Kriegskrokodil

[Tom Houlihan]

Okay, I've looked, but I can't find anything.

Does anyone know what this thing looked like? Obviously, it was a monster.

Made of reinforced concrete, it was 27 meters long, 6 meters wide, and 3.5 meters high. It was planned to carry 200 soldiers. In water, it would be propeller driven, and by 4 pair of caterpillar tracks on land.

I'd love to see an image of this thing, even a basic line drawing.

[phylo_roadking]

Tom, try researching under "Gottfried Feder" the Nazi economist! He seems to have also been the man who designed it, being a concrete-head and a half-partner in Ackerman &Co., a successful design/contractor in concrete minicipal buildings during the interwar period.

[darkertomcat]

Here is what I found on one site but no pic however

War crocodile, of Schwimmpz sketched by engineer Gottfried feather/spring. from Eisenbeton, 27 m long, 6 m broad, 3,5 m highly for 200 soldiers. The K. should be propelled by marine propellers under water, be switched during land contact however to 4 pair track chains. By army and naval warfare line endorsed in principle, however the board of admiralty doubt made valid, v.a. the maximum stress of the 100 m ² for large concrete flanks amphib. Pz. in swell concerned. Particularly for the enterprise “Seelöwe” for the invasion of England sketched, disappeared the K. - to project after renouncement of the landing in the drawers.

Here is the site http://www.infobitte.de/free/lex/ww2_Le ... okodil.htm
With translation above:)

Regards,
Mike

[phylo_roadking]

LOL I saw that one too....

Feder = feather/spring ???

[darkertomcat]

LOL I saw that one too....

Feder = feather/spring ???

One would think that a feather would make a rather bad spring for a mobile concrete waterborn/landborn fortress, lol

Regards
Mike

[phylo_roadking]

Tom, I don't think you're going to find much on the Kriegskrokodil without doing the sort of in-depth research that involves old-style trudging around German records After a bit of digging found my old copy of Kieser and he only gives over half a page to a very superficial discussion of the project. But as far as I can see it never got to a prototype stage, and I doubt the blueprint design stage either. Probably only concept drawings and I've never seen any. I think there MAY be some mention of it however in The Halder Diaries, as Halder was apparently a supporter of the idea, but I don't have a copy.

Anyone?

[Tom Houlihan]

I did some digging, but found only variations of the description above. From what I've read, it might not have even gotten to a design drawing stage. From the description, I could do a concept drawing, but I'm just curious as to what the designer might have had in mind.

From the description, it sounds like just the sort of hare-brained scheme Adi would have gone along with!!!

[phylo_roadking]

A suprising number of people seem to have been in favour of the idea, it was Raeder who seems to have squashed discussion of it...tho' he was against the whole idea of Sealion LOL

Most discussions of it seem to be SO vague due to the lack of evidence, that half the reference you find seem to think it was intended to crawl along the sea bed all the way!

Given that it seems to be the KM who raised the question of the seaworthiness of large concrete boxes at sea...I wonder what the reaction in certain quarters was four years later to Mulberry...slight embarassment, I wonder?

[Tom Houlihan]

Given that it seems to be the KM who raised the question of the seaworthiness of large concrete boxes at sea...I wonder what the reaction in certain quarters was four years later to Mulberry...slight embarassment, I wonder?

Probably about the same as those French officers who said you can't launch an armor attack through the Ardennes!

[phylo_roadking]

who said you can't launch an armor attack through the Ardennes!

TWICE!!!

So much for the learning capacity of the staff officer mind

[phylo_roadking]

Walked in to my local secondhand bookshop today and immediately turned up a copy of Fleming!

He mentions ALMOST as little about the kreigskrokodil as Kieser, but does say THIS...

"They (Halder and Schniewind) spoke of the possibility of using railroad ferries to transport tanks, of the utility of smokescreens, and of tests which were being carried out on "Dr Feder-type concrete barges".
These were not in fact barges, but enormous submersible tanks with a minimum length of 90 feet (nearly four times that of a London omnibus); they were built of ferro-concrete and designed to carry no less than 200 men with their arms and equipment..."

He then goes on to come down fairly on the (mistaken) side of the interpretational argument, that they were designed to crawl along the seabed! Instead of being a form of DD- tank" with screws for seaway and tracks for beaching. But what IS interesting is that section I have highlighted...present-tense, "BEING" tested...

He also references Wheatley's official history of Sealion, but I don't have a copy of it, nor Klee's Unternehmen Seelowe. But Halder's diaries might have something more on that July 1st meeting with Schniewind?

[phylo_roadking]

Tom, was searching Google Image on a different tangent...and found THIS from the legendary Canadian artist/illustrator Jack Coggins...



...right in the middle of the illustration is a purpose-built something big enough for "two tanks" and a couple of defensive turrets...

[Richard Hargreaves]

I have extracts of Klee, not the whole book, unfortunately.

However... I do have Ronald Whealey's Operation Sealion. The war crocodile did exist... on paper. As far as I know it was never built nor tested:

From pp.24-25

Two schemes for special invasion craft, which were discussed by Raeder and Hitler on 20 June, and which typify the exaggerated hopes of certain sections of German opinion at this time, were, however, being elaborated. Major-General von Schell, Head of the Mechanized Transport Group in OKH, was planning trials of fast boats (Truppentransporttragflächenschnellboote) which would be able to transport mobile troops with vehicles at a speed of 50 m.p.h. Powered with aircraft engines, these craft were believed to be feasible on the basis of previous research. But the Naval Staff, who on the 20th secured control of all trials of landing-craft, were doubtful about the constructional strength of the vessels, and nothing eventually came of this project.
The scheme put forward by Professor Gottfried Feder, an early member of the Nazi party and now State Secretary in the Reich Ministry of Economics, was a conception verging on the fantastic. By 18 April he had drawn up plans3 for a 'completely new and unknown weapon' to effect a landing in England, which he described as ' the great war aim'. The new weapon was a kind of amphibious ferro-concrete tank which could move through the sea under its own power and crawl clumsily ashore over flat beaches. Its minimum size was to be about 90 ft. long, 20 ft. wide, and 12 ft. high; and it would be able to carry a Company of 200 men with all their equipment or, as the Navy suggested, tanks and artillery. During the initial assault to gain ' some kind of a bridgehead on English soil', these 'war tortoises', or 'war crocodiles', as Feder called them, would provide splendid cover for the first wave of troops. As to their feasibility he argued that their construction would be ' a simple task for the ferro-concrete expert' and floating would be automatic if the space enclosed by the walls were of sufficient size. It was no problem to manufacture them quickly, as 10,000 ferro-concrete blockhouses had been built in a few months for the Siegfried Line project. Feder claimed their ability to crawl ashore as the essence of his invention. 'According to their size the floating vessels or blockhouses are provided on their lower side with two, three, or four pairs of caterpillar tractors which come into Operation when the depth of water decreases sufficiently to allow them to touch the bottom. The blockhouses then slowly rise above the surface of the water and increasingly transfer their weight on to the tank tracks until firm ground is finally reached.'
Feder's plans for the war crocodile were forwarded first to OKH, and then, on 21 May, to the Naval High Command where they were seen by Raeder. During the first half of June correspondence about this curious invention passed between the various naval departments concerned. Opinion was divided. The Merchant Shipping Division stated that it could be of 'the greatest importance', and even Admiral Schniewind, Chief of the Naval Staff, wrote of it in favourable terms. The Naval Ordnance Office, however, had serious doubts about the problems of construction and seaworthiness which it raised. Could the concrete withstand the Vibration which an engine capable of giving it sufficient speed would inevitably set up? Or what would be the longitudinal strength of the slender concrete body? Improvement of this factor again would lead to increased weight, thus adding to the difficulty of traversing the shallow water and the beach. In sum, it was thought in some quarters that the project would be very difficult to carry out and, in any case, could not be accomplished in time for a landing in England. Although Halder was told that the production of sufficient numbers during July was considered possible, this scheme also came to nothing.

[phylo_roadking]

90x20? That's only a length 4.5 times the width. Anyone know the optimum length vs. breadth for barge types? It would have to be flat-bottomed. Surely ballasting would sort the problem to an extent...and you can't get more of a ballast than the engines and those caterpillar tracks and gear under the hull LOL

I would say the Merchant marine experts had more idea of how flat- bottomed vessels worked on water LOL than the naval ordnance office; and with Feder suggesting this scheme as early as the start of April....then it had to be as part of Raeder's independent invasion planning, which was on hands then but not forwarded to Hitler until...5th July IIRC? So if it was SO unrealistic I'd have assumed Raeder would have squashed it long before it was being discussed "and tested" as of the 1st July meeting with Halder. Does no opposition on HIS part through that three-month period equal tacit approval?

[Landserstudent]

What about the concrete barges used for landings at Crete and in NorthAfrica. I have a book (German) on Army Group South showing concrete landing craft, I believe without tracks, being used in the Crimea.