I’m working on the Armageddon LCT-6 in 1/72 scale. It is a limited run plastic kit and expensive (north of $130), but it is the only kit of this workhorse that is in decent scale. My dad crewed LCT-544 at Omaha Beach, so I’m going to do his craft.
The kit decals are for LCT-538, so my first question is, Can anyone point me to a set of hull number decals that can replace these?
Second question, does anyone do 1/72 Oerlikon guns and pedestals? The kit guns are broken and one of the pedestals is missing. I’d like to use something that looks good.
Third question, my dad’s LCT carried a bulldozer, a sled with pierced planking, and a couple of jeeps with a Ranger recon team. I can buy jeeps, build the sled, but does anyone know of a 1/72 US Army bulldozer anywhere that I can buy?
Last comments: The kit quality is poor with misaligned castings (every part has a prominent ridge), no numbering or link to the instructions, fragile and missing parts and really scant instructions. I’ve had to use the Internet and a set of Floating Drydock blueprints to make sense of the directions. I’ve also had to do as much engineering as I’d do on a large resin kit. When I began this kit, I thought it would give me a break from resin madness! But nooo…
White Ensign makes 20mm guns in 1:72 scale. I don’t know right this minute if they are pedestal or tripod, but you could mail John @ WEM and check. If they are tripods – a pedestal could be spun from a piece of Evergreen. I’ve spun similar shapes using a drill.
As far as a 72 scale bulldozer - can’t help you there. I’d like one too – as the USS Oberon loaded & landed them in LCMs.
Armageddon has a poor reputation for their kits. Their LCVP was abysmal and the LCA wasn’t much better. I had toyed with getting the LCT - thanks for warning me off.
Joe Balkoski, in his book “Omaha Beach”, cites records of the 37th Engineer Combat Battalion, including that the reconnaissance section of Co A, commanded by CAPT Drnovich landed at 0700. The main body of the company was landed via a LCT at 0930 and it was comprised of two jeeps, a D-8 bulldozer, and a T-18 tractor (i.e. a bulldozer without a blade). The landing was made about 2 hours after the scheduled time. No LCT hull number is provided for cross reference.
The landing was made in the Colleville sur Mer area and they attempted to clear beach exit E-3 at Colleville. They were met by heavy mortar and artillery fire. The exit was not opened until after 0100 on D+1
You can google D-8 caterpillar or bulldozer and get some images as to what one looks like (in civilian service). I didn’t find too much info on the T-18
–EDIT –
Photo of resin bits to WEM’s 20mm Oerlikon. I have a couple of the 1:144 versions and if the PE is as nice, these will make excellent replacement guns for the kit.
My Dad said that the recon team was from the 5th Rangers, but he may not remember exactly. The bulldozer was pulling a sled with matting to give support to wheeled vehicles exiting the beach. The dozer was intended to penetrate the six foot high wall of shale pebbles that lined the beach in that area.
His LCT-544 was in the fourth wave, and came in about 40 minutes after the show began. They were supposed to land at Fox Green, but when they approached the beach, they were driven off by heavy fire. This area was supposed to have a couple of companies of infantry, as well as a number of DD tanks already landed, but only a single LCT (my Dad thinks it was LCT-25) was there unloading tanks directly on the beach. All of them were knocked out as they landed, and the LCT was destroyed.
His skipper motored down to Easy Red and found a place to land in the area of St. Laurent, to the west of the Colleville draw. At that point, no-one had moved beyond the shale wall. The dozer was wired to the jeeps. The driver raised his plow balde as they dropped the LCT’s ramp, and drove off under HMG fire. The LCT had beached on a runnel, as the dozer drove off, it went underwater and pulled the sled and the jeeps through to the beach on the other side.
My Dad never found out if any of the men survived.
My dad took some pictures of the action that you can see on Nav Source under LCT-544, and he made the big time in Ambrose’s D-Day book, look under William O’Neill in the index.
Small world, my grandfather was on LCT-613 at omaha beach in the third wave. He once spoke about his experience saying “And as we came up tword the beach, there were little splashes in the water all around us, and a couple guys put thier hands out, expecting rain. After that we realizsed that it wasn’s raining, they were shootin at us.”
Yeah, my Dad tells a funny story. When they approached Fox Green, their planned landing place, they saw an LCT-5 unloading tanks that were destroyed as they came ashore. Then the LCT was shot up and sunk. A sailor was signalling in semaphore from the beach, which the skipper asked my dad to read. He got up on top of the pilothouse and signalled to the guy on the beach to send the message. The message was: “Be careful, its dangerous in here”, which my Dad did not appreciate from his perch on the pilothouse. At that point his skipper pulled back and motored down to the Easy Red area, where they landed.
