phylo_roadking wrote:No, what I'm saying is that the rest of the Mark VIB was grossly vulnerable to even S.m.K steel-cored ammunition, let alone S.m.K.H....but the couple of times that one poster has mentioned its armour as being "up to 14mm" doesn't adequately emphasise how weak the rest of the "armoured perambulator" was...
And the fact that the Panther was well nigh impenetrable to 99% of the projectiles it encountered from the frontal aspect (and, ye, I do in fact know about shot traps, mantlet vulnerabilities and so on) doesn't adequately emphasize just how deathly vulnerable it was to flank and rear shots too.
And for the record - that's ALL I'm saying; so please don't apply that answer to any other flight of fancy about Panthers, or whatever you think I should be referring to...
I understand perfectly what you're saying, which is perfectly true. It also, very simply, applies to virtually all armored vehicles.
No; and sadly the site rules don't permit me to call that statement of yours for what it is - given that I've already noted perfectly clearly that my reply...
Perhaps it would help if you could be bothered to attribute who said what in your carefully clipped quotes.
I did not say:
However, in a fight against enemy troops on foot and without effective AT weapons, when regarded as a machine gun carrier they would have certain advantages when used intelligently, such as firepower, mobility, protection (up to 14 mm armour), and the capacity to carry more ammunition than a squad of soldiers
Someone else did. What
YOU SAID was that the
OTHER POSTER claimed invulnerability for the Mark VIB Light Tank. That is not what he said.
Sadly, the site rules also don't permit me to call your habitual tactic of not referencing who made the quote you have carefully snipped and added onto another posters quote for what it is. I just noticed today you pulled that slight of hand with the Churchill reference at Dieppe as well. Please don't do it; at the least it is annoying and at the worst it is deliberately deceitful.
I'll deal with the Crete issue before moving on to other issues...
Oh, good.
I'll be coming back to this, for it applies directly to TWO of my next points...
Any time now.
...hastily conceived; on the morning of the 20th as the squadron observed the Germans beginning to land they scrambled for their tanks - and Farran found himself with one of the squadron's gunners in his tank's driving seat!
Yes...and Matilda's were hastily crewed at Retimo by fitters and odd Aussies and/or New Zealanders.
His tank shed its track immediately after the incident when he accidently shot and wounded a Cretan woman...whom he shot at thinking she was a German in a greatcoat while under MG fire from a couple of concealed MGs. His "driver" was apparently "so excited by it all" that when Farran ordered him to turn round he pulled the tiller too hard to one side!
Yes. How does that affect my more abbreviated version? He also shot at Germans herding wounded PW as well as surrendering Germans...and then later made a mess of things in Palestine. What does that have to do with your claim that another poster said the Vickers was invulnerable?
To be fair - and this has some bearing on the grenade statement above - a lot more happened to Farran's tank at that point than just getting tangled in barbed wire! Just after getting free his tank was subjected to a "shower of grenades" rolling off the side of the tank but "causing no damage"...which as Farran later admits himself was not the case...
...or they may have been the mortar bombs, which with along with machine gun fire was preventing his advance up the road...at least according to the New Zealand history. In either case, grenades, mortars, or simply wire...it had an affect the next day.
I'm not sure this is the case; during his briefng by Brigadier Hergest for that day's action, he was told the captured Bofors were near Maleme village - but he encountered the "antitank guns" right in the village square, hidden in the churchyard.
It's just after this encounter that he took his unfortunate detour through a stand of bamboo - quite common on Crete - to hide from a posse of Bf109s that attacked the two surviving tanks...at which point one of his bogey wheels collapsed...which he does put down partly to the barbed wire encounter - but ALSO says...
"It collapsed as though it had been made of cardboard, having also been damaged by a grenade[/b], and there were were as immobile as the Rock of Gibraltar."
Remember the "shower of grenades"?
Or mortar shells. Either way, there was a gun near Pirgos that Farran thought could punch holes in his tank...and that was what he was withdrawing from. The "shower of grenades" - or mortar shells - was the day before.
Vickers Light bogey wheels are relatively strong steel forgings about five to six inches wide, and the same as those used on Bren Gun Carriers, and with a solid rubber "tyre" on them. I don't see how barbed wire could actually damage one that much - but a "shower of grenades"?
Tetrach Light Tank? Normandy? Wire?
To be fair -
Farran's description of the "fatal blow" was...
Farran's tank wasn't knocked out by antitank rifle fire....the crew was knocked out by something - and the injured driver drove the tank off the road into the ditch where it was never to to be recovered. Same as the loss the day before. From cover, over the next few hours, Farran THEN watched antitank rifle fire drill holes in it!
Sure...it could easily have been an AT gun as well...or an AT rifle. He never mentions "grenades" or "mortar rounds" in this case though. OTOH, he describes the AT rifle turning his tank into a colander afterwards...so it carefully held fire to allow the "grenade" to be used first?
From the description of the initial hit - and possibly the KOH war diary, I'll have to check sometime - Beevor put this hit down to an "anti tank grenade".
Or, from the description, it could have been a bolt from Zeus. Thanks for bringing Beevor into this by the way.
I'd also note that your list doesn't make any distinction between actual antitank rifles - the PzB 38 and 39 - and plain old K98s firing S.m.K.H....
Perhaps because I don't care? Either one will work, although I don't believe S.m.K. or S.m.K.H. was an issue to infantry - I'll see what I can find from the German ammunition issue lists.
...not least to Hergests' face! "Armoured perambulators" was Farran's term for the Mark VIB in that conversation!
Yup.
Hopefully however, now that you'd said it too, Knouterer will take the point on board and leave aside his idea that the NewZealanders' Divisional Cavalry would use theirs as "machine gun carriers" supporting an infantry attack...which is where I came in.
Um, just because it wasn't a good idea doesn't mean that it wouldn't be done...as Farran versus Hargest demonstrates. So Knouterer's "idea" seems fairly sound to me?
BTW, what ever happened to you coming back to the GG-P40 knocking out tanks on Crete? You have proof of that? You may have a
SINGLE instance - assuming Farran's "shower of grenades" is more correct than the New Zealand history's "mortars"...or
TWO instances, assuming that Farran's bolt from the blue in Galatas wasn't Zeus. However that doesn't create a "rule" that Vickers light tanks automatically fall apart in "showers of stick grenades."
BTW, did you note the most critical problem WRT Farran's foray into Galatas? He, and the other tank left in his troop, were
ALL ALONE. In a village - call it an "urban area". No infantry. No artillery or mortar support. No machine gun company providing any covering fires. No Bren carriers scouting. No I Tanks supporting his recce.
Yup. Exactly like Milforce.
[edited to correct quote formatting]