LCT 7074

Discussion in 'Weapons, Technology & Equipment' started by Spitfires of the Sea, Jun 18, 2019.

  1. DannyM

    DannyM Member

    Hi,
    Below is some information on some of the markings used in Operation Neptune.

    Bridge Band Colours
    Force "S" - Green
    Force "J" - Red
    Force "G" - Blue
    Force "L" - Yellow

    LTIN
    White on a black background.

    From the naval orders issued for Operation Neptune.

    "Allocation of numbers to landing ships and landing craft

    3. To reduce the numbers to be remembered by the troops embarking in landing ships and landing craft, it has also been decided that one code number only will be used for each landing ship and craft, which will cover both ship and craft number and Landing Table Index Number. This system will apply only in the assault and not in the build-up.

    4. Blocks of numbers are allocated as follows:

    Force "S" - 100 - 999
    Force "J" - 1000 - 1999
    Force "G" - 2000 - 2999
    Force "L" - 3000 - 3999

    5. These numbers will be the Landing Table Index Numbers allocated to individual ships and craft as the result of detailed planning. For embarking purposes, these will be the only numbers with which the Army will be concerned. Each ship and craft taking part in the initial loading will be required to provide a suitable board showing its number, to be displayed on or near the bridge."



    If you want to delve into what Force individual landing craft were in there is a copy of the Green List dated the 5th June 1944 online.

    http://www.convoycu49-1944.com/file...orrected_to_5th_June_1944_-_MASTER_BINDER.pdf

    Force “S” starts Page 21
    Force “J” starts Page 27
    Force “G” starts Page 38
    Force “L” starts Page 43A

    Index to Landing Craft starts at page 94.

    Regards

    Danny
     
    EKB likes this.
  2. FrancisMcN

    FrancisMcN Member

    Many thanks Danny - that makes much more sense now - most threads here on landing craft only mention the colour coding wrt the beach rather than the participating force.

    Francis
     
  3. This stems from the generalised but improper use of the term "Beach" instead of the correct "Area" (or "Assault Area"). There was no such thing as "Sword Beach" or "Juno Beach": each Assault Area (GOLD, JUNO, SWORD etc.) was allocated the corresponding (Assault) Force "G", "J", "S" etc., while Follow-up Force "L" was for all three Areas.
     
    Last edited: Aug 12, 2021
  4. Spitfires of the Sea

    Spitfires of the Sea Stephen Fisher

    Yellow was the colour used by Force L, the Commonwealth follow up force that 7074 was a part of.

    Edit: I don't know why my browser only showed me Francis's post initially, and not Danny and Michel's replies, which them displayed immediately after I posted this reply!
     
  5. von Poop

    von Poop Adaministrator Admin

    Finally had a look this week.

    It's daft, as you know it was for shifting a couple of troops of tanks about, and the rest, but the mind somehow doesn't translate 'Landing Craft' to that scale.
    Must have handled like a bastard in open water (though I must confess I wasn't really listening to the old man explaining where it deviates from the norms of naval architecture).

    Anyway, some phone/potato quality pics, identical to all the other pics everyone grabs.
    Will try and have a proper look in summer with a decent camera.

    IMG_20211228_124656636_HDR~2.jpg IMG_20211228_122317389_HDR~2.jpg IMG_20211228_122114404_HDR~2.jpg

    I may even get over the fact they took 'our' public Grizzly & Crocodile away to fill it... eventually.
    May... I loved those machines' accessibility.
     
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  6. Listy

    Listy Well-Known Member

    Above the 4, there's a square mast like thing.

    That's a Mk.V FAM, I could do with lots of good quality pictures of it, if possible?
    Thanks.
     
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  7. Spitfires of the Sea

    Spitfires of the Sea Stephen Fisher

    I wouldn't put too much faith in it Listy. We assembled the design from various images we could find, but we didn't have access to any proper drawings of them. They look good, but I wouldn't use them as a reference.
     
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  8. Listy

    Listy Well-Known Member

    Oh. Thanks for the warning. But at current I have bugger all reference for it, so 'any' is better than 'none'.

    Ok, new question for you. I read that there's 4x naval type PAC's fitted (so even letters)... are those done from any reference, or do you happen to have any doc's you can share with me for either the FAM's or the PAC's? Or even, dare I say it their use?

    I'm currently working on British rockets of the second world war, and just grabbing everything I can find. However, I don't have much in the way of supporting docs for FAM's or PAC's. Just some development bits and pieces. There's a bit more on Land based systems, but the Navy is currently a mystery.
     
  9. von Poop

    von Poop Adaministrator Admin

    Hello!
    FAM?
    PAC?
     
  10. Listy

    Listy Well-Known Member

    Rockets...

    FAM = Fast Aerial Mine
    PAC = Parachute and Cable

    Both work in a similar fashion. PAC is cheap black powder type rocket, and can only get up to about 600ft. FAM is cordite powered and gets up above 1,000ft.
    Generally every merchant ship seems to have carried a couple of PAC's, with one on each side of the bridge. When aircraft did a low level attack, the PAC on the correct side was fired. The Germans then have a choice of carrying on their attack and getting shot down, or veering off and aborting the attack run. It seems in almost every case the Germans aborted. This has led to no this or kills for the system and everyone to declare it a bit shit as it never shot anything down (save two kills for the land system). But it ignores the fact that it likely caused a lot of German attacks to be aborted, and was ridiculously cheap and easy to install and operate. It needed just a few inches of deck space to be bolted down, and the instruction of 'When the German plane is about 10 seconds away, press the button!'.

    The Germans were later to copy the idea exactly. So they must have felt it had some effect. Trouble is, I've only found two records relating to German use. In one of them (a photo) it spoils the attack run of a Beaufighter, in the other the Allies were cheating and using radar bombing to stay above the cloud base.

    It's all heading into my next book on British WWII rocketry.
     
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  11. Listy and von Poop like this.
  12. Listy

    Listy Well-Known Member

  13. A few more views of the inFAMous FAM:

    FAM - A26266.jpg
    FAM - A26271 - 2.jpg
    FAM - A26271.jpg
    FAM - H35176.jpg
    FAM - 80-G-253026.jpg
    FAM - 670 LCT(4).jpg
    FAM - 167 - 07.41.10.jpg
    FAM - 167 - 07.49.04.jpg
    FAM - H35473.jpg

    Michel
     
    von Poop likes this.
  14. Links to Photo%&*!£Bucket won't work any more, so here are the original or equivalent pix:
    FAM - A26268 port.jpg FAM - A26268 stbd.jpg
    LCT532Walcheren26268detail5.jpg

    and of the PAC:
    ParachuteAssistedCablePACa.jpg
    PAC - A26270.jpg

    Michel
     
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  15. Listy

    Listy Well-Known Member

    Oh that one's a nice one.
    Might I ask the source?

    It's occurred to me that the shell like bit is the explosive charge not the rocket.
     
  16. Source is in the file name : H35473 (IWM photo).

    Yes, on the FAM the propelling 2" rocket is on the ramp, with two of its four fins guided inside the ramp:
    FAM - A26271 - Rocket.jpg

    The two outer fins are quite clear here:
    FAM - H35473 - Rocket.jpg

    The PAC and FAM are mentioned in a few books:
    "fast aerial mine" - Recherche Google

    It appears that the handbook for the FAM (Admiralty Reference Book B.R.843 formerly Confidential Book C.B.3065 'Handbook for the 2-in. Rocket, Mark V, F.A.M. Mounting/1941') still exists somewhere at NARA:
    Naval Anti-Aircraft Guns and Gunnery

    Michel
     
    Last edited: Jan 8, 2022
  17. From A History of RAE Aberporth:

    "Some early wartime ideas were remarkable for their ingenuity, if not their success, and included the FAN [sic] (Fast Aerial Mine) which consisted of a 2 in rocket carrying a canister filled with wire coiled around the inner section of the canister, with a small parachute attached to one end and a bomb to the other. The wire unwound from the canister during the flight of the rocket, to eventually be left hanging in space from its parachute, dangling the bomb like some nightmarish fishing line awaiting a bite — the intended quarry being any enemy aircraft which might snag the wire and cause the bomb to swing up and explode on contact with the airframe. An early victim of these trials was a local electricity supply line and much of the district lost all power supplies for a while."​
     
  18. DannyM

    DannyM Member

    Hi,
    A few cutaway drawings of the PAC etc.

    Regards

    Danny
    1 r.jpg 2 r.jpg 3 r.jpg
     
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  19. twinotterpilot

    twinotterpilot Active Member

    Happened to be reviewing some old threads on the Mulock ramp extensions, and came across the following for those interested. Thought it might add a bit more clarity.
    upload_2022-2-4_17-32-0.png
    upload_2022-2-4_17-32-49.png
    upload_2022-2-4_17-33-30.png
     
  20. FrancisMcN

    FrancisMcN Member

    Contributors to this thread may be interested in having a look at a new resource that the D-Day Story Museum at Portsmouth has recently started. This is a blog of D-Day related items and there are already 2 that are very relevant to landing craft, starting with one on the Instow collection of documents and photos from the Combined Operations Experimental Establishment (COXE) where trials of all aspects of amphibious operations were tested and developed. This includes almost 1200 plans and photos of a very wide range of landing craft that I don't believe have been publicly available before.. Another blog entry is to delve into the history of LCT 7073 (built at Hawthorn Leslie like LCT 7074) with a Lot of shots of the ships log.

    The blog is available at Blog

    Happy hunting!
     
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