I’m basing this question off of Saving Private Ryan and a video game so I don’t know if these things were really even there but…
Ya know those metal things on the beach that everyone was hiding behind to escape gunfire…they kind of looked like metal asterisks? What were they for and how did they get there?
The Germans put them there. Their purpose was to poke holes in landing craft and servae as barriers to vehicles. Of course the invasion took place at low tide. I’ve forgotten what they were called.
They are colloquially known as hedgehogs.
I don’t recall seeing a specific name for the barriers. “Beach obstruction” is the name I have seen most frequently, with “Tank trap” a common reference to pictures of them, now, although, as Mr. Duality noted, many/most of them were intended to stop landing craft rather than tanks, specifically.
The reference to low tide is important. When launching an amphibious assault, the higher the tide, the closer to shore the invaders can debark, leaving less unprotected beach to cross in the face of defensive fire. Rommel knew that, of course, and set thousands of barriers to destroy the landing craft out at depths where the soldiers would be spilled into water over their heads and drown. Allied reconaissance had noted the barriers and the commanders decided to throw out the book and land at low tide where the barriers would be ineffective, counting on naval artillery to suppress the defensive fire of the Germans, allowing the Allied soldiers to cross the beaches.
The plan actually worked at Gold, Juno, Sword, and (to a lesser extent Utah) beaches, but at Omaha, the presence of a fresh German division that had been moved in without Allied intelligence discovering it made that beach a death run.
I think they were made from short lengths of railway track welded together and embedded in the beach. There were similar defences laid out on the beaches of southern Britain for the very same purpose.
Juno wasn’t exactly a cake-walk either 