The FReeper Foxhole's TreadHead Tuesday - Tankettes (Part I) - Britain and Poland - Nov. 9th, 2004

mailer.fsu.edu/~akirk ^

[Grzegorz 246]

[Grzegorz 246]

http://www.wpk.p.lodz.pl/~bolas/main/uzbrojenie/karabiny/ur.htm

[Grzegorz 246]

Boguslaw Woloszanski - author of this movie is producing documentary series and historic shows for public TV and also wrote many interesting books about WW2 and history of XX century.

[Grzegorz 246]

http://www.sxxw.nom.pl/

[PAR35]

Thanks.

The FReeper Foxhole's TreadHead Tuesday - The 7TP/7-Tonowy Polski Light Tank - June 1st, 2004

That was the one I remembered. I couldn't find it when I searched. I did find the one about the invasion of Poland, and quoted from it in my response up about # 54.

You mentioned the tankettes in the June thread, as I recall, and that is what I was searching for. Thanks for your hard work on these threads.

[Professional Engineer]

Shame to lose a guy like Lance Sijan.

We can't remember guys like this often enough.

[Iris7]

The picture I was referring to is subtitled "A company of TKS tankettes prepare for a counterattack on the outskirts of Warsaw, 13 September 1939."

The machines in the picture are clearly armed only with the 7.92 mm Hotchkiss wz 25 MG, and not the 20 mm gun. The 20 mm gun model was rare, with only 20 made of a total TKS production of 2000. Machines armed with the 20 mm gun were the only TKS types remotely able to deal with a PzKw II, and did achieve some notable successes.

http://www.wwiivehicles.com/html/poland/tk_tks.html

[Iris7]

The 106 mm recoilless rifle has possibilities as you describe, seems to me. A sort of Copperhead with a sustainer. Be a bit tricky to get maximum launch velocity and effective electronics, maybe, same problem with the Copperhead, which ended up costing a great deal.

As I recall the expelling charge for the RPG is strip ballistite with a black powder initiator. Makes a big bang. The Panzerfaust, anyway the 30 meter version, had an expelling charge of 3.2 ounces of black powder I read in an English source once. Therefor also a "recoilless" gun. It had no sustainer. The rear of the tube was covered only with a weather cap. There was no nozzle or blowout plug. Perhaps the 100 meter version was "the same thing only more so."

A modern weapon designed for light armor installation, and said to be surprisingly effective against main battle tanks, and which should shoot a decent reduced charge general purpose projectile, is in production as HVMS in Israel. Some interesting installations pictured at:

http://www.israeli-weapons.com/weapons/vehicles/tanks/sherman/M-60.html

[PAR35]

The picture I was referring to is subtitled "A company of TKS tankettes prepare for a counterattack on the outskirts of Warsaw, 13 September 1939."

Perhaps that was your intent, but I went back up the thread, and there was no way to tell which of the photos to which you were referring.

Your post was number 15, responding to number 10, which contained no photos. There is nothing in the caption of the photo you now id which indicates that they were going after armor rather than more suitable infantry targets.

[U S Army EOD]

The Germans had a 28mm squeeze bore that would start off as one caliber and actually be squeezed down in size in the tube. It had a tremendous muzzle velocity and was used for their airborne units. It would stop a light or medium tank but could not penetrate the heavy tanks of the Russians.