Panzer Armor

[c3k]

The benefit, vs ATR's, was to change the round's angle of incidence against the organic armor. E.g., post-penetration the ATR round would tumble or hit side-on to the armor. Mild steel performs that function. The skirts were not meant to "absorb" the energy of the ATR round: they were meant to skew it's impact to a greater angle of incidence. It performed that function quite well.

Look at the AAR's of various German armored units to be convinced of how ubiquitous, and bothersome, the Soviet ATR threat was. Vision blocks (with eye injuries), half tracks, side and rear armor, all were targeted and hit with great frequency. This threat became very prevelant in '42 as Soviet production of ATR's ramped up and they were fielded in great numbers. Coupled with the German offensive, the ATR's became a factor in armor tactics vs. infantry.

[Vanir Ausf B]

I wonder if schurtzen have any effect on tank spotting in-game. From just looking at the pictures it would appear that on some vehicles with large panels they would render the vehicle completely blind to the sides when buttoned.

[Erwin]

The commander can see out his cupola optics. But, close in visibility looks very restricted.

[JonS]

Well, it's not like tanks have that many windows on the sides anyway.

[A Canadian Cat]

^^^^^

Well they spot my guys approaching from the side and rear pretty easily in game. It sure seems like they have windows on the side

[MikeyD]

That cupola of course has moveable armored shutters which are *mostly* open giving a good 360 degree view (but closed in that photo). Compare that to the Sherman, a single rotating periscope in the commander's hatch. Later marks of PzIV had deleted the hull and turret side vision flaps so there'd be nothing to look out of.

[c3k]

How many pix of side turret doors open (PzIV) have you seen? Lots... I don't know how many were open in combat. Closeness of enemy and temperature would probably play a role.

Also look at how prominent a role the need for a message port opening in the PzV turret played into its design. I forget about the Tiger... Books are not in front of me.

They used a lot of turret sights and ports. Yes, schuerzen reduced it to just the cupola, unless the doors were open.

Ken

[JonS]

How many pix of side turret doors open (PzIV) have you seen?

On road moves obviously a looooooong way from danger? Tons.

In combat? None.

[JonS]

Hmm, I just came across this little snippet in a book I do own: [snips]

Chamberlain has a very short section on the skirts, identifying them as being 5mm mild-steel boiler-plate around the hull, and 8mm around the turret. He posits HEAT as the reason for their introduction.

[Vanir Ausf B]

He posits HEAT as the reason for their introduction.

Do you have the exact quote on that? I would like to know what evidence he has of that since what I have seen so far strongly indicates otherwise.

[JonS]

Do you have the exact quote on that? I would like to know what evidence he has of that since what I have seen so far strongly indicates otherwise.

No, sorry, I don't have it handy right now, but I'll copy the section (and any applicable references) out later today. I do recall that he doesn't mention ATRs at all though.

FWIW, I agree with you that ATRs was the most likely reason, with effectiveness HEAT being a happy and unsought bonus. I looked in Chamberlain out of curiosity, and was tempted not to mention it when he nominated HEAT as the reason. But, you know. Full disclosure, and all that.

[MikeyD]

Chamberlain, Ellis, et al are very much first generation hobby references. A lot of their stuff is either based on dubious contemporary allied intel or mere inferences based on observation. Not to take anything away from their work, knowledge is accumulative, you can't blame the previous generation for not having our resources. Some of their misguided early stuff still sticks, like some of the odd (mostly postwar) names for wartime Brit tanks. The reason why we refer to the Sdkfz 250 Alt and Neu instead of A and B is because von Senger und Etterlin simply made up the designations for an encyclopedic reference book nearly 50 years ago.

[John Kettler]

MikeyD, etc.,

Please see the useful discussion of the German (Panther) cupola. Page 276 in Jarymowycz's Tank Tactics

http://tinyurl.com/lhh7k3b

Here's the inside of a cupola of the type found on the Panzer IV and other Panzers, to include some captured T-34s. As you can see, it also provides excellent all round vision.

http://img864.imageshack.us/img864/1667/test8j.jpg

Outside view of same drum cupola, showing several vision ports open.

http://panzerfaust.ca/AFV%20interiors/pz4d_files/pz4h-01.jpg

Regards,

John Kettler

[JonS]

Chamberlain, Ellis, et al are very much first generation hobby references. A lot of their stuff is either based on dubious contemporary allied intel or mere inferences based on observation.

Thanks, and yes; point fully appreciated.

[costard]

I seem to recall reading ("Wages of Destruction"?) that it was the lack of alloying materials (manganese, chromium, etc) combined with the need to address the vulnerability of the MkIV to ATRs that led to the sub-optimal solution of added schurtzen being implemented. The scarce resources were allocated to the MkV and VI production lines rather than upgrading the MkIV - the idea being that the MkIV would eventually be relegated to a junior role in operations.

Tooze proposes that the operational requirements of the the Heer and the economic circumstances in Germany were such that they could not afford to retire the production of the MkIV (or the MkIII or the 38 for that matter), so these obsolescent models were still being produced and deployed at the end of the war (the same is true of their aircraft.)

[ArgusEye]

I haven't been able to find the original papers, but WaPrüf seems to have written a specification in late '42 for industry to find a way to lower repair demands placed upon field units regarding small damages due to low power anti-tank weapons such as ATR's. The tanks were considered well-armoured enough to withstand the ATR fire, and weren't likely to be killed by it, but damage occurred nonetheless. This damage overloaded frontline welding crews. HASAG came up with a proposal for a mesh to destabilize hard-cored projectiles. The hard pointy projectile would gouge a lot less metal if it had been disturbed on its trajectory. This got tested in february of '43 at the plant. Both the mesh design and a competing armour plate design defeated the ATR so that its damage was lowered below repair requirements. It's unclear why the mesh was much less popular, and the armour plate was chosen, because the mesh would be lighter. Also shrapnel damage was tested against, and the Schürzen solution found acceptable.

As to shaped charges, the Germans didn't design the Schürzen for this purpose, but they did test whether it worked against them in december '44. The Schürzen once again showed sterling service against ATR's, but gave zero extra protection against Panzerfaust, Ofenrohr or even the Bazooka. In fact there is suggestion that whilst bazooka projectiles often failed to produce penetration when hitting a projection, like handles, bolts, track links, or whatever, the smooth Schürzen helped them not to be duds.

As to Zimmerit, it was introduced only after several thousand German magnetic charges fell into Soviet hands. Since the Germans considered this weapon greatly superior to anything the Soviets had been using, they were very concerned it would be used against them, and even more concerned the Soviets would start copying them. That's where Zimmerit came in. When it was clear that Ivan didn't even try them out, the manufacturers considered leaving the stuff off, but the frontline troops didn't want to be 'less protected' and it was continued for morale purposes.

[Erwin]

That explains many things in one post. Thanks.

[Battlefront.com]

Coming late to this. One thing people often forget when talking about this is that in 1942/43, when the skirt armor concept was developed, shaped charge shells were not a big threat. On the Eastern Front they weren't threat at all IIRC, though I could be mistaken.

I'm guessing that the mesh concept was abandoned the first time they drove it around with brush, tress, uneven terrain, etc. scattered about the tank's path. Even the solid plate had a tendency to get banged up and knocked off. Can you imagine what mesh would look like after a short period at the front?

Steve

[John Kettler]

According to what I've read, mesh was a huge pain to fabricate. This wasn't chicken wire, or even cyclone fence, but something altogether stouter. Anything made of wire has to first be drawn from the hot billet, rolled to near net size, pulled through successive dies, then formed into the desired shape, to include fabricating and installing the requisite structural supports. No idea where in the overall process the wire gets tempered to harden it.

Fabricating steel plate is, by comparison trivial. Take hot billet, roll billet out flat to 5mm thickness, cut sheet to shape, temper, mount brackets.

The mesh armor saves on weight and materials, but takes many more operations and hours to fabricate and install than does the heavier plate armor. As ever in engineering, you can have it good, cheap or fast. Pick two!

Regards,

John Kettler

[poesel]

Fabricating steel plate is, by comparison trivial. ...

John, you should really take the time to visit a rolling mill. Quite an interesting experience but 'trivial' is not the word to describe it - even by comparison. Wire and mesh can be produced on a relative small footprint but mills are always huge.

I doubt that production costs were a factor in this decision.

[John Kettler]

costard,

Tooze needs to read Speer's Inside The Third Reich. When Speer took over war production he was horrified to discover a plan to kill Mark IV production outright and concentrate on the practically handbuilt Tiger 1 and the somewhat less demanding in time and resources Panther. Since the Mark IV was the only real tank the Germans had that was battlefield viable (Panzer III had hit gun limit because of turret size) and already being mass produced, he canceled the decision and cranked up Mark IV production. Otherwise, Germany would've lost the war much sooner. I believe it was he who stopped the production of the 38T and the Panzer III and shifted all production of those lines to Jagdpanzers, StuGs and other AFVs which weren't tanks.

poesel71,

Never been in one, but I've watched rolling done on all kinds of programs. I used "trivial" in the sense that the production base and methods were already in existence, whereas making the special mesh screens is another whole set of evolutions to be done, and I'm reasonably certain nothing was being made quite like that, save maybe certain industrial sifters and screens.

Regards,

John Kettler

[ArgusEye]

I must disagree about the Speer issue. Speer indeed came across the plan to kill the IV in favour of the V, and together with Hitler and Guderian put a stop to it. The argument was not that the Panther was more labour intensive, because it was not. A IV took more man hours and more strategic materials [outside of armour alloying materials] than a Panther. In fact, in the long run this turned out to be the wrong decision. The IV was reviled by its crews and the maintenance corps in the late years of the war, whereas the Panther was the tank that could have made a real difference in sufficient numbers. The III was not made as tanks anymore, but was the mainstay of the mobile infantry support forces in the guise of the StuG III. A strong lobby by the officers of infantry divisions had almost gotten IV production switched over completely to StuG IV if Guderian hadn't intervened. The only reason Speer could even decide this change was that the Panther hadn't matured enough yet. Otherwise the change-over would have been initiated earlier.

The real reason was that canceling the IV whilst setting up the factories for the V would have made a gap in tank production. The Heer considered being stuck without fresh tanks for a half a year, making do with assault guns, but being rewarded with a deluge of Panthers after these lean months preferable to plodding around with IV's and a trickle of Panthers. Speer disagreed, as did Hitler, because they didn't want to lose momentum. The OKH didn't consider itself having much momentum to keep.

[John Kettler]

ArgusEye,

Where did you get the wholly new to me information for the Mark IV vs the Panther? Would never have expected the Mark IV to take more money, manpower and resources than the Panther. In my estimation, the Germans would've been in dire straits without six months of tank production, StuGs notwithstanding. Which six months are we talking about, please? I have no copy of Speer's book here to consult. The timing of that notional production gap could then be compared with what the Germans and Russians did operationally, from which we can then gauge potential feasibility with the radically altered tank production issue factored in.

Here are some production numbers and costs for the Panther, as compared to the Sherman, T-34/76, T-34/85 and IS-2. Attention-getting, in multiple aspects.

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=79&t=147548

The Panther Wiki says this on the Panther vs Mark IV cost issue

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panther_tank

"One source has cited the cost of a Panther tank as 117,100 Reichmarks (RM). This compared with 82,500 RM for the StuG III, 96,163 RM for the Panzer III, 103,462 RM for the Panzer IV, and 250,800 RM for the Tiger I. These figures did not include the cost of the armament and radio.[13][14] In terms of Reichmarks per ton, therefore, the Panther tank was one of the most cost-effective of the German armored fighting vehicles of World War II.[15] However, these cost figures should be understood in the context of the time period in which the various armored fighting vehicles were first designed, as the Germans increasingly strove for designs and production methods that would allow for higher production rates, and thus steadily reduced the cost of their armored fighting vehicles. For example, another source has cited the total cost of the early production Tiger I in 1942–1943 to be as high as 800,000 RM.[16]"

Regards,

John Kettler

[ArgusEye]

A complex issue. Let me set out what I consider a valid comparison here:

There are many ways to count the amount of manpower needed for production of an item like a tank. The RWM had the annoying tendency to count not just assembly and manufacture time for the parts, but also the man hours put into collecting the ore and coal, manufacture of the raw materials, transport, design, and so forth. Some comparisons include the spare parts made per tank, some don't. There is something to say for this on a large scale comparison, but when it boils down to getting treads in the mud, what matters is how many tanks of each type you can get out of a given factory. In tank production in Germany, the bottlenecks were two: the production lines and the strategic materials.

Much is made in books of the lack of automated assembly lines for the German tanks, as if this was the bottleneck of tank production. However, the main issue according to the RWM papers was in the cutting and welding of the armored components. Assembly was only as quick as these components could be delivered, and could therefore be done on small scale. The IV had a nasty design to cut and bend, whereas the Panther was designed from the start to be an easy model to do this to. [They may have over-economized on the welding, given the cracking problems in the field!] On this bottleneck, the Panther, despite its greater weight, was easier to speed up. Go look at the amount of holes to drill in the Panzerwanne of each type. Look how many holes are neatly round in each type.

With its greater weight, the Panther required more man-hours in materials, but it went through the tank factory quicker. Look how quickly its production ramps up when compared to long-established and experience-optimized IV production lines.

Factory man hours of the Panther are listed at 2000 by MAN, whereas Daimler Benz quotes 5000 production line man hours for the IV. Of course I cannot be sure that they use exactly the same definitions, but it seems alltogether plausible. The Panther could, by design, be farmed out much more effectively.

As to the requirements of strategic materials, that can be looked up unambiguously. Some favour the IV, like aluminium, some favour the Panther, like rubber. All in all, the IV doesn't come out ahead here.

There is no way for me to know how these bottlenecks might have moved if the Panther had supplanted the IV. Materials used for the IV would have become available for the Panther, but there might -for instance- have been new troubles, like insufficient spares and consumables for the modern welding machines for the Panther, greater consumption of high thickness armour plate, and so forth.

I'd love to tell you which RWM papers were involved, but I stupidly haven't written it down. I therefore have very little to back my story up, sorry.

Comparing by monetary cost may be the best way to look at it, because it is the way economics works, after all. On the other hand, this is not really a free-market situation. So maybe not.

As to the German army being starved of IV's for half a year: it would have been dire indeed. But being equipped with IV's when you could have been running Panthers is dire as well. OKH saw it was on a path to damnation and wanted to gamble. Speer didn't.

[JasonC]

ArgusEye - the prices are hopeless, they don't reflect real scarcities.

The reality is the production lines are the main bottleneck, and the Germans would have gotten dramatically fewer tanks overall if they discontinued any of their production lines. It was quite insane to even contemplate cancelling a core type completely right when they were trying to ramp immediate output.