Hobart's Funnies
Missing image
79th_armoured_division_badge.jpg
79th_armoured_division_badge.jpg
Badge of the 79th Armoured Division
Hobart's Funnies were a number of unusual modified tanks designs that were operated by the 79th Armoured Division, Royal Engineers under the leadership of Percy Hobart whom the collection were named after. They were designed in light of experiences during the Dieppe Raid to overcome the problems of the planned Invasion of Normandy. Many of them were modified Churchill tanks.
Among the many specialist vehicles were
- "Bobbin" - A reel of 10 foot wide canvas cloth reinforced with steel poles carried before the tank so that it, and following vehicles would not sink into the soft ground of an amphibious landing.
- A tank that carried a a fascine (bundle of wooden poles lashed together with wires) that could be released to fill a ditch or form a step.
- "Ark"- Armoured Ramp Carrier was a Churchill tank without a turret that had extendable ramps at each end; other vehicles could drive up ramps and over the vehicle to scale obstacles.
- Small Box Girder was an assault bridge that was carried before the tank (Churchill AVRE with Petard mortar) and could be dropped to span a 30 foot gap in 30 seconds.
- "Crocodile" - A Churchill tank with a powerful flamethrower supplied by a towed armoured trailer with 400 gallons of fuel.
- "Crab" - A modified Sherman tank equipped with a rotating cylinder of steel flails that were used to explode landmines.
- Armoured Bulldozer.
- The amphibious DD tanks - also modified Sherman tanks, used in the opening landings of the Battle of Normandy.
Many of these were radical new designs, though the Scorpion flail tank (a modified Matilda tank) had already been developed during the war in North Africa to clear paths through German minefields.