No Tigers, Just Panthers and Panzer IVs

The brits had to produce CS and 2pdr versions of their tanks because they used single type units with incompatible specs. There was no way a slow Matilda could operate with a fast Crusader. And the CS versions ended up being mostly used for smoke laying. The Germans used mixed Pz III and IV units, since the tanks had similar enough specs. They had two tanks because they came from rival companies. The two countries that had a rational "one type at a time" policy either had a centralized economy (USSR) or built a tank industry from scratch (USA) Both France (H-35 and R-35) and Britain (Matilda and Valentine) had two types of infantry tank.
If you think of aircraft, the USA, with a developed peace time aircraft industry, also had competing designs from different companies.
 

TruthfulPanda

Gone Fishin'
The two countries that had a rational "one type at a time" policy either had a centralized economy (USSR)
Not true. The T-34 monoculture was an accident. The Soviets were as invested in infantry and cavalry tanks as the British. They ran the T-26 and the BT series in parallel, remember?
Simply the infantry tank, the T-50, was six months behind the the cavalry tank, the T-34, in the development cycle and was just entering mass production and having its kinks ironed out when Barbarossa happened.
And having the factory intended to make the T-50 located in Leningrad did not help ...
Have Barbarossa in 1940 or 1942 and you have the Soviets with two tanks.
 
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I don’t think anyone here has suggested more Panthers or other tanks would win Germany the war.

Well the question then is what good would they do? Spinning the war out for a couple of more months is an invitation to a demonstration of the A-Bomb in Europe. This assumes that Germany can scrape up the fuel and ammo to support more tanks.
 
Apparently this was actually discussed and this did result in this design

321843-Berserker.jpg


The VK 3002 DB (might as well get it in before the wehr's do.

But apparently this idea of 'T-34 but with Made In Germany stamped on its arse' was refused for reasons of national pride.
There's just no escaping German late war tanks being designed with interleaved wheels, is there?
 
Not true. The T-34 monoculture was an accident. The Soviets were as invested in infantry and cavalry tanks as the British. They ran the T-26 and the BT series in parallel, remember?
Simply the infantry tank, the T-50, was six months behind the the cavalry tank, the T-34, in the development cycle and was just entering mass production and having its kinks ironed out when Barbarossa happened.
And having the factory intended to make the T-50 located in Leningrad did not help ...
Have Barbarossa in 1940 or 1942 and you have the Soviets with two tanks.
Dude,The T26 was an Infantry tank (actually it was meant for combined arms units in the attack echelon) and the BT was a fast tank for the tank heavy armoured units in the development (deep penetration) echelon. Those are two totally different requirments.
The T34 did come to take both roles, but that was because progress in technology made it possible.
The Soviets never had two tanks of the same category in production, much like the USA. They still had different types of tanks because they had light, medium and heavy tanks, just like the USA, until the 50s
I specifically mentioned examples of French and british tanks built for the same mission at the same time.
Comparing the T26 with the BT is like comparing the Valentine with the Crusader. Same gun, different job.
The H-35 R-35 or the Matilda Valentine situation would be analogue to the Soviets having two types of Infantry tank rather than just the T26
 
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The need to retool factories for a different design meant that less tanks would be produced overall. Between the Tiger and the Panther, I think the Panther should have been axed as a tank. Somewhere between a medium and a heavy- but Germany already had good solutions for both tank classes.


GOOD POINT!
Forczyk in Tank Warfare on the Eastern Front [43-45] reports that one of the three primary tank factories [Nibelungenwerke] was tasked with Porsches TIGER ELEPHANT construction. The new factory was designed for an out put of 150 Pz-IV per month in 1942 and had planned to build 1800 Pz IV. Instead however they were saddled with development of Porsche's Tiger tank prototypes in 1942 plus the follow on 90 Elephant development and construction prior to Kursk, in 1943, This restricted them to only 186 Pz IV and the Tiger prototypes by Hitler's birthday in 1942 . In 1943 they were able to get back on track and produce ~ 1200 Pz-IV tanks.

So if this is any indication , then I would say 1600 more Pz-IV were preferable to Tiger development in 1942.
 
There's just no escaping German late war tanks being designed with interleaved wheels, is there?
Porsche tried

The drivetrain comprised three two wheel bogie assemblies – with doubled steel-rimmed roadwheels that, in addition, were relatively small. Porsche believed that they would give more amplitude for the suspension and the steel rimming could bear more weight. But the most innovative aspect was their semi-internal longitudinal torsion arms, three sets per side, which were not interchangeable. Indeed, this system allowed, in theory, to free internal space, contrary to the standard torsion arms.


Each unit comprised a rocker arm, fitted on the main hull pivot, and a horizontal torsion bar casing arranged beneath the rocker arm and hinged to it at one end. Beneath the other arm, a rubber block was attached, resting lightly on the top of the torsion bar casing when the vehicle was idle. One bogie wheel axle is fixed on the torsion bar casing at a short distance from its free end, while the other is located to the pivotal axis between the casing and the rocker arm and serves as the hinge pin between them. This axle is also fixed to the rocker arm and carried in bearings in the torsion bar casings. A short radius arm is splined on this axis, and maintains a fixed angle with respect to the rocker arm. The torsion bar is anchored at one end by a splined intop at the free end of its casing, where it is secured by a nut and a lock nut. The other end is splined into a sleeve which is journalled in the torsion bar casing and extends back around to a point some distance beyond the end of the axle radius arm. A second radius arm is splined to the torsion bar sleeve beneath the first radius arm and a thrust member is collected by ball and socket joints between the ends of the two arms. (British technical intelligence report).


t_ele_susp_sm.jpg
ferdinandir_10.jpg
 
GOOD POINT!
Forczyk in Tank Warfare on the Eastern Front [43-45] reports that one of the three primary tank factories [Nibelungenwerke] was tasked with Porsches TIGER ELEPHANT construction. The new factory was designed for an out put of 150 Pz-IV per month in 1942 and had planned to build 1800 Pz IV. Instead however they were saddled with development of Porsche's Tiger tank prototypes in 1942 plus the follow on 90 Elephant development and construction prior to Kursk, in 1943, This restricted them to only 186 Pz IV and the Tiger prototypes by Hitler's birthday in 1942 . In 1943 they were able to get back on track and produce ~ 1200 Pz-IV tanks.

So if this is any indication , then I would say 1600 more Pz-IV were preferable to Tiger development in 1942.
Porshes' Tiger design wasn't accepted and the Elephant/Ferdinand was a colossal failure (which just didn't die for some reason) so you could get the 1600 Panzer 4s without impacting the development of the actual Tiger in anyway (and without the Elephants unnecessarily tying up recovery vehicles and repair crews the Tiger tanks can perform even better).
 
The tiger 1 had a number of well known flaws one of those was the slow turret which had to hand cranked while it did have electric traverse it was tricky and difficult to use, something that allies exploited.

But yes the Ferdinand was a mistake but it was also hard to knock out though.
 
The tiger 1 had a number of well known flaws one of those was the slow turret which had to hand cranked while it did have electric traverse it was tricky and difficult to use, something that allies exploited.

But yes the Ferdinand was a mistake but it was also hard to knock out though.


Yes but 1800 Pz-IV instead of 90 ELEPHANT & 186 Pz-IV...it should be an easy call.
 

Deleted member 1487

Yes but 1800 Pz-IV instead of 90 ELEPHANT & 186 Pz-IV...it should be an easy call.
It isn't that simple. I have a good on the history of the Niebelungenwerk from Austria (where the plant was) and in 1942 the machinery was not installed and full capacity was simply unreachable until 1944. They were still building the factory, which is why given that they were partially operational they were tasked with working on a prototype and involved in repair work for damaged existing Panzers or upgrading older ones. In 1943 production was climbing due to more of the plant being operational, but having it work on the Tiger prototypes and then converting them to something else useful when the Porsche version didn't get accepted was a very reasonable use of the facility at the time.
https://translate.google.com/transl...wikipedia.org/wiki/Nibelungenwerk&prev=search
 

FBKampfer

Banned
The tiger 1 had a number of well known flaws one of those was the slow turret which had to hand cranked while it did have electric traverse it was tricky and difficult to use, something that allies exploited.

But yes the Ferdinand was a mistake but it was also hard to knock out though.


The Tiger I could use neutral steering to rotate in place. The turret rotation rate wasn't as limiting to target engagement as often presented.
 
I highly doubt you could double the weight of a design and expect it to work. I know the Hellcat was tested with the 90mm gun and it didn't work. Hence the M36.

My US TD book says that not only did it work, it was to be the only TD to remain in production, but, sadly (I jest), the war ended.
 

Deleted member 1487

My US TD book says that not only did it work, it was to be the only TD to remain in production, but, sadly (I jest), the war ended.
https://wiki.warthunder.com/index.p...Carriage#History_of_creation_and_combat_usage
The M18's turret was then replaced with the turret from the M36 GMC to mount the 90 mm gun. Testings with this variant showed that the installment of the new turret did not hinder the speed performance of the M18, but the recoil of the 90 mm gun would cause the tank to bounce back heavily when fired, going back by at least 2 feet even with the muzzle brake attached on the 90 mm gun. The recoil force would also shake the entire tank hull and crew inside. The modified M18 mounting the 90 mm gun was nicknamed the "Super" Hellcat

Testing and cancellation
Despite the drawbacks, it was deemed an acceptable vehicle to use in the battlefield. The 90 mm gun would provide a very large firepower advantage over the 76 mm gun the M18 had originally, which could not penetrate the front of the Panther tank unless in close range with HVAP ammo. The 90 mm could take out most of the late war German tank designs with ease. However, the war ended before the "Super" Hellcat could be deployed for combat use, and the project was cancelled along with the disbanding of the tank destroyer doctrine.

Seems like it was flawed, but the desire to have a weapon to counter the Panther forced it into service only for the war ending to cause the Army to drop the scheme and instead develop different technologies for the future.

It does bear wondering how the 'Super' Hellcat would have done in Korea in 1950 against the T-34/85.
 
but the recoil of the 90 mm gun would cause the tank to bounce back heavily when fired, going back by at least 2 feet even with the muzzle brake attached on the 90 mm gun. The recoil force would also shake the entire tank hull and crew inside.

It does bear wondering how the 'Super' Hellcat would have done in Korea in 1950 against the T-34/85.

Even the M48 would roll back almost a foot when the more powerful 90mm was fired (fun fact: WWII 90mm ammo could still be fired in this gun, but not the reverse, slight change in case angles) and when a 90mm was really needed, a bit a recoil wasn't a show stopper
M56 Scorpion , 7.1T with 90mm

m56_scorpion_history_1.jpg

They fired the same 90mm as the Patton, with around 200 tons more for muzzle energy than the WWII M3 90mm loadings

The standard M18 was 20T

In Korea, would have spent most of its time firing indirect

20131203004749.jpg

But with fewer breakdowns getting to that firing position
 

SsgtC

Banned
It does bear wondering how the 'Super' Hellcat would have done in Korea in 1950 against the T-34/85.
Probably pretty well. If it can operate from concealment and ambush them. I would not want to go head to head with a T-34 in an M-18. Besides, the US had plenty of Shermans, Pershings and Pattons available.
 
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