StuG BS discussions

[Yoozername]

Of course, field units in WWII could optimize the parameters for putting SEA-ment on irregular surfaces.

I have to laugh since I have been in a few SEA-ment mills. Great working conditions there. They had no clue about QC.

[Mad Russian]

A lack of photographic evidence doesn't really prove anything. Just as a single picture or video proves nothing on the reverse of that.

I can show you hundreds of photos of Shermans both with and without sandbags. Take your pick. So, was it or was it not a normal practice to put sandbags on Shermans? Depends on the time period and location.

I have seen pictures of hundreds of StuG's with and without schutzen as well. There are pictures out there with StuG's covered in concrete so obviously somebody was doing it. Maybe not the entire German Army. Lot's of localized modifications were made by the Germans. Look at the 21st Panzer Division in Normandy as a prime example of that.

Good Hunting.

MR

[Mad Russian]

ORIGINAL: Mad Russian

A lack of photographic evidence doesn't really prove anything. Just as a single picture or video proves nothing on the reverse of that.

I can show you hundreds of photos of Shermans both with and without sandbags. Take your pick. So, was it or was it not a normal practice to put sandbags on Shermans? Depends on the time period and location.

I have seen pictures of hundreds of StuG's with and without schurtzen as well. There are pictures out there with StuG's covered in concrete so obviously somebody was doing it. Maybe not the entire German Army. Lot's of localized modifications were made by the Germans. Look at the 21st Panzer Division in Normandy as a prime example of that.

Here's an entire site on nothing but the StuG's.

http://stugiii.com/home.html

Good Hunting.

MR

[Yoozername]

As I have already stated, a studied eye for vehicle types and time periods shows the whole use of concrete to be rare during the German use of StuGIII long barreled weapons during 1942, 1943 and early 1944 and even ETO 1944!

The grossly concreted StuGIII vehicles are certainly evident in Finn and maybe captured US (who found concrete a good defense against hollow charge). There are some German very late 1945 types also but 'Prince' can't date his 'data' (some modeling type weeze).

But to represent the sparse evidence that Prince has flamed here as being overwhelming evidence of concrete on Eastern Front StuGIII vehicles during the years of 1942-1944 early is preposterous and takes down the value of this game and website.  It just does not exist.  he is using late war and captured and foriegn photos to desperately hang onto a dead argument. 

Its like saying everyone in Texas is like 'Prince' because they have only met him.  God, I have met Texans.  Doubt they would partner up with his ilk.

[Stridor]

Can one of the modelling boys make a concrete stug (3D model + xml stats) before release?

S.

[Yoozername]

YIP! YIP! YIPEROOOO!!! I AM A TEXAN!!!!

If you can't afford a book or two, simply do a web-search for the details.

Funny you should ask about that...I have another book. Its called....

'The German Sturmgeshuetz in WWII' 1935-1945 A Photo Chronicle!

See pg. 117. Interestingly, the loaders side of the vehicle has been cemented across the 80mm plate. But the steeply angled 'roof' armor above it has not.

Thank you Prince for reminding me to check my 'two' books!!!!!

EDIT: Pardon that dog's face. I mean, God, what a wimp-mutt!

[Mobius]

ORIGINAL: Stridor

Can one of the modelling boys make a concrete stug (3D model + xml stats) before release?

S.

We don't have any idea of what that concrete adds to protection.

[Stridor]

ORIGINAL: Mobius

ORIGINAL: Stridor

Can one of the modelling boys make a concrete stug (3D model + xml stats) before release?

S.

We don't have any idea of what that concrete adds to protection.

Sounds like Ratzki is about to find out.

S.

[Mad Russian]

ROFL!!! He's about to find out something....I'm just not sure what it is....maybe that moose live in the same areas as black bears! [X(]

This should be interesting.  [:D]

Good Hunting.

MR

[Mobius]

Oh, boy. I hate having to do research on this.
But from the Spielberger book on the Stug.

Alterations to the Sturmgeschütz IV
On January 24, 1944, the Inspektor der Artillerie determined that supplementing armor protection by adding concrete had been shown by test firing to be without benefit. It only increased the vehicle weight and framentation effect (on the armor piercing round striking the plate) was less favorable. The Waffenamt was not in favor of concrete for supplemental protection. Even when the assembly firms followed this order, troops in the field sometimes added concrete for extra protection to their armored vehicles.

[junk2drive]

During this whole "discussion" I have pictured an engineer at the factory having a fit because of the things that were designed based on maximum weight of the vehicle...

[Stridor]

ORIGINAL: Mobius

Oh, boy. I hate having to do research on this.
But from the Spielberger book on the Stug.

Alterations to the Sturmgeschütz IV
On January 24, 1944, the Inspektor der Artillerie determined that supplementing armor protection by adding concrete had been shown by test firing to be without benefit. It only increased the vehicle weight and framentation effect (on the armor piercing round striking the plate) was less favorable. The Waffenamt was not in favor of concrete for supplemental protection. Even when the assembly firms followed this order, troops in the field sometimes added concrete for extra protection to their armored vehicles.

Seriously concrete is like tomato sauce (or how you say ketchup). It goes great with EVERYTHING!

S.

[Mobius]

Looks like it had some effect as the US tankers used it to reduce the after penetration effect of HEAT warheads.

Also, it was noted in the study that it had a morale effect on the crew. They thought adding made their vehicle better protected. And that is important. Also, it probably kept them busy slathering it on and not thinking about their situation.

[Yoozername]

Yes, I may have mentioned it before, but US test thought concrete mitagated the large HEAT effects of Panzerfaust nad Shreck...They would still make a hole through the concrete and armor but the effects inside were said to be less than usual.

[Yoozername]

I think I would like to move on with the discussion and focus on the Soviet 76.2mm weapons.  These are the weapons that are most prevalent during the time period of 1942-early 1944 that the StuGs would face.

From memory, I believe the Soviet 76.2mm round had 1.08Kg of propellant.  As a comparison, the German 75mmL48 AP39 rounds had something like 2.4Kg for the propellant (AP40 had 2.2Kg I believe).  I am not saying that those propellants are equal in performance, kilogram for kilogram, but the reader should have a feeling for the difference between these two weapons.  The Soviet 76.2mm weapons were not in the same class as the German 75mm weapons.  Neither are the projectiles themselves.  German AP rounds were much better in Quality.

So just how susceptible is the StuGIIIG 'box mantlet' version to the Soviet rounds?  That will be my focus now. 

[Mobius]

ORIGINAL: Yoozername
I think I would like to move on with the discussion and focus on the Soviet 76.2mm weapons.  These are the weapons that are most prevalent during the time period of 1942-early 1944 that the StuGs would face.

This is what I get from my penetration program. It uses normalized actual data and is not an engineering formula.

[Ratzki]

Hey MR, I do my spring bear hunting near my grandfather's cabin in D'arcy, which is about a 30 minute drive east of Pemberton, which is about 35 minutes north of Whistler BC. I think that other then northern Vancouver Island, there has to be more black bears here then anywhere else on the continent. I like it there as it is close to where i live, only a 2 hour drive and the black bears are big and come in lots of good colours. There are some grizzly here as well but generally you don't see them lower down. I ride in to an alpine valley from the cabin. Takes about 1/2 a day, and am at the 7,000 foot level, which is right about tree line. The only reason I know the altitude, is the forestry service mapped the area a dozen or so years ago and left all the alititude markers along the trail up to the twin glacial lakes that are about 90% to the top of the mountain. There is an old squatters cabin there that the forestry fixed up somewhat while they were doing their thing, worked out well for those that know where it is. Even where i live now in Chilliwack BC, there is a good number of black bears to be had, just that the hunting is a little tougher, very steep, and the bush is thick and you get soaked all the time. I deer hunt here but am not gonna waste my time looking for bears here as they are a lot smaller and seem to come in only black. We have a good population of Mule deer and Black Tail deer as well. There are a few White Tail but there is no season on them, I have never seen one myself, you have to drive northeast from here before you get into White Tail country. I never really got into White Tail hunting, kinda fell in love with that stiff-legged gate of the Muleys and have almost hunted them exclusively since I was 12. My family has never eaten beef, strictly what I shoot and supplemented with chicken, fish, and turkey. I need two deer a year to keep us in meat, and I am one down at the moment with a couple days to go in the season. I am gonna try to get out one more day but have had pnemonia the last several weeks so my hiking around is a bit limited.
On the conctete shooting forray, that will be tomorrow. It looks like we might get a good day, but they are calling for rain/snow tomorrow. My wife already thinks that I am nuts, so I have to get all my stuff ready without her finding out or she will be making a call to the people with the white shirts and white van. I want to avoid that.

[Ratzki]

Was out Christmas shopping tonight and am sitting in Walmart at the little McDonalds in the store chatting with this older fellow when I find out that he was a tank driver who landed on D-Day and fought with the Canadian Army. All his experiences were with the sherman tanks and he had gone through 6 of them by war's end, losing most to mines. So I get around to this concrete as armour talk that we have been having here and he says that it was added to reduce casualties from AT penetrations into the tank shell. He said that they were told that concrete added significant protection from molten shards of projectile and armour if a penetration occured. And he said that it was very effective vs German AT rounds but unsure how it acted vs other AT rounds. It would be placed where the tanks armour was most suseptable to penetration and that concrete is able to handle compression forces quite well and guessed that it might be very effective vs HEAT rounds. Just thought that I would let you all know, for what it is worth. Not very scientific, but interesting. Only had about a half hour chat, very interesting fellow.

[Yoozername]

LOL!  Yeah, ok. I was in the mall and sitting on Santas lap and he said he was a StuGIIIF8 commander.

Here's some 'concrete' evidence...

But take heart, Old School Cav is here. The WWII-vintage .30-06 M2 AP round, often called Black Tip ammo, launches a 165.7-grain hardened steel alloy FMJ projectile at just over 2,700 feet per second. The old Army small arms cartridge manual says: "Penetration, fired at a 7/8-inch thick homogeneuous armor plate at 100 yards, will not be less than 0.42 inch." That's the minimum. The same manual says the round is good for penetrating a half inch of homgeneous armor plate and 0.3 inches of face-hardened armor plate at 200 yards, and 0.3 and 0.2 inches respectively at 600 yards.

In The Ultimate Sniper, Major John Plaster conducted some informal media tests and found that single rounds of M2 ball AP could, at 100 yards, penetrate 19 inches of sand, 48 inches of timbers, 14 inches of rubble, and 7 inches of concrete. I have an old WWII training film, Infantry Weapons and Their Effects, that clearly shows a soldier with an M1 punching holes through a 4-inch concrete wall at 200 yards. I've personally tried the stuff on stacked railroad tie plates and old farm plow shanks and it went right on through. About 15 years ago (I think I was 8 at the time) we had an old concrete farm silo due for being torn down. I fired several M2 APs from my Garand at a range of fifty yards. On the exterior of the silo, there was a tiny .30-caliber hole with the copper jacket mushroomed out around it. On the interior of the 4-inch concrete wall, the exit wound was spalled out in a shallow dish-shaped crater about 8 inches in diameter. The penetrators themselves, still sharp on the end, were about halfway through the far wall and had to be removed with pliers. During WWII, it was reported that this stuff would go through the German armored halftracks at close range and I've read of a Korean War vet who claimed he could penetrate the light armored gunshields of the Chinese heavy machine guns at ranges of 300-350 yards.

M2 AP loaded ammo and projectiles used to be a dime-a-dozen just a few years ago but now there are getting very hard to find. If you come across some at a gunshow or on the 'net, they might be a wise purchase. There are also still some 7.62x51mm M61 147-grain Armor Piercing projectiles still around from a few sources as well. The manual says it can be used: "against personnel and light armored or unarmored targets, concrete shelters, and similiar bullet-resisting targets." Also identified by a black tip on the projectile, its performance is roughly 10% less than the .30-06 AP.

[Mad Russian]

Yoozername, wasn't it you that said we couldn't compare small arms results to cannon results?

This is a discussion. At least that's what you put in the title. As such we get to discuss things. Interesting things like why Canadian tankers used concrete. Probably for the same reason German tanks/assault gun crews used it. Unless you meant that you were starting a BS discussion about StuG's.

What do you think? You think the science of concrete crossed the lines and was understood by both sides?

Good Hunting.

MR