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Old 05-23-2014, 10:50 PM
 
294 posts, read 370,642 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by John-UK View Post
One of the reasons they survived so long was because the Bitts could not get at them because they were isolated by water.
Land army? maybe. But debatable. The Germans had their backs to the wall. The allied knew they would win so did not have to be so intense about it. They could wait a bit longer and not risk men so easily.
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Old 05-23-2014, 11:40 PM
 
Location: Montgomery County, PA
16,563 posts, read 15,116,972 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by John-UK View Post
They used Lucas injecton systems.
Merlin engine was not injected. It ran off twin-choke Rolls-Royce/S.U. carburettor. They would never get off the ground if Lucas had anything to do with it. They couldn't even keep Triumphs and Jags running..on the ground.
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Old 05-24-2014, 02:04 AM
 
31,387 posts, read 36,903,269 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by HappyRider View Post
They would never get off the ground if Lucas had anything to do with it.
Weren't they the company that produced refrigerators disguised as electrical components?
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Old 05-24-2014, 03:05 AM
 
Location: London
4,717 posts, read 5,023,177 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by HappyRider View Post
Merlin engine was not injected. It ran off twin-choke Rolls-Royce/S.U. carburettor. They would never get off the ground if Lucas had anything to do with it. They couldn't even keep Triumphs and Jags running..on the ground.
The later RR Merlins had a Lucas injection system and a 5 blade prop. The engine was pushing what the airframe could do. There was the 500mph Spitfire replacement the Supermarine Spiteful which never got anywhere as jets were coming in. The Merlin in 1935 gave approx. 950 hp. In 1945 around 1,600 hp and on tests with water injection 2,600 hp. The phenomenal RR Grecy two-stroke engine was to be its successor, but also dropped in favour of jets. The successor to the wooden Mosquito, The wooden De Havilland Hornet, used two Merlins with Lucas systems and got 472mph, which is the joint fastest ever two engine prop plane, which saw action in Malaya.

Lucas 1970s car systems appeared to leave a lot to be desired. But I knew a Lucas tech who said it was fine, it was that the technicians in garages never understood it properly. These day fuel injection is well understood and few techies could not work on the old Lucas systems.

Quote:
Originally Posted by ovcatto View Post
Weren't they the company that produced refrigerators disguised as electrical components?
Refrigerators?

Quote:
Originally Posted by BlackShoe View Post
Pipsqueak? Have we forgotten the havoc and terror sown by the unterseeboots? German military planners had not expected war for several more years, and had not had time to build the modern surface fleet that they desired. Donitz had not gotten the u boats that he had pleaded for. At the start of war, he only had 57 boats, less than half of them modern long range blue water types. Even so, from 1939 to late 1942, when the Battle of the Atlantic began to turn in favor of the allies, the u boats racked up impressive numbers of kills, and came very close to isolating and sealing Great Britain's fate.
At no time was the UK in danger of being isolated by U-Boats. They knew they could not stop the supplies in and out of the UK. The U-Boat campaign was more a moral booster to show they were doing something. The materials and resources could have been used more effectively. The same could be said for the UK, who built far too many ships and the resources could be better used elsewhere.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Felix C View Post
Well you have your opinion and welcome to it but I use that of genuine armor experts. What MKIV came with the 88mm? Nashorn was an unarmored tracked vehicle.

Funny but you did not mention the availability of trained crews or whether a Tiger was equivalent to four MkIVs in performance.

You do know that on the Eastern Front there was wide usage by the soviets of towed AT guns which were considered quite dangerous by German tankers.(Aces tallies always include the AT guns as well as armor) A tank had to be able withstand frontal hits by the 76.2mm pieces to identify the firing emplacements prior to opening counterfire. You will not see any Panzer IVs doing this rather the heavy frontal armored units.
They said it would take 5 US Shermans (not the British Firefly version) to knock out a Tiger. But as they were plentiful the US could afford that. If a rare Tiger was seen a tank destroyers was called up.

5,000 reliable and easy to fix Mk4s would have made the German war machine far more effective than the 1,300 unreliable Tigers which were glorified self-propelled guns. The myth of the Tiger gets bigger by the year. The first Tiger the Brits knocked out was by a Churchill with a 6pdr gun. The same with the Panther tank. Many were so poorly made that small shells would destroy them - they fell apart. The Tiger could not run over many bridges and sunk in soft earth.

A Mk4 with an 88mm is in the Bovingdon Tank museum in England. The experts there agree with me.

I am aware of Soviet anti-tank guns. The British gun using a 17pdr and towed by a Bren Gun carrier and other vehicles, was highly versatile and could do general artillery and anti-tank operation and could be dug in. More versatile than a tank and far, far cheaper. A good crew could have the gun ready and pointing where they wanted it in minutes.

Last edited by Yac; 05-29-2014 at 08:34 AM.. Reason: 4 posts in a row merged
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Old 05-24-2014, 05:41 AM
 
Location: Miami, FL
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Pity the poor crews of those first four of five Shermans you mention above that had to tangle with a Tiger because the Allies had no heavy with armor to defeat an 88mm. But you know, too expensive and costly to make compared to a Sherman.

I addressed the issue of the Tiger in Tunisia and other unsuitable terrain. 37mm M3 Stuart cannon fire also disabled Tiger tanks.

The Bovington model is a Nashorn unarmored open top TD not a tank. You got it wrong again.

But there were no wide open flatlands except in the Low Countries in the ETO. Towed anti-tank useless for offensive operations and reason why the US moved to tracked TDs instead of towed. Soviet infantry did not have a portable anti-tank weapon and so the towed AT stayed in service there.

BTW, German medium and heavy armor typically used rail transporters as the metal tracks used did not have long service life.(and the long distances to be covered to the battlefield from depots) It would make sense for the Germans to use RR as the main transport of heavy units to accelerate moving forces along interior lines and they did have excellent RR systems. I do not know if that is what you meant by transporter use. The wide battle use tracks used on the Tigers actually resulted in less ground pressure than the overall weight of the tank would suggest.(narrower tracks were used for transport) But yes they were too heavy for many smaller bridges.

Sherman was a fine medium tank but then there is the Pershing heavy which would not be needed according to you due to complexity and cost but there it is and it provided the basis for many postwar designs.

No one ever talks about the Challenger. Ugly brute.

I think your complexity to cost argument would be better served by using the Mosquito than the Sten or MKIV Panzer.

Last edited by Felix C; 05-24-2014 at 06:55 AM..
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Old 05-24-2014, 06:25 AM
 
1,471 posts, read 2,065,262 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ohio_peasant View Post
"Over-engineered" is an excelled description of so many products indigenous to Germany, whether for military purposes or things entirely unrelated. Their products are elegant, cleverly conceived, expertly built to high stands… but there is something effete and unrealistic to them, something excessive and needlessly complex. I can't imagine how German industry could ever build a sledgehammer or an anvil. Would the anvil spin on grease-filled roller bearings, with a rosette of set-screws locking it in place, and gas-filled shocks to take the hammer blows? This of course is a sweeping stereotype, and a crude one. But every time that I work on my BMW, such thoughts cross my mind; and these thoughts never occur when working on a Toyota or a Chevy.

The top of the top in building overly expensive and advanced weapons were Italians. The best engineering design was Japanese. But Russians created a war machinery far superior to the German one. They churned out like 10 T33 per Tiger, not to mentions PPKs, their American trucks. Russian war material was and is tough, simple and can be mass produced.

Americans were best at chain production, their famous Liberty ships... English had better and more practical engineering than Germans. Some German designs were really flops, like the Stuka, using American technology, their first Messerschmitt (Spanish Civil War) were also a flop, etc, etc.
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Old 05-24-2014, 06:48 AM
 
Location: Miami, FL
8,087 posts, read 9,775,687 times
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Can you provide an example of these advanced Italian weapons and of the best engineered Japanese ones?
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Old 05-24-2014, 07:16 AM
 
Location: London
4,717 posts, read 5,023,177 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Felix C View Post
The Bovington model is a Nashorn unarmored open top TD not a tank. You got it wrong again.
No a full 88mm closed armoured turret Mk4.

Towed anti-tank was far from useless in offensive operations and were in the line behind advancing tanks.

Rail lines were constantly destroyed making transport of Tigers difficult. Track wear was a big problems in the sandy deserts, meaning advances very limited as vehicles broke down after prolonged use. Many Tigers had their own road transporter adding to the costs and complexity of a glorified SPG. Tigers did sink constantly and were unable to run over many bridges. The great thing of the design of the Sherman was that it was designed to be wide enough to run on European rail wagons - hence narrow and light enough to run over 95% of bridges in Europe. All taken into account in design. The tank was based on a French tank and looks very similar. The Sherman (well the US version) gets a bad press, but the good points are often overlooked. The tank was too high and looked rather ugly.

The Pershing was unreliable with some design faults and came in too late. The UK and US could afford to make heavy tanks. The UK did, the US never, until the Pershing. The Germans had no such luxury. They had to be lean and mean and that meant using a proven and reliable design with upgrades - the MK4. In the end the Germans were using self-propelled guns as tanks. The tracks had to be used to align the gun as it was fixed.

The Challenger was an interim tank to get a 17pdr gun on a Cromwell chassis. Ugly brute it was with too high a turret. But effective. Only a few hundred were made. The Cromwell and Comet were interim tanks until the Centurion came along in May 1945. The Challenger had a better engine than the Sherman and was faster than the Firefly and more agile. The Firefly was made in favour as the US producing Shermans in great quantities and was throwing them at the Brits so it was cheaper and quicker to convert a Sherman to a Firefly and build a whole new Challenger.

The Mosquito was pretty complex, far more than a Sten gun or MKIV Panzer, of which the latter two can be made in large quantities.
Quote:
Pity the poor crews of those first four of five Shermans you mention above that had to tangle with a Tiger because the Allies had no heavy with armor to defeat an 88mm
The Churchill had the armour of a Tiger. It had a 6pdr gun on some versions and with APDS ammunition could knock out a Tiger. The Comet had a 17pdr gun and was pretty well armoured. Tank to tank confrontations were rare except in the Battle of the Bulge.
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Old 05-24-2014, 09:55 AM
 
Location: Miami, FL
8,087 posts, read 9,775,687 times
Reputation: 6650
Quote:
Originally Posted by John-UK View Post
No a full 88mm closed armoured turret Mk4.

Experimental? What model name or designation? Because the MKIV could not even be upgunned to the larger 75mm used in the Panther. Is it here: http://henk.fox3000.com/pz4.htm FYI, rotation of the main battery is required to be considered turret mounted. Termed casement mount if fixed.

US did not like towed AT after initial combat experience and reorganized TD units to be more tracked than towed.

I meant a mosquito compared to a multi-engine and crew heavy bomber. Since a mosquito could also carry a cookie.

What WW2 UK heavy tank are you referring to?

Last edited by Felix C; 05-24-2014 at 10:32 AM..
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Old 05-24-2014, 10:38 AM
 
Location: London
4,717 posts, read 5,023,177 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Felix C View Post
Experimental? What model name or designation? Because the MKIV could not even be upgunned to the larger 75mm used in the Panther. Is it here: henkofholland mastermodelling military vehicles scale 1/72-1/76
They made one or two Mk IVs with an 88mm gun. There is a video on Youtube showing it. I can't recall which one.
Quote:
US did not like towed AT after initial combat experience and reorganized TD units to be more tracked than towed.
The Bren Gun carrier was a tracked towing vehicle. And with a well trained crew the anti-tank guns were very effective and also general artillery performing two functions.
Quote:
I meant a mosquito compared to a multi-engine and crew heavy bomber. Since a mosquito could also carry a cookie.

What WW2 UK heavy tank are you referring to?
The Matilda 2 was classed as heavy in armour as was the Churchill, which I explained to you. Then the later Centurion which was a cross from a medium to heavy. Some say medium. The Comet was a heavy medium tank.

The Mosquito could carry the same bomb load as a B17, 3,000 ibs, and outrace German fighters, which the B17 clearly could not. It took Lancasters to carry Grand Slams at 22,000 lbs, and the Lancaster did have a bigger bomb load of bombs at approx. 14,000 lbs. When 300 Lancasters bombed a German city more damage was done than 300 B17s.

The US would have been better off making Mosquitos, as did the Canadians - the US made RR Merlins under licence by Packard. But the US production lines were geared to B17s and the big B29 was coming. And also it was not a US plane.

Nearly 8,000 Mosquitos were built and many used for bombing. They found they were superb for pinpoint bombing. Mosquitos were used by the US as recon only.

Last edited by John-UK; 05-24-2014 at 10:50 AM..
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