Tank Hack Ensured Farmland Didn't Thwart the Invasion of Europe 143
szczys writes: Ingenuity reigns supreme when trying to overcome obstacles standing in your way. So was the case during the Allied invasion of Europe during WWII. Land features in the Normandy bocage region were especially difficult for tanks to navigate. The obstacles were earthen dikes topped with mature trees originally put in place to contain livestock. The solution was to reuse materials from the Axis' own anti-tank measures to build a tank attachment to cut through the obstacles. The Allies were able to take the Axis by surprise as it was assumed the armored divisions wouldn't be able to break through this area.
News for history nerds... (Score:5, Funny)
Stuff that mattered 70 years ago, and is mildly interesting today :)
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Mind you, I find military history fascinating - I'm just surprised this is on /.
Re:News for history nerds... (Score:5, Insightful)
This was on the History Channel, "Band Of Brothers", etc.
The latest generation needs their chance to learn it, just as my generation did.
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This was on the History Channel ...
Well maybe a decade or so ago when they showed documentaries about the Normandy invasion, more recent years probably the Military Channel. Unless we're talking about a wrestler hitting someone with a cutup i-beam or something.
... "Band Of Brothers" ...
Don't think so. Except perhaps a tank so equipped may have been a background prop or something. Don't recall any explicit demonstration or discussion of the device.
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I don't recall a specific mention of why they were doing it, but there was several scenes of american tanks going through the hedge rows.
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I am way too lazy for this but the person who created the original idea, sort of, with all the modified tanks (I'm lazy and didn't go find his name, etc) has his own documentary. They called the tanks _____'s Funnies, as I recall. They made quite a few versions for specific goals, based on the Sherman I think, and one of the neater ones had a tarp that it drove over that was wound under it. Why? So that the tank wouldn't sink in the soft sand.
I really should go look this up but it's just after six in the mo
Re:News for history nerds... (Score:5, Informative)
Hobart's Funnies were based around all kinds of tanks, primarily Churchills and Shermans, but there were also Valentines, LVT4's, Cromwells etc.
As for the Bobbin, it was actually a device carried by the Churchill AVRE(together with the Crocodile and the ARK the most famous Funnies), and it laid the canvas road not only for itself but also the vehicles coming up behind it. Other devices the AVRE could carry was the Fascine, which was a bundle you dropped into ditches and trenches, so you could drive over them, and the mine plough, which could also do the same job as the hedgerow plough on the Shermans.
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Awesome! I knew that someone would know exactly what I was speaking about and would remember more of it than I do. There's, as I mentioned, an excellent documentary about him and the varieties that he created. I'd thought they were mostly built on the Shermans and a few models based on the Churchills. I had no knowledge of the others being utilized, thanks for the information.
He designed another one that was kind of interesting. It dropped sticks into and on to stuff. I thought that one was rather creative.
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The thing made of sticks (it's a bundle of bundles of fairly big logs) is called a fascine. The clever thing is that it's not bound too tightly so it automagically conforms to spread the load and fill the hole.
It was carried on a special tipper mount on the front of the tank.
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P.S. The difference is that the funnies were specifically designed in advance, largely based on the failure[1] of the 1943 Dieppe raid, whereas the hedge cutter was improvised on the spot.
[1] Nominated for an understatement of the century award.
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The thing made of sticks (it's a bundle of bundles of fairly big logs) is called a fascine. The clever thing is that it's not bound too tightly so it automagically conforms to spread the load and fill the hole.
It was carried on a special tipper mount on the front of the tank.
They still use fascines in the military today.
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Re:News for history nerds... (Score:5, Interesting)
Not sure TV, cable, or movies are places to learn our history. And sadly, History Channel has fallen apart.
The HBO miniseries "Band of Brothers" and "The Pacific" are pretty good from a historical perspective. Very respectable adaptations of books written by a well regarded historian who did great research or written by veterans themselves. Read them all plus Winters' book. Sledge's "With The Old Breed" was probably the standout for me among the veteran's books. Very well written, of course he had been a university professor for decades by the time he authored his book.
HBO's "The Tuskegee Airman" seemed a respectable attempt at telling that story. It may have been a little more fictionalized given its time constraints, more composite characters and coalescing of events for example, but it certainly seemed far better than the Lucas "Red Tails" mess from a historical perspective. "Red Tails" went from beyond dramatic license and into cartoonishness IMO.
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If you want a good "fiction" novel (it's not really entirely fiction I suppose), read Battle Cry, by Leon Uris.
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This was on the History Channel, "Band Of Brothers", etc.
The latest generation needs their chance to learn it, just as my generation did.
This needs to be modded to 5.
Just because some guy on Slashdot has heard of this doesn't mean that it doesn't need repeated.
It reminds me of people who get pissed off at Thanksgiving when the media gives out advice on how to cook Turkey so that we don't get sick. There's always some asshat that might have heard it for the first time a couple years ago, and is angry that everyone didn't hear it when they did.
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Sure. But it's not really news, is it?
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Sure. But it's not really news, is it?
Good thing we have the stuff that matters category too.
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I always thought it was intersection, not union.
Perhaps I should submit a story about Roman manipular tactics during the late republican period?
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I'd read it.
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Actually, me too. I'd probably even comment if the comments section was interesting. I say this because it'd be an interesting submission so I am encouraging such. It likely even involves tech (was modern tech at the time, even) and should be interesting.
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Be patient, I've only got as far as the title: "Controversy rages: is it fine with a solid line, or are the gaps where it's at?"
I did consider "Beat all enemies[1] with this one neat trick!" but it's not hip enough.
It's also possible that Bennet Haselton might steal my thunder with his treatise "Varus and Crassus: has anyone else noticed that shit Roman generals had names ending in ~us? And here's how I would have totally won."
[1] Disclaimer: Void for those Parthian rat- bastards. And in Germany.
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Until then, you got a link?
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I always thought it was intersection, not union.
Perhaps I should submit a story about Roman manipular tactics during the late republican period?
Kewl! I'd like that.
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I always thought it was intersection, not union.
Perhaps I should submit a story about Roman manipular tactics during the late republican period?
I had to chuckle reading the replies to this. Probably not what you expected.
But it was a trick wasn't it? the Maniple was replaced by the Cohort around that time.
Both a computer and history nerd ... (Score:2)
I always thought it was intersection, not union. Perhaps I should submit a story about Roman manipular tactics during the late republican period?
Man did that sarcastic remark backfire. I am in fact both a computer nerd and a history nerd, happy to read classics like Bjarne Stroustrup's "The C++ Programming Language" and Titus Livius' "The History of Rome". Well, the 2,000 pages of Livy's work that has been discovered. So feel free, submit your work.
Re:Both a computer and history twat ... (Score:2)
Perhaps you should include reading comprehension & logic in your awesomely broad range of studies, because nothing that you say invalidates my point that it isn't news.
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Sure. But it's not really news, is it?
Good thing we have the stuff that matters category too.
Perhaps you should include reading comprehension & logic in your awesomely broad range of studies, because nothing that you say invalidates my point that it isn't news.
Sorry, the reading comprehension and logic fails are entirely yours. That "stuff that matters" comment I made earlier. Guess where it comes from? Slashdot's self description: "Slashdot: News for nerds, stuff that matters". Slashdot is widely characterized as a "science and technology" site. You are wrong that posts need to be news and you are wrong that its an intersection not a union.
As I mentioned elsewhere, its useful to point out to impressionable youth that the concept of "hacking" does not solely a
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Sure. But it's not really news, is it?
It's not something that happened today. But it's interesting.
The problem I see with the "Why is this even on slashdot?" crowd is if we say, allowed everyone who gets pissed that something they don't like, could have it removed, there wouldn't be much slashdot left.
Can't keep everyone happy. I learned that long ago when I made videos. Everyone loved them. But the aggregate of what people didn't like showed me that everything about the video was hated. By someone.
Anyhow, I did enjoy the article and woul
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Well I'm a trollop for it then.
I also like cooking, but this isn't the place to discuss whether putting Szechuan pepper in a Moroccan tajine is cheating.
Re: News for history nerds... (Score:2)
I agree about the learning. (Insert favorite quote here re: perils of not learning history) I just don't see this as being particularly apropos. Posting irrelevant tidbits dilutes Slashdot's value as "News for Nerds."
Re: News for history nerds... (Score:5, Informative)
You really think today's generation of limp wristed skinny panced vape smokers could hack it in such a critical battle?
Um, who is getting shot at in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere? Dumbass.
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Um, who is getting shot at in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere? Dumbass.
If I remember correctly, the annual death toll in Iraq and Afghanistan is roughly the same as... one day on Omaha Beach, or about six hours on the Eastern Front.
Doesn't matter if war is large or small ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Um, who is getting shot at in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere? Dumbass.
If I remember correctly, the annual death toll in Iraq and Afghanistan is roughly the same as... one day on Omaha Beach, or about six hours on the Eastern Front.
I grew up around a WW2 paratrooper, Normandy, Holland, Bastogne (frostbite), Germany (shot). According to him it didn't matter if the war is big or small, popular or unpopular. Bullets and shrapnel do the same thing to a soldier. Getting shot at is getting shot at, whether you are alone, one of ten, or one of a thousand. If you went into harms way for your country you deserve respect, period. That was his lesson during the Vietnam war. Can't imagine him having a different opinion for Iraq or Afghanistan. Especially since I've seen videos of troops from his unit, then 502 PIR now 502 INF, doing room clearing in an urban settings. Something he did in Europe and disliked very much.
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Still safer then living in Chicago.
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It is interesting, but it's also something that anyone interested in WW II has known about for years. How on earth is this "news".
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It is interesting, but it's also something that anyone interested in WW II has known about for years. How on earth is this "news".
So no one is now allowed to get interested in WW2?
Unfortunately, not everyone is like you, who was born knowing everything.
It's "news" to someone, and who the fuck are you to tell them they shouldn't hear about it.
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Where did I say anyone shouldn't hear about it? Read a history book about WW II if you are interesting. But it is NOT FUCKING NEWS! Got it?
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Where did I say anyone shouldn't hear about it? Read a history book about WW II if you are interesting. But it is NOT FUCKING NEWS! Got it?
It is news to someone. Get over yourself. You aren't the arbiter of what is or isn't news.
Re:News for history nerds... (Score:5, Informative)
And in other breaking World War II news, there was this amazing breakthru where vacuum tubes were used to create a powerful electronic machine called "ENIAC".
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And in other breaking World War II news, there was this amazing breakthru where vacuum tubes were used to create a powerful electronic machine called "ENIAC".
Which was very cool indeed. Well, not really - all those tubes made for a lot of heat.
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Where did I say anyone shouldn't hear about it? Read a history book about WW II if you are interesting. But it is NOT FUCKING NEWS! Got it?
But you get similar replies from snotty physicists or chemists or biologists every time there's a popular science story.
"Duh, I did post-doctoral research on that three years ago, how is it news?"
Well, thanks for letting us know how knowledgeable you are about one particular subject.
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Sure, it's old technology, old engineering. But so is ENIAC...
Blacksmith/Welder not Engineer ... (Score:3)
Sure, it's old technology, old engineering. But so is ENIAC...
Not "engineering" in the sense that engineers at a company came up with the device. The phrase "hack" is entirely appropriate. This modification came from a Sergeant at Normandy who thought he could cut up some of the i-beam based beach obstacles and make "teeth" for the tanks. So the solution came from the blacksmith/welder types, an actual Army MOS, improvising something on the spot not the engineers designing something to meet a requirement.
Re:Blacksmith/Welder not Engineer ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep, it's an awesome improvised hack. I'm a WW2 history aficionado, so of course I'd heard about this before.
For all the unbelievably thorough preparations made for the allied invasion, historians and laypersons alike have always found it fascinating or puzzling that apparently no thought was given to the potential tactical disadvantages the bocage (hedgerows) would have on the allied advance, or how the allies might try to cope with it. It took a lone Sergeant in the Army tank corps to come up with a reasonable solution to the problem. I suppose nothing tends to motivate you like facing a potentially lethal situation.
I'd rank it up there with the CO2 scrubber hack on the Apollo 13 mission.
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Yep, that sounds plausible... If I had to guess, I'd also say that the planners were probably so fixated on the horrifically complex logistics of landing troops and followup supplies on the beach that everything else seemed unimportant by comparison.
We know that the allies had ridiculously optimistic timetables as well, so perhaps overconfidence played a role as well. For instance, UK troops had originally planned to take the town of Caen [wikipedia.org] as part of their D-Day objectives. Instead, thanks to German armor
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Yep, it's an awesome improvised hack. I'm a WW2 history aficionado, so of course I'd heard about this before.
For all the unbelievably thorough preparations made for the allied invasion, historians and laypersons alike have always found it fascinating or puzzling that apparently no thought was given to the potential tactical disadvantages the bocage (hedgerows) would have on the allied advance, or how the allies might try to cope with it.
That's because they weren't supposed to go through the hedgerow terrain. When Montgomery failed to take Caan on the first or second day, the entire operation had to be modified, and the breakout was changed to the boccaged west instead of the east, which was excellent flat tank terrain.
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Caen. Completely different place from Cannes.
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Actually, the British had given it thought. The mine plough for the Churchill AVRE could be used to go through the hedgerows too, just as one example. The US military, being far more conservative, dismissed the concept of Hobart's Funnies as frivolous and doomed to failure, and also counter to their doctrine, in that it'd make tanks take the lead and end up in combat with enemy tanks, which US doctrine specifically and emphatically discouraged: Tanks were for infantry support and breakthrough, fighting it o
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The US rejected Hobart's funnies because most of them were based on the Churchill tank. Nothing more. Nothing less. The US had standardized around the Sherman in order to simplified the maintenance costs by making sure every chassis was using the same parts. Bringing in the funnies would have expanded the logistic requirement.
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It is engineering - they're operating, maintaining, and modifying machines with engines.
There's a handful of clowns out on a "we need REAL engineers" campaign on Slashdot, yet they don't know WTF a real engineer is.
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It is engineering - they're operating, maintaining, and modifying machines with engines. There's a handful of clowns out on a "we need REAL engineers" campaign on Slashdot, yet they don't know WTF a real engineer is.
Actually I'm quite familiar with the more archaic definition of engineering. My grandfather was licensed to operate and maintain various types of machinery in that domain. For example a stationary engineering license to operate a power plant in an industrial setting, i.e. boil water, produce steam, drive turbines, etc. "Stationary" to differentiate it from railway locomotives, locomotive engines, ship propulsion, etc.
However in either the more modern or more archaic usage of "engineering" the word does n
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I'm sure blacksmiths and welders appreciate your defense of this rather dumb and overused tech buzzword.
It was an on-the-spot improvisation with materials that happened to be on hand. Not something done with proper planning and materials. The phrase "hack" is entirely appropriate in this situation.
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Funny (Score:5, Informative)
" The Allies were able to take the Axis by surprise as it was assumed the armored divisions wouldn't be able to break through this area.: ...which is funny because the French didn't expect the tanks of the Germans to be able to pass through the Ardennes. The moment they realized what the plan was, it was too late and France had no option but to surrender, even if possessing a superior force.
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" The Allies were able to take the Axis by surprise as it was assumed the armored divisions wouldn't be able to break through this area.: ...which is funny because the French didn't expect the tanks of the Germans to be able to pass through the Ardennes. The moment they realized what the plan was, it was too late and France had no option but to surrender, even if possessing a superior force.
The main reason the allies were able to take the Nazi's by surprise in Normandy is because they had managed to completely convince Hitler that the invasion would be led by Patton at the pas de Calais.
On the morning of the Normandy landings, they woke Hitler and told him the allies had landed in Normandy. He dismissed this as a ruse, said the invasion would be at Calais and refused to release an armoured division to Normandy. Thanks to this, the landings were considerably less bloody than expected.
What's New Is Old (Score:4, Interesting)
Reminds me a little of the proboscis they bolt to the front of some heavy armament today to deal with land mines and such, and in a slightly different way, the cages they build around Strikers to deal with RPGs...
Still... (Score:2)
Let's keep things in perspective. Progress in Normandy was one (or more) order(s) of magnitude slower than planned.
"Tank Hack"? Use this headline-writing hack... (Score:2, Flamebait)
...to show everyone that you're a hack writer.
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I think "hack" is reasonable, in the sense of an improvised solution implemented in the field...
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I agree. I'm not sure why the vile about this. Except, I guess, "on the internet".
There hundreds of such hacks (Score:5, Interesting)
One of the best ones I have heard about is the hacking of the Dutch telephone system by the insiders. They had special "area codes" that bypassed main trunk exchanges but allowed the resistance fighters to communicate using the regular telephone system. If Gen Montgomery knew about it or had used it, his Operation Market Garden (movie: A Bridge Too Far) might have gone differently, they last bridge group might have learned the the German General Model and his panzer divisions were being held in that area as reserve and for refitting and they were in a position to cut off the lines of communication. Need to look it up.
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Is there anywhere I could get a look at a list of such little-known hacks?
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An amusing 'what if' but in reality, nonsense.
There WAS ample intelligence about German defenses and armor in the area (anathema for lightly-armed airborne troops who have little way to fight tanks), Montgomery and his asinine coterie-of-arrogance ignored it. From wiki:
"...On 16 September ULTRA decrypts revealed the movement of 9th and 10th SS Panzer Divisions to Nijmegen and Arnhem, creating enough concern for Eisenhower to send his Chief of Staff, Lieutenant General Walter Bedell Smith, to raise the issu
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Know anything about a POW camp where the hacked the church organ? It had an DC motor connected to the blower but it could also be pedal operated. The US pows hacked it so that it could be pedaled and made to work as a generator to power their smuggled in radio?
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So, I actually don't understand this. (Score:2)
Someone explain this to me. I don't understand from looking at the pictures.
1) You have a tank with no Hedgehog add-on. It rolls up to a hedge. it is a heavy tank. Because it's heavy, it pushes forward and crushes the hedges underneath it. or not.
2) You have a tank with the hedgehog add-on. It rolls up to a hedge. it is a heavy tank. Because it's heavy, it pushes forward and crushes the hedges underneath it. or not. I don't see what benefit the comb-like structure does to allow for easier crushing
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"1) You have a tank with no Hedgehog add-on. It rolls up to a hedge. it is a heavy tank. Because it's heavy, it pushes forward and crushes the hedges underneath it. or not."
"Or not" is correct. The tanks, heavy or not, could not push forward and crush the hedges.
They needed hedge-clippers.
Re:So, I actually don't understand this. (Score:5, Informative)
Picture the hedge covered with heavy growth 15 to 30 feet high. Difficult to penetrate on foot- easy to hide in and defend.
Picture a german bazookaman behind the hedge ready to blow a hole in your soft underbelly.
Picture the teeth cutting 12" deep into the hedge before the tank starts to lift upwards.
Picture the heavy growth toppling onto the defenses, the top of the hedge being shaved off to become a wide dirt road.
Much harder to defend against the infantry following the tank through the new gap.
Re:So, I actually don't understand this. (Score:5, Informative)
Germans ran out of ammo before US ran out of tanks (Score:2)
With respect to German 88mm guns it didn't matter where the US tank was hit, they didn't need to hit the thinly armored bottom. Those guns were exceptionally deadly and were waiting for tanks to drive down the road. I recall reading a US veteran's recollectio
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Imagine for 500 years a farmers would pile rocks and stumps found in their field along the borders of that field. Trees and shrubs start to grow in the piles. This turns into the 20ft tall hedgerows over time.
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Imagine for 500 years a farmers would pile rocks and stumps found in their field along the borders of that field. Trees and shrubs start to grow in the piles. This turns into the 20ft tall hedgerows over time.
Yes, I think people here are confusing the Normandy hedgerows with ornamental shrubbery.
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No, the tanks were powerful enough to push trees over. Just like bulldozers can pull them down (and some "mere" trucks pull trees and stumps out of the ground). Unlike a truck, a sherman tank weight 66,800 pounds (30.3 tonnes; 29.8 long tons; 33.4 short tons). And had an engine powerful enough to push that weight along at 30 mph. The treads gave it incredible traction too.
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As I understand it, the hedgerow growth was so thick (more like trees, actually) that the tank couldn't crush it readily. Instead, the front end of the tank would lift high into the air before bearing its full weight on the hedge, giving exposure to the thinnest part of the armor. Even if the tank made it over without taking a shell to its belly, the hedge probably sprang back up behind it, cutting off any infantry support it might have had following it.
The comb allowed the tank to gain purchase between t
Impact energy distributed (Score:2)
These hedgerows were incredibly large and dense with branches, vines and roots interlocking. When they took a hit from a tank the energy of impact would get distributed, its a little bit like the special fibers and weaves that help to distribute impac
Re:So, I actually don't understand this. (Score:5, Interesting)
Lets look at how a hedgerow is created. In medieval Europe fields were sectioned off into small areas with hedges between them. Every year due to frost action rocks are driven to the surface by frost action. Every year farmers go through their fields and throw these rocks into the hedges. Over the decades and centuries these hedgerows become very solid. In effect they were stone walls with hedges on top and there were a lot of them on Normandy. here [flickr.com] is a better explanation of why hedgerows were a problem.
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Have a picture:
http://dereksweetoys.com/wp-co... [dereksweetoys.com]
I was there a few years back so I went to check them out in person. That photo is not mine but it's a good depiction. In some areas the overgrowth from the bocage is such that there's a tunnel that you'd drive/walk through and it's made out of trees. We see some areas like this up in Maine in the more rural areas on old dirt roads that have fallen into disuse. Your grandmother probably has a similar picture of the latter taken during foliage season and hanging
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I'm an automobile aficionado and, because of this, I own far more cars than is healthy. Each one of them is owned for, generally, very specific reasons and each of them is utilized to for enjoyment in those particular areas - some are also utilitarian such as an RV and a couple of pick up trucks. One of my goals is to put such vehicles through their paces. I get a great deal of enjoyment from pushing them beyond their design limits. My enjoyment means that, most weekends, I have a local garage that sends so
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Sounds like a good time, so to speak.
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There are some good comments in the link, one of them has a video of a tank equipped with the device in use
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Only became necessary due to failure to take Caen (Score:5, Interesting)
Remember kids... (Score:1)
Every War Has Hacking (Score:3)
Every War Has Hacking, if you want to survive. You learn from the moment you start fighting.
In France, there were hedgerows, and you needed a way to deal with them.
In Korea, there were lots of jeeps but limited alcohol, so you figured out how to make a still from the parts of a jeep.
In Iraq, the army learned it needed MRAPs right away and that the military procurement system was so terrible it would never get them, so SECDEF basically overrode the whole damn procurement apparatus.
Bureaucracy then and now (Score:5, Interesting)
From the article:
When demonstrated for General Omar Bradley, he was impressed enough to order them built in quantity for the tanks. Eventually the prototype became an engineered product (dubbed the “Culin Rhino Device”) that was fitted to many tanks before being shipped over from England.
I wonder how long it took, from the demo for Gen. Bradley, until the device was fitted on tanks sent over from England. Hopefully not too long. Imagine the tanks being made in the US today. How long would it take before they were outfitted with the "tusks"? Senator #1: "I demand that the tusks be made in my state." Senator #2: "No - make them in my state, or I'll vote against them being made at all!"
In related news, U.S. Air Force instructs airmen on exactly how to praise the F-35 [fortune.com]. The Air Force should reject the F-35 for its many flaws, and demand their money back. Sigh. Some things really were better back in the past.
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Sorry about the off-topic mention of the F-35. I wasn't trying to astroturf. I was just feeling discouraged about our non-functional federal government. (disfunctional? unfunctional?)
Cheers! (Score:2)
Hedge Rows (Score:2)
"little tactical value" (Score:2)
Without Sgt. Culin’s battlefield hack, and his inspiration by a hillbilly named Roberts whom history otherwise forgets, the invasion of Europe might have taken a very different course.
Others say, not so much. [wikipedia.org]
Military historian Steven Zaloga claims that the devices "were not as widely used as the legend would suggest", nor were they as effective as is often believed.[13] But Max Hastings and Chester Wilmot credit the invention with restoring battlefield maneuverability to the Allied force.[6][19] Martin Blumenson states that while the device restored mobility in hedgerow country, it "was of little tactical value in the breakout, except possibly as a morale factor to the troops, since the tanks advanced on the roads, not cross-country."[20]
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they'll need it to thwart the invasion of Europe 2015 (happening now).
There is a great push for the world and especially Europe to accept without question waves of refugees. This, however, will not solve the problem of why these people are fleeing their countries. Indeed, it will only allow the political / religious forces that are the cause of this mass exodus to take permanent root.
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The US has already taken permanent root.
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Oh now that's original!
There's nothing original about the USA, either. It's just repetitions of old stories. We're repeating what we learned from other empires.
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Hack either means security breach, or an awful clusterfuck, as in hackjob.
No, among techies, "hack" has for decades also meant clever and innovative and unexpected solutions to a problem or want/need. Your security breach definition evolved from the preceding definition.
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Hack either means security breach, or an awful clusterfuck, as in hackjob.
The fact that a bunch of techie douchebags and their lapdogs use the word to try and sound edgy is irrelevant to it's meaning outside of your little echo chamber.
You are wrong. A hack is a wooden frame for drying bricks, cheeses, etc.
I thought it was a type of horse. Or an English journalist. Or a nasty cough.
Holy vocabulary batman, it's almost like words can mean different things at different times in different contexts!