Surrey GHQ Line, March 2012, Part 1 (Pic Heavy)

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WinchItIn

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GHQ Line (Berkshire/Hampshire/Surrey/Kent)

These defences formed part of the GHQ Line (Berkshire/Hampshire/Surrey/Kent) - West - East section of GHQ Line running from Reading through Hampshire and West Surrey to Kent (Leigh) following in part a line south of the North Downs.

Couple of links I found on the net.
http://homepage.virgin.net/martin.farncombe/gardens/gardenhtm/pillboxes.htm
http://www.shepheard.plus.com/sds/

For the last few weeks Ive been working in and around Guildford, So while I was down here I thought I would put my spare time to good use, starting with Elstead, Surrey. West of the A3.
Found some info about Shellproof Gun-houses for Anti-tank and Field Guns - Type 28
Although pillboxes in the group Type 28 follow similar guidelines, each individual pillbox is different. This diversity can be seen by differences in wall thickness, the amount of rifle loops, the materials used for construction, camouflage and other modifications such as shutters and blast walls. The construction of pillboxes required a casing to allow the concrete to be poured and dried in shape, this process is known as shuttering. When built the concrete may be shuttered with wooden boards, corrugated iron sheets or bricks. When shuttered with brick, the shuttering was often left on the outside of the concrete casing, as it would have been inefficient to remove the mould. This added an extra layer to the pillboxes created in this way, often making them appear as made from bricks alone. It was realised that the pillboxes would be required to withstand artillery and dive-bomber attacks and so many pillboxes were made shellproof by increasing the thickness of the walls.

The Type 28 is usually a rectangular shaped shellproof pillbox designed as a gun-house for anti-tank weaponry. The Type 28 usually consisted of a large embrasure to the front for an anti-tank weapon and several smaller loopholes suitable for rifles and light machine guns to the sides and rear of the pillbox. These pillboxes would have been equipped with a single two or six pounder anti-tank gun. Type 28 pillboxes would usually be placed as part of a defensive network to help compensate for the smaller field of fire. The Type 28’s flaw was that there were no forward facing small arms loopholes and a quite restricted field of fire to the sides, leaving the Type 28 vulnerable to enemy infantry attacks. To counter this, modifications were made to the Type 28 design to help produce the Type 28a.

Ive already passed on the corrections on to cptpies which I have used blue pin's to high-light where the pillboxes actually are on the D.O.B. Google earth image.

GEOverlay-Copy.jpg


PILLBOX (TYPE FW3/28): S0002538
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Cracking view.
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Hooks for the camo nets still intact.
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PILLBOX (TYPE FW3/22): S0010195
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PILLBOX (TYPE FW3/22): S0002535
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PILLBOX (TYPE FW3/28): S0011728

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Spotted these on the way back which were a extra bonus.
ANTI TANK BLOCK: S0010121 Location: Nr. Ockford railway bridge, Godalming.
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More pic's can be found here
http://s971.photobucket.com/albums/ae195/WinchItIn/Surrey%20GHQ%20Line%20Part%201%202012/#!cpZZ1QQtppZZ24

Thanks for looking.

Winch​
 
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Hey nice work there, Not been down the neck of the woods though skoyen89 has you need to check out his flickr photo's. Do like the first one and the benchmark you have a photo of (it's not an MOD mark) Great work there.
 
concrete porn this early on a Saturday morning... go on then lol. Cracking stuff as usual mate am loving that first gun emplacement
 
Those type 28s look more like 6pdr emplacements to me. They're not even vaguely built to the FW3/28 design.
 
They’re definitely not 28’s. They’re Gun emplacements for Ordnance QF 2-pounder field guns. They almost certainly would have had at least one secondary open field position. The large entrance is evidence of a wheeled gun.

In the case of the Taunton stopline, we have some well documented original records which reveal much about the infrastructure, tactical thinking and logistics of a Stopline/ATI. The guiding principles of defence were common to all stoplines

The TSL artillery proposals, type and deployment is simplified thus for comparison;

1) Fixed 6 pounders (probably Hotchkiss – there are two that fit, short and long barreled) in shellproof gun emplacements on firmly rooted steel pedestals. Not the most effective anti tank gun but we used what we had. As these were fixed mounting, there was no need for a large entrance. The idea was to bang off as many shells as possible at something like a road block under attack from an invasion force. It was inevitable that its position would soon be spotted and targeted. Wherever there was a 6-pounder emplacement there would also be 2-pounder field guns in support. For the entire TSL, this was two Regiments of 48 2-pounders each.

2) QF 2 pounder field guns in both Type 28 and open field positions. Effective against light to medium armour.

Both weapons could have been employed in these boxes, but from the pics the 2-pounder is more likely. :)
 
Thanks Guy's for your comments.

Munchh thankyou for the info, tbh I thought most type 28's come in pairs, I think cptpies will be updating more on the D.O.B.,
 
Thanks Guy's for your comments.

Munchh thankyou for the info, tbh I thought most type 28's come in pairs, I think cptpies will be updating more on the D.O.B.,

You're welcome Winch. :)

Funnily enough, Skoyen89 queried the similar ones at Elstead on a PSG thread I replied to a while back of which Steve is aware. So he won't be too surprised (pleased, I'd imagine) to find more rogue 28's...............ongoing corrections and all that.

Good work on bringing these further into the light.
 
Yes NC it is. Aldershot Command had some bigger guns available in the summer of 1940 and it may have been that they were designed for them. I too was at Elstead yesterday and found another of this design labelled as a Type 28 but this time with a Type 28 twenty yards away! I thought about walking up to 02538 but decided to leave it for another day!
 
I've always had suspicions about these ones and it's good to see some internals that prove they aren't type 28's. However the embrasure is so large that I'm wondering if they weren't built to take a 25 Pdr? A 2 Pdr would have been lost inside one by the looks of it, and as far as I'm aware the 6 Pdr Hotchkiss would have needed a holdfast that is not in evidence. I think they should be typed as field gun emplacements anyway.
 
I've always had suspicions about these ones and it's good to see some internals that prove they aren't type 28's. However the embrasure is so large that I'm wondering if they weren't built to take a 25 Pdr? A 2 Pdr would have been lost inside one by the looks of it, and as far as I'm aware the 6 Pdr Hotchkiss would have needed a holdfast that is not in evidence. I think they should be typed as field gun emplacements anyway.

Read what I said, it's documented in Ironsides Line they ar Aldershot Comand Fieldgun boxes. Dam impressive is all I can say compaired to the 28's round here.
 
I've always had suspicions about these ones and it's good to see some internals that prove they aren't type 28's. However the embrasure is so large that I'm wondering if they weren't built to take a 25 Pdr? A 2 Pdr would have been lost inside one by the looks of it, and as far as I'm aware the 6 Pdr Hotchkiss would have needed a holdfast that is not in evidence. I think they should be typed as field gun emplacements anyway.

Read what I said, it's documented in Ironsides Line they ar Aldershot Comand Fieldgun boxes. Dam impressive is all I can say compaired to the 28's round here.

The embrasure in the first pic is of a similar size to M AT 601, 6-pounder gun emplacement although the entrance is definitely for a wheeled gun, And, as you say, the Hotchkiss requires a holdfast. Steel pedestal in the case of the TSL for the ones I've seen so far.

Using the tyres for scale, I make it 3'6" (shell proof) wide side walls and 7 foot wide embrasure making the box 14 feet wide on front elevation.

The entrance width could be measured but would need to be 8 feet for a 25-pounder, therefore wider than the embrasure. The gun is also over 15 feet long and requires a 6 man crew plus storage for about 50 rounds.

I happily stand to be corrected but if my scaling is anywhere near right, this particular PB is too small for the 25-pounder. We certainly had them in May 1940 though. The smaller QF 6-pounder wasn't in service until 1942 and the only other available gun was the 2-pounder.

You're gonna have to measure them Winch else we won't get any sleep :lol:

I'm with you on the 'type' logic as regards your DOB overlay Capn. And with respect to NC, Aldershot Command Field gun boxes is probably the regional description for a Field gun emplacement in the same way as drg. no. T.L.55 is the regional description for a TSL 6-pounder gun emplacement.

I do find the way that Regional Commands had their own 'system within a system' very interesting though, particularly as substantial written proof exists for the Taunton line.
 
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I've re-typed these as field gun emplacements in the overlay, maybe next time somebody is at the NA they can dig out what weapons Aldershot Command had that may have fitted these. I don't trust the Google earth measuring tool but it puts the door at 6ft wide.
 

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