MLU FORUM  

Go Back   MLU FORUM > MILITARY VEHICLES > The Armour Forum

Notices

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1  
Old 14-09-20, 18:59
Hanno Spoelstra's Avatar
Hanno Spoelstra Hanno Spoelstra is online now
MLU Administrator
 
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: The Netherlands
Posts: 14,864
Default

Hi David D.,

When I read your email I also saw your reply here. Best to vent our thoughts and findings centrally, the more people can think and work collaboratively the better.

I would not focus on the terrain you see in the pictures. While the museum grounds were established on part of the former battlefield, many of the large exhibits came from the surrounding area, Avalon and Cookie included. I believe much of the transportation was done by the British Army as they had an interest in establishing the museum. It was formally opened by a high ranking British General one year after the war ended.

After our pondering about the peppering of the RH hull side, the primary reason Avalon was put out of action may well be due to mines. In the report above we can read some areas were heavily mined and the mines caused considerable losses among men and machines.

Seeing Avalon in the metal many decades ago the damage to the flail rotor struck me. I don’t recall seeing the damage to the RH side. It’s RH track has been missing since the war, it may well have been broken by a mine.
The Churchill on display at the museum has its hull bottom ripped out by a mine and standing inside, I tried to visualize what happened to the crew. Gruesome thought. But that is the very reason these mangled artifacts of war were put in the museum - so we would never forget about the atrocities of war.

Summing up, we would need to get access to the war diaries of the two regiments mentioned above and see which Crabs were lost due to mines and/or enemy fire.

Let’s keep this flowing, something good must come out of it.

43265B2F-C7A0-46EF-A35E-40AA3A23C062.jpg Avalon-museum2_redlined.jpg
Reply With Quote
  #2  
Old 14-09-20, 23:11
Alex van de Wetering Alex van de Wetering is offline
Moderator
 
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: Hoofddorp, The Netherlands
Posts: 2,767
Default

Quote:
The hub of that flail is really banged up. Perhaps enough to have put it out of balance? Some of the control arms on the right side for the Flail also appear to be broken, missing or disconnected? Again, I wonder if all is connected to having hit a mine.
Quote:
the primary reason Avalon was put out of action may well be due to mines.
I agree; I think before being put out of action, Avalon was already crippled from mine damage. I think the flail jammed and the drive shaft on the right snapped. Today half of the drive shaft is hanging from the right hand side, but in the early days the other end of the shaft was also still present. Maybe the mine damage and it loosing a track meant it was a sitting duck for any German weapons.

Quote:
I think I have seen tall boxes like the one on the left side of the Crab, on both sides of a Crab on display at Borden. They might be Chalk Boxes used to mark either side of the trail being cleared.
I actually think the left hand side box on Avalon in the early museum days was an ex-wading stack used as a box for spare chain, which I think I have seen on more Crabs, especially during the fighting in Normandy. It seems not all crabs had the chalk boxes or the later arrow system.
The long box seen in some pictures is the standard British tool box seen on Sherman V's. I think Avalon might have had two as I seem to see a crushed one on the rear of the tank as well. I think the other one might have been welded on the left hand hull side, behind the other box, as there are still some welds in that location today. The right hand hull side also shows some welds.....these are closer spaced; I think this might have been where the standard British turret box might have been located when it was hit by multiple rounds. I couldn't find any remains (angle iron) or welded on the rear of the turret that would indicate the box to ever been fitted there.

Quote:
The turret is always in the same position. I cannot imagine at least one person in all these years not having tried to move it. Any indications it still works and it is just being kept ‘as found’, or is it jammed?
Exactly my thought! I presume it's jammed. Ten years ago the museum gave me permission to enter the tank, but I didn't try to turn the turret!

Quote:
I would not focus on the terrain you see in the pictures.
Well David did got me thinking! All sources say the tank was moved from the battlefield to the museum, but I agree with David that the look of the terrain in some of the early pictures is somewhat similar to what the resting place of the tank would have looked like after some exploding mines! Than again....I guess moving around a Crab without a right hand track in soft sand, will give a similar look.
__________________
Chevrolet C8 cab 11 FFW
BSA Folding Bicycle

Last edited by Alex van de Wetering; 14-09-20 at 23:18.
Reply With Quote
  #3  
Old 14-09-20, 23:25
Alex van de Wetering Alex van de Wetering is offline
Moderator
 
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: Hoofddorp, The Netherlands
Posts: 2,767
Default

Quote:
The dark rectangular mark could be the name or another marking painted out, that happened quite often after a vehicle was struck off strength
I can confirm that it actually says "Avalon" in white in a picture of it early in it's museum life. I have no clue why it shows up as a dark patch in later pictures, as this was already when it was a museum exhibit.

Quote:
Summing up, we would need to get access to the war diaries of the two regiments mentioned above and see which Crabs were lost due to mines and/or enemy fire.
I was hoping the war diaries were to be found online somewhere, but no luck so far. I think I will send a request to the UK National Archives.
__________________
Chevrolet C8 cab 11 FFW
BSA Folding Bicycle
Reply With Quote
  #4  
Old 14-09-20, 23:43
Alex van de Wetering Alex van de Wetering is offline
Moderator
 
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: Hoofddorp, The Netherlands
Posts: 2,767
Default

Attached are some close-ups of the impacts on Avalon. In the first picture you can make out a larger circle of small damages around some of the penetrations.

In case anyone wonders...that CSI-thingy is my lazy-mans tape measure for scale modelling....the small squares are 1x1cm. the larger ones 5x5cm.

Alex

Impact0.jpg Impact1.jpg Impact2.jpg Impact3.jpg Impact4.jpg
__________________
Chevrolet C8 cab 11 FFW
BSA Folding Bicycle
Reply With Quote
  #5  
Old 15-09-20, 00:08
Alex van de Wetering Alex van de Wetering is offline
Moderator
 
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: Hoofddorp, The Netherlands
Posts: 2,767
Default

And some pictures of the inside. I am afraid the camera flash and rust makes the penetrations hard to see, so I added some arrows to make it a bit clearer.

Dommage1.JPG Dommage2.JPG Dommage3.JPG Dommage4.jpg Dommage5.jpg
__________________
Chevrolet C8 cab 11 FFW
BSA Folding Bicycle

Last edited by Alex van de Wetering; 15-09-20 at 00:16.
Reply With Quote
  #6  
Old 15-09-20, 10:50
Jakko Westerbeke Jakko Westerbeke is offline
Moderator
 
Join Date: Apr 2020
Location: Netherlands
Posts: 341
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Alex van de Wetering View Post
And some pictures of the inside.
I hope you don’t mind me posting these, in which I think the scarring is much easier to see:

P1010031.jpg P1010019.jpg P1010024.jpg P1010053.jpg

The fact that the internal bracing has also bent in that last photo to me points to a projectile rather than a shaped charge striking it. I would more expect it to have simply been gouged out with a shaped charge. It also shows the downward angle: the damage to the brace is slightly below the hole in the hull side.
Reply With Quote
  #7  
Old 15-09-20, 12:37
Alex van de Wetering Alex van de Wetering is offline
Moderator
 
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: Hoofddorp, The Netherlands
Posts: 2,767
Default

Quote:
I hope you don’t mind me posting these, in which I think the scarring is much easier to see:
Well, I would have preferred if you had asked me first, than at the very least I could have added a watermark. Also at least one of the pics is the same....and the other failed to upload last night.
__________________
Chevrolet C8 cab 11 FFW
BSA Folding Bicycle
Reply With Quote
  #8  
Old 15-09-20, 12:37
David Dunlop David Dunlop is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: Winnipeg, MB, Canada
Posts: 3,599
Default

I wonder how well the lower area of the interior has been cleaned over the years and if any of the things found there were kept by the museum?

Two things can happen with a solid shot round striking armour. At the very least, one hopes the energy transfer is great enough to spall a chunk of inside hull free to fly into the interior to do damage to crew and equipment. As the size and energy behind the round increases, full penetration of the hull will occur and the round itself will bounce around inside the hull, greatly increasing the damage risk to everyone and thing inside, until the energy is spend and the round falls to the floor, spent. Given enough size and energy, of course, the round will pass right through the vehicle struck.

Alex mentions no sign of exit holes on the left side of the hull, so if we are looking at 15 to 20mm round penetrations, and they all came at roughly the same time, there would have been a lot of metal flying around the interior of Avalon for several seconds. Unless lodged in soft metal somewhere, if would eventually fall to the floor.

If the brace on the right side is bent, and relates to the flail drive, could the damage be part of the overall effects of the Crab hitting a mine?

Mine fields typically have set patterns/spacing for maximum effect for a given number of mines. If mines are set in a cluster too close together, hitting one can trigger more in the group. That might have happened with AVALON, breaking the flail and the track on the right side. Depending on why she was at that location during the battle, the crew may have successfully abandoned AVALON. A short while later, a German vehicle arrives on the scene, assumes an active enemy vehicle has been spotted and fires a sweeping burst of cannon fire at it until realizing the Crab is already out of action and moves on.

Another possibility could be mines took the flail out somewhere else. AVALON was on the move to withdraw when she struck another mine that broke her track and she was abandoned.

One other point to consider. There are anti tank mines and anti personnel mines. It is not unusual for infantry to be able to move through an anti tank mine field because not enough weight hits the mine triggers. Leading infantry can walk an anti tank mine field without spotting anything and then wave vehicles through, only to watch as the mines start going off. Be interesting to know if there is enough energy in an anti personnel mine to break a tank track link and cause little other damage. AVALON could have been used to clear any type of mine field in a hurry, not just anti tank, so anything is possible without more detail.

Maybe some answers are still sitting at the bottom of AVALON?

David
Reply With Quote
  #9  
Old 15-09-20, 00:30
Hanno Spoelstra's Avatar
Hanno Spoelstra Hanno Spoelstra is online now
MLU Administrator
 
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: The Netherlands
Posts: 14,864
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Alex van de Wetering View Post
I was hoping the war diaries were to be found online somewhere, but no luck so far. I think I will send a request to the UK National Archives.
This may be of help:

https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/...d-war-research
Reply With Quote
  #10  
Old 15-09-20, 00:53
Alex van de Wetering Alex van de Wetering is offline
Moderator
 
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: Hoofddorp, The Netherlands
Posts: 2,767
Default

Quote:
This may be of help:
Thanks Hanno; I visit the Archives website regularly.

These are the ones to study:

https://discovery.nationalarchives.g...ils/r/C4440973
https://discovery.nationalarchives.g...ils/r/C4440950

It says you can send a request for a quotation for a copy of the documents. Some members on ww2talk also offer to scan items in the National Archives; I just don't know the current options given the Covid troubles.


The recommendation for William Hall is available online though
https://discovery.nationalarchives.g...ils/r/C9050525
It does describe his actions at Overloon, but sadly there are no details on the name or census number of his tank.
__________________
Chevrolet C8 cab 11 FFW
BSA Folding Bicycle
Reply With Quote
  #11  
Old 22-10-20, 11:30
Maurice Donckers Maurice Donckers is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: Beek Holland
Posts: 418
Default

this flail could be Avalon , look at the mounting position of the track links on the turret , just it still has the cover on the front of the flail drive with 53 and 79th on . But off course there are more tanks with spare links on the turret .
Attached Images
File Type: jpg British_M4_Sherman_Crab_Tank_With_Mine_Flail.jpg (187.8 KB, 2 views)
Reply With Quote
  #12  
Old 22-10-20, 12:06
MicS MicS is offline
(Michel Sabarly)
 
Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: France
Posts: 104
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Maurice Donckers View Post
this flail could be Avalon , look at the mounting position of the track links on the turret , just it still has the cover on the front of the flail drive with 53 and 79th on . But off course there are more tanks with spare links on the turret .
Maurice,

It cannot be AVALON, although the spare track links disposition does look similar. But the tanks have different types of commander's sights, i.e. the blade type sight on the photo with a group of troopers on it, and a vane type on AVALON:
Crab WD - Notes.jpg
AVALON - NationaalArchief2 - Notes.jpg

For more info on these two types, see (as always) the Sherman Minutiae page:
http://the.shadock.free.fr/sherman_m..._variants.html

Michel
Reply With Quote
  #13  
Old 22-10-20, 14:37
Maurice Donckers Maurice Donckers is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: Beek Holland
Posts: 418
Default

Yes I see , no weld remains left
But be careful , some turrets (I have 2) have both types mounted .
Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Sherman V CT150503 at Trois-Rivières, Québec luc désormeaux The Armour Forum 46 21-07-23 07:10
For Sale: REPRO - Sherman V (M4A4) Crab 1 and 2 - Service Instruction Manual Tim Bell For Sale Or Wanted 3 04-09-20 13:30
Carrier damage to pavement? Jim Burrill The Carrier Forum 13 11-09-15 05:10
Wanted: Flathead V8 'Crab' Distributor Cap ajmac For Sale Or Wanted 0 04-03-12 22:15
Conger in Overloon, The Netherlands Alex van de Wetering The Carrier Forum 2 14-01-04 15:45


All times are GMT +2. The time now is 10:42.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2025, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright © Maple Leaf Up, 2003-2016