Hello again. Okay, I am thinking of a DD Sherman landing in Normandy. 1) I know it was rough seas, that is why many of the DD's sank, but what were the surf conditions then..I live in Pismo Beach, and the waves here can get rather rough in big swells. 2) When would the DD's get on the beach -what wave? and did they encounter heavy resistance? 3) What is the beach like there in Normandy? Long shallow beaches? Drop Off's? Obviously shell craters, etc. 4) When did they drop the canvas? as they came onto the beach? or before? Did they simply drive onto the beaches? More questions sure to come

Anyone? Anyone at all?

What beach in particular are you wanting to do one of? Utah, Omaha, Gold, Sword, or Juno? I believe the surf conditions varied for each of the beaches. Then again, I think it was only Utah and Omaha that DD Shermans landed at(although I could be wrong.)

Okay, not everyone answer at once...LOL. I just got done with a bunch of research on line..and gleaned alot of info re: the tanks themselves. But does anyone know about the surf conditions On D-Day?? is "Private Ryan" accurate? One foot waves? I'm gonna try the scratchbuild.(No, I'm not a masochist - I'm just too stupid to know what I'm getting into) Also,does anyone have the DD Photo's from the museum in England? I downloaded what I could, but... Thanks again

I guess that'd have to be the ones then, yeah. Omaha did not have much luck two as i understand it..., any idea what wave they were sent in on?

G'day mate!
VERY VERY few DD shermans actually made it ashore, infact at one ebach (dont remember, mightve been omaha) all but two were lost.
Hope this helps, cheers!

I didn't reply before because I wanted to check on a couple of things.
1) I don't think that they counted the waves - just got ashore as quickly as possible.
2) There are several suggestions as to why so many US DD-tanks were lost, the main reason seems to be that they turned broadside on to the waves to try and get to the correct landing place, rather than the height of the waves.
3) The photos that I've found on the web seem to indicate long, shallow sloping beaches.
4) The canvas was partially supported by inflated tubes which would have been deflated as soon as possible after landing to enable clear vision, for the driver and gunner. The remainder was held in place by poles which would have required the tank to stop in order to remove them.

Hope this helps.

Hi Artista !

Some things I remember from my trip to Normandie (which was in fact nine years ago) :
the waves in June were between 50cm and 1m, depending on the location (i.e. at Arromanches the sea was quite rough);
the Omaha-beach is narrow (in times of flood) and stoney at the waterline; on its right flank (direction of Pointe du Hoc) are high cliffs (if that's the right word); the British beachheads were about the same with the sandy part maybe a bit wider.

For the DD-tanks : US at Omaha lost most of its Shermans in the rough sea because they were disembarked (or whatever the correct word is) too far from the beaches, and as DaveCox said, turned broadside to the waves while finding their way. I remember the Canadians also using DDs with better results; at least most of them made it to the beach.
I'm not quite sure, but I think they dropped the canvas after fighting. On Omaha only two DDs made it to the beach, but the German AT-guns were still active and blew them up quickly.
The main reason to the losses (from my point of view) : a 30ton-bulk-of-steel with surrounding canvas is still no boat, at least not a boat for the North Sea or the Channel. Its like transporting your car in a 3m rubber boat with 30cm between waterline and upper hull.

Hope that helped you in any way (and excuse my bad English)

Frank

I am planning on modelling the DD just as the front of the tracks are touching the bottom, so, it must be in about 10' of water? maybe more....the canvas was sticking out 1' or so avove the water while the tank was submeged. I'd hate to model this, but would it be in the break? That is where i need the surf conditions. It seems that they would lower the canvas a.s.a.p., maybe even as they were wading ashore, it could not fight beforethe canvas was down, (the MG ball was plugged in the water) and i think the turret had to be pointed foreward only. Geronimo, thx alot btw. Didn't they land at low tide?Thanks for the deflation notes Dave Cox, as well as the bottom conditions.I guess i am still looking for any info on the wave height... also, were the DD'a at Omaha sent in on the first, second, or third wave of attack?(I need to know how much equipment would be under the water at that point) Didn't the landing craft drop the troops themselves off way too early as well on omaha? To where they had to practically swim ashore? More questions to come...

According to Joseph Balkoski's new book on Omaha beach, the 741st Tank Bat. launched its DDs too far out and all but 2 were swamped and sunk. Three others were disembarked right on the beach. The other tank unit, the 743rd, disembarked their DDs right on the beach in shallow water and all were able to go into battle.
The first wave of tanks would be 64 DDs which were supposed to land 5 minutes before the first wave of infantry. A second wave of 48 tanks fitted with shallow wading gear/trunks were supposed to land with the infantry.
The DDs would usually drop their canvas screens as soon as they could so that they could get their main guns into action. Otherwise, they'd be nothing more than large mobile targets.
Hope this helps!

Thanks all - Any info is going to be helpful..Mostly this will be a "underwater" dio...with the DD Just after the touch of landing..the front of the tracks on the sand. Hopefully the canvas will be partially deflated(ing) - Indicating shallow water 8-9' deep- so that there would be packs/guns/helmets, anything that was too heavy to swim with on the sea floor. I am trying to see what i am getting into..maybe a headache..lol The surface of the water will be the only water "rendered" and the "body" of the water will be hollow - so that the details can be seen. That is why i am looking for the "surf report" for Omaha. Wave size, etc. Here in Pismo, if the water is 8-9' deep, the waves can be concievably 6' at the rear, more like 10' on the face in big swells. Btw, does anyone have any idea of the markings of the two tanks that made it onto Omaha? I'm gonna try some unconventional "underwater" effects. We'll see if they will work.

I FOUND THE SURF REPORT!>"A wind force of 10 to 18 knots caused waves averaging 3 to 4 feet high in the transport area, with occasional waves up to 6 feet. On the beach, breakers were 3 to 4 feet." http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/wwii/100-11/ch3.htm#Approach 3-4' Breakers..wow..that means the face of the waves are around 6' tall...This is a neat site re: D-Day details. More questions to come... Here are more details of Omaha Beach...check out the link!

"The beach slopes very gently below highwater mark. With a tidal range of 18 feet expected at the period of the assault, low tide would expose a stretch of firm sand averaging about 300 yards in distance from lowwater mark to high. The enemy had placed "underwater" obstacles on this tidal flat. At high tide, men and vehicles wading up the beach could expect trouble with irregular runnels parallel to the shore, scoured out by the tidal current and two and one-half to four feet deep.

At the high-water mark, the tidal flat terminated in a bank of coarse shingle, sloping up rather steeply to a height of some 8 feet. In places it was as much as 15 yards wide, and the stones averaged 3 inches in diameter. On the eastern two-thirds of the beach, the shingle lay against a low sand embankment or dune line and constituted a barrier which was impassable for vehicles. On the western part of the beach the shingle piled against a sea wall, first (near the Vierville exit, D-1) of stone masonry sloping seaward, then of wood. The wall varied in height from 4 to 12 feet and was broken by a gap several hundred yards wide where the tidal flat ended in shingle and embankment. Immediately behind the sea wall a paved..."

Morning Gents !

@Artista: The distance between low-water- and high-water-markings (especially at Vierville-Exit) is much less than 300 yards, at least today. Maybe the landscape changed ? At Courseuilles (British sector) 300 yards would be correct. Unfortunately my girl-friend of that time owns the holiday-pictures and so all my Sherman/Churchill/LCI-reference pictures are lost ...
I was not sure about those DDs dropping their canvas before fighting, just my theory. I never saw one of them in action, sorry.
Your idea sounds great; inspiration for me to finally start my own Churchill-bridgelayer-D-day-somewhere-on-the-beach-diorama, but that waterline is really not the stuff I want to jump in with my first modeling-steps after hmmm 7 years ... Ok it's braille scale, so detail is not that important. But that water keeps me afraid ...
Btw, did the British use DUKWs on D-day ? If yes, what for ?

CUC[ ]

Frank

Me again

I just remember that 3h-movie of the sixties: "Der längste Tag" (don't know the original title, maybe "The longest day" ?). It's b/w and besides the "crème de la crème" of international actors and directors, it was shot on the discussed locations !
I'm not sure about "Private Ryan"; at least the cemetary is the right one next to Omaha. We passed there by nearly every day, and believe me it was quite depessing.

CU
C[ ]

Frank

Frank, be sure to check out this link for a detailed U.S. Army historian account of d-day specifically (omaha)

http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/wwii/100-11/ch3.htm#Approach I

If you go here, go uplinking (backwards), and you will find lots of interesting stuff...(at the bottom of the page...contents..and even further back)

The water makes me afraid as well, that's why i'm trying the "surface only" method. I think that the wet resins poured around a model might melt them..that'd suck. As for your duck..i'll look.

Imagine, crossing 300 yds of open beach while being fired on - after they sighted in the whole beach...sheesh. Man, those guys had gread big brass ones.

ArtistaSLO,
here's a few sites to try, they are:
http://www.d-daytanks.org.uk/sitemap.html &
http://www.britannica.com/normandy/week2/invasion.html
These list all the beaches and include maps etc. Hope they're of some use to as I've used them several times for good references.

Good luck with your dio,
Stormin

Every DD sherman that was heading for omaha sank and private ryan is not accurate its bout 3 ft deep at most point because of the shelling.
Before you say that tanks got to omaha they never made it because everyone that died on omaha died because there was no support from the DD's

Hi,

I don't know how much info you have on this subject, but I remembered seeing a program on the History Channel last weekend about this subject. It was a very informative program, and not only covered the actual event and causes, but had info on the DD Shermans themselves. I think it would be well worth the cost to get a copy for reference. Here is the link.

http://store.aetv.com/html/product/index.jhtml?id=71449&browseCategoryId=&location=&parentcatid=&subcatid=

Hope this helps you.

Dave

Modelman92,

References I have found online say that between 6 and 8 DD Shermies made it to Omaha,

Quote;
"At H-1 hour 16 DD tanks from Company C, 741st Tank Battalion and 16 DD tanks from Company B, 741st Tank Battalion, 6000 yards from beach OMAHA, proceeded toward FOX GREEN and EASY RED, as prearranged, and touched down at H-5 minutes to take suitable firing positions close to the high water line. 26 of the 32 DD tanks sunk, some the instant they submerged, because of rough seas. Of the 6 DD tanks that reached the beach, several were knocked out by enemy AT and artillery fire after firing a few rounds. The 6 DD tanks that reached the beach were landed dry by an LCT."

From the website linked to below.
Has an excellent timeline if anyone is interested...



http://www.warchronicle.com/16th_infantry/officialrecords_wwii/invasionfrance_s3.htm

HTH
Shaun

As I stated in a post a couple of months ago, and as Keenan mentions above, it's inaccurate to say that no DDs made it to Omaha Beach. Several (I've seen anything from 2 to 6) did successfully swim ashore. In addition, almost all 32 DDs of the 743rd Tank Battalion were landed directly on the beach and were able to provide fire support and cover. I believe a couple were lost when an LCT took a direct hit from a Germany anti-tank round. Although many DDs were lost, there were still many tanks available to support the troops on the beach.