Sheldrake wrote:Adding to what Rich has written:-
And in turn to add a bit and correct a bit.
The planning in 1943 was hampered by the junior level of the planning staff, under the 3 star General Frederick Morgan Chief of Staff to the Supreme Allied Commander. Without a commander with authority or influence to demand resources the COSSAC staff had to get on with planning under the constraints laid down my the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Eisenhower could make demands for extra landing craft that Morgan could not. (snip agreement)
Even better than that or worse depending on your bent.
Morgan originally was "Chief of Staff Supreme Allied Commander (D)". The (D) was for "Designate", which was a placeholder since the Supreme Allied Commander wasn't actually designated until 7 December 1943. Which was ten and a half months after Ismay dumped the COSSAC (D) responsibilities into Morgan's lap. I am not that surprised that the Chief of Staff for a Designate not yet designated had even less power than the undesignated Supreme Commander.
ETOUSA were briefed on these by Hobart in May-June 1943, but the US chose not to use anything other than DD tanks.
I don't know why this story simply will not die? Yes, Hobart briefed at the "Conference on Landing Assaults" at the U.S. Assault Training Center on 23 May-23 June 1943, but it is not clear exactly what he briefed on, because he demanded the briefing not be recorded.
However, given he was given the mission of developing "flotation tanks, searchlight tanks, anti-mine tanks, and self-propelled guns" by Brooke on 11 March following KRUTSCHEN it seems likely that is what he discussed. It also appears that Brooke actually meant self-propelled flamethrowers when he referred to “self-propelled guns” since that is how he referred to them in later meetings with Hobart on 1 April and 17 June 1943.
It is unclear though how much Hobart could have discussed regarding the AVRE, since the War Office request for complete development of such a vehicle as well as other engineering devices went to the Ministry of Supply on 2 February 1943 and the order for AVRE was not made until 21 May 1943. At the time of the conference there were probably two AVRE and 10 Petard mortars in existence.
In any case, the AVRE and other devices were not demonstrated to ETOUSA until 27 January 1944. The result was a request by FUSA for "twelve items, four of which were specifically mounted on Sherman-based chassis; Crab, Sherman Bullshorn Plough, Sherman OAC Mark III Plough, and Sherman Crocodile. Two others, Harrow and Centipede, were mine clearing devices that were designed to be adaptable for towing or mounting on either American or British vehicles. Of the remainder, four were strictly British-based vehicles, A.V.R.E., ARK, and SBG Mark II, all based on the Churchill, “Bridgelayers”, which in this context were probably the Valentine bridge-laying tank that was then being distributed to Commonwealth armored units, and two were “devices”, “Special Charges (Gen Wade etc)” and “Snakes.”
Significantly, it is the latter six items that First Army did not place a requirement for. The primary reasoning given was that they did not want to further complicate their already complex training program and add to their logistical burden by accepting into inventory four non-standard, British vehicles based on the Churchill and Valentine tank chassis, just three and a half months before the projected date of the assault "
So they in fact "chose" quite a bit (the DD tanks and Porpoise sleds were dealt with separately), but simple wasn't available in time. The various plough devices were replaced by the Sherman dozer blade, which arrived in ETOUSA in May (the 100 that arrived were freely shared with the British BTW). Another 100 Shermans from the ETOUSA reserve stocks were set aside for conversion to Crocodile, which were never completed as technical difficulties plagued the program.
The improvised Royal marine assault/SP gun brigade based on 80 obsolescent tanks was a Combined Operations project, picked up by HQ 2nd Army as a way to thicken the fire plan for the last 10 minutes before H Hour.
The late arrival of the Sherman 105mm meant that the equivalent in the US landing, the Tank Battalion Assault Guns, were equipped with standard 75mm-armed Shermans as they tried to fulfill the role of the RM Armoured Support batteries. There were even provisions for LCT CB as on some of the British beaches, but at the last minute they were diverted to other tasks. However, to match the number of armored vehicles required more LCT, which wasn't in the cards, especially given the armored support met American doctrinal norms.
Brigadier H J Parham the Brigadier RA of 2nd Army took an active role in the fire plan for the British beaches. His big concern was artillery observers, particularly air observers. Normandy with lots of trees to block vision. Air OPs flown by army officers were key to delivering fire in the right place. Parham wanted an aircraft carrier and even the prototype Sikorsky helicopters from an improvised helicopter carrier. The Navy did offer a carrier, but not until 31 May - too late. Parham 's fears were justified as the British struggled inland from Sword beach against German positions which had not been identified before D Day. There were lots of casualties to the FOOs and Naval FOBs and some of the RAF/RN pilots flying fighters were a menace, misidentifying allied armour for Germans and stopping the advance south from Gold beach.
Brigadier General Charles Edward "Eddie the Cannon" Hart, Chief of Artillery, FUSA did much the same on the American side and with similar success and lack of success. IIRC the lack of carriers for the usual AOP/FAO utility aircraft led to the use of fighter aircraft in the role on D-Day with mixed success, but I don't recall where that initiative came from? The NGFS parties were badly hampered by the delicacy of their radio gear, which created havoc on OMAHA, but also affected the other beaches too.
"Is all this pretentious pseudo intellectual citing of sources REALLY necessary? It gets in the way of a good, spirited debate, destroys the cadence." POD, 6 October 2018
