Now this is daft

[Its me]

Hi all as the title says this is a daft question and that is when ever i see pics of ww2 armour be it a ww2 photo or a photo taken at a show they all have big bundles of stuff on the side of the turret and i was wondering what that is so any help would be appreciated thanks very much.

Kyle

P.S. Told you it was daft!

[abn deuce]

As far as I know that would be all the personal effects of the crew both spare clothing as well as their rations , sleeping bags and shelter ...as in canvas tent etc. since there was almost no storage for things like that inside the tanks or other armoured vehicles. I stand to be corrected

[Stefano]

As far as I know that would be all the personal effects of the crew both spare clothing as well as their rations , sleeping bags and shelter ...as in canvas tent etc. since there was almost no storage for things like that inside the tanks or other armoured vehicles. I stand to be corrected

 

 

Yup,

 

Strange as it may seem, there isn't a whole lot of room inside a tank at the best of times, I always seem to be banging into bits of metal in the sherman, and thats without the shells! God alone knows how they went to war in one...

Happy New Year Everyone, or should I say BUON ANNO NUOVO!!!!

 

Stef

[abn deuce]

also you will see all manner of track sections and logs , sandbags, even cement were added to the outside of the tank mainly on the front Glacis plate to try and add just anything to slow or stop enemy rounds from penetrating their own tank , of course it didn't work but made the crews feel better thinking they had a chance . Most of the time it caused more problems in over working the suspension and slowing down their own tank .

[Bazz]

 

 

it not only happened in WW2, at times my vehicles used to have all sorts of kit fastened by any and all means to the outside.

 

Baz.

[Sylvester]

Yep,

We used to store our beer cans in the rear basket of our Chieftain especially in Canada....Until the Infantry mob with us thought it would be funny to blast the rear of our turret with their Gympy!!! :argh:

Live firing training grounds have there drawbacks!!! :banghead:

But yes, personal equipment and spares, tied on wherever they could find the space!

 

Fred :banana:

[Markheliops]

Crikey Kyle

 

Have you not seen Kelly's Hero's.

 

Silk stockings for the broads, cigarettes, booze, perfume cause there ain't nothing, nothing too good for our boys. And not forgeting the post!! :tup:

 

Oh, occasionally they would put personal kit, jerry cans, helmets, sleeping bags, rations, ammo for sidearms, cam nets, tool boxes and most things they couldn't fit inside - which was nearly all they had.

 

Markheliops

[Bazz]

 

 

we used the smoke grenade pots on the vehs for storing cans of ale, and up the breech and barrel of the 76s on Saladin/Scorpion.

 

Baz.

[AlienFTM]

also you will see all manner of track sections and logs , sandbags, even cement were added to the outside of the tank mainly on the front Glacis plate to try and add just anything to slow or stop enemy rounds from penetrating their own tank , of course it didn't work but made the crews feel better thinking they had a chance . Most of the time it caused more problems in over working the suspension and slowing down their own tank .

 

 

Track sections were a good way of breaking up the strike of both kinetic and explosive rounds before causing any damage. What surprises me is that Tiger 1 crews felt they needed it when the turret was a single horseshoe of armour - I dunno four? - inches thick.

 

Logs were good to throw under the tracks to help navigate mud. After WW2, vehicles came issued with purpose-built sand channels. The Russians built their tanks with wide tracks all the way back. The Germans cottoned on with the Tiger and Panther but had to redesign their tracks for PzKpfw 3s and 4s and retrofit them for the western front with Ostketten. Likewise the Americans started using wider tracks at least from the M4A3E2 on VVSS suspension, continued on the HVSS M4A3E8.

 

Sandbags were useful against HEAT rounds, detonating the warhead to far out from the steel armour, causing the plasma jet to splash ineffectively against it.

 

By cement, I am guessing you are referring particularly to Zimmeritt paste applied by the Germans to late model tanks. The texture was not unlike concrete, thinly applied in a sort of herringbone fashion in a way that prevented magnetic mines and sticky bombs from sticking to the tank.

[Davie]

 

we used the smoke grenade pots on the vehs for storing cans of ale, and up the breech and barrel of the 76s on Saladin/Scorpion.

 

Baz.

 

 

My Dad told me years ago about some soldiers returning from Germany, getting caught by customs with a load of whisky down the barrel of a big gun!

[AlienFTM]

 

we used the smoke grenade pots on the vehs for storing cans of ale, and up the breech and barrel of the 76s on Saladin/Scorpion.

 

Baz.

 

Remembering to slip a small amount of cotton waste in first to pad the tube so that the continuous vibration of can on trigger didn't puncture the cans. But hey, on Scorpion we hadf the luxury of a giant empty case bin under the gun, smack in the centre of the turret floor to hold the beer.

 

But seriously, even though Chieftain looked huge inside compared with Scorpion (in the 70s it was reputed to have more space than any contemporary tank), Chieftain crews will tell you there wasn't room to swing a cat (see Armoured Farmer by Malcolm Cleverley - partially edited by me). Scorpions had netting to hold kit on the sponson above the tracks, but even so it was very easy to get stuff caught in the turret traverse. Being manually traversed, it was easy to jam. You might argue it was better than losing a finger in the mechanism.

 

Scorpion felt big inside, but purely because we never, if possible, worked closed down. It is very difficult to reconnoitre whilst closed down. And not having a loader meant that the commander had a lot of work to do.

[N.O.S.]

Having just had a lesson in the latest thing in munitions from a friend, I'm not sure a tank is a very safe place to be anymore, with or without sand bags, beer cans or plasticine artex..........

 

This may be common knowlege to you lot, but if you have not heard about "Intelligent Ammunition", you should really google it or go to http://www.rheinmetall-detec.de to learn more :shake:

 

Basically it is a 155mm shell which is fired into the air by conventinal explosive, then at 1km above target area it deploys a parachute and spirals slowly down whilst microwave and IR scanners search and acquire a suitable target. Once target is acquired, a charge inside changes shape from flat disc to projectile shape and hurtles down at crazy speed to certain contact. If for any reason it cannot acquire a target the charge remains in flat form and self-destructs 'safely" on the ground.

 

Several armed forces have this in their arsenal now. Think I'll just stick to the old trucks :shake:

 

 

[Bazz]

 

 

reb the bar armour on current vehs in Iraq/Afganistan, the Brits used Chicken wire on their vehs during WW2 for the same purpose to defeat panzerfausts.

 

Baz.

[AlienFTM]

 

reb the bar armour on current vehs in Iraq/Afganistan, the Brits used Chicken wire on their vehs during WW2 for the same purpose to defeat panzerfausts.

 

Baz.

 

 

Basically, as long as it triggers a HEAT round to detonate away from the armour, it doesn't matter what it is. Somewhere (I have a good idea where but it's well-hidden - probably from "Panzer 4 in Action" I have a picture of a late model PzKpfw 4 which had lost a section of its Thoma skirt and had it replaced with a cut-to-shape piece of non-slip metal floor. They also took to using mesh not unlike XPM to reduce the weight of the skirts.

[Bazz]

 

 

also Alien, remember the purpose of the heavy duty fencing that was round the mil camps in NI.

 

Baz.

[AlienFTM]

 

also Alien, remember the purpose of the heavy duty fencing that was round the mil camps in NI.

 

Baz.

 

 

TBH the stuff we had in Omagh never struck me as much more than chicken wire. That said, I never walked across to take a close look.