Help and information on 11th Armoured equipment

[PhoenixII]

Hi all,

wonder if anyone can help?

Information required on the testing of either 'Hobo' Hobbarts 'funnies' or waterproofing

undertaken at Kirkham Priory in North Yorkshire prior to D - Day.

Information required on types of armour and 'soft skin' etc. as the small amount i can find says nothing.

Very little is known, apart from 11th Armoured were involved (confirmed by Bovingdon)

and based in the area '43 - '44, and turned the A64 into a huge 'car park'!

Oh, and i already know about the visit (H.M. King George and Winston)

Photo's would be an added bonus!!!

Thanks in advance,

Paul

Edited March 28, 2010 by PhoenixII

[ChrisITA]

What exactly would you like to know? specific units or the types of vehicles? how the waterproofing was done? why it was done? was it successful or not? what exercises were undertaken?

If you can be a bit more specific in your questions, or if this is a modelling project and you have something in mind, then I may be able to help

Chris

Hi all,

wonder if anyone can help?

Information required on the testing of either 'Hobo' Hobbarts 'funnies' or waterproofing

undertaken at Kirkham Priory in North Yorkshire prior to D - Day.

Information required on types of armour and 'soft skin' etc. as the small amount i can find says nothing.

Very little is known, apart from 11th Armoured were involved (confirmed by Bovingdon)

and based in the area '43 - '44, and turned the A64 into a huge 'car park'!

Oh, and i already know about the visit (H.M. King George and Winston)

Photo's would be an added bonus!!!

Thanks in advance,

Paul

[PhoenixII]

Hi Chris,

thanks for getting back to me.

Upshot, i take over at Kirkham in a little under three weeks.

The early history of the priory is pretty well known, a friend wrote the book,

though knew nothing about the recent history, and he builds armour, then again

he's ONLY an Architectural Historian!

Very sketchy info, know it was 11th Armoured, (Black Bull) but, according to the

Regimental history, (courtesy of Bovingdon) they were stationed in North Yorkshire

September / October 1943 - May 1944 and were testing 'waterproofing'.

Beyond that, a local lad (now 70+) has said about 'various' tanks, jeeps and trucks

driving in and out of the Derwent, but beyond this, nothing!

So, anything you may have on types of vehicles and what exercises were undertaken

also info on why it was done would be great.

According to Bovingdon, doubtful that it was D.D.s as 11th Armoured didn't land until

June 13th (D-Day +7) so didn't have to 'swim' ashore.

Also, the historian down there found it difficult to understand WHY? as he states

that 'waterproofing' was normally undertaken in a 'tank' enabling them to

monitor in a controlled environment.

Unless you know different..........!

Look forward to ANY help you may be able to furnish, best regards,

Paul (IPMS Cleveland)

[ChrisITA]

I'll have a look through my references to see what I can find Paul

I know that some testing and exercises were undertaken in lakes. In the excellent 'By Tank Into Normandy' by Stuart Hills I believe the crews trained in a lake with DD tanks and for escape procedures (they had a small breather apparatus and needed to practice escaping submerged tanks).

Regardless of whether the tanks were DD tanks, they still needed to be waterproofed as most were still landed over open beaches rather than on the mulberries (and of course no-one knew whther the mulberiires would even ework for sure at that point)

Waterproofing was acheived by adding strips of rubberised fabric to the various appertures on the tank. This was made from surplus Barrage Balloon fabric, as can often be seen from the greyish aluminium colour in photos. It was attached to the tank with Bostik paste. Before this was applied with small amounts of detonation chord around the appertures to facilitate 'easy' shedding of the waterproofing as soon as the tank was ashore to allow it to go into action immediately if required.

Waterproofing was a very time consuming job. Apparently every bolt and rivet had to be scrubbed clean of dirt or rust, the dubbed with bostik, then the fabric applied to vision ports, MG mounts, main gun and sights, hatches etc.

As well as this the wading gear had to be fitted. This involved sheet metal extensions fitted to all air intake and exhausts, and tensioned with cables which were attached to a quick release mechanism which had a wire running into the turret for the commander to operate

Tanks were intended to wade to various heights depending on the type, typically to maybe a few inches or so below the turret ring, although everything above was waterproofed to cope with swell

As I said, if I can find anything out for you I'll leyt you know

Chris

[PhoenixII]

Hi Chris,

further information has become available.

Would appear that there was an 'olympic' size water tank built at Kirkham,

(and NO, we havn't got a clue where on the site it was.

Waiting for the summer of 2010 to rival the summer of '76 and the hunt for 'parch marks'!)

This to test the waterproofing of various vehicles under 'controlled' conditions.

From one of the English Heritage Archaeologists,

"The weir on the Derwent was raised, (flooding part of the flat area towards the priory)

to test the fording / max. A.O.A. for vehicles entering / leaving the water.

Along with the ruins being used for practice in the use of scramble nets, to assist

the troops in there use, when transferring from large ships to smaller L.C.M.s"

What i would like to find out is which vehicle's were tested!

Only reason i can summise for what appears to be a total lack of information

is the whole carried a 'Top secret' classification, probably covered by the 50 / 60 year rule.

Can anybody add anything? All FACTS will be sent to the "Tank Museum" at Bovingdon,

if for no other reason than to make the historian aware.

Best regards,

Paul

[Ivan]

Nice project Paul. Unfortunately, despite modelling 11 Armd Div almost exclusively I haven't seen anything about waterproofing trials other than the previously mentioned 'By Tank Into Normandy'.

(It's BovingTon by the way.)

[PhoenixII]

...........................(It's BovingTon by the way.)...........

Me BAD!!

P.S. "Black Bull" by Patrick Delaforce says nada as well!

To be fair, most of the information we (English Heritage) have was oral,

and it was classified Top Secret, though it makes you wonder if it's ever been de-classified?!!!

Paul

[Guest snipersmudge]

hmm strangely mesmerised by Ivan's avatar!