Picture of the day

mikerock said:
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A good day from a long time ago.
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It looks like it was new , thanks for posting
 
^ man do I miss the C1 or the L1 I had made into a C1. The Nork M305 just does not measure up and is a poor substitute.
 
collector67 said:
Confused by the nose markings. I understand the "bombs dropped", but what is the significance of the 3 Swastikas and the multiple twin boom airplanes?
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I understand the swastikas were for air-to-air kills. The aircraft symbols, I believe, are for missions flown.
 
Dark Alley Dan said:
And quid pro quo :

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although the propaganda said otherwise, US army testing showed the kubelwagen was better than the jeep in almost every measure. it was only RWD, but the reduced weight and posi made it traverse mud holes as good or better, and it got better gas mileage doing it. the jeep could tow more, but that was about it.
 
I hear this from dub fans quite a bit. It is of course largely nonsense.
The Kubel is a two wheel drive car and the MB/GPW is a light truck.
As far as useful stats go for a military vehicle, the jeep had more horsepower, greater payload, was able to tow equipment and had far superior off-road capability. There is no way in hell a two wheel drive car will out perform two driving axles in a 4x4 (one wheel pushing and one pulling) in general off road conditions, even with a posi-track diff (or a full locker for that matter).
While one can admire the Kubelwagen for what it was, coming up with a notion that it was superior to the Jeeps is laughable.
 
scott585 said:
although the propaganda said otherwise, US army testing showed the kubelwagen was better than the jeep in almost every measure. it was only RWD, but the reduced weight and posi made it traverse mud holes as good or better, and it got better gas mileage doing it. the jeep could tow more, but that was about it.
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who-ever made that report must have had a lot full of war surplus Kubels to sell.

Beltfed is very right, there is no way a 2x4 will ever perform in the same league as a 4x4...ever...I have considerable experience with both 4x4's and a 2x4 with Detroit Lockers. On dry, level ground, if the Lockers are loaded down with enough weight they will pull like a 4x4 but let 4 rain drops fall and they loose to the 4x4 on every level. The characteristic of the lock-ups in loose footing is that, because they are pushing the front wheels, the back wheels will spin sideways off the desired track every time.
 
Not so fast at discounting the Kübelwagen and its off road capabilties folks. For the past ten years I have been a member of a club in the USA that focuses on ownership of German wartime vehicles, restoration and operation. While the Typ82 Kübelwagen is indeed rear wheel drive only it is every bit as capable in rough going/off road and I dare say MORE then a American made wartime MB/GPW. This is due to the cars light weight, smooth underbody, posi rear transaxle and reduction gears. One also gets a far more "civilized" ride for the Kübel with its torsion bar suspension and the Typ82 also has proper doors and a decent roof, no small consideration in a Russian winter. On the trail rides I found the little Kübel did everything asked of it and we only bogged one car, once (the jeep tagging along was a "recovery excercise" on wheels) and being so light it was readily manhandled out back on the trail in short order.
The "bald" tire is in fact a "balloon tire" commonly seen on Kübels fighting in North Africa, the fools at the Canadian War Museum have a Balloon tire stuck on the Typ166 Schwimmwagen, totally wrong and they do not care. It is also not uncommon to see NO spare tire in late war pics and/or civvy tires pressed into use by the Germans due to rubber shortages in late wartime pics. While the Americans studied the Kübelwagen (they even wrote a manual on it that is similar to the Jeep manual on its care and operation) and generally found it very capable in construction and operation. The Germans in WWII did the same testing on Captured Jeeps and found them wanting due to the jeeps heavier weight and it being thirsty and certainly not as good off road or in hard going. Feel free to believe what you wish guys but I own a 1942 MB and while I think the world of it I do not buy into it being better then a kübel off road not by a long shot.
 
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The only time a 2x4 will even come close to a 4x4, whether bathtub bottomed or rail framed, is if you drive the bag off the 2x4 resulting in drastically reduced life expectancy of the machine. if you hit a tough spot hard enough with a 2x4 to get though you can hit the same tough spot with a 4x4 and virtualy ease your way through it not harming the machine at all.

That might not make any difference in a battle-field situation where completion of the mission is tantamount to equipment salvation but in my world you will never convince me that a 2x4 can equal any 4x4 in off-road use...in 50 yrs of construction, oil field exploration, farming, and rough country hunting I've pulled a few miles of winch line to stuck 4x4's...not so much to 2x4's, we just hook a cat to them because that's the only way to get anywhere.
 
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