Tanks, Kicking the Tires.

That's what his bio says. Maybe they bought some hand-me-downs when the British moved on to the Challenger?



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Or, we could watch this.

 

"Severe problems" with the Panther were always a matter of degree. The final drives were a primary problem, but failure of the transmission and steering were a secondary problem related to the primary problem (engine over-revving was also a secondary problem to fuel pump leaks resulting in the primary problem of the tank lighting up like a blowtorch). By spring 1944, the major transmission problems - leaking seals and gaskets - were corrected, but in certain conditions, like running in mud, tending to result in over-stress and failure of 3d gear. When the tranny couldn't be immediately replaced that led to drivers shifting from 2d to 4th, which either worked...or stalled the tank and played hell with the clutch, which then tended to fall apart. The "skid turn" feature also led to inexperienced drivers screwing the pooch by attempting it at too high a speed - stall - or again in muddy conditions - bye bye 3d gear.

Not that it was so unique to the Germans...don't get me started on the Medium Tank T20. U.S. Army Ordnance attempted to use the Torqmatic transmission developed for the GMC M18 and Light Tank M5 in it and the result was untidy. In the end T20 engineering testing at Aberdeen was finally cancelled because they couldn't get it to run long enough before the tranny failed in order to test anything meaningful. After a couple more months of work in modifications and beefing it up they finally got it to work in the T25 and T26...barely. The Torqmatic transmission was always a "severe problem" for the T26/M26.

 

That's what I thought.
Here's the official Irish Army cavalry page.
Cavalry | Army Corps | Organisation | Army | Defence Forces

 

Hadn't registered CVRt served there.
That famed ability to almost float over boggy land, maybe?
(Perhaps apocryphal accounts, Falklands maybe, of crew climbing down and sinking to their knees, unable to replicate the thing's low ground pressure.)

 

Chieftain is good. You can compare his treatment with the RAC videos here


and this links to "Michael" the Sherman mentioned by Chieftain

 

Yes, I've seen most of the Tank Chats vids and check regularly for new ones. They are interesting, but as I expressed earlier, quite general in nature. Even somebody like me (with a very modest knowledge of armor) isn't going to learn much.

The Chieftain is a much more in-depth look (though the vids could do without the splashy segues from subject to subject). I find myself fascinated with things like the 'ergonomics' (or lack of) in the Panzers. How things like that negatively affected everything from loading the gun to maintenance to simply driving. That is real world information that I've not seen anywhere else.

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Pardon the off topic post but ...
This is one of the scariest things I've seen in a long time.

Please tell me they weren't serious.

 

I've been somewhat of fan of the Panther, despite its faults, but we have to remember that for what you get on one side of an engineering solution, you have to give up something else. If you're going to put a big honking gun in a turret then you're going to have less room in there. Bigger gun means bigger rounds, but fewer...etc. The one thing that has always impressed me about Panther was that even more than most tanks, the crew needed to be very well trained (the driver being a conspicuous example) for it to be effective. Towards the end of 1944 the Germans were throwing poorly trained recruits into Panthers to make up these untried, poorly led Panther Brigades because Hitler believed that "national-socialist zeal" could replace training! The results were predictable. So I'm sure there was a way to quickly load a Panther's gun, but the loader had to learn it and practice it so when the poop hit the fan he could do his job in his sleep.

One thing I do agree with The Chieftain about is that dominance in battle is more psychological than physical.

 

Well, consider that all the other nations were able to solve, or at least find workable compromises, to the same problems in their tank designs. I think this may be a system problem where experienced end users had little input into the product.

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Having handled some of the big German 75 & 88 ammunition I'm bleedin' amazed anyone could ram it in the breech in any efficient way whatsoever. Must have had arms like Garth.

The main thing I enjoy about Panther is that developmental obsession with the 'ride quality'. Amazing double torsion bars, intricate interleaving, it keeps just dominating the whole design process. Memos circulating, insistence on stability.
How many interleaved suspensions can you count on modern tanks?
Maybe it all helped indirectly with the later luxury cars...

 

First, "all the other nations" (Japan and Italy too?) didn't have three major powers attacking them. Therefore, there wasn't the pressure to come up with a superior tank and quickly!

In the Chieftain video showing him trying to load the cannon there was some sort of rod that got in the way. What was that? Looking at diagrams and photos of Panther turret interiors, I can't find anything like that. In fact, a 1947 British report, "Motion Studies of German Tanks" in 1947 stated, "Loading times are reasonably fast because the loader has adequate floor space in which to maneuver the rounds, and also because the rounds are convenient to grip and handle. Also, the deflector guard [recoil guard} rear plate being mounted well back from the breech and the absence of any top rail (emphasis mine) on the loader's side of the deflector guard allows the loader adequate room to insert the round into the chamber."

 

I'm sure he identifies the rod in the vid (I don't want to watch all three vids to find that small segment).

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That's why war is a young man's game and generally speaking the more fit you are the more lethal you are. "The more you sweat in peace the less you bleed in war" is true as a general principle. It's been my experience that the better the unit, the more they worship the PT gods, it builds strength, stamina and discipline.
Check out this video; it's off topic because it's not tanks, but it does have a big fuggin' gun (the old M-One niner eight one five five howitzer) and the rounds they're ramming are 103 lb. (46.73 kg. for the international audience ) M-Seven niner five HE rounds. It also illustrates that a well trained crew can work rapidly and efficiently.