Ideal 1930's-1940's German military equipment

This was an interesting read.
The 15 cm AA guns are a major problem solver for the navy. 900-1200 m/s. Up to 18 km range vertically, what is this horizontally? 30 km?
Basically, they just needed to see the area where a heavier gun did make sense,
The tripple turrets I think is an overkill except on cruisers. Just go for the historical use of 15 cm gun installations and replace some of the 10 cm guns, then it is a huge improvement..

And overall, I am happy to see the appreciation is dawning on the wonders more use of coal would do for the German industry.
The rationale ITL would be that the Germans want the space savings that come from a single dual-purpose secondary battery, like the US and French used, but they also don't want to lose the firepower of their 15 cm guns in anti-surface engagements. Hence, a requirement for a 15 cm gun that can do both roles. Of course, the knowledge that it's better to adapt AA guns to ground use than to do the reverse is based on experience that only comes from hindsight, so that's one of the areas where I cheated to let the Germans know more than they should have. The 15 cm flak guns were real however, as the link demonstrates (they just weren't available until 1939).

The only comment I would make is that this is only possible with 20/20 Hindsight.

A good chunk of it, yes (mostly the giant locomotive works, and the ITL Panzer I and Panzer II with sloped armor, universal chassis features, and the transverse engine mount). However, most of it just requires that someone look at equipment that is in use by an ally (usually Japan), or was used or prototyped by Germany during WWI, and go "Say, that wouldn't be better than what we're using right now, would it?" After all, that's how I created most of this thread- the equipment was largely based off of OTL stuff.
 

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So I am not sure what else could be done to improve German light mortar use as it was already very good and fit for purpose.
It was good in performance, but was way too heavy for the weight of ordnance it could impart. Of course at the company level there were no mortars. There were only the platoon 50mm mortars. Technically there were 3 mortars per company, as there were 1 per rifle platoon. The Germans decided their mortar was too much for the role, so stopped making them in 1942. Instead they often used captured Soviet 50mm mortars because they were half the weight. Really having something like the modern French 60mm handheld mortar or the WW2 Japanese Type 89 grenade launcher was the way to go, because in the case of the Japanese weapon it had a range of 600m and only weighed about 1/3rd that of the German 50mm mortar.
 
IIRC compared to the 128mm AA gun the 150mm AA gun had about 300m more altitude and its lethal radius was about 3m greater. But it was more expensive to build and wore out its barrel faster. It really wasn't considered that much of an improvement over the 128mm and thus wasn't built in great numbers.

I'm having trouble seeing a triple 15cm turret with DP guns - slow to train and elevate, not to mention loading angles...
 
still think KM was sinkhole or black hole of resources without realistic strategy, hard to argue for more or larger caliber guns?

they had a (projected) class of minelayers that would have only used AA array and auxiliary cruisers used recycled WWI-era guns.
 
The only comment I would make is that this is only possible with 20/20 Hindsight.

I mean isn't that the point of the thread?

I totally agree on both these comments. Its a toolbox an prospective writers who find the items interesting would have to identify pods leading to them.
Or as in the case of the 150mm AA guns I and others have looked for ways to make the Germans have an effective DP gun. Without a surface engagement compromise this may under some circumstances be even easier.
 
....The ITL Panzer I and Panzer II with sloped armor, universal chassis features, and the transverse engine mount)....After all, that's how I created most of this thread- the equipment was largely based off of OTL stuff.

Having watched videos of comparisons between German and Allied tanks I note that the Sherman also had the same transmission/drive wheel arraignment as the Panther.

Not having an engineering background I can but surmise there's an advantage to running the gear in this fashion. More torque per HP?

Perhapse some one will come along with the explanation?
 
Kitten APCs (based on Czech T38 light tank) could have significantly reduced German infantry casualties. Kittens would also have reduced casualties among headquarters staff riding around in open-topped 251 half-tracks. Guess how much German clerks enjoyed doing paperwork in the rain??????

Kitten resembled 251 half-track (open-top, sloped side-armour, un-shielded MGs, etc.) because it was designed for the same role: battle-taxi.
Kitten, 251 half-tracks, CMP armoured ambulances, American half-tracks, Kangaroo, etc. APCs all had open roofs because 1930s-vintage engineers thought that infantry only needed protection against bullets arriving horizontally.
Forget that during 1944 and 1945 Canadian infantry repeatedly complained about attacks stalling because of too many casualties inflicted by accurate German mortar and artillery fire.

MORTARS +1

Also consider that APCs were seen as little more than battle taxis to transport infantry close to front-lines. They were expected to dis-mount before the start-line and fight forward on foot.

No one thought about covering infantry against falling rain or snow or shrapnel until the 1950s. That attitude changed when nuclear weapons threatened battlefield mobility. During the Cold War, NATO and the Warsaw Pact introduced full-enclosed hulls to protect infantry against nuclear fall-out. They even added air-filtration systems to minimize the amount of radio-active dust soldiers had to breath while crossing nuclear wastelands. Why anyone would want to occupy a nuclear wasteland was never explained to infantry??????

Any armament heavier than MMGs was not seriously considered until the 1960s, when IFVs (Bradley, Marder, PBV 302, etc.) were introduced. Then they added 20 mm and larger cannons along with AT rockets, etc.

As for SS stealing the best recruits from the regular army ????? That was all part of Hitker's management strategy. Hilter often assigned the same task to two or three underlings and watched to see who was most successful. Modern corporations still employ the same strategy to decide which managers to promote. Wehrmacht, Waffen SS and Luftwaffe all competed for the same recruits, small arms, AFVs, etc. to build three separate ground armies to defend the Fatherland.
Ironically, during the later years of WW2, Herman Goring's LW Paratroopers proved the best at defense, fighting bloody withdrawals through Italy, Normandy and Northern Europe. Canadian soldiers suffered especially heavy casualties when trying to push Fallschirmjagers back from the Rhine River during the winter of 1945. German mortars caused many of those casualties.
 
Having watched videos of comparisons between German and Allied tanks I note that the Sherman also had the same transmission/drive wheel arraignment as the Panther.

Not having an engineering background I can but surmise there's an advantage to running the gear in this fashion. More torque per HP?

Perhapse some one will come along with the explanation?
From what I could tell those were designed to put the turret in the center of the tank for greater stability, as well as keep too much weight from being on one end of the tank (a tank with its engine and transmission in front would be very nose-heavy). Since the engine was by far the largest and heaviest part of the tank, its size had to be balanced in the front by the size of the transmission and driver compartments combined. The most influential interwar tanks (namely the Vickers 6-ton and the Carden Loyd tankette, designed by the same team) used this layout. However, as tank armor and weight increased, the frontal armor alone started to balance out the weight of the engine, removing one of the main advantages of the layout. However, more importantly, the height imposed by the drive shaft running under the tank increased, since the drive shaft itself got bigger and bulkier, and the heavier and better-armored the tank got, the bigger penalty there was for increasing the tanks' height. Eventually, most modern tanks just gave up on putting the turret in the center of the tank, and mounted it forward (this is how most western tanks are designed- with a massive engine/transmission compartment in the back). However, the soviets found a way to keep the turret in the center of the tank by mounting the engine sideways and thus reducing the engine compartments' size- this innovation has featured in every one of their tanks from the T-44 up to the T-90. Only with the T-14 Armata have they (presumably) been forced to abandon their traditional transverse engine mounting.
 
Kitten APCs (based on Czech T38 light tank) could have significantly reduced German infantry casualties. Kittens would also have reduced casualties among headquarters staff riding around in open-topped 251 half-tracks. Guess how much German clerks enjoyed doing paperwork in the rain??????

Kitten resembled 251 half-track (open-top, sloped side-armour, un-shielded MGs, etc.) because it was designed for the same role: battle-taxi.
Kitten, 251 half-tracks, CMP armoured ambulances, American half-tracks, Kangaroo, etc. APCs all had open roofs because 1930s-vintage engineers thought that infantry only needed protection against bullets arriving horizontally.
Forget that during 1944 and 1945 Canadian infantry repeatedly complained about attacks stalling because of too many casualties inflicted by accurate German mortar and artillery fire.

MORTARS +1

Also consider that APCs were seen as little more than battle taxis to transport infantry close to front-lines. They were expected to dis-mount before the start-line and fight forward on foot.

No one thought about covering infantry against falling rain or snow or shrapnel until the 1950s. That attitude changed when nuclear weapons threatened battlefield mobility. During the Cold War, NATO and the Warsaw Pact introduced full-enclosed hulls to protect infantry against nuclear fall-out. They even added air-filtration systems to minimize the amount of radio-active dust soldiers had to breath while crossing nuclear wastelands. Why anyone would want to occupy a nuclear wasteland was never explained to infantry??????

Any armament heavier than MMGs was not seriously considered until the 1960s, when IFVs (Bradley, Marder, PBV 302, etc.) were introduced. Then they added 20 mm and larger cannons along with AT rockets, etc.

As for SS stealing the best recruits from the regular army ????? That was all part of Hitker's management strategy. Hilter often assigned the same task to two or three underlings and watched to see who was most successful. Modern corporations still employ the same strategy to decide which managers to promote. Wehrmacht, Waffen SS and Luftwaffe all competed for the same recruits, small arms, AFVs, etc. to build three separate ground armies to defend the Fatherland.
Ironically, during the later years of WW2, Herman Goring's LW Paratroopers proved the best at defense, fighting bloody withdrawals through Italy, Normandy and Northern Europe. Canadian soldiers suffered especially heavy casualties when trying to push Fallschirmjagers back from the Rhine River during the winter of 1945. German mortars caused many of those casualties.


Could the kittens not simply have been made by covering the 251 half-tracks?
The incentive to make these could, be for river crossings (would they actually not float?) and scare of chemical attacks.
If offensives were planned with chemical weapons, then you'd have the incentive for an IFV like design.
 
Yes balance was a good excuse to put the engine at one end and the transmission at the other end. Balance helps when swimming across rivers and improves road-handling.
The worst possible combination was the abortive, Canadian Bobcat APC with its engine in the front engine, a noisy drive-shaft through the middle of the infantry compartment and a huge transmission across the rear. The Bobcat's huge transmission forced the door sill up to waist height on infantry approaching from the rear. Beautifully-balanced from an engineering perspective, but awkward for user infantry.

Kitten prototypes might have been able to swim across rivers. We would need to final weight and volume numbers to determine how buoyant it was. Water-tight lockers along the sides would help with flotation and defend against bazookas.

Mind you, River-crossings are far more hazardous than salesmen admit and old vehicles tend to leak after driving a few thousand kilometres.

Kitten Mark 1 had an awkward engine location in the right-rear of the infantry compartment. By the time the Kitten Mark 3 entered production, I'll bet that the engine would move so far forward that it nestled beside the driver - like most modern APCs.
 

perfectgeneral

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While I like the AG42 design, it still seems heavy. Is all that furniture around the barrel really needed?

161012_alsace_01.jpg

I prefer something off the Alsace design that uses 128mm DP secondaries. The big triples seem to lose sight of the whole Dreadnaught revolution.
 
Kitten APCs (based on Czech T38 light tank) could have significantly reduced German infantry casualties. Kittens would also have reduced casualties among headquarters staff riding around in open-topped 251 half-tracks. Guess how much German clerks enjoyed doing paperwork in the rain??????


Any armament heavier than MMGs was not seriously considered until the 1960s, when IFVs (Bradley, Marder, PBV 302, etc.) were introduced. Then they added 20 mm and larger cannons along with AT rockets, etc.
Actually the German half-tracks had a canvas (?) cover for the top to keep out the rain, though I suppose it would have been difficult to work underneath it. A major reason why not to have top armour is its weight, that's one reasons the US tank destroyers initially had no roofs - so they could go faster (as well as elevate/depress the gun further). The Sdkfz 250 and 251 series were all armed with heavy weapons for at least the platoon commander's vehicle, initially with 37mm AT guns but later with such things as the short 75mm gun and side-mounted 150mm rocket racks.
 
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