Germany creates more reliable tanks

What if Germany had designed their tanks to be less maintenance heavy and more like the panzer three and four? Torsion bar suspension system instead of an interleaved suspension?

How would German tanks be like?
How would this influence the allies?
How easier would for the Germans now that their tanks aren't maintenance needy?
 

DougM

Donor
Humm, easier to produce, easier to maintain and better dependability? So a German Sherman?
 
What if Germany had designed their tanks to be less maintenance heavy and more like the panzer three and four? Torsion bar suspension system instead of an interleaved suspension?

Mk III used Torsion Bars, but to a standard bogie.

Besides the interleaved sets, the German heavies used double torsion bars, they couldn't make a single bar handle the weight, unlike the Soviets till very late in the war.

But it's best to skip torsion bars. Go for leaf springs, like on the Mk II, Mk IV and 38T.
You get worse ride and less suspension travel, but is cheap and easy to work on

Next, most of the Maybach were pretty high strung, high RPMs to make up for low displacement of 1,409 cu in. 3000rpm to get 690hp. The Ford GAA V8 was 1100 cu. in, 2600rpm to get 500hp

Go for the Soviet route, the V-2 was 2,368 cu.in and made 500 HP@1800 rpm with 14 point compression. A low compression Diesel. Can run on gas, drop the compression to around 7:1

The Hall Scott Defender V-12 was 2181 cu. in, and did 630 HP at 2100 rpm on gas

Do the blocks in iron. heavy but more durable.
The Germans can use their BMW VI engine as a base. Do it in iron. 2,864 cu in. 670 HP at 1700rpm with 7.5 C/R on 87 octane.

Don't need 670 hp? split it to a 6 cylinder and you get 330hp-- perfect for early Panzer IV

For transaxle, stick with Clutch and Brake for the Diff. Yes, your Drivers will hate you, and veteran drivers will look like Popeye with misshapen limbs from wrestling with the controls, but hey, it's durable and cheap to build.
If you want to make it a bit easier on them, license the Cletrac setup from US bulldozers in the early '30s. Bulletproof.

In essence yes but with bigger guns as the war goes on

They can do better, but of course, it all ends in August 1945
 
Let's keep some numbers in mind. In OTL, all the Axis powers combined produced about 76,000 tanks over the course of the entire war. That included 4,500 Japanese tanks, which played no part in the European theater, and 3,500 Italian tanks, which were seldom encountered outside the Western Desert. So we're really talking about 68,000-odd tanks of German manufacture.The Allies, on the other hand produced 270,000 tanks during the war. That's close to 4:1, and even if we assume that a large number of those were being used against Japan or minor powers we're still looking at 3:1 or so.

The implications are clear: each German tank has to be as effective as several Allied tanks. Training, tactics, and doctrine can help with that, but as the manpower pool is depleted the Germans are really forced to look at alternative technologies and designs. Evolutionary improvements can squeeze out a few more percent of gun performance or speed, and that's worth doing, but what they need is a revolutionary improvement - something which alters the whole calculus on the battlefield (note that they followed this course in terms of aircraft and air defences, as well as missiles and U-boats). Unfortunately, pursuing bleeding-edge technology usually runs counter to improving reliability, and Germany cannot take a few months off from producing tanks to get things straightened out. They need every AFV they can possibly get after 1942.

I guess where I was going with that is that improving reliability will not be easy, and on its own won't help much. Slightly higher readiness rates fall under the heading of evolutionary improvements. They're worth pursuing, and its certainly better to have them than not, but that goal works against what Germany desperately needs. Pursuing it will distract effort and resources from the pursuit of revolutionary improvements, which is about the only way Nazi Germany stands a chance. Not that the backstabbing and multiple squabbling production and design bureaux were ever going to produce that in any case, but you get what I mean.

The gripping hand, of course, is that what Germany really needs is all three - large numbers of revolutionary designs which perform reliably. Oh, and a robust support and logistics system to back them up, and a large and replenishing manpower pool to make use of them. The production of these trifling items is left as an exercise for the reader.
 
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