Ricochet Penetrations off Panther Mantlet Bottom

[rexford]

Radley-Walters and some other references allude to the ability of the subject ricochets to kill the driver or radio operator of a Panther via a direct hit:

Following from Valor and Horror web site:

"And when it bounces down, what does it do? It smashes this weak armour here over the driver and the co-driver and in most cases, we found out that they're either badly wounded or they're killed, and the tank is automatically knocked out."

Where do the Panther driver and radio operator site relative to the hull top hatches?

Radley-Walters indicated that a round would have to land within a six inch diameter circle to bounce off and hit the driver, and same for the radio operator.

The probability of hitting the "sweet spot" for an effective ricochet would be 2 x 0.196 square feet for "sweet spot"/8.3 square feet or 4.7% percent of the hits if evenly distributed over the mantlet.

However, if one is aiming at the center of the Panther target aspect the probability of a mantlet hit decreases as the range is reduced, since the shots will have a higher chance of landing close to where they aimed.

[Michael Dorosh]

Lorrin, you probably don't realize this, but the Valor and the Horror was a three part television series in Canada that was severely discredited for its 1960s approach to the topic of Canadian participation in WW II. The series essentially painted Canadian commanders as incompetent butchers, and while it came short of lauding the Germans, it did go out of its way to prevent misinformation and approach the subject from one point of view only.

Radley-Walters - I presume you mean General Sydney Radley-Walters, who was an armoured officer during WW II (commanding a squadron IIRC). I know he is interviewed on the series standing on top of a Panther tank - but did he have his tape measure with him? I would suggest the "six inches" figure was given for dramatic effect and may be exaggerated. At the very least, it sounds like an off the cuff remark. I stand to be corrected, but I would try and find a better source of info than TVATH, it really isn't in line with your usual academic sources. Anything said in that show (and the attendant book and website) is to be taken with heaps of grains of salt.

EDIT

Good lord, here is the actual quote - which is a transcript of the TV interview. The 6 inches figure was added by the webmaster as their comment, not Radley-Walters' - unless it is also a quote from the TV series, but it is still not Radley-Walters' words, just a description of some vague hand motion he made during the interview.

Radley-Walters

If you hit it on this big heavy gun mount, ... what happens, it just bounces off. But ... the armour on the driver and on ... the co-driver's, ... see how thin it is in here. Now if you can get around, to come on in, and hit on the lower side of this gun mount, ... which gives you a target of about four or five feet wide, and from there down to here. The round cannot bounce off, it must bounce down. And when it bounces down, what does it do? It smashes this weak armour here over the driver and the co-driver and in most cases, we found out that they're either badly wounded or they're killed, and the tank is automatically knocked out.

... if you can get your second round, if you can't get your first one, your second round in from here down to the bottom, we found out that you could destroy a tank, with a 75 mm., at up to eight, nine hundred yards, head on...

The target Radley-Walters described is about six inches in diameter.

Given that the mantlet is four to five feet wide as indicated, and that the driver's hatch is more than six inches wide, and that most human tank drivers are more than six inches wide, I am not sure I understand where this figure comes from.

[ January 01, 2004, 12:16 PM: Message edited by: Michael Dorosh ]

[rexford]

Thanks for the additional info.

When I posted similar info on other sites I added the comment that the six inch figure was made decades after the fact and was not the best.

The entire interview should probably be taken in the same vein, decades ago something happened and time clouds some details sometimes.