WWII bolt action in the Pacific???

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"even handheld anti-tank weapons would easily set the thing afire"

Yeah....

Simple fact.

There was no armored vehicle on either side during the war that could survive some of the late-war hand held anti-tank weapons.
 
There was no armored vehicle on either side during the war that could survive some of the late-war hand held anti-tank weapons.

The germans added standoff side and turret skirts on late war tanks and assault guns to defeat the shaped charge rockets (bazooka, PIAT, etc), as well as anti-magnetic Zimmerit coatings to protect against the magnetic mines popular with the Russians ......
 
none of those measures were 100% effective.

The side skirts certainly made the covered area nigh impervious to small shaped charges ..... true, they did not cover everything ..... but the odds were pretty heavily against the unprotected bazooka/PIAT crew as it was .... shielding 70% of the target compounded matters immeasurably, I imagine .....
 
The stabilized gun was a benefit, although far from the systems we have today. The Germans didn't work on stabilized guns until very late in the war. However they often did make a practice of firing cannon and mgs on the move during attacks. To ensure hits, they had to stop, but the often fired on the mover for suppressive fire.

And while they didn't manage a real stabilized gun, they did manage a sort of stabilized gun, buy stabilizing the entire tank. Look at film of a Panther or Tiger, moving at speed over rough ground, the flex of the suspension "floats" the hull of the tank much more effectively than many other designs. So, while not quite as good as a truly stabilized gun system, they were better able to accurately fire on the move than many other unstablized gun tanks.

As an interesting, and somewhat ironic twist, when on the rare occasions when US armor met Japanese armor, our gunners found that AP often didn't knock out the light Japanese tanks. Made to deal with the Panzers, even our 75mm AP often just punched through both sides of the Japanese armor, and sailed off into the distance. Kind of like an FMJ bullet. Our guys quickly switched to HE which, while not up to taking out a heavy panzer, would bust the Japanese light armor open.
 
And while they didn't manage a real stabilized gun, they did manage a sort of stabilized gun, buy stabilizing the entire tank. Look at film of a Panther or Tiger, moving at speed over rough ground, the flex of the suspension "floats" the hull of the tank much more effectively than many other designs. So, while not quite as good as a truly stabilized gun system, they were better able to accurately fire on the move than many other unstablized gun tanks.

It stands to reason that 60 ton gun platform would be naturally more stable than a 30 ton gun platform, particularly when moving offroad in western Europe- the soft earth itself would act to to smooth the ride, and moreso with the heavy tank ...... having ridden in 30 ton armored vehichles a bit ..... high speed travel on even good roads is a teeth-rattling experience, I can assure you ..... off road at 1/2 the speed is like being in a boat..... I think one could probably track a target, given a powered turret .....
 
Never seen a bolt operated Tank, but I have seen a wind up tank
marxtank1.jpg
 
That is absolutely wonderful! Memories....

WW II history, focused most heavily on armor (and modeling it) and firearms has been my other main hobby for many years. Between model kits and reference material and just general material on the subjects, I've probably spent as much money as I have on my firearms activities. And certainly more time.

I love to discuss it, and am easily led astray. PM me and I'll go on till your eyes bleed. ;)

Sorry for aiding and abetting thread drift...
:o

I'll now return to working on a 1/16th scale King Tiger, detailed down through fuel, coolant and wiring lines. I now have a really good idea why they only built so few and why each one took so long! :D
 
"The stabilized gun was a benefit, although far from the systems we have today. The Germans didn't work on stabilized guns until very late in the war."

WHAT? You mean, like, the American military people didn't get Albert Einstein to design them a time machine so they could come to today, get modern laser/radar range finding systems and thermal imaging, take it back to the 1940s, and use it to win World War II?

Those short-sighted, troop killing bastards!


"However they often did make a practice of firing cannon and mgs on the move during attacks. To ensure hits, they had to stop, but the often fired on the mover for suppressive fire."

Uhm... yeah. Everyone did that. Only with gyrostabilization, the American Sherman had a far better potential for hitting the target while on the move than any other Allied or Axis tank.

"Floating" the tank over rough ground doesn't come even remotely close.

Oh, and regarding German stand-off armor, they actually started adding it to their armored vehicles not late in the war to deal with shaped charges, but early in the Russian campaign to deal with Soviet kinetic energy rounds (shells).

It must have been effective, because they only lost what, about 13,000 armored vehicles of all types fighting the Russians?
 
Dragon, very nice tin toy!

If that were in better condition and with the original box it would be worth close to $1,000. As is, maybe $200...



And yah, no bolt action armored vehicles.

But some of my all time favorite threads on TFL have been "organic" threads that started from a question about a military firearm and which grew to a much larger conversation on armor, ships, etc.
 
"I'd read about that as well- but that account was late in the war, and the transmission problem was blamed on the added weight of the new, larger turret to accomodate the 85mm gun and added armor."

That was a different failure vector entirely.

Early T-34s also had serious transmission issues due primarily to crap manufacturing processes.

Army testing of two T-34s that the Soviets provided to the US in 1942 highlighed this issue. The transmission on at least one failed during testing due to absolutely terrible manufacturing QC.

As the Soviets got things smoothed out manufacturing wise during the war the transmission issues largely went away, until the T-34/85 rolled out.
 
I was lucky enough to spend a couple hours with the Panther at the Littlefield collection with one of the main guys who restored it. He said it was a great tank, but had some really poor design features. It was an incredibly complex vehicle, and they figured that it easily has 5X the number of parts that a comparable vintage T-34. It was under powered for it's weight, (even more so for the Tiger, which had the same engine but was heavier) and the final drives were weak for the weight (Their Panther had different Final Drive variations on the left vs right). He also said it was really difficult to service in the field, where as on a Sherman you could undo 4 bolts and the whole ass-end of the tank came off giving access to the engine, the Panther you had to unbolt everything and service the engine from the top. Much more time consuming. The suspension on them was ridiculous, each road wheel had two torsion bars, the width of the tank, to a coupler, then the width again mounting to the hull on the same side as the wheel. This gave each road wheel ~20" of suspension travel. (detailed here: http://youtu.be/aS3rP7rLJN4 )

It is really a good thing they were so complex, if they were a simpler design, they could have made a lot more of them.

They are a good looking bastard though.....
panther_sized.jpg
 
Overcomplex, overheavy, and underpowered were the main flaws of the German heavy tanks. Excellent guns, and optics, and quite a bit of pretty good armor were their strong points.

Original plans for what became the Panther were for a 30 ton tank. When demands made the final design come in at 45 tons, even though beefed up the transmissions and final drives were under a lot of strain and failed often. This was generally overcome in the later models.

Sources vary a bit, but the Germans produced something less than 5,000 Panthers, about 1350 Tigers and 484 King Tigers. Considering the numbers, they had a very potent effect.
 
While we are drifting about the history of WWII...

Could someone tell me why our airborne infantry didn't have BARs at the onset of the war?
 
Could someone tell me why our airborne infantry didn't have BARs at the onset of the war?
That is an awful lot of weight to jump out of a plane with. You would have to put it and the related ammo into an "equipment" parachute and then hope that it landed in the same area as the paratroopers. Not a likely thing to have happen early in the war.
 
a 1919 belt fed was another ball game compared to a bar. sustained fire was just not a bar thing, the bar just takes to long to load and goes dry very quickly. a 1919 belt fed can put down sustained fire with only a small break to put a new belt in it and off to the races you go. the bar does offer easier carrying. eastbank.
 
My guess why they didn't use the BAR?

Given how they were to be fighting, the M1919, which only weight about 10 pounds more than the BAR, was a lot more firepower in a somewhat more manageable package.
 
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