Brummbär

Or Sturmpanzer IV. Another AFV which made its debut at the Battle of Kursk. Never produced in any numbers though ( Chamberlain/Doyle say 298, plus 8 converted ).

Does anybody have any details concerning its operational history ? How successful was it in its intended role ?

 

I read once a while back about an action in Aachen against the Americans. I really took the Americans by surprise, they were in a building watching a square with the Germans on the other side. Story goes that they heard a tank moving around on the German side and got out their Bazookas.

The Brumbar came sliding out of a side street "necking" a corner and stopped. They doughboys took a potshot with a bazooka at about 60 yards from behind a wrecked tank and the rocket bounced off. The tank then shot at the building next to the one that the main group was in and leveled the building. It then backed off to reload.

The Americans called for Air support but got none and the poor dogfaces had to run from building to building avoiding the destruction. The Germans didn't seem too serious as the Grenadiers were content to watch the show and not attack. It fired about 12 shots disappeared and never returned. I guess it just about wrecked the one side of the square but in the end did not accomplish much.

 

One detail regarding the Sturmpanzer is that it wasn never called Brummbär in any official records. Its actual name was simply Sturmpanzer...

 

Interesting, where did that name come from then?

For those who don't know the Brummbär (eh, Sturmpanzer): this was a conversion that used the PanzerIV chassis and mounted a 150mm short-barreled gun. It was far too heavy for the chassis because of its thick frontal armour, as it comes with infantry support tanks, and the enormous gun. Despite these facts it could of course pack a phenomenal punch, with the fourth largest gun ever mounted on an armoured vehicle in WW2.

 

2 Questions:

1) what does 'Brummbar' mean?

2) what were the other large guns? I think I can guess one (on the KV-2) but a list would be nice.

You can see a picture of the Brummbar on www.military.cz/panzer

 

Bär means bear. Brumm means to growl.

The list as far as I know is like this:
1. 380mm mortar (SturmTiger)
2. 155mm heavy artillery (M12, M40)
3. 152mm gun (KV2, ISU152)
4. 150mm gun (Sturmpanzer, Hummel).

 

Thanks, and thanks!

 

You're welcome, and, you're welcome!

But I know i will be corrected on both, somehow...

 

Most likely, Brummbär was a nickname.

Just to make the correction - while the translation of the two words 'Brumm' and 'Bär' are correct, 'Brummbär' is referring to a bully/cranky-type person.

As for 'SturmTiger', it should be referred to as either Panzersturmmörser or Tiger-Mörser. SturmTiger is inaccurate in more than one way, too, since the 'T' in Tiger should be a capital 'T'. I see that a lot of people write JagdTiger or JagdPanther and so forth, however capital letters in the middle of a word has never been correct in either German or any other language I know of. I have no idea where this comes from...

 

It looks cool. I guess you need to put in the capital letter because there is no such thing as a Jagdtiger either, and you're basically putting two names together.

A Brummbär, I would say, is a grouchy/grumpy person.

 

It looks (and is) incorrect

You don't otherwise use capital letters in the middle of other joint words - otherwise, that you mean you'd have to write e.g. 'memberList', 'userGroups' and so forth.

 

But those aren't names. Names, at least in the languages I know, use capitals. Tiger is the name of a tank, and Jagd- is the addition making it the name of another tank. So JagdTiger would seem logical. Also it puts emphasis on the base platform which are some of the coolest things of WW2 (the Panther or Tiger).

 

It still isn't correct, though. Names start with a capital letter, but doesn't include capital letters in the middle of the word, regardless of the origin of the word.

Just because a name is comprised of two names doesn't make it right to make letters in the middle of the words capitalized. Look in any German dictionary, and you'll see

 

Yeah, otherwise it would be a BrummBar, for example.

 

Ok, so if I'm getting this right, we're now discussing capital letters instead of the very excistance of the Brummbär. Odd, very odd.

 

Perhaps some benevolant moderator could humbly split this thread?

 

Well no, sorry, this benevolent moderator humbly declines because he can't split the post in which you mentioned both topics, the Brummbär and the capitals thing. I know it isn't gramatically correct because I know German, but I think it looks kind of nice and special for nice and special machines (well, not nice). So regardless of its linguistical nonsense, I'll keep using it.

 

I think that I was mistaken about my story. It was not a Brummbar that tore up the square, it was a Sturmtiger.

 

http://www.geocities.com/pentagon/2833/ ... mbaer.html

and for the record Brummbar means grizzly bear

 

Grizzly bear in German is Grizzlybär - 'Brummbär', directly translated, means 'humming bear'.

Christian