In order for a dirt road to "cope with its duties" satisfactorily, the thickness of hard clothing on it must be at least 20 cm. Otherwise, the surface is invariably cut by wheels with caterpillars and quickly becomes unusable. In the forested-swamp zone of the USSR, which included the North-Western, Kalinin, Volkhov and Karelian fronts, wooden coverings came to the rescue. In total, the Soviet road troops erected more than 9 thousand km of wooden roads on these fronts. The history of the construction of such coatings in the USSR was extensive - the Moscow Canal was built using wooden clothes, which were also used on timber roads.
Marshal K. A. Meretskov wrote about the role of wooden coatings during the war:
“The timely exit and rapid deployment of troops, the supply of reserves and the supply of the advancing units during the battle depended on the roads. Separate roads were laid for tanks, wheeled vehicles and horse-drawn vehicles. There were all kinds of roads here: through the swamps and wet meadows there were wooden planks made of poles laid across on longitudinal beds; there were also track roads made of logs, plates and planks, laid on peppered poles; on dry places there were dirt roads."
The operational features are described by Colonel-General of the Engineering Troops A. F. Khrenov:
“The existing roads had to be continually renewed and rebuilt. The wooden decks and tracks laid through the swamps gradually sagged under the load of vehicles and military equipment, and were covered with swamp slurry. After a month or two, we were forced to put a new one on the old flooring. Some roads had to be repaired in this way five to seven times."
Northwestern Front timber-paved road network:
1 - front line; 2 - roads with hard surfaces; 3 - wooden track roads; 4 - log flooring; 5 - dirt roads
Log Decking (Gravel Backfill Not Finished Yet)
If we trace the dynamics of the construction of wooden roads on the fronts of the wooded-swamp zone, it turns out that they reached their maximum during defensive battles. With the transition of troops to the offensive, the share of road pavements made of wood fell: in 1941 only 0.1%, in 1942 - 25%, in 1943 - 29%, in 1944 - 30% and, finally, in the victorious 1945 - about 6%. Approaches to the construction of roads made of wood have also evolved. So, at the very beginning, during the retreat, the simplest gats of brushwood and poles were built, which required constant repair. The speed of cars on such roads did not exceed 3-5 km / h, and this caused a six-fold excessive consumption of fuel. In addition, no more than 50 vehicles could pass per day. However, there was no need to complain about this either: in the absence of "gatei" the equipment was hopelessly stuck in the waterlogged soil. More complex in construction, but much more durable were log floorings, which were additionally covered with soil from above. But even such a powder did not save one from the terrible shaking accompanying movement along transversely arranged logs. Marshal K. A. Meretskov recalled in this regard:
“For all my life I have remembered the roads made of transverse poles laid on longitudinal logs. Sometimes, you go along such a path, and the car shakes incessantly, and the poles under the wheels “speak and sing”, like keys under the hands of a virtuoso”.
Partially saved the position of the logs, laid at an angle of 45-60 degrees to the axis of the road, but in this case there was a problem of finding longer and thicker logs. Over time, the Red Army road workers came to the need to lay additional longitudinal beds and wheel deflectors. But to fasten the logs and beams to each other had to do anything - there were chronically not enough brackets and ruffs.
Due to the ruthless attitude to technology, log flooring gradually began to go out of practice in the second half of the war. On some fronts, there were even direct orders to ban cross-log roads. They were replaced by single-track track roads, the design of which was distinguished by a variety. The simplest was the installation of wheel lines made of longitudinal beams with staggered joints. The bars, in turn, were attached to the transverse lags using steel pins. They later began to be abandoned, replacing them with wooden fasteners - dowels, embedded transverse dowels, as well as dovetail cuttings. Over time, such complex structures, naturally assembled from raw lumber, crumbled and collapsed.
Track coverage of a military road
Track road
External (a) and internal (b) location of the wheel deflectors on track surfaces
There were also variations in the arrangement of the wheel striker beams. If installed on the outside of the road, they made driving much easier, and also reduced timber consumption by 15-30%. The roads were built massive, intended primarily for the track of heavy equipment, and a passenger car could accidentally run into one wheel against the bump stop, and the second could get into the inter-track space. This somewhat complicated the use of this type of road. The problem was solved by the location of the wheel bumpers inside the road. However, if one of the tracks sags by 10-15 cm, then the gap between the bottom of the car and the bump stop will get out, and the car may fail from contact with the bars. But all the same, the track roads successfully coped with their purpose. The high labor intensity of construction has become a fat minus of the entire wood-road history. On average, one kilometer of the way took from 180 to 350 cubic meters of coniferous timber, and in some cases the figure exceeded 400 cubic meters. The road construction battalion took 10-12 hours, depending on the complexity of the soil, to construct from 450 to 700 running meters of a wooden track track. One can only guess about the hardships of such work …
After landing in Normandy during the autumn thaw, the Western Allies were able to ensure the movement of their troops only thanks to the wooden coverings. And this with a sufficiently developed system of European paved roads, which, however, could not cope with the huge masses of equipment. In line with the fashionable Western trend, the epic of the Allied engineering troops in road construction was called the "battle with mud in the coastal strip." In addition, the scale of destruction in the cities of France and Germany was such that sometimes it was easier to build a wooden track to bypass the town than to clear the rubble with bulldozers. The road situation in Europe did not improve even after the winter of 1945. Omar Bradley recalled:
“After an unusually harsh winter, the snow began to melt six weeks ahead of schedule, and our heavy trucks crashed the gravel roads in the forest. Many kilometers of paved highways with a hard surface sank in the mud, and even the first-class highways turned into an impenetrable swamp … The macadam surface cracked in the middle, and the edges of the cracks bulged up a foot or two, and the sandy base turned into a thick viscous mess … In the area of the Western Wall of the road were in such bad shape that it was an event to drive the jeep for several miles in a row."
