Nahverteidigungswaffe "Close Defense System for tanks" After some research, I have made a short summary of this AFV weapon. It was mounted, IIRC, on most German fully tracked combat vehicles. Not sure if this is correct... some tanks/TD's might have gone without it. Designed to replace pistol ports and give German tanks a means of effective close defense for infantry in close proximity. Consists of a launch tube bolted to the roof off the tank and armored. A variety of ammunintion types could be used, from colored flares to HE shells. The primary ammuntionw were smoke candles, known as "Nebelkerzen" Diameter was 92 mm. They would be fired through the launcher tube using flare pistols. This internal system replaced a previous system of external launchers, which had been used on the Tiger I, for example. The reason for this was that the smoke would discharge when hit by small arms fire and incapacitate crew. The Tiger I also had a close defence system consisting of S-mine (Schrapnellmine) launchers positioned on the corners of the tank. The nahverteidigungswaffe replaced both, and the need for pistol ports. I don't if it was as effective, though. Cheers!
A similar system was used on British AFVs later in the war. Many of them carried 2inch smoke mortars, which were replaced later on by discharging devices that looked pretty much the same as the German Nahverteidigungswaffen.
do you mean that the nachverteitigunswaffe was only used to fire a signal pistol trough the tube ? I tougth it also worked as a kind of short range mortar. Aglooka
Yes it did. The pistol could fire a number of different projectiles - from HE to smoke, which was used to create screens to conceal the tank, IIRC.
Ah - so it is essentially a high-tech pistol port? I always thought that it was a mini-mortar... Thanks for clearing that one up!
