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strawbuk -> Patch download diversion - The Bulldozer Debate Part Two (11/3/2004 2:55:40 PM)
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Remember the 'my Kamatsu is bigger than your CAT' stuff on bulldozers and engineering? I give you here a great example of bulldozers in action (and a driver with balls of steel)
Kohima - April 1944
From Garrison Hill the the land fell a 100 feet in four terraces, the drop from one to the next varying form 10-40 feet. The topmost terrace was a club badminton court, then a tennis court then the DC's bugalow (a 30 foot drop), then a garden (Note that the IJA and the 2nd Dorsets trenches are seperated by barely a tennis court...) For some reason it took an attack by the Dorsets to establish that the tennis court was on second terrace, not on top terrace as first throught (obviously no pre-war club members) and hence big enough to put a Lee tank on to fire point blank at Japanese bunkers around the DC bungalow which were stopping the Dorsets clearing it (with me so far?).
Remember that all slopes and surfaces are slippy as hell and under fire of IJA LMGs, the odd AT gun and one 75mm, all point blank, so even if it gets there tank still has to maonuvre on postage stamp (remember fixed 75 on a Lee...) and not get into known line of sight of AT gun.
So a Royal Engineer driver takes his (unarmoured) bulldozer, followed by a Lee, on the road around the IJA positions, calmly builds a track up to the terrace (it's like Romans at Masada isn't it?), then driver gets off and hitchs tow cable to Lee to start to pull the Lee up the still steep track. Unfortunately the cable started to slip, the dozer guy stopped to look at when the tank driver hit reverse, pulling the doxer back on to the Lee and both slide back down the slope.
A few day later they got a Lee down a 30 foot terrace (pretty steep it appears) on the tennis court by accident; the tank driver was edging towards bank to see if possible, decide 'hell no' but then edge gave way and Lee toboganed down, crushing a bunker on the way. Some how extracted itself and manouvred to fire at IJA bunkers ONLY half a tenis court away - strangely the IJA left....
Adapted from 'Burma the longest war, by Louis Allen' once described as a 'bit dry' by some on this forum [8|]
What they would'nt have done for Churchills eh ? Mountain goats with tracks.
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