9th RTR Website

[Andreas]

Not sure if this was posted before:

www.9thrtr.com

Contains the war diary of 9th RTR (a Churchill unit) from June 44 to June 45 with maps, the full text of the book 'Tank Tracks' by Peter Beale, and numerous other goodies.

Nice scenarion material in there.

All the best

Andreas

[JasonC]

Reading the Epsom narratives.

The things that stand out are (1) the impenetrable "fog" for most, knowing very little of what was happening, and (2) the way particular incidents, quite unlikely ones in CM terms, dominate the accounts.

As in, a tank hits one of its own side's AT mines at the start line and throws a track. But everyone initially thinks it is enemy mortar fire and for several minutes are scrambling around as though it were.

Or a tank becomes blind when it buttons up because mud thrown up by the tracks has covered the periscopes, and the TC is too timid about it to stop and clean them off. So he keeps right on going, blind, and runs his tank into a ditch, and stays there, stuck - for the whole battle - until a tank recovering vehicle comes and pulls him out.

Or the tanker who only found out there were any causalties on his own side at the end of the day, while during the battle he thought it was like a parade ground exercise back in England. Despite Churchills described brewing up elsewhere in his unit, his first awareness anyone was in real danger was a report someone he knew had been killed, that night.

Or the Churchill crewmembers who had been taught their tanks were invulnerable (from the front anyway) who were shocked to discover German AT fire holed several from the front, readily.

Or the reports of receiving heavy caliber AT fire without being able to ID the shooters, because rain wrecked visibility.

Or the infantry that reaches the objective through mortar fire, but pulls out because there don't seem to be enough of them and the mortar fire never stops. A few shells at a time no doubt. No counterattack, just sitting on the objective feeling rather hung out to dry, plus 1-2 company 81s dropping an occasional shell, was enough to make them give up what they fought all day to get. Because confusion and lack of info multiplies fears.

Also the time scale - a handful of tanks lost all day is enough to make it feel like not only a serious battle, but difficult to accomplish anything. CMers think nothing of losing half their tanks in 20 minutes and continuing the mission with the other half.

[Sivodsi]

"Or the Churchill crewmembers who had been taught their tanks were invulnerable (from the front anyway) who were shocked to discover German AT fire holed several from the front, readily."

Actually, this kind of thing is quite often replicated in certain players CM battles!

[Sgt Steiner]

Hi Andreas

Thanks for link

I read the 9th Rtr history several years ago and its a great full of incident and reality at its best and worst..........

Cheers

[Waycool]

Thanks for the 9RTR link, very nice find. This and Arthur Gerald Chester's North Irish Horse site http://www.nih.ww2site.com/ make for some very nice reference for those interested in things Churchill and the experiences of British Armour.

[Other Means]

Cheers for that, very interesting.

[General Bolt]

Thanks Andreas. Great site.

I liked this part:

- - - - -

Types of Forest

3. This Regiment has now fought in woods of many varieties. As a result of this experience it is considered that it is practicable for tanks to support infantry in forests where the trees are more than 12 feet high and 3 feet apart. It is not practicable, however, for tanks to support infantry in young plantations where visibility is nil. In such plantations it is impossible for tanks to keep touch with the infantry, except in the rides, and tanks are unable to defend themselves against bazooka teams.

4. A coniferous forest presents less difficulty to the passage of tanks than does a deciduous forest. A Churchill tank will knock down a coniferous tree of 2 feet diameter, and a “Honey” a tree of 1 foot diameter. The tree is normally broken off at the base, though sometimes, and more particularly by “Honeys” it is uprooted. The reason for this is that the “Honey” tank tends to ride up the tree before pushing it over, while the “Churchill” with a flat forward plate produces a more horizontal push. A deciduous tree is invariably uprooted, and the type of soil will have considerable effect on the size of the tree that can be pushed over. In the Reichswald it was found that a Churchill tank would push over a beech tree of 9 inches diameter but failed to push over a tree of 1 foot diameter.

Crashing through trees at high speed is not feasible, as the shock of the impact breaks off the tops of the trees which fall on the commander’s head.

- - - - end of quote - - - -

Interesting that the tanks could make it through the Reichswald.

Are all the trees in CMAK/BB tall pines larger than 2 ft in diameter? And the deciduous trees must be greater than 1ft diameter.

[SgtMuhammed]

True story: I used to switch places with my driver and zoom around in my M113. One time I hit a pine tree about a foot wide and 30 feet tall and snapped it right off. The tree kind of hopped up and then landed flat on the top of my track. I had about 10 feet sticking off the front and another 10 sticking off the back and a driver that just about soiled himself.

Ok not relavant but there you go.

Good site.

[Aco4bn187inf]

Pretty convenient way to bring home a Christmas tree! I've seen an M60 MG used to cut down a tree, c. 9" wide or so. It's all good training.

[RockinHarry]

Very good info indeed. I assume that most tank combat in woods still took place along the mentioned rides and fire breaks and that crashing straight through was the rare exception and Combat Mission models just that to simplify things. Surely would be interesting to see a game model that takes the above mentioned issues of "pushing" and possible resulting tank damage into consideration. As mentioned there would be varied ways of tank damage, including tracks, gun, turret traverse...tank commanders head ..and not to forget..simple bogging. I know the Reichswald and Hochwald (Xanten) forests from personal inspection and seeing the tracks made from woodworkers tractors outside the fire breaks, it´s obvious the forest ground is very soft at most places. Can´t hardly imagine that a ~40 ton tank (Churchill) gets trough, even if the spacing between trees would theoretically allow this.

The "Hochwald" gap was another of those tankers nightmares. :eek:

[Brent Pollock]

As part of my continuing fight against acronymnesia, from now on I will always try to remember that the plural of AVRE is AVsRE, not AVREs.

Tis a grand site - thanks!