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Can a PIAT really knock a Panther out at it's max distance?


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A lot of great points. I had forgotten the CG handheld recoiless rifle - potentially another great fast-track route to VC ownership!

The spaced armour point is interesting. One of the key limitations for the larger AFVs is the need to fit them through railway tunnels when moving them by rail between theatres. I think there is a standard rail gauge - basically a cut out shape which your rail car and load have to be able to pass through before you can freight them around the rail system: measure twice - freight once: getting a train-load of tanks stuck in a rail tunnel being a super fast route to that summary court-martial you've always worried about.

I have a suspicion that the smaller German AFVs (thinking the Mk IIIs/Ivs) probably could fit through a gauge with their permanently fitted spaced armour. But there is no way that would work for big modern AFVs - or the WWII German big cats. In fact didn't the Tiger II need to be fitted with narrower tracks for strat moves? Of course, nowadays don't we have the same problem? I suspect that the big MRAP trucks will not go into any strat lift with their bar armour fitted. Fine if you have the time and base setup to put it all on when you get into your theatre of entry. But not a scheme that would have appealed to anyone in bad old WWII.

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Mmm, no true, wrt the frontal arc not being restricted by rail gauge. But there are always trade-offs for uparmouring in this way. You have the extra weight, the balance of the vehicle, the cost - in materials, time to design and fit - and so on. I guess the question is: is it effective _enough_ to justify the trade-off costs involved? Off-hand I can't think of many examples of spaced armour in the frontal arc. The MkIV H, is kind of my poster boy for spaced armour - particularly in the turret and hull flanks - but it doesn't have that much in the frontal arc, does it? A plate bolted on the mantlet - but not really 'spaced armour' as such. I seem to recall they have a Swedish S-tank in the sheds at Shrivenham with frontal arc bar armour. But on that unusual vehicle it isn't going to interfere with your turret traverse and elevation/depression. It is the iron laws of physics again - if you are having to putz about with a vehicle to that extent (a bit like trying to keep an old banger on the road) then you might well have to ask yourself whether you have the right vehicle for the game you're in. And if your frontal arc is _that_ vulnerable you are thinking about applique armour, chances are you need to take a good long hard look at your fleet. Kind of the story for British tank production through the war really...

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The Panther and Tiger did not need schurzen plates because they had side armour thick enough to stop ATR rounds, though the Panther had side skirts to protect from lower hull hits. It never was designed to defeat HEAT rounds but to stop the 14.5mm rounds and low velocity HE, the theory being that the plates would slow the 14.5mm rounds enough to stop penetration. Tests conducted in 1943 using ATR's and 76.2mm HE showed that the theory was sound, as no penetrations occured, even if, in the case of the HE, the plates were blown off.

As for lack of frontal armour in British tank fleet, tell that to the Churchill designers. As for applique armour, look at the timeline of tank development, for all nations, and the threats they had to contend with. If your opponent managed to get ahead of you in gun/shell development and you had no tank ready to deal with it, as was often the case, you would institute stop gap measures until the new model was ready. By then of course your opponent has probably jumped ahead, or you have produced an armoured behemoth, with all the attendant problems that causes. So in the ideal world your tank fleet is ahead of the game and new, even more capable models are planned to counter each new threat, trouble is in war you fight with what you have got, and that means improvisation.

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Frontal arc is not restricted by rail gauge

There is an OR report from Normandy that deals with this, in part. AIR the conclusion was that any increase in weight on existing models (or any new models) would be better spent mounting a more effective weapon. Upping the armour over the frontal arc sufficiently to defeat prevalent in-service German guns (long 75, 88) would only increase survivability by about ?5%?, since tanks were being knocked out from all angles. Meanwhile, the increase in weight over the front of the tank would introduce a maintenance nightmare (see: JPz IV, et al), and the Allied tanks /still/ wouldn't be able to tackle the larger cats on anything approaching parity because the Allied short 75s would still be short 75s.

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Keep in mind that Germans didn't have that many tanks in 1944-45. And if all of the PIAT operators who encountered Panzers died because the weapon failed them, then you're not going to hear any criticism about its ineffectiveness. :P

Kinda like a parachute manufacturer?

If it worked - no complaints

If it failed - no complaints :eek:

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  • 4 weeks later...
Jeremy Clarkson's Father in Law. Apparently Clarkson didn't know he had a VC until after he died.

That seems likely. Cain died in '74, while Clarkson (who was 14 in '74) didn't marry Frances Cain until in '93 ;)

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Interestingly, as the war approached its conclusion some US units began flame cutting the entire bows off of Shermans and weldinging them onto other Shermans. The result was thicker than a Jumbo bow and very nearly reached KT protection levels. By that time they concluded that greatly decreasing the service life of the transmission from extra weight didn't count for much if the tank wasn't going to survive on the front line long enough for its first oil change anyway. :)

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