Engineering and Combat Engineering Vehicles.Allied or Axis

I posted this up some time ago, but it is worth a repost.
Some notes on Seebees:

On V-J day there were 238,000 men in the Seebees having risen from a pre-war strenght of 8000.
These men were organized in 9 brigades, 31 regiments and 338 battalions and smaller detachments.

Units included Stevedore battalions for unloading and loading ships, CBMU (CB maintenance units) for maintaining existing bases, and CBD's (CB detachments).
The last were often specialized units engaged in various tasks like:
Tire retreading and recapping (CBD 1059 for example)
Dredging of harbors (CBD 1068 on Guadalcanal for example)
Pontoon assembly (one detachment could make 1800 pontoon assemblies a month)
Heavy excavating and hauling (capable of moving 337,000 cubic yards of rock per month
Sand and Gravel plant (produced 250 tons per hour)
Asphalt plant (110 to 200 tons per hour) 5 of these were employed to build the B-29 bases in the Marianas.
Sawmill plant (16,000 BF per hour)
Oil Exploration (one detachment went to Point Barrow Alaska for example...yea, that Point Barrow)
Electrical generation plant
Advance Base Construction Depot
Vehicle overhaul (could overhaul 500 pieces of equipment or vehicles per month)

A battalion of 32 officers and 1073 men were provided with the following equipment in a standard battalion:

264 16 sq ft tents
21 17 x 20 ft tents
26 16 x 50 ft tents
69 20 x 48 ft quonset huts
3 40 x 100 ft quonset huts
8 water purification units (10,000 gpd)
Canvas tanks for water storage
2 x 500 gpm fire fighting pumps + hand held extinguishers
8 x 15 Kw generators
1 x 50 ckt telephone switchboard + telephones
1 x public address system
1 FM radio set with 60 mi range (as required)
1 x 3/4 ton ambulance
18 jeeps
4 3/4 ton weapons carriers
1 2 1/2 ton truck with 750 gal water tank
4 1 1/2 ton trucks
4 2 1/2 ton trucks
32 2 1/2 ton dump trucks
1 2 1/2 ton truck oilfield body (for moving heavy equipment and parts)
1 4 ton truck.
20 trailers
1 fifth wheel 2 1/2 ton truck tractor combo
2 2.5 yd 6 ton crawler cranes
3 .75 yd 13 ton crawler cranes
1 1.5 yd 30 ton crawler crane
All have clamshell and dragline buckets and the 13 ton units have backhoe attachments
8 class 1 tractors (Caterpillar)
4 class 2 tractors (Caterpillar)
4 class 3 tractors (Caterpillar)
2 class 4 tractors (Caterpillar)
All have either a bulldozer or angledozer attachment
4 8 - 10 cu yd earth mover trailers (for use with the tractors)
4 12 -15 cy yd earth mover trailers
8 pneumatic rock hammers
1 8 ton road roller
1 12 ton road roller
1 3 tooth trenching machine
3 road graders w/ 12 ft blade
2 5 ton cargo cranes
1 7 cu ft cement mixer
1 14 cu ft cement mixer
4 portable 3000 gpm pumps
Supplies for immediate use included:
1000 bags of cement
328,000 BF of lumber
2800 feet of steel shapes
10,850 pounds of rebar
14,000 fasteners
65,400 feet of wire rope
120 oxygen cylinders
2550 lbs of welding rod.

A single Seebee battalion was better equipped than an entire German field army's worth of engineers!

 

Yup. Thanks for the info . Of course Im still waiting for some of our other posters with a proclivity towards the "awesome " and "modern" Wehrmacht to post something . LOL. But just like Logistics there is no glamour or "glory" in the subject. The war to them is just "Cool" uniforms or "Sweet" weapons LOL.

 

The German defenses in the West along the coast (and their Siegfried line) as well as defenses in "fortress cities" ie, Berlin, etc. were often constructed using terribly inefficient methods along with the suffering of hundreds of thousands of slave laborers.

 

Here's a page of Hanomag tractors some of which are of the right vintage. It appears that by 1943 commercial tractor production had pretty much ended entirely and that none were being produced whatsoever.

Category:Hanomag tractors - Wikimedia Commons

http://www.autogallery.org.ru/m/ghanomag.htm

 

I can only assume that German engineering equipment was not prioritized out of necessity and shortages in other areas so they suffered the consequences.

This is similiar to how the Soviets did not produce or use many armored personnel carriers for their tank units in their quest to maximize tank production. Naturally, this lead to enormous human losses in their "tank-rider" units.

 

I was hoping that the Hanomag SS-100 Tractor was a true tractor . ILL have to keep searching for some more specific ones.

 

So it looks like the US and Japan used bulldozers types . So far nothing for the Wehrmacht?

 

http://www.51ecb.org/images/Org.Chart.jpg

 

Elements of the 36th Combat Engineers came ashore at Red Beach near Cavalaire Sur-Mer as part of Operation Dragoon, the invasion of Southern France Aug. 15-16, 1944. The bar on this tractor, called to pull a stalled truck from the surf, reads "Nevada, Montana, Pussy Cat".

 

11. Organic Engineer Units
This arm includes the regular combat engineers, as well as fortress engineers, construction engineers, and regional engineers. On the other hand, the engineer arm does not include railway engineers and railway operating troops, and these therefore are listed separately. (See paragraph 13, below.)
It should be noted that the personnel of engineer platoons in organic divisional units (other than the organic engineer battalion) belong to the arm of the unit which they are serving and not to the engineer arm, although they are trained to perform minor engineer functions.
Engineer units often form small detachments within their unit for special missions (such as flame-thrower detachments and mine-detection detachments).
An engineer battalion (Pionierbataillon) is organic in every German division, varying in strength and composition according to the type of division. (See Figures 133 to 135.)
The engineer battalion in the Two-Regiment Infantry Division is similar to that in the Volks Grenadier Division except that its components are slightly weaker.
The armored engineer battalion in the Motorized Division is very similar to the armored battalion in the Army Armored Division.
The armored engineer battalion in the SS Armored Division is similar to the armored engineer battalion in the Army Armored Division. It has, however, two bridge columns instead of only one.
A mountain engineer battalion is approximately equal in strength to an armored engineer battalion; however, it includes mountain climbing devices and trestle bridge equipment.
The parachute engineer battalion is believed to be organized similarly to the engineer battalion in the Infantry Division, 1944 Type.
Bridge columns were, until 1943, an organic component of the engineer battalions in all types of divisions. At the time of the major reorganization of German divisions the bridge columns were withdrawn to corps from all but the armored divisions. The different types of bridge columns are designated by various capital letters, i.e., "B," "J," "K," and "T," each of which represents the type of bridge-building equipment used. Of these, the bridge column "B" has sufficient equipment for building longer bridges than does column "K." However, bridges built by column "B" are of wood, while those built by column "K" are steel. Armored engineer platoons, Goliath, about 35 men strong, may be included in any type of engineer battalion. These platoons specifically are equipped for the handling of the cable-controlled, small, armored demolition-charge carrier, the Goliath (not to be confused with the large radio controlled demolition carrier, B-IV, which is employed by the Tiger (FKL) Company and the crew of which belongs to the armored arm, while the Goliath crew belongs to engineers).

Lone Sentry: TM-E 30-451 Handbook on German Military Forces: Organic Engineer Units: Combat Troops (Fechtende Truppen): Organization of the Field Forces

 

Small Box Girder bridge mounted on a Sherman tank



Petard mounted on a Churchill tank




A double ARK (Armoured Ramp Carrier)
crossing River Senio, Itlay 1945

British Engineers/Sappers
​

 

German WWII Army Bridges (Bruckengerat)

Bruckengerat B




​

BRIDGES: All Divisional engineer units had light or medium bridging columns for constructing temporary bridges. GHQ units were equipped to put up semi-permanent bridges.

In service at the beginning of the war was a miscellany of fairly old equipments such as the Bruckengerat C, a small wooden pontoon bridge with built-up superstructure that could be used in a variety of roles, with a maximum weight of just over five tonnes. For most of the war, however, there were two standard bridging equipments in use by the Divisions, the Bruckengerat K and the Bruckengerat B, the bridging columns being identified by the appropriate initial letter.

The Bruckengerat K was the standard bridge of the armoured engineers. It was a box or bow girder bridge mounted on three-compartment pontoons and able to be laid in sections two, three or four girders wide. The official maximum rating was 16 tonnes load.

K pontoon and trestle equipment (Bruckengerat K).—This is the standard bridge carried by engineers in the Panzer division. The pontoons are of a three-section type and the superstructure is similar to the U. S. small box-girder bridge. Bridges of two, three, and four girders can be built, the full girder length of 64 feet being normally used. The track load-carrying capacity and corresponding spans are probably equal to or greater than, the following:

4-girder, 48-foot span_____________________ 25 tons.
4-girder, 64-foot span_____________________ 21 tons.
2-girder, 32-foot span_____________________ 21 tons.
2-girder, 64-foot span______________________ 10 tons.

The Bruckengerat B was a normal pattern of pontoon bridge using a flat-bed superstructure on undecked steel pontoons and having a maximum load in excess of 20 tonnes in most of its forms. It was normally issued to Infantry and Panzer Grenadier Divisions but was sometimes allocated to armoured Divisions in addition to Bruckengerat K for special tasks. A third, lighter pattern, Bruckengerat D, was used by some mechanised infantry pioneer platoons in the divisional infantry Regiments. It was a pontoon and girder bridge with a maximum load of 9 tonnes. In addition, all engineer units were trained to build improvised light bridges and carried a supply of wood, etc for this purpose.

GHQ bridging units, normally allocated to Armies, had heavy structures normally with massive decked pontoons supporting wide, built-up spans. A variety was in use, the most common being the ex-Czech Herbert bridge and the Bruckengerat S; both these had a distributed loading (tracked vehicles) of over 24 tonnes. The Germans used a ‘Herbert’ bridge (taken from the Czechoslovakian Army) which would support 35 tons. The description of the bridge is a little confusing. It implies if the freeboard is 12″, it will support 60 tons. The problem is the bridge takes so long to build; it cannot be used in assault actions.


German WWII Army Bridges (Bruckengerat) « War and Game

 

Japanese Armored Lumberjack "Ho-K"

"This vehicle worked in conjunction with another known as "Brasso Ki". Brasso Ki picked up the felled lumber. The vehicle was used for clearing a path through jungles (note that I did not use the politically correct term of "rain forest"). The chassis was based on the Type 97 Medium Tank."

http://mailer.fsu.edu/~akirk/tanks/japan/japan-eng.html​

 

Armored Engineer Vehicle Soukou Sagyou Ki "SS-Ki"

SS-Ki was Japan's first Engeneering vehicle. Developed in 1935, it was based on the Type 89 Medium Tank. The vehilcle was designed to perform the following tasks:
1) Blasting tochca (pillbox) with 300kg demolition
2) Excavating trench
3) Disinfecting gas attack
4) Flame throwing
5) Breaking through obstacle
6) Scattering poison gas
7) Removing mines with mine plow
8) Throwing up smoke screen
9) Crane
10) Bridge layer
The "Manchurian Incident" showed that the vehicle was too small to perform all these tasks perfectly. The vehcile was redesigned and the tasks required of it were decreased. The last type was called the "SS SS-Ki Bo Gata" and could only do tasks 1, 4, 7, and 10 listed above. When Pacific War with the U.S. began, SS-Ki was sent to south front, as a bridge layer. In the battle of Philippines, 1945, the US captured 8 SS-Ki, without bridges. So US forces mistakenly classified SS-Ki as flame throwing tank. SS-Ki's detailed military service is unknown. 119 Produced (total of all types, Kou, Otsu, Hei, Tei, Bo).

Japanese Engineering Vehicles​

 

1939 SOMUA Bridge Layer

In 1937 SOMUA presented an idea to use it's MCL 5 chassis to provide a bridge laying device for medium tanks. All development stopped in 1940 after the fall of France.​

 

Judging from the look of that thing development should have stopped before France fell. In fact, the designer probably should have been jailed....

 

Its what my father would have called a "Kluge" LOL.

 

germans always wanted the best tanks