PzIII H - Frontal Turret Thickness ???

[Little_Black_Devil]

I'm wondering if anyone has some conclusive information, regarding the thickness, or combined thickness of the front of the PzIIIH turret.

I've seen figures, which specify that including the mantlet - there was only 30mm of armoured protection (which I believe are the numbers used in CMBB).

I've also seen numbers which specify that total armoured protection was 37mm.

I've also seen some references to an interior mantlet and an exterior mantlet, which equate to 67mm of armoured protection.

To me, the later could be feasible. My reasoning is that, it seems odd to up armour the uppper and lower front hull to 60mm (two 30mm plates) and leave the turret in comparrison, so weakly armoured.

However, later models of the PzIII also seem to use 30mm as the standard for frontal turret armoured protection.

Can anyone sort me out on this?

Perhaps I'm misinterpreting some of the figures I've seen.

Thanks

[Fishu]

I've seen a picture of the turret front with mantlet part and the gun on it.

The mantlet itself is in two parts, there is 30mm vertical armour innerside and 37mm curved armour outside.

Leaving little bit of empty between the two.

Problem with sources claiming it is 30 or 37mm, can be that it is not taken into count that the mantlet is just the external part and theres still armour inside.

So the mantlet is just taken as one part and some authors might've thought the 30+37mm comes from the very little area where 37mm curved mantlet overlaps with front turret armour on the sides.

Upgrading of earlier models could've caused some confusion as well and errorneously handled as H's.

So the CM's front turret armour for PzIIIH is wrong with the plain 37mm curved armour.

30mm is the typical armour thickness for the front of early PzIII's, which is beefed up with extra armour plates in turret and hull (on the turret as the part of curved 37mm armour on mantlet), up to J, where those became one solid 50mm armour.

[ April 30, 2003, 08:28 PM: Message edited by: Fishu ]

[Little_Black_Devil]

Cool.

Thanks for pointing that out.