The 'European sword' idea was one of many. 'Britain' had succeeded where France failed. For the moment Hitler had the chance of a one front war (nearly) before the latent coalition in the west made itself felt militarily.

The Russian war was far more than realpolitik.

Not if they were confronted with a Nashorn with it's mighty 88, that would negate the above mentioned allied countermeasures.

Also one of the main eventual failure of the German Panzerwaffe was that eventually the Luftwaffe lost air control and that allied aircraft began shooting up as many German Panzers as they could, eventually the Tiger and King Tiger as impressive as they were were no match for a Thunderbolt and Stormoviks and the like armed to the teeth with anti-armour rockets. Also one thing with the Soviet Union out of the way either having surrendered of being fatally crippled as to pose no threat, Germany would have by say 1943 have concentrated everything it had to subduing England.

Roddoss, remember the stone-scissors-paper game. Your Nashorn is not an ideal weapon, it isn't even a tank.

It's not a tank, it's an anti-tank gun on tracks for mobility. It carries a big punch, but has an open top and paper thin armour. It's vulnerable to any mortar battery in range, not to mention HE artillery.

So the Allies can drop their expensive tanks behind and lead with infantry heavy weapons, and your übersexy Nashorns will have to defend themselves with their MG-42s

Won't do. A tank will have to have a more or less balanced mix of firepower-protection-mobility.

For curiosity's sake, some trivia: slightly less than 500 were made, in a total of 6 battallions.

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I would have thought StugIII or IV would have worked better. In Normandy as far as I know 2/3 of German AT guns were self-propelled - harder to hide but much less vulnerable than wheeled ones.

Maybe. The Jgpz IV L/70 had very good armour and protection plus a rather low silhouette, but mobility suffered; if they got careless (that is, drive slowy) they kept ruining suspensions and sticking that skewer of a low slung gun in the ground...

Compromises, compromises all the time.

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For the 11,567th time...
Air power did not destroy the panzers directly.
It denied them mobility, shredded their comms and cut their supplies, it ravaged softskins and forced vehicles to constantly take cover, it sewed confusion and fear & generally throttled the panzers freedom of action, but it simply didn't destroy the armoured vehicles to as great an extent as legend has it. The execution was performed by ground forces (and mechanical failure).
Sorry, It's becoming like a Pavlovian response... I'll try to ignore the bee in my bonnet on that subject.

I don't know why but the Jgpzr IV/70, is a current favourite vehicle, just looks right (though it still suffered from some of the more conventional mark IV's problems).

Been reading about testing recoilless guns fitted to German tanks, not in the conventional sense of a counter charge or blast going backwards but 'standard' guns solidly mounted to the chassis with no recoil system at all, the entire firing shock going through the trunnions. If this was the way they'd have had to go in an effort to save materials it seems that Mk. IV's suffered rather badly on testing (edit: apparently not, curse my memory) and heavier vehicles were (obviously) far better at taking the strain. Got more reading to do on that though.
I know we could refer to the '67 Syrians as an exception but If the war had continued I suspect the mark IV would have looked a bit of a white elephant by late '45/46 anyway. obsolescence was building and if you stand too still in military development you get run over.

Hmmm... rambling again...
Cheers,
Adam.

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Had the German war lasted any longer the much vaunted Tiger II, Panther etc would have disappeared in a mushroom shaped cloud. Surendering in May was a good career move.

Of course, for 'run over' please substitute 'burnt to a crisp/melted'.

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Holy shoot, you have 4 rep squares while I still have 3. Who's boots have you been licking?

Again? groan...

Plus the muzzle in the mud and busted front suspensions syndrome

Now that I'd like to see! Weld joints cracking open, bolts shaking loose, gun mount cracked up. Do you believe you would even be able to spend one single vehicle ammunition load before the thing just shook itslef all loose?

Those were glorified pillboxes only.

We're used to them, carry on!

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Why? weren't the Russians working weel enough for your taste already?

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The effect of the Red Army was a slower version of the same thing!

Titter ye not Kommisar!

They seem to have been quite surprised/impressed by the results. 'fixed mounting' seems a handier term than recoilless. Pz.II chassis with a Fi(?) and a panzer IV with a 75mm StuK40 (and a 75mm/L48 later). Forces on the vehicles worked out at c.130t during firing and they seem to have taken it well. Very little movement and crews reporting it tolerable.
On the IV only by round 78 was a crack in the gearbox housing noted. As interest grew a 75mm/L48 was mounted on a pz.II chassis, 67 rounds fired with the only problem being a weakening of the rear suspension. An 88/L71 was then tried on a mark IV & a stug with a 75/L48, 97 rounds fired from the stug broke the sights and radiator.
11/07/44 1000 rounds were fired from all the vehicles (and 2 others) at Kummersdorf, most (600) from the IV. Led to approval of fitting such guns in future Panther & Jagdpanther production, and a new version of the PzJgr38t but 'the course of the war' prevented work from completion. Biggest problem seems to have been sight/gun connections but this was apparently solved. (all culled from a few pages in Spielberger's Panther book, so more info would be nice).
Blah blah, etc.

Wait! There is a point relating to this thread in all this rambling!!

Remove all the 'twiddly bits' and associated processes/rare materials from the gun and that may start to make the 'base steel' available slightly more relevant to how many more tanks can be produced?

Cheers,
Adam.

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Or we might have seen some nice confrontations between the King Tigers and the IS-3's

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Ah, firing range figures, where all is nice and quiet. More tea, Vicar?

Nice and dandy, but what about traverse and elevation mechanisms? Are we talking Swedish S-Tanks with that pretty hydro suspension or good old Pz IVs &c.?

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No, they appear to have been fully functioning turret mounts, even some advantages in elevation due to the greatly reduced bulk of the piece.
Objectively we can't really dismiss these engineers so easily just because they were on the ranges mate, many more less peculiar/conventional designs enjoyed far less auspicious first testings & trials.
This appears to have been serious work that convinced serious men that in view of the materials shortage it was well worth taking forward. If it was many other authors I might raise an eyebrow too, but as it's Spielberger the account is somewhat more intriguing.

Cheers,
Adam.

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I never said it was a tank but a tank destroyer, and i said that had the Panther, Tiger and King Tiger had not eventuated and they used their weights of materials it could release in a hypothetical senario of having 6,000 Nashorns not 500 (actually it was 494 but who's counting), but imagine that the German Army having say 20 to 30 battalions of Nashorns.

My source also stated 494 but I like round figures

The Red Army had more than enough artillery (122mm, 152mm, katyusha and 82 and 120 mortars) to counter that threat. Against anti-tank guns (and the N. was just a sexyfied one, with tracks) artillery is the best reponse.



"Come to the Dark Side, Luke"

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Um... Za the Dark Side loses in the next episode.

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I still like my senario though.

Oh i have tried to come to the Dark Side but my flashlight broke. hahahahahah