Tank Cannon repair, Circa WWII, Balkan theatre.

[fat tony]

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=75080&start=135

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v334/Boro###/partizanigledajuunitalijanskitenk.jpg

Caption:

French tank, type SOMUA, used by the Germans in "Unternehmen Weiss", knocked out by the Partisans, taken from "BAtaljon Fenikx by Mladen Paver

There's one fine description of how the Partisans captured a Hotchkiss tanks used by 7th SS Geb.D. in "Weiss" in the book by M.Paver "Bataljon Feniks". The crew had to bail out and they took the bolt action along, so the Partisans had a tank with useless cannon. Tank was shipped to "Main tech.service" and engineeres were told to try and repair the cannon. Željko Kraus (the main engineer) was convinced that he can do that, but nor he, or his associates ever saw cannon's bolt action. They went to the front to check out some AT cannons and howitzers in order to get the idea what they must to. Sketches were made, and 10 days later the job was done! They tried it. After fired shell bolt action jammed and lost it's shape. They made a new one out of better materials - this one was fine, and it served without malfunctions until the end of the war!

Just think of this story when you are procrastinating on some job in your backlog that has been on your todo list for some time.

 

[Grizzly Adams]

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=75080&start=135

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v334/Boro###/partizanigledajuunitalijanskitenk.jpg

Caption:

Just think of this story when you are procrastinating on some job in your backlog that has been on your todo list for some time.

Ah, Child's play, the Pashtun could have built the whole tank.

Grizz

 

[fat tony]

At the time of the Invasion of France, the S35 was considered the best medium tank anywhere in the world. It has been said that German soldiers found them a difficult target to take out with period weapons.

Experimental Australian Sentinel Tank (with 2 pounder & Vickers mmg):

Experimental Australian AC3 Tank with 25 pounder *this could have kicked some Japanese butt!.

M4 Tank:

Edit

The picture in the original post was unrelated to the story from the book. This is the S-35 tank below:

Thanks for the correction, donor.

 

[RRCo.]

We can see from those photos that the designers of the Sentinel tank understood the fundamental principles of low profile and sloping armour, when so many other so-called "experts" much closer to the action apparently failed to do so. Also note that while it uses M3 running gear it is longer, which gives better cross-country stability and ditch-crossing.

 

[donor]

I'm pretty sure Hotchkiss Tank mentioned in that article was H35 model.

It was armed with Puteaux SA 18 gun and if I'm reading description right that gun was bolt action,kind of like Russian PTRD AT rifle.
You load it,after shot action opens up and ejects spend casing and you load it up again by hand.

H35's and other French tanks where used in Yugoslavia and other countries for anti-partisan actions and protection of bridges,outposts etc.

 

[fat tony]

You are right. This 37mm sounds interesting. Self opening breech.

37mm wz. 18 (SA-18) Puteaux

Calibre length - L/21. Max. rate of fire 15 rds/min, practical - 10 rds/min. A bolt opening, ejecting case and drawing a firing pin were automatic (semi-automatic operation). A mounting of a gun was flexible, and the gunner aimed it simply using a butt. It was fitted with a telescopic sight with 1.5x magnification.