PJungnitsch

Nice clip. How do make a movie like that exactly?

Glantz has given a reply here.

Only the very first Panthers (D series) had the slow independent turret traverse. The later ones all had a variable speed traverse turret that gave 9 sec/180 at 2500 rpm engine speed. The US army measured a captured Tiger II at 9sec/180 at 2000 rpm, so it was even slightly faster. Being as these engines are meant to be kept at 1800 to 2000 rpm while the tank is moving, giving the Panthers and Tiger II's "slow" turrets has always been a bit controversial. Tiger I is spot on the mark though, and the late PzIV's (J series) was also slow, due to deletion of the electric turret traverse from lack of copper.

It is always a good thing to keep in mind that all people have their bias's, and academics can be worse than most in this regard, in my experience. Plus sometimes people can just get things wrong. For example Glantz has come under a lot of heat in the TDI forum here at the moment for inaccuracies in the 'The Battle of Kursk'. Twenty-six disagreements in the first seventeen pages.

I dunno, everything that happened could be explained. It did appear to ring true to me, with such intricate and strange details. It is not written in stilted English certainly, but then if he spent his life in the US he may be speaking good English by now. A very young writing style, certainly. Interestingly enough this Joscha fellow appears to be alive and posting, at least this appears to be him here. Who knows?

Interesting. Am really enjoying these veterans stories. These fellows are all getting pretty old and it is good to get the memories written down.

Hmm, hard to know what to think. I'm sticking with the theory that they want to check it out more carefully before measuring all those track links and suspension bogies. That and they seem busy enough with everything else. Agreed. The Elephant had a bad rep for bogging, but the Tigers never did AFAIK, ie quotes like this: "Wherever we have seen Tiger and Panther tanks they have not demonstrated any inferior maneuverability. Near Puffendorf, Germany, several Tiger Royal tanks were encountered. These Tiger Royals were able to negotiate very soft ground and their tracks did not sink as deeply into the soft ground as did our own" And "The Mark V and VI in my opinion have more maneuverability and certainly more flotation. I have seen in many cases where the Mark V and VI tanks could maneuver nicely over ground where the American M4 would bog down. On one occasion I saw at least ten Royal Tigers make a counterattack against us over ground that for us was nearly impossible." Tigers and Panthers do have a reputation as being very difficult to recover when they did get buried, mind.

A description of what it was like to be on the receiving end of a Nebelwerfer attack here, Nebelwerfer Rocket Artillery

If they switch to a Mean Maximum Pressure system from the Nominal Ground Pressure system they are using now it will fix all that, being as how MMP takes into account different suspension and track designs. Tigers I and II, Panther, and Churchill would benefit the most. It may be something they want to research more, and then incorporate into the next game if they have enough faith in it. Something like how the optics situation worked. Shame though, as getting the floatation values correct is probably the most critical on the east front.

Thanks. This quote may also be of interest, from Rich at the TDI forum:

What sources are you using for this? I've been looking for reliability info of this type.

This makes quotes like the following make a lot of sense; from Tiger vs Stalin, Notes for Panzer Troops, Sept 1944:

This is how the east front MMP rankings would go: Panther 150-155 BT-5 175 T-34/76 174-186 Tiger II 184 Tiger I 185-192 KV-1 208 Panzer IV 184-191 T-34/85 196 Panzer III 220-232 BT-7 240 JS-I, II, III 245 Universal Carrier 253 Sherman VVSS 282 Elephant 370 PzIII and PzIV do not appear to include Ostkotten. Early war floatation rankings shouldn't change much from NGP ratings. Late war they would though.

That is nominal ground pressure, weight divided by track area. Easy to figure out and certainly true on a concrete floor. MMP (mean maximum pressure) takes into account a number of other factors such as the length of the track links, the number and size of suspension wheels etc which apparently makes a huge difference in soft ground. MMP of Panther is 150, T-34/76 is 174, Tiger II is 184, T-34/85 is 196, Stalin II is 245, Elephant is 370. You can look up the articles on NGP vs MMP here under the 'other interests' link.

Of course anything is going to bog if the going is bad enough, but if the MMP figures are right then Panther and Tigers should float pretty well. A Panther has considerably better floatation than a T-34/76, a Tiger I with battletracks or a Tiger II only slightly worse, and still better than a T-34/85. Elephants though are boat anchors , and I believe combat accounts bear this out. Before sending out Elephants the ground was checked out extremely carefully.

I was wondering about that too. 'Pitch' in terms of roller chain is the distance from one pin to the next, I assume that carries over to tracks in the same way.

A little more info for those interested in this ground pressure thing, a couple of interesting responses from posting on the AFV news forum: I had written: "Wondering what other people think of the articles as well. For example the Elephant having only 20% heavier ground pressure than a King Tiger when measured normally but over double the ground pressure using his method seems to make a lot of sense according to combat accounts I've read (although both are equally difficult to retrieve if they DO get bogged). If true though it would mean that regular ground pressure ratings are next to useless. Could this be the case?" Responses:

I noticed that. Arggh! Oh well, it seems to be working again. Second paper is up now as well, this one has more tank vs tank stuff. To rephrase, both reports by Rowland on armored vehicle ground pressure are posted here. Click on the other interests link down and to the left on this Africa page to get to them. Cheers [ November 13, 2002, 01:38 AM: Message edited by: Paul Jungnitsch ]

Thanks for pointing that out. Just checked it on a buddy's computer and sure enough, the first 4 scans were linked wrong. Seems all ok now. It is a big page though, and may take a while to load. Switching back and forth helps.

First report (mostly where the formula is worked out) is posted here. Click on the other interests link down and to the left on this Africa page to get to the report. [ November 12, 2002, 10:57 PM: Message edited by: Paul Jungnitsch ]

Oh and the Eisenhower report is here.

He doesn't show how he got the PZIV figure, other than giving a variation of (184-191). He does give his figures for the highest floatation of the PZIII (220), in which he used the narrowest track (360mm) but a fairly light weight (19). Tiger I is given with battle tracks (185-192), and transport tracks (230-240) He doesn't have figures on the Panzer I or II other than mentioning that that they use similar roadwheels and a similar but double pitch track to the Universal carrier, which is not particularly good at 250.

Here we go.... Was doing this out of interest, thought I may as well post it. A more complete list, in order of best to worst of ability to traverse soft ground. Panther 150-155 M-24 Chaffee 175 BT-5 175 T-34/76 174-186 Churchill M IV 177 (11 roadwheel) Tiger II 184 Tiger I 185-192 Churchill VII 182-223 Churchill Mk IV 217 (9 roadwheel) Panzer IV 184-191 T-34/85 196 Sherman HVSS 205 M3 Stuart 216 Panzer III 220-232 BT-7 240 JS-II 245 Universal Carrier 253 Sherman VVSS 282 E-100 290 Cromwell VII 300 Cromwell IV 352 M3 Halftrack 363 US 2 1/2 ton 367 (6X6) Elephant 370 SD KFZ 231 (8 rad) 415 M8 Greyhound 460 Maus 470 Opel Blitz 525 (4X4) Opel Blitz 700 (4X2) For comparison M29c Weasel 27 Caterpillar D7 32.5 (widepad) Caterpillar D7 80 (regular) Leopard II 201 M-60 221-236 T-62 242 M-47 246 AMX-30 249