How exactly, did Belgian Gates work? I understand that they were meant as an obsacle, but they were also on rollers so a pair of horses could move them around. This doesn’t sound like much of an obstacle.
Secondly, what became of the ropes used to tow the gliders? It seems pretty dangerous to just cast them off with all those other aircraft flying around.
Presumably the rollers are removable and the obstacle can be staked into the ground like a big tent or weighed down with sandbags.
As for ropes used to tow gliders : the moment you drop the ropes, they are going to fall at 9.8 m/s^2. As long as the other tow aircraft are at the same altitude, there’s no chance of a collision.
As I understand it, those gliders were death-traps anyway. I’m curious what the fatality rate in training with those gliders was…
How they worked makes more sense if you look at pictures of them deployed in the field, see here, [-133-p.jpg"]here](http://www.dantaylormodelworks.com/ekmps/shops/dantaylor/images/belgian-gate-beach-obstacle-[3), and here.
Death traps is a bit of an exaggeration, but they certainly weren’t the safest way to enter battle; jumping out of a perfectly good airplane with a parachute was safer. It certainly made glider infantry being the poor cousin of paratroopers an even more bitter pill to swallow, until after Normandy US glider troops weren’t entitled to the extra pay given to paratroopers nor were they issued jump boots.
They did allow larger and bulkier cargos to be dropped however, even a small number of M22 Locust light tanks were dropped in Operation Varsity.
