Bombs Gone

 In the darkness of the very early morning of the 24th of January 1961, the crew of the USAF KC-135 Stratotanker peered astern of their aircraft. Below them was a B-52G being flown by Major Walter Scott Tulloch. This particular B-52 was part of Operation Coverall. The operation was to test the logistics of keeping a large number of bombers airborne as part of the nuclear alert system. Maj. Tulloch’s plane had launched, with three pilots on board, in the early morning of the previous day. 

 

The B-52 slipped into position below the KC-135. In the belly of the tanker the boom operator began to guide the refuelling arm towards the opening on the B-52’s roof to top up her tanks. At that point the boom operator noticed a streak of liquid flowing back from the B-52’s right wing. Maj. Tulloch’s plane was directed out over the coast, and into a holding pattern. It was to await there until most of the fuel had leaked out. This would reduce the risk of fire during the emergency landing.  

A short while after reaching the holding pattern it was noticed that the leak was worsening, and the B-52 was ordered to land immediately. Maj. Tulloch set his course for his home base of Seymour Johnson Air Force Base and started to descend. The B-52G was heavily modified from the original design, with the aim to extend the range. This meant that the wings now contained fuel tanks. The addition of the fuel tanks meant that the wing suffered 60% more stress than earlier models. This meant that there was more wing fatigue. At 10,000ft on the approach the pilots lost control as the aircraft became unstable. After attempting to regain control Maj. Tulloch ordered the crew to bail out, which happened about 1,000ft lower. Of the eight-man crew, six bailed out successfully, and two died in the subsequent crash. One of the five that got out of the aircraft was killed on landing in his parachute. As the plane fell the right wing collapsed completely, and the plane began to spin as it broke up. About 10-12 seconds after the crew bailed the plane impacted the ground in a large fireball.  

In those fateful seconds as the plane disintegrated while spinning two objects were ejected. These were its payload of two Mark 39 hydrogen bombs. The first weapon was soon discovered, as its parachute had deployed, and it had drifted to ground like it should have done. The parachute had caught in a tree and kept it upright and easy to identify. The other bomb’s parachute had failed to deploy, and it had hurtled down and smashed into the soft ground, digging itself 18ft into the ground. 

The first bomb discovered.

 

Lieutenant Jack ReVelle and nine other technicians were called in in a hurry to defuse the bombs. The speed with which they were deployed was signified by the fact that at least for the first day or so no rations had been laid on. At the first bomb they found that of the four safeties on the bomb to prevent detonation three had trigged, and it was only the fact that the arm safe switch had not been set that meant the bomb had failed to detonate. In reality, two of the safeties would have been expected to fail, as the act of being dropped from a bomber meant there was a very similar profile to falling from a bomber, that was breaking up. Equally, the fourth safety did not work in the air. However, the bomb was still largely intact and had not detonated, and so attention turned to the hole where the second bomb had fallen. 

The second bomb, in the pit dug around it.

 

Battling snow, rain freezing temperatures and a high ground water level the USAF technicians dug a pit to the bomb. After days of searching they found the arm safe switch. Lt ReVelle let out a sigh of relief at the news they had found the switch. That was until the man who had found it said the switch was armed. Indeed, as before, all the three other safeties were also armed. The bomb should have gone off. The bomb, by any measure should have detonated, shattering the area with its 3.8 megaton blast. There was still a risk that could happen, as no-one knew why the bomb had failed to detonate. The bomb was dragged out of the pit and the crews worked to remove the ninety-two detonators that would start the detonation by compressing the nuclear core. Once this was done the wreckage was recovered. However, some parts of the bomb, including radiological elements were still lost and presumed still buried at the site.

Unsurprisingly this incident caused quite some considerable concern in the US government and the USAF and prompted several reviews and overalls of both weapon safety and arming and the B-52G. For example, 1964 the B-52G was modified with strengthened wings. Oddly, a part of the concern was the fact the bomb should have gone off but failed. The concern being that if the US was dropping dud bombs on Soviet targets the sites would not be blown up. The Mark 39 was withdrawn from service in 1966, presumably being replaced by more reliable (and safe) weapons. 

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Thank you for reading. If you like what I do, and think it is worthy of a tiny donation, you can do so via Paypal (historylisty-general@yahoo.co.uk) or through Patreon. For which I can only offer my thanks. Or alternatively you can buy one of my books.

Vickers Lifting

 On the 1st of July 1942 the first battle of El Alamein started. This was the moment when the 8th Army had to stop the Afrika Korp and their Italian allies from entering Egypt.  Over the next five days the Axis powers relentlessly attacked and were fought to a standstill. Early on the morning of the 10th the Australians launched a massive surprise attack on Tel el Eisa, which translates as Hill Of Jesus.  

Tel el Eisa.

 

Defending Tel el Eisa were the Italian Sabratha Division. On the morning of the 10th, at 0330 the Allies rolled out one of their huge bombardments. The Italian forces were raw recruits. The massive bombardment followed with an assault by the veteran Australians was only going to end one way. By about mid-day the Australians had captured 1,500 PoW and around 300 artillery pieces. More critically, the sudden collapse of the Italians had allowed to the Australians to overrun and capture a German electronic warfare unit. This was Signals Intercept Company 621 and was the Axis’ forces only such formation. At a stroke Rommel had lost every piece of electronic intelligence. So far in the war it had proven rather critical in forewarning the Axis forces of impending disasters, allowing them to mount a defence. Now it was gone. 

Tel el Eisa is now the location of the Italian North African war memorial.

 

With the hill in Australian hands they began to dig in as best they could, bringing up support weapons, such as their machine gun battalion, and prepared for the inevitable counterattack. In the afternoon the 15th Panzer Division and Italian Trieste Division mounted massed armour attacks on the Australians.

One soldier lying in his shallow slit trench watched as sixteen tanks approached. His name was Sergeant H Cockram, a garage owner from Eugowra in Australia. One of the attacking tanks ran over his slit trench, its track entering into the lip of the trench. By sheer luck, despite being fully under the tread only his water bottle and bayonet on his webbing were mangled. As the tank passed, Sgt Cockram leapt up and struck at the tank with a sticky grenade, only for the tank to drive away before he could pull the pin.

Elsewhere Sgt Augustus William Longhurst was manning his Vickers machine gun. Sgt Longhurst was from Parramatta and a former footballer. Earlier in the day he had chased a tank for 50 yards with a sticky grenade, before returning to his gun as the tank had gotten away. Now, with the mass of Axis armour approaching he had another chance. In the midst of the raging battle he noticed one particular tank causing considerable damage as it stood off and machine gunned an infantry position. Seeing he was on its blind side he grabbed another sticky grenade and charged. He successfully managed to catch the tank this time and the reports all agree that he hit the tank with it. What they mean by hitting the tank is up for debate. A sticky grenade needed to be smashed into the target tanks upper surfaces, then the pin pulled. At which point the soldier would have some five seconds to drop flat to avoid the explosion. When done right this was enough to crack a Tiger tanks roof armour.  

 Here we see how not to use a Sticky Bomb. The US soldier towards the end of the video throws the grenade. Even if it had stuck it would not have broken the armour.

It maybe that Sgt Longhurst threw the grenade, or he smashed the grenade on the side, or some other ineffective area as the tank was able to continue fighting for a short period.  

The Australians after capturing the position had also brought up a large number of anti-tank weapons, and got their supporting artillery sited ready for the counterattack. The tanks around Sgt Longhurst’s position were being smashed in rapid succession by these anti-tank guns. The Vickers machine guns from the MG battalion were taking a toll on the crews as they escaped. The tank Sgt Longhurst had attacked was suddenly under fire from an anti-tank gun, and it knocked a track off, which caused the Axis crew to bail out. Sgt Longhurst was, by now, back at his gun. He attempted to swing his Vickers gun about, but found the crew masked by a slight rise as they ran. Sgt Longhurst then reached down, and grasped the gun, with its tripod still attached, and lifted. All told this would have weighed in the order of 100lbs. He called upon one of the gun crew, a Private Selmes, to operate the trigger. While the Private held the trigger down Sgt Longhurst directed the bucking gun like a fire-hose and brought the fleeing crew under fire. The rounds were not accurate, but the spray of bullets landing around them caused the crew to surrender. 

 For his actions Sgt Longhurst was awarded the Military Medal. Maybe the authorities were waiting for him to return after the war, but it appears for some reason he was not presented with the decoration itself.  Sgt Longhurst would survive the North African desert, however, in April 1945 he was killed in action on Bougainville Island facing the Japanese. His medal was presented to his wife just after the war, possibly in 1947. 

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Thank you for reading. If you like what I do, and think it is worthy of a tiny donation, you can do so via Paypal (historylisty-general@yahoo.co.uk) or through Patreon. For which I can only offer my thanks. Or alternatively you can buy one of my books.

 

Image Credits:

wilderness-ventures-egypt.com

The Most Famous Tank

 If you go to just about any forum or website that is remotely military or historically themed, you will almost certainly find a post about what is possibly the world’s most famous tank. I am talking of course about that giant aberration, the Panzer VIII Maus. 

First a thought on the designation of the Maus. At first glance Panzer designations seem to be linear, with each successive tank getting the next designation. I believe this may not have been the case when you factor in the dates the various tank projects were started. Using the dates, the Panzer’s go in this order: I, II, IV, III, VI, V, VII and VIII.  Could it be the Roman numeral signifies a weight class instead of the model number? Such an argument is not without flaws though. As there’s quite a gap between the weight of the first two Panzers and the III. Equally, both the first two panzers are under 10 tons. In addition you have the King Tiger, that seems to lack a numeral designation, while the Lowe has the VII number. If this is a weight class surely both would have the number? It would seem to not be a service date as both the Lowe and Maus never entered service, but the King Tiger did. 

Track Bashing on a Maus. To replace the tracks you need several high powered pneumatic rams. I'm sure all those with a modicum of experience of AFVs are crying right now.

Anyway, on with the big tank! Well, actually that’s the first point. According to the designer Dr Porsche, interviewed after the war it was seen more as a mobile bunker, than a tank. This does not seem like a major distinction but might reflect the Germans realisation they are now in need of switching to the defensive, and the reduced need for mobility. At 185 tons it certainly lacked mobility. At first glance it seems utterly stupid to build something that big, however, when you consider the components as a percentage of the total weight, it suddenly seems to make a bit more sense. Especially when comparing with other tanks.

 

 

As you can see, most of the numbers as a percentage are in the same ballpark as other tanks. You can tweak them as you want to emphasise one part or another of the armour triangle. One significant difference is the massive percentage given over to the turret, which weighed 50 tons. In part this is due to the combat role of mobile bunker. The tank is expected to sit in the firing line and shoot back. It is also in part due to the German use of heavy cannon. British gun designers had access to a lot of development and technology, as well as a wide range of materials to make really pokey guns. The Germans simply lacked these options. The result was an attempt by the Germans to increase their gun performance by increasing the calibre of the guns. The bigger the gun gets, the stronger the mount needs to be. As the strength requirements increase, so does the weight. In the German tank the main armament was originally to be a 128mm Kwk 44. Later it was planned to increase to a 150mm piece. 

The fake turret serving as ballast.

The earliest recovered documents for the Maus are dated 1/1/43, so it is almost certain the tank would have started life earlier than that. By the end of the war two Maus’ had been produced, with production plans for another 150. Interestingly, the two tanks were termed the Maus I and Maus II, and they had different engines. The first tank had an aircraft petrol engine, however it performed badly under armour, so the engine was switched to a marine diesel, albeit of the same family as the aircraft engine. Now, one of the two Maus’ had a dummy turret to provide ballast for testing, while the other was fully operational.

At the end of the war both machines were at the testing centre at Kummersdorf. As the Russians drove north the contents of the Kummersdorf testing ground were manned, and armed and thrown into the battle to stop the Soviets around Zosen. Depending on which road running north/south that the Kummersdorf forces were directed it is likely they would run into either the 2nd Polish Army, or a Soviet Guards army. The Maus’ were also to be part of this effort, although they did not appear on the return of operational vehicles for Panzer Company Kummersdorf. It did not really matter either way, as both Maus’ broke down close to the gate of the testing facility. They were demolished in place by their crews, and everyone fled north to Berlin. The Soviets when they found both wrecks decided to try and salvage what they could. The Maus with the working turret had had its hull utterly destroyed, while the basic turret shape was still intact. Meanwhile on the other Maus the interior had been gutted. By combining these two wrecks they managed to get a Maus that was at least the right shape, although totally wrecked internally. This is the survivor at Kubinka. 

 

 

 

A lot of the information in this post comes from the Intelligence investigation, and interview with Dr Porsche. This document was helpfully copied and uploaded by Stephen Tegner, and can be found here.

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Thank you for reading. If you like what I do, and think it is worthy of a tiny donation, you can do so via Paypal (historylisty-general@yahoo.co.uk) or through Patreon. For which I can only offer my thanks. Or alternatively you can buy one of my books.

 

Image Credits:

www.warlordgames.com

Practice Nine

On the 2nd of March 1965 the US opened Operation Rolling Thunder. This was the tightly controlled bombing of North Vietnam in an attempt to pressure the communists into halting their insurrection in the south. The target selection was controlled by the White House, and missions were done with very limited rules of engagement. So much so that pilots complained they needed a lawyer in the rear seat to tell them what they could do. A year later the operation had resulted in no movement from the North Vietnamese, and the US Secretary of Defence, Robert McNamara, was unhappy and looking for new ideas. That’s when Professor Roger Fisher, a lawyer and government consultant, suggested something akin to the Korean DMZ. A band of minefields, bunkers and clear vegetation stretching across Vietnam. 

 Such an installation would require barbed wire, minefields, multiple firebases and mass defoliation along its 160-mile length. McNamara approached the armed forces, who were uniformly aghast at the idea. They estimated it would take seven full divisions, and four years to complete. Despite this McNamara commissioned a study by a group of scientists. They concluded that it was feasible to emplace something, albeit by using aircraft. The study included several ideas on employing electronic equipment to detect the passage of the enemy, which could then be responded to, rather than a traditional blocking force. Equally, the Ho Chi Minh trail proved problematic as it wound through Laos. And like the Maginot line before, and fortification could simply be driven around. 

Example of a Vietnam Firebase. These would need to be dotted across the width of South Vietnam.

 

Despite all this work was begun. The development team was given top priority, and an unlimited budget. The entire project was codenamed Practice Nine and would cost an estimated $1 billion. The project was further broken down into three subgroups. The physical component in Vietnam would be codenamed Dye Marker, while the electronic component in Laos became Muscle Shoals. Finally, the technology to implement the project was code named Igloo White.

There were, of course, the usual plethora of crazy ideas suggested, and rejected. Two choice ones of these were a combination of the Second World War Pigeon and Bat bombs. It was suggested that pigeons could be fitted with explosive vest, and trained to land on the top of trucks, at which point the bombs would detonate. This, of course raises the age-old question of ‘What is the laden weight of a pigeon?’ Well, it is apparently about 10% of the body mass, or about 30-grams. One wonders how effective a 30-gram bomb would be, considering you would also need a detonation mechanism. In the end the scientists raised another objection, how to train the pigeons to land on only communist trucks. Another idea was to use sensors shaped like dog defecation. However, it was quickly pointed out that the area of the Ho Chi Minh trail had no native canine species. 

Marines at Khe Sanh

 

Dye Marker began construction in 1967 in Quang Tri Province. Things went badly as most of the supplies for it were diverted to Khe Sanh for the defence of that location. When that battle was over work never resumed on it. However, Muscle Shoals was vastly more successful. 

One of the assorted sensors being dropped by a USAF bomber.

 

The technology used in Laos consisted of several types of air droppable sensors, with batteries and transmitters. Around 20,000 would be dropped in strings of five to six to ensure that some of the sensors would survive. They came in several forms. One chemically detected human sweat and urine. Another based upon the standard US sonar buoy contained microphones, and the camouflaged parachute would catch in the trees allowing it to hang and listen. There was also an acoustic sensor that stuck into the ground, with an antenna that was camouflaged to look like reeds. Finally, there was the ADSID (Air-Delivered Seismic Intrusion Detector). This lodged itself in the ground and picked up vibrations. 

Inserting an ADSID by helicopter.

 

The data gathered was then transmitted by the sensor’s onboard radio. However, there were no modern data handling devices that we currently have. Equally, range on the radios was limited. Thus, the USAF had to mount a continuous standing watch. For the first few years this was done by a modified Lockheed Constellation airliner with a designation of EC-121R. These would loiter for eight hours apiece, 24 hours per day, over the area’s seeded with sensors. 

EC-121R

They would pick up the transmissions from the sensors and transmit them back to the base, where the data was fed into two IBM 360-65 computers. The data on troop movements was able to be assessed in real time. From that targets could be identified, and strike missions tasked to aircraft loitering in the area. Equally, fresh infiltration routes could be detected, and movements monitored. Locations such as overnight stops, repair points and other fixed locations could be targeted at a later date. 

 The technology had some limitations. One major problem for the acoustic sensors was actually a local frog whose loud croak cause issues with the microphones. The North Vietnamese rapidly became aware of the sensors and took counter measures such as hanging buckets of urine on trees to fool the chemical sniffers. Equally, the coverage of the sensors was not universal. The Ho Chi Minh trail is not a single track but many thousands of routes. An example of this is the appearance of communist tanks in South Vietnam in 1972. Some of these had come down the Ho Chi Minh trail, and not one of the sensors had picked them up. 

QU-22B

As Muscle Shoals proved its worth an experiment to use a QU-22B Pave Eagle to collect and re-transmit the data was trialled. The EC-121R’s had crews of around eighteen. The QU-22B only had a single pilot and were single engine craft. As this was a success the EC-121R’s were shutdown. During that time there are many recordings, including ones of convoy’s getting hit by airstrikes. Another has a road clearing crew chopping a tree down, only for the tree to fall on one of the workers. In yet another one an NVA soldier climbs up a tree. He can see the parachute that inserted the sensor. He is overheard to explain to his colleagues he wanted to retrieve the cloth and send it to his girlfriend so she could make a dress.  

The Muscle Shoals program would run until 1972. But there is considerable argument over how effective it was. It is pointed out that the USAF claimed more trucks destroyed than intelligence said were in North Vietnam at the time. The truth is likely between the two, as the USAF was probably over-claiming, while intelligence was under reporting. A factor for the USAF over claim was although they could get real time locations, these were not pinpoint accurate, so they had to work on principle of smashing the area where the trucks were reported, and such a haphazard way of attacking leads to some over estimation.

Ultimately this focus on number of trucks destroyed sounds very similar to the fixation with body counts from the ground forces and is not how you win a war. 

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Thank you for reading. If you like what I do, and think it is worthy of a tiny donation, you can do so via Paypal (historylisty-general@yahoo.co.uk) or through Patreon. For which I can only offer my thanks. Or alternatively you can buy one of my books.

 

Image Credits:

defense.gov and thefutureofthings.com

Rememberance 100

Today is Remembrance Sunday, the 100th such commemoration, and it is a hopefully unique one. For the first time it has had to be, if not entirely cancelled, but heavily restricted due to the dreaded Chinese Lung Lurgy. This got me wondering about Remembrance Sunday, and its history, so I decided to do a bit of reading and this article is the result of that.

Although the fighting had stopped on the 11th of November 1918, the peace treaty was not signed until 28th of June 1919. With the war fully over, thoughts began to turn to a national day of remembrance. This was due to the fact that from 1915 British casualties had been buried in France, and not repatriated. This left the friends and families of the fallen with no body to bury, no accessible grave site to mourn at (although a trip to France was possible, it was far beyond the means of many) and no focus for their remembrance. 

Commonwealth Cemetery in the early years.

 

At a meeting on the 5th of November 1919, the cabinet and PM discussed how to commemorate the fallen. It was decided that on Tuesday the 11th a three-minute silence would be held. There had been some opposition to both the idea, and the length of the silence. Oddly, the main arguments against were that some future generation might find the precedent ‘inconvenient’. There was also the concern that a three-minute silence might prove too much of a ‘strain’. What might be strained was not recorded, one presumes the older or injured veterans were the main driving point here. The idea for remembrance was agreed by the cabinet, assuming the King approved as well.
It is of no surprise that the King did agree, and thus the following week, crowds gathered at the newly completed Cenotaph in London, and at local war memorials which dot every village, town and city in the UK. At the Cenotaph the crowds were reportedly so dense and deep flowers and wreaths had to be passed forwards, surfing over the crowd to be piled at the base of the memorial. 

The moment of unveiling on the 11th of November 1919

 

During the earlier cabinet meeting it had been proposed that a silence of one minute be adopted. It seems that for commemorations the following year the difference between the one- and three-minutes silence were decided by splitting the difference. And now the UK has its two-minute silence. Equally, to avoid the concerns about the effect on daily life it was moved to a Sunday, and Remembrance Sunday was born. The ideas behind it were communicated around the world to the dominions and the Commonwealth, this is why many countries follow the UK pattern.

The Cenotaph on the first Remembrance Sunday in 1920. As you can see the tributes paid surpassed the previous year.

 

Several years later, in 1940, the UK was suffering the Blitz as Remembrance Sunday rolled round. There was no official ceremony, apart from wreaths laid from the Prime minister, the King & Queen, Queen Mary, the Admiralty, the War Office and the R.A.F. However, this did not stop Remembrance Sunday, as in London many held an unofficial two minutes silence, which was interrupted by the wail of an air raid siren. Those involved in the silence, held their ground and ignored the alert. Luckily it proved to be a false alarm. Other services were held around the country, each according to the requirements.

Some services also included those lost in the Second World War to date, and one was dedicated to the Commonwealth War Grave Commission staff who had tended the cemeteries in France, but whom were now cut off. In reality, it was a false worry. Most of the First World War cemeteries were fully respected by the Germans, although a couple were destroyed, due to how they portrayed the Germans. For example, the one French war memorial described the Germans as barbarians, another showed an Australian bayoneting a German Eagle. Both were destroyed. 

 

Hitler visiting the Canadian memorial at Vimy Ridge.

 

However, the Germans did not respect Remembrance Sunday. At 1900 on Sunday the 10th the air raid sirens screamed, signalling the continuation of the nightly Blitz. That night the worst hit area was Greenwich, with nine killed and forty-eight injured. The deaths came when two separate shelters suffered direct hits in two locations. But as usual there would have been deaths and injuries across the city. In Westminster the National Gallery took a direct hit although the device failed to explode. In Stoke Newington there were a further twelve dud bombs as well. Unbeknownst to everyone at the time, this was the start of a lull in the Blitz bombing due to an increase in bad weather, although the bombing would continue until May the following year. 

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Image Credits:

c20society.org.uk and dailymail.co.uk 

Spying on the Red Army

Imagine if you will, a story of a specially modified car with all sorts of gadgets, cruising around East Germany, spying on Russian equipment, dodging Russian agents, and trying to outwit sentries. All the information gathered is then reported back to British Intelligence. You could be forgiven for thinking I had been reading a James Bond book for the source material for this week’s article, but it’s all true. Let me introduce you to the world of BRIXMIS. 

A BRIXMIS car being put through its paces

When Germany was divided the three allies, France, America, the UK and the Soviet Union all set up liaison groups with each other. The UK’s was called BRIXMIS, which stands for BRItish X [used to indicate command HQ’s] MISsion. These groups were to enable the victorious allies to co-ordinate tasks like repatriation of German POW’s, tackle the black market or catching war criminals. To facilitate these roles the various missions were each given a pass allowing them to enter each other’s zone, in a marked vehicle. Indeed, they legally even counted as part of the occupying forces, each nation issued a map that contained strictly prohibited zones which the liaison personnel could not enter.

As the cold war progressed it soon became clear that having the ability to drive, freely, around East Germany was an intelligence god send. Thus BRIXMIS’ tasking switched from the operations mentioned earlier to spying. This was done by a series of relatively standard cars driving around the countryside and investigating what they could. They would often lie up in a hide and photograph routes or places such as railway lines where they might be able to spot something interesting. They would also wait for any Soviet exercises to end, and then investigate the rubbish tips left behind gathering intelligence from the remains of things dumped by the Soviet forces. Other times they visited bunkers that were out in the middle of no-where and unmanned to see what information could be gained. RAF personnel would hide up and take photographs of aircraft coming into land, allowing intelligence on the weapons and stores that such craft were capable of carrying. On one occasion a BRIXMIS team found the newly introduced BMP-2 in a training area, with no Soviets about. An enterprising BRIXMIS member climbed on the IFV and pressed an apple into the gun barrel. This left an imprint on the apple, which could later be examined, and measured.

Measuring the BMP-2's gun barrel with an apple

  The apple highlights another interesting facet of the situation. BRIXMIS members had to be careful not to write anything down that could be incriminating. Legally as they were part of the Soviet occupation force the civil authorities were unable to do anything to a BRIXMIS tour, and so were ignored. However, the Stasi did have powers and counter surveillance teams would often attempt to disrupt the BRIXMIS activities. Soviet special forces would also lay ambushes with IED’s and the like. Both the French and the US lost personnel on their versions of BRIXMIS. The French casualty died when his car was rammed, and the American was shot by a sentry as he approached a position.

The incident where the French soldier was killed by the Soviets. The Truck has obviously swerved across the road to ram the French car.

 

Often when stopped by authorities the British would brew up, offer everyone a cup of tea, and wait for the Local Soviet Commandant to arrive and release them. However, on one occasion a map the BRIXMIS patrol was using to navigate was seen and looked at. On it there were a load of strange markings that looked like nuclear bomb blasts! The Soviets were convinced they had caught the team spying, either marking out intended target points for Western nuclear weapons or marking where they thought the Soviets had their nuclear facilities. In reality the BRIXMIS members were recording locations where they could obtain a decent ice cream in the summer. 

BRIXMIS modified Opel Senator

In about 1980 the British introduced an absolute beast of a car for BRIXMIS. It started out life as an Opel Senator, with a 3.0l engine, and painted in matt olive green. It was then modified.  
The rear windows were heavily tinted and shuttered with blinds so the third man of the patrol could operate in relative privacy. The vehicle was upgraded to 4x4 and the suspension strengthened. An armoured floor plate was fitted to protect against any explosive presents left behind by the Soviets. Additional fuel tanks were added, as well as infra-red night driving lights. The rear number plate lights were even altered so they could be switched off. To finish the stealth aspect of the car all interior fittings were blacked out. Against the Soviet counter surveillance teams, called ‘Narks’ [British Slang for ‘police informer.’] driving off the shelf Lada’s the Senators out classed them massively.

Narks at work.

But wait, there’s more! As stated earlier, BRIXMIS had RAF personnel in it. Thus, they owned a pair of Chipmunk light aircraft, which they could fly about. The excuse given to the Soviets was that they were to allow the RAF personnel to maintain their flying hours and thus certification. In reality, they would take extreme telephoto lenses up and snap pictures of interesting items which they encountered. This was called Operation Schooner/Nylon. The Red Army hated the Chipmunks, on one occasion they returned to base and found a pair of bullet holes in the aircraft. Developing the films, they could see a Soviet infantryman standing next to his BMP with his rifle aiming at the plane. Equally, another Red Army commander became so incensed with the Chipmunk, he was only stopped from ordering his ZSU’s from shooting it out of the sky with great difficulty. A full account of the activities of the BRIXMIS Chipmunks can be found here, including a story of the time an observer dropped a long telephoto lens, which landed in the middle of a Red Army drill formation. (If you want to read more about BRIXMIS in general, or look at other pictures, try this site)

The moment a Red Army soldier opens fire on the Chipmunk.

 

Back in May 2018 [slightly shocked how long ago that was now] I posted an article about the T-64, and the British intelligence gathering activities. This include some very interesting shots of the T-64 and mention of sound recordings of the tank. In that article I suggested that a lot of the intel had to have come from spies within the Soviet tank design process. I suspect this may not now be the case, as BRIXMIS could have been the source of a lot of the information. 

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Thank you for reading. If you like what I do, and think it is worthy of a tiny donation, you can do so via Paypal (historylisty-general@yahoo.co.uk) or through Patreon. For which I can only offer my thanks. Or alternatively you can buy one of my books.

 

Image Credits:

www.brixmis.co.uk and www.16va.be, 

Plastic Fantastic (part 2)

 Last week we left the newly activated Captain Terrell and Lieutenant Commander Lane sitting in an office, in June/July 1940, having been handed  a nightmare problem. They had to find a solution to protect merchant ships to prevent the collapse of the British economy. They set about gathering as much evidence on air attacks on shipping as they could. Their idea appears to be to analyse all the attacks and see if anyone factor coincides with low casualties, so that they could build on that mystery factor.

Lt Cmdr Lane had a habit of doodling on the back of official documents. Here we see his sketches of a duck.

In early August Lane received a letter from Lieutenant Hindmarsh, who was working as a shipwright at North Shields Royal Navy base on the Tyne. He was reporting information on encounters of a fleet of old paddle steamers that had been used during the Dunkirk evacuation. The ships involved were the HMS Glen Gower, Glen Avon, Snaefell and the Laguna Belle. All were old ships, for example the Snaefell was launched in 1907, although the Glen Gower was newer having been launched in the early 1920s. Due to the age the ships boards had flexed, expanded and shrunk over the years, and operating in the storm-tossed North Sea the ships needed to be re-caulked almost every time they sailed. This was extremely difficult as the caulking facilities at North Shields were limited to just 120ft a day. All this changed when a company called Durastic Bitumen Products brought out a substance called Insulphate. It was a mix of bitumen and cork, with a top layer to provide grip. It was used extensively on the steamers, even being used to seal the worn funnel casing of one of the ships. 

HMS Glen Avon, one of the Paddle steamers used at Dunkirk.

 

During the Dunkirk evacuation the paddle steamers were strafed, bombed, shelled and generally received the attention of the Germans. In one particular case a Navy officer standing on the upper deck had a 20mm cannon round impact between his feet. Normally such an impact would have shredded the officers inside leg and groin with shrapnel. In this case he suffered no injury. This planted the idea in Terrell’s mind, and he organised a delivery of assorted 3x3ft samples of Insulphate. They arrived on the 17th of August and were tested on the same day at the Road Research Laboratory (RRL). A rifle fired a .303 armour piercing round at all the samples, some of differing thicknesses others backed by mild steel plates. The round easily blew straight through. 

The next day in a telephone call between Terrell and Dr Glanville (the head of the RRL), the idea of mixing stone chippings was suggested. The idea had come up when the first reports from the paddle steamers had been discussed by Terrell and Lane, only they had suggested using ball bearings, which had been rejected as the aim was to save metal. By good luck Terrell actually had some experience with granite chippings, having previously been involved in a court case involving ballast used in railway construction. He knew that Penlee Granite was one of the harder substances, and specified these chippings be used, and samples of Insulphate mixed with various sizes of chippings were ordered. These arrived on the 24th of August and were instantly showing promise. A quick period of development followed, and the final specification for a substance that became known as Plastic Armour was drawn up on the 12th of September. The first ship to be fitted was the SS Empire Frost, which was then under construction at Glasgow. 

Photo's of a 3.5in slab of Plastic after being shot at by a 20mm solid round, as you can see, the round barely made it through the backing plate. Compare this to the impact of the low powered .50 Vickers gun impact on the 6in concrete slab I posted last week. You can instantly see why Plastic offered a massive increase in protection, and reduction in weight.

 

 

This famous image comes from the Dieppe Raid. The Plastic has been hit by a 100mm projectile and several 20mm cannon rounds.

 

Another picture of plastic at work. This ship has obviously been hit by something big on the raised box, however it has also taken some hits to the side of the structure as well.

This first version of Plastic Armour had between 55-60% of its weight as stone chippings, between 6-8% of bitumen and the remainder of the weight made up of limestone powder. These values would change as development went on. All the stone chippings were finely graded to be exactly the same size, which was about 0.75 of an inch. There was a thin mild steel backing plate. Assorted testing found that a slab of plastic would stop pretty much anything short of a 20mm armour piercing round at 0 degrees impact angle. A Bren gun was fired at a slab of Plastic Armour at the range of 25 yards, with the rounds spread out across the slab, only one bullet passed through out of fifty-six. Another fifty-six rounds were fired at a 9in circle, only two rounds penetrated, and in both cases, a round had hit a bullet fired earlier in the test. Nine rounds were fired at a 2in circle, and there were no penetrations. Various grenades were tried to no effect, they even tried to set the surface on fire with blow torches. It was calculated that Plastic Armour gave about 1/3rd less protection than armour plate. However, the main selling point of Plastic Armour was it was cheap and easy to mass produce, at a weight much less than concrete. All you needed were the basic components and a road construction crew, all of which were easy to obtain. Equally, plastic was cheaper than armour plate, which cost £150 per ton, Plastic only cost £12.10.0 (remember this is pre-decimalisation) per ton.

A portable 2-ton Asphalt cooker. These were common throughout the UK as they were used by road building crews. The component parts of plastic were just thrown into the cooker, and it was fired up. The ship to be protected then had wooden shuttering erected in the area's to be protected. The mix from the cooker was then poured or shovelled into the open top of the shuttering, and pressed down in a process called consolidation. 

 Plastic Armour would go through three marks, with steadily increasing protection, or decreasing weight. Then came the idea of packing the armour into light metal trays. This was called Plastic Protective Plating (PPP). This allowed a standard set of plates to be assembled in factories which enabled easier distribution. These plates could be quickly erected for any purpose needed with just a few easily available tools. At worst you would need a light frame to bolt the PPP slabs onto. 

PPP in production. The dark slab is the tray, once the top vibrating panel is in place the entire table shakes this consolidates the plastic mix far better than can be achieved by hand. This in turn means the stone chip density is much higher, and offers more protection.

Here was the golden bullet to the problem that was facing the UK. Soon most ships had some form of Plastic protection which would turn any attack. Even a simple cruciform shape of slabs on the deck gave cover against an attack. Equally, as ships were armed with Lewis guns, most of these machine gun nests were protected by Plastic. 

Instruction drawing for how to construct a standard naval AA machine gun mount from PPP.

 

Then Plastic kept on going. There are attempts to list all the uses of Plastic Armour or PPP in the documents in archives. These usually run on for several pages of A4. Needless to say, at any time you needed protection against light weaponry, but could not afford the use of armour plate then Plastic was the solution. All sorts of bunkers were created, including rapid assembly walls that could be used in minutes to shutter openings in a building instantly converting it to a fortified position. These prefabricated walls were also cast with loopholes to fire from. Trains, radar stations, factories, the War Office, boats, trucks, coastal artillery and bulldozers were protected. Even schemes to protect tanks from air strafing were designed. Parts of the Mulberry Harbours used in the invasion of Europe in 1944 were protected. Even General Eisenhower’s command ship during Operation Torch was caked in thick slabs of Plastic Armour. By the end of the Second World War around 120,000 had been manufactured in the UK alone. 

Bulldozer fitted with PPP, these saw use from Normandy onwards

 

Unit Construction Plates, a type of protection used to quickly blockade the windows and doors of a house. This particular version is showing its resilience, having been used in a trial where it was shot by a 2-inch mortar. There were other projects such as shields for personnel use, however these were too heavy.

Scorpion AA trailer. Made out of PPP, and armed with twin Lewis guns. These were used to protect Royal Navy Air Stations from low level German raids. The prototype trailer cost only £25.

 

Assorted improvised armoured trucks protected by PPP. The OXA Bedford in the last picture has been used for a firing test, which she's passed with flying colours. The middle picture is of a special design called the Bison which20 were ordered for the London defence district. The top one I have no details on.

It is interesting to note the more well know Armadillo protected truck started off life as made of wooden body filled with gravel. However later, PPP was substituted.
 

The sheer simplicity of manufacture meant that other less well-developed places such as India and Iraq could manufacture an armour equivalent locally, which further simplified the global logistics. It was also manufactured in the US and Canada. It was estimated by the US that by December 1944 the use of Plastic Armour in the US had saved $96 million. To put that in context this would have allowed the US to purchase and produce some 377,049 tons of steel. Think about how many aircraft carriers, or Sherman tanks that saving allowed the US to produce. It was such big business in the US that there was actually 'bootleg' plastic armour produced. This offered protection bellow the official requirements, but got the company paid. Once this was known about a British expert was sent over and quality control improved, eliminating the Bootleg Plastic.

Indian designed Tulip bunker. The idea was to place it over a machine gunners foxhole allowing him protection, and the ability to fire in all directions. The title mentions 'Bence-Jones', this refers to a sub-set of plastic filling developed in India.

 

Research on Plastic Armour continued, and in May 1942 when the first example of a 2.8 cm Schwere Panzerbüchse 41 was captured a few of the rounds were allocated for firing at Plastic. The results surprised everyone. The sPzB 41 had no more effect than a 20mm AP round. More research followed and it was quickly found that Plastic Armour performed better the faster the projectile was going. At speeds over 4,000fps impact velocity Plastic Armour gave protection better than armour plate. 

 

The actual sPzB 41 captured by the British in March 1942, and was later used on Plastic.

 

This came to the fore towards the end of the war. Trials had shown the German HEAT based anti-tank rifle grenade, which was very common, would be stopped by thin slabs of PPP. This setup was fitted to several Canadian WASP IIc flamethrowers. These thin slabs of PPP prevented attack from most of the common German anti-tank weapons and light cannon, allowing the WASPs to safely close with the Germans. The crews were reported to have much higher morale and confidence, pushing home their attacks much more vigorously. As an added advantage the weight of the PPP installation on the front of the vehicle, balanced out the large fuel tank at the rear making it perform better across country. It is likely this resistance to hollow charge projectiles lead to the HCR2 armour packages for the Sherman.

The only picture I've been able to find of the WASP IIc fitted with the Plastic Armour. You can see the PPP plates around the crew compartment. These were used by the Canadians in 1945.

HCR2 PPP style protection fitted to a Sherman.

It is curious to note that with the end of the war all official mention of plastic vanishes like it had been guillotined. There is one resurgence for use in the Malaya insurgency, however, that was suggested to the Foreign Office by Terrell himself. This sudden vanishing makes me wonder if there is not a link between Plastic Armour and the first iterations of composite armours that are inaccurately termed ‘Chobham Armour’ by the modern press. When the first versions of that armour appeared (called Burlington) they were manufactured in trays and designed to be applique armour on an existing tank. They were to give armoured vehicles extremely good protection against HEAT warheads, something that PPP did. Even the dimensions and some of the characteristics of the armour match the PPP. 

After the war Terrell was awarded a prize sum of £9,500 for the invention. Much to the annoyance of the owners of Durastic Bitumen Products ltd, the manufacturers of Insulphate, as thy had placed a claim in for the award claiming they invented the product. Terrell then gifted part of the award to Dr Glanville, as he felt that he had played a part in the invention.

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Image Credits:

www.wrecksite.eu and topwar.ru