Ivanhoe's Fire

DISCLAIMER!
I will now issue the largest disclaimer I have ever used on here. First I am am not a nuclear physicist (AKA: “Magician”). So a lot of numbers have been gotten from the fudge'o'matic, as I had a deadline to meet on writing this. Even that maths was beyond me (yes I'm thick when it comes to maths) and I had to get help, so my thanks to Dominic Gravina, and his bloody useful radiation graph.
Second, the documents I'm using to provide data points are from 1955 and 1959. At this point the effects of radiation and the technology to measure them weren't as precise or accurate as we have today. Nor were the mathematical formulas.
So the numbers in this could be quite easily wrong, and if shown to a nuclear scientist it might cause them to die of laughter at how badly out I am. Be warned!
Last week I left you with the Allied powers in Germania on the brink of war with the despotic Saturnian nation, and its satellite states which it had subjugated. The exercise commenced from there, however there's no notes on what happened in the defence of the Elbe River and how the Saturnian forces were dealt with. But as it's a British exercise I'll have the British valiantly holding out and then launching a counter attack deep into Saturnia. With the British forces penetrating deeply one armoured division swings northwards, and rolls through the sparse defenders. As they drive for their distant objective, Danzig, they approach the Saturnian town of Joachimsthal.

The peaceful town of Joachimsthal

A lot of the RAC conferences were about how to fight on the nuclear battlefield and the effect of nuclear weapons so I thought it might be interesting to compile all the effects and subject a British armoured division to attack by a Saturnian tactical nuclear warhead.

First, for this exercise we need some parameters. For the British armoured division I'm using the organisation from the Second World War until the mid 1950's. This divisional structure had quite a few bad features. First with sixty tanks per regiment it was considered unwieldy and difficult to control. In WWII this didn't come up as much as armoured regiments were nearly always below strength.
The UK Armoured Division also had 15170 personnel, compared to 16053 for a US formation and 14234 for a Soviet unit. However despite this both the USSR and US forces had a ratio of one tank per fifty men, while the British had a ratio of one per seventy. With this divisional structure there are a couple of areas where the British vision had the highest numbers, although these are not necessarily advantages. The UK division had the most B echelon vehicles (these are soft skinned support vehicles), also the British had more lorried infantry units, in fact most of the British infantry were in lorries. The Soviets and US didn't have any infantry so transported.
The biggest flaw in the divisional structure was the fact that British divisions only had two brigade command posts (US: three, Soviet: five). This meant that the British commander had a choice to make. Would he fight with both brigades forward in his battle line, but lack depth or reserves, or have a worryingly small frontage.

British armoured Divsion advancing through the outskirts of Joachimsthal

For the frontage I'm going to use an arbitrary average number of 40 yards between tanks, and the squadrons advancing two up, with one in reserve. The brigade would have two such regiments, so that equals about 1200 yards frontage. The division will be advancing with one of its brigades forward with the other held as a reserve. I'll have the one regiment of Conquerors in the reserve brigade, the other regiments will be in Centurion MK.III's. As the majority of the division is tied to roads the unit will have a screen of Daimler armoured cars spread across its front, one Regiment will manoeuvre through the town accompanied by lorried infantry. The motorised infantry will be on the flank supporting the second brigade as it advances through the wooded country around the city. The rest of the division will be moving towards Joachimsthal, and its road network. As the Daimler armoured cars emerged from the far side of the town the some of the observers spotted a lone high altitude contrail. Unbeknownst to them it was a single heavy four engined Saturnian bomber, in its hold the free fall 20 kiloton nuclear bomb.

Saturnian Dictator at the loading of the Atomic bomb into the Bomber

The Church of the Cross, which dated from the 1600s, and was devastated in 1814 by fire lies at the centre of Joachimsthal. As B Squadron passed its looming spire a new form of devastation was about to arrive in a fireball. As it passed 2000 feet the gun type nuclear weapon fired.

The Church of the Cross

The armoured regiment in the town it would be effectively obliterated. Heat and blast would have torn the tanks to pieces. The crew would have received an instantly lethal dose of radiation. Equally any non armoured vehicle in the division would have been rendered destroyed. In a test with just a 9 kt bomb soft skins within 1200 yards were destroyed utterly with only parts of their engines being salvageable.
Of the troops in soft skins further back you'd need to be over a mile from ground zero not to be killed or incapacitated by the radiation, but even then you'd have to deal with flash burns.

In an armoured vehicle you'd have stood more chance, but much not of one, even as far as way as 1100 yard the light vehicles would have been smashed to pieces. Even the tanks would have suffered, the Regiment passing round the side of Joachimsthal would have been hit hard by the blast wave. Any tanks broadside on would have likely been flipped. The blast would have ripped skirts and even gun mantlets off, or crumpled the skirts into the running gear. Never mind the fixtures not part of the body of the tank, flying debris would smash external items like smoke launchers, those that were not smashed would have likely been pulled off and added to the flying debris. A lot of this debris would have been sucked towards ground zero, after being flung away.

The biggest risk from the blast however would have been the movement of the tanks. At a range of 400 meters a Centurion pointing towards ground zero would have been shoved away from the blast a distance of ten feet, which would equate to a speed of 15mph. In effect the crew would have been hit by a tank moving at that speed, a terminal experience. Even crew members strapped in would have been killed or severely injured, as during a crash there's several stages to deal with, the final two are your body hitting the restraints and then your internal organs hitting your body. At about 600 yards the movement of the tank would be about 7.5 feet, and the speed about 11mph.

This blast effect would have killed the crew of the tanks the radiation left alive. The radiation we'll be looking at here is two forms, gamma radiation is actually pretty survivable as the armour of a tank makes a reasonable shield against it. Its interesting to note that the gamma radiation has peculiar effect on the optics of a tank, turning them all yellow in hue.
For crew whose tanks were facing the blast they would survive the gamma radiation. Even at 400 yards the dose would have been about 1400 REM. A REM is a measurement of how much radiation a body absorbs. A dose of 5000 REM is instantly fatal, 3000 REM will render the victim unconscious in about five to fifteen minutes and they may yet die. Even at 400 yards the crew in the turret would receive only 1400 REM of gamma radiation. However the driver, and any tanks not facing towards the blast would suffer lethal doses out to a much larger range.

However there's the second form of radiation to consider, neutrons. These have much more penetrative energy and without a dedicated radiation liner in the tank they will be much more deadly. The RAC briefing mentioned that the best way of stopping these was to use a substance close to the same atomic weight, then when the neutrons impact upon this substance it imparts some of its energy onto the atom the neutron hit. The scientist at the briefing gave the analogy of billiard balls, and what happens if you were to fire another ball at a cluster of them, eventually the ball that was fired into the others would strike so many its velocity would drop to a manageable level. In the case of the tanks, the neutrons would fall into the thermal range and be absorbed by the tank's armour.
The problem is that the closest atomic weight is hydrogen, a not particularly dense material that isn't particularly good as armour. For example polyethylene gives good neutron protection. Against neutrons you'd be taking a lethal dose out to about 800 yards, a tank's driver or tanks turned to the side would likely gain only negligible benefit from the armour.

So as well as a sudden lack of drivers, no softskins, mass casualties and the effective destruction of the lead brigade, there is some good news. Despite heavy damage a lot of the tanks in the second brigade could continue to move and fight, although the rubble from Joachimsthal would be impenetrable to the tanks. If some crews could be brought together a scratch force could fight to some degree, although you lack any form of logistics or infantry, the tanks would likely be damaged, but still able to move and shoot.
Another piece of good news, the dust kicked up by the blast would dissipate in minutes and the chance of fires from the thermal energy would be minimal as most would have been instantly blown out by the blast wave, although there may have been a few patches of smouldering that would need to be looked at.

Now you can see why tactical weapons were going to be a key part of the Allied defence against Soviet attacks during the cold war. Its also interesting to note the radiation effects were much larger than blast effects so even a small nuclear warhead would have a much larger kill radius with radiation. For example a blast with a yield of just 20 tons had a lethal radiation footprint of 100 yards, while its blast radius was only 20 yards. You can see why the US army developed the Davy Crockett weapon, and why very briefly the British toyed with the idea of an anti-tank guided missile with a tiny nuclear warhead. Before you discount the idea, in 1959 the scientists giving the briefing to the RAC pointed out they could make warheads with a one ton yield, and that the Russians might not know such small yields were even possible.


Image Credits:
www.atomicarchive.com, cacpeaceday.wikispaces.com and www.lacoupole-france.co.uk

Thinly Veiled

Every year the Royal Armoured Corps holds a conference to update their officers on things that are happening or soon to happen within the Corps. It also features some data on emerging threats. I've recently been reading the reports on them from the 1940's and 1950's. Some years the conference is an HQ exercise. Seeing as the article I had planned for this week is taking longer than I anticipated I'm going to use what was originally going to be background material in support of the article as a full article.

Most of the HQ exercises had an imaginary name for the enemy. For example the 1948 Exercise Sabre had the evil nation of "Fantasia" (I kid you not) seizing the French coast then launching a lightning cross channel invasion, landing in Dorset and pushing inland around Bovington, mainly I suspect because most of the officers knew the area.
The 1950's Exercise Ivanhoe had a new threat, what follows is the background and briefing material for the exercise, it has what appears to be the most thinly veiled bunch of references I've ever seen... can you guess what country Saturnia is meant to be? Also remember that this was written in 1950.

1. The end of the second Great European War in 1945 left Britain, the British Commonwealth and Empire, the United States and the Western powers victorious over Germania [Listy: Link to briefing about Germania]. Post-war measures of economy, however, had led to drastic reductions in their armed forces. Saturnia on the other hand, having contrived to remain neutral, had not only suffered no ill effects from the war but had reaped considerable advantages. Her strongest suit remained her practically limitless manpower.

The Saturnian Dictator

2. After the war, Germania had been split into zones occupied by Britain, the United States and France. Thus the eastern borders of the British and US zones met with Saturnia, while on the southern flank of the United States zone lay the states of Bohemia, Moravia, Slovakia and Austria. None of them had taken part in the war, though continuous pressure had been exerted on them by Germania and they had paid with continuous privations for their neutrality.

(exercise note: Berlin is assumed to be an ancient university city of no special military significance, the capital of Germania being Frankfurt which is jointly occupied by the British, US and the French.)

3. With Germania and her conquerors wearied by war, Saturnia had been, not unsuccessfully, attempting by fifth column and every other possible underground means to spread her own particular brand of totalitarian doctrines beyond her own borders. These doctrines were in no way more acceptable to Western thought than those against which the Second Great War had been fought for six years.

4. From 1945 onwards the rate of demobilization by the Western powers had been rapid and the forces which they had in Germania by 1953 were small, amounting to no more than five or six divisions. The Saturnians, on the other hand, were estimated as being likely to deploy sixty to seventy divisions in the proportions two tank, six mechanised, eight rifle on the boundary of their territory with occupied Germania, Bohemia and Moravia. Furthermore, if they elected to go to war in the late spring at the beginning of their normal manoeuvre season, they would be able to largely conceal their mobilization which could be effected within a month from their "M" Day by bringing up their existing regular divisions to war establishment.

British ex-forces member gets fitted with his Demob suit. As most of the personnel in WWII had been in uniform for several years and stood a good chance of having lost all their clothing the government provided everyone with a suit on demobilisation.

 5. Every year that had passed since 1945 had shown clearly that the ideas of the Western powers and the Saturnians were diametrically opposed, and that the steadily increasing truculence of the Saturnians made the prospect of war ever more likely.

6. The year 1953 was marked by even more provocative behaviour on the part of Saturnia. Ever since 1945 she had been infiltrating her fifth column and agents into her neighbours territory and into their vital concerns. Saturnia evidently now considered that these clandestine arrangements were sufficiently far advanced for her now to attempt political coups in the open.

7. In January 1953 the Saturnians engineered racial disturbances in Slovakia in which the inhabitants demanded political union with their powerful neighbours and freedom from "foreign" domination. In answer to extremely vocal requests for assistance by the pro-Saturnian element, the Saturnian army marched in and became in effect the master of Slovakia. Naturally, the Western powers could not remain indifferent to this behavior and protests were registered in the appropriate quarters but with a conspicuous lack of effect.

Saturnian tanks approach Wenceslas Square.

Where they met a warm reception

8. This, however, turned out to be no more than a prelude to a further and more serious adventure, namely the absorption of Hungary into the orbit of the Saturnian sphere. Over a period of years, with Saturnian assistance, a Hungarian People's Party had been in the process of being built up. At the same time a strident campaign against the Church was worked up which resulted in shameless and ruthless persecution of the priests. Ultimately a situation was engineered in August 1953, in which the People's party started a revolt against the "Reactionary" government in Budapest and within a very short time the whole country was intimidated and placed under Saturnian domination.

9. Again the Western powers went through the usual procedure of protesting by all possible diplomatic means against this flagrant breach of international relations, but again the results were as negligible as before. In view of the brusqueness with which Saturnia had rejected all the protests against the above two incidents, it was now clear that she was determined to achieve her ends by any means that might be necessary and these would not exclude war. If she could gain her ends without war, so much the better, but should she be thwarted she would not hesitate to have recourse to arms, so strong did she feel her military and political position to be.

10. The Western powers had now to admit that their efforts to solve international problems by peaceful means were useless and as a result they had no alternative but to speed up their military preparations. This they now set about with a will, and no time was lost in putting the arrangements in hand for resisting armed aggression in the near future.

11. Such was the state of mind which prevailed in all the Western European capitals owing to the recurrence of these crises at such frequent intervals that it came as no surprise when yet another crisis occurred in November 1953. The Saturnians now switched to the north the pressure which they had been exerting in a southerly direction. A convoy of depot ships and transports had anchored outside territorial waters in the immediate vicinity of Bornholm in the Baltic and a large Saturnian fleet with submarines was exercising in the straits dividing Denmark and Sweden. This manoeuvre had all the appearance of a second "Agadir" and the governments of the Western powers were reinforced in their opinion that Saturnia was definitely out to pick a quarrel and that the next step would most probably be a violation of the frontier between Germania and Saturnia by Saturnian military detachments.

12. Diplomatic protests couched in the strongest possible terms were sent by all the governments concerned to Saturnia, and military preparations were pressed on with all speed. To the amazement of all concerned these protests did not go entirely unheeded as had happened previously, and the Saturnian fleet and detachments withdrew as suddenly as they had come. However, the Western powers wisely did not allow themselves to be lulled into any false sense of security by this unexpected development and preparations for war were intensified.

13. List of actions taken by the UK government in preparation for war

14.As the probability of war changed to certainty the Western powers completed their plans for defence against Saturnian aggression. The basis of the plan was to hold a defensive line from the Baltic in the north to the Erzgebirge in central Germania following the general line of the River Elbe. In the north the possibilities of flooding in the Wismar-Donitz-Lauenburg-Lubeck were to be exploited to the full. From the Erzgebirge to the Alps light forces were to hold a mountain line.

To further give you an idea of the scenario conditions there was also a brief description of forces and scientific advancements. On the nuclear weapon front the Saturnians had a very limited number of tactical nuclear weapons, the reasoning being the Saturnians were not as technologically advanced in that department. Their yield was given as about 20 kt.
However things got a bit more interesting on the chemical weapons front. Both sides were judged to have large quantities of regular agents, such as mustard gas freely available with protection. The Allies possessed a small stock of nerve agents, while the Saturnian forces had large quantities. Allied respirators were not effective against nerve agents, however new models of respirator were starting to come off the production line which would protect against the nerve agents. Equally monitoring was partially effective with the Allied monitoring and warning systems being able to warn of exposure after the fact, and so able to indicate who needs treatment, but not warn soon enough to prevent the attack being effective.
On the Saturnian side they had no monitoring or defence, meaning the very limited stock of allied nerve agent would be extremely effective.

One advance the Saturnians had made was mentioned. Their infantry had access to some number of buoyant oversuits, with an inflatable ring around the chest. These allowed a swimmer to cross a river with equipment and small arms.

Next week I shall be carrying on the exercise, but with a twist.

Image Credits:
www.cvce.eu, dailymail.co.uk, www.aworldtowin.net, thecoldwaryearswadek.weebly.com and dailynewshungary.com

Mourning the Monmouthshire

Note: Imgur and Blogger are playing silly buggers this morning, so if the images aren't appearing that's why. I've spent the last 20 mins trying to insert images. Occasionally the two websites randomly decide they're not talking to each other, and it makes life interesting.

On the 27th of November, 1944, an understrength platoon and section of sappers from the 9th Cameroons were trying to sneak through the muddy fields surround the castle at Broekhuizen in Holland. Their task was to infiltrate the minefield and storm the castle in a surprise attack. Things went badly, of the 32 soldiers in the Coup De Main only eight were to return, the rest being captured or killed by the dug in German defenders. The failed attack was their last attempt at this position, on the 28th the 3rd Battalion, Monmouthshire Regiment took over. They would be the ones to launch the attack to subdue one of the last German strong points in Holland and clear the bank of the Maas. The 3rd Mons were to go over the top on the 30th of November.

Broekhuizen "castle" not quite what you were thinking.

 Intelligence suggested that one to two hundred Hitler Jugend were dug in at the castle and nearby village. They were surrounded by minefields some 700 yards deep. The Germans were well dug in as well, even if the quality of the fight they were expected to put up was low. Two platoons from the Westminster Dragoons equipped with Sherman Crabs were provided to support the attack. The plan was a three company attack, launched in stages. First in action would be A Company, they along with a platoon of three Crabs would go direct for the castle, starting at 1000. An hour later C Company with another troop of Crabs would attack the village. B Company would attack the village from the far side. Before the off a supporting artillery barrage and smoke screen would be laid.

Things went wrong almost immediately. Germans had plentiful and liberal fire support from their bank of the Maas, and a heavy barrage of mortars and artillery, including 150mm pieces rained down upon A Company. One of the flails became bogged, and was unable to bring their gun to bear on the defenders. The other two were destroyed by German fire. With the German machine guns raking the muddy shell torn field the remaining men of A Company went to ground, their commander killed, along with several officers. All their wireless sets were rendered useless as well.

At 1100 C Company set off. The flails were leading at a steady one MPH, the chains flogging ("flog" was the slang the crew used to describe using the flails to clear mines) the ground, exploding mines on contact. The crews of the Crabs had an extremely long drive in a very nerve wracking manner. Slowly crawling forward listening to the explosions of the mines they hit, tensed for the moment an AP shell would rip their tank apart. To make matters worse the turret had to be turned to the side while flailing.
To make the crews feel a bit better, every so often one of the tanks would halt, stop flailing and crank the gun round to the front to fire a few rounds, then start up its flail again and continue on its way.

The troop commander of the second platoon of flails cleared its lane, it was now fifty yards from the German lines and the infantry of C Company were taking the same beating that A Company had suffered. When the other tanks finished their flogs they were ordered back to the start. He remained in position just short of the village directing point blank fire into the German positions. The uniforms of the Germans however were not Hitler Jugend, but those of the Fallschirmjäger. The defenders were actually elite veterans of the 21st Fallschirmjäger Regiment.

After a few salvos a Panzerfaust was fired at the lone Sherman sitting there in a field, it hit the left side of the turret, near the coaxial machine gun. The gunner with his ears numbed from the blast and unable to hear anything felt blood dripping, at first he thought it was his, but looked over to see that both his commander and loader were injured. Both of the latter bailed out immediately, as he started to move the gunner's hearing began to return and he could hear the driver and hull gunner yelling for help as the gun was blocking their escape. With the turret power traverse out of action the gunner stayed in his position hand traversing the turret until both of his crew mates could escape, once that was done he leapt out of the commander’s cupola and down behind the tank, and started crawling back along the track marks his tank had left. On the way he found they'd driven over an Italian box mine which had failed to detonate. Shortly after reaching their start line and safety the Crab was hit by another shot and blew up instantly.

The infantry were in dire straights. However two officers stepped forwards. The CO of the 3rd Mons,  Colonel R. C. Stockley managed to reach the forward elements of C Company, where all previous officers who'd attempted it had been killed. Additionally the commanding officer of the 15/19th Hussars came forward in his tank to investigate. The 15/19th Hussars linked up with the 3rd Mons reserve, just 60 men of D Company and began an attack on Broekhuizen. Col Stockley managed to rally the men of C Company as well and lead them towards the castle. With point blank fire from the Sherman's of the Hussars the men of C Company stormed the castle, with Col Stockley leading at the front with his service revolver drawn. However as he charged over the bridge he was shot and killed. Nevertheless C Company carried on into the castle. Meanwhile the men of D Company attacked Broekhuizen from an utterly unexpected direction, this and their tank support enabled them to make the village. Outnumbered the infantry set to clearing the village, a task that would take most of the night.

The 3rd Mons had been gutted capturing this village. They'd taken 140 killed and wounded, and would be out of action absorbing replacements for several months. The Germans had 139 taken as prisoner and an unknown number killed. Estimates put it between 17 and 60.
The experience of the 3rd Mons impacted decisions made elsewhere. When the 6th Guards were faced with a similar situation at Geijsteren, they knew of the experiences at Broekhuizen, and took an entirely different approach.

Broken History

In the First World War the Dover Barrage was a series of anti-submarine nets with attached mines stretching across the narrowest point of the Channel. Its aim was to hinder, if not prevent German U-boats getting out into the Atlantic. This very quickly became a skirmishing point for the Royal Navy and the Imperial German Navy. One battle on the seas offers an interesting study for the historian as it shows just how fickle and difficult history can be.

First into the mix is a ship, which had a history of ramming other vessels, or being involved in actions that resulted in collision. The Faulknor Class destroyer, HMS Broke, was originally built for Chile but was purchased by the Royal Navy at the outbreak of the First World War. At Jutland she collided with HMS Sparrowhawk, after earlier taking part in a torpedo attack that caused a collision between German ships SMS Nassau and SMS Elbing.

HMS Broke after her collision at Juttland

Next we have a Royal Navy Commander by the name of Edward Evans. His previous claim to fame was taking part as second in command of Scott's doomed second Antarctic voyage. Cdr Evans was one of the people that accompanied Scott towards the South Pole, but was selected to lead the final supporting team back to safety, while Scott made his famous push for the pole with five men.

After HMS Broke was repaired from the damage sustained at Jutland, Cdr Evans was given command. On the night of April the 20th HMS Broke and HMS Swift were patrolling the Dover Barrage. Fatefully on the same evening twelve German ships set out to bombard both Dover and Calais. The German ships were heavy torpedo boats, smaller than the British destroyers, but still not torpedo boats as the description suggests. These heavy torpedo boats displaced around 1000 tons and in comparison HMS Broke for example was 1700 tons. A Second World War E-boat which is what people normally think of when someone uses the term “torpedo boat” is closer to 80 tons. Because of this size these ships are often referred to as "destroyers". Six of these were sent to Calais to bombard the port, and the rest were sent to do the same to Dover. The Calais detachment completed their mission without incident however the Dover squadron, after a poor bombardment were returning to base when they ran into HMS Broke and HMS Swift.

HMS Broke

At 0045 on the 21st of April, HMS Swift and HMS Broke were three miles east of the Goodwin Sands lightship when a sailor on watch on the port bow of HMS Swift spotted the German force sailing at twelve knots. The Germans were in line astern, and heading across the British lines course. HMS Swift immediately opened her throttles and swung towards port and the reported position of the German ships, intending to ram them. At the same time the Germans opened fire. As the German line was now passing the British line HMS Swift had to turn hard to starboard to come about and close for the ram.
However the flash from HMS Swift's main gun dazzled the ship's commander and he missed the target, and so passed through the German line giving a full broadside to the German on his port side. As she passed through the line HMS Swift turned to pursue the Germans and launched a torpedo.

German Heavy Torpedo Boat

Meanwhile on HMS Broke Cdr Evans had followed the agreed plan holding fire, but increasing speed. When a second German was spotted HMS Broke opened fire. On his own initiative the leading seaman in charge of the one of HMS Broke's torpedo tubes fired a single torpedo. One of the two torpedoes fired by the British found one of the German ships, SMS G85, sinking her. The kill was credited to HMS Swift.
HMS Broke then slammed into one of the Germans amidships, slightly after of dead centre. She began to bodily shove the German vessel through the water. Both ships began to turn to port, HMS Broke to ram again, and the German SMS G42 to dodge the attack. The German had a smaller turning circle and so got inside the British ship, scraping down the starboard side.
At the same time the next two German ships passed Broke whilst battering her with gunfire. After this SMS G42 began to sink, and the heavily damaged British ships had to retire.

Popular telling of this incident has the Royal Navy crew having to defend the forecastle of HMS Broke from German boarders, and this is where things get interesting from a historian's point of view. The following account was written by Cmdr Evans for the weekly boys magazine "Chums" in 1927:

"Anticipating close action of this description, we always kept loaded rifles with bayonets fixed at each gun and torpedo tube, besides which cutlasses were provided all around the upper deck, revolvers were provided to all petty officers, and many were kept loaded on the bridge, so that when "Boarders" was piped on the forecastle the weapons practically fell into the hands of the men waiting to use them."

Did the men of HMS Broke fight off German boarders with cutlass and bayonet, while two ships locked together by a ram struggled to separate, with the screeching of metal, and fire shot smoke bellowing from funnel as both ships at full power tried to pull away, all the while tracer and gunfire slashing across the sea granting flashes of illumination...

Well it's certainly a powerful image, and thrilling tale. But is it true?
Well the first thing you might ask is where did they get the cutlasses from? The Royal Navy is nothing if not a stickler for tradition, and it's certainly true that cutlasses were issued even in this stage of history. There's even a suggestion from the Second World War of a cutlass being used, so that's plausible.

Casualties from HMS Broke being burried

Now we must consider the source, yes it is an eye witness account, but it's written for a boys magazine and they want the story to be a bit more exciting. The above quotation also misses out the propaganda phrases. The following quote carries on directly from above.

"A deadly fire was poured from our fore part into the huddled mass of men who, terror stricken, grouped about the enemy destroyers upper deck. Many of them clambered up our bow and got onto the forecastle, to meet with instant death from our well armed men and stokers."

At the Board of Enquiry after the battle, of the six people interviewed under oath (including Cmdr Evans), no-one reported seeing an enemy sailor.
It seems cut and dried then. Not so. There is a newspaper report which mentions the action from 7th July 1917. Its report mentions the Germans attempting to board the forecastle of the HMS Broke. So despite this story being the common one, and now forever in our military history there appears to be just enough evidence to hint at it being not the case, but alas I doubt we'll ever know. Maybe one or two Germans did clamber up the sides and were repulsed, but these seamen didn't get interviewed by the Board of Enquiry?

Image credits:
www.naval-history.net, www.doversociety.org.uk, www.stoke-sub-hamdon.co.uk and duckduckgo.com

Huge hills, Huge Spiders!

As last week I was on holiday I failed to get an article written. That's mostly due to climbing mountains in Dorset (the wife claims they weren't mountains, however they fit the Oxford English dictionary definition!). I'm from the Fens, so I've spent my life between 0-15m above sea level. We get to Dorset, a county in dire need of ironing and the wife starts taking us up rises that are nearly 252m. I should have spotted the trend on Sunday when we went to Lulworth, and went along the range walks, we started off going up Bindon hill (168m). I was lured up there by promises of tank wrecks to poke. But here's as close as I got (taken on maximum zoom):

I do like the armies new HESH target though:

That night we were sitting there at our rented cottage when a Spider dropped in through the open window. Lets be clear here, it was massive. Its size was best described as "Australian". At first I thought it was a moth it made such a loud thump as it hit the table. The wife, whom is in no way arachnophobic, squealed and ran. Luckily we have three dogs, one the size of a German Shepard. This gave me my first clue to the location we're in. Dorset is known as "The Jurassic Coast", and it really is the land that time forgot! Mobile signal is extremely limited, about the only time I had full reception was on top of the Eggardon Iron age hill fort (252m). I worked out why as well. I kept seeing smoke from bonfires, so I reckon the locals communicate with smoke signals. The entire area we were in seemed to have missed the modern age with no cash points, banks or shops. Its like the entire place closes down for the weekend.
We also went up Golden Cap (191m).


But I did spend a very nice two days down Bovy archives with some fun discoveries!

Anyway, as an emergency article, a couple of months ago I went to a 1940's weekend at a place called Ramsey. I've been saving the pictures from that for busy week, so here we are.

At these sorts of shows you always get lots of quality German kit for sale...

A "Yellow Goddess". Basically a Green Goddess painted yellow and fitted out for Northern Ireland

Wouldn't kneel there... those things are made by Volkswagen!

A real M36 Slugger?

"You alright, mate?"

The Germans had a 1:1 scale Airfix Panzer III

Elite British front line troops...

...and proper British quality Engineering!

Tank rides were on offer, but my brain was very confused. I was getting Germanic Marder signals from this IFV, but I can see its not a Marder.

The only Russian in the show.

More Quality British stuff, this time an APC...

...especially when you compare it to this shoddy US product, knocked out in four hours or so unless I miss my guess.

POW (Prisoner of Woofing?) making a break for it. He didn't achieve a home run.

Holiday

I'm on Holiday this week!

A few months ago the Wife suggested that we hire a cottage and go away or a week with the dogs. To which I replied "I hear Dorset is nice." (For those of you who don't get it). Yes, I am going to be visiting the archives there. So I'm away this week. However I've still got some history for you, just something a bit shorter than normal.

If you wondered how bad it could get in Burma:

If that's not enough for you, well this Youtube historian is rather funny, here's one of his pieces:

Right see you in a week.

Back to the Future?

Throughout the last few years I've seen a great many projects related to armoured warfare. Nearly every single one of them was scuppered by technological considerations. Either the technology was unavailable, or too cutting edge and so would cost too much. However with modern technology these ideas suddenly become feasible, in most cases tanks continue to be churned out looking much like the FT-17. So, let's consider some of the past projects and how they can fit in current warfare.

You might not know it, but there are laws to tank design. Break them and your tank will fail.This law is simple that there is a ratio of a tank's footprint, i.e. the surface of the track in contact with the ground, the track gauge. Both of these factors have an impact on the tanks width and length, lest you end up with something like a St Chamond from the First World War.

 This is because as a tank gets longer it gets harder to steer, as there's more track in contact with the ground. If you consider the tanks centre as a pivot point, and two parallel lines as the tracks in contact with the ground, then the edges of the tracks have the furthest to travel, equally they have the most resistance to overcome. As you make the length longer, you increase the footprint in contact with the ground, and thus the forces involved. Make a tank too short and it'll not be able to cross trenches, and it will lack stability. So you have to balance these requirements. The ideal ratio is about 1.3-1.8 times the width of the tank.

Now the length and width from the base of the tank also affect how high you can take the centre of gravity, take it too high and your tank will start to flip over. From this you can see that all three dimensions on a tank are related to each other.

Early tanks had a further trouble as they used skid steering. This is where one track is locked and the other drives dragging the tank around, this adds a massive anchor to one side of the tank. In Rhomboids of the first World War it was made worse by the two large gun sponsons right over the tracks. Another tank that broke this rule was the T-35. The engine used in the T-35 was the Mikulin M-17. This was also used in BT series and T-28's. While the latter two were not considered super reliable, they were vastly better than the T-35. The T-35 had between 49-51 units issued, in its combat tour in 1941 only five were lost to enemy action but 43 were lost due to mechanical breakdown. A large portion of those would be due to the over taxed engine just giving up.

Even today the ratio causes problems. The newest British IFV the Ajax has been accused by some commentators as being too long and too wide. This is a factor of the need to have enough length to fit infantry dismounts in the back.

 However by the 30's engineers were beginning to look at solving this issue, although they didn't know it. Giffard Le Quesne Martel, a famous British Army engineer officer that pioneered the use of tanks and bridging equipment, and who commanded the British at the Battle of Arras was in India and started looking at the problem. It was known that smaller tracked vehicles such as the Carden Loyd MG carrier steered just fine, but even the next step up, the light tank caused steering problems until a specialist gearbox was developed. But even then there was a theoretical maximum length to the light tank. He began to look at ways to make steering easier by making the tanks actually turn, like a truck, instead of skid steering.
His idea was to have four sets of tracks, two at the front and two at the rear. This four track set up has massive advantages in tank design. First it's much more stable, for example a bump or boulder would simply fit inside the gap in the tracks, where as a tank of the same length would still be rearing up until it tipped over. The tank would steer like a truck, which would make crew training a little bit easier. It also adds a bit of survivability to the tank, meaning it could theoretically continue to maintain some degree of mobility after a track was destroyed by a mine hit. Most importantly it disconnects the ratio of length vs width. In the case of an armoured vehicle carrying infantry it'd also give a useful position to mount a set of dismount doors in the side hull.

On these two images note where the doors hinges are located. This means they open out one each way, so that no matter which direction enemy fire is coming from you have an armoured door covering you as you dismount. Possibly a good idea for these side doors on the four track IFV?

In the last 40 years there have been at least two serious suggestions (that I know of) to make AFV's with four tracks. However these have all been shot down by more traditional officers who consider the idea too new fangled and too technical. But consider this. Martels prototype was hand built by himself in a shed at home, with 1930's technology. That was a tank with all four tracks driven mechanically, and it worked.  Hägglunds has been producing four track articulated all terrain vehicles, such as the BV-206, that have seen wide service throughout European militaries.

 In fact the concept of four tracks is actually easier now than it ever was, with the advent of hybrid electric drives you no longer need to run mechanical power to the track units, making maintenance and reliability even better. So maybe it's time to look at four track tanks again?

Another thing one sees a lot of in the 1980's is elevating ATGM platforms. Such as this German entry.

The arm erects to launch ATGM's across the battlefield, while the launching tank stays nice and safe.

Now the two main driving forces behind its cancellation was the end of the Cold War, and the massive elevating arm. That's a lot of weight in an AFV, and it also takes time to erect and the vehicle can’t move if it’s erected. However in the 1960's as part of the infamous Project Prodigal some bright chap suggested drones connected by radio to a tank to attack enemy targets. His sketch shows tiny helicopters linked to Centurions, flying above the tank platoon as it charges towards Soviet armour, the mini-helicopters are adding their fire-power to that of the Centurions resulting in a total rout of the enemy defences.
But what if we combine the two ideas? Quadcopters are getting pretty advanced, to the extent the average person can buy one cheaply. And look at Amazon's latest idea, drones delivering parcels. Beef the engines up a bit, and get them to carry a single ATGM. You get all the advantages of the arm mounted ATGM, without the negatives. You could for example have one of these drones lurking inside a building, where you'd not normally be able to mount ATGM's due to the problems of backblast. Or you could use a drone for reconnaissance, like a forward observation post, or similar roles such as ISTAR.

Another old British idea, that oh so nearly became reality that could help the modern British military, is that of liquid propellant. In the late 1950's and 1960's the British started studying liquid propellant. They even converted a couple of guns to test fire them. The main problem was that of uneven ignition of the propellant, which in turn gave wildly different muzzle velocities. If the issue of uneven ignition could be fixed then it could solve a huge issue facing the British Army.
At current our Challenger 2 tanks are getting old, and we can't replace the gun. To do so would mean ripping out the ammunition storage and that would pretty much require an entirely new tank, or at the very least an entirely new turret. The main driving force behind this is that tank penetrators have gotten longer to provide more penetrating power. Of course a longer penetrator is subject to more yaw force, which means it breaks up easier, but the general consensus from those in the know whom I trust is that the longer penetrator is better.

The current gun on the Challenger 2, called the L30, uses bag charges. On modern guns the penetrator extends down into the case of the round, which is something you cannot do with an L30.
So you have the issue of what to do. Well consider a new breech with more chamber space and a longer penetrator. Then consider a liquid propellant. The restrictions of the bag charge are removed, you could even create tanks to store the charge liquid in the same size and shape of the current charge bins, and the rod could be as long as is needed.

Charge bins in a Chieftian

You might even get advantages such as a higher rate of fire, or open the way for larger shells. As one big technical issue that people are bumping into is the next logical step up in tank calibre is to the 140mm. But the shells become so large you're limited to the number you can carry and hand loading is all but impossible.

When in the 80's it looked like the main tank gun calibre was to be 140mm, this is the autoloader the British developed.

When reading the above, however, the thing to consider is I'm no engineer. I'm a historian. So there could be massive technical problems, especially in the last idea, which mean the suggestions won't work in the real world. So please treat this article as just a set of casual observations.

My thanks to Maddest, for his help with this.


Image Credits:
www.fiddlersgreen.net, hmvf.co.uk, defense-update.com