Remote controlled expolosive Carriers.

kevin powles · #1 07-12-11, 01:18

Hi, Interesting website detailing the use of captured carriers carrying explosive charges for remote controlled demolition :

here is the address :

http://beute.narod.ru/Beutepanzer/uk...al/carrier.htm

kevin.

RichardT10829 · #2 07-12-11, 04:50

gotta love those little Goliaths.... Germans are technological genius's !

kevin powles · #3 07-12-11, 11:22

Hi, I have been to Sevastopol many times and will know keep my eyes peeled for carriers in the hedgerows.

Check these links out: Nice detailed Sloped back Bren carrier shot in one of them

http://www.vickersmachinegun.org.uk/...-universal.htm

http://www.museum-tank.ru/IIwar/pages2a/wasp.html

http://beute.narod.ru/Beutepanzer/uk...iversal-06.htm

http://beute.narod.ru/Beutepanzer/uk...iversal-AA.htm

http://beute.narod.ru/Beutepanzer/uk...iversal-09.htm

http://beute.narod.ru/Beutepanzer/uk...iversal-05.htm

http://beute.narod.ru/Beutepanzer/uk...eeschaufel.htm

http://beute.narod.ru/Beutepanzer/uk...versal-AT2.htm

http://beute.narod.ru/Beutepanzer/uk...iversal-11.htm

http://pda.lib.rus.ec/b/293719/read

kevin powles · #4 07-12-11, 16:16

kevin powles · #5 07-12-11, 16:24

Hi, This one is good for Bens restoration.

Mike Cecil · #6 07-12-11, 16:53

Just love the German officer's 'what a piece of S**t! We haf won ze war if zis is the best type of klap these englishers can build!' look on his face!!

Mike C

RichardT10829 · #7 07-12-11, 17:35

nah you got it all wrong... he is thinking Vi did Vee not Zink Ov Zis ourselves !

EDIT: either that or "I vonder who is going to vin Xfactor zis year"

Ben · #8 07-12-11, 20:04

Thanks Kevin

I had a quick look and that one did stick out, there's a nice mix of brens, scouts (for Phillip) and the odd early batch MK1.

There's some good early BEF pictures to be found on the ww2 site too.

Ben

Bob Carriere · #9 08-12-11, 03:29

..... how did we loose so much equipment....... in good shape and still win the war...... hell it could have ended a lot sooner if they did not have our stuff.......

Amazing how many conversion were made to the UC..... and a lot faster than out own system would allow.....

Was Ford selling them under the table to Germany....?

Surprising we had any left to fight with....

Fascinating series of pictures...... really enjoyed it.

Bob

Lynn Eades · #10 08-12-11, 10:35

The only visible conversion done to that "U.C"carrier was the painted cross
It was a Proper "Bren" MkII., And yes, Henry's factories in europe were producing more for the axis, than for the Allies, at one stage during the war.

Niels V · #11 08-12-11, 11:50

Would the british reuse a carrier if they capture it from the germans ?

RichardT10829 · #12 08-12-11, 18:56

if it was servicable i would say yes. You really need to stand back and look at the desperate situation we were in at Dunkirk we were pretty much flee'ing for our lives and ordinance / vehicles were sabotaged and left right up to the beache's. the germans had ford before the war and many of their trucks were powered by ford units so the carrier was an easy fix other than track etc... but as we had left so much stuff behind they had a healthy stock of spares........ my great uncle Jimmy Lawson was on the beaches at Dunkirk got covered in phosphorus, he had the shakes through nerve damage right up to the day he died in 2003.

Alex Blair (RIP) · #13 08-12-11, 19:57

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goliath_tracked_mine

Interesting read..I have seen the one in the Canadian War Museum and it is complete with cables and controls..

In late 1940, after recovering the prototype of a miniature tracked vehicle developed by the French vehicle designer Adolphe Kégresse from the Seine River, the Wehrmacht's ordnance office directed the Carl F.W. Borgward automotive company of Bremen, Germany to develop a similar vehicle for the purpose of carrying a minimum of 50 kg of explosives. The result was the SdKfz. 302 (Sonderkraftfahrzeug, ‘special-purpose vehicle’), called the Leichter Ladungsträger (‘light charge carrier’), or Goliath, which carried 60 kg of explosives. The vehicle was steered remotely via a joystick control box. The control box was attached to the Goliath by a triple-strand cable connected to the rear of the vehicle, for transmitting power to the electric driven version. Two of the strands were used to move and steer the Goliath, the third was used for detonation. The Goliath had 650 m of cable. Each Goliath was disposable, being intended to be blown up with its target. Early model Goliaths used an electric motor but, as these were costly to make (3000 Reichsmarks) and difficult to repair in a combat environment, later models (known as the SdKfz. 303) used a simpler, more reliable gasoline engine.

Ben · #14 08-12-11, 20:42

There was a Goliath at belting this year, £4000 complete and working. There are some clips on YouTube of them working, fun but I think the novelty of it not being "drivable" would wear off pretty quick.

Ben

eddy8men · #15 08-12-11, 21:27

excellent post kev, very interesting to see the amount of carriers pressed into german service.

cheers

rick

Lynn Eades · #16 08-12-11, 22:02

To put Richards comments into perspective,The army left behind;
2472 artillery pieces,
20,548 motorcycles,
and 63,879 vehicles
This info from Richard Colliers book, The Sands Of Dunkirk

If every vehicle (not including the guns and motorbikes was 2 meters wide,(my carrier is 1.9m wide) and they were parked side by side, touching. The line of vehicles would be 127.75 kilometers long.

Ben · #17 08-12-11, 22:23

The photos of the piers made from trucks do start to put that in perspective.

I've always wondered exactly how my grandad got off the beach.

Ben

Philliphastings · #18 09-12-11, 01:56

A great series of links - thanks Kevin.

Many of the Scout pics are new to me and I search the net fairly regularly. A lot of the frontal pics are of Scout Carriers. The giveaway is the flat armour panel above the front gun port but even that is not definative as it is a part which can be readily changed.

Seems the wehrmacht got plenty of use out of their (our) carriers. I wonder if the average German soldier had as much fondness for them as many of their former allied crews...

Cheers and thanks

Phill

Bob Carriere · #19 09-12-11, 02:22

Never realized HOW MUCH equipment got left behind...... nor the fact that the germans were that familiar with the Ford V8.

Some of the pictures show some UC with the side armour either cut off or lowered....some with sloping back...... are these the "scouts" you are referring to...? So most of that captured equipment would be Early Mark I....
Did we actually used early models with the sloping backs or was that purely a german modification...?

Bob

RichardT10829 · #20 09-12-11, 03:06

sloping back with only one side armour is Bren... no rear armour is scout...usually anyway

Philliphastings · #21 09-12-11, 03:28

Actually Scout = rear armour on right hand side only (from the side appears identical to later carriers) Also the rear armour top 3/4 folds down on hinges on Scout.

My hunch is that there are one or two former scout hulls still in existence with th rear armour removed (really only two main panels plus the armoured engine cover and converted to what ever use. A cut down Scout would be difficult to differentiate from any other early carrier undercarriage to the casual observer.

That is probably the reason why they were all coverted and disappeared - a couple of plates off and you have yourself an instant tractor.

Cheers

Phill

kevin powles · #22 09-12-11, 04:05

Two more links i missed:

http://beute.narod.ru/Beutepanzer/uk...iversal-08.htm

http://beute.narod.ru/Beutepanzer/uk...iversal-10.htm

Kevin.

Jordan Baker · #23 09-12-11, 04:45

Bob, Just think how much stuff got left behind after Dieppe. That was just a raid with really only 1 armoured regiment taking vehicles ashore for 9hrs with plans to bring it all back. Now factor in a number of divisions being sent to Europe for the long haul and having to flee. Thats a tremendous amount of stuff being left behind. The Germans at this point had already incorporated many Czech vehicles into their units for combat in France. This was also why when the 1st Cnd Div arrived in England they were they most fully equipped body of troops available.

I remember seeing a book advertised years ago and it was all about German units in Russia that had been outfitted completly with British vehicles. If it was British they had it.

As was said in an earlier post, Chevy and Ford were making lots of things for the Germans too. Ever notice how similar an Opel Blitz drivetrain is to a Chevy CMP.

hrpearce · #24 09-12-11, 05:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by kevin powles

Hi, I have been to Sevastopol many times and will know keep my eyes peeled for carriers in the hedgerows.

Check these links out: Nice detailed Sloped back Bren carrier shot in one of them

http://www.vickersmachinegun.org.uk/...-universal.htm

http://www.museum-tank.ru/IIwar/pages2a/wasp.html

http://beute.narod.ru/Beutepanzer/uk...iversal-06.htm

http://beute.narod.ru/Beutepanzer/uk...iversal-AA.htm

http://beute.narod.ru/Beutepanzer/uk...iversal-09.htm

http://beute.narod.ru/Beutepanzer/uk...iversal-05.htm

http://beute.narod.ru/Beutepanzer/uk...eeschaufel.htm

http://beute.narod.ru/Beutepanzer/uk...versal-AT2.htm

http://beute.narod.ru/Beutepanzer/uk...iversal-11.htm

http://pda.lib.rus.ec/b/293719/read

A link at the bottom of the last page gives an insight into how flexable you need to be to get into some armour

Lynn Eades · #25 09-12-11, 05:31

The Brits made Bren MkIs then MkII's. Then they built Scouts, and then the Universals. Some Universals went to Dunkirk, but not many and they were new then.
The Bren has sloping armour on the left side (and a box on the right guard)
The Scout has right side armour like a universal (and the box on the left side)
Phillip, I recon I could I.D the Scout, in a crowd. No ice scraper for a start. The main gunners front armour is specific to the Scout. There are lots of differences.

Philliphastings · #26 09-12-11, 07:33

Thanks Lynne - for a moment there I thought you had posted up the holy grail inthe form of Scout blueprints, however, as they say on Little Britain "Yeah but no but yeah" - that diagram shows a Bren armoured hood over the front gun apperture on the Scout, whereas it should be the flat pivoting armour plate instead.

Keep your eyes peeled though Lynn. I still feel there may be another Scout extant which just looks like a cut - down Universal .... Somewhere out there...

Cheers

Phill

Lynn Eades · #27 09-12-11, 11:29

The drawing came to me (back before the internet had properly arrived) as a simple explanation of the differences between the three types. The finer points are not catered for, as it is about the side armour.
The drawing credit is to Jeff Plowman, Author.
Phillip, The MkI Bren also had a flat plate mantlet