Hovercraft available for Overlord

In his book 'The Foresight War' Tony Williams has the Allies surprising the Germans by using hovercraft to bypass strong points with each hovercraft able to carry the equivalent of a Churchill.

What changes to the OTL Overlord would you expect had hovercraft been available to the Allies - the Germans may or may not have found out about them but I suspect they would have.
 
As I recall Overlord was able to go in via different spots on the French coast considered too marshy for landings OTL. The hovercraft just zoomed right over them giving the Germans some unexpected tactical problems in places they weren't expecting.
 
I've never thought of that, were these hovercraft powered by radial aero engines like some OTL versions?

Hoevercraft can land their troops/armour well inland by using marshes, rivers, tidal flats and the like which would be handy. I doubt they could be used against the Atlantic wall outside of a major combined assault though.
 
I've never thought of that, were these hovercraft powered by radial aero engines like some OTL versions?

Hoevercraft can land their troops/armour well inland by using marshes, rivers, tidal flats and the like which would be handy. I doubt they could be used against the Atlantic wall outside of a major combined assault though.

Dont think it said in the book

However, found this on Wiki.... I know, I know, not excatly a reliable source but it is interesting...

The first fully functional, rigid-walled hovercraft was designed by Austrian Dagobert Müller von Thomamühl[1] and built by the Imperial Austro-Hungarian Navy (Kaiserliche und Königliche Kriegsmarine) "Seearsenal" (Naval base) at Pola. The 'Versuchsgleitboot - System Thomamühl' was launched on 2 September 1915[2] and was 13 metres (43 ft) long, 4 metres (13 ft) wide, displaced about 6.5 tonnes (6.4 LT/7.2 ST), had a crew of five men, and had a top speed of over 32 knots (59 km/h/37 mph). By 1916 it was undergoing testing as a fast-torpedo boat and was equipped with two torpedoes, one Schwarzlose machine gun and several 6-kilogram (13 lb) "water-bombs", intended for anti-submarine use. It had two propellers, each of which was driven by two 6-cylinder 120-horsepower (89 kW) airplane engines, a fifth 4-cylinder 65-horsepower (48 kW) engine was used to blow warm air under the hull, creating the "air-cushion or hover" effect. After wide ranging full scale sea trials, the vessel was eventually scrapped in 1917 and the engines returned to the naval air-arm (Luftfahrttruppe); no further testing or research into hovercrafts was undertaken by the Imperial Austro-Hungarian navy during the period up to its eventual capitulation.


Finnish engineer Toivo J. Kaario, head inspector of Valtion Lentokonetehdas (VL) airplane engine workshop, began to design an air cushion craft in 1931. He constructed and tested his craft, dubbed pintaliitäjä (Surface Glider), and received its Finnish patents 18630 and 26122.[citation needed] Kaario is considered to have designed and built the first functional ground effect vehicle, but his invention did not receive sufficient funds for further development.


The first to give scientific descriptionBANKHEAD of the ground effect and to provide theoretical methods of calculation of air cushion vehicles was Konstantin Tsiolkovsky in his 1927 paper "Air Resistance and the Express Train".[3][4] Since then Soviet engineer Vladimir Levkov began to develop air cushion vehicles. In the mid 1930s, Levkov assembled about 20 experimental air-cushion boats (fast attack craft and high-speed torpedo boats). The first prototype, designated L-1, had a very simple design which consisted of two small wooden catamarans that were powered by three engines. Two M-11 radial aero-engines were installed horizontally in the funnel-shaped wells on the platform which connected the catamaran hulls together. The third engine, also an air-cooled M-11, was placed in the aft part of the craft on a removable four-strut pylon. An air cushion was produced by the horizontally-placed engines. During successful tests, one of Levkov's air-cushion craft, called fast attack L-5 boat, achieved a speed of 70 knots (130 km/h/81 mph).


The first technically and commercially viable hovercraft was invented and patented by the English inventor Christopher Cockerell in 1955.[citation needed]


However, there had been numerous previous experimental attempts to design vehicles using the ground-effect principle, including prototypes built by Russian and German naval designers in World War I. In the US during World War II, Charles J. Fletcher designed his "Glidemobile" while he was a United States Navy Reservist. The design worked on the principle of trapping a constant airflow against a uniform surface (either the ground or water), providing anywhere from ten inches (254 mm) to two feet (250–600 mm) of lift to free it from the surface, and control of the craft would be achieved by the measured release of air. Shortly after being tested on Beezer's Pond in Fletcher's home town of Sparta Township, New Jersey, the design was immediately appropriated by the United States Department of War and classified, denying Fletcher the opportunity to patent his creation. As such Fletcher's work was largely unknown until a case was brought (British Hovercraft Ltd v. The United States of America) in which the British corporation maintained that its rights, coming from to Sir Christopher Cockerell's patent, had been infringed. British Hovercraft's claim, seeking US$104,000,000 in damages, was unsuccessful. In a case brought in 1985, Patent agents BTG successfully sued the US Department of Defence, being awarded $6 million in damages in 1990. [1]
 
I remembere reading a book years ago about hovercraft, and the Chinese ones of the 60s/70s used radial engines satisfactorily enough. Sounds to me like a job the the Briston Centaurus, which would allow quite big h/c given it's power and compact size etc.
 
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