StuG III Thread (and also other German vehicles I guess)

[Scolopax]

On the topic of identifying tanks:

Should be a Panzer IV, going off the tracks, idler wheel, and the back plate with its exhaust-holder-thing.

[Mohamed A]

Were they planning on moving the recoil cylinders around?  It looks like they would clonk into the rangefinder if the gun depresses more than a few degrees.

 

Good work, by the way.  Obviously, I didn't put much effort in mine.

 

Another thought; does anyone have a panther with a schmallturm in WOT or WT?  I'm curious how they model the mantlet when the gun elevates and depresses.

 

Also, I'm curious why the hitler panther was drawn without a muzzle brake.  IIRC, the pantherfibel says never to fire the gun without the brake, and that's with the 75mm.

I got the Ausf.F and the II in WT. Don't have it installed though, but I can get a friend to screenshot it.

[SuperComrade]

Another thought; does anyone have a panther with a schmallturm in WOT or WT?  I'm curious how they model the mantlet when the gun elevates and depresses.

If you're talking about the conical part, it is fixed to the gun

[Collimatrix]

OK, so they did get it right.  The conical bit is the actual mantlet, and the part behind it is a fixed extension of the turret that houses the trunnions.

 

I didn't figure that out until I did my length comparison above and I saw where the trunnions ended up.  The gun is so enormous that they had to move the trunnions way outside the turret ring.  This is also why the trunnions are mounted so high above the turret ring; they need to be in order for the gun to elevate.

[SuperComrade]

The Schmalturm must have been an ergonomic nightmare, especially if they planned to stuff the 88 into it

[Collimatrix]

With the 75mm I don't think it's much different than the regular turret.  

 

 

The width at the rear stays more or less the same, but the side plates are taken in at the front.

 

That deletes a little bit of elbow room for the loader and gunner, but not too much.  It mostly eliminates space around the front of the turret where nobody is living anyway.

 

It's stuffing the KwK 43 in there that seems like a really bad idea.

[SuperComrade]

How did they arrange the telescoping sight for the Schmalturm? Or would they have just relied on the stereoscopic rangefinders?

[Sturgeon]

Yeah, the Schmallturm actually seems like a decent piece of engineering on the German's part, although it was just playing catch-up with the Americans and Russians by that point.

[Legiondude]

On the topic of identifying tanks:

 

Should be a Panzer IV, going off the tracks, idler wheel, and the back plate with its exhaust-holder-thing.

I thought maybe that was on of the springs from a Panzer III seen up at the rest of the hill, but after reviewing the back plate and seeing one of the side engine vents flipped and buried behind the turret ring, I concur

 

Were they planning on moving the recoil cylinders around?  It looks like they would clonk into the rangefinder if the gun depresses more than a few degrees

 

Also, I'm curious why the hitler panther was drawn without a muzzle brake.  IIRC, the pantherfibel says never to fire the gun without the brake, and that's with the 75mm.

After digging through Germany's Panther Tank, Tigers I and II And Their Variants(The crappy translated version of Tiger Und Seine Abarten), and Panzer Tracts 5-4, the depression is listed as -8/+15 for the KwK 43, which matches the planned specs for the Schmalturm 88. Cross referencing this with the project to install a rangefinder in the Tiger II, they might be sharing the same rangefinder design. If this is true, the plan for the Tiger II's turret was to raise the turret roof ever so slightly(max height increase of rearward edge: 25mm) to permit the full range of motion with the rangefinder, maybe that could have been under consideration. Though on the other hand, they had already achieved these gun depression angles with the Schmalturm as-is for the 75mm L/70. I suppose I'd have to sit down and compare the dimensions of the two guns breech setups

 

Oh derp. Just noticed Doyle made an interior drawing of the Schmalturm 88 for GPT. *headdesk*

 

As for the muzzle brake, that was one of the planned specs. The Germans decided to live without it.

[Collimatrix]

 

This drawing of a hitlerpanther shows the rangefinder installation much higher; "police bar" style.

[Walter_Sobchak]

Tank and AFVNews.com: Germany’s Panzer Arm in WWII: An Interview with R. L. DiNardo

[Belesarius]

Tank and AFVNews.com: Germany’s Panzer Arm in WWII: An Interview with R. L. DiNardo

Great interview Walt. Very interesting stuff.

[Walter_Sobchak]

Great interview Walt. Very interesting stuff.

Unfortunately there was some more to the interview that got lost.  Mostly pertaining to his other book on horses and the German Army.  My favorite comment he made was that he originally wanted to call the book something like "Stuck in the mud and knee deep in horse shit", but the publisher was not so keen on that idea.

[Belesarius]

Unfortunately there was some more to the interview that got lost.  Mostly pertaining to his other book on horses and the German Army.  My favorite comment he made was that he originally wanted to call the book something like "Stuck in the mud and knee deep in horse shit", but the publisher was not so keen on that idea.

Publishers are notably risk-averse, so while that title might be historically accurate, the wehraboos might raise such a fuss that it's not worth trying to sell it.

[Walter_Sobchak]

Publishers are notably risk-averse, so while that title might be historically accurate, the wehraboos might raise such a fuss that it's not worth trying to sell it.

True.  Anyhow, I would recommend his book on German horses.  Think about this, when Hitler invaded the USSR, he did so with an army that had 750,000 horses.  Its interesting to see how this reliance on horses caused all sorts of issues for the Germany economy.  They basically had to steal huge numbers of horses from Poland in order to have enough both for the German army and for the German agricultural system.  

[SuperComrade]

How did they keep all the horses fed?

[Walter_Sobchak]

How did they keep all the horses fed?

That was a major issue.  Like everything else, they had to transport fodder to the front.  However, horses can eat what is locally available in the form of grasses and such.  Interestingly, DiNardo notes that it was horses that helped save the German army in the winter of 1941 when all other forms of transportation had frozen to a halt.  Also, in a desperate situation you can always eat a horse.  Trucks are not very edible.  

[Belesarius]

That was a major issue.  Like everything else, they had to transport fodder to the front.  However, horses can eat what is locally available in the form of grasses and such.  Interestingly, DiNardo notes that it was horses that helped save the German army in the winter of 1941 when all other forms of transportation had frozen to a halt.  Also, in a desperate situation you can always eat a horse.  Trucks are not very edible.  

This.

[Walter_Sobchak]

It's also worth nothing that the horses that the Germans brought into Russia did not always prove very adaptable to the extremes in climate that was encountered.  The smaller yet more durable Panje horse was found to be of more use in the winters of the USSR.  As I understand it, the Panje was a smaller, shaggier breed of horse common to Eastern Europe and Russia which was a much more hardy animal than the typical western European draft animal.  

[EnsignExpendable]

This is a German tank. I think.

[Walter_Sobchak]

This guy looks a bit goofy.

 

[Walter_Sobchak]

I'm looking at photos for sale on ebay right now.  This one should probably be framed and hung on EE's wall.

 

[Walter_Sobchak]

US repair units were so good they would sometimes get bored and fix enemy vehicles just for fun. 

 

[EnsignExpendable]

I'm looking at photos for sale on ebay right now.  This one should probably be framed and hung on EE's wall.

 

 

I had it as my desktop background for a while, without that awful watermark of course.

[ZloyKrolik]

This guy looks a bit goofy.

 

 

Probably because of something like this: