Strange Experiment

[Guest catweazle (Banned Member)]

WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT THIS.

Edited June 5, 2008 by catweazle (Banned Member)

[woa2]

It's a CDL tank or Canal Defence Light tank. It was a very secret developement during WW2 and was a system to blind or disorintate enemy gunners so they couldn't shoot back by using flickering light. I beleive the only one known to exist is in the Tank museum. The system was so secret that no-one knew about it and therefore the tanks were never used in combat. The only known use was in the Rhine crossing when they provided illumination which became known as 'Monty's Moonlight'. There was an article in Wheels and Tracks about it once.

[Richard Farrant]

WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT THIS.

 

 

 

CDL...............do you want to know more ? :-D

 

Edit........Robert pipped me to the post

[chambers101]

Yea thats that cnal defence light thing. Apparently it was a big flop.

[ArtistsRifles]

Wasn't the flickering light thing the concept came up with by Jasper Maskeyn and his "magic gang"?? If so - I thought it was supposed to have been a success???

[Snapper]

I don't think it was so much a flop as something that got so bound up in secrecy it became too sensitive to use. An idea travelling too far up it's conceptiual bottom for it's own good.

 

MB

[AlienFTM]

The term Canal Defence Light was a cover (like the name tank) so as not to give any clues as to purpose to a spy.

 

What intrigues me is that it is on an M3 Medium Chassis. I am struggling here, but my memory is screaming CHURCHILL and a little voice is also whispering "Matilda ... Valentine ...". M3 was not my first guess.

 

I read somewhere not so long ago (cannot remember where - sorry) about the practical application of a troop of CDLs whereby they could be spread apart at certain distances behind the sabre troops and (maybe by flashing the CDLs in phase) they could make the sabre troops disappear even though the CDLs would expect to be giving the enemy their silhouettes on a plate.

 

I could of course be completely wrong.

[Adrian Barrell]

They were trialled on a variety of chassis. The top image is an Grant and the lower is the Tank Museums Matilda.

[andreadavide]

The system was so secret that no-one knew about it and therefore the tanks were never used in combat.

 

It's one of the worse features of military technology. Sometimes new developments are kept secret rrom those who could benefit from them, or in the fear of putting the cards on the deck too early.

Thus, the Italian Navy had radar technology available since the beginning of the war, but it was so secret it was never adopted and our ships went blindly toward destruction in the battle of Cape Matapan...

 

Andrea

[Tony B]

It wasn't a flop, as said they were super top secret, so no one would make a decision to use them. Originally they were intended to be used on D-Day. The idea that Maskalyne had to hide the Suez canal was to mount a spinning ring on a standard searchlight. The triangular shapes attached to the rim caused the beam to flicker on a precise frequency, the result was a strobe effect that disorentated any pilot flyijng into it. I belive CDL used the same principle but had an osscilating shutter.

[Guest catweazle (Banned Member)]

13 million candle power search light with a shutter flicker of 6 times a second.The beam angle 19 degrees,The tanks placed 30yds apart in line ,the light fell 90yds ahead,at 1000 yds the beam was 300 yds wide by 35 ft high.This formed triangles of darkness between and in front of cdls into which normal tanks could be introduced.Under test it was found inposible to locate the vehicle accuratly.The tank was driven towards a 25 pownder and from 2000yds to 500yds the gunners were unable to hit it.Observers were asked what path the tank had taken,all agreed a straight line,it had in fact crossed the range side to side.The affect similer to a modern strobe.The armoured reflector also proved to carry on functioning even after repeated hits from machine gun fire.This did not come from Pat Wares book:pfrt:

[Adam Elsdon]

WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT THIS.

 

 

Looks like a tank masked up for a bank job!

[RattlesnakeBob]

def agree.....it wasn't a flop...just never properly deployed..

I think the only time it was actually used (from memory of the Wheels and Tracks Mag article many years ago) was as an actual floodlight (possibly on the Rhine crossing operation ?) ...nothing like the job it was capable of doing nor anywhere near what it was designed to do at all.......

....it'd been tested quite thoroughly on a range in Yorkshire as I recall and it proved incredibly effective at hiding troops and armour moving on a field...

.......yet another great opportunity lost ! tsk!

[ruxy]

http://www.whitehavennews.co.uk/1.231122

[AlienFTM]

I read somewhere not so long ago (cannot remember where - sorry)

 

I've since realised that this information is available at the Tank Museum in a display next to the exhibit, which is almost certainly where ...