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I THOUGHT the germans could not have battleships, panzers, planes, and all class of weapons because of the Paris theatement signed by the loosers gemans at the end of first war, (they have prohibited everything bigger than a few Cls, and a few panzers II)

So thats way the build submarines, because in this theatement of Paris, the victory allies didnt say nothing about bulding subs, so thats way the german build so many subs, they were allowed to, but not battleships

Only 77 Jadgtigers were made and there isn't any evidence that they served on the Eastern Front.

The Germans were not allowed any offensive navy, INCLUDING submarines, by the Versailles treaty.

The conditions of the Treaty of Versailles were slackened over time. And the Germans started to rebuild their military in secret. Like making planes (and flying them ) in Russia in exchange for technical information. A couple of years after Hitler came to power- the Nazis came out of hiding and made some treaties with his neighbours- like a Anglo-German Naval Treaty which allowed the Germans to have 35% of the Royal Navy's size. Of course Hilter promptly broke most of these.

ORIGINAL: Sharkosaurus rex

That's why the Germans lost. What is the point of making that monster? Just a waste of time and resources like engineers who should know better. It's couldn't cross any standard wooden bridge in Germany so had to be prepped for underwater use to cross a simple stream.

You're right, of course. The Maus wasn't practical by any measure. Still, for amatuer historians like us, it's cool that they made stuff like that. That 80cm siege gun the Germans made for instance (I think they called it Gustav) that only saw action once in the siege of Sevastopol. It had a crew of about a battalion and it's rate of fire was measured in rounds per DAY. Seriously. If memory serves, it threw a 7 TON shell! Practical? No, but still cool....

That's right. And the Germans only fired 68 of those shots! I real waste.

Lucky the German economy had lots of slack and they could entertain the post war historians with their silly ideas.

[:D][:D][:D]

If only the Germans used their talents for good instead of evil: we could have had Grinhilda the Vampire Slayer 60 years earlier!

Grinhilda

Ahh, the unmitigated silliness...[:)]

[:D][:D][:D] Hey, speaking of photos, I think I've got a digital one archived away somewhere of me standing in front of the aforementioned Jagdtiger. It gives a sense of scale you can't really get by reading dimensions in a book or by seeing photos without people in them. Those things truly were enormous....

ORIGINAL: Guderon

I'm curious - do you remember where the fatal blow came for the Jagdtiger you saw? I know most of them that were knocked out were from the air from 5" rockets and specialized AT cannon. They were huge targets from the air (I once saw a photo of the entire crew of one sunbathing on top of the fixed turret, and there was plenty of room to spare!) and not very well armored on the top. They truly were impenetrable from the front and even difficult to knock out from the sides. Maybe a close range 90mm or 17 lbr. from the sides might have done it.

I believe it was taken out by 75 or 76mm fire from the side. Interestingly enough I found this website which actually has a picture of the right flank of the beast clearly showing three shell holes in the otherwise pristine condition vehicle.

http://www.tankzone.co.uk/pages/war_museum.htm

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

You're right. The main gun was a 150 mm I believe.

Maus was actually to have had the same 128mm gun arming the Jagdtiger as it's primary weapon. Now here's a scary thought...given that it was common practice for the Germans to equip a tank destroyer with the next larger weapon vs. the standard heavy tank gun.....what the heck were they gonna use to trump the 128mm? [X(]

Hitler renounced the entire Versailles treaty once he felt confident enough to get away with it. It was replaced by a new Anglo-German naval treaty that allowed, IIRC, a navy 35% the size of the current RN. Course Hitler also had the Z-plan waiting in the wings too.

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

LOL...

that reminds me, two weeks ago I dragged the girlfriend up to go see some "old concrete" (i.e. some more of Washington State's coastal forts)

anyway we're on our way back and taking the scenic route back to I-5....we start passing through this little town, when i spot a Stuart Tank in the middle of a little park.

(SCREECH) go the breaks. Gotta park get out and stretch the legs.....by climbing all over the tank looking for a way in. Picture the girlfriend standing by the car, toe tapping, frown on face.

Real Kodak moment [:D]

OMG! I was laughing so hard at the comp when I read this. Being married for almost 15 years I can so relate

believe it was taken out by 75 or 76mm fire from the side. Interestingly enough I found this website which actually has a picture of the right flank of the beast clearly showing three shell holes in the otherwise pristine condition vehicle.

First, the picture is showing a jagdPANTHER. The assault gun variant of the panther, not the TIGER

Second, I sincerly doubt that a 75 mm could have penetrated a jagdtiger/panther flank, even from point blank range. The muzzle velocity of a 75 was just to low to achive that level of penetration. It looks like this jagdpanther was hit by 3 high velocity rounds fired from close range (note the VERY small spread of the shell holes, only achievable from close range and a flat shell trajectory due to a VERY high shell velocity ), these rounds where most likely fired from a britisch 17 pounder, like mounted on a firefly.

LOL. This topic is great. When I left it at 7ish yesterday it was on track. I come back now and look at it [:D]

Interesting read though guys.

Anyway, my thoughts on it are that the Germans were too fragmented in their decision making/style of manufacture (A Nazi spin off in my mind sicne they didn't want anyone to get too powerful. Politics ah politics) which led to so many different planes and tanks being made where as specialisation on a few types would've helped a hell of a lot. As Nik first said luckily they didn't get their arse into gear with full war production.

I have always admired a fair bit of what they produced and the ingenuity of some of their designs but as always with ingenuity you get siome whacky ideas such as the Maus! I remember reading a book a little while ago about the 'secret weapons' Sheesh some of the crazy plane ideas they had. VTOL stuff and highly unrealistic frame designs etc. Sure great in theory but practical at that stage. Me thinks not.

By the way I thought they classified the Panther as a medium tank (replacement in time for MKIV) and Tiger obviously as heavy tank. Just my thoughts.

Steven

Hi all,

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

Thats part of why the T-34 always gets my vote for best tank of WWII. Even after it's flashy attributes faded (protection and firepower) it remained (with an upgrade to the 85 series) a viable enough tank to be "good enough" and continue getting the job down.

A Panther outclasses a T-34/85 on paper, but if i have 10 of them to face your 1.....i'm betting on me. [:D]

Let us not forget that until T-34/85 _ALL_ T-34's were 4 man tanks with 2 man turret (i.e. in turret there was only commander/gunner and loader). Also crews in T-34 did not have internal electrical communication system.

All German tanks at this time (Pz-III and Pz-IV) were 5 man tanks with 3 man turret (commander, gunner and loader). Add to this that German tanks had most excellent internal design and communications (between crew and to/from outside). Also German tanks had one other feature - small commander cupola inside turret (i.e. commander was able to look around 360 deg without turret needing to rotate).

You can imagine the difficulty of one single person to be commander and gunner at the same time in crampy T-34 (original T-34's had very narrow turret rim prone to stoppages even when hit from machine guns).

The original T-34 was, thus, not super-tank, on contrary... only huge advantage in numbers saved the day for Russians... only with T-34/85 Russians were on equal terms (or better) with Germans...


Leo "Apollo11"


P.S.
French in 1940 had very same mistake in tank design as Russian - most of their tanks were 1 or 2 men turret which was totally inadequate!