News for all things related to Tanks and Armored Fighting Vehicles
When the Germans realized what a threat tanks could be, they made their trenches wider to trap them; one answer to this was to build longer tanks and the Mark V was stretched by six feet to create the Mark V*. As an interim solution this was adequate but a further improved version, the Mark V** was designed for 1919.
Find out more about the First World War on the Tank Museum’s Centenary blog, Tank 100 http://www.tank100.com
The BBC recently posted an article on ‘Hobart’s Funnies”, the specialized engineering tanks that assisted Allied troops during the D-Day landings. This is probably a story already familiar to most readers, but it’s a nicely done article so we thought it worth pointing out.
Excerpt:
David Willey, the curator at Britain’s Tank Museum at Bovington, says Hobart quickly became a leading light in this kind of warfare. In 1934, Hobart became the inspector of the Royal Tank Corps, and in charge of tank tactics. He was such an influential figure that Heinz Guderian, one of the leading commanders in Germany’s early victories of World War Two, had his reports translated and studied them intently, Willey says.
Hobart based his vision of fast-moving columns of tanks to the highly mobile Mongol hordes of the Middle Ages, and was one of the first commanders to predict that aircraft could help resupply these columns far behind enemy lines.
Over at the WoT forum, Nicholas “The Chieftain” Moran has posted a new article about the development of the Tiger II tank. Excerpt below, read the full article here.
VK 45.03. Tiger III. Tiger II. Tiger Ausf B. And they’re all the same tank. Even after reading and re-reading the books on King Tiger’s development (Notably the Jentz/Doyle one), I’m still a little confused, though perhaps a little less than some. You’d think that a country with a reputation of organization such as Germany would have had a system which was easier to decipher, but as Hilary Doyle intimated in Operation Think Tank, the various companies all competing for contracts tended to be as much interested in the money as they were their patriotic duty to see the war won. Doubtless the winds of fortune changed as the company leadership leaned upon their patrons in the political hierarchy which had no small role in the development of vehicles by the middle of the war. Anyway, since the VK 45.03 premium tank is now on sale, let’s have a look at the background.
Here is a round up of articles from either researcher Yuri Pasholok or World of Tanks EU translated into English and posted on the Archive Awareness blog. Click on the article title to read the full piece.
The British light Tetrarch tank is most often remembered in connection with the landing in Normandy. While it was the first tank used for this purpose, initially the Tetrarch was designed for something else. The adventures of the Tetrarch in the British army are well known, unlike the use of the tank in the Red Army. That story is still full of omissions.
The results of the French competition for a new light tank in the mid 1930s were unclear. On one hand, the army made a deal with Renault to produce 300 light Renault ZM tanks. The tank entered service with the name Char léger Modele 1935 R,or Renault R35. A year later, the FCM 36 was accepted into service, which was more promising according to the infantry commanders. Doubt was cast on the production of the R35, but it was never cancelled, and it became the infantry’s most numerous tank. Right before WWII began, the AMX 38 appeared, another tank that could have been accepted into service with the French army.
The summer of 1944 was coming to an end, but the Sandomierz foothold was still hot. The sun was beaming from above and battled raged on the ground. A German attack at dawn of August 13th failed, but the enemy started anew during the day, hoping that the long guns of the King Tigers will do their job. Their path was blocked by IS tanks from the 71st Guards Heavy Tank Regiment. Among them was a company commanded by Senior Lieutenant V. A. Udalov.
The FCM 36 was the least lucky French tank created in the interbellum period. Its design was progressive: it was the first tank with sloped armour to be put into production. While other French tanks were put together with bolts or rivets, FCM made its hull welded. In addition, the FCM 36 had a diesel engine. Alas, the fate of this interesting tank was a difficult one.
Of all German E-Series (Entwicklung, development) only the E-100 ever reached the stage where it was ready to be built in metal. This did not stop other vehicles in the series from becoming very popular. These vehicles included not only tanks, but also tank destroyers, including the medium E-25 tank destroyer. Let us look deeper into its history and familiarize ourselves with other “paper” vehicles of its class.
A grenade and a bottle with incendiary fluid: this was the most widespread armament of a Red Army infantryman in late 1941. It was most effective where it was used with another powerful weapon: heroism. A well trained soldier could throw a bottle 20-30 meters, a heavy grenade bundle would fly even less. The bravest men closed in to this distance or even less, often paying with their life for a disabled or burned tank. On paper, this looks like a good trade, but in real life this is a tragedy.
The range of a hand grenade is very short. In WWI, many methods were tried to solve this problem. One of those was a special rifle grenade. A cup was attached to the muzzle of a rifle, which fired a grenade with the aid of a blank cartridge. This method was not very effective: the range was barely a few hundred meters, the fragmentation effect of the grenade was weak, and there was no accuracy to speak of. Due to a low muzzle velocity, the shots had to be fired at a large upward angle. Despite poor reliability and questionable effectiveness, the idea of rifle grenades not only survived until the Great Patriotic War, but continued to evolve.
The adoption of the Cruiser Tank Mk.III in 1938 didn’t mean that the British were fully satisfied with it. Armour that was only 14 mm thick made the tank vulnerable to anything bigger than a rifle. High caliber machineguns that were one of the most popular anti-tank weapons during the Spanish Civil War made the military seriously think about improving protection. It was impossible to do anything radical with the Cruiser Tank Mk.III, since a whole new tank would be needed. It was decided to go down the road of minor modernization. The resulting tank became one of the best and longest lasting pre-war British tanks.
Using a rocket against a tank is very tempting. Rockets can carry a powerful warhead and can be launched without an expensive barrel: all you need is a rail. In the 1930s, Soviet pilots were already using rockets to fire at enemy planes.
During the Great Patriotic War, an attempt was made to use rockets to destroy German tanks, but it turns out that this wasn’t so simple.
Overlord’s blog has posted a three part article on the battle of Arras, France in 1940. This battle is well known to those interested in the history of armored warfare, remembered primarily as the time British Matilda tanks put a serious scare into Rommel’s 7th Panzer Division.
Excerpt:
Tank terror is that moment when the infantryman realises he can’t do anything to hurt the steel monster clanking towards him filled with malice and doom, and it’s heading right towards him. At that point he gets up and runs. The term was coined during the Blitzkrieg in 1940 that conquered France. But on one occasion the markings on the tanks weren’t German crosses, but the white squares of the BEF.
The Arras counter attack is one of the interesting battles from the summer of 1940, it points out the lesson that most commanders need to learn: the enemy can always surprise you. Rommel is reported to have suffered an attack of tank terror, and panicked reporting hundreds of tanks crushing his lines. It caused the Germans to halt their dash for the Channel, giving the Allies two days extra. This was time that would be very beneficial at Dunkirk.
As the Germans pushed their armoured spearhead into France the Allies laid plans for a large counter attack on the southern shoulder of the penetration. It was decided to try to support that attack with a push from the north with whatever forces could be spared. To this end the 5th Infantry and 50th Northumbrian Division along with the 1st Army Tank Brigade were dispatched to the Arras sector. When the units began to trickle into their staging area near Vimy Ridge, they found the area thinly held, with a French armoured unit to the east of Arras. Much of the infantry force were diverted to hold the line, this did however free up sixty S-35 tanks to take part in the attack. With these forces in place an attempt was made to plan the attack on the 20th of May, however things were hampered simply by not knowing what forces would be available.
Read the complete articles at these three links:
Wargaming Europe has released a new video featuring Richard “The Challenger” Cutland and his team at Bovington Tank Museum where they take a closer look at the British Centurion Tank.
From the Tank Museum at Bovington comes part 3 of the Matilda Diaries, a video series showing the restoration of their Matilda II infantry tank.
Nicholas Moran of World of Tanks gives a look at the inside of the M3 Medium. We have been looking forward to this one.
Israeli newspaper Haaretz is reporting that Russia has agreed to return to Israel a Magach (M48) tank that was one of two tanks captured in 1982 by Syria in Lebanon. Syria had given one of the captured tanks to the USSR where it eventually found its way to the tank museum at Kubinka. Since the capture of the tank in 1982, Israel has been seeking to discover the fate of 3 missing tank crewmen that were in one of the two missing tanks.
According to the Haaretz article:
Over the weekend, Israel was informed that Putin had consented to Netanyahu’s request and had signed a presidential order for the tank’s return. Netanyahu also informed the families of the three missing soldiers of the development.
The Prime Minister’s Office also announced that a delegation from the IDF ammunition corps is currently in the Russian capital meeting with Russian representatives to explore how the tank can be transferred to Israel as quickly as possible and to ascertain whether it is the three missing soldiers’ tank or the other captured tank.
“I thank Russian President Vladimir Putin, who responded to my request to return the tank from the Battle of Sultan Yacoub to Israel,” Netanyahu said in the statement. “The families of the missing, Zacharia Baumel, Zvi Feldman and Yehuda Katz, have not had a physical vestige of their sons or a grave to visit for the past 34 years. The tank is the only evidence of the battle and now it will return to Israel thanks to Russian President Putin’s consent to my request.”
In July of last year Tank and AFV New.com posted an article written by Jim Warford in 2007 about this particular tank (the article originally appeared in ARMOR magazine.) According to Warford, the Soviet government was very interested in this particular tank because it contained an unconfirmed quantity of the 105mm M111 “Hetz” APFSDS round, which was Israel’s most advanced anti-tank round at the time. This vehicle is also covered in Warford’s 2001 article for ARMOR titled “The Secret Museum at Kubinka.”
Another episode of Tank Chats staring David Fletcher. This one looks at the WW1 era British Mark V.
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