Maus, Ratte, p1500, big German Tanks etc.

Mind you, the range of a tank in urban fighting is limited to the next house on fire or smoke bomb. Remember those Panther turret pillboxes: a magnificent gun, but a Molotov cokctail or a blanket on top and it was blind as a bat.

Better a humble Hetzer: it could move away from trouble or sidestep the obstruction.

A few months ago this 1000-ton Ratte wet dream was discussed elsewhere. It was supposed to carry a turret taken from a battlecruiser. Little detail: a ship's turret has an immense depth for all the mechanics, ammunition feed, etc, so your tank would have to be several stories tall to accomodate the turret innards.

Super weapons? Yawn!

 

Warrior - Panzer Crewman 1939-45

Including Barkmanns Panther

 

Well, back to the one-on-one matches; remember how KV-2s stopped entire Axis columns for days during the opening stages of Barbarossa? That's what I was thinking about, only more lopsided.

In urban warfare, the more power in the smaller package, the better, that's for sure.

 

That tank is some size its humungous!!!!!

 

Those KV-2s like the one at that episode in Raseniai?

The next day, a single Kv-2 heavy tank, at a crossroads in front of Raseiniai, managed to cut off elements of the 6th Panzer Division which had established bridgeheads on the Dubysa. It stalled the Division's advance for a full day while being attacked by a variety of antitank weapons, until it finally ran out of ammunition

See problem self-solved

Ahh, lovely Wikipee Someday I'll buy some stock into that !

 

Just wondering if anyone knows if the Maus, (pictured below) was used in combat. I know only two prototypes were built, but I'm looking for extra details. Also, does anyone know anything about the Landkreuzer P. 1500 Monster. It suposdly had a crew of over 100 men.

Regarding the Maus I have just read in a Munster Tank Museum Book that there was only two completed examples.

Both being tested south of Berlin at Kummersdorf testing ground.

Before the Russians arrived both examples were prepared with explosive devices to render them unservicable but the explosions were not good enough to destroy the whole vehicle.

Unfortunately one examples turret was left intact and the other examples main body was left intact.

The Russians just put the two good pieces together and made up the tank that is now on display near Moscow.

There were a handful of partly completed Maus's still at the factory.

Regards
Tom

 

Those KV-2s like the one at that episode in Raseniai?

Just imagine what a a couple of ammo trucks would have done beside that KV... (I mean, other than exploding when hit )

 

Every word brings you closer to the edge of the Sin of What-Iffery

 

Beaches

Like the Panther and Tiger - these would have had some difficulty in getting over bridges - the Panther for example had only one inch clearance on a 40 ton Bailey Bridge- the Tiger was also a bit heavy - so the designers were dreaming a lot
- bigger was not always better- the panzerfaust was small - and did the same job
Cheers


I very much agree. And by the same token, I can't see a Typhoon or P47 pilot having much trouble seeing or dealing with it.

Size doesn't always count.

 

The spirit of the "elephant" lived on , could you imagine filling it with fuel....... "Fil'er up lads and don't take all week about it ....you take Fuhrercard ?"

Getting it on and off a transport train would have been fun this alone would have limited any potential use of the "land battleship", Hunting Tiger was a mouse compared to this monster.

 

I do see a Typhoon or P47 pilot having much trouble seeing or dealing with it.That's an old myth that gets out from grave every so often.

There was that old bit of operational research performed by John Salt, maybe you are not aware of this:

And now, some contemporary estimates of hit probabilities for rocket-firing Typhoons. These figures are taken from PRO document WO 291/2357, "Rocket Typhoons".

This report is dated 12 June 1945. The expected probability of hits on different targets using RPs is given as:

Target__________________Dimensions___________% hits
Small gun position______5' diameter______________0.2
Panther tank____________22'6" × 10'9" × 9'10"____0.5
Large gun position______10' diameter_____________0.8
Army hut________________60' × 30' × 20'__________2.8
Large building__________120' × 54' × 50'________10.0

"Among the hundreds of abandoned and knocked out tanks that have been examined, no instance has been recorded of a tank that has been hit by R.P. and escaped major damage."

RP are very effective on guns (20mm guns are blown to pieces), tanks, barns and huts. Brick houses have a large hole knocked in them and "considerable havoc wrought inside". Anti-personnel effects are limited, as the rocket tends to bury itself, and on concrete structures and thick masonry such as churches the damage inflicted is superficial.

The morale effects of rocket attack appear considerable. Enemy PWs report that all personnel except flak gunners hide from aircraft from 1 to 10 minutes after the completion of an attack, expecting the attackers to return for a second strafing pass.

"It appears quite definite that it is the nature of the attack that upsets the Germans and not the physical damage which it causes."

RP Typhoons are also reported to have a considerable heartening effect on friendly troops.


That's 0.5% hits on a Panther, and 10% on a large building, so you really have to saturate the area quite a bit in the hope of a hit, and the effects remain to be seen.

This article by Tony Williams, who shows up here rarely throws light on aerial gun and cannon use. Look up the rest of the sight, it's really good.

The Brit 60lb rockets were very effective indeed against area targets, but to effectively damage a tank you need to do better than a near miss. Another link.

All 60 Pound rockets had a reported accuracy of 1% against a stationary tank-sized object at 300 meters range.

So you need 12 Typhoons aiming at the same target to get one single hit, not quite stellar. Great for trucks and horse transport, but not for tank killing.

But I see "another member" has been involved on this matter in AHF in 2009 at least so maybe he'd like to drop his tuppence here

 

I stand corrected.

 

Fruitcake of the Foul Temper! (there must be some Viking named like that )

It's not a matter of being corrected, there are a lot of more or less charitable myths around and the fact that most if not all have been debunked does not entail that everyone hears of it.

I'm not going to give myself the trouble to look up as I don't have the time, but I believe you would be interested to know that at the Falaise Gap among the carnage about one quarter of the tanks had been abandoned by their crews without a scratch - most others blown up by their own - so those rockets did have an indirect effect.

Now for motor- and horse-transport it is a different matter, we have somewhere here a thread on Falaise, in which Sapper gave his views as a eye-witness.

 

Every word brings you closer to the edge of the Sin of What-Iffery

And that without considering what TWO such coffins would have done...

:indexCAXI2NHN:PEACE!

 

Robert,

It was a logistical nightmare just transporting Tiger I's by rail as the outer sets of road wheels and narrow track had to bew fitted and the wheels and Wide Battle tracks stored by the tank on its transporter wagon.

Just think about the hours of time spent by the support engineers just changing the battle tracks etc.

Anything bigger than the Tiger was meant to be able to wade across riverbeds as most bridges would have given way under the strain.

Monster Tanks in my opinion were just not worth the time and effort involved.

Now I will put my helmet on and await the flak.

Regards
Tom

 

Tom , As you rightly point out, an unmitigated disaster would have been all it amounted to - an utter waste of resources from the word go.

 

Regarding all this fuss about mobility, did Nazi engineers really consider battlefield conditions, or designed with "pleasing the boss" in mind?

We should remember that they had almost all of the European communication network to play with, but tales of drawbacks in mobility just keep showing up when it comes to the big(er) coffins. On the other end, Adolf sure was a fan of mega-projects (just ask Speer about it).

 

http://www.bills-bunker.de/media//DIR_111001/4203297340c99131ffff8182ac144225.pdf


In this training pamphlet - mention of rail movement, 'General Guderian himself sometimes travels on the railroad'

Selbst general Guderian fahrt manchmal auf der eisenbahn

 

And that without considering what TWO such coffins would have done...

:indexCAXI2NHN:PEACE!

"Surrender? I have not yet begun to fight!" :p

 

"Surrender? I have not yet begun to fight!" :p