First off, a salute to all the soldiers involved with Operation Overlord.
I guess this has become a bit of a pet peeve of mine but I would like to dispute the claims often made by British people that Omaha beach would have had far fewer casualties if the Americans had used more of the specialized armor developed specifically for Operation Overlord beyond the DD-Shermans they did use.
I should point out that I’m Canadian and I’ve been a big fan of the Hobart Funnies for over 4 decades since first finding out about them. I admit I used to feel the same way that the Americans should have used some of the AVRE’s and Sherman Crabs but after reading Richard Anderson Jr.'s book “Cracking Hitler’s Atlantic Wall: The 1st Assault Brigade Royal Engineers on D-Day”, I’ve changed my opinion. I also read Richard Doherty’s book “Hobart’s 79th Armoured Division at War: Invention, Innovation, and Inspiration” which came out after Anderson’s book and doesn’t dispute any of the main points I will mention. In fact, it confirms the main one which is the simple fact that the British were barely able to meet their own and the Canadian needs in time for Operation Overlord never mind supply any of them to the Americans.
-> Both books make it abundantly clear that the Churchill AVRE in its various configurations only started to be received by the British & Canadians in early April/44.
-> There was also a delay with the Petard mortars and quite a number were mounted the day prior to the invasion.
-> The special Flying Dustbin shells were in short supply as well and most tank crews only got 3 rounds to practice fire with.
-> Another indication of the haste due to the tight schedule is the fact that none of the AVRE’s with the Petard mortar where equipped with gun sights simply because they didn’t have the time to design them. It wasn’t until August/44 that they were finally available and retrofitting was begun. This reduced the effective range of the petard mortar to only about 80 yards. Plus the dustbin round ammo was simply not capable of knocking out heavily reinforced concrete bunkers except by luck hits around the gun/MG embrasure.
-> As for the Sherman Crabs, on Feb 16/44, Sir Edwin Otway Herbert of the 21st Army Group issued a memo concerning “US Requirements for British Devices-OVERLORD”. Among the items requested over and above British/Canadian requirements was 25 Sherman Crabs to be made available to the Yanks. None of these were ever delivered presumably because not enough Sherman’s where modified in time for D-Day.
-> There’s no doubt that the Churchill tank was the best choice for the AVRE conversion, especially with its outstanding climbing ability, but it was just as susceptible to flanking fire as the Shermans and the Germans had done a brilliant job of placing anti-tank guns on the easternmost & westernmost portions of Omaha Beach which was crescent-shaped so allowed those guns to have virtually unrestricted flanking fire along the entire 3 miles of Omaha Beach. Plus the shingle was just as impassable to the Churchills as it was to the Shermans. With the very limited range of the Petard mortar, I really can’t see how the AVRE’s could have made any kind of meaningful contribution.
-> Utah Beach had defenses similar to Juno and Gold beach along with similar defending troop quality yet it had the fewest casualties of the 5 beaches assaulted that day without the use of Hobart’s Funnies beyond the DD-Shermans.
I guess that’s it for now. Any British folk that feels that I’m out to lunch, I suggest you read Richard Anderson Jr’s. book and maybe your opinion will be changed. I will be using it as my main source for now as I think it’s the best book available about this particular topic.