Feldgrau.net

Hi Guys,

For anyone wanting more detail and a tongue-in-cheek approach to the bat bomb try:

http://www.feldgrau.net/phpBB2/viewtopi ... sc&start=0

Cheers,

Sid.

Tom

Some of the bats were suspected of harbouring pro Japanese sympathies!
Apparently they were blind to the justice of our cause!

We should have interned them in a special cave@

cheers
Reb

What......a Bat Cave?

Incidently, bats were ALSO experimented with BY the japanese as one of their flea-ridden plague carriers in China....hmm, like Douglas Admas' white mice, makes you wonder who was experimenting on whom???

The "Caldwell Bib"

During the advance into Germany in January 1945 the US 94th Div was losing a lot of combat medics to German fire. Some one had the bright idea that perhaps the Germans couldn't see the little red cross on their helmet and sleeve.

So a Major Caldwell of the Army Medical Corps had some USO personal sew together "bibs" which fit over the necks and covered the chest and back of the medic with a white cloth with a huge red cross on it. The red material came ironically, from captured nazi battleflags.

Losses among medics went way down which is a credit both to Major Caldwell and to the German soldiers.

Source: Against the Panzers

btw - I believe German medics wore something like this as well?

cheers
Reb

funny, the 'rules' of war...

also, the Japs tried to bomb Amerika with candle-powered hot air like ballons that carried Incindiary bombs. they were launched, flew up into the gulf stream (or is it something else? you know, that current of fast-moving air...) and were supposed to land in america a year later. naturally, they land in Canada and butn a house or two down and kill like 6 people, and i think this was after the war.

Hi Dragunov,

Yup. The aim was to use the high altitude, prevailing west-east jet stream to carry the baloons, which I think were made of paper - a non-strategic material, over the massive forest of the USA and Canada in summer, when they were most flammable. They would fall to earth and hopefully the incendiary aboard would cause massive forest fires. Several thousand were launched, but few landed on target and started fires. I seem to remember that all the dead were from a single familiy picknicking in the woods (This bears double checking).

Cheers,

Sid.

Hi guys,

I read from the book Steel Fist by Nigel Cawthorne that Germans proposed Rammtiger based on the Tiger I's chassis, which can be used to knocked down the walls of buildings at Stalingrad.

Anyone knew of this Rammtiger design?

Panzermahn

Hello panzermahn, Hitler proposed that three Tiger VK4501 (Porsche) chassis be modified for a Raumpanzer type vehicle for driving through walls.
This is not the same chassis as the Tiger 1 (Henschel) but same as that developed by Ferdinand Porsche with an Electric drive system and used for the Ferdinands and Elepants, one operational tank with an 88, and three Bergepanzer Tiger recovery vehicles.
Apparently the Raumpanzer idea never got much past the prototype stage. Here is a link to George Pradas excellent "Achtung Panzer!" site with a bit of info on the Raumpanzer and Porsche Tiger.

http://www.achtungpanzer.com/tigerp.htm

And thus Hitler continued his campaign to nickle and dime German industry to death - playing at war lord while losing the war.

What panzer soldier would want to be in a ram tiger? Certainly a kamikaze task if there ever was one.

Meantime - twenty Pz Iv are NOT produced.

May all our enemies be as silly as Adolf.

cheers
Reb

Dirlewanger wrote:Hello panzermahn, Hitler proposed that three Tiger VK4501 (Porsche) chassis be modified for a Raumpanzer type vehicle for driving through walls.
This is not the same chassis as the Tiger 1 (Henschel) but same as that developed by Ferdinand Porsche with an Electric drive system and used for the Ferdinands and Elepants, one operational tank with an 88, and three Bergepanzer Tiger recovery vehicles.
Apparently the Raumpanzer idea never got much past the prototype stage. Here is a link to George Pradas excellent "Achtung Panzer!" site with a bit of info on the Raumpanzer and Porsche Tiger.

http://www.achtungpanzer.com/tigerp.htm

Hi Dirlewenger,

Thanks for the information.

Regards
Panzermahn

oddly enough, panzermahn, that was going to be my random fact of the day. you beat me to it. supposedly it was conceived after the gigantic mess in stalingrad, where somebody thought it would be funny to drive a tank through that rubble. uncle adolf must have actually taken it seriously.
yuppe, as they say, the best allied general was... hitler.



another random fact:

the jagdpanzer 4 was front heavy due to the armour and huge 75mm and thus had a tendancy to tip and even get its gun stuck in the mud. despite the problem, it was liked by the crews and was nicknamed Guderian Ente- Guderian's duck.

Dragunov

Re Guderian Duck

I've seen the picture everyone has seen of the Jpz IV in the Ardennes in shadow camo - long barrel and sleek design.

But in "East of Elsenborn" there are several photos of Jpz IV with a somewhat different design - not as sleek and more like a panzer with a recess going back to a top hull instead of a turret.

I know there were two models of this beast but not sure which is which - and IIRC only one had the top heavy problem. (I think it had a panther gun).

Can you tell me which is which?

thanks
Reb

Reb,

The Jagdpanzer IV you are describing sounds like the Alkett version (Jagdpanzer IV/70A) which put a slightly different sloped superstructure on top of a standard, unchanged PzKpfw IV chassis. It gave the impression of being squarer and larger, and indeed it was! The extra half a metre in height was a disadvantage, but it made use of existing production capacity and avoided delays involved with setting up the production lines for a completely new vehicle.

The other more numerous version was the classic Vomag one (Jagdpanzer IV/70V). This is the Das Reich one from the famous series of photos you mentioned (perhaps from Deutsche Wochenschau?) in the Ardennes. Lower and sleeker with no vertical section to the hull, but with the same gun.

There was a third, earlier version with the same chassis and superstructure as the Vomag type, but with the shorter L/48 gun from the PzKpfw IV instead of the Panther. This was phased out of production in December 1944 in favour of the L/70-gunned vehicles. The L/48 type wasn't nose-heavy, and the Guderian Ente nickname didn't occur until the L/70 types entered service. Both Alkett and Vomag L/70s were nose-heavy, and required all-steel rims on the front wheels instead of rubber tyres to handle the weight.

Hope this helps.

MG42

Thanks - that explains a lot. I'm off to find some pics.

cheers
Michael

yup. and another reason the L48 was phased out was that its muzzle brake kicked up alot of dust, clouding vision. so the crews improvised and cut off the muzzle brake. that's why it was eliminated in the later variants.