Enquiries: DM. Military Historian.
'Valuable' according to IWM. Jocks, Dragons and Sospans: Through Normandy with 53rd Welsh Division (2022).
#WW2 #SWW #History
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Throughout the campaign this question vexed the Allies, not least as Intelligence Officers repeatedly felt the enemy was on the cusp of collapse.
I've spoken about the campaign's complex historiography before. /2
In short, there was no magic solution to cracking defences in Normandy, sure AVREs had massive 290mm petard mortars but these were specialist assets.
I could go into this action in much more detail, but it's almost unbelievable - saving it for another day...
Planning for Overlord and Neptune had a serious snag, how to get troops from LSTs onto the beach as simply ramming them up onto the beaches and dropping the ramp was known to damage the exceptionally vulnerable LSTs and felt to be unsustainable in the mid to long term. /2 
First off, Normandy was a bit of a rural backwater.
Marksmen played a major role, as Ran Williams discovered when his 13 Platoon took over 7 Seaforths most exposed position.
The Universal Carrier came about in 1940 as a desire to streamline production processes & merge the Bren Gun and Scout Carriers' roles into a single AFV.
Throughout the campaign this question vexed the Allies, not least as Intelligence Officers repeatedly felt the enemy was on the cusp of collapse.
At 38 tons the Churchill was clearly a beast but a manageable one, given concerns about railway loading gauge had informed development (even then you still had to remove the side air louvres for rail tpt).
Deliveries of Firefly to units only commenced in April 1944, 
So The National Archives guidance is pretty straight forward.
APDS was new in Normandy, it was also a very rare round with (it may be as much as most) use requiring Corps authorisation, occasionally Army.
Rearmament was tricky as an island UK had to try and juggle Imperial commitments around the world, over the big blue wet thing, concerns another World War would destroy all civilisation, the threat of bombers slaughtering millions of civilians, against a poor economic picture. /2 
B Company tried to seize the railway crossing by St. Vigor de Mieux, with C Coy advancing on the left, with the Churchill tanks of A Squadron n 147 RAC providing fire support. /2 
I could go into this action in much more detail, but it's almost unbelievable - saving it for another day...
There were over 400 camps around the city, containing around 100,000 malnourished, half-starved and desperately ill slave workers drawn from across Europe: "Displaced Persons" from across Europe.
King George VI leads the inspection of HMS Victorious ship's company. /2 
Niels recognised it standing out in this @BritishPathe footage, in a rare full close up.
