Best Tank Destroyer/ self-propelled gun (1 Viewer)

Ad: This forum contains affiliate links to products on Amazon and eBay. More information in Terms and rules

The thing about the E-100 is it was under way being built before the war was over - the chassis amongst other things being ready.






The end product would've looked like this (The other type being with a Krupp-Turm): tiger3
 
That looks funny next to the M-24 tank in the top photo. looks like u could park 2 Chaffees inside the E-100.

.
 
How did I miss that Allied star used by all Allied forces for recognition by Allied air forces. I might be wrong about the tank type, but since the British captured the E-100, that tank looks lower than a M24, and the commander hanging out the top looks like a British tanker...it's all pointing to Valentine to me.
 
Some interesting info on the E-series:
E-Series Panzers

I'm taking out those parts which show how the E-series would have improved production numbers and maintainability in the field.

The E-10
The combined hydrodynamic transmission and steering unit was to be made by Voith and was also at the rear of the tank, easing removal and servicing. This would also free up space in the fighting compartment. The engine deck and rear plates could all be removed to allow access and the engine and transmission could be removed as a single unit. It was expected that the top speed of the tank would be 65 - 70 km/h. Even though the E-10 designation would suggest a weight of 10 tonnes, the combat weight would probably have been about 16 tonnes.

One feature of the tank was the ability to reduce its height. This was achieved by rotating the pivot points of the suspension units via cranks driven by hydraulic actuators. The vehicle height could be reduced from 1760mm to 1400 mm. The armour was to be 60mm thick on the upper glacis plate, 30mm on the lower glacis plate and the rest all 20mm.

The E-10 did not go into production and its projected role was to be undertaken by the similarly sized but mechanically simpler Jagdpanzer 38(d), based on a re-engined and lengthened version of the venerable Panzer 38(t) chassis.


The E-25
was to be a low, well armoured and agile tank destroyer taking the place of the Jagdpanzer IV Lang which was too large and fairly complicated to build. Armament was to be the 7.5 cm L/70 gun (as fitted to the Panther, Jagdpanzer IV, etc) which was a well proven weapon effective against all Allied tanks of the time. It may have been replaced in service with a new weapon designed by Krupp and Skoda as the 7.5 cm KwK 44 L/70 for the Schmalturm armed Panther F and featured a concentric recoil mechanism. This dispensed with the large cylinders on top of the gun barrel and would have enabled a much smaller mantlet than that of the Jagdpanzer IV Lang's PaK 42 L/70 to be fitted. Skoda were working on an auto loader which would fire 40 rounds a minute and it had been test fired by the end of the war.

Each suspension unit was bolted to the hull side and bottom plate so it could be easily removed if damaged.

The Spielberger book's data tables show the liquid cooled Maybach HL 230 P30 as fitted to the Panther, but this was probably to be mounted only as a test engine, being in production for quite a while and well proven. The 700 HP available would have given the E-25 a speed of 65 kph. This amount of horse power coupled with the wide track would have made the E-25 extremely agile. 350 - 400 HP would still have given ample reserves of power.

Even with the low silhouette the E-25 would have had a usefully sized fighting compartment, due to the transmission position at the rear of the vehicle and the external suspension units. It would have had much more internal volume than the Hetzer.

Make no mistake, this was not a fantasy vehicle. Some hulls were completed by 23rd January 1945 and were at Kattowitz ready to be moved to a proving ground.

The E-50 (and E-75)
The basic ideas were to save internal space, save time and effort, standardize parts and carry out research into gun stabilization. Why maximize internal space? A larger gun needs larger ammunition and related systems, and there was no room for further expansion in the current range of vehicles. Gun stabilization would give a degree of fire on the move capability and also alleviate trunnion loads as the tank travelled cross country. The designs were to not use torsion bars as these took up an inordinate amount of room, but have bolt on external suspension units, and preferably have the gearbox and final drive at the rear of the hull. These latter items were to be simplified where possible to minimize machining and gear cutting operations.

If possible plain bearings were to be used in place of ball and roller bearings.

the simplified production requirements of the E-series would have freed up a lot more men from the factories.

Construction of the existing Panther was a major problem. Although a fine tank it took an extraordinary amount of manpower, time and resources to build

Panther was refined on later models but still gave lots of problems right up to the end of the war. By then it was undergunned as well when compared to its Soviet counterpart the IS-2, taking into account size and weight.

German industry tried to make an improved and simplified version in the Panther II, fitted with the Schmalturm armed with the 8.8 cm gun, but the revised chassis was still too complicated for the Heereswaffenamt, even though the number of torsion bars in the chassis had been halved by using the single bar layout of the Tiger II. It was to have 800mm steel wheels and would have used many components from the Tiger II such as gearbox and final drive as well.

Panther F and Panther II would probably never have reached production because of the work on the E series, but it was decided to keep the Schmalturm as, during tests, it was found to have excellent armour protection, could be fitted with either the 7.5 cm or 8.8 cm gun and was cheaper, taking 30% less time to manufacture than the original turret. Frontal armour was raised from 80 to 120 mm with corresponding increases in the sides and roof armour as well. Note that the turret roof was flat, whereas Panther, Tiger I and Tiger II all had sloping front roof sections to allow the commander to have better forward vision. It had a good stereoscopic range finder made by Zeiss and incorporated a gyrostabilizer, copied from (or at least based on) the stabilizer mounted on the American Lee/Grant and Sherman tanks.

It was decided that torsion bars were difficult and costly to make, and as the larger factories were getting bombed round the clock something was needed that could be simple enough to hand to small engineering concerns to fabricate under sub- contract. The new bogie carried 800mm steel rimmed "rubber saving" wheels from the Tiger II. This type of wheel is often refered to as "silent bloc".

The wheels were mounted on geared swing arms suspended against springs made of simple Belleville washers held in tubes, with a hydraulic shock absorber down the centre of each. The suspension unit was designed by MAN of Augsburg, and was small, due to the high loading it could take, and easy to produce. The washers could be churned out on most stamping machines. The axles for the swing arms still needed machining on a lathe, but they were nowhere near the size of torsion bars. The complete bogie was refered to as "Einheitslaufwerk", or standardized running gear. A lesson learned from the American Sherman suspension was that none of the components was handed. The wheels straddled the track guide teeth, but the same length axles were used: the wheels had a bearing spacer on one side which could be reversed, setting one wheel in and one wheel out. An escape hatch could be fitted in the hull floor now, almost impossible with torsion bars. Mine damage would be much easier to fix as the complete unit could be unbolted and replaced, where as mine damaged and buckled torsion bars often had to be removed with a cutting torch, after the interleaved wheels had been removed first of course.

The standard Panther had eight axles per side, requiring eight precise holes in each side of the hull. These had to be cut and machined with the hull in a huge special rig. Add sixteen chrome steel torsion bars, complete with machined bearings, specialist heat treatment, etc. Compare that with six small housings filled with plain steel washers and a couple of shock absorbers, fixed by bolts. I don't have a cost breakdown but a similar exercise was carried out by Porsche on the Jagdtiger and the savings were 50% in material costs and tooling, a 40% weight reduction and 60% on labour time. Another way of saving money was to have only one wheel on each axle - the normal interleaving was two per axle - two axles per bogie and three bogies per side. This arrangement gave the E-50 twelve road wheels as opposed to 32 on the original Panther, alone a massive saving of time and effort.

The E-50 hull was to be longer than the Panther, in fact it was practically identical to the King Tiger in overall dimensions except for the glacis plate layout. This large hull combined with the Schmalturm gives the completed vehicle a somewhat pin headed appearance. As mentioned above the amount of drilling and machining was reduced drastically. The plates would have been interlocked and welded as on other German vehicles, giving great strength and rigidity. Like the Panther and King Tiger hulls, lifting and shackle points were all cut into the flat plates rather than bolt on items like the earlier Panzer IV.


The hull of the replacement for the King Tiger, the E-75, was going to be almost identical to the E-50, except the armour would have been thicker. Two extra bogies, one each side, would have been fitted to compensate for the extra weight. The bogies were re-spaced as well giving the E-75 a track to ground contact length of 4095mm, compared to 3850mm for the E-50. The whole drive train would have been the same for E-50 and E-75. As they were both to be armed with the same gun, ammunition stowage and overall internal layout was to be identical.

The engine chosen was an improved version of the Maybach HL230 as fitted to the Panther and the Tiger II. Called the HL234, it developed 900 HP using fuel injection, and was expected to produce up to 1200 HP with supercharging. Maximum speed was to be 60 KPH for the E-50 and 40 KPH for the E-75. The idea was to assemble both types on the same production line, using identical production machinery and brought in sub assemblies.
Kris
 
plan_D said:
Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but that's a Valentine - not a M24.
Click to expand...

I guess you're right. I'm used to Valentines with a rounder turret. The chassis does not belong to a M24. The star threw me too.

see how the turret looks more round?
 

Attachments

  • val.jpg
    23 KB · Views: 171
It took me a while comiso; I've never seen a Valentine with a star on it (practically every other British tank I've seen with one) and the angle was throwing me a bit.

It could have been worse, you could have made an ABSOLUTE fool of yourself and try to mock someone when you were completely wrong - eh, that would have been bad, wouldn't it Civettone?

It must have been, Chris!
 
I don't have an actual vote on the best TD of the war as there are a few contenders with good reasons for each. One thing I noticed from the posts is that the technical arguments don't always cover the real use of these machines.

Some posts have said that you fire and then get out. This is absolutely correct as the dumbest thing you can do in an AFV is stick around too long in the one spot.

The other thing is that TD's were used to hunt tanks. This meant remaining unseen where possible and firing from concealment ( hopefully first ). Armour strength is less of a factor here than movement.

The JagdPanther had a definite weakness here due to mechanical unreliability coupled with service life of parts - particularly the track system. A lot of servicing on the Panther series required a return to a heavy workshop ( Panthers never numbered more than around 600 in service on all fronts at any time of the war ). This limited the effectiveness of these vehicles as technical / armour / gun superiority is not much use when the vehicle is not on the battlefield.

The SU-100 was far more reliable and easier to service - it also had a good track life like the Sherman. The other aspect of this is that there were a lot of SU-100's available more often as they didn't need so much servicing. Perhaps this makes them better?

The gun on the SU-100 was better than many sources say as German tests on penetration required 30% of the projectile to go through at around 30 degrees whereas most Russian tests required 50% of the projectile to penetrate at the same angle. This makes a difference.

Any TD with a 17lber firing tungsten core was going to do well in a fight.

As for whether a TD could knock out a KingTiger? It didn't really matter as most KingTigers woould knock themselves out mechanically in a very short space of time anyway - a useless an ill-conceived machine with no mobility or reliability, making it a non starter in the first place.
 
Waspiter, welcome!

I agree with your notion of the role of TDs.

But I would like to add something to the points you make.
The SU-100 was indeed excellent but let me just add that Russian tanks had lousy optics. Also German tests were done using better steel plates than what was used by the Ruskies.

The 17 Pdr was very powerful but apparently inaccurate.

There is no such thing as a Kingtiger. It's an allied name given to the Tiger II. There are many stories about it being unreliable but most of it are just stories. It was mechanically the most advanced tank of WW2, and although it did have some problems, statistics show that the Tiger II was more reliable than the Panther.
Check out panzerworld.net, by far the most accurate and truthful website about German Panzers around, by the great Christian Ankerstjerne.

Kris
 

That is completely untrue WARSPITER and I have no idea where you have this from - I do suspect Battlefield.ru though, which is rittled with inaccuracies about German armour guns (You can ask Christian Ankerstjerne about that as-well).

The Germans required atleast 2/3's of the projectiles fired at the test-plate to penetrate completely, which means a clean penetration 66% of the time. You can ready about the testing criteria specifically in some of Thomas L. Jentz books.

Also the JagdPanther was fielded when virtually all of the early teething problems of the Panther had been worked out, so reliability wasn't an issue - infact the actual reliability was quite remarkable considering the inviroments in which it had to operate daily.
 
The reliability of the German panzer units is always brought into question; but from what I've read it always seems to be their conditions and logistical support that brought them down. It's been a while since I've read this but I'll find it again; but I recall one of the heavy Tiger units maintaining a 80% servicability rate while on the march in Russia because the commander made sure he had the parts and recovery vehicles - as well as taking rests for routine maintenance.

It's the same as the EE Lightning's servicability (it was terrible) but it's barely mentioned because in reality they were kept ready, out of the 14 aircraft in 11 Sqdn. my dad says they always had 11 - 12 ready to fly.
 
Very correct Plan_D.

The main issue bugging the panzers was the scarce supply of spare parts, which meant that when something finally did brake down it was a struggle to acquire the parts quickly. One must remember that German tanks didn't recieve field maintenance as often as Allied tanks, there simply wasn't time or spare parts to do so, so German tanks had to travel longer before each maintenance check up, and considering this they kept them running at a darn high percentage.
 
Interesting points from all. Thank you. It's good to get somewhere and see discussion rather than attitude.

From the contempory accounts I have read it may be that the main problem for the Wermacht was logistic support and crew capability. bothe fell short as the war went on and the later tanks and TD's probably suffered in reputation because of it.

One example is the crew training at later stages. The larger German tanks did have powerful petrol engines which had to be managed properly. Over revving at the wrong time would cause damage to the gearbox and final drive, so an inexperienced driver could easily immobilise a Tiger or Panther type. This may be why these vehicles have a dodgy reputation mechanically.

Also, just as clothes maketh the man, crew maketh the tank. A poor crew means a poor tank or TD no matter what optics, gun, or engine specs it has. This is where the Panzer arm really did have it over everyone they came up against. I would still disagree that the KingTiger ( I am not German so that's what I call it ) was anything but useless given the German strategic situation at the time of it's release, but I will agree at all times with the view that the Wermacht of World War II was the best army of the twentieth century. Given that I would also argue that whatever of the TD's mentioned so far would have been especially dangerous.

Again, given the German position after 1943 perhaps even the JagdPanther was a waste of time ( although the 1/72 scale kit I have in my wargames collection takes pride of place because it just looks so right ).

Maybe in practical terms the JagdPanzer IV/L70 was one of the best ?
 
Call it the King Tiger or Royal Tiger or Tiger Royal or 'Ah, sh*t, it's one them big tanks' (Pz.Kpfw VI Ausf B 'Tiger II') - that's it's name from the Allies.
 
Yes! That will do nicely - it was one of them big ones - the one with the PAK 43 and the cool paint job. Ta.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 2 (members: 0, guests: 2)

Similar threads

Z
Best tank engines of WWII
15 16 17
Replies
335
Views
20K
Reluctant Poster
R
A
Rolls Royce Tank Engines
Replies
2
Views
446
Reluctant Poster
R
P
Which tank is this ?
Replies
2
Views
669
programa
P
M
The D-Day Naval Gun Battle
Replies
0
Views
702
MIflyer
M
WWII Destroyers?
2
Replies
34
Views
831
Thumpalumpacus
Menu
Log in
Register