Axis Armored Vehicles Quiz

[peeved]

Wonder what the Ausf. D/E Composite Variant mentioned here http://panzerivtheworkhorse.blogspot.co ... -none.html was like.

Can't remember the source but I've read that if a tank was upgraded to a later standard it was considered to be of the later Ausführung. Then again the quiz tank didn't have a full upgrade; Ausf. Alphabet Soup?

Next up: tank type and nationality of users illustrated? Photo from exp. eBay.de.

Markus

[Alanmccoubrey]

Markus, to me that looks like the Czech T-21 which eventually developed into the Turan. The men look Italian but who knows who the Czech showed the two prototypes to ?

[peeved]

Hi Alan,

T-21 & Italians it is; IIRC in Nettuno according to the seller.

Over to you.

Markus

[Alanmccoubrey]

Thanks Markus, sorry for the delay but I was out all day.
A snip from a well known photograph but can anyone remember which one ?

[yantaylor]

I remember seeing a picture of a Wirbelwind like that circa Normandy 44, it was covered with straw, but that chassis does not look German to me, but going on my track record it probably is.

Yan.

[bam]

i seem to remember that this isnt a production Wirblewind, its one of the 3 self-built conversions made by the Pz.Rgt of 12th SS HJ Div.
AFAIK, around spring 44, the HJ Pz werkstatt produced 3 quad 20mm Flakvierling 38 flaks built onto de-turretted chassis of older Pz.IVs. Originally they had no turret armor, but soon someone designed a complicated 9-sided, sloped-sided, open-topped turret. Lt. Seherr-Thoss from Guderian's Panzer Aufbau Sagan workshop, visited HJ around April, saw the 3 flak tanks, and took the design back to Sagan, and began building WWs in May. Then designed the simpler Ostwind 6-sided turret by July.
if im right, the full photo will show the sides of the turret are low enough for us to fully see the gunners head and shoulders, which isnt poss on a production WW. The turret here is lower than a production WW. Somewhere theres a picture of 1 of the 3 HJ Flak tanks, destroyed in normandy; in panzerwrecks? Think its also in 1 of Craig Ellis's books on Pz.IV, the 'Variants' edition? Soz, im not near my library..

[Alanmccoubrey]

Yan has it so over to him.

Bam, the HJ version had no turret, just the guns and this pic very clearly has a turret.

[bam]

Wrong, they started turretless but the HJ ones did get turrets, I've seen photos. And I've seen discussion where Craig Ellis explains their differences I just haven't time to search all panzerwrecks to find em, and I'm not certain that's where they are anyway.

[bam]

Yann not quite correct, it's NOT a wirbelwind, rather it's the hand-built HJ flak tank, which had no name AFAIK, and had many differences to WW: lower armor, different, flatter angles, unknown armor thickness (probably 10mm not 16mm), radio aerial on turret, side bulge on turret, spare barrel container mounted vertically not flat (the WW has it's lid on top, the HJ one has the lid opening on the side)

Finally found the ref, From nuts + bolts 25;
they call the HJ vehicle a prototype, but that’s not correct. It wasn’t built by Ostbau Sagan, wasn’t called a WW, wasn’t built with a series production in mind, wasn’t commissioned or ordered by IN6 panzer inspectorate. But it was the inspiration for the WW series. So it should be titled the “forerunner “ of the WW series.

[Alanmccoubrey]

Bam, I don't believe that the book is correct, firstly the Hj vehicle had no turret of any description, there are photographs of it in Meyer's history of the division. Further one of the identification features of the Wirbelwind was the ammunition box along each side of the engine deck and this is clearly visible in both my snip and your posting of the photograph. These boxes were not used on the HJ vehicles.

[bam]

Alan, u never believe me, that's the new normal.
The picture of a turretless Flakvierling on a Pz. IV in Meyer's book DOESN'T disprove my story. Yes there r photos of the tanks without armor turrets. The turrets were built LATER, as I said. Cos as anyone who fought in a mobelwagen will tell u, a flak panzer without proper crew protection is worse than useless, its just jabo bait.
Your evidence is you don't believe Nuts & Bolts. Fair enough, they ain't perfect like panzer tracts or panzerwrecks. They Do make errors. Agreed.

But look at your photo..As my full image of your partial quiz image shows, your turret is different from a production one. It's lower, u can see the gunners head n shoulders. Thae guy standing up behind the Gunner shows the turret barely reaches upto his ass. Check any other WW images and you'll see they're turrets are taller.
It's not an ammo box on the engine deck side, it's a spare barrel box. They are long and flat and when laid down, the ridged lid is on top, and the unridged sides are not very high. And as I said, yours is fastened differently (horizontally) to a real WWs, as your ridged lid opens sideways when real WWs lids open on top. Check the detail on images of a 20mm barrel box. Then look at how it's fastened on real WW.

But u still won't believe me, cos u just don't want to believe me.

So I suggest u take it up with the guys from panzerwrecks, who in issue 10, p.96+7, give the real dope.
"one of the earliest flak panzer designs that later became the WW, was developed by HScarF K.W. Krause of Pz.Fla.Zg. of St./SS-Pz.Rgt.12,and here we see it KO'd in Orbec.." . [Then: 4 pics of a TURRETED tank, with a lower turret]
"compared to production vehicles, this example's turret differed in a number of ways ;the armor angles are different, no fillets of armor around the gun apertures, no armored ring around the base of the turret,.."

Now that's what I call real evidence
And please don't say" but that's pics of a different tank", just look at the details, and give the Nuts & Bolts guys an apology for doubting their research.

[yantaylor]

Bam old chum, maybe people will take you more seriously if you write the queens English, please have ago instead of using words and letters like cos and u for because and you, we do have a lot of people from other countries on this site who have taken time to learn to write in English and we are setting a bad example by writing in that fashion.

Yan.

[bam]

Sorry Yan, don't believe in that at all. F the Queen, and it's not her English, it's ours.
New words appear all the time, the language evolves. And what about people using things like IMHO, AFAIK, etc. Everyone has to look them up the 1st time they see them, but then they've learnt something new. Soon "because" and "you" may be relegated to the level of archaic words, superceded by simpler forms. This isn't (is not?) a school exam.

[yantaylor]

It doesn't matter to me old chum, but those words you use are from text language and as you know we don't need them here, so carry on using them if you wish but it does make you look rather lazy by using them.

I do wish you would reconsider about our Queen though, as she brings more money into our country then we could ever do plus she creates so many jobs.

[bam]

Yan, I'd be the 1st to admit I'm rather lazy, u nailed me there.
As to "our" queen, that debate belongs in the politics section. But I'll give u a semi-military anecdote told by the SAS close protection guys, who guard her.
Queenie like chocolates, expensive ones. She has bowls in all her day rooms, so she can graze at will. But she noticed that other people were helping themselves too, and she was enraged by the idea of her staff eating HER choccies. So she started marking a line on all the bowls, to be able to see if the chocs went down. Now it wasn't her staff eating those chocs, they'd never dare, it was her bodyguards. And she was too mean to share chocolates with the men who were prepared to lay down their lives for her safety.