"Rhino" Attachments

[Pixman]

Question for BTS: Will you simulate the Rhino attachments on Shermans that the allies used to break through hedgerows in the bocage? I believe that's what they were called.

Ambrose spends a lot of time on these in Citizen Soldiers and asserts that these became a staple in bocage tactics.

[Guest Big Time Software]

Yes, the "rhino/rihinoceros" was designed by Sgt Culin to cut through hedgerows. There were many different designs used afterwards, but his was the first. After July (I think) Allied tanks have these attachments fixed on them in CM. Before July they weren't available.

Steve

[Moon]

In some other book (sorry, can't remember which anymore, it's a while back) I read that the US was also using explosives to blast holes through the hedgerows. I have even seen pictures of a Sherman with what looks like loooong tubes mines attached to the front of it. They were apparently used to punch holes in the hedgerow basement, so that engineers could emplace demo charges and blast a big hole in the hedgerow.

(Please keep in mind that I am using my poor little peabrain to remember things I read a while back before kicking my butt for mixing up something )

[Pixman]

Thanks Steve and Moon. You guys don't miss anything.

Pixman

[Fionn]

And let's not forget how Culin was feted as a hero by the allies at the time.

He filled a void in the propoganda war by showing how "good old fashioned US ingenuity could overcome" which was a nice morale boost at the time.

Still, he probably caused the US to get out of the bocage a couple of weeks earlier than would otherwise be possible.

[Guest Big Time Software]

This is something that Doubler harped on in his book "Closing with the Enemy". Local initiative was about equal for US, German, and Soviet armies. However, it was the US that was best at adapting a field modification to full scale deployment. In just under 2 weeks it went from idea to about 500 installed, and 2 weeks later most of the 1st Army had one on each and every Sherman (just shy of 70% IIRC).

Doubler puts forth the notion that this was possible ONLY because the US Army field formations were constantly looking to do what worked, and once something like this was found, they made up documentation for their own units and distributed them without waiting for higher orders. In contrast, the German Army would have had it tested and officially accepted or declined at the highest level before such large scale adoption happened. And there might have been a problem with such a great idea coming from such a lowly Sgt. too

However, the US front line troop's love of invention and rapid employment is a double edged sword. In the case of the cutters and subsequent tactics, the rapid adoption was extremely helpful to the US cause. But certainly there must be examples were this was not the case. The other thread about sandbagged tanks is a possible candidate. My thinking is that somebody figured that sandbags on tanks was a good idea (either for false physical reasons, or correct psychological ones) and had an entire division outfitted (or so it seems). However, it doesn't look like this worked well in practice and was, so far as we can tell, a waste of energy and a senseless degrading of vehicle performance. Oh well, can't be perfect

Steve

[Moon]

Everybody is talking about the "hedgerow cutters" and all... but actually, I just thought, what did the Germans to use to get through hedgerows in France? OK, they were not attacking with armor too often it seems, but at least around Mortain in the counterthrust towards Avranches German tanks had to advance through hedgerow country. What did they do - move down the roads?

[Guest Big Time Software]

So far as I know Moon, that is EXACTLY what they did. They stuck to the roads. They were sitting ducks for the fighter-bombers and artillery too. The carnage was a rude shock to the Germans. Very rude. This was the last major, daylight armored attack out in the open on the Western Front.

Steve

[Fionn]

Yep, Avranches was one of those "death rides" which seem to pepper every war.

If you read first-hand German crew accounts you will notice that ALL their actions take place near roads. There are no instances where a German tank is waiting just behind a hedgerow for US tanks and blasts the underbelly of the US tanks as they advance simply because they couldn't get there.

In a sense the Germans were probably lucky their tanks couldn't get into the bocage cause Hitler would probably have had his Panthers penny-packeted out in individual bocage areas to form a steel cordon or something.

Unfortunately it would also have put Panthers well within 100 metre gun range of Allied tanks at which range they could readily be killed so it would have been a bad idea overall.

Far better to let your infantry whittle the enemy down and then destroy his advance forces with long range gunnery fire.

[Guest Big Time Software]

Moon,

Remember that hedgerows/bocage usually had periodic gaps in it. After all, the farmers need a way to get in there with farm equipment, cows, etc.

The reason the Allies needed hedge cutters and didn't simply drive the tanks right through these gaps was... well at first they did drive right through the gaps and got all of about ten feet before every German gun in tarnation fired and knocked them out, having been boresighted right on the gap hours or days beforehand.

The hedgecutters allowed allied tanks to pierce the bocage where they wanted to, not where the Germans wanted them to.

The Germans, not having hedgecutters but being on the defensive, were (usually) able to move through the gaps when necessary because they'd do so before allied guns arrived on the scene.

Charles

[Rhet]

To this I would add that the Allied tanks tried to just run over the Bocage. This was a slow and very conspicuous operation. Following tanks would enter the field through the gap created by the first tank. The Gerries would have an AT gun or PF operators (depending on the size of the field) waiting for this situation. The allies countered with sending troops in first but this would be neutralized by waiting MGs. The Cullin device allowed the allies to come through the hedges with all of their tanks at the same time thus overwhelming the defenders.

Oh yeah, Cullin recieved the Medal of Honor (CMH) for this invention. I think he earned it, afterall he probably saved more lives than any other CMH recipient.

------------------

Rhet

[This message has been edited by Rhet (edited 07-08-99).]

[Simon Fox]

You also have to remember the timing of all this. When the Rhino modification was made the germans were getting pretty thin on the ground (first widespread use in COBRA) and tended to concentrate their defenses at key road junctions. The Rhino enabled US tanks to outflank them across country while the germans were restricted to the roads.

While Sgt Culin of the 2nd armoured is credited with developing the idea it originated with a Pvt named Roberts in the same unit. Sgt Culin brought the concept to fruition and did honestly try to spread some of the credit around but to no avail in the face of the publicity machine. Interestingly other units had developed similar approaches to the hedgerows as the following account from CMH publication 100-3:

"The 29th Division had already had much and bitter experience of the difficulties of hedgerow fighting and to meet them, like other units, spent a great deal of time and effort in planning and training for the big attack. Under the direct supervision of Brig. Gen. Norman D. Cota, Assistant Division Commander, the infantry, tank, and engineer elements of the division rehearsed (in fields near Couvains) a tactical procedure for reducing the effectiveness of hedgerow defenses. Particular attention was paid to the necessity of training infantrymen to cross the open centers of hedge-bordered fields, rather than moving along axial hedgerows. This method of maneuver aimed at avoiding enfilade fire along the axials; in the past squads and platoons had been too often pinned down by German automatic weapons that were usually set up at field corners.

Each battalion of the 116th Infantry went into the attack with an attached company of engineers from the 121st Engineer Combat Battalion. The 2d Battalion (Maj. Sidney V. Bingham, Jr.) of the 116th was to lead off the advance, hitting along the axis of the Couvains-la Calvaire road, skirting the division boundary, and bypassing strongly organized enemy positions at St-Andre- de-l'Epine. The 2d Battalion would start on a two-company front (E and F Companies); each assault platoon in these companies was teamed with a platoon of medium tanks from the 747th Tank Battalion. The plan for the opening phase involved operating in small teams, each with a comparatively broad front: one infantry squad and one tank per field, and a squad of engineers to each infantry platoon.

Coordination of infantry-tank-engineer teams, working in these small groups, had been carefully rehearsed. The tanks were expected to give great assistance, by their fire power, in dealing with hedgerow strongpoints, but there was always the problem of getting them through the embankments fast enough to maintain their support through the endless series of fields. Movement along the road was prohibited by German antitank defenses. To get the armor through hedgerows, new devices and methods were being tried out. One was to equip the tank with iron prongs welded to the final drive housing. These prongs could-and did-rip holes right through the upper part of small embankments, but the prongs might be bent and disabled by much heavy work of this sort. They had still another use: that of making holes for placing demolitions. The engineers in the assault teams carried explosive charges of TNT loaded in discarded canisters of 105-mm shells. In the tactics rehearsed, the infantry would seize hedgerow fronting the axis of attack; a tank would then lumber forward toward a place where the engineers desired to make the gap. Driving into the hedgerow, the tank would force the two prongs into the earth, and at the same time deliver a blast of fire from its automatic weapons on the field and hedgerow ahead. When the prongs were with drawn from the bank, two waiting engineers would rush forward, fix the prepared charges in the holes, make the necessary primacord connections, and light the fuze. Additional TNT charges were carried close behind the assault teams on "weasels" (M-29's). Obviously the engineers' task was dangerous; they were so heavily involved in the task of carrying explosives that they could not engage in individual combat and must rely on the fire power of tanks and infantry for protection."

And this of the 2nd infantry division:

"A tank-infantry-engineer team was devised for dealing with the hedgerow problem. The teams were trained to advance as a coordinated unit, each hedgerow representing a new line of departure. When the engineers had blown a hole for the tanks to pass through, the tanks would enter the field, fire their 75-mm guns into the corners, and spray the lateral hedgerow ahead to cover the infantry scouts advancing (in this case) along the axial hedges. These scouts would also be covered by BAR men. Two of the four demolitions men followed behind, and the engineers and the leader of the infantry squad would choose the best place for the tank to go through the next barrier. Special EE-8 phones were installed on the rear of the tanks and connected with the tank's interphone system for tank-infantry communication during action. Two engineers would stay with the vehicle to protect it during advance, scanning and firing at side hedgerows to keep down enemy bazooka teams. In the area close to the line of departure, hedgerow embankments were carefully scooped out on the American side, leaving a shell which the tanks could push through on the day of attack."

Sorry this is so long but I thought it was interesting .

[MikeO]

From what I've read, the difficulty in using armour in the tight bocage found in the US sector of Normandy was one of the reasons the Germans concentrated nearly all their panzer units on the slightly more open British/Canadian front. For the first month after the landings there were *no* panzer divisions facing the US. After that the heavily battered Pz Lehr and 2nd SS transferred west and were shortly all but wiped out! What the US did face were some incredibly stubborn Fallschirmjager and SS Pz Gren. units amongst those hedgerows. Armour in the first month only consisted of some old French tanks (cue those H39s!) in a local defense btn. and the StuGs of the 17thSS. The Mortain counterattack was a different matter...