Operating Tanks at Omaha first 6 hours - soc.history.war.world-war-ii

Message from discussion Operating Tanks at Omaha first 6 hours

Rich

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More options 8 Feb 2007, 05:40

Newsgroups: soc.history.war.world-war-ii

From: "Rich" <RichT...@msn.com>

Date: Thu, 08 Feb 2007 00:40:22 -0500

Local: Thurs 8 Feb 2007 05:40

Subject: Re: Operating Tanks at Omaha first 6 hours

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On Feb 7, 5:58 pm, "Joe Osman" <Joseph.Os...@verizon.net> wrote:

> Were any of the Shermans M4A3R3 flame tanks? I thought I had read
> somewhere that they were used on D-Day in Normandy. Maybe the writer
> was confusing them with the British Crocodile. The M4A3R3 was
> developed in Hawaii by a Marine, Army and Navy team as part of the
> lessons learned after Tarawa. It was used in the Pacific starting with
> Saipan.

> Joe

No, the flame guns developed for the M4 by the Army were the E4R2-5R1
and E4R3-5R1 (standardized as the M3-4 and M3-3), the E6-R1 and the
E7-7 (two further series were completed postwar). They were all kits
that could be installed in vehicles and then removed. The Marines also
used the POA, which were complete conversions of existing vehciles.
But none of the conversion kits arrived in the ETO in time for
NEPTUNE, the first arrived and were installed in the initial shipment
of M4A3E2 in late September, which is why Crocs of 141 RTR were loaned
to the US for use at Brest.

The only flamethrower tanks landed on D-Day were three Crocs, again of
141 RTR, but they did not see action on 6 June. And again, the limited
range of the flamethrower was a limitation that would have keep them
from being very useful at OMAHA.

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