The victims

Just to remind us what happens to tanks...


(picture with kind permission of Merlin)

 

A sad, depressing picture. Any picture of a broken down/destroyed tank is enough to bring me to tears. :cry:

 

http://www.panzerworld.net/horrorgallery.html

 

What do you think what destroyed tank from first post?

Bazooka missile, other tank...

???

 

I'm sure I have seen that photo before and recall it's a mark iv from africa

Which would suggest it was knocked out in 43 so it's very unlikly to be a bazooka

However I can't actually see the impact location on the photo so it could be anything

FNG

 

:angry: I'm having problems getting into my hotmail account at the mo, so I can't check what Merlin said about the pic. If you're about Merlin, could you chip in?

It looks more like a Pz III than a Pz IV to me, but I think that N Africa is correct, so no bazooka.

could it be mine damage? The track seems to be gone at the rear.

 

This tank is definitely a late Panzer III, note the long-barreled 50mm gun and bolt-on spaced armour on the glacis plate. It seems most likely that it hit a mine, judging the missing idler wheel.

 

scrap iron

It was a Mk3, one of many and much scrap iron that littered the desert
around Benghazi area, this was on the Barce plain, near Barce pass.
Quite honestly we did not take much notice of them, anything of use or value had already gone, we did often retreive armoured car and lorry bits
to patch up 'bent' vehicles because it was easier than going through the proper channels. We left in 1948 but just previous to that we received an order banning us from this as a wealthy Egyptian scrap merchant had bought 'ALL' of the scrap in the area!! Good luck to him as most of the Western Desert was still mined and the amount of missiles from bullets to Teller mines were every where.

 

A close look at this vehicle doesn't show any marks of a shell piercing the armour. Also, the left side of the tank seems ok (but is not visible apart from the front). Tank commander hatch is open, actually, I think that all hatches aer open, so the crew walked away. The right side is partially blown, with the right track reduced to bits and pieces, and a perfectly visible rear driving wheel missing, but it seems that a driving axel is ok. Unfortunately, the quality of this picture doesn't allow for a 100% identification of what knocked it out. A mine should have left a small crater, but because of the shadows I can't be sure it is there. Also, there is a hatch on top of the engine deck that it seems to have been burned (maybe blown open).

Most plausible is a mine detonation against the right track.

Christian Ankerstjerne, those picture show the war in his full savagery. It makes me wander what those crewman felt like when their vehicle was blown and desperately trying to get away they were shot. I guess that no one was fighting a human war.

 

...those poor bastards...never had a chance. It's more difficult than most people think to bail out of a hit tank. Some think it's like ejecting from an aircraft, hah! Trying to get out of a burning tank under incoming fire, probably panic-stricken at the same time, maybe wounded from the hit, in shock, struggling to pull wounded friend from tank, etc. This is just one more reason I respect tanks and the tankers who fought them.

 

It's not just that simple either. I played a Battle of Britain wargame against someone who wanted to "Eject" out of his plane. He couldn't understand it when I tried to explain than his Pilot "Ejected" about 10 years too late, that people couldn't just "jump" out at 400 mph and that in simplistic terms he was dead.

 

All the hatches are open, though. Either an internal explosion caused this, or the crew got away unharmed. There isn't much charring around the hatches so I'm assuming the latter.

 

remember that a lot of pilots got hurt or kill when leaving their planes, most sadly the star of africa, it was not that easy, remember that it was not an ejection like today's planes, they need to open the canopy first if is not jamed, they strugle to get out and hoping no to be struck by the plane

 

scrap iron

Do not read too much into the Panzer Pic, the photo was taken in June 47,
the Mk3 had possibly been there since 43 or earlier, weather, salvage,
souvenir hunters etc. had removed evidence of the original kill.

 

I read somewere than the rule of thumb was than for three tanks destroyed , you had enough survivors to make a full crew .
this would not take in consideration the damaged , out of fuel ,broken or
sprung tracks etc , does anyone has some figures , is it getting better ?

 

survivors

I don't understand your question, are you talking 'computer games' or real war?

 

At Aberdeen Proving Grounds (in Maryland) years ago, and perhaps still,
was a German tank, perhaps a Mark IV, that had a jagged, almost star-shaped, hole in its glacis that obviously had been caused by a kinetic energy round. HEAT rounds tend to burn a nice neat circular hole.

 

real war !

 

IIRC HEAT rounds don't actually burn through armor, but the kinetic energy of the vaporized liner punches a hole like a solid shot does.

 

It isn't kinetic energy. It's the Monroe effect, which is completely different from the physics of other anti-tank weapons. Basically, the conical cavity forms a very hot stream of molten steel. This means that the physics works like interacting fluids, rather than solid material, and therefore have to be calculated with hygrodynamics.