for priming the "Flying dustbin" as well as leading or supervising when they dismounted from the tank (easily done through the side hatches) to place demolition charges ("Wade" charges). The AVRE had the main gun replaced by a Petard Mortar. This fired a forty pound (18 kg) HE-filled projectile (nicknamed the Flying Dustbin) 150 yards (137 m). The "Dustbin" could destroy concrete obstacles such as roadblocks and bunkers. This weapon was unusual in that it had to be reloaded externally - by opening a hatch and sliding a round into the mortar tube from the hull. AVREs were also used to carry and operate equipment such as:

Bobbin - A reel of 10-foot (3.0 m) wide canvas cloth reinforced with steel poles carried in front of the tank and unrolled onto the ground to form a "path", so that following vehicles (and the deploying vehicle itself) would not sink into the soft ground of the beaches during the amphibious landing.

Fascine - A bundle of wooden poles or rough brushwood lashed together with wires carried in front of the tank that could be released to fill a ditch or form a step. Metal pipes in the center of the fascine allowed water to flow through.

Small Box Girder was an assault bridge that was carried in front of the tank and could be dropped to span a 30-foot (9.1m) gap in 30 seconds.

Bullshorn Plough. A mine plough intended to excavate the ground in front of the tank, to expose and make harmless any land mines.

Double Onion two large demolition charges on a metal frame that could be placed against a concrete wall and then detonated from a safe distance. It was the successor to the single charge device Carrot.

ARK - Armoured Ramp Carrier was a Churchill tank without a turret that had extendable ramps at each end; other vehicles could drive up ramps and over the vehicle to scale obstacles.

Crab - A modified Sherman tank equipped with a mine flail, a rotating cylinder of weighted chains that exploded mines in the path of the tank.

DD tank - from "Duplex Drive", an amphibious Sherman or Valentine tank able to swim ashore after being launched from a landing craft several miles from the beach. They were intended to give support to the first waves of infantry that attacked the beaches. The Valentine version was used only for training.
BARV - Beach Armoured Recovery Vehicle. A Sherman M4A2 tank which had been waterproofed and had the turret replaced by a tall armoured superstructure. Able to operate in 9 foot (2.7 m) deep water, the BARV was intended to remove vehicles that had become broken-down or swamped in the surf and were blocking access to the beaches. They were also used to re-float small landing craft that had become stuck on the beach. Strictly speaking, Sherman BARV's were not "Funnies" as they were developed and operated by the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, not the 79th Armoured Division.

LVT "Buffalo" - British version of the American LVT4: an armoured amphibious landing vehicle.

Armoured Bulldozer - A conventional Caterpillar D7 bulldozer fitted with armour to protect the driver and the engine. Their job was to clear the invasion beaches of obstacles and to make roads accessible by clearing rubble and filling in bomb craters. Conversions were carried out by a Caterpillar importer Jack Olding & Company Ltd of Hatfield.

Centaur Bulldozer, a Cromwell tank with the turret removed and fitted with a simple, winch operated, bulldozer blade. These were produced because of a need for a well-armoured, obstacle clearing vehicle that, unlike a conventional bulldozer, would also be fast enough to keep up with tank formations. They were not used on D-Day but were issued to the 79th Armoured Division in Belgium during the latter part of 1944.

Canal Defence Light This was a powerful carbon-arc searchlight carried on several types of tank inside a modified turret. The name of the device was deliberately inaccurate in order to help keep it secret - its true purpose was to blind the defenders during a night attack and so help obscure attacking forces. An ingenious optical design allowed the light to flood out of a comparatively small slit in the armour, minimising the chance of damage by enemy fire. This was not used on D-Day, but was used during the attack on the Geilenkirchen salient to create indirect artificial daylight.

D-day was truly a fantastic achievement.

Did you know that the flail tank was invented by a South African Army Major in 1942, Captain Abraham du Toit, although there were patents before that and another South African officer also came up with a similar idea independently. After the customary official disinterest, duplication of effort and ingenious persistence the idea eventually came to fruition as a collaborative effort in the North African desert and resulted in the Matilda Scorpion.

Originally Posted by Der Alte

D-day was truly a fantastic achievement.

Did you know that the flail tank was invented by a South African Army Major in 1942, Captain Abraham du Toit, although there were patents before that and another South African officer also came up with a similar idea independently. After the customary official disinterest, duplication of effort and ingenious persistence the idea eventually came to fruition as a collaborative effort in the North African desert and resulted in the Matilda Scorpion.

Now that's something I didn't know. As I tell my son, "You are never too old to learn."

Official disinterest is usual by the powers that be in Britain, Frank Whittle and the jet engine and David Sterlings SAS. Its a miracle that the SAS got off the ground.

Originally Posted by BritinAfrica

Well you Kiwi's will wear those funny bloody hats.

Hey nothing wrong with the lemon squeezer, funny thing is that we started adopting the hat from the South African constabulary during the Boer War (They apparently flogged it from the Canadian Mounties) but it never became "uniform" within the New Zealand Army until WW1.

Oruawharo during World War I

The Birth of the Lemon-Squeezer

There was a spell of very wet weather and the hats collected water in the dents. Lieutenant Colonel W G Malone, later of Gallipoli fame, at that time commanding the 11th Taranaki Rifles had the idea of eliminating the fore and aft dent in the crown and pinching it with 4 dents so that the hat shed water. (Similar to Baden Powell’s style).

When the General Officer Commanding, Major General Sir Alexander Godley, visited the camp he noticed the change in hat style and requested Lieutenant Colonel Malone to explain.

The Colonel drew attention to the fact that the 11th Taranakis as the only Rifle Regiment in the New Zealand Army did not conform to arms drill as practiced by the other 15 Regiments of the New Zealand Infantry.

As a Rifle Regiment does not slope arms there was no need to pin the brim of the hat up.
As His Excellency The Governor General, Lord Liverpool, was Honorary Colonel of the Regiment and he came from the Rifle Brigade of the British Army he would be approached to approve the regimental dress distinction if the General would not accede to it.

Permission was granted and the hat, later to be dubbed the “Lemon Squeezer” was introduced.

The New Zealanders of WW1 also wore a slouch hat. Their orders required that it be worn ‘Brim: horizontal. Crown: dented with a crease running from front to rear. The regimental flash to be sewn on both sides of the puggaree. When the New Zealand Expeditionary Force was raised for World War One, Lieutenant Colonel Malone was appointed to command the 1st Battalion the 5th Wellington Regiment. As his Adjutant and Regimental Sergeant Major were also ex-11th Taranakis the Wellingtons hats were promptly changed to the Taranaki style.

http://www.oruawharo.com/f/histbg1.html

As you can probably tell I am a Taranaki-ite so we got this story drummed into us, whether it is true or not is another story.

I had a boy Scout hat like Baden Powells, today they wear berets.

My Dad was issued a slouch hat in the Middle East, and I have one today which I wore as my bush hat. Brilliant for keeping the sun off my neck.. In the Far East I was issued a bush hat similar to those in use today. Mine is rotting away somewhere in the bush when I threw it away. Bloody useless.

Originally Posted by Der Alte

One should, as a German, be a little cautious when discussing British failures in wartime.

Many times I have heard: "Who won the bloody war anyway."

Given the number of BMW, Audi, Mercedes, Ferrari, Bugatti, Volkswagen, Toyota, Nissan and Mitsubishi on the roads these days some times you wonder who won in the end, the Axis may have lost the fight but they seem to have won the peace.

As for Dieppe well I still believe it was a costly and somewhat senseless operation that provided few if any tangible benefits for D-Day that were not already learnt from seaborne operations as early the Norway landings, Operation Torch, Salerno, Anzio or any number of seaborne operations in the Pacific.

In my opinion the only point to Operation Jubilee was to be seen to be doing something for occupied Europe unfortunately it was at great cost.

Originally Posted by MontyB

Given the number of BMW, Audi, Mercedes, Ferrari, Bugatti, Volkswagen, Toyota, Nissan and Mitsubishi on the roads these days some times you wonder who won in the end, the Axis may have lost the fight but they seem to have won the peace.

Gos along with my comment(somewhere on the Forum) about Pearl Harbor Survivor plates on Japanese brand cars.

Originally Posted by George

Gos along with my comment(somewhere on the Forum) about Pearl Harbor Survivor plates on Japanese brand cars.

Very true, sometimes irony can be amusing.

'

Originally Posted by MontyB

Given the number of BMW, Audi, Mercedes, Ferrari, Bugatti, Volkswagen, Toyota, Nissan and Mitsubishi on the roads these days some times you wonder who won in the end, the Axis may have lost the fight but they seem to have won the peace.

Do not forget that the allies also helped in rebuilding Germany and Japan.

Originally Posted by Der Alte

That's what I love about you Brits.
You have the ability to be rude in a pleasant way.

Ever the diplomat of course.