Ideal German tank?

One issue the Germans have is their insistence of putting the transmission at the front, and unlike the Americans giving no easy way to get at it. This means changing the transmission can only be done at a depot, as it requires first removing the turret.
The Germans had half tracks with cranes capable of pulling turrets off Pz III and Pz IV tanks so the transmissions could be pulled through the turret ring. The Panther's transmission could be pulled through a large hatch on the forward hull roof. Transmission work on all three tanks could be done in the field. Going through the lower glacis is definitely going to be easier but edge effects are a problem without huge castings like the Sherman transmission cover.
 

marathag

Banned
but edge effects are a problem without huge castings like the Sherman transmission cover.
only with the early three piece covers. The homogeneous cast was low enough in hardness that cracking or bolts letting loose didn't seem to be the problem, while the overall thickness was tweaked as the War went on.

The best for service was the M18, where engine and transaxle were fast service, sliding out on rails, where a good team could pull a unit under a half hour
 
only with the early three piece covers. The homogeneous cast was low enough in hardness that cracking or bolts letting loose didn't seem to be the problem, while the overall thickness was tweaked as the War went on.

The best for service was the M18, where engine and transaxle were fast service, sliding out on rails, where a good team could pull a unit under a half hour
Edge effects would be a problem if you tried to put an access hatch in the upper or lower glacis of a Panther. The three-piece transmission covers had the edges heavily reinforced to compensate. The Hellcat and Chaffee both had transmission access via bolted hatches in the upper front plate, which is fine for a lightly armored vehicle but probably not for something with 3 inches of armor.
 

marathag

Banned
bolted hatches in the upper front plate, which is fine for a lightly armored vehicle but probably not for something with 3 inches of armor.
Early and midwar Churchills had their hull plated bolted to an interior framework
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A reliable and easy to maintain and operate Tiger? Also one that was cheaper and quicker to build and not mechanically complicated. Or a Sherman.
 
The Germans had half tracks with cranes capable of pulling turrets off Pz III and Pz IV tanks so the transmissions could be pulled through the turret ring. The Panther's transmission could be pulled through a large hatch on the forward hull roof. Transmission work on all three tanks could be done in the field. Going through the lower glacis is definitely going to be easier but edge effects are a problem without huge castings like the Sherman transmission cover.
Getting to the Panther final drive still required removing the rest of the transmission, after also dismantling the driver's compartment.

Not that the T-34 was a brilliant tank either, at least the -76. The sloped side armour and Christie suspension meant that the interior was rather cramped, the turret was a two-man design, vision (as in almost all early war tanks bar those of the Germans) was terrible, and the drive train broke down a lot.
 
Getting to the Panther final drive still required removing the rest of the transmission, after also dismantling the driver's compartment.

Not that the T-34 was a brilliant tank either, at least the -76. The sloped side armour and Christie suspension meant that the interior was rather cramped, the turret was a two-man design, vision (as in almost all early war tanks bar those of the Germans) was terrible, and the drive train broke down a lot.
The joys of being a tanker, it's designed by an engineer that never has to service the beast!

panther trans 3.jpg
panther transmission 2.jpg
 
I think all the nations compromised on something, it just depended what:
Germany - Ease of maintenance
Russia - Reliability, crew comfort
Britain - Performance, gun size
America - height
 
Charming.....

Are you dog whistling, quoting Stalin's description of Tukhachevsky?

Or another McPherson?

I am pointing out that using words like Deep Battle in anything other than a poetic manner ( as Grossman for example does although look at his issues) is at best dangerous in Stalinist times even if the conceptual framework clearly exists. I am also quoting Tukhachevsky on the difficulty in transitioning between the break in and turning phases of the battle - see also Moscow counteroffensive, Vyazma/Rzev, 2nd, 3rd Kharkov, Kutuzov evolving into Rumyantysev et seq.

the gun crew of the PaK 36 could roll it around without too much difficulty
not at all possible with the 2pdr

However my point is that both had wide arcs of fire when in position unlike FA used in an AT role earlier, Also rolling an AT gun around at walking pace is far less effective than using a vebicle to move it and that less effective than mounting it on an AFV under armour.
 
I like the drawing. :cool: One thing concerns me: the apparent interference between the front sprocket and front-most road wheel.

In answer to critics of my Pz4.5;) proposal, if the extra road wheels aren't enough to carry the load, I'd happily see the suspension re-engineered with something akin to HVSS. I'm not a fan of torsion bars or Christie. (IMO, the Horstmann is too idiosyncratically British to occur to the Germans.;) )
 
The best for service was the M18, where engine and transaxle were fast service, sliding out on rails, where a good team could pull a unit under a half hour
Edge effects would be a problem if you tried to put an access hatch in the upper or lower glacis of a Panther. The three-piece transmission covers had the edges heavily reinforced to compensate. The Hellcat and Chaffee both had transmission access via bolted hatches in the upper front plate, which is fine for a lightly armored vehicle but probably not for something with 3 inches of armor.
Old post of mine. Follow the link, which gives programme index to stop you wasting time.
I watched another episode of Tank Overhaul, this time about the M18 Hellcat.
 
I like the drawing. :cool: One thing concerns me: the apparent interference between the front sprocket and front-most road wheel.

In answer to critics of my Pz4.5;) proposal, if the extra road wheels aren't enough to carry the load, I'd happily see the suspension re-engineered with something akin to HVSS. I'm not a fan of torsion bars or Christie. (IMO, the Horstmann is too idiosyncratically British to occur to the Germans.;) )
I didn't draw the tracks and roadwheels and IIRC I got the that part from a drawing I found on the World of Tanks forum.

Below is a pic if an E-50 but the turret is questionable because there are sites like wikipedia that claim the Germans never drew a pic of the E-50 with a turret only the hull and suspension which is a conical spring and was supposed to be less complicated and require less drilling and materials than the interleaved wheel suspension.
E-50.png

The E-50 was supposed to be a Panzer design using all the experience gained building Panzers during the early to mid war years but again the turret is in doubt as to whether it's a war or post war design.
my pic is a simplified take on the E-50, 88 gun instead of the 105, no interleaved wheels and an upgraded engine the Maybach HL234 which had 900 hp.
I also went with the turret because I like it, it's basically an improved Panther turret and would've been smaller and lighter than the Tiger-II's turret.
 
To this day, German automakers continue to build car engines with timing chains in the rear to make sure that some time after 100k miles, you'll need to lift the the etire engine and transmission out of the car to do something that would otherwise be fairly simple.
The best was the Sherman with the radial engine. It always helped to have a skinny crewman, so you could lower him by the ankles to reach the spark plugs at the bottom of the engine.

At least with the transmission besides the driver, he would check the levels (including final drives) when he "first parade" the vehicle each day.
 
The reason for the shoulder mounted guns and aiming from moving vehicles is it works. Pre war testing had a 33% first round hit between 500 and 200 yards, and in NW Europe almost all engagements of WW2 were at 500m or less. Until the later 1930s, when the Army in the UK but not Hobo moves away from fire on the move there are no purpose designed AT guns. This is important the field artillery available has a traverse of about 4-6 degrees. So if you can move out of the very narrow frontal arc the enemy has to pick up the trail and move the gun. PAK 36 has 60 degrees, 2lb famously 360.
Again you tell half truths...

Cruisers only came into service in '38. All "pre-war" tests (eg the "33%") was done in slow Mediums with a top speed of 13mph. Not fast cruisers!
BTW, mediums were armed with 3pdr 47mm naval guns firing only AP, and didn't need a purpose built new AT. They already had one.

Like Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, quoting a finding of research without understanding the question, results in "42"!
Mixing in NW Europe, with tanks that didn't use shoulder guns, is rather pointless. NATO has tank ranges in the same environment as 1,800m.
How much of the <500m, is due to lower velocities, smaller calibers, of Allied tanks, make the whole discussion mute.
Throw in that much of Britain's war was in the desert, even more so.

The 2 pdr was "famously 360". The only AT that the British adopted, pre-war, without battle experience, and not tried again in 6 or 17 pdr.
Low profile, was extremely important to survival of the AT gun.
Besides the higher profile and heavy weight, 2pdr would have being dropped earlier except for Dunkirk.

Conversely, the 25pdr field gun-howitzer WAS designed to pick up the box trail, and allow 360 fire.
 
The Germans had half tracks with cranes capable of pulling turrets off Pz III and Pz IV tanks so the transmissions could be pulled through the turret ring. The Panther's transmission could be pulled through a large hatch on the forward hull roof. Transmission work on all three tanks could be done in the field. Going through the lower glacis is definitely going to be easier but edge effects are a problem without huge castings like the Sherman transmission cover.
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Above is an old pick I redrew of a post war German tank design made for India but was not purchased or ever put into production. I changed the original gun (a 90mm IIRC) with a 105mm gun meant for use in one of the E-type panzer designs of the late war era.

It bears some small resemblance to the T-34 but is larger so I think it had some influence from Soviet designs, the suspension looks more Western-ish and I personally think the Germans would have gone with a large caliber gun and some fellow tank enthusiasts I know have commented on other threads that most turrets that can house a 90mm could probably squeeze in a 105 gun.

I wouldn't be so sure that the turret in your design would be able to fit the 105mm gun; sure, most 90mm-armed tanks could fit a 105mm gun instead, but that's because the 105mm gun used would be the L7, and the L7 is based on the Ordinance QF 20pdr gun (84mm) bored out to 105mm, and was designed specifically to fit mountings for the 20pdr. The L7 isn't actually that big, and so can replace 90mm guns, but that wouldn't necessarily be the same with the German gun, especially if it was based on the 10.5cm Flak 38.
 
I wouldn't be so sure that the turret in your design would be able to fit the 105mm gun; sure, most 90mm-armed tanks could fit a 105mm gun instead, but that's because the 105mm gun used would be the L7, and the L7 is based on the Ordinance QF 20pdr gun (84mm) bored out to 105mm, and was designed specifically to fit mountings for the 20pdr. The L7 isn't actually that big, and so can replace 90mm guns, but that wouldn't necessarily be the same with the German gun, especially if it was based on the 10.5cm Flak 38.
I hear what you’re saying, will make a new pic with the ole 8.8.
 
The US 90 mm Guns M3, M36, and M41 are all roughly similar in size to the QF 20 pdr and the 105 mm L7. The closest comparable guns in the WWII era were the 7.5 cm KwK 42, the QF 17-pdr, and the 8.8 cm KwK 36 (1,000 to 1,300 kg). All the drawings of the Indien-Panzer show a huge gun closer in size to the 8.8 cm KwK 43, but I don't think that is a reasonable option for a 36 ton tank. The ammunition in the Indien-Panzer drawings on Tanks Encyclopedia looks like a case length of somewhere around 600 mm, which would be similar to the US 90 mm guns and the KwK 36 but not the KwK 43. Judging by the bottlenecked cartridges, they might be thinking about something more like the 90 mm Gun T54, although the multi-part barrel would be different from typical American practice.
 
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