The Sd. Kfz. 234 Thread!!!

[phylo_roadking]

P.S. Also explains their losses in Normandy. The Bocage was NO place for armour of ANY type, not just tanks! The idea of armoured recce vehicles is their mobility; put them in an environment like that ....and they simply become under-armoured gun carriers. At least some tanks in some circumstances had the ability to buldoze through those banked hedgerows - tho rarely, admittedly - but the armoured cars were too light for that, yet too heavy to climb out of a sunken lane.

[Jan-Hendrik]

Here you might find two nice pics of the Prague-234/4 :

http://www.dolin.estranky.cz/fotoalbum/ ... 45/cr-1945

Well , definite accounts of Aufklärer ?

As fas as I know :

- Hubertus Schulz "Die Aufklärer der 1.KavDiv/24.PzDiv"
- Herbert Poller "11.SS-Panzeraufklärungsabteilung"
- Erik Wallin's "Götterdämmerung" as an veterans account of SS-PzAA 11
- Timo Worst's oustanding work ( still in progress ) on SS-AA 1
- Hellmuth Schroetter "Panzer rollen in Afrika vor. Mit Rommel von Tripolis bis El Alamein (Aufkl.Abt. (mot.) 3)"
- Rudolf A. Haag "So war es. Berichte von und über Soldaten der Aufklärungs-Abteilung 7 der 7. Bayerischen Infanterie-Division"
- Herbert Karb "Erinnerungen der Panzer-Aufklärungs-Abteilung 12"
- G.W. Jeske "Geschichte der Aufklärungs-Abteilung (tmot) 18 - 18. Infanterie-Division (tmot) - vom 24.8.1939 bis 1.10.1942"
- Gerhard Fiebig/Johannes Keller "Pz.AA 33 in Nordafrika"
- H. Spaeter "Chronik der Panzeraufklärungsabteilung "Großdeutschland"" Vol. 1 & 2
- Hans Cramer "Die Panzer-Aufklärungs-Lehrabteilung (Kavallerie Lehr- und Versuchsabteilung) von 1937 - 1940"


Jan-Hendrik

[Commissar D, the Evil]

Nice post Jan-Hendrik! That's a great list of references! You German-speakers have all the fun....

Very Best,
David

[Lustmolch]

Ah, a couple of pictures of the 234/1:

This first vehicle is from 4th Panzer in 1945:



I don't know who owned this one:



Best,
David

Interesting to see that these don't have the central lockers on the mudguards; something I'd only associated with the 234/4 until now. Late production vehicles possibly?

BTW, how about a list of surviving machines and their locations?

Off the top of my head, theres the 234/3 in RAC Bovington (in dark grey inexplicably), the 234/4 in Munster (which I think appears in the thread below the Puma pic) and another in the Patton Museum.

Are there any others?

[Jan-Hendrik]

Nobody with more info regarding which units really received 234ers

I am really surprised , dear gentlemen ...



Jan-Hendrik

[afrika.90light]

Found a picture in Rommel in N. Africa by D.A. Lande and on pgs. 63 & 102 it shows a 234/1 with a shamrock overlaid by a horseshoe dated about 4/9/42 somewhere in eastern Cyrenaica. What unit might this be?

William

[Jan-Hendrik]

Sure that this was a 234/1 ? I seriously doubt that one of them reached Africa



Jan-Hendrik

[TimoWr]

1942 would pre-date the first production run of the 234/1 by two full years. It certainly wasn't a 234/1 in Africa. Probably a 231 series vehicle.

[TimoWr]

BTW, I always loved the story from an SS AA1 Puma veteran who told me that they were not allowed to fire the gun when the turret was rotated 90 degrees left or right, because the vehicle could easily tip over in that case

[afrika.90light]

Guess what. The book is wrong on both pictures. Your right it is a 231. I don't have a lot of knowledge on armoured cars. Hence the mixup. But I'd still like to know which unit this might have belonged to. It's an 8 Rad with the armoured nose. The shamrock and horseshoe is painted on the front plate.

William

[Commissar D, the Evil]

BTW, I always loved the story from an SS AA1 Puma veteran who told me that they were not allowed to fire the gun when the turret was rotated 90 degrees left or right, because the vehicle could easily tip over in that case

That's more interesting than one might suspect Timo! The problem of balance is precisely the reason that the modern American Stryker was never fitted with the proposed 90mm assault gun. So, any more information you could provide would be usefull. If the "Puma" was restricted in its arc of fire, then you have revealed something that is not in the available literature about the vehicle!!!!! Not to say that you are mistaken, simply that a known weakness in similar modern vehicles appears to have been inherent in the Puma's design!

Very Best,
David

[Tom Houlihan]

So, any more information you could provide would be usefull. If the "Puma" was restricted in its arc of fire, then you have revealed something that is not in the available literature about the vehicle!!!!!

Yeah, I know a certain Puma commander that might be interested in that information!

[Commissar D, the Evil]

I know a certain Puma commander who might be downright mortfied by this discovery!!!!

Very Best,
~D, Certainly EviL

[TimoWr]

William, I'm sorry that I cannot help you with that. I have very little knowledge about the African campaign.

David my friend, I got your pm. At this moment I have no further information but I will write the veteran about this matter. Since I don't believe that this wasn't noticed during trials with the prototypes, it must have been something the Waffenamt could live with and that it was something the instructors passed on to the crews.

Cheers,
Timo

[Jan-Hendrik]

I think this was the reason why the 7,5er in my beloved 234/4 was mounted to only fire "prosto" .

If I could I would adopt an 234/4



Jan-Hendrik