Amphibious armour

Would the last two, the Sherman's equipped with wading stacks, really be considerd amphibious, even by a non-strict definition? If so you need to include the US M3 and M5 series light tanks because they were also fitted with the deep wading stacks. I personally don't think they should be included but will defer to your opinion.

 

Agree totally - and probably almost all tanks in service have been fitted with waders at some point.

The grey area is the deep snorkelers and tauchpanzers which were designed to fulfil almost the same role as amphibians, certainly the same as the DD tanks, just not floating;

P.S. the OED definition of amphibious tank is one "designed to operate both on land and in water"

 

There are a huge number of stories of when it went wrong in that respect - it happened to a CET on a training exercise when I was in Germany - never knew exactly what the problem had been, think was a faulty escape hatch fastener.

 

Interesting, I'd like to learn more about these.

 

What I understand is that they were designed for Op Sealion, and then used in limited numbers during the crossing of the Bug River at the start of Barbarossa and occasionally later. The same system was then designed to be used by the Maus, except with the addition that tanks would pair up with one on land supplying the other with electricity to the drive through a cable.

A summary here;

Panzer IV als Tauchpanzer

and of the maus system here;

Biggest tank in WWII was called Maus (mouse)

Edit; the biggest problem here is the need for diver reconnaissance of the river bottom - seabeds too although less troublesome I believe

production/modification figures I've found state there were 160 Tauchpanzer III and 60 Tauchpanzer IV.

 

here's the Polish contribution to the amphibious genre, the Pz Inz 130;

 

Interesting read, thanks, I learned something today. A question though, the article on the IV stated that the design was successful and I'll buy that concerning the river crossing. I'm not so sure if that would have been so if they had been employed for their initial purpose. I really have doubts if they could have made a successful Channel crossing.
You wrote:

That's where I have my greatest doubt, plus how would you navigate while driving on the Channel floor? How would you be able to identify and avoid undersea obstacles? I believe the Channel is 21 miles across at it's narrowest point, that would be quite a feat to survey the bottom and navigate across on the sea floor! While the depth is only 148 feet at the Straights of Dover, I would think that's still water pressure sufficient to cause failure of some of the rubber waterproofing.

BTW, the site you gave had production/conversion figures of 168 III's and 42 IV's but it is an internet source and I'm always a bit leary of taking their info as gospel.
Thanks again for the info and the interesting topic.

 

Definitely the plan wasn't for a full channel crossing - max snorkelling depths are listed as somewhere around 10-12 m - the use in an amph landing would have been much the same as DD tanks - allowing them to get in the water before the actual beach. Not sure what method of launch they would have used - I think crane was the only option although maybe they developed a 'slow sink' technique with some buoyancy bags? (pure SWAG)

Incidentally on in service figures, the actual amount of work needed does not appear to be much, although too much for a field mod i believe - i don't think any truly accurate figures are going to be available as it wasn't really a 'new' vehicle.

 

Maybe interesting to add some of the early vehicles;

The Mk IX APC was trialled in Nov 1918 as an amphib and probably was the first working amphibious tank
The Medium D amphibious which wasn't accepted but apparently was considered fairly practical
The MacFie amphibious tractor was proposed in 1915, but wasn't ever built
The French La Licorne prototype
The French DP-2 of 1930 (which sunk during it's trials and was not apparently pursued further)

 

Hey Nigel, great to see you opened an other very interesting Thread! Great work mate!

 

You're welcome - let's have some more discussion please, there are so many different aspects to this genre of vehicles and their usage.

Here is one of the other German types designed for Sealion;

The Schwimmpanzer II (two versions - one with several floats and one with a complete lift-on hull);

Note the massive size needed

 

and some more photos of the SwPZII

and two of the SwPz 38 model;

 

some more of the SwPz 38(t), one showing that it could actually drive around with the floats, and the turret weapons were usable although I wouldn't expect they would have been easy to fight from in this configuration.

also shows that there were more than one version of pontoons trialled on this tank as well

 

Indeed very massive! But if it was easy to remove i would say that this was the much better way to hadle it than with the DD´s. The LWS was another try too. Not the best but usable.

 

were any of the LWS's armoured? I haven't found any info on that yet - I always thought not?

And one of the great advantages of the DDs was that they only took up the same amount of space in the landing craft as a normal tank. Also you carried your 'floats' with you, so a truck wasn't needed to follow on behind with them.

Also with the boat hull pontoon designs I don't see you gain much over an identical sized boat, which can then turn round from the beach and go and pick up more tanks - maybe slightly lower COG, but that could be solved easily enough.

 

Thanks for the elaboration, it now seems more plausible. I do still wonder how they intended to navigate to the beach. I also agree with you that launching would be a bear of a problem.

The numbers aren't really that important, I just didn't know if you'd noticed the difference. I also assumed you may have had a more definative source and would share it with me. Anyway great information and thanks for sharing!

That vehicle at first glance looks similar, well a more primative version of the experimental LVT-6 from the early 1950's.

 

Very good point!