Badge of the 79th Armoured Division

Amphibious DD tanks await blowing of breaches in the sea wall on Utah Beach. This photo was taken shortly after H Hour.

Sherman Crab mine-clearing tank displayed at the CFB Borden Military Museum, Ontario, Canada.

Hobart's Funnies were a number of unusually modified tanks operated during World War II by the United Kingdom's 79th Armoured Division or by specialists from the Royal Engineers. They were designed in light of problems that more standard tanks experienced during the Dieppe Raid, so that the new models would be able to overcome the problems of the planned Invasion of Normandy. These tanks played a major part on the Commonwealth beaches during the landings. They may be considered the forerunners of the modern Combat engineering vehicle. Image File history File links Bulls head File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Image File history File links Bulls head File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Image File history File links Description: Assault elements of Force U, including DD tanks, were still on the beaches when this photo was taken shortly after H Hour. ... Image File history File links Description: Assault elements of Force U, including DD tanks, were still on the beaches when this photo was taken shortly after H Hour. ... DD Sherman tank with its flotation screen lowered. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1328x714, 367 KB) Sherman M4A4 (flail) with 75 mm gun - mine clearing tank Worthington Tank Museum at CFB Borden (Ontario, Canada). ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1328x714, 367 KB) Sherman M4A4 (flail) with 75 mm gun - mine clearing tank Worthington Tank Museum at CFB Borden (Ontario, Canada). ... Sherman tank displayed outside of Waterloo Officers Mess at CFB Borden Canadian Forces Base Borden (also CFB Borden) is a Canadian Forces Base located in Ontario. ... Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000... The 79th (Experimental) Armoured Division, Royal Engineers was a British Army armoured unit formed as part of the preparations for the Normandy invasion of 6 June 1944. ... The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually just called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the Sappers, is one of the corps of the British Army. ... Combatants  Canada  United Kingdom  United States  Germany Commanders Louis Mountbatten J. H. Roberts Gerd von Rundstedt Strength 6,086 1,500 Casualties Canada: 950 dead, 2,340 captured or wounded; United Kingdom: 600; United States:4+; 311 dead, 280 wounded The Dieppe Raid, also known as The Battle of Dieppe... This article is about the assault phase of Operation Overlord. ... The EBG combat engineering vehicle, based on the AMX 30 tank, is used by the engineers of the French Army for a variety of missions. ...

History

The beginnings of the Funnies started with the need to create a series of modern siege engines to lead the assault on the beach defences of the French coast. A rapid sweeping away of the obstacles and defenders in the British sectors would be important as the lay of the land would favour a rapid counterattack by German armour. Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke made the decision in 1943 to create these new units. Responsibility for the build up of vehicles and the training of crews to use them was given to armoured warfare expert Percy Hobart after whom the collection was named. Lord Alanbrookes War Diaries, published 2001 Field Marshal Alan Francis Brooke, 1st Viscount Alanbrooke, KG, GCB, OM, GCVO, DSO (July 23, 1883 - June 17, 1963) was a career soldier, Chief of the Imperial General Staff during the Second World War and promoted to Field Marshal in 1944. ... Major-General Sir Percy Cleghorn Stanley Hobart (14 June 1885-19 February 1957) was a British military engineer and commander of the 79th Armoured Division during World War II. He was responsible for many of the specialised armoured vehicles (Hobarts Funnies) that took part in the invasion of Normandy. ...

Many of the ideas had already been tried, tested or were in experimental development both by Britain and other nations. For example, the Scorpion flail tank (a modified Matilda tank) had already been used during the North African campaign to clear paths through German minefields. Soviet T-34 tanks had been modified with mine-rollers. Close-support tanks, bridgelayers, and fascine carriers had been developed elsewhere also. However, the Funnies were the largest and most elaborate collection of engineering vehicles available. The Tank, Infantry, Mk II, Matilda II (A12) (sometimes referred to as Senior Matilda) was a British tank of World War II. In a somewhat unorthodox move, it shared the same name as the Tank, Infantry, Mk I (A11). ...  Northern Africa (UN subregion)  geographic, including above North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, separated by the Sahara from Sub-Saharan Africa. ... “Minefield” redirects here. ... The T-34 is a Soviet medium tank first produced in 1940. ...

By early 1944, Hobart could demonstrate to Eisenhower and Montgomery a brigade each of swimming DD tanks, Crab mine clearers, and AVRE (Engineer) tanks along with a regiment of Crocodile flamethrowing tanks. In military science a brigade is a military unit that is part of a division and includes regiments (where that level exists), or (in modern armies) is composed of several battalions (typically two to four) and directly attached supporting units. ...

Montgomery considered that the US forces should use them, and offered them a half-share of all the vehicles available, but take-up was minimal. Eisenhower was in favour of the amphibious tanks but left the decision on the others to General Bradley who delegated it to his staff officers. None of the other designs were used, because it was thought that they required specialized training and an additional support organization. Omar Nelson Bradley (February 12, 1893 – April 8, 1981) was one of the main U.S. Army field commanders in North Africa and Europe during World War II and a General of the Army of the United States Army. ...

The Menagerie

The majority of the designs were modified forms of the Churchill tank or the Sherman tank. Both were available in large numbers. The Churchill had good (though slow) cross-country performance, heavy armour, and a roomy interior. The Sherman's mechanical reliability was valued. The Tank, Infantry, Mk IV (A22) was a heavy British infantry tank of the Second World War, best known for its heavy armour and its use as the basis of many specialist vehicles. ... General characteristics Length: 5. ...

Churchill AVRE with a bobbin.

Close-up of an AVRE's Petard Mortar.

Among the many specialist vehicles and their attachments were: Image File history File links Download high resolution version (700x661, 72 KB) Description: Churchill AVRE carpet-layer with bobbin, 79th Armoured Division, March/April 1944 Source: IWMCollections IWM Photo No. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (700x661, 72 KB) Description: Churchill AVRE carpet-layer with bobbin, 79th Armoured Division, March/April 1944 Source: IWMCollections IWM Photo No. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Churchill_AVRE_Petard. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Churchill_AVRE_Petard. ...

• Crocodile - A Churchill tank modified by the fitting of a flame-thrower in place of the hull machine gun. An armoured trailer, towed behind the tank, carried 400 Imperial gallons (1,800 litres) of fuel. The flamethrower had a range of over 120 yards (110 metres). It excelled at clearing bunkers and it was a strong psychological weapon (see Flame tank).
• AVRE - Armoured Vehicle, Royal Engineers was a Churchill tank adapted to attack German defensive fortifications. The crew included two Royal Engineers who could easily leave and enter the tank through its side hatches. The AVRE had the main gun replaced by a Petard Spigot Mortar. This fired a forty pound (18 kg) HE-filled projectile (nicknamed the Flying Dustbin) 150 yards (137 metres). The "Dustbin" could destroy concrete obstacles such as roadblocks and bunkers. This weapon was unusual in that it had to be reloaded externally - by opening a hatch and sliding a round into the mortar tube from the hull. AVREs were also used to carry and operate equipment such as:
  • Bobbin - A reel of 10 foot wide canvas cloth reinforced with steel poles carried in front of the tank and unrolled onto the ground to form a "path", so that following vehicles (and itself) would not sink into the soft ground of the beaches during the amphibious landing.
  • Fascine - A bundle of wooden poles or rough brushwood lashed together with wires carried in front of the tank that could be released to fill a ditch or form a step. Metal pipes in the center of the fascine allowed water to flow through.
  • Small Box Girder was an assault bridge that was carried in front of the tank and could be dropped to span a 30 foot gap in 30 seconds.
  • Bullshorn Plough. A mine plough intended to excavate the ground in front of the tank, to expose and make harmless any land mines.
  • Double Onion two large demolition charges on a metal frame that could be placed against a concrete wall and then detonated from a safe distance. It was the successor to the single charge device Carrot.

A Sherman tank uses a Churchill Ark to climb an escarpment during a training exercise.

Armoured bulldozer.

• Ark - Armoured Ramp Carrier was a Churchill tank without a turret that had extendable ramps at each end; other vehicles could drive up ramps and over the vehicle to scale obstacles.
• Crab - A modified Sherman tank equipped with a mine flail, a rotating cylinder of weighted chains that exploded mines in the path of the tank.
• DD tank - from "Duplex Drive", an amphibious Sherman or Valentine tank able to swim ashore after being launched from a landing craft several miles from the beach. They were intended to give support to the first waves of infantry that attacked the beaches. The Valentine version was used only for training.
• BARV - Beach Armoured Recovery Vehicle. A Sherman M4A2 tank which had been waterproofed and had the turret replaced by a tall armoured superstructure. Able to operate in 9 foot (2.7 metre) deep water, the BARV was intended to remove vehicles that had become broken-down or swamped in the surf and were blocking access to the beaches. They were also used to re-float small landing craft that had become stuck on the beach. Strictly speaking, Sherman BARV's were not 'Funnies' as they were developed and operated by the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, not the 79th Armoured Division.
• LVT "Buffalo" - British version of the American LVT4: an armoured amphibious landing vehicle.
• Armoured Bulldozer - A conventional Caterpillar D8 bulldozer fitted with armour to protect the driver and the engine. Their job was to clear the invasion beaches of obstacles and to make roads accessible by clearing rubble and filling in bomb craters. Conversions were carried out by a Caterpillar importer Jack Olding & Company Ltd of Hatfield.

Centaur Bulldozer.

• Centaur Bulldozer, a Cromwell tank with the turret removed and fitted with a simple, winch operated, bulldozer blade. These were produced because of a need for a well-armoured, obstacle clearing vehicle that, unlike a conventional bulldozer, would also be fast enough to keep up with tank formations. They were not used on D-Day but were issued to the 79th Armoured Division in Belgium during the latter part of 1944.
• Canal Defence Light This was a powerful carbon-arc searchlight carried on several types of tank inside a modified turret. The name of the device was deliberately inaccurate in order to help keep it secret - its true purpose was to blind the defenders during a night attack and so help obscure attacking forces. An ingenious optical design allowed the light to flood out of a comparatively small slit in the armour, minimising the chance of damage by enemy fire. This was not used on D-Day, but was used during the attack on the Geilenkirchen salient to create indirect artificial daylight.

The Churchill Crocodile during the Second World War The Churchill Crocodile was a British flame-throwing tank of late World War II, it was a variant of the Tank, Infantry, Mk VI (A22) Churchill VII, although the Chuchill IV was initially chosen to be the base vehicle. ... German troops use a flamethrower on the Eastern Front during the Second World War A flamethrower is a mechanical device designed to throw flames or, more correctly, project an ignited stream of liquid. ... The U.S. Department of Defense defines psychological warfare (PSYWAR) as: The planned use of propaganda and other psychological actions having the primary purpose of influencing the opinions, emotions, attitudes, and behavior of hostile foreign groups in such a way as to support the achievement of national objectives. ... Marine M67 in Vietnam, 1968. ... The petard by Francis Grose, 1812 A 19th-century British army petard A petard was a medieval small bomb used to blow up gates and walls when breaching fortifications. ... US soldier loading a M224 60-mm mortar. ... This article is concerned solely with chemical explosives. ... Bunkers in Albania A bunker is a defensive military fortification. ... It has been suggested that Landing operation be merged into this article or section. ... A Churchill VIII AVRE carrying a fascine on its front. ... Small Box Girder was a small assault bridge that could be used to span gaps of up to 30. It was carried on the tank and could be deployed without troops having to take enemy fire. ... U.S. Army M-1A1 Abrams tank with mine plow from 1995 or earlier A mine plow is a tank-mounted device designed to clear a lane through a minefield, allowing other vehicles to follow. ... “Minefield” redirects here. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (700x654, 71 KB) Description: Sherman tank using a Churchill Ark armoured ramp carrier to climb over an escarpment, 79th Armoured Division, 13 February 1944 Source: IWMCollections IWM Photo No. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (700x654, 71 KB) Description: Sherman tank using a Churchill Ark armoured ramp carrier to climb over an escarpment, 79th Armoured Division, 13 February 1944 Source: IWMCollections IWM Photo No. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (700x625, 97 KB) Description: D-7 armoured bulldozer, 3rd Division, 1 May 1944 Source: IWMCollections IWM Photo No. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (700x625, 97 KB) Description: D-7 armoured bulldozer, 3rd Division, 1 May 1944 Source: IWMCollections IWM Photo No. ... A mine flail mounted on a World War 2, Sherman Crab tank. ... DD Sherman tank with its flotation screen lowered. ... An amphibious vehicle is a vehicle or craft, that is a means of transport, viable on land as well as on water - just like an amphibian. ... The most numerous British manufactured tank of World War II, the Infantry Tank III Valentine was known mainly for its inexpensive cost and high reliability. ... The BARV is a British military support vehicle, the name coming from Beach Armoured Recovery Vehicle. // Sherman BARV Sherman BARV. Centurion BARV at the Yad la-Shiryon Museum, Israel The original BARV was a Sherman M4A2 tank which had been waterproofed and had the turret replaced by a tall armoured... Landing craft Rapière LCU 1656 departs USS Bataan (LHD-5) well deck during Hurricane Katrina relief operations. ... The Corps of Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME; pronounced phonetically as Reemee) is a corps of the British Army that has responsibility for the maintenance, servicing and inspection of almost every electrical and mechanical piece of equipment within the British Army from Challenger II main battle tanks and AH64... The Landing Vehicle Tracked (LVT) was an amphibious vehicle used by the United States Navy, Marine Corps and Army during World War II. It was widely known as amphtrack, amtrak, amtrac etc. ... An armored Caterpillar D9 bulldozer used by the IDF. Armored bulldozers are a standard tool of combat engineering battalions, and the Israeli Defence Forces has gained notoriety for their use of armored bulldozers for urban warfare in the Al-Aqsa Intifada. ... Caterpillar Inc. ... The Caterpillar D8 is a large track-type tractor designed and manufactured by Caterpillar Inc. ... A Caterpillar D10N bulldozer at work A bulldozer is a very powerful crawler (caterpillar tracked tractor) equipped with a blade. ... Jack Olding of Hatfield had a company (Jack Olding & Co. ... Arms of the former Hatfield Rural District Council Hatfield, originally Bishops Hatfield, is in the Welwyn Hatfield district of Hertfordshire, in the south of England. ... Image File history File links Centaur_dozer. ... Image File history File links Centaur_dozer. ... The Tank, Cruiser, Mk VIII, Cromwell (A27M), named after the English Civil War leader Oliver Cromwell, was one of the most successful series of cruiser tanks fielded by Britain in World War II. It was the first tank in the British arsenal to combine a dual-purpose gun, high speed... Canal Defence Light (CDL) was a British secret weapon of the Second World War. ... Edisons classical searchlight cart. ... During World War II, Operation Clipper was an Allied offensive by Thirtieth British Corps (including the American Eighty-fourth Infantry Division) to reduce the Geilenkirchen Salient on 18 November 1945. ...

Post-WWII Use

The Centaur bulldozer continued to be used by the British Army for some years after WWII and saw action during the Korean War. Also, small numbers of Churchill AVRE's and Sherman BARV's were used until the 1960's when they were replaced with similar vehicles based on the Centurion Tank. The Royal Engineers continue to use modified Centurion and Chieftain tanks that are designed to fulfill the same roles in battle as the Funnies. The last examples of FV4003 Centurion Mk 5 AVRE 165 saw combat in the Gulf War / Operation Granby of 1991. Combatants  United Nations:  Republic of Korea  Australia  Belgium  Canada  Colombia  Ethiopia  France Greece  Luxembourg  Netherlands  New Zealand  Philippines South Africa  Thailand  Turkey  United Kingdom  United States Medical staff:  Denmark  Italy  Norway  Sweden Communist: Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea  Peoples Republic of China  Soviet Union Commanders Syngman Rhee Chung... The Centurion was the primary British Main Battle Tank of the immediate post-war era, and considered by many to be one of the best British tank designs of all time. ... The FV 4201 Chieftain was the Main battle tank of the United Kingdom during the 1960s and 1970s. ... For other uses, see Iraq war (disambiguation). ... C Company, 1 STAFFS, in a live firing exercise, during Operation Granby, 6 January 1991. ... Year 1991 (MCMXCI) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the 1991 Gregorian calendar). ...

Armoured bulldozers continue to be used by the Israel Defense Forces and have been recently adopted by the US Marine Corps and the US Army in Iraq. It has been suggested that Caterpillar D9#Israel be merged into this article or section. ... Emblem of the IDF The Israel Defense Forces are part of the Israeli Security Forces. ... United States Marine Corps Emblem The United States Marine Corps (USMC) is the second smallest of the five branches of the United States armed forces, with 170,000 active and 40,000 reserve Marines as of 2002. ... The United States Army is the largest and oldest branch of the armed forces of the United States. ...

Surviving Vehicles

This is an incomplete list:

• Churchill ARK - A Churchill ARK is in South Africa, owned by the School of Engineering, Kroonstad.

• Churchill AVRE - The collection of the Bovington Tank Museum includes a working Mark III Churchill AVRE. Another example is located in a hamlet of Grey-sur-Mer in Normandy; it is unusual in having been buried on D-Day in the shell-hole it fell into, and then being recovered later as a memorial. MkIV AVREs are at the Imperial War Museum Duxford, the South African Armour Museum and the National Museum of Military History, Johannesburg. A MkVII AVRE is a Gate guardian at the Allenby Barracks, at the Bovington army camp, headquarters of the Royal Wessex Yeomanry; another is at the Royal Engineers museum at Chatham, Medway. Several more AVRE's still exist as wrecks on gunnery ranges.

• Churchill Crocodile - There is one example, without trailer, on display at the Bayeux Museum of the Battle of Normandy. A trailer is held at Bovington. Mark VII Crocodiles are owned by the Muckleburgh Collection in Norfolk, the Cobbaton Combat Collection in Dorset, the D-Day museum, the Wheatcroft Collection, the Kubinka Tank Museum in Russia and the Museum of the Regiments, Calgary, Alberta. A Mark VIII is at the Royal Australian Armoured Corps Museum. Two (one in running order) are privately owned in the UK.

• Sherman DD - Five Sherman DD's are in museums; one is nearly intact, four were sunken wrecks that were salvaged. See the main article for details.

• Sherman Crab - Sherman Crabs are displayed at the CFB Borden Military Museum, Ontario, Canada; the Bovington Tank Museum, the Yad la-Shiryon museum in Israel and the Overloon War Museum in the Netherlands.

• Centaur Dozer - One is part of the collection at Bovington.

• BARV - The Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers Museum of Technology, near Arborfield in England, has a Sherman BARV on display. Another, in running condition, is privately owned in the UK.

• Canal Defence Light - The Bovington Tank Museum has a Matilda tank fitted with a Canal Defence Light turret. This is the only survivor of this type of vehicle.

• Buffalo aka Amtrac LVT4 - The Bovington Tank Museum has an example.

The town of Kroonstad, the third-largest town in Free State Province, South Africa lies two hours drive from Gauteng. ... British Mark V; one of the few WWI tanks still in working order. ... American Air Museum Duxford The Imperial War Museum Duxford in Cambridgeshire, commonly referred to simply as Duxford, houses the Imperial War Museums aircraft collection, as well as having a large collection of tanks, military and naval vehicles. ... Hawker-Siddeley Harrier plinthed as a gate guardian at RAF Stafford. ... The Royal Wessex Yeomanry is an armoured regiment of the Territorial Army consisting of four squadrons, each of which bears the cap badge of an old yeomanry regiment: A (Dorset Yeomanry) Squadron B (Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry) Squadron C (Royal Gloucestershire Hussars) Squadron D (Royal Devon Yeomanry) Squadron The Royal Wessex... The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually just called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the Sappers, is one of the corps of the British Army. ... Chatham is an English town that developed around an important naval dockyard on the east bank of the River Medway to the east of London in the county of Kent. ... The Muckleburgh Collection is a privately owned military museum sited on a former military camp at Weybourne, in Norfolk. ... The D-Day Museum is located in Southsea, Hampshire. ... The Kubinka Tank Museum also known as The Tank Museum in Kubinka is a large Armoured fighting vehicle museum in Russia, just outside Moscow. ... The Museum of the Regiments was formally opened by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in Calgary, Alberta on 30 June 1990. ... DD Sherman tank with its flotation screen lowered. ... Sherman tank displayed outside of Waterloo Officers Mess at CFB Borden Canadian Forces Base Borden (also CFB Borden) is a Canadian Forces Base located in Ontario. ... The National War and Resistance Museum of the Netherlands is located at Overloon. ... The Tank, Infantry, Mk II, Matilda II (A12) (sometimes referred to as Senior Matilda) was a British tank of World War II. In a somewhat unorthodox move, it shared the same name as the Tank, Infantry, Mk I (A11). ...

See also

• M4 Sherman tank
• Allied Technological Cooperation During WW2

General characteristics Length: 5. ... The Second World War was not won by one nation, the Allies not only had to cooperate while fighting on the ground but pooling of technological resources in weaponry, aircraft and new technologies was also a key reason for the Allied victory in Western European, Eastern European, African and the...

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Hobart's Funnies

• Bradley's biography with explanation of refusal of "funnies"
• Royal Engineers Museum Royal Engineers and Operation Overlord

• Royal Engineers Museum Biography of Major General Sir Percy Hobart
• Royal Engineers Museum Royal Engineers and Second World War