amour need repair ?

[bolton]

In real battle field,when tank got a hit but not penetrate.will it had repair ?

i mean amour not penetrate,only some shallow hole(not penetrate) on the surface....it need repair ? or leave it still here..will its effect protect of amour ?

if need......how to repair ? put somethings over the hole,?change amour of tank(but i think this

impossible)?

tigers had many damages on the surface when battle.i think it very fun .

[Bone_Vulture]

Possibly on hole welded metal plates? :confused:

[Mr. Tittles]

I read in 'Death Traps' that the author once repaired a 'holed' sherman by finding the AP round inside the tank and then banging it into the hole and welding it. He ground it flush and painted the repair.

German tanks with interlock armor, tiger II and panther, would need weld repairs (further strecthing the service) if deflections broke off the seams..

But non-penetrating gouges might not get attention. AFVs need so much in the way of technician hours that anything less than a breakthrough would be put on the back burner.

[Little_Black_Devil]

I recall having seen pictures of T-34s, which had been knocked out - and recovered. I'll see if I can find out what it was I was looking at.

Anyhow, part of these tanks particular recovery, saw the holes which the penetrating rounds created, sealed over and the tank brought back into service.

The pictures, made it look as though whatever filler they used to patch the holes was bondo.

I know it wasn't, but thats just how it looked.

I assume they had some means of slapping metal into the hole, and inevitably welding it into place.

However - any of these repairs, would have obviously taken a great deal of time to make, and would have required specialized facilities. These types of repairs most certainly would never have been done under front line conditions.

As such I'm not sure what your getting at when you say it would be "fun". What would be fun?

Playing with tanks, with weak spots (sealed over penetration holes) or attempting to fix/seal/cover-up penetration holes in your own tank in battle (which again - would be completely unrealistic).

[MikeyD]

You read about Tigers on the Eastern Front taking upwards to 100 non-penetrating hits. I don't believe the repair shops had any spare Tiger gun mantlets laying around so they'd have to be patched-up as well as possible.

I've seen several (okay, maybe just two) photos of veteran T-34s with a square patch welded onto the bow, no doubt covering a penetration hole. No matter how good depot maintenance was they'd never be able to get the armor up to 'like new' condition. I suspect such emergency maintenance to holed armor is being carried out in field repair shops as we speak, somewhere in Iraq.

[SgtMuhammed]

A lot depends on the situation. The Germans tended to slap a weld on and send it back to the line while the Americans would often pull tanks back to a repair depot and issue the crew a new one.

Normally a gouge that didn't cause any extra damage would be left until the vehicle was scheduled for services anyway. Really deep ones that seriously degraded the armor would probably have quick patches welded into place.

[MikeyD]

I wonder just how quick the U.S. was to reissue new armor by 1945.

Despite the staggering number of Shermans produced units were having a very hard time staying fully equipped due to the atrocious attrition rate. The Germans were brewing-up Shermans faster than we could produce 'em!

Remember, those 'uparmored' +Shermans in CMBO were brand-new 47 degree hull Shermans with the bow of another brand-new 47 degree hull welded on top! That implies more than a few Sherman got themselves knocked out and cannabalized within days of reaching the front, probably with hardly any mileage on the odometer. The logistical strain of getting new replacements meant that by 1945 local depots would move heaven-and-earth to get a K.O.'d Sherman up and running again.

[Mr. Tittles]

You should read 'death traps'.

Not all shermans were the same. The author used to pick the best types from depots and they would try to keep them in the line. Its also advantagous to have a uniform type of tank. Having a mix of engines and spare parts is a nightmare. The US also cannabilized tanks. Initially it was against policy, but reality over ruled this stupidity.

[Pvt. Ryan]

Duct Tape

[MikeyD]

Mr. Tittles, you should get a commission from Amazon.com! I ordered the book 'Death Traps' within 10 minutes of reading your suggestion.

[ November 12, 2003, 03:54 PM: Message edited by: MikeyD ]

[Mr. Tittles]

While I enjoyed the first hand experiences of the author, I found that I was in disagreement with him on certain issues (technical and his other pontifications). He comes off, to me, as a real snooty officer type also.

Read some of the reviews on Amazon about him.

A must read anyway.

[Sardaukar]

I did hear that in Desert Storm, some M1 Abrams crews found Iraqi APDS penetrators sticking out from their tank armour (in some cases didn't even notice being hit), so the "darts" were cut off from armour surface and just painted over.

Cheers,

M.S.