What the Hell is the Point of Interleaved Road Wheels?

[Sturgeon]

7 hours ago, delete013 said:

Apparently I should have. I didn't know that a special recon vehicle was built.

you are a walking meme, dude

[Beer]

2 hours ago, TokyoMorose said:

 

I just find it very amusing that MAN was able to submit a vehicle that did not meet the hard requirements (the 5cm gun), and still managed to win. That is some grade A favoritism.

 

To be fair, none of the three vehicles had 50 mm gun. All producers promissed to have it "later". Škoda (T15) and ČKD (Pz.38(t) n.A.) wanted to use 47 mm A22 gun (prototypes had 37 mm A19). Maybe that was one of the reasons too because M.A.N. Promissed to use the KwK-39 L/60 in Daimler turret which was developed for the Sd.Kfz-234, there was just one issue that turret ring was larger than what could fit on the Luchs. 

 

There is also a point which shall be considered. Škoda and especially ČKD could have failed to meet  some of the requirements on purpose. It is known that Surin did some mistakes in designs for Germans intentionally (overweight front Axle or some weakspots in armor protection on Hetzer for example), it was also common to try to be late with everything. 

[TokyoMorose]

7 hours ago, Beer said:

 

To be fair, none of the three vehicles had 50 mm gun. All producers promissed to have it "later". Škoda (T15) and ČKD (Pz.38(t) n.A.) wanted to use 47 mm A22 gun (prototypes had 37 mm A19). Maybe that was one of the reasons too because M.A.N. Promissed to use the KwK-39 L/60 in Daimler turret which was developed for the Sd.Kfz-234, there was just one issue that turret ring was larger than what could fit on the Luchs. 

 

There is also a point which shall be considered. Škoda and especially ČKD could have failed to meet  some of the requirements on purpose. It is known that Surin did some mistakes in designs for Germans intentionally (overweight front Axle or some weakspots in armor protection on Hetzer for example), it was also common to try to be late with everything. 

 

I know that the n.A. was technically designed around the A22 - but to be honest, there shouldn't be any issue fitting the 5cm PaK in place of the A22. The differences in both gun and ammo size was marginal.

 

As an aside, the turret planned for Luchs that did end up on Sd.Kfz 234/2 actually originated as part of the VK 16.02, and was then rejiggered to fit the wheeled death trap and luchs on paper.

[Toxn]

14 hours ago, delete013 said:

251 would eventually be replaced by smth akin to Gep. MTW Kätzchen, which has what? The interleaved wheels.

The theory is pretty straightforward, as has bees mentioned. Larger wheels with narrower gaps in-between offer better absorption of terrain and better carrying of the weight at any speed. In fact, almost every late-war German design had overlapping wheels. The E-Serie study is full of them, not only the heavies.

They weren't considered as good as interleaved but a compromise had to be made. Any other form of suspension was an emergency improvisation, especially bogies that were considered obsolete. Lucky for the WAllies, rarely is pointed at the fact that they largely dispensed with tactical maneuver mid-war, do no need for fancy drive trains. Infantry tanks suddenly didn't need speed or agility, cruiser tanks no armour. Sounds perfect for that doctrine, too bad Germans didn't abide to it.

 

You don't understand, is not on your favourite tank, so it is stupid? Lol. Overlapping wheels on tiger 2 were not considered as optimal as the interleaved would be. But they still offered that needed weight distribution, across the chassis but also on individual wheel. This reduced strain on roadwheel arms and individual torsion bars when hitting several bumps on uneven terrain. Which is one clue to understanding that IS-2 with its small wheels couldn't be anything but slow, unless one wanted to incapacitate the crew or the drive train. Hence, faster off-road speeds for Germans, better maneuvering, more flanking surprises, better combat performance. And it is pretty clear what the Allies were the worst at, maneuver warfare. There is no reason to think that the design wasn't the best around. Everyone else ran about with lighter or slower vehicles.

 

There is however another reason. Germans had to include the limitations of their steel into calculations.

 

We literally know the name of the guy, as well as the fact that he a) had a patent on interleaved road wheels and b) was part of 6th Department, which functioned as a procurement office during the pre-war and early war period.

 

Shockingly, almost every project which passed through 6th Department ended up with requirements for interleaved suspension. And the second that Kniepkamp (and later 6th Department itself) got sidelined these requirements faded away.

 

This is one of the more obvious cases of industrial favouritism in the second world war, with engineering considerations being very much a secondary concern.

[Toxn]

13 hours ago, delete013 said:

Great many? Which ones?

This has been dealt with already, but dude. It was literally Red Army doctrine later in the war to do successive pincer movements (as part of the revival of deep operations thinking). That's literally the entire story of the Eastern front in 1944 and 1945.

 

You are so fucking ignorant.

[Collimatrix]

16 hours ago, delete013 said:

251 would eventually be replaced by smth akin to Gep. MTW Kätzchen, which has what? The interleaved wheels.

The theory is pretty straightforward, as has bees mentioned. Larger wheels with narrower gaps in-between offer better absorption of terrain and better carrying of the weight at any speed. In fact, almost every late-war German design had overlapping wheels. The E-Serie study is full of them, not only the heavies.

 

They weren't considered as good as interleaved but a compromise had to be made. Any other form of suspension was an emergency improvisation, especially bogies that were considered obsolete. Lucky for the WAllies, rarely is pointed at the fact that they largely dispensed with tactical maneuver mid-war, do no need for fancy drive trains. Infantry tanks suddenly didn't need speed or agility, cruiser tanks no armour. Sounds perfect for that doctrine, too bad Germans didn't abide to it.

 

You don't understand, is not on your favourite tank, so it is stupid? Lol. Overlapping wheels on tiger 2 were not considered as optimal as the interleaved would be. But they still offered that needed weight distribution, across the chassis but also on individual wheel. This reduced strain on roadwheel arms and individual torsion bars when hitting several bumps on uneven terrain. Which is one clue to understanding that IS-2 with its small wheels couldn't be anything but slow, unless one wanted to incapacitate the crew or the drive train. Hence, faster off-road speeds for Germans, better maneuvering, more flanking surprises, better combat performance. And it is pretty clear what the Allies were the worst at, maneuver warfare. There is no reason to think that the design wasn't the best around. Everyone else ran about with lighter or slower vehicles.

 

There is however another reason. Germans had to include the limitations of their steel into calculations.

You categorically do not understand what you're talking about.

 

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The theory is pretty straightforward, as has bees mentioned. Larger wheels with narrower gaps in-between offer better absorption of terrain and better carrying of the weight at any speed. In fact, almost every late-war German design had overlapping wheels. The E-Serie study is full of them, not only the heavies.

That's not the theory at all.  I'm slightly curious if you read this nonsense somewhere or came up with it on your own, but only slightly curious, so please don't belabor me with a large amount of detail.  Having more points of articulation on a suspension does not affect the force experienced by the chassis or crew.  When the tank is at rest the road wheels will exert the tank's weight against the ground via the suspension springs.  When the tank is going over an obstacle, the vertical component of the acceleration will be buffered by the travel of the independent suspension stations.  If there are more of these stations, then they will have lower K values of their springs, otherwise the suspension would just get stiffer from having more stations.  There will be a very slight difference in response from having more unsprung mass.  Having more points of articulation does increase the tendency for the tank to pitch in response to acceleration and deceleration, but for the number of roadwheels typical for tanks this distinction is immaterial.

 

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They weren't considered as good as interleaved but a compromise had to be made. Any other form of suspension was an emergency improvisation, especially bogies that were considered obsolete. Lucky for the WAllies, rarely is pointed at the fact that they largely dispensed with tactical maneuver mid-war, do no need for fancy drive trains. Infantry tanks suddenly didn't need speed or agility, cruiser tanks no armour. Sounds perfect for that doctrine, too bad Germans didn't abide to it.

Interleaved roadwheels are equivalent to overlapped ones in terms of ground pressure reduction.  Point me to any serious engineering analysis that says otherwise.

 

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You don't understand, is not on your favourite tank, so it is stupid? Lol. Overlapping wheels on tiger 2 were not considered as optimal as the interleaved would be. But they still offered that needed weight distribution, across the chassis but also on individual wheel. This reduced strain on roadwheel arms and individual torsion bars when hitting several bumps on uneven terrain. Which is one clue to understanding that IS-2 with its small wheels couldn't be anything but slow, unless one wanted to incapacitate the crew or the drive train. Hence, faster off-road speeds for Germans, better maneuvering, more flanking surprises, better combat performance.

You need to learn that words mean things.  "Strain" has a very specific, mathematical meaning, and you are badly abusing the word here.

[delete013]

16 hours ago, Beer said:

 

No. Only the very first prototype Kätzchen K1 had interleaved wheels. Read please again my post. Second prototype had Surin's suspension and the final vehicle which was never finihed was supposed to be this (yes, only wooden mockup but this is the final vehicle). 

I'm going into the void on this topic, I have no knowledge about those vehicles, so I'll make negative assumptions about what doesn't fit in the narrative.

Maybe you notice here that this is merely a version of the old Pz.38 hull. Seems as if nothing new was invented here, no future trend indicated. They used what was working at the expense of a more modern drive train. If they could, they would use overlapping wheels simply because they offer better driving. Your entire argument is based on what you think the reason for this choice was. You imply that that old chassis with leaf springs was the future. For you the interleaved wheels are the same as single line. Ask yourself why would they even come to an idea to attempt this kind of arrangement? What you claim makes little sense.

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 Never ever was taken any final decision about anything related to E-series. In fact they were canceled before they even got to any final design. Still there were three suspension options and none of them was of Kniekamp style interleaved wheels á la Panther, Sd.Kfz-251 or Tiger. I have already once gave you this link. Please read it finally.

It was a study. A most logical and probable direction should the war continue. In the last year of the war plenty of regular projects were scrapped in face of reality and replaced with various cheaper alternatives. Vollsturmgewehr, Volksjäger, Hetzers all regressed in technological sophistication and one can't consider them the future of German weapons. Ultimately no complete standardisation took form, not because it wasn't wanted, but because it couldn't be realised. This factor played no role in recce vehicle contest of 1942 but it did for MTW. Good luck proving that the use of Pz.38 hull indicates abandonment of Kniekamp's concept.

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The theory is nice but it was proven to be just a theory. People told you that million times alrerady - nobody else ever used that suspension for plenty of very good reasons. Pz.III suspesnion is used by tanks till today, more than 80 years after it was designed. Kniekamp's suspension was dead and burried by May 1945. In next nearly 80 years nobody used it again. Think about why. 

It was practice with which Germans were satisfied to the point that they traded off the additional maintenance hours. Late overlapping versions were not so problematic to maintain. After May 45 Germans haven't designed anything for about 10 years. During that time the technology and threats changed the design specifications.

You claim that Germans made a 180deg turn in 1944/45. Point at it. You still have all the tanks to process.

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1) It adds several tons of weight itself (and therefore also fuel consumption which is kinda bad when you don't have fuel). 

Sure, per individual vehicle. With greater carrying capacity you can put battle relevant items on the vehicle. Better vehicle means less of them needed. Two Pz.4s use more petrol than a single Panther. And a single panther against two shermans goes in the former's favour. At least this is what history tells. Luckily for the Allies they didn't have to fight with such ratios.

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2) it takes more space inside and makes the internal volume of the vehicle larger and therefore even heavier (and often also prevents having floor emergency hatch (Panther)

You talk about panther's double system? Torsion bars in general are pretty narrow. They require about 10cm more heigh, that is all. Everything else is either bigger or more complex.

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3) It needs twice more manhours, twice more material and therefore most likely costs about twice more than standard torsion bar suspension. 

Sure it does, no argument against that.

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4) You know which steel absolutely needs all those chemical elements which Germany lacked? Spring steel. Think about how good idea is to have twice more springs on every fucking vehicle than what is needed.

Or you reduce the strain on each component by splitting the rotation of a wheel arm between two torsion bars and reducing the distance between wheels, as was the case of a panther.

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5) It is terrible for mainteanance.

That is why initial design was simplified.

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6) It likes to collect several hundreds of kilos of mud which adds more weight to the whole thing and tends to freeze in winter 

It does. It is of secondary consideration though. I believe having that 8.8 and 100mm of steel justifies some freezing mud problems. Allies got these priorities all wrong and paid the high price.

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The zig-zag variant used on Königstiger was not better because it added fast track destruction by twisting (this would happen to most of considered E-series suspension too). 

This just confirms the need for tiger 1's arrangement. Or was there an alternative?

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Is-2 has lower ground pressure than Panther. IS-2 0,0785 MPa, Panther 0,09 MPa. The reason why Panther was faster in terrain was not interleaved wheels but the double torsion bars (which added another quantum of issues). Geez... 

I believe that large interleaved wheels were an important part of it. Pz.3 and IS-2 also had torsion bars. That didn't make them fast off road.

[Beer]

6 hours ago, delete013 said:

I'm going into the void on this topic, I have no knowledge about those vehicles, so I'll make negative assumptions about what doesn't fit in the narrative.

Maybe you notice here that this is merely a version of the old Pz.38 hull. Seems as if nothing new was invented here, no future trend indicated. They used what was working at the expense of a more modern drive train. If they could, they would use overlapping wheels simply because they offer better driving. Your entire argument is based on what you think the reason for this choice was. You imply that that old chassis with leaf springs was the future. For you the interleaved wheels are the same as single line. Ask yourself why would they even come to an idea to attempt this kind of arrangement? What you claim makes little sense.

torsion bars. That didn't make them fast off road.

 

This is Kätzchen K2. The second Auto-Union test vehicle used for comparison of suspension variants (K1 had Kniepkamp suspension). It has nothing to do with he final vehicle which was ordered from ČKD/BMM. The hull has zero common with Pz.38(t). 

 

I have never implied that leaf springs were a thing of the future. I have claimed interleaved wheels were absolutely not (I can't see how you still can't understand it even when next 80 years showed clearly the truth). And that is a big difference. Simple sturdy leaf suspension of 38(t)/(d) simply worked, it was cheap, reliable and easy to produce. Those are very important criteria for mass produced vehicles especially when you are in deep shit. 

  

6 hours ago, delete013 said:

It was a study. A most logical and probable direction should the war continue. In the last year of the war plenty of regular projects were scrapped in face of reality and replaced with various cheaper alternatives. Vollsturmgewehr, Volksjäger, Hetzers all regressed in technological sophistication and one can't consider them the future of German weapons. Ultimately no complete standardisation took form, not because it wasn't wanted, but because it couldn't be realised. This factor played no role in recce vehicle contest of 1942 but it did for MTW. Good luck proving that the use of Pz.38 hull indicates abandonment of Kniekamp's concept.

 

There is no "most logical direction" in the E-series study. There are three completely different variants which never were built, tested against each other, evaluated or selected as final. 

 

  

6 hours ago, delete013 said:

It was practice with which Germans were satisfied to the point that they traded off the additional maintenance hours. Late overlapping versions were not so problematic to maintain. After May 45 Germans haven't designed anything for about 10 years. During that time the technology and threats changed the design specifications.

You claim that Germans made a 180deg turn in 1944/45. Point at it. You still have all the tanks to process.

 

No. The later overlapping versions added track twisting and their very low service life. They were not better. 

 

You claim that technology and threads changed... than you shall explain why most of the tanks 80 years later still use in principle the same suspension as Pz.III and KV-1 from 1930'. 

 

I have not claimed the Germans did 180° turn. I have only told you that by the decision from October 1944 they abandoned the interleaved wheels for light tracked vehicles. It's not my opinion. 

 

  

6 hours ago, delete013 said:

Sure, per individual vehicle. With greater carrying capacity you can put battle relevant items on the vehicle. Better vehicle means less of them needed. Two Pz.4s use more petrol than a single Panther. And a single panther against two shermans goes in the former's favour. At least this is what history tells. Luckily for the Allies they didn't have to fight with such ratios.

 

You take absolutely wrong historical lesson. Weapons are being developed and built to win wars. The heavy monsters lost the war. It was the light and highly mobile forces of the early campaigns which brought success to the Germans and it was again highly mobile forces which brought even greater success to the Red Army later in the war. A Schw.Abt. placed in any point is irrelevant when your enemy is able to do 150 km a day and simply bypasses you and catches you in a pocket where you run out of fuel, ammo and food sooner or later. You know that only the eatern front was around 2-3 thousand kilometers wide? Do you want to claim that you can place your few immobile heavy units to cover such front? Of course you can not, nobody can and history clearly showed that. Quantity matters. Believe it or not but you can be sure as hell that every single German field commander would tell you that they never had enough of their vehicles. In the end the Germans ended moving their armoured units by rail from place to place while the enemy was usually attacking elsewhere. They may have been able to achieve some local success but that was perfectly irrelevant for the course of war, just like that single Char-B tank which knocked out 15 or so German light tanks or the single KV-2 holding an entire German regiment for a day when the enemy's other forces were already hundred kilometers farther. The great irony is that none of the most spectacular German victories would be possible with their late war forces due to the lack of mobility and inability to cross rivers without heavy bridges. 

 

  

6 hours ago, delete013 said:

You talk about panther's double system? Torsion bars in general are pretty narrow. They require about 10cm more heigh, that is all. Everything else is either bigger or more complex.

 

10 cm of height is something like 1 ton of extra hull weight on a vehicle of Panther size. 

 

  

6 hours ago, delete013 said:

Or you reduce the strain on each component by splitting the rotation of a wheel arm between two torsion bars and reducing the distance between wheels, as was the case of a panther.

 

Man, you know nothing about the subject. No, it doesn't work like that and no it was not the case of Panther. You are arguing here in favor of Panther, yet you don't even know what was the purpose of the double torsion bars... It was double suspension travel, i.e. the torsion bars were twisting just like usual, they were only effectively longer to allow bigger travel. But if you insist feel free to build a torsion bar from a steel used for rails or for reinforcing concrete because that is what doesn't need any special alloying elements. 

 

  

6 hours ago, delete013 said:

It does. It is of secondary consideration though. I believe having that 8.8 and 100mm of steel justifies some freezing mud problems. Allies got these priorities all wrong and paid the high price.

 

What priorities and what price? They won the war and especially on western front with very low casualties. 

 

  

6 hours ago, delete013 said:

This just confirms the need for tiger 1's arrangement. Or was there an alternative?

 

Of course. Not using interleaved wheels at all as everyone else to this very day. Can you explain why Leopard II or Abrams work without having interleaved wheels and with having basically Pz.III suspension? 

 

  

6 hours ago, delete013 said:

I believe that large interleaved wheels were an important part of it. Pz.3 and IS-2 also had torsion bars. That didn't make them fast off road.

 

You believe wrong. 

 

 

 

 

 

[Lord_James]

Is it just me, or does this argument remind you of an argument that blacktaildefence would make? Same brand of mental gymnastics, answer dodging, and lack of self awareness... 

 

either way: 

6 hours ago, delete013 said:

 

I have no knowledge about those vehicles, so I'll make negative assumptions about what doesn't fit in the narrative.

Hmmm... no wonder you’re not learning anything. 
 

6 hours ago, delete013 said:

 

Your entire argument is based on what you think the reason for this choice was.

You might want to go look into a mirror, mate. 
 

6 hours ago, delete013 said:

You talk about panther's double system? Torsion bars in general are pretty narrow. They require about 10cm more heigh, that is all.

Single torsion bars? Yes. 
Double torsion bars? Doesn’t appear to be the case. 
 

I will point out that these are 2 entirely different systems, the differences being minor, but important. However the biggest difference is that one system has been demonstrably successful through years and years of constant and reliable service, becoming the standard for which suspension systems on armored vehicles are judged; while the other hasn’t been used since 1950... 

 

6 hours ago, delete013 said:

Allies got these priorities all wrong and paid the high price.

And yet the allies won... paying this “high price”... 

[Collimatrix]

11 hours ago, delete013 said:

You talk about panther's double system? Torsion bars in general are pretty narrow. They require about 10cm more heigh, that is all. Everything else is either bigger or more complex.

 

If you'd done several seconds of research you would know that this isn't true, and would have avoided looking like an idiot.  Do you have a humiliation fetish or something?

The additional height of a torsion bar isn't the diameter of the torsion bar itself.  Torsion bars almost never touch the floor of the hull.

 

 

It's almost like they need big bearings for the swing arms or something.

 

Again, you need only have taken several seconds to ascertain whether this was true or not.

 

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Or you reduce the strain on each component by splitting the rotation of a wheel arm between two torsion bars and reducing the distance between wheels, as was the case of a panther.

 

For the love of Robert Hooke, that's not what "strain" means.

[Collimatrix]

On 1/11/2021 at 8:11 AM, Beer said:

 

Sorry for being late to the party but I found it interesting that the to my knowledge not a single serial vehicle, prototype or concept coming from ČKD (BMM) or Škoda during the war had interleaved wheels (not even any paper project). In the end only one of those designed during the war made it to serial production - the Pz.38(t) n.A. chassis used on Panzerjäger 38(t) Hetzer (albeit the design was somewhat affected by the deliberate effort of ČKD chief designer Aleksey Surin to sabotage it, especially the early vehicles). It's notable that the companies had German management installed to oversee any development, yet they still insisted on not to use the interleaved wheels. In light of what you wrote it is also possible that Pz.38(t) n.A. lost to Pz.II Ausf.L Luchs for this reason because otherwise it was arguably the better machine for its task.   

I had heard vaguely that a design concept for the Czech post-war TVP project was mocked up with interleaved road wheels, but that this was rejected.  I never saw a picture or anything.

So, yeah, a napkin drawing of a napkin drawing, according to rumor.

Post-war, most designers seem to have been content with other ways of reducing the MMP of their tanks.

[Sturgeon]

12 hours ago, delete013 said:

I'm going into the void on this topic, I have no knowledge about those vehicles, so I'll make negative assumptions about what doesn't fit in the narrative.

Maybe you notice here that this is merely a version of the old Pz.38 hull. Seems as if nothing new was invented here, no future trend indicated. They used what was working at the expense of a more modern drive train. If they could, they would use overlapping wheels simply because they offer better driving. Your entire argument is based on what you think the reason for this choice was. You imply that that old chassis with leaf springs was the future. For you the interleaved wheels are the same as single line. Ask yourself why would they even come to an idea to attempt this kind of arrangement? What you claim makes little sense.

It was a study. A most logical and probable direction should the war continue. In the last year of the war plenty of regular projects were scrapped in face of reality and replaced with various cheaper alternatives. Vollsturmgewehr, Volksjäger, Hetzers all regressed in technological sophistication and one can't consider them the future of German weapons. Ultimately no complete standardisation took form, not because it wasn't wanted, but because it couldn't be realised. This factor played no role in recce vehicle contest of 1942 but it did for MTW. Good luck proving that the use of Pz.38 hull indicates abandonment of Kniekamp's concept.

It was practice with which Germans were satisfied to the point that they traded off the additional maintenance hours. Late overlapping versions were not so problematic to maintain. After May 45 Germans haven't designed anything for about 10 years. During that time the technology and threats changed the design specifications.

You claim that Germans made a 180deg turn in 1944/45. Point at it. You still have all the tanks to process.

Sure, per individual vehicle. With greater carrying capacity you can put battle relevant items on the vehicle. Better vehicle means less of them needed. Two Pz.4s use more petrol than a single Panther. And a single panther against two shermans goes in the former's favour. At least this is what history tells. Luckily for the Allies they didn't have to fight with such ratios.

You talk about panther's double system? Torsion bars in general are pretty narrow. They require about 10cm more heigh, that is all. Everything else is either bigger or more complex.

Sure it does, no argument against that.

Or you reduce the strain on each component by splitting the rotation of a wheel arm between two torsion bars and reducing the distance between wheels, as was the case of a panther.

That is why initial design was simplified.

It does. It is of secondary consideration though. I believe having that 8.8 and 100mm of steel justifies some freezing mud problems. Allies got these priorities all wrong and paid the high price.

This just confirms the need for tiger 1's arrangement. Or was there an alternative?

I believe that large interleaved wheels were an important part of it. Pz.3 and IS-2 also had torsion bars. That didn't make them fast off road.

 

You see yourself the way you see your beloved Nazi tankers, as a knight in zimmerited armor, bravely and honorably engaging in the ritual of combat.

 

You do not see yourself for what you actually are:

 

[Beer]

22 minutes ago, Collimatrix said:

I had heard vaguely that a design concept for the Czech post-war TVP project was mocked up with interleaved road wheels, but that this was rejected.  I never saw a picture or anything.

So, yeah, a napkin drawing of a napkin drawing, according to rumor.

Post-war, most designers seem to have been content with other ways of reducing the MMP of their tanks.

 

To my knowledge none of the known drawings shows interleaved wheels. All had standard torsion bars, some trailing, some leading. One of the drawings had one pair of torsion bars leading and the rest trailing to create space for turret basket. All had also rear drive sprocket. Even the Surin's suspension was quickly abandoned (it survived in an attempt to create cheap export tank on the basis of LT vz.38 but there was so much cheap armor around the Globe that time that it didn't get anywhere past test chassis). 

 

What was taken from German tanks was the gun mantlet in Topfblende style which in combination with the later cast IS-3 style turret looked very interesting. Generally the earlier concepts were looking a bit more German, the later took a lot of insipration from IS-3 but the vehicles were planned to be smaller, lighter, much less armoured and a lot faster and all were to be equipped with autoloader.. I will post some drawings later in the history section. 

[Jeeps_Guns_Tanks]

40 minutes ago, Sturgeon said:

 

You see yourself the way you see your beloved Nazi tankers, as a knight in zimmerited armor, bravely and honorably engaging in the ritual of combat.

 

You do not see yourself for what you actually are:

 

 

 

Sadly that puppet is smarter than our pal Delete. 

 

 

[TokyoMorose]

13 hours ago, delete013 said:

It does. It is of secondary consideration though. I believe having that 8.8 and 100mm of steel justifies some freezing mud problems. Allies got these priorities all wrong and paid the high price.

 

And yet, any 76mm armed Sherman has effectively 100mm of armor frontally (it's 93.1mm, but 7 mm ain't gonna make a difference) and a more effective gun than the short 88 in terms of pure vehicle-on-vehicle contests.

 

Even the humble T-34 brings 90mm (and more on the turret face and mantlet on 85mm ones) of steel and with the 85mm a similar gun. And the T-34 was a maniacally cheap and simple vehicle, ask the German commanders if they would trade 10mm of armor in places and basically no gun performance in exchange for having a vehicle well less than half the cost and with far less maintenance demands, and they will all say yes. They'd also greatly appreciate the better operational range, lower fuel consumption, and ability to not shred eastern european bridges very highly.

[Sturgeon]

48 minutes ago, Jeeps_Guns_Tanks said:

 

 

Sadly that puppet is smarter than our pal Delete. 

 

 

 

I was thinking of the toy...

[delete013]

21 hours ago, Beer said:

 

This is Kätzchen K2. The second Auto-Union test vehicle used for comparison of suspension variants (K1 had Kniepkamp suspension). It has nothing to do with he final vehicle which was ordered from ČKD/BMM. The hull has zero common with Pz.38(t). 

Really? Even your source claims it is based on hetzer. And Jagdpanzer 38 is based on Pz.38.

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I have never implied that leaf springs were a thing of the future. I have claimed interleaved wheels were absolutely not (I can't see how you still can't understand it even when next 80 years showed clearly the truth). And that is a big difference. Simple sturdy leaf suspension of 38(t)/(d) simply worked, it was cheap, reliable and easy to produce. Those are very important criteria for mass produced vehicles especially when you are in deep shit. 

Exactly, that is the likely reason they used it.

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There is no "most logical direction" in the E-series study. There are three completely different variants which never were built, tested against each other, evaluated or selected as final. 

Most vehicles on that list were either fielded or partly built. It was no clean sheet.

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No. The later overlapping versions added track twisting and their very low service life. They were not better. 

Is why I said that it was worse than interleaved wheels. EDIT: Panther was likely to get the right pair?

A balanced arrangement without track twisting and roughly three layers only.

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You claim that technology and threads changed... than you shall explain why most of the tanks 80 years later still use in principle the same suspension as Pz.III and KV-1 from 1930'. 

That is not how it works. The concept of interleaved wheels was a solution for the limitations of the time. The only other suspension able to carry such weight were compound solutions with limited suspension travel. Today's arrangement would never work with ww2 tech.

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I have not claimed the Germans did 180° turn. I have only told you that by the decision from October 1944 they abandoned the interleaved wheels for light tracked vehicles. It's not my opinion. 

You interpret it in your own way. So far the only clear thing is that Hetzer's chassis was standardised for several vehicle types. Nothing on wanting or not the interleaved arrangement. Neither did you provide a proof that single line was considered better.

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You take absolutely wrong historical lesson. Weapons are being developed and built to win wars. The heavy monsters lost the war. It was the light and highly mobile forces of the early campaigns which brought success to the Germans and it was again highly mobile forces which brought even greater success to the Red Army later in the war. A Schw.Abt. placed in any point is irrelevant when your enemy is able to do 150 km a day and simply bypasses you and catches you in a pocket where you run out of fuel, ammo and food sooner or later. You know that only the eatern front was around 2-3 thousand kilometers wide? Do you want to claim that you can place your few immobile heavy units to cover such front? Of course you can not, nobody can and history clearly showed that. Quantity matters. Believe it or not but you can be sure as hell that every single German field commander would tell you that they never had enough of their vehicles. In the end the Germans ended moving their armoured units by rail from place to place while the enemy was usually attacking elsewhere. They may have been able to achieve some local success but that was perfectly irrelevant for the course of war, just like that single Char-B tank which knocked out 15 or so German light tanks or the single KV-2 holding an entire German regiment for a day when the enemy's other forces were already hundred kilometers farther.

You entirely ignore the disparity between the condition of the Wehrmacht in 1941 and 1944. Panzer 3 and 4 were combined arms components dependent on artillery, air force and infantry. The first two basically ceased to exist in the west. So good luck holding the front around Caen with pz3 and 4 at such odds. Pöhlmann in "Der Panzer und die Mechanisierung des Krieges"  points at this transition. With the waning of German operational offensive capability the burden was increasingly placed on the equipment. Good equipment and skill were two primary reasons why Germans managed to drag the war for so long. In Normandy a platoon of tigers was enough for the Allies to resort to day long artillery shelling and strategic bombing. Totally absurd amount of firepower against someone that only has tanks, at guns and mortars. Disparity can be countered, but not such ridiculous scales. At St. Lo where Allied breakthrough was finally successful, there were 2.5k American vs. 200 German tanks. And that is ignoring air support and artillery. None of the offensives around Caen, featuring 3-5:1 ratio in tanks in Allied favour, managed to achieve a breakthrough and for the later part it wasn't even attempted anymore. This means bad performance.

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The great irony is that none of the most spectacular German victories would be possible with their late war forces due to the lack of mobility and inability to cross rivers without heavy bridges. 

You know, panther and tiger were made for deep fording.

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10 cm of height is something like 1 ton of extra hull weight on a vehicle of Panther size. 

So what is better?

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Man, you know nothing about the subject. No, it doesn't work like that and no it was not the case of Panther. You are arguing here in favor of Panther, yet you don't even know what was the purpose of the double torsion bars... It was double suspension travel, i.e. the torsion bars were twisting just like usual, they were only effectively longer to allow bigger travel.

Lets see what German professional literature says:

Germans identified the need for greater suspension travel as a precondition for fast and smooth off road driving. The steel in their torsion bars couldn't enable it, so they bound two together and achieved it "trotz schlechterer Werkstoffgüte" - despite poor material quality. (Merhof, Hackbarth: Fahrmechanik der Kettenfahrzeuge)

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But if you insist feel free to build a torsion bar from a steel used for rails or for reinforcing concrete because that is what doesn't need any special alloying elements. 

You literally confirm my statements. Germans had material limitations and had to improvise.

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What priorities and what price? They won the war and especially on western front with very low casualties.

Allied vehicle quality certainly wasn't the cause of that.

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Of course. Not using interleaved wheels at all as everyone else to this very day. Can you explain why Leopard II or Abrams work without having interleaved wheels and with having basically Pz.III suspension?

Because they were designed 30 years later. If vehicles needed to exceed 70 tonnes then interleaved wheels would likely come back into play.

[Beer]

3 hours ago, delete013 said:

Really? Even your source claims it is based on hetzer. And Jagdpanzer 38 is based on Pz.38.

 

What my source? Vehicle you posted is second Auto-Union prototype. The hull has nothing to do with Pz.38(t) aside of the externally mounted 38(t) suspension for comparison testing. This vehicle was built before ČKD even knew that it was being developed. Picture I posted is different vehicle designed later by ČKD and only that one is based on 38(t). Period. 

  

3 hours ago, delete013 said:

That is not how it works. The concept of interleaved wheels was a solution for the limitations of the time. The only other suspension able to carry such weight were compound solutions with limited suspension travel. Today's arrangement would never work with ww2 tech.

 

3 hours ago, delete013 said:

Because they were designed 30 years later. If vehicles needed to exceed 70 tonnes then interleaved wheels would likely come back into play.

 

That's only your and all wrong interpretation and ignorance. There are countless examples that interleaved wheels are not needed for heavy vehicles and it was like that in WW2 just like it is today. Two examples of many many more. 

 

1945, 86 tons, single torsion bars

 

1945, 68 tons, single torsion bars

 

  

3 hours ago, delete013 said:

You interpret it in your own way. So far the only clear thing is that Hetzer's chassis was standardised for several vehicle types. Nothing on wanting or not the interleaved arrangement. Neither did you provide a proof that single line was considered better.

 

I'm not interpreting anything. I'm telling what the October 1944 decision stated. There is nothing ambiguous about that. 

 

  

3 hours ago, delete013 said:

Lets see what German professional literature says:

 

You interpret the article wrong.  The use of double torsion bars was not a measure to overcome material issues but a measure to achieve double travel with existing materials. You can clearly see that on Königstiger which didn't have double torsion bars (by your logic it would absolutely had to have them). 510 mm is insane value for the time, nearly double to the other vehicles of the period and it was possible only through double length of the springs. Double travel over double length means that twisting of the spring is same.

 

And this crazy suspension travel is the reason why Panther was good in terrain and absolutely not the fact it had interleaved wheels. 

  

3 hours ago, delete013 said:

You literally confirm my statements. Germans had material limitations and had to improvise.

 

No. If you knew something about the subject you would have known that it is impossible to build springs without certain alloying elements. Even for somewhat worse spring steel you still need them. 

 

[delete013]

On 3/31/2021 at 11:20 AM, Collimatrix said:

You categorically do not understand what you're talking about.

That's not the theory at all.  I'm slightly curious if you read this nonsense somewhere or came up with it on your own, but only slightly curious, so please don't belabor me with a large amount of detail.  Having more points of articulation on a suspension does not affect the force experienced by the chassis or crew.  When the tank is at rest the road wheels will exert the tank's weight against the ground via the suspension springs.  When the tank is going over an obstacle, the vertical component of the acceleration will be buffered by the travel of the independent suspension stations.  If there are more of these stations, then they will have lower K values of their springs, otherwise the suspension would just get stiffer from having more stations.  There will be a very slight difference in response from having more unsprung mass.  Having more points of articulation does increase the tendency for the tank to pitch in response to acceleration and deceleration, but for the number of roadwheels typical for tanks this distinction is immaterial.

Theory as an idea, not the scientific formulation.

The way I understand this is the following. Just like in stationary position, the pressure will still be distributed locally on the frontal wheel arms, sinking the vehicle less into the ground and creating smaller "Bugwelle" - the terrain curve pushed in front of the vehicle that has to be overcome (upper image). Lower image shows two vehicles with the same specific ground pressure  where the second vehicle with narrower distance between wheels has lower average maximum ground pressure. Germans combined that with large road wheels, at which only overlapping is possible.

The greater size of a road wheel is advantageous because the force is applied further lower from the wheel center, making it easier for the wheel to move out of the way. This can be compensated by the track width but broader track means larger surface hitting the terrain curve.

In hard terrain, the obstacle will again have to be overcome by every following roadwheel adding to the sum of the force exerted inversely on the axis of movement. The force on individual road wheel can be reduced with the arm distance and roadwheel diameter (because the contact surface of larger roadwheel on a soft terrain is greater). Today, the mentioned issues seem to be largely overcome through longer hulls, greater engine power, track tension and more resilient torsion bars. I likely forgot smth.
Some of this is in Merhof, Hackbarth: Fahrmechanik der Kettenfahrzeuge, but not all. You can find a pdf, google-translate, oder lern Deutsch du Hurensohn.

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Interleaved roadwheels are equivalent to overlapped ones in terms of ground pressure reduction.  Point me to any serious engineering analysis that says otherwise.

Sure from track to the ground, but the pressure from roadwheels to tracks is different. When track hits terrain at an angle the roadwheels must keep it straight or the vehicle might slip from the track. Interleaved pairs on tiger 2 exchange pressure from one side of the track to the other but four wheels share the pressure and distribute it evenly across the track width. @Beer mentioned track twisting. I don't know how much this was an issue. So tiger 1's version is essentially the best for hard terrain but the most complex and the heaviest. Big roadwheels and many of them likely mean slower acceleration. That would be smth Germans disliked and a credible criticism.

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You need to learn that words mean things.  "Strain" has a very specific, mathematical meaning, and you are badly abusing the word here.

English is not my first language, nor am I a mechanical engineer. It's a direct translation.

[Beer]

1 minute ago, delete013 said:

English is not my first language, nor am I a mechanical engineer. It's a direct translation.

 

Where do you get the arrogance to argue about things you have no clue about? 

[delete013]

29 minutes ago, Beer said:

 

Where do you get the arrogance to argue about things you have no clue about? 

Then I am sure you will be able to dismantle my arguments on a scientific level.

On 3/31/2021 at 9:19 AM, Toxn said:

This has been dealt with already, but dude. It was literally Red Army doctrine later in the war to do successive pincer movements (as part of the revival of deep operations thinking). That's literally the entire story of the Eastern front in 1944 and 1945.

Apart from Red Army?

On 3/31/2021 at 9:19 AM, Toxn said:

You are so fucking ignorant.

Ohoho, Bigotry saves the day.

[Toxn]

17 minutes ago, delete013 said:

 

Apart from Red Army?

So apart from the biggest theatre of the war, where the Axis lost more than two thirds of their total casualties?

[Toxn]

20 minutes ago, delete013 said:

 

Ohoho, Bigotry saves the day.

"Obstinate or unreasonable attachment to a belief, opinion, or faction; in particular, prejudice against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular group."

 

So what group are you part of, that I'm unreasonably or obstinately prejudiced against you?

[Beer]

42 minutes ago, delete013 said:

Then I am sure you will be able to dismantle my arguments on a scientific level.

 

First you have to bring some. 

[Lord_James]

1 hour ago, delete013 said:

Then I am sure you will be able to dismantle my arguments on a scientific level.

They are, you’re just not accepting it. 
 

1 hour ago, delete013 said:

Apart from Red Army?

I gave you several American and British examples, mate... 

 

5 hours ago, delete013 said:

Good equipment and skill were two primary reasons why Germans managed to drag the war for so long.

Lol wut? Is that why the Nazi’s increasingly used poorly trained conscripts with minimum equipment as the war went on, or how they continued to make cheap vehicles like Hetzer and Stug as materials and time grew thin? 
 

5 hours ago, delete013 said:

In Normandy a platoon of tigers was enough for the Allies to resort to day long artillery shelling and strategic bombing. Totally absurd amount of firepower against someone that only has tanks, at guns and mortars. Disparity can be countered, but not such ridiculous scales. At St. Lo where Allied breakthrough was finally successful, there were 2.5k American vs. 200 German tanks. And that is ignoring air support and artillery. None of the offensives around Caen, featuring 3-5:1 ratio in tanks in Allied favour, managed to achieve a breakthrough and for the later part it wasn't even attempted anymore. This means bad performance.

The Normandy campaign was not particularly hampered by the Germans efforts more than any other front. Normandy was difficult to cross because of the environment being: 

A) full of dense hedge rows (bocage), that were difficult to pass through and provided AT gun crews and panzershreck / panzerfaust teams with easy targets at close range. It took so long because each of these guns / teams had to be meticulously cleared before armor could move forward. 
B) the roads were so thoroughly damaged by the allied bombardment that it was difficult to drive anywhere without coming across a 2 meter deep crater or heavy debris blocking your path. 
 

After the allies had broken out of this terrain, they saw much faster and further advances. 
 

Also, outside of Caen is where the falaise pocket was fought, and the allies made huge advances securing land from the Nazi’s, and destroying a large amount of men and material via a large pincer movement, which requires out maneuvering the enemy. Kinda hard to do that if your vehicles are “less maneuverable”.