No Tigers, Just Panthers and Panzer IVs

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.

At work.

I have seen comments that the Tiger I could not 'Pirouette'.

That was an innovation of machines such as the Churchill.

Though, as a 'Lay man', I may be completely misunderstanding the term 'Neutral' steer.

Looking forwards to learning more. :D

EDIT: On a side note. The Porsche electro/deisels could 'Pirouette' thanks to thd way the electric motors were built into the drive train. Whil doing it using a simple 'Steering Wheel' set up. The harder you turned the wheel one way or the other adjusted track motion/drive. To ths point that an extreme steering wheel deflection had the machine turning on the spot.
 
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The only problem with Porsche's electrical diesels was that they were unreliable because of how far ahead it was. Plus the copper was not exactly bountiful either.
 
The only problem with Porsche's electrical diesels was that they were unreliable because of how far ahead it was. Plus the copper was not exactly bountiful either.

I'm pretty sure the Ferdinand/Elefant was petrol electric, but the point about the unreliability holds true.
 
At work.

By some accounts I've read. To save some developmental time. Porsche 'Sub-contracted' the electrical motors out to another company. Hence, what was installed in the prototype did not meet the specs he was expecting. Hence the failures and fires.

Remember. Porsche successfully built petrol/diesel/electric vehicles for moving very heavy WW I artillery pieces around that shell blasted hell-scape.

Yes the "We have to convert these 50 (100?) odd armored hulls to some use" occured after the failed prototype bid.

I believe that Porsche's good WW I standing/technical expertise is what allowed the development of the 'Lowe'(?) to get as far advanced as it did before events etc caused termination.

As for the Elefant? Centrally mounted petrol engine. Not sure which end the drive train came out at. The front? It was'nt a hybrid. Hence the armored superstructure plus gun on the rear?

Must admit to thinking. "What if they'd just rebuilt the Porsche hulls into engineering vehicles." to retrieve broken Panthers and Tigers?

Would it have saved prep time for Kursk plus allow the Panzer divisions better recovery/recuperation after/between battles?
 
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At some point the Germans concluded they couldn't match their enemies in terms of quantity of tanks so they would have to compensate with quality, in essence the goal was a tank that was a powerful enough 'force multiplier' to allow them to dominate the battlefield. To some extent they succeeded with the Tiger but the problem was they could never hope to produce anything with a large enough margin of superiority to really offset the numerical disadvantage and when you add in things like artillery, airstrikes and landmines its a truly hopeless task. More tanks that were at best equal to their allied counterparts really isn't going to help much and pushing back the end of the war in Europe to say August would be a really bad idea for the Germans.
 
I have seen comments that the Tiger I could not 'Pirouette'.

From a British report
STEERING UNIT
Steering is effected by imposing different speeds on to the sun wheel of an epicyclic, whose annulus is positively driven by a bevel meshing with the main gearbox output bevel, and whose planet carrier carries the output flange to the final drive. There is one of these epicyclics at each end of the bevel shaft meshing with the gearbox output bevel.

...
In addition, in neutral with no output from the main gearbox bevel, a drive is still obtained from the bevel on the extension of the gearbox input shaft, and this produces with the engagement of the appropriate steering clutch opposing rotations of left and right sun wheels. As the annuli are unable to rotate in opposite directions owing to their being secured to the same shaft this opposite rotation of the sun wheel, of necessity, produces opposite rotation of the output flanges, resulting in a neutral turn. For one full revolution of both output flanges the gearbox input flange performs 117 revs.
 
The Ferdinand was a questionable Tank destroyer they had no MG for self defense in the Eastern front and the remaining vehicles were lost in Italy.
 
The Ferdinand was a questionable Tank destroyer they had no MG for self defense in the Eastern front and the remaining vehicles were lost in Italy.

They lost most everything in Italy, so not surprising. Italy was one of the few places a TD like that made sense.
 

Deleted member 1487

The Ferdinand was a questionable Tank destroyer they had no MG for self defense in the Eastern front and the remaining vehicles were lost in Italy.
If not for the insane armor on it, it was really not that much different from some of the Soviet SP AT weapons. If reliable and with MGs, which were added later, they were quite formidable.
 
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


Well lets brake this down. According to the link NI-WERK had 9 halls with maximum capability of 320 tanks per month or 3840 tanks per year. Put another way each of 9 halls can produce 35-36 tanks per hall per month, with two of the halls to build larger tanks.. Initial production @ NI-WERK- in first 1/2 of 1942- was reported at 2-8 * Pz-IV per month; for five months plus one Porsche Tiger prototype each month.

After that the planned Pz-IV production increase to 32 per month by November 1942, but only 186* Pz-IV were actually built due to ongoing problems with the prototype. Add to this the 785 Pz-IV from Krupp-Gruson & Vomag.I wonder what the monthly out put would be with out Prototype effort. At least double? triple?

Looks like the 90 Elephants occupied NI-WERK in the spring of 1943, preventing major Pz-IV production increase, however the total Pz-IV production @ NI-WERK still reached 1370 or 114 per month. Krupp-Gruson & Vomag added another 137 per month for a total of 3013 for 1943.Without Elephants that could have reach 156 per month or 3516 for 1943.

In 1944 the NI-WERK monthly production reached 237 for a total of 2845 , with Krupp-Gruson & Vomag only adding 23 per month -the total was 3125 for the year. Through out 1944 NI-WERK was also building the Jagd-Tiger prototype. This may have taken up one hall out of 9 reducing potential out put by 30 Pz-IV per month.

In 1945 the monthly out put was maybe 128 Pz-IV & 26 Jagd-Tiger per month. Combined that could have allowed 276 Pz-IV per year.
 
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Jack1971

Banned
Looks like the 90 Elephants occupied NI-WERK in the spring of 1943, preventing major Pz-IV production increase,
It’s nutty that they were still producing Panzer IV first seen I. 1936 in 1943, let alone 1945.
 
True, but it’s too bad their spies didn’t look at the Soviet A-20 soon to reach prototype stage.

But the Panzer IV had Radio and 3 man turret, and the A20 prototype wasn't built till 1939

The one design that should have been aborted/converted over was the Panzer III, it brought nothing to the party, except a more complex suspension
Their problem was they jumped from a 20T tank in 1939, to a 45T Panther.

They would have been better off with a 30T Medium, where the Sherman, Comet and T34 lived
 
The panzer IV was Germany's Sherman tank just better doctrine, would it have worked if they had stuck to it and the panther? Yes.
 

FBKampfer

Banned
The Panzer IV needed to be upgraded by the end of the war.

The reality was that Germany needed some measure of qualitative superiority: they couldn't even afford a 1:3 exchange ratio.

Granted doctrine could make up for a lot of that, but you can't assume your enemy will remain inept indefinitely.

Slope the glacis plate, beef up the turret armor, maybe cram the L/70 into some of them.
 
The Germans originally planned to replace the Pz-III & Pz-IV with the VK3001(h) but the project was cancelled in late 1941 after encountering the T-34.
VK+3001(H)+Ausf+B+034.JPG


There is an old thread where the alternate possibilities of the Germans going thru with this design, here - https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/germany-builds-the-vk3001-h.224294/
 
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