Panzer projects & prototypes.

Now sort of a real gem dedicated to Panzerkancker again :smiley:

This beauty is called “Kugelpanzer”.

This strange thing was captured by soviets and now can be seen in Tank Museum in Kubinka near Moscow.
Russians are saying that Kugelpanzer was sort of reconnaisance vehicle.
IMHO it’s wrong.
I don’t think such monster would be able to move on anything other than concrete or asphalt. Look at the back support wheel.
I think that Kugelpanzer is sort of movable observation point for viewing
things in dangerous situations eg. making photos of anti-tank shells when they hit target.

What do you think?

Cheers,

Lancer44

P.S.

Link to Tank Museum: http://www.tankmuseum.ru/index_e.html

Maybe a mobile pill box? To quickly get guard positions on roads and railways etc. The wheel at the back would seem to aid in shipping and loading not move the thing itself. It looks like it has treads or rack for cogs, maybe it was a convert from a gun turret?

Interesting, I have seen in use steel shields for the fordward artillery observers and also some improvised armor for the Snipers (specially in the WW2 eastern Front) but none like this.

The “support” thing was tentative name, I dont think that he was very effective in that role because it lack of punch, A point in favor was his armor 80mm front and 50 mm side (heavier than Panzer III/IV :shock: )

, but honestly comparing with the real infantry supports tanks like the british Matildas, Churchill, the armament was almost nil.

Another task that I see asigned to this AFV was recon duties…dont think so…because is too slow, only 23 km/h.

More info about the Vk-1801/ Panzer 1 ausf.F

In use in the former USSR:

The MGs were enclosed in a heavy armored housing

The pair of MG-34s can reach a combined ciclic rate of 1900rpm, the normal ammo was the AP steel core SmK.

E-100 Heavy Tank.

The E-100 was originally designed as an Waffenamt alternative to the Porsche-designed superheavy Maus tank. It was authorized in June, 1943 and work in earnest continued until 1944 when Hitler officially ended development of superheavy tanks. After Hitler’s announcement, only three Alder employees were allowed to continue assembly of the prototype, and the work was given lowest priority. Even with these handicaps, the three workers were able to virtually complete the prototype by war’s end at a small Henschel facility near Paderborn. The prototype lacked only a turret (which was to be identical to the Maus turret save in armament).

For it’s initial tests, a Tiger II Maybach HL230P30 engine had been fitted. This engine, of course, was far too weak to properly power the 140 ton E-100. The production engine was to be the Maybach HL234. The HL234 developed 800hp, which is only 100hp better than the HL230P30. Some sources indicate that a Diamler-Benz diesel which developed 1000hp would have ultimately been used.

The Maus mounted the 12.8cm KwK 44 L/55 found in the Jagdtiger. Using the same turret, the E-100 was initially slated to use the 15cm KwK44 L38, but provision was made to eventually up-gun the vehicle with a 17cm KwK 44.

The E-100 was very conventional in its architecture. The standard rear-engine / front-drive layout was maintained. The engine deck of the Tiger II was also carried over into this design (rather than the updated designof the E 50/75). The suspension was characteristic of the E-series, however, in that it was of the externally-mounted Belleville Washer type. While the engine-deck layout of the prototype was taken directly from the Tiger II, it is entirely possible that it would have been changed to match the E 50/75 had production of the E-series actually began to allow for maximum commonality of components.

The armor on the E-100 was designed to withstand hits from just about any anti-tank round of the day. Armor on the turret ranged from 200mm on the sides and rear to 240mm on the front. The turret roof was protected by a seemingly paltry 40mm of armor. Unfortunately, the round shape of the turret front could have deflected shots downward into the top of the superstructure. Armor protection on the superstructure varried from 200mm on the front to a total of 180mm on the sides and 150mm on the rear. The top of the superstructure was protected by the same 40mm of armor found on the turret. The hull had 150mm of armor on the front and rear and 120mm on the sides behind the suspension. Protection on the bottom of the hull was good at 80mm.

Given the armored protection of the E-100, most tanks would have needed a shot to deflect into the top of the superstructure from the turret front to knock it out. The vehicle would have, however, been highly vunerable to air attack as the angles presented to dive bombers or fighter/bombers would have been protected to only 40mm. This protection is comparable to the Tiger II in the same areas.

Panzerkampfwagen E-100

Crew: 5 Armament: one 15cm KwK44 L/38 + one 7.5cm KwK44 L/36.5 + one (or three) 7.92mm MG34
Weight: 140 tons Traverse: 360o (power)
Length: 10.27 meters Elevation: -7o +23o
Width: 4.48 meters Engine: Maybach HL234
Height: 3.29 Gearbox: 8 forward, 4 reverse (with provision for Mekydro transmission)
Radio: FuG5 Speed: 30 km/h.

Hi Panzerknacker, :slight_smile:

Very interesting find!
I just wonder… most of small country bridges in Germany and Europe this time, had maximum weight limit 60 tons or less. Even today many of them have signs indicating that only one semi-trailer can go at the time - they are narrow anyway…
Why Germans put so much effort into building tanks which would have so limited river crossing abilities?
Was it just Hitler’s madness?
Soviets had a period when they had beed doing the same thing - bigger is better - hence T-35, but they quickly realised that “land battleship” is a crazy idea and abandoned all such projects after Winter War in Finland.
Why Germans pursued it right to the end of the war?

Salute,

Lancer44

The only bridges strong enough would be railway bridges, maybe they planed to move them by rail using the heavy tanks to defend villages and towns, then using the lighter IVs and Tigers for their Blitz Krieg moves?

Hi SS Tiger, :slight_smile:

Sure, you’re right, railway transport on the long distances, but what about movement on the battlefield?
Look at the map of France. Such heavy weight tank would be virtually closed into very small area. Loading it onto semi would not sort the problem - bridges still would not allow that heavy weight to be transported across countryside.
The whole idea is crazy. :shock:

Lancer44

Very interesting find!
I just wonder… most of small country bridges in Germany and Europe this time, had maximum weight limit 60 tons or less. Even today many of them have signs indicating that only one semi-trailer can go at the time - they are narrow anyway…Why Germans put so much effort into building tanks which would have so limited river crossing abilities?
?

The Tiger 1 (56 tons) had similar troubles with the raod bridges but this did not cut off his combat abilities, only that it need some pioneers ( enginner) working to reinforce all the estructures ahead, that was particulary needed in the Eastern Front wich had less inestructure.

The Maus and the E-100 were designed will full fooding abilities with a maximum of 6-7 m deep, they were not espected to cross brigdes by itflesf only in th erailway transport as SS Tiger said.

Was it just Hitler’s madness?
Soviets had a period when they had beed doing the same thing - bigger is better - hence T-35, but they quickly realised that “land battleship” is a crazy idea and abandoned all such projects after Winter War in Finland.
Why Germans pursued it right to the end of the war?

Hitler and other people madness, like Porsche ( designer of Maus) and Grotte (designer of the P-1000 landkreuzer).

The soviets abandoned the “multiturreted” concept…but no the heavy tank concept like the KV-2, JS-2, etc.

I am just wondering if the E-100 are still with us today? It is great and stupid what the Germans did, the designed such monsters and also looked past the other problems.

Henk

Some additional photos of E-100:


Chassis assembly in Haustenbeck.


E-100 chassis prepared for transportation to Great Britain.

Here interesting Polish Panzer site:
http://www.panzer.punkt.pl/index.htm

Enjoy!

Lancer44

What scale is that three view? Comparing a 1:76 scale Tiger to it that thing is huge!!!

I dont know but the turret in the E-100 seems huge when you compared it with his hull.

Chaeper than Maus aniway.

I agree with you - it is disproportionally big.
I have a feeling that Germans wanted somewhat make it more comfy for the crew. Here look at models of Tiger turret interiors:

Loading 88mm cannon had to be a nightmare. :slight_smile:
Sorry for posting models but do not have any pics of Tiger interior - and those open cut models are quite good.
Cannot figure out where they kept ammo(???)
At the bottom compartment?
Obviously gun loader which doubled as MG gunner had the hardest work.

The last pic doesn’t show ammo too.
Obvious choice would be to keep ammo in external storage at the back of the turret (in vertical position), but I cannot see any acess from inside.
I think external boxes are just for crew belongings and bivouac equipment.

Do you know more about ammo for Acht Koma Acht?

Cheers,

Lancer44

P.S

And all this is nothing if you start thinking about P 1000 “Ratte”.

Do you know more about ammo for Acht Koma Acht?

The ammo in the Tiger 1 was the 88x570mm, the gun was denominated KWK 36.

As far as the Tiger I is concerned, the two main types of armor piercing ammunition were the APCBC and the APCR. The Armor Piercing Capped, Ballistic Capped (APCBC) Panzergranate 39 round relied not only on its own weight to penetrate the enemy’s armor, but was also filled with high explosive that caused great internal damage. The APCBC round has two caps covering the main body of the round. The first one is a cap designed for ballistic performance, and is a blunt cap, because a projectile with a blunt nose has less chance to ricochet off inclined armor. This is covered by the second cap, a sharp one, a “windshield” made of light metal, designed to give the round a better aerodynamic shape.

The initial muzzle velocity of this was more or less 780-790 m/s.

The Armor Piercing Composite Rigid (APCR) Panzergranate 40 round was made with a tungsten core. It improved the armor penetration about 25 % , but it was not much used because the scarce Tugsten supply, the initial muzzle velocity of this was 940 m/s.

I don’t think this would be classed as a Panzer, but it is interesting none the less!

One of the strangest German vehicles discovered after the war was a huge four wheeled device built by Krupp. This vehicle was the Krupp Raumer S.

This vehicle was built in 1944. It weighed in at 130 tons and was support by 2.7 meter diameter steel wheels. The huge vehicle pivoted in the middle to keep the vehicles turning circle a reasonable distance. Each half of the Raumer S was powered by a 12-cylinder Maybach HL90 engine.

There is still discussion about this vehicles purpose, but it is widely believed that due to the vehicle’s high ground clearance and well protected cabin it was used to clear mine fields. The front and rear wheels were at different spacing in order to create a bigger sweep area. It had a cab at either end which allowed it to reverse back through mine fields(assuming that was its purpose) without having to turn around. There seems to be a flaw with the mine sweeping role, that is the connection in the middle seems quite exposed and would seemingly be prone to damage from exploding mines.

Big and complicated, undoubtely german.

Seems that they never think in the roller or plough tipe mineclearing devices. :?

Can anyone please tell me what happend to the E-100???

Great pics mate.

Henk

Hi Henk,

Chassis of E-100 was transported to England in 1945.
I’m not sure if it ended it’s life as scrap metal or can be seen in Bovington.
Perhaps someone can clarify.

And now something which will blow your socks off!
The most crazy German project - “Midgard Schlange”!
In front of THIS even E-100 would look like a child’s toy.

"The Engineergroup Ritter designed this project … the name derives from Teutonic Mythology, it was a demonic monster, which embraced with its giant length the whole earth. Thor, god of thunder, was its arch-enemy and tried many times to kill it. Finally in the twilight of the gods he slayed it with his hammer, but was also killed by its poisonous breath.

“The first plans to this project were made in Summer 1934, it should be a vehicle that can drive like a tank on the ground, under the earth like a mole and under the sea up to 100m deep!! All in all the vehicle was made of 77 single cells of 6.8m width, 3.5m height and 6m length, put together to a snake of about 524m! On the front it should have a giant drill put together of 4 single drills, each 1.5m diameter. The drills were connected to 9 engines with 8800 PS altogether. For moving on the ground the tracks were driven by 14 engines, giving 19800 PS … the snake should have a speed on the ground of about 30 km/h, 10 km/h under ground and about 30 km/h under water. For underwater driving there were additional 12 engines with 3000 PS altogether. It was planned to take 960 m3 of engine fuel in the vehicle. Also there was planned to put an electric kitchen, a bedroom with 20 beds, 3 workshops, some periscopes and 580 big compressed-air bottles as well as a smoke discharging equipment. For armamenent there were 1000 mine charges with 250kg explosives each, 100 smaller charges with 10kg each and 12 twin-MG’s. The whole vehicle would have a weight of 60,000 tons (!) and a crew of 30. The “inventor” of this monster planned to build 20 of these vehicles to put explosive charges at and under fortresses of the Maginot-line and hostile harbors to get breakthroughs!!!”

Part of the article was taken from this site:

http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Lab/1167/emidgard.html

Lancer44

AFAIK the E-100 chassis was scrapped in the 50s.