However, plow tanks were not used in combat until D-Day in 1944, when the British 79th Armored Division employed a "Bullshorn" plow on a Churchill tank at Sword Beach.
The mine roller was first used in combat in 1940, when the Russians used it to help breach Finland's Mannerheim Line.38 The highly successful Russian Mugalev roller, which first saw action in 1942, was developed based on this experience.39
Lieutenant Colonel Colman, a South African engineer, got the idea for a mine-clearing flail when he saw a tracked vehicle drive by with a length of wire wrapped around its sprockets. The wire hit the ground hard with each revolution of the sprockets. Colman's idea was developed by Field Marshal Montgomery's 8th Army in the general headquarters workshops in August 1942. Twenty-four of these flails, called "Scorpions," were first used in combat during several British breaching efforts in the Second Battle of El Alamein.45 Eventually, the British consolidated the flail and many other specialized armored vehicles in the famous 79th Armored Division.
