Is this plausible?

[Robert W]

I'm writing a story set in WW2 Germany, If anyone could help me answer some questions I'd be incredibly grateful: 

If a character had a history of maintaining 1930s farm equipment, tractors, civilian vehicles etc, would any of those skills be transferable to working on tank engines? Is it at all plausible that they would be able to fix a tank, say a Russian T 34 or a Panzer 3 for example? 

Would a person with no prior experience of tanks be able to drive one, or fire a shell? 

Thanks in advance for any help with this

[Pete Ashby]

On 7/26/2021 at 3:33 AM, Robert W said:

I'm writing a story set in WW2 Germany, If anyone could help me answer some questions I'd be incredibly grateful: 

If a character had a history of maintaining 1930s farm equipment, tractors, civilian vehicles etc, would any of those skills be transferable to working on tank engines? Is it at all plausible that they would be able to fix a tank, say a Russian T 34 or a Panzer 3 for example? 

Would a person with no prior experience of tanks be able to drive one, or fire a shell? 

Thanks in advance for any help with this

 a character had a history of maintaining 1930s farm equipment, tractors, civilian vehicles etc, would any of those skills be transferable to working on tank engines?

Helpful to an extent but the vast majority of farm equipment and traction in the 1930's was still horse powered so the answer would be not without significant trade training  particularly for German armored vehicles.

Would a person with no prior experience of tanks be able to drive one, or fire a shell? 

Not really these are skilled trades in any Army and require considerable training.

Pete

 

 

 

[Noel7]

Tractors [mostly semi-diesel] were manufactured in Germany from the early 1920s onwards, and petrol-engined cars from before WW1, so useful knowledge for working on tank engines is not impossible, but spare parts and the necessary tools for making repairs might be an interesting problem, especially for the T34...

Incidentally, a T34 would not have been seen in Germany, apart from captured examples for evaluation, until quite late in 1944.

Edited August 2, 2021 by Noel7
Additional sentence

[John F]

I'm no expert on tanks, but I've read quite a few first-hand accounts from German tank crews, so here's my 2p worth...

German tank crews (don't know about Soviet ones) were expected to perform basic repairs & maintenance to their own vehicles, and were trained to perform these tasks with the vehicle's on-board tool kit, so I can't think of a plausible scenario where a lone, untrained civilian might come across an abandoned tank that was so lightly damaged that it could theoretically be repaired with hand tools. Also, tanks are heavy duty pieces of kit so the replacement of even a broken track link would be probably far beyond the capabilities of one person on their own.

Also, both sides had a vested interest in recovering as many disabled tanks as they could for repair so it's unlikely they'd be fully "abandoned" in the first place. Anything that couldn't be recovered for one reason or another tended to be demolished to deny its use to the enemy.

Edited August 2, 2021 by John F
typo

[ruxy]

Op Barbarossa  ,  40% of German Divisions that invaded the Soviet Union were equipped with captured French equipment .  Renault tankettes would have been used also for the invasion into Poland.   So - I suppose if he were a French farmer with experience of keeping his tractor running and lined up his barrel by peering down it - I suppose it was a possibility.

[ruxy]

Many French,German,Belgian, Dutch farmers at the start of WW2 would have been trained  'tankers' during WW1  & after.    Start of WW2 I would say these blokes could all drive whatever tanks were available at short notice .  They could have been civvy/army trained mechanics or used their own farm agricultural tractor experience. If not a loader/gunner - there were a few methods of direct fire using  "Open-sights" - so yes , your story-line is very plausible.

[Enigma]

3 hours ago, ruxy said:

Many French,German,Belgian, Dutch farmers at the start of WW2 would have been trained  'tankers' during WW1  & after.    Start of WW2 I would say these blokes could all drive whatever tanks were available at short notice .  They could have been civvy/army trained mechanics or used their own farm agricultural tractor experience. If not a loader/gunner - there were a few methods of direct fire using  "Open-sights" - so yes , your story-line is very plausible.

The Dutch didn't fight in WW2 and in 1940 we had 1 (one!) tank which we were testing for practicle usage. A FT17.

[MB1944]

The Dutch did fight in world war 11 from the 10th May to the 17th in response to the German invasion of their country.

[ruxy]

1 minute ago, MB1944 said:

The Dutch did fight in world war 11 from the 10th May to the 17th in response to the German invasion of their country.

The Dutch (along with other nationalities) also did fight alongside the Germans in the Heer & Waffen SS

[MB1944]

The traitorous ones may have, but  Dutchmen also fought on the allied side.

 

[jenkinov]

Firstly let's address the issue of firing a shell . ...I have worked the breach on a 25 pounder and 3.5 inch howitzer and with training you can move between both easily .... But when at Bovington a staff member asked us to see if we could fire a pak anti tank gun...we found that loading in the British style would cause injury if tried on the pack ...you needed to  throw the shell in and keep well clear ..

The answer if you could fire a gun is yes if you had basic training ..but it would take a few minutes plus a few test rounds to use it effectively....without basic training you would be unlikely to be successful.

In terms of repairing a tank ok will leave others to comment 

 

[ruxy]

Possibly the  finale  is that with a lucky shot he knocks out a King Tiger   ?      The END.

[Enigma]

Bugger... I meant we didn't in WW1 (Great war).😳

 

[AlienFTM]

Looked at from another angle.

Basil Liddel-Hart was an infantry captain in the Great War. He continued to style himself Captain, even though this is reserved for Majors and above. He became a journalist and author, writing histories of the two wars. The former was an okay read. The latter was a work of fantasy.

He lashed out at politicians, the army and the cavalry in particular. He alleged that the cavalry to a man refused to give up their horses. 

I have a book, Everything Worked Like Clockwork: The Mechanization of the British Cavalry, 1918-1942, Roger Salmon.

The author disproves much of Liddel-Hart's rants, using sources that include Hansard and interviews with cavalrymen of the period. "The cavalry to a man" turned out in Hansard to be listed as the Colonels (as opposed to Commanding Officers) of two very senior regiments.

The book describes how any cavalryman who wanted to stay horsed could transfer out of a regiment being converted to one that wasn't. The numbers recorded were in the dozens.

The reason it took until 1942 to convert the last regular horsed cavalry regiment to tanks was simply because there were no tanks. The world was in depression, the League of Nations (stand fast Germany, Italy and Japan) demanded peace and there was no money.

But here's the rub. Cavalrymen actually wanted mechanisation, to be able to take their skills home to work newfangled tractors and farm machinery.

So to the OP, I'd say it's quite possible.

Edited August 1, 2022 by AlienFTM