Talk:Landing Vehicle Tracked

Comments

Just came across: The second vehicle was the Buffalo, again with a body like a tank, but it did have tracks on it with very deep cleats. It had a powerful seven-cylinder Wasp Radial engine. Because of the deep cleats on the tracks it did a lot of damage when driven on the roadway, on rough ground it was brilliant and it could climb very, very steep inclines. In the water, however, it was dreadful - it was very slow, it didn’t ride the waves but just drove through them, and if the sea was even just a bit rough it took on a lot of water. You could not see where you were going most of the time - you just had to rely on your co-driver. When driving off a landing craft the Buffalo was known to dive straight down in the water. More than one soldier lost his life training on this vehicle in just that way. They were, to say the very least, dangerous in the water. http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/ww2/A2082232 Bukvoed 17:33, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

LVT-4 Alligator came in 9th place in "Top Ten Infantry Fighting Vehicles" program on the cable/dish program Military Channel, aired 9 Dec 07, 10:00AM MST. Program noted that the Mk 4 also could carry a 75mm Howitzer cannon.LanceBarber (talk) 17:18, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Civilian Use

The city of Buffalo NY has used modified LVTs for many years to do ice breaking in the shallow creeks surrounding the city. A mentions can be found below. The LVTs were modified with additional plate to protect from the ice as well as new drivetrain components to allow equal forward and reverse speeds.

http://www.ci.buffalo.ny.us/Home/Leadership/City_Departments/Public_Works/Bridges http://www.projectimpact.ci.buffalo.ny.us/mainInitiatives/iceBreakers/default.asp —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.249.159.254 (talk) 16:00, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

The December 1980 issue of Water Operation And Maintenance Bulletin (#114) has a article describing the use of these LVTs and some photos. See http://www.usbr.gov/pps/WaterOandMBulletins/eng1980.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.249.159.254 (talk) 20:17, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Anphibious

Landing Ship, Tanks or LST were used to anphibious landing, with large tanks(and non anphibious) such as the Sherman tank, during World War II.Wikipedia on site http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landing_Ship%2C_Tank talks about the LST.Agre22 (talk) 03:28, 8 August 2008 (UTC)agre22

tactics shown in the Pacific miniseries

In the fifth hour of The Pacific (miniseries), rather than crossing the beach, amphtracks are shown unloading Marines at the edge of the surf where the troops commence crossing a beach raked by gunfire. Yes, I understand it's just a dramatization, I'm just asking, was it accurate? Wouldn't the point of a tracked armored vehicle be to drive it up across the beach and unload at the treeline where there is some cover? 71.190.72.157 (talk) 15:23, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

D-Day Absence

Can anybody right something about the reason why LVTs were not used during D-Day? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tavernsenses (talk • contribs) 20:10, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Looking at [1], it looks like they were primarily a USMC Pacific Theater asset. But amtrac.org is more of a "fan site" and not WP:RS for this info. – S. Rich (talk) 20:19, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Probably for the following reasons - but just guesses.

• too slow in the water - DD tanks were slow too, but only had to make one-way trips.

• un-armoured so of little use once ashore if kept ashore, no better than a lorry or truck and much slower. Generally there were paved roads within a few hundred yards of the beaches, so the off-road performance of the LVT wasn't any advantage, whereas it was very useful in the Pacific.

• water conditions in the English Channel being different from those in the Pacific (and from the Mediterranean for that matter) and unpredictable - seas might be too rough on the day, even in summer.

• less useful than a DUKW which could handle moderate seas much better and was faster both at sea and on the road.

In general the beach landing conditions in Europe were greatly different from those in the Pacific, as the areas were much more densely populated with better road and rail communications - which is the reason for the Transportation Plan - so the defences were likely to be more concentrated and were liable to be reinforced much more quickly. So speed was essential to the success of the invasion to a greater extent than in the Pacific - the Normandy defenders had several panzer divisions available to them which weren't available to the Japanese, for example. For D-day the Allied planners also knew that there would only be one chance to get it right - there would be no second attempt if Overlord failed.

I suspect that the possibility of the seas being too rough on the day for the LVT was probably the deciding factor. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.24.208.91 (talk) 11:32, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

werent they fairly new at the time? Realfakebezalbob (talk) 20:23, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

inclusion is statistics box

Hi, Could someone find out (I have looked and can't find it) and include in the statistics box the weight that the LVT can carry as I think this is the primary purpose of the LVT. ta, User: johnscotaus — Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.69.24.118 (talk) 10:24, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Done. Will find a reference later. Cheers, DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 19:55, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

And done. Better late than never. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 03:25, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

Adding unsourced information without a reference is the incorrect procedure for Wikipedia. Information must be verifiable through reference. The information posted has been in place for four years with no reference ever being cited. Unverifiable information should be removed per Wikipedia rules. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.142.225.186 (talk) 02:15, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

A few questions.

First, what about minor details, such as how the thing actually worked? Obviously, it's a floating, tracked vehicle, but how does it move through the water? Did they give it a "Duplex Drive"-type propeller on the rear? Did the tracks provide forward thrust in the water? Did the crew set up a small mast with a sail on it? I see no clue about this in the article. How about the crew...it says "2-7". What is there for 7 men to do? It's a transport; it can carry many more men than that. I assume that 2 of them drive/sail it, 4 operate the guns, and the other guy fetches ammo? Or does "7" refer to the turreted types? As for passengers, it gives several different numbers, between 16 and 34. I'm curious as to how they managed to almost double the passenger capacity like that. Was it a space constraint thing, or was there just not enough buoyancy? Speaking of which, what sort of effect did hanging 13mm of steel plate on the front have on the total capacity? You'd think that adding 2,000lbs of armor would have decreased the carrying capacity by an equivalent amount as well.

Next, it says that the British versions were armed with ".30cal Browning machine guns". I am dubious. First of all, the British used .303cal as a standard round. Second, the only Brownings that I know of them using were the open-bolt-converted fixed-mount or turret-mount aircraft guns, such as were used on the Hawker Hurricane and Supermarine Spitfire or Avro Lancaster or Halifax. The British already possessed many perfectly good Vickers guns, Vickers VGO's, Lewis's and Bren guns, all in .303. If for some reason they adopted American guns firing American bullets for one type of vehicle only, I'd be very curious to hear about it (after all, they did adopt a Czechoslovakian MG (the Besa machine gun) firing German-standard 7.92mm ammunition as their standard tank MG, so it's not impossible).

Last, it mentions one of the later variants "moved the engines to the sponsons". AS far as I know, LTV's were equipped with one engine each, a big old air-cooled radial aircraft engine. So I don't know what's with this plural business. It would be difficult to split a radial engine in half, and generally you're better off with one big engine than with two smaller ones. Certainly it's possible to drive each track off of a different engine; it's been done before. But if that was the case, it'd be nice if it mentioned something about it in the article, instead of just making mysterious hints. Or perhaps they actually meant to say "they moved the engine into one of the sponsons"? Which seems more likely to me. .45Colt 20:47, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

IIRC, the British versions usually had a 20mm Polsten cannon at the front and two .30 Brownings, one on each side. IIARC, the official British name for the vehicle was "Water Buffalo" but this was shortened to just "Buffalo".

On the .30 Cal issue, Brownings in .303 were only used by the RAF. The British Army, when using Lend-Lease vehicles like the Grant, Sherman, Stuart etc, simply used .30 Calibre Brownings as-is, as the Armoured Corps had a separate supply chain to the Infantry anyway (this is how and why the 7.92mm BESA was employed on British-built Tanks). Therefore it's reasonable to assume the Water Buffalo used these unmodified M1919s (likely A4s) in .30-06 Calibre as well. SquireJames (talk) 00:37, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

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Error in South East Asia Heading Sub-Group

"...In 1945 Royal Marines Amphibious support unit was created. Its LVT-4 and LVT(A)-4 supported Royal Marines landings in Burma and Malaya...."

This unit never saw action of any kind, it could not have supported any landings of any type in Burma and Malaya. (Croizat, Victor J. Across the Reef: The Amphibious Tracked Vehicle At War. DIANE Publishing 2001. https://books.google.com/books?id=2vRYgvIjZ7cC&pg=PA197&lpg=PA197&dq=1945+Royal+Marines+Amphibious+support+unit&source=bl&ots=MlRfv30wZK&sig=aj-Oas8M-KCplU2cjhZZjZqnojs&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwin2dSU0cHWAhUIj1QKHbhXCsMQ6AEITDAJ#v=onepage&q=1945%20Royal%20Marines%20Amphibious%20support%20unit&f=false. ; Kirby, MGen Woodburn S. War Against Japan, Volume IV: The REconquest of Burma. The Official History of UK Armed Forces in World War Two. . Naval and Military Press. 2004 edition. ISBN-10: 1845740637.

This unsourced comment in the sub-group as identified that is incorrect should be removed, per the verifiable and multiple-sourced correct information that the unit never saw action of any kind in World War Two, per Wikipedia rules. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.142.225.186 (talk) 01:09, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

Buffalo uncovered in UK after loss in 1947 floods

https://www.spaldingtoday.co.uk/news/museum-planned-to-display-unearthed-buffalo-9198210/?fbclid=IwAR2thPjBsyPHU1P_UPYfiUoy5SKl_qEpw0-cfolkCwc3MGLOgTKytzr_1LY Published: 17:02, 06 May 2021 | Updated: 17:11, 06 May 2021

"An amphibious vehicle that was sensationally unearthed last week after being buried for more than 70 years could go on display in Crowland to help commemorate floods that devastated the town.

An ambitious project managed to successfully uncover a Buffalo personnel carrier that had been buried 28-feet below the surface - sparking huge interest among residents as well as national and international media attention.

The Buffalo had been dispatched to the town to help tackle the serious floods of 1947 - but was swept away by waters and sunk into the ground, where it had been ever since."

More in article

"The vehicles - which were personnel carriers and not tanks - were thought to have been involved in operations to cross the Rhine in the Second World War before finding a new mission after the conflict.

In total, 30 such vehicles were sent to Crowland - and several are still buried and form part of the flood defences." 203.111.4.40 (talk) 12:07, 9 May 2021 (UTC)