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D-Day & Swimming Tanks?
Why make the Sherman tanks swim to shore?? Why not just put them on landing craft, and land them directly on the beaches?? Were they too big, were they too heavy?? Or was it something else??
Something I've always wondered about.
5 Answers
- Tim DLv 77 years agoFavorite Answer
Because an LCT takes time to land (if it can get all the way onto the beach) and then five, or up to nine, tanks are sitting ducks for any artillery until they can unload and deploy across a beach - to say nothing of being shot at before they even reach the beach.
The Duplex Drive tanks presented a much more difficult target could land almost simultaneously and be immediately under their own power and capable of firing, although the snorkels had to be removed soon to prevent overheating. The idea was that they would land first and cover the LCTs and LCs. And on some of the beaches they were successful, on others the tanks were swept across the beachfront by powerful currents.
- ammianusLv 77 years ago
German beach obstacles meant that the Allies had to land at low tide (so as to avoid landing craft having their bottoms ripped open by submerged,and thus not able to be seen,beach obstacles at high tide).
However,this meant that sandbanks and seabed rocks close to shore were much nearer the surface,and landing craft ran the risk of running aground on these at low tide.
So,some tanks had to be modified to enable them to be unloaded offshore and then "swim" to the beaches,as the landing craft carrying them would run aground long before reaching the beach - meaning that any tanks they were carrying would not reach the beach ever.
- 7 years ago
(1) A shortage of landing craft
(2) Smaller target and harder to see at a distance
(3) Many tanks WERE landed directly on the beaches. Read and learn: http://worldwar2headquarters.com/HTML/normandy/ddT...