Model Forum / General / Models / August 2007

On Aug 28, 8:17 am, "cr...@earthlink.net" <cr...@earthlink.net> wrote:

Absolutely.  There's a photo at
http://ww2db.com/photo.php?source=all&color=all&list=search&foreigntype=B&foreig
ntype_id=134

Very big trucks.

"The versatility of Ordnance maintenance companies was also
demonstrated by the use of a heavy tank maintenance company to process
and test the hundred LVT's used by XVI Corps in the initial Ninth Army
Rhine crossing. The company was augmented with all the Ninth Army
Ordnance men who had had any experience with LVT maintenance, and the
problem of nonexistent spare parts was met by cannibalizing the LVT's
that had been wrecked in the Roer crossing. The LVT's were especially
valuable in the Rhine crossing because they required no special river
entrances or exits. The other Navy landing craft that were used, the
LCM's and LCVP's, and the Seamules were much heavier and harder to
handle.

"Evacuation companies with Ms5 tank transporters were used to help the
Navy bring the assault boats up to the Rhine. This was done not only
in the Ninth Army crossing but in Third Army crossings around Mainz on
22-23 March. The Navy men would lash a huge cradle to the transporter
with ropes, lift the big LCM with a crane so that the transporter
could drive under it, and then lower the craft into the cradle,
creating "a monster on wheels" (as one Third Army historian described
it), seventy-two feet long and more than seventeen feet high. For the
first time, the big M25 tank transporters looked small. When the
strange, unwieldy convoys made their journeys to the Rhine, towns had
to be bypassed because the rigs could not turn sharp corners, roads
had to be widened, bridges reinforced, communications wires lifted so
that they would not be torn down, and obstacles ahead blown up by
demolition squads."

Bruce
Melbourne, Australia