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Tank Hack Ensured Farmland Didn't Thwart the Invasion of Europe
szczys writes: Ingenuity reigns supreme when trying to overcome obstacles standing in your way. So was the case during the Allied invasion of Europe during WWII. Land features in the Normandy bocage region were especially difficult for tanks to navigate. The obstacles were earthen dikes topped with mature trees originally put in place to contain livestock. The solution was to reuse materials from the Axis' own anti-tank measures to build a tank attachment to cut through the obstacles. The Allies were able to take the Axis by surprise as it was assumed the armored divisions wouldn't be able to break through this area.
" The Allies were able to take the Axis by surprise as it was assumed the armored divisions wouldn't be able to break through this area.: ...which is funny because the French didn't expect the tanks of the Germans to be able to pass through the Ardennes. The moment they realized what the plan was, it was too late and France had no option but to surrender, even if possessing a superior force.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
Picture the hedge covered with heavy growth 15 to 30 feet high. Difficult to penetrate on foot- easy to hide in and defend.
Picture a german bazookaman behind the hedge ready to blow a hole in your soft underbelly.
Picture the teeth cutting 12" deep into the hedge before the tank starts to lift upwards.
Picture the heavy growth toppling onto the defenses, the top of the hedge being shaved off to become a wide dirt road.
Much harder to defend against the infantry following the tank through the new gap.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
You really think today's generation of limp wristed skinny panced vape smokers could hack it in such a critical battle?
Um, who is getting shot at in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere? Dumbass.
Similar to the upcoming US election results
Picture terrain like this. The hedges make it hard to travel through, and give cover to defending machine gunners.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
And in other breaking World War II news, there was this amazing breakthru where vacuum tubes were used to create a powerful electronic machine called "ENIAC".
Hack either means security breach, or an awful clusterfuck, as in hackjob.
No, among techies, "hack" has for decades also meant clever and innovative and unexpected solutions to a problem or want/need. Your security breach definition evolved from the preceding definition.
Hobart's Funnies were based around all kinds of tanks, primarily Churchills and Shermans, but there were also Valentines, LVT4's, Cromwells etc.
As for the Bobbin, it was actually a device carried by the Churchill AVRE(together with the Crocodile and the ARK the most famous Funnies), and it laid the canvas road not only for itself but also the vehicles coming up behind it. Other devices the AVRE could carry was the Fascine, which was a bundle you dropped into ditches and trenches, so you could drive over them, and the mine plough, which could also do the same job as the hedgerow plough on the Shermans.