Wars and Conflicts聽 permalink
Panzer Roof Racks?
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Message 1.聽
Posted by Sashless (U3037387) on Friday, 22nd February 2008
I was watching a 鈥淭he World at War鈥 repeat last night, the episode involving the fall of France in 1939. I noticed that some of the smaller German tanks had a tubular sort of 鈥渞oof rack鈥 over them. Does anyone know what this was for?
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Message 2
Posted by cloudyj (U1773646) on Friday, 22nd February 2008
It's an aerial for command tanks.
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Message 3
Posted by Sashless (U3037387) on Friday, 22nd February 2008
Thanks for that Cloudy. Were not radios supposed to be one of the german tanks big advantages?
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Message 4
Posted by cloudyj (U1773646) on Friday, 22nd February 2008
Thanks for that Cloudy. Were not radios supposed to be one of the german tanks big advantages?聽
Yes. I'm hoping someone with better knowledge than me will wade in here. All german tanks were supposed to be equipped with radios. The soviet tanks in 1941 usually didn't have radios apart from the commander's for radioing HQ.
French tanks (I think) did generally have radios but turrets were poorly designed so one bloke had to load, aim and fire the gun as well as operating the radio. -
Message 5
Posted by Trooper Tom Canning - WW2 Site Helper (U519668) on Friday, 22nd February 2008
Cloudy -
In the British Churchill tank as in most British tanks - our W/op had to load the main gun and M/c gun - fire the smoke ejector as required - look after the "A" - "B" and intercom links as well as the outside phone for the Infantry to call and point out targets ! He was always a busy lad !
Much has been said about the better quality of panzers - not always true as the Churchill was far superior but did'nt have the gun to match - when we did finally get the 17 pounder late '44 - equal to the long barrelled 75mm and close to the 88mm - the Churchill turret was too narrow !
The 3.7 AA gun was finally converted to A/Tk SP gun... BUT.... in January '45 ! Too little etc ...
Not all German tanks could answer commands - just do it - like the Russians ! -
Message 6
Posted by englishvote (U5473482) on Saturday, 23rd February 2008
The frame aerials were used on command tanks, these had additional radios that needed longer range aerials. All German tanks had radios, early versions could only receive but the command tanks had more than one radio, which meant that the main gun was removed and a dummy barrel fitted. The turret was fixed into position to prevent it traversing and smashing the frame aerial that was normally mounted on the engine deck.
These command tanks were often part of the artillery, they carried forward observers with map boards and radios linked to their artillery batteries or battalions.
German armoured cars and armoured personnel carriers were also fitted with frame aerials, but later with better radios and long whip aerials the frame aerial was dispensed with.
Russian tanks did not have radios fitted at all unless they were command tanks, they also used the frame aerial early on but later went over to whip aerials as well. The lack of radios was a server disadvantage for the soviet tanks during WW2 and they were forced to use very basic tactics to retain any formation or organisation. -
Message 7
Posted by englishvote (U5473482) on Saturday, 23rd February 2008
Trooper Tom
The main reason for converting the 3.7 AA guns was to give the AA batteries something to do later in the war. There was very little need for AA guns in forward positions by late 1944, so some were converted into field artillery.
I do not agree that the 3.7 AA gun should have been used in the anti tank role, it was not designed for it and it was way too big a target for front line use.
The German 88mm did have considerable success in the AT role, but mainly because the Germans were forced into using it to defeat the heavy armour on the Matilda, Churchill鈥檚 and Soviet T34鈥檚 and KV鈥檚. Their 37mm ATG was pretty useless and even the 50mm ATG had to be very close to penetrate any of the heavy tanks.
From a German perspective it is clear that the use of the 88mm as an anti tank gun was not desirable, it was practically impossible to conceal in the Western desert and once the British 25 pdr鈥檚 got the range the crews did not stand a chance.
Unfortunately the British tactics were very poor early on in the war, tanks were used as if they were horse cavalry charging about on their own and we were still portioning out tanks as light, cruiser and heavy.
If tanks had been used in combined arms formations with plenty of SP artillery and armoured infantry support the effectiveness of the dreaded 88鈥檚 would have been severely reduced.
Ironically British tank tactics and combined arms operations had been worked out during the first world war and after with people such as Fuller and Liddle Hart laying the foundations along with Percy Hobart.
But the establishment, predominately the ex cavalry regiments, ignored this work, the only people who did learn the lessons were the Germans and they used these very same tactics as the basis for Blitzkrieg. -
Message 8
Posted by Trooper Tom Canning - WW2 Site Helper (U519668) on Saturday, 23rd February 2008
English Vote -
While I would agree with you on the early Tank Tactics as being a throwback to the first war as demonstrated by Lumsden - Gatehouse and a few more as Guderin - Manston and even Rommel had studied the British books by Fuller , Liddell - Hart - Swinton et al - and they put them to good use in Poland - France and the Desert.
It was not until the Battle for El Hamma (March '43) that we started to employ the blitzkreig and again at Tunis, and from Caen to Brussels, then on to Hamburg !
But I would question your thoughts on the 88mm as being undesirable to the Germans - as my understanding of that gun is that it evolved from the British 3in AA which was replaced by the 3.7 AA gun around 1936/7 - sold to the Russians who used it as an A/T gun against the Barbarossa crowd - a few were captured and Rommell used a few on his first foray from El Agheila - this was then replaced by the 88mm.....and used most effectively against the cavalry types both as an AA and A/T gun all through 1941/42.
Regarding the 25 pounders getting the range -
provided they survived the 88mm air bursts - from a greater distance - and was a ferocious weapon and feared by all Tank Crews ! I had quite an experience with three of them at the Coriano Ridge - and we had the 6 pounder on a Mk 1V Churchill. Absolutely no hope !
The Germans were not forced into converting the 88mm - their long barrelled 75.mm on the Panther and MK 1V did a great job for them !
Would also agree that the AA people had nothing to do from '43- and so many were converted into Tank Crews ! -
Message 9
Posted by englishvote (U5473482) on Saturday, 23rd February 2008
From what I can find out about the 88mm it was developed from a First World War gun of the same calibre. During the 1920鈥檚 a design team from the armament firm Krupps went to Sweden and worked with Bofors and the result was the very effective 88mm Flak/AT gun.
I can find no link between the British 3inch or 3.7inch guns and the German 88mm, but they are obviously similar in calibre and power.
Reading German reports it is obvious that the 88mm Flak18/36 was only a stop gap anti tank gun, the losses suffered when it was used in such forward positions were heavy. There are many pictures of abandoned 88鈥檚 in the western desert, the crews had no choice but to hop onto their vehicles and run for it as soon as the British artillery got their range.
The 88mm never had the range to compete with the 25pdr as a field gun, and the British artillery 鈥渟hould鈥 have been out of sight and having their fire directed by forward observers, not something the 88mm guns would have been able to do anything about.
I say should but unfortunately the bad British tactic of placing artillery batteries with the brigades instead of under divisional command in the early years of the North Africa campaign meant that the 25pdr鈥檚 often found themselves in sight of the enemy.
One good thing to come out of this though was the ability of the 25pdr鈥檚 to act as AT guns, they were actually the most effective ATG we had in 1941/42.
The 88mm Pak 43 was of course a much better AT gun, it was smaller and much easier to conceal, but it did need a very big vehicle to move it about just like the 88mm Flak.
Certainly no allied tank was safe from the 88 Pak 43 and the fact that the Germans were on the defensive made its use much more effective than had they been trying to advance with such large heavy AT guns.
Anybody who served during the war is worthy of my respect, but those who fought on the front lines doubly so.
Thanks Tom. -
Message 10
Posted by Trooper Tom Canning - WW2 Site Helper (U519668) on Saturday, 23rd February 2008
Englishvote -
You may be perfectly correct in your history of the larger Flak 18/36 which replaced the British 3"AA / A/T gun which Rommel brought into the desert from the Russian front - and created havoc with the "Charge at Omdurman"
British tactics whereby a squadron of crusader type tanks went chasing after Mk111 & Mk1V panzers which peeled off and left the Brits facing four 88mm A/T guns - end of one squadron !
The PAK43 was the fearsome gun and
hull down - it reduced to a point where it was difficult to see - as was the Panzersturm - the long 75mm.... in a discarded Panther Turret dug in at the Tank Killing grounds of Arce and Frosinone as well as the Gothic Line !
Just to hear those shells passing by
like the future trains ....made one wonder when the next batch of clean laundry would be delivered !
As you rightly say - the 25 pounder was a one of the best guns we had ! -
Message 11
Posted by MB (U177470) on Sunday, 24th February 2008
You quite often see similar antenna on the top of current (or at least recent) military vehicles, mainly of East European origin.
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Message 12
Posted by Steelers708 (U1831340) on Sunday, 24th February 2008
Englishvote said:
"The 88mm never had the range to compete with the 25pdr as a field gun"
The 88mm Flak 18/36/37 firing HE had a maximum range of just under 15,000 metres, the 25pdr's maximum range was 10,790 metres(normal) and 12,253 metres(super charged).
Also, just to point out that the 8.8cm Pak 43/71 and KwK 43/71 were a totally new design and were not related to the 88mm Flak series in any way. -
Message 13
Posted by Grumpyfred (U2228930) on Sunday, 24th February 2008
English. I think you may be wrong. Wasn't there a famous quote during the Normandy invasion. An S S officer went over to the O. C of an 88 flak section who where shooting at bombers, and asked him to fire at the approaching tanks. The man said his job was to shoot at aircraft. The S S man remarked. "Continue to shoot at those planes, and I will shoot you. Shoot at the tanks, and I will see you get the Iron Cross.
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Message 14
Posted by englishvote (U5473482) on Sunday, 24th February 2008
Steelers
You are of course correct about the relative ranges, I made the mistake of looking at the 88mm Flak effective ceiling instead of range.
But even so the Flak batteries did not have forward observers or facilities to engage in counter battery fire. Not all models of the 88mm flak guns were equipped to fire in the ground role at all, they were purely AA guns.
At ranges over 5,000m, especially on the flat open expanses of the western desert, it is very difficult to engage in open sight firing. The 88mm flak batteries were not equipped with forward observers for indirect fire or netted in to the artillery batteries radios.
There are just as many German accounts of 88mm Flak batteries being hammered by British artillery as there are accounts of British tank squadrons getting hammered by 88mm Flak guns.
This was my point, if the British had used proper combined arms formations early on in the western desert the effectiveness of the 88mm Flak gun as an AT gun would have been dramatically reduced.
On your other point, the 88mm Pak 43 was a direct development of the 88mm Flak 36, it was again adapted fitting to the Tiger 11 becoming the KwK 43/L71.
The 88mm KwK 36/L56 fitted tot he Tiger 1 was a direct development of the Flak 36. -
Message 15
Posted by englishvote (U5473482) on Sunday, 24th February 2008
Fred
I have not heard that quote before, but one that I have seen was from a German 88mm ATG commander in Italy.
He said that his 6 guns were defending a hill and American tanks were advancing along a road, every time the Americans sent a tank the German guns destroyed it, eventually the Germans ran out of ammunition, but the American never ran out of tanks.
The 88mm PaK 43 was a very effective ATG, a bit big and cumbersome but very effective, but the 88mm Flak guns were just too big and unwieldy to use as ATG鈥檚.
Which is why I have never agreed that the British 3.7inch AA gun should have been used as an ATG, it was just too big and heavy.
By 1943 the 17pdr was entering service which was much more effective as an ATG, in fact it was probably the most powerful AT gun of the war when using APDS ammunition, other than the huge German 128mm.
Of course the British 25pdr field gun was also 88mm calibre and it had a very good record in North Africa against German tanks. -
Message 16
Posted by Steelers708 (U1831340) on Sunday, 24th February 2008
Your quite right in saying that the 8.8cm KwK 36/L56 was a direct development of the 8.8cm Flak 36, but the 8.8 cm PaK/KwK 43's were not, they came about from work on Krupps' Gerat 42 project.
Krupp of Essen had been involved in a prolonged development program for a 8.8cm anti-aircraft gun, but Rheinmetall got the contract for an advanced AA gun, which became the 8.8cm Flak 41, although an excellent gun it still had several problems and Krupp were asked to work on a "backup" project which was codenamed Gerat 42. Krupp decided to provide for both an AA and anti-tank version, which proved fortuitous as in late 1942 the Luftwaffe planning staff issued new specifications which the Gerat 42 could not meet without going through extensive redevelopment.
Krupp decided to drop the Gerat 42 and concentrate on the anti-tank and tank version and during 1943 this was designated as the 8.8cm PaK 43. -
Message 17
Posted by englishvote (U5473482) on Sunday, 24th February 2008
Thank Steelers
My limited references make no mention of this, have you any links or could you direct me to publications that this comes from? -
Message 18
Posted by Steelers708 (U1831340) on Sunday, 24th February 2008
Englishvote,
As well as wikipedia, my two sources were The Encyclopedia of Infantry Weapons of WWII by Ian V. Hogg and primarily, Small Arms, Artillery and Special Weapons of the Third Reich: An Encyclopedic Survey by Terry Gander & Peter Chamberlain. -
Message 19
Posted by Trooper Tom Canning - WW2 Site Helper (U519668) on Sunday, 24th February 2008
EV ..
The first time the new 17 pounder appeared was at the North African landings with an A/T battery - NOV '42 - it was then secretly(codename Pheasant) moved down to assist in dispelling the Panzer Attack at Medenine - just after Kasserine - which cost Rommel his job and he left Africa on Apl 9th for Vienner Nuestadt.
At the Sicily landings a Canadian Battery
- they lost the lot at the Gustav/Hitler line !
WE never saw them again untill late late in '44 - as they all went to NW Europe !
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