My grandfather served as a driver in Shermans in WWII, and he said it was called the "Ronson" by Canadians, and the Germans called the Sherman tank the "Tommycooker". He was lucky, and came home in one piece.
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My grandfather served as a driver in Shermans in WWII, and he said it was called the "Ronson" by Canadians, and the Germans called the Sherman tank the "Tommycooker". He was lucky, and came home in one piece.
Some of the long 75mm Pz.IVs were used in Africa towards the end of the campaign, just like the 30 or so Tiger I's they shipped over. Hitler and the OKW doing too little too late, not for the first time. When another division in 1942 would have won him Egypt and ultimately the whole Mediterranean and Middle East, they wouldn't take even one division from France or Russia. Later they threw away hundreds of thousands of men and their equipment when it was too late.
Was just thinking the other day how fortunate we were that the Phalangists won the Spanish Civil War. If they had not and the Soviet controlled "Republicans" had kept power and made themselves complete puppets of Uncle Joe and the NKVD as they showed every sign of doing, Hitler would have made a point of invading Spain after France. That would have meant the loss of Gibraltar and then the Med. and that would have really made it Musso's "Mare Nostrum". The loss of everything from Malta to Mesopotamia would have followed, including of course Suez and Egypt. No way the war could have been won then.
So raise your glass to El Caudillo maybe?!
Was just thinking the other day how fortunate we were that the Phalangists won the Spanish Civil War. If they had not and the Soviet controlled "Republicans" had kept power and made themselves complete puppets of Uncle Joe and the NKVD as they showed every sign of doing, Hitler would have made a point of invading Spain after France. That would have meant the loss of Gibraltar and then the Med. and that would have really made it Musso's "Mare Nostrum". The loss of everything from Malta to Mesopotamia would have followed, including of course Suez and Egypt. No way the war could have been won then.
So raise your glass to El Caudillo maybe?!
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early war doctrine on both sides worked around 2 styles of tank. the brits called them infantry tanks and cruiser tanks.
the infantry tanks only needed to keep up with infantry and survive enemy tank fire until the cruiser tanks showed up this series was heavy on armour, and carried HE capable guns (75mm low velocity, 3" howizers, etc) and was tanks like the matilda 2 and churchill series. for the germans it was the early panzer 4 with the short 75
the cruiser tanks were light, fast, and carried anti tank guns, these were the cruiser and crusader series for the brits and the panzer 3 for the germans. the cruiser series had the gun elevation controlled by the gunner, who stood on the floor of the turret basket. he could stand with his legs loose and maintain proper gun elevation while the tank moved over uneven terrain.
the problem with this doctrine was that they couldnt really predict what would be encountered, nor could they react fast enough, after all, a car that could do 50mph was unheard of at the time, nevermind a tank.
panzer 4H, possibly J. interesting to note that the hull top stayed attached to the turret. perhaps an indication that it is a rush job on the welding due to the war situation? but it also seems to have zimmerit on the rear hull, supposedly stopped by late in the war.
looks to be a penetrating hole next to the side hatch on the turret of some size, look how big it is next to the hatch
How do you figure that??
The North African campaign was brutal and took a lot of German troops (130,000 Afrika Corps captured IIRC) out of the picture, but strategically, it meant little to the overall fighting of the war IMHO. Why, you ask?? Simple. Great Britian was supplied from the United States and Canada, which included food, weapons, and fuel. The Mediterranean Sea was a German/Italian controlled lake (with the exception of the Royal Navy based out of Egypt) and few, if any, supplies from the Far East reached England through the Med. In fact, the British supplied the Eighth Army under General Montgomery by sending convoys on a 12,000 mile trip AROUND the African continent and through the Suez Canal, instead of sending convoys past the Pillars of Hercules (Gibraltar). Until the Allies knocked Italy out of the war (Sept '43) the Mediterranean was as much a battleground as the North Atlantic, because the Axis controlled Greece, Italy, the Balkans, and France - almost the entire northern coast of the Med (and Spain was VERY friendly to the Axis powers)!
In early '42, the colonial possessions of the various European allies (British, Dutch, Netherlands) were overrun by Japanese troops, so supplying those colonies from Europe was moot, negating the need to control access to the Mediterranean. Australia and New Zealand were supplied from the US beginning in early '42, NOT from Great Britian.
Sorry 'bout the thread derailment.
In the late 1970s I was surprised to see 2 PzKw IV tanks that the Syrians had dug in as stationary hull-down pillboxes on the Golan Heights before the 1967 war. At this same time there were a couple of dismounted T34/85 turrets mounted in a defensive position along the road to Damascus. Old tanks never seem to die in that part of the world. I also saw a few Shermans dug is as stationary pillboxes around a couple of the Israeli kibbutz's in the northern Galilee.
Dark Alley Dan
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Man - "ding, ding, ding, ding..." Along about the 9th or 10th one of those, a guy might start thinking he's bulletproof, or has a guardian angel or something.
And then, of course, one gets through and screws up a perfectly good theory. What a disappointment.
KV1?
And then, of course, one gets through and screws up a perfectly good theory. What a disappointment.
KV1?
i bet the other side of that plate has a few penetrating holes, and lots of spall generated. it was probably red hot afterwards too
see here (not mine) for the other side of armour hits:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/barryslemmings/4786289145/in/photostream/
see here (not mine) for the other side of armour hits:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/barryslemmings/4786289145/in/photostream/
Don't know if it would have spalled or not, would depend on the nature of the armour I think. Looks pretty ductile from the three shells we can see embedded in it up to the driving bands; 37mm I assume. Two on the forward corner one above the other!
Yes, a KV1.
That gun crew was sweating you can be sure. If they were lucky one of their first shots was the one that went under the turret ring and jammed the traverse, (but that looks more like a 50mm, like the one on the turret corner above it.) Otherwise they probably wouldn't have got that many shots off before Ivan gave them a 76mm HE to think about.
One reason so many captured Russian guns were put into use a AT guns!
Yes, a KV1.
That gun crew was sweating you can be sure. If they were lucky one of their first shots was the one that went under the turret ring and jammed the traverse, (but that looks more like a 50mm, like the one on the turret corner above it.) Otherwise they probably wouldn't have got that many shots off before Ivan gave them a 76mm HE to think about.
One reason so many captured Russian guns were put into use a AT guns!
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fingers284
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In the mid seventies I worked with a Dieppe veteran. He was a driver in the Calgary Tanks. He was the only survivor in his tank and spent the rest of the war in a POW camp (I saw pics. of when he was liberated, not pretty). He claimed that not one round that he knew of fully entered his tank, the other members of his crew were all killed by hot spalling that peeled off inside the tank. I've never looked inside a tank (I think he was in a Churchill but not sure) and from what he said , he was somewhat protected from the metal shrapnel in his drivers compartment, he said he will never forget the sound of the rounds hitting and the instant blast furnace heat that was generated inside the tank. RIP Bob
The better kinetic-energy projectiles of War Two used TUNGSTEN cores.
Jerry shot off almost his entire supply of Tungsten (Wolfram to him: chemical symbol W) as AP ammo, did not have enough left over to supply cutting-tools for machine-tools on the production lines.
Germany suffered from a CHRONIC shortage of MANY critical elements all through the War.
As an example, they knew how to make better engines for the Me-262, just did not have the alloying elements to produce the things. Result: 262 engines had a Service life of 20 hours, right to the end.
And it was like that for MANY projects.
Really, it was a very big miracle that they kept on as long as they did.
Jerry shot off almost his entire supply of Tungsten (Wolfram to him: chemical symbol W) as AP ammo, did not have enough left over to supply cutting-tools for machine-tools on the production lines.
Germany suffered from a CHRONIC shortage of MANY critical elements all through the War.
As an example, they knew how to make better engines for the Me-262, just did not have the alloying elements to produce the things. Result: 262 engines had a Service life of 20 hours, right to the end.
And it was like that for MANY projects.
Really, it was a very big miracle that they kept on as long as they did.
After 21 years as a Tank Gunner, I had the best job. When it was your time, was normaly real quick with little suffering. I couldn't imagine being in a sub,trapped in total darkness waiting for the air to run out or waiting for the hull to implode if you went deep enuff.
Ken
Ken
those are steel 17 pounder capped AP, the cap is soft and is destroyed on impact, but it directs the inner penetrator to a more perpendicular angle to the armor, and the tip you see would be hardened steel. they also made APDS rounds of steel and tungsten that would go through even more armour
