wondering if time team wanna go deep underwater to find traces of this thing that used to be in the mersey

what are those things?

Temporary battlements off the coast of Wirral in Liverpool bay iirc, during the war.

Think they were pulled down sometime in the 50's cant be sure though...

I red about them a while back.

They're like these:



Which are located in the Thames Estuary.

fook me! they look like something from Dr Who!

interesting

thats great station, didnt know they were there

those forts in the mersey where taken down during the early part of the 50s. you could see the when you stood on the prom by the baths at hoylake

Same as the ones in the English Channel, go past them on the ferries to Europe or can sometimes see them flying low! Same place that "Fort Boyard" was filmed i think, or was that a Napoleonic one?

One carefully placed Torpedo or Shell, and those things would crumble like a sand castle.

Not the best design int he world I imagine

Torpedoes weren't that accurate to hit vertical "pipes" and to get close enough to lob a shell would have been very high risk. Don't forget this was WW2 not Star Wars technology.

The other factor to note is that 90% of successful defence is visual or perceived deterrents.

Used to see them from the I.O.M ferry. I agree with jimbob (welcome to the site !!), they were given the chop early or mid '50's.

IF you can get a copy from your library (whilst it's still there), try and get "Walls of War" by Keith Mallory & Arvid Ottar. Pub. Astragel Books. ISBN 0 906525 14 4. This shows the details of the Thames Forts which were built to same design as the Mersey Forts.
Shows the construction, plans etc. Conditions aboard weren't a barrel of laughs.

To be hit by a WW2 torpedo, it would have to be a "lucky" shot.

More pictures of Mersey Maunsell AA forts can be found in this topic

I have a video of the 'generic' Maunsell forts, I'm sure it has pcis of the Mersey ones being built at bromborough, I'll have a look tonight.

Summary from a book:

In early 1941, the Admiralty asked Guy Maunsell to look at a problem in Liverpool Bay, German aircraft came from the direction of the Irish Sea, and were attacking Liverpool. In May 1941, in a space of 2 days, over 90000 tons of shipping were lost.

Tha answer was to be forts of 7 towers each, 4 for 3.75 inch HAA Guns, 1 for Bofors guns, 1 for a control tower, and 1 for a searchlight, connected by Catwalks.

The tops were 36 feet square, with 3 floors.

They placed an order for 38 towers, which was 5 forts and 3 spares. they were to be built by the "Cleveland Bridge and Engineering Co. Ltd at Bromborough. After construction had started, the Liverpool order was cut to 21 towers. The layout actually looked like the ground layout of a typical 4 3.75 inch HAA site on land.

The surplus parts and steel from Bromborough were sent down to Gravesend to be used on the Thames Forts.

Each tower had 3 floors, and an armour plated roof. Each had it's share of accomodation, and were insulated with hardboard. The floors were 3/4 inch Ashphalt.

The Bofors tower had the messing arrangements, and the Searchlight tower the 30KvA generator. The steel windows were made by Critall (still around ?). They were painted in 3 coats of bituminous grey paint. The first tower to be sunk was the Bofors tower, because it was self defending.

They were actually refurbished in 1950 at the start of the Korean war.

They (don't know which) appeared in :

Dangerman (Patrick Mooghan)
Dr Who and the Sea Serpents
Lovejoy
a Video for "Flame".

Home Guard at gun practice

too much. where is it all now,or was just sunk?

the towers where cut down using burning torch to the water line at low tide. The position they had had been built on was the sand banks at the side of the shipping channel. At low water there is hardly a foot {300mm to you youngsters} of water above these sand banks.