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Dozers in british service


johannesB

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Sorry - I don't know where to put this question. It is about american vehicles, but in british service. It is about british verhicle but made by the americans. In both ways - it is tracked!

 

I found these dozers in the landings tables for Sword Beach:

 

Angledozer D14

Angledozer D10

Angledozer HD7

Angledozer HD7 (armored)

Angledozer D7

Angledozer D7 (armored)

 

Although I bought the Tankograd book an the US-dozers, I am still confused about the many different names. I only could identify the D7 and the D7 (armored). Could anybody help me with informations?

 

Thanks

 

Johannes

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Johannes,

 

assuming the designation is the manufacturers then,

 

D7 is Caterpillar D7 which was used as a plain dozer and an armoured one.

 

HD7 is Allis Chalmers though I've never seen one with an armoured cab

 

HD10 is also Allis, as is HD14. They were the three tractors in the AC range with the Detroit 71 series engine. The 7, 10 and 14 used the 3-71, 4-71 and 6-71 respectively.

 

D10 and D14 don't make sense in the context of that time frame so presumably a missing H is the problem!

 

The D7 dozer used LeTourneau cable blades.

The D7 armoured used a narrow hydraulic system with rams inside the track frames to allow fitting inside smaller landing craft.

The AC range used the Baker Trailbuilder system which looks rather odd with vertically mounted rams inside a goalpost frame above the tractor.

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HI

 

The HD7 was made by ALLIS CHALMERS i belive its correct title is tractor crawler diesel 40 to 60 dbhp with artillery towing

attachments winch 1 drum front mounted i will try to find the other bull dozers if you want

 

regards wally

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HI

 

The HD7 was made by ALLIS CHALMERS i belive its correct title is tractor crawler diesel 40 to 60 dbhp with artillery towing

attachments winch 1 drum front mounted i will try to find the other bull dozers if you want

 

regards wally[/quote

 

Allis Chalmers, International and Cletrac made between them a range of 'High Speed Tractors' which were for pulling artillery pieces at high speed over terrain not suitable for trucks. These were specially designed for the task and used relatively few parts from other vehicles. Most of them carried the whole gun crew and load of amunition. They were named High Speed Tractors to distinguish them from the (slow speed) heavily addapted commercial crawler tractors that were used before. Most of the crawler tractor manufacturers supplied machines in various classes, 40 to 60 dbhp being one. These were ordinary crawler tractors with front mounted winches, military towing pintle at the same hight as a truck one, and usually a three or four man seat rather than the civvy one man seat. They also had full military lighting, rifle clips etc. They were used almost exclusively by artillery units for pulling guns. I do not think the British army used them at all.

 

At the same time the engineer units (UK & US) were aquiring virtually standard crawler tractors, with and without blades and rear winches, for ordinary civil engineering duties. The British army was much more into specialised kit than the US and realised that crawler tractors could be usefull during an amphibious landing and developed some quite heavy modifications to Caterpillar products but not to other makes. The mods were done in the UK.

 

These were fully armoured buldozers with, as Adrian said, the blade frame between the tracks to reduce the shipping width. These were on Cat D6 (4R series) and D7 (7M & 1T series). They are almost indistinguishable in photos but helpfully the tractor maker's number is often stenciled on the front in about 2" high white numbers (this is not the military census number). There were also heavily modified D8s (1H or 8R series) with an open top armoured waterproof hull which enabled it to wade out to stuck vehicles and landing craft and recover them (with winch but no blade). The vast majority of these armoured Cats had their armour removed after the war when they were sold into civilian use.

 

David

Edited by David Herbert
correcting wrong info on wadeproofed D8 winch
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Good thread!

 

You can't go wrong with a bit of bulldozer and related item chat.

 

Talking of Allis Chalmers does anyone know anything about Allis Chamers Model M crawlers or dozers in War Ag or military service other that the stuff that Wally has already given me (they were procured in numbers for use in both - although the military ones had blades.

 

I have a pair of Ms, once narrow track and one wider, and the latter has the fittings for the dozer. It is also green under the "normal" civvie Allis orange colour. The narrow is 1941, the wide is 1942.

 

If anyone has info or pics of them in service I would be really interested. I dont expect that mine found their way anywhere other than latrine duties on Salisbury plain but it would be interesting find out

 

There are some pics here:

 

http://s484.photobucket.com/user/RustyTrucks/library/#/user/RustyTrucks/library/Allis%20Chalmers%20Model%20M%20Crawlers?sort=3&page=1&_suid=136895394024606701929699343454

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi guys,

 

thanks so much for your help.

@mcspool - as the thread is named vehicles of the 60s and 70s: do you think that kind of D8 was already in use during the D-Day landings?

 

@paulbrook: the link unfortunately doesn't work :embarrassed:

 

Regards

 

Johannes

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That's a wadeproofed D8. Not a dozer as it has no blade!

 

You are right of course! As you know my command of the English language is limited.... I was careful not to type "bull dozer" as that in my opinion certainly has a dozer blade. This would be classified as a crawler tractor, right?

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You are right of course! As you know my command of the English language is limited.... I was careful not to type "bull dozer" as that in my opinion certainly has a dozer blade. This would be classified as a crawler tractor, right?

 

Hanno, your command of the English language is better by far than the majority of people on here, especially the British! I was being a little pedantic but yes, crawler tractor is correct.

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Hanno,

 

That is a realy nice photo of a wadeproof D8. Unfortunatly it reminds me of something that I did know which is that they were in fact fitted with a winch. I have corrected my previous post where I said that they could only tow things that they were recovering.

 

Many years ago John Marchant had one with its armour still intact and decided to use it to pull down a tree that was in the way. He reversed it to near the tree, climbed up the tree to fasten the cable as high up as possible to get more leverage, and then discovered that he had not properly disengaged the (over centre) master clutch. As the tractor was still in reverse it chugged up to the tree and knocked it over with John still up it. He survived the experience and sold the tractor.

 

Both the wadeproofed D8 and even more so the armoured D6 & D7 bulldozers were quite heavily armoured, in the case of the bulldozers to tank standards, as they were expected to work during an assult, not just be sniper proof. There was no real post war development of these as specialised versions of tanks were developed into these roles instead though the Americans used protected dozers of various kinds in Vietnam and later so they could work in insecure places.

 

David

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Keith,

 

To save Adrian and Hanno saying this, no, your one isn't a dozer either ! It is a Caterpillar D8 (8R series) with a Hyster winch on the back. Used for general towing and pulling jobs. It can not pull a scraper box as that needs a compleatly different winch with two drums.

 

Just to be realy pedantic, dozers come as either Bulldozers (where the blade is fixed at right angles to the tractor) and Angledozers (where the blade can be angled up to about 30 degrees either way so the dirt is gradually shed to one side only). As angledozers have wider blades than bulldozers, so that when angled they still cover the full width of the tractor (12' vs 10' in the case of an International TD18) they are not as good for very heavy work.

 

During WW2 all crawler tractors were built as plain tractors. Some had blades and or winches added (also cranes etc.). So all bulldozers are crawler tractors but only some crawler tractors are bulldozers. OK !

 

 

David

Edited by David Herbert
rubbish spelling
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Hanno,

 

Many years ago John Marchant had one with its armour still intact and decided to use it to pull down a tree that was in the way. He reversed it to near the tree, climbed up the tree to fasten the cable as high up as possible to get more leverage, and then discovered that he had not properly disengaged the (over centre) master clutch. As the tractor was still in reverse it chugged up to the tree and knocked it over with John still up it. He survived the experience and sold the tractor.

 

David

 

As an aside to that.

I was in Canada in 1982 on Ex Waterleap working on a Canadian Army Tank range at Meaford.

We were upgrading a dirt track of about 10 miles in length through a forest so numerous trees had to come out.

I was using A John Deere Dozer dragging out tree trunks and managed to belly the thing.

No problem I thought there are a couple of trees still standing, lash the winch rope round the nearest one and drag myself out.

Pulled the fxxxing tree out.

The other tree was just too far to reach so had to call up the D8.

That got me out and cost me a crate.

The standard rate in our unit if you had to be helped.

 

The other tree stump resisted all attempts to extract it and ended up being blown out with about 25kg of plastic.

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