Posted on 09/19/2014 4:17:15 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
Zowie.
Believe it or not, they are also a Satanic symbol...
Well, the SS units were generally that too.
No. The designers must have read and been influenced by design documents for the underpowered German heavies that were intercepted by Ultra. The T-28 had a 500 hp V-8 which is basically what the Sherman had..
Bear in mind I was joking about Ultra intercepts of German tank design documents.
Underpowered hardly describes it. The Abrams uses 1,500 horsepower to drive a 70 ton vehicle.
Well, maybe they were channeling the German tank designers. :-))
As for the Jagdpanzer concept, it was an outgrowth of the "Sturmgeschutz." Back in the late 1930s, as war loomed, it appeared to the Germans that with the doctrine of putting all the panzers into panzer divisions, the infantry would need some type of mobile firepower. Thus came the "Sturmgeschutz," or assault gun. It was ardently backed by von Manstein and other generals, and administratively all of the assault guns were under the artillery and not panzer branch of the Heer. The first examples were the Stug III B, with the short-barrelled 75/L24 gun found on the Panzer IV D.
As the war went on, StuGs showed they had various advantages. One was that with the lack of a turret, they were easier to manufacture and used less resources. Another is that they offered a lower profile than a panzer. Finally, they offered the ability to mount a higher caliber and velocity main gun on an obsolete chassis that could not mount the same gun on a tank. The Panzer III could not mount the long-barrelled 75/L48 found in the Panzer IV G and H series. But the StuG III could, which was done in the StuG F and G. Thus, production of the Panzer III chassis could continue, and older Panzer III tanks could be converted to StuGs.
Even thought these vehicles were called upon more and more to act in an anti-tank role instead of an infantry support, they remained administratively part of the artillery arm. The artillery generals claimed that it was only in a StuG that an artillery officer could get his Ritterkreuz (Knight's Cross). So they stayed under the artillery. Of course, this was another example of lack of coordination in the German war effort. For people assumed to be so logical, they really weren't.
The Sturmgeschutz rationale continued for the Panzer IV Chassis, which by late 1944 was considered obsolete. With most Panzer battalions finally converted to Panthers, the Mark IV chassis found new life in the Jagdpanzer IV/70, which mounted a longer gun than could be mounted in a Panzer IV:
By now, the term Sturmgeschutz, or assault gun, is no longer being used, and "Jagdpanzer" or "Tank Hunter" is. The same concept continued in the Jagdpanzer V, or Jagdpanther, which mounted a high velocity 88 found in the Royal Tiger.
The Soviets imitated the Germans, first with the SU 152, a KV chassis mounting a 152mm gun/howitzer:
And the SU 85 and later SU 100, which were truly tank-hunters on a T34 chassis mounting better guns than found in the T34s at the time:
Velly intelestink.
I’ve read many of these threads but never commented before. I look at these articles and all I can think of is how Americans have become such wimps that by today’s standards we’d have surrendered about a year into WW2.
LOL!
If I have this straight, her husband’s brother (who ended up Duke) was married to the sister of one of Hitler’s lovers.
Things were cleaned up in 1948 when both Unity Mitford (Hitler’s girlfriend) and Kennedy’s daughter died within a couple of weeks of each other.
Interestingly enough, the Duchess (Deborah Mitford), is still alive at 94. Another sister, Diana Mitford, was married to British Nazi leader Oswald Mosley (see a pattern here?)
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