Just saw a really interesting documentary on the Sherman Tanks that were made into amphibious boat like vehicles for the D-Day invasion.

The documentary has interviews with Germans and Americans, explains how they came up with the idea for modifying the tanks, real movies showing the tanks and dramatizations of what happened to the failed mission during D-Day and the eventual shooting gallery that resulted from this.

If you get the Discovery Channel I am sure they will show it again - check their website. Some interesting ideas for a D-Day diorama focused on these tanks.

GR8Voyager

This was a good show. I saw it a while ago and I couldn't believe what these guys went through. Can you imagine drowning inside a tank? Ouch

When I saw this I was amazed (appalled) at the total lack of knowledge the brass showed in this ill-conceived project. Only in ideal or near ideal conditions could the DD Tanks be launched with any degree of confidence they could actually make it to the beach. The number of DD's found off Omaha Beach shows just how poor they performed in the rough water. Sad, IF they had made it on Omaha, they might have save some lives.

Yeah I saw this program sometime last year. Quite interesting, made me want to build one of these things. Unfortunately I couldn't find a conversion kit, and wasn't up to the scratch building.

On another note, those DD Shermans were swamped because of "Operator Error" they tried so hard to come ashore and a predetermined point rather than keeping their nose going with the waves. Not to mention the fact that the order not to launch so far out from shore never reached that batch of tanks.

Really interesting program tho.