Does anyone know what the roadblocks were like that the Germans used in the Battle of the Bulge. I have read many references of these, made out of felled trees, but never seen any pictures. How big were they? How many trees were they made out of?

Any help would be appreciated. I am trying to plan a Dio with an M-10 approaching one of these roadblocks.

Roger

:-) Are you thinking about the type with crossed legs and a trunck between? I don't know If thats what they used but in my time as a Combat Engineer I have worked with the Bundeswere, a mountain pioneer batallion, and they used a system to deny roads to the enemy called "aberteen" (spelling?). This is a method, using explosives, to fell trees in such a fashion that they fall criss crossed over the road or track, very affective. Far easier and quicker and more effective than trying to manufacture a road block, which wouldn't stop a tank anyway. One other thing (maybe just a sapper thing) mines and booby traps would be employed as well. So if your M10 attempts to cross the obstacle a shaped charge (beehive, again sapper speak) is placed to fire through the belly. You just don't want to be a tanker when I'm around. Even if the tank is only disabled it adds to the obstacle. Remember killing tanks is easy, it can be done utilising nothing more than a few sheets of hessian, but I digress, booby traps were my thing, a while ago.
Mal

Holdfast, I'm not sure at all what they were like. I do know they were booby trapped and mined extensively, also there was often infantry emplacements nearby to attack the engineers who attempted to remove the mines and roadblock, and artillery was pre-aimed at the roadblocks. It certainly was a pretty efficient way of slowing down the Americans.

However, my immediate problem is how to model such roadblocks, and it doesn't help when I don't know what the originals looked like!

Roger

i think that one of the more obvious road obstructions would be to knock a few trees down on the road. This is a simple and very realistic tactic. Depending on who the enemy is bringing forward you could protect your road block with an MG or with a tank hunter team. This seems to me to be the most probable type of road block. Or a burned out vehicle can make an all right road block.

Cheers,
Paul B.

I was a combat engineer too during my time in the army. What we do is use explosives to blow up trees along the road to slow down advancing Armor troops from the enemy. This kindda blockage is called a "abbiatis". Normally there would be only one or two big trees blocking the main road and of course lots of twigs and small branches along the path as a result of the explosion. Like what Holdfast said there would be plenty of booby traps like mines and trip wires around...... but apparently it wont be obvious to the naked eye.

Thanks a lot guys, this is somewhat different to what I had envisaged. I had pictured a more organised and "formal" kind of roadblock assuming they would have had the time to build it. Now you mention it I can remember reading something about them felling trees with explosives. I think the MG poisition was fairly common, so I may include that in my Dio. I'm a bit worried about all the trees that may be needed though, I was hoping to do just some trunks for the roadblock and maybe a bit of debris, but not include any whole trees as I don't think my skills will stretch that far. If I keep the scene tight enough it may still work.

Any ideas?

It is a shame there are no photos of these roadblocks, I have several of tanks on the forest roads, so I have a good idea of the size of the roads in relation to the tanks, but that's all.

Roger

Something that could give you an idea : look for pictures of roads after big storms.
in 99 there was a terrible storm in France and thousands of trees had fallen and made thousands of roadblocks (I worked at removing one of them : hard work).
Before being able to cut the trunk you've got to clear yourself a way through the branches, and that's already a lot of work.

In Northern Europe at that time, many roads were lined with trees, all about the same age and equally spaced along the roads. This was a result of the post-war replanting to repair the large scale woodcutting and assorted damage to the trees during WW1. The result was roads lined with trees about 20 years old and around 30-40 cm in diameter. The roadblocks (called 'abatis', pronounced "aba-teez") were used on these roads.

The technique is to drop trees at an angle, towards the enemy, alternating from side to side as you move away down the road. They end up interleaved (no pun intended), and with trees that are farther away laying on top of those closer. You don't want to cut the trunk quite through, so it stays attached to the stump. We still teach the technique to Combat Engineers, although local communities are resistant to us practicing on local roads.

It only works where the sides of the road are not suitable for vehicles, otherwise they just go around the obstacle. Also, it is standard procedure to cover obstacles by direct or indirect fire, and to mine them, so that shouldn't be considered a great brainstorm by the Germans.

Thanks very much ARENGCA that answers my question perfectly.

Roger

WOOOOOOOHH, hold on a sec, although there was alot of fallen trees around the ardennes, that wasnt all, the germans had place dragons teeth along the main roads and near the bridges, if u dont know what they are they are big concrete wieghts dropped in place by cranes etc. no tank could knock them over, they also used the X patten steel bars, dont know if they had a name, but they would tear holes in the side of the tanks if they tried to brush past them, very effective, i have a picture of these, they were also used on the beaches of normandy, hope that helped, cheers

Lestweforget, thanks for that. I know about the Dragon's Teeth on the Siegfried line, and about the steel obstacles at Normandy, but were the Dragon's Teeth at other locations as well? Do you know of any photo references?

The Dio I am doing is on a forest road, so the tree trunk kind will be more appropriate in this case.

Roger

I`ve seen a while ago a picture in a book that I have at home where a couple of germans are standing next to a roadblock somewhere in a forest
it looked a bit like two triangles made of trunks on each side of the road and one trunk over it
________________
/ / something like this :-) :-) very crappy drawing

but Tamiya released a set with a motor driver and a soldier. this set comes with a roadblock

I have the set at home and is quite good

Sounds interesting Faust, I don't suppose you could send me a scan of that pic if you can find it? Many thanks.

Roger
[email protected]

I`ll look it up for you but it might take some time as I don`t really remember in wich book I saw it
so back to the library then

Hi,

The TAMIYA is a 'light' road block - made of wood poles - that will only slow down softskin vehicles but will be crashed by tanks.

The road blocks used to stop/delay tanks were done with 3 steel bars welded at right angles as those used on the beaches on Normandy and you can see at the photo of LestWeForget message.

There are also obstacles similar to those but, made of a concrete cube with 3 thick wood poles at right angles but, I can't find a photo of them at this moment. I'll try to get one and will post it.

HTH

yeah, a tree would be good, but they used both of the types i gave u in forest road blocks, more so the dragons teeth than the iron cross's, cheers