foreign tanks in German service

vehicles captured by the germans
dennis

http://news.webshots.com/album/556876347fhnQwH

 

Thanks a million Dennis - there's enough there to keep me in modelling projects until I'm old & grey!

I'd love to do "Project 12a" for my 'group build'...

 

Dennis.

Great photos!

What is 20b?

 

david

david 20b is==pzkpfw P40 a italian P26/40 medium tank[only 100 were built]

dennis

 

Thanks.

 

nice pics!!!

what is in pic project 20?
i only see a zundapp elefant and a pz 38(t)

 

Great pics.

Those Germans didn't waste a thing did they - I bet they even ate their greens without prompting when they were kids.



Seroiusly - I remember comments by Brits in The World At War regarding the North African campaign - they were impressed at the way the Germans valued every vehicle and gun that they had including the salvage of damaged equipment and the use of captured gear (much more so than the allies). This had much to do with equipment shortages but also a clear waste-not-want-not doctrine too.

 

pictures

me 262, the small tank is a stug M 40[ITALIAN]with 75/18 850 gun.

lone wolf, I am putting together a lot of pics of captured cars used by the German's they certainly were resourceful with the use of captured equipment

Dennis

 

Must have been a logistical nightmare though...

 

I have read numerous accounts of the battles in North Africa and they pay a lot of time to tank numbers, mainly to show just how out numbered the Axis where most of the time.

They will often quote figure like 15th Panzer had 120 tanks of which 40 where mark III, 20 where mark IV and they had 5 IV specials.

But I have never ever read anywhere what numbers of foreign tanks Rommel had access to and used. Where these taken into accoutn in figures by either histroians or Rommel at the time? He must have had loads and could have doubled his actual tank size by using allied captured matarial

FNG

 

I would guess that of those tanks that were captured anything from half to two thirds were cannibalized for spares and ammo so a few could be kept going with some degree of reliability. Trying to use them all and you could end up with a tank force that suddenly packed up or ran out of ammo at an awkward moment.

 

To give a bit of contrast -

http://www.diggerhistory.info/pages-battles/ww2/tobruk.htm

This account of the Australian contribution to the defence of Tobruk shows the great extent to which Italian eqipment was used by the allies, there at least. We can only speculate how much this gear aided their efforts but I suspect it was considerable as it lists considerable amounts of artillery (especially anti-tank), light & sub-machine guns and lots of ammunition

http://www.diggerhistory.info/images/tanks/tank-kangaroo.jpg

PS. Note the bit about Italian rifles never being used because the British ones were superior.