Gerät Monsters

[DEY]

I don't know why but I always thought these mega mortars where fixed on rail cars.

http://www.one35th.com/morser/karl_hist.htm

http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Lab/1167/ekarl.html

[MikeyD]

The confusion may come from their method of transport - hoisted up and suspended between two rail cars for train travel. I believe Karl's pzIV-based round carriers were pulled behind on flatbeds. Imagine all the extra PzIV battle tanks Germany could've produced if only they had shown some restraint with spectacular projects like Karl, Sturmtiger, Jagdtiger, Maus, etc.

[Bone_Vulture]

Well, Jadgtiger wasn't a flop exactly, just overkill for the western front.

And it has been discussed before how the nazi masters were obsessed with propaganda-worthy weapons.. Wunderwaffen.

[JasonC]

The Jagdtiger was most certainly a flop. The most favorable accounts of their use might put their achieved kills at about the same number as the number of vehicles made. They would have been better off with that many additional Panthers. Considering all the resources they scarfed up from design to delivered and maintained, that is a huge waste.

[DEY]

I don't necessary disagree with the idea the germans had to build heavy armor in limited numbers for tactical use.

There is no doubt that starting in the later part of 1944 the Germans had real armor opponents to counter, along the lines of the Soviet JSIII, US super Pershing and the Brits had prototypes of their Centurion tanks running in the spring of 1945.

So the Germans needed heavy armor to counter these beasts.

There is no doubt that the panther should of been massed produced with the 88mm gun but this should of been classed as a medium tank at best.

What astounds me is why the Germans where so stubborn to use underpowered engines in the heavy AFV's when they had better, stronger and more powerful engines.

Also I don't for the life of me understand why the Germans ignored the 105mm gun in the anit-tank role can you imagine a King Tiger with say the 800hp maybach HL 234 or even better the 1050hp daimler-benz MB509 engine and say an either L/55 or L/60 105mm gun.

I also will never understand how the Germans seemed to refuse to fully utilize what I feel was their best all around AFV gun of most of WWII, and that was the 88mm L/56 gun.

I'll never understand why they didn't fit this gun in the stugs and jagpanzers and even a few panthers with this gun.

Can you imagine a PzIV maybe with the L/56 88mm gun.

[JasonC]

Um, 500 K. Tigers, 400 Jagdpanthers, 4500 towed PAK, not what I'd call underutilized. In fact it was overkill against all but a handful of Russian AFVs, compared to 75L70. Which was sufficient against everything else.

[DEY]

I know of no K.Tigers or Jagdpanthers equipped with the 88mm L/56 gun.

As I said I was talking of under utilized L/56 88mm guns not the L/71 88mm, also even this gun though was starting to lose some of it's edge towards the end of the war.

The L/56 88mm gun had far better HE ability then the 75mm and the L/56 gun had much better armor penetration ability then the L/48 75mm and just a little less ability in long range then the L/70 75mm, but as stated the HE ability was far superior.

HE ability does seem to be something very much under appreciated.

I just feel that this gun would have been a good match up for say the Stug assualt guns, the Jagdpanzer IV TD's and frankly even the Panthers.

[JasonC]

Ah, my bad. True, that was used only in the Tiger I and was not deployed towed. They went for the long 75 in place of the Tiger's 88, for a gun of that general scale. Marginally weaker HE, marginally better accuracy (but both quite effective).

[MikeyD]

One thing that did-in the Jagdtigers (in my opinion) were the intrepid slave laborors who assemble the thing! I've read stories of several of those monsters didn't even surviving their initial road march because the radiators had been soldered practically solid.

Eh, but every army has at least one crap project that looked good on paper.

[c3k]

The assumption underlying these arguments is that any industrial resources applied towards these weapons could've been appliew with near-equal efficiency to the production of the "better proven" (e.g. Panther) weapon.

Is this a valid assumption?

Regards,

Ken

[MikeyD]

Well, by war's end its interesting to see a lot of the paper projects are simplified in the extreme. A new PzIV turret with no cupola - not even any roof optics. Vehicles based on Pz389t) leaf spring suspension. Deleting rubber from roadwheels. Even trying to mount a gun without a recoil system on the Hetzer! All because the industrial base was totally strapped. Building fantasy projects was a luxury they really could not afford.

[Sunray]

Good point MikeyD. IMHO Ultimate German fantasy waste of time weapon was the V2 rocket. Required a huge investment of resources and was never going to alter the course of the war. Was'nt even used properly, should have been targetted on the Channel ports to interdict allied supply lines rather than kill a small number of Londoners. Dey, your mention of the Centurion and the Pershing makes me sad because it reminds me of the fact that the US and the Brits lagged the Russians and the Germans by such a huge degree in tank design until the war's end when the outcome was not in doubt. At least the Pershing saw action but the Centurion did not.Ironically the Centurion would then go on to qualify as one the best cold war era tanks but that would be little comfort to the many many dead and injured Sherman/Cromwell crew members. I believe an upgunned/uparmoured version of the Cromwell, called the Comet( appears in CMBO), was sort of Panther comparable(happy to be proved wrong) and they were deployed in small numbers in early 1945. What is amazing is that the powers that be knew about the armour mismatch in 1943 and went for quantity rather than quality in order to be ready for D-Day.

Sorry seem to have wandered off topic

Regards

[JasonC]

The Comet was not comparable to the Panther. The Panther is a 45 ton tank, used a very high velocity main gun matched only by the British 17 pdr, and had front armor 4 inches thick (or 3 inches and steeply angled). The Comet was much smaller, 33 tons, used a shorter 76mm with only about 80% of the muzzle velocity of the Panther's main gun, and was thick only on the turret front (2.5-3 inches of unsloped armor for the front hull, and thin sides).

It was comparable to a US 76mm Sherman in most respects and less powerful than a Firefly (or Achilles tank destroyer) in tank killing terms.

The Brits already had AFVs with adequate guns, just not any with sufficent protection to stand up to improve German models. Shermans could bounce 75L48 rounds at 800-1000 yards but nothing really stopped 75L70 or 88 rounds. (Maybe Churchills at long range, but those were all undergunned themselves, and slow).

The allies would have been fine with upgunned Shermans, especially if they had enough advanced AP ammo. Both sides would then have been able to penetrate the other, and numbers would have told. It is not necessary to defeat the most advanced gun the enemy fields. It is necessary to field guns sufficient to kill his thickest tanks from the front.

The allied armor problem was simply that much of their fleet still had short 75s in 1944. And the US 76 was not supplied with sufficient improved ammo to make it effective against the German heavies at range. A shortish 75 was the best tank weapon in widespread service in 1942, and adequate for most purposes in 1943. But obsolete in 1944.

By the end of 1944, at least half their vehicles had better weapons. But at midyear, the US had few 76s fielded and not enough APCR for them, since they were unaware shatter problems made it harder to beat Tiger I and Panther turret fronts than they expected. Too high a portion of the fleet still had 75s. This is frequently grossly exaggerated, however. Only a third of the German AFV fleet was superior. Another third were Pz IVs, and the remaining third were StuGs, Marders, etc. The portion of upgunned Allied shooters was greater than the portion of uparmored German opponents, by the late fall.

[DEY]

Figures I have give the 17-pounder L/55 able to penetrate 130mm at 1000 meters, with the shorter L49 gun able to penetrate 102mm at that same range, ammo types unkown.

Also the comet wasn't a speed winner, but was likely the best cross-country, able cat killer tank the Brits had at the wars end.

The comet also fought in Korea and stayed in British army service until 1958, with many sold to other users in service decades later.

[JasonC]

"able cat killer"

I'll take an Achilles over a Comet any day of the week and twice on Sundays, if killing cats is the mission. The Comet has better armor but not remotely enough to matter against a serious cat. And the gun won't kill them at the ranges and angles the Achilles will. All you need to do with the Achilles is get the drop on them, no fiddling about flanks or ranges necessary.

[ June 18, 2005, 05:31 PM: Message edited by: JasonC ]