According to paragraph 170 of the Treaty of Versailles, Germany, which was defeated in World War I, was prohibited from owning and building tanks. But already in the mid-1920s, strange machines appeared on the secret exercises of the Reichswehr, painted with spots of camouflage and outwardly reminiscent of French Renault tanks.
However, the intelligence services of the victorious countries soon calmed down: the mysterious machines turned out to be just mock-ups of slats, plywood and fabric. They served for educational purposes. To heighten the likelihood, they were put on car chassis, or even just on bicycle wheels.
By 1929, the Reichswehr formed whole "tank" battalions from similar "dummies" mounted on the basis of "Opel" and "Hanomag" cars. And when at the 1932 maneuvers near the Polish border new "secret" armored vehicles were demonstratively paraded, it turned out that they were just Adler cars, made up to look like military vehicles.
Of course, Germany was occasionally reminded of the Versailles Treaty, but German diplomats invariably declared: everything that happens is just an appearance, a "war game."
Meanwhile, the matter was much more serious - the game was needed by the unfinished warriors in order to work out the tactics of future battles at least on fake cars …
Subsequently, when the Wehrmacht acquired real tanks, their plywood prototypes came in handy for misinforming the enemy. The same role was played in 1941 by "dummies" with steel sides, which were hung on army cars.
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While the army was playing the war, the bosses of German industry were preparing much more dangerous toys for it. Outwardly, it looked harmless: they suddenly inflamed with love for heavy "commercial" trucks and tracked "agricultural" tractors. But it was on them that the designs of engines, transmissions, chassis and other components of future tanks were tested.
However, there is a difference between the tractor and the tractor. Some of them were created in the strictest secrecy under a secret weapons program. We are talking about machines produced in 1926 and 1929. Officially, they were called heavy and light tractors, but they resembled them like a rifle on a rake: those were the first tanks built in violation of the Treaty of Versailles and now by no means plywood.
In the early 1930s, the armaments department ordered another "agricultural" tractor from several firms. And when the Nazis openly crossed out the articles of the Versailles Treaty, it turned into a T I tank and immediately went into mass production. Another "tractor", the Las 100, underwent a similar metamorphosis, turning into a T II tank.
Among the secret developments were the so-called "company commander" and "battalion commander" vehicles. Here we are again faced with pseudo-designations - this time prototypes of the T III medium tank and the T IV heavy tank. The history of their appearance is also instructive. In order to somehow get money for their production, the Nazis went to a brazen deception not only of other nations, but also of their own.
On 1 August 1938, Lei, the leader of the fascist trade unions, announced: “Every German worker within three years must become the owner of a Volkswagen subcompact. There was a lot of buzz around Leia's statement. Newspapers touted the "people's car", and along with the talents of its designer Ferdinand Porsche.
A unified procedure for the purchase of a Volkswagen was established: every week from the worker's salary to withhold 5 marks until a certain amount is accumulated (about 1000 marks). Then the future owner, as promised, will be given a token that guarantees the receipt of the car as it is made.
However, although Ferdinant Porsche did create a wonderful car - it was the later legendary "beetle", now experiencing its rebirth - the cherished tokens turned out to be worthless pieces of metal, and Leigh's statement was an example of shameless social demagogy. Having collected several hundred million marks from the working people, the fascist government set up a gigantic enterprise with these funds. But it produced only a few dozen Volkswagens, which the Fuehrer immediately gave away to his entourage. And then it completely switched to the production of the T III and T IV tanks.
The Nazis brought the old Prussian tradition of drill and cane discipline to the point of absurdity, putting into practice the so-called principle of "Fuehrerism". In industry and transport, entrepreneurs were declared "leaders" of various ranks, to whom workers were obliged to blindly obey. Porsche also became one of these "Fuhrer". In 1940, he headed the commission of the Ministry of Armaments for the design of new tanks. At the same time, under his leadership, the first sketches of a heavy tank "tiger" were made. But before the attack on our country, this machine was only in the draft, on paper. Only after the collision of the Nazis with the famous Soviet tanks T 34 and KB began feverish work on the creation of "tigers", "panthers" and self-propelled guns for the Wehrmacht.
However, they were also not very lucky …
In 1965, the major British television company ITV showed the documentary "Tigers Are Burning." The director of the film, Anthony Firth, then told reporters about the work on this film, which showed in detail how during the Second World War the Nazis were preparing Operation Citadel - an offensive on the Kursk Bulge with the help of the latest military equipment: "tigers", "panthers", " elephants "and" ferdinands ".
British filmmakers used the shorthand recordings of the meeting of the German General Staff with the participation of Hitler and reproduced this scene from them, and also presented in detail the course of the Battle of Kursk (the authors of the film received part of the footage about the battle itself from Soviet film archives). And when Anthony Firth was asked about the origin of the title title of his painting, he replied: “It happened in the following way. Some of us who worked on the documents for the script remembered that in one of the Soviet newspapers he once came across a headline that attracted him with its brevity, energy and at the same time poetic imagery. We sat down in the British Museum and began leafing through all the Soviet newspapers in a row during the summer of 1943. And finally, in Izvestia, dated July 9, they found what they were looking for - the Tigers are burning. This was the title of the essay of the newspaper's front-line correspondent Viktor Poltoratsky.
The day after the press conference, the film was shown on television. And all of England watched how the "tigers" were burning and how, according to the script, "received pardon" precisely because of the defeat of the Nazis on the Eastern Front.
The history of preparation for Operation Citadel and its complete failure bring us back to the topic of the confrontation between the creators of Soviet tanks and German weapons specialists. The fact is that the plan of Operation Citadel was not a secret for the Soviet Supreme Command, and our designers learned about the tactical and technical characteristics of the Tiger tanks back in 1942, long before the Battle of Kursk. But when exactly and how? Here, despite the abundance of memoirs and eyewitness accounts, there is still a lot that is unclear and mysterious.
In the book "Chronicle of the Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant" - he produced our heavy tanks during the war - it is said that the meeting of designers, which featured the first data on the "tigers", took place in the fall of 1942. The exact date has not been specified, the source of so valuable and, most importantly, the first information about the plans of the Krupp engineer Ferdinand Porsche, the chief designer of the armored beast, is also not named.
However, some of the historians hint that in October 1942 in Germany, in the vicinity of the small town of Yuteborg, the Nazis filmed a propaganda documentary that captured the "invulnerability" of their novelty - "tigers". Anti-tank and field artillery fired at prototypes of these machines, and they, as if nothing had happened, crushed the guns with tracks. The text that accompanied these shots inspired the idea of the invincibility of the "tigers" and the futility of fighting them.
Did the Soviet command know about the film even before the appearance of new tanks at the front? It's hard to say, because it could well have been captured much later as a trophy document … And how can one judge the tactical and technical characteristics of a new weapon from a propaganda film?
A more reliable source of information about the "tigers" is likely to be the usual front-line reports. The fact is that on August 23, 1942, a meeting was held at Hitler's headquarters, at which the actions of the German troops to capture Leningrad were discussed. Among other things, the Fuhrer then said: “I am very concerned about the actions of the Soviets in connection with the attack on Leningrad. The preparation cannot remain unknown. The reaction may be fierce resistance on the Volkhov front … This front must be held under all circumstances. Tanks "tiger", which the army group will receive at first nine, are suitable to eliminate any tank breakthrough."
While this meeting was going on, at the Krupp plant, the best craftsmen were assembling the first, still prototypes of Ferdinand Porsche's cars, by screw. Albert Speer, the former Minister of Armaments of the Third Reich, told in his memoirs about what happened next:
As a result, when the "tigers" launched the first attack, "the Russians calmly let the tanks past the battery, and then hit the less protected sides of the first and last" tigers "with precise hits. The other four tanks could not move forward or backward and were soon also hit. It was a complete failure …"
Naturally, the Hitlerite general does not name the main characters in this story from our side - he simply did not know them. The most interesting thing is that this episode was mentioned rather sparingly for a long time in our press.
We find evidence of this in the memoirs of Marshals of the Soviet Union G. K. Zhukov and K. A. Meretskov, Marshal of Artillery G. F. Odintsov, Colonel General V. Z. Romanovsky. As far as can be judged from the descriptions, we are not always talking about the same episode, but all memoirists attribute the cases of the capture of the "tigers" to January 1943.
The secret was more or less fully revealed in his memoirs only by Marshal G. K. Zhukov, who at that time coordinated the actions of the Leningrad and Volkhov fronts to break the blockade of Leningrad:
Another thing was discovered. The turret of this baggy machine, with its predatory cannon trunk, turned slowly. And our tankers were given the following recommendation in advance: as soon as the armored "beast" gives a sighting shot, immediately make a sharp maneuver and, while the German gunner is turning the turret, hit the "tiger". This is exactly what the crews of nimble thirty-fours did later, and, surprisingly, these medium tanks often came out victorious in fights with heavy 55 ton "tigers".
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And yet, who were those brave artillerymen who, as Speer writes, “with complete calmness let the tanks pass by the battery,” and then set them on fire with precise hits? Where, on what sector of the front did this happen? And when?
The answer to these questions, oddly enough, was given by Marshal Guderian in his book "Memories of a Soldier". The book of the German general is distinguished by an abundance of technical information, scrupulousness, even pedantry. And this is what he writes:
So, it turns out that Zhukov was mistaken: the first battle with the "tigers" took place six months before they appeared in the area of Rabochie settlements.
And now let's try to answer another question - when did the "tigers" appear at the front? For this purpose, let us turn to the book "Tiger". The History of Legendary Weapons ", recently published in Germany, more precisely, to the chapter" Four Tiger Tanks on the Northern Front ".
It turns out that the first supertanks were sent by the Wehrmacht command in 1942 to Leningrad. Unloaded on August 23 at the Mga station, four vehicles entered the disposal of the 502nd heavy tank battalion, which received the order to attack the units of the Red Army. In the area of the village of Sinyavino, they fired at a Soviet reconnaissance detachment from a long distance, but they themselves came under artillery fire. After that, the "Tigers" split up to go around a small hill, but one stopped due to a breakdown in the gearbox, then the engine of the second and the final drive of the third failed. They were evacuated only at nightfall.
By September 15, after the aircraft had delivered spare parts, all the Tigers had regained combat capability. Reinforced by several T III tanks, they were supposed to strike at the village of Gaitolovo, moving through a wooded swampy area.
At dawn on September 22, the "tigers", accompanied by one T III, moved along a narrow dam that passed through the swamp. They did not have time to pass even a few hundred meters, as T III was hit and caught fire. The company commander's "tiger" was shot down behind him. The engine stalled, and the crew hastily abandoned the fired vehicle. The rest of the heavy tanks were also knocked out, and the head was bogged down in a swamp by the whole corps. It was impossible to pull him out under Soviet artillery fire. Upon learning of this, Hitler demanded that the secret weapons of the Wehrmacht in no case fall into the hands of the Russians.
And this order was carried out. Two days later, the soldiers removed the optical, electrical and other equipment from the tank, cut off the gun with an autogenous gun, and blew up the hull.
So our first chance to get acquainted with the new weapon in detail was still missed. And only in January 1943, when the Soviet troops tried to break through the blockade of Leningrad, the soldiers of the 86th tank brigade discovered between the workers' settlements No. 5 and 6 an unknown tank that had been knocked out and remained in a no-man's land. Upon learning of this, the command of the Volkhov Front and the representative of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command, General of the Army G. K. Zhukov, ordered the creation of a special group, headed by Senior Lieutenant A. I. Kosarev. On the night of January 17, having previously neutralized a land mine planted in the engine compartment, our soldiers took possession of this vehicle. Subsequently, the "tiger" was subjected to shelling from guns of various calibers at the range in order to identify its vulnerable spots.
And the names of those heroes who prudently let the tanks pass and hit them on the sides remain unknown to this day.
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Realizing that the "tigers" can no longer be called a "miracle weapon", Ferdinand Porsche and his associates - among them Erwin Aders - decided to create a new "supertank".
From 1936 until the end of World War II, Aders served as Head of New Development at Henschel & Son in Kassel. In 1937, he left the design of steam locomotives, aircraft and crane equipment to lead the design of the heavy breakthrough tank DW 1, and the following year - its improved version DW 11, which was adopted as the basis for the new 30 ton machine VK 3001 (H).
At the beginning of 1940, its chassis was tested, and a few months later the entire car, albeit without weapons. The firm was then instructed to create a heavier T VII tank, weighing up to 65 tons. Unexpectedly, the Wehrmacht's armament department changed the task - the new car was supposed to have a mass of no more than 36 tons when booking up to 100 millimeters. It was supposed to equip it with a 75-55 millimeter cannon with a tapered barrel bore, which made it possible to obtain a high muzzle velocity. At the same time, another version of the armament was envisaged - an 88 mm anti-aircraft gun, converted into a tank turret.
On May 26, 1941, the Armaments Directorate gave Henschel another order, this time for a 45-ton ViK 4501 tank, duplicating the order with a similar order to the F. Porsche design bureau. Competitors had to submit their vehicles for testing by mid-1942. There was little time left, and both designers decided to use all the best that was in the samples they had created earlier.
The selection committee gave preference to the Aders car, which received the official designation T VI "tiger" model H (special car 181). The second, rejected sample of the heavy tank was called the T VI "tiger" (Porsche), which, apparently, caused confusion with authorship - all the "tigers" were often attributed to the Austrian.
The Porsche Tiger had the same combat weight, armor and armament as the Aders' Tiger, but differed in its transmission: it was electric, not mechanical, which was used by the Henschel company. Two Porsche air-cooled gasoline engines powered two generators, and the current they generated was fed to traction motors, one for each track.
Porsche did not take into account that warring Germany is experiencing a shortage of copper, necessary for electric transmission, and the engine itself has not yet been mastered by industry. Therefore, the five "tigers" of the Austrian designer, built in July 1942, were used only for training tankers.
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While the development of the "tigers" was underway, the Wehrmacht command decided to put on a self-propelled chassis a new 88 mm anti-tank gun, which was distinguished by a large mass (more than 4 tons) and therefore poor maneuverability. An attempt to mount it on the chassis of a T IV medium tank was unsuccessful. Then they remembered about the "tiger" Porsche, which they decided to equip with liquid-cooled engines "Maybach" with a capacity of 300 horsepower. Without waiting for the test results, on February 6, 1943, the Wehrmacht ordered 90 self-propelled guns "elephant" (elephant) or "tiger" Porsche - "elephant", better known on our front under the name "Ferdinand".
"Elephant" was intended to fight tanks at a distance of 2000 meters or more, because of which it was not equipped with machine guns, which was a gross miscalculation. As part of the 653rd and 654th battalions of tank destroyers "elephanta" took part in the battles on the northern face of the Kursk Bulge, where they suffered heavy losses. Once again they tried to try their hand in the Zhitomir area, after which the surviving vehicles were considered for the benefit of being transferred to the Italian front.
Well, what happened to Aders' "tiger"? The first eight machines were manufactured in August 1942, and in just two years (according to German sources) 1,348 "tigers" were produced (including several dozen machines in 1943 were produced by the "Wegmann" company).
In 1942–1943, the Tiger was considered the heaviest battle tank in the world. He also had many shortcomings, in particular, poor cross-country ability. Unlike other German tanks, the Tiger had no modifications, although in 1944 it changed its name to T VIE, and during the production process its engine, commander's cupola and road wheels were unified with the Panther and a new air filter system was installed. From the very beginning, the Wehrmacht command sought to equip the Tiger with an 88 mm 71 caliber cannon, and in August 1942, the Armaments Directorate developed a specification for a new tank with such a gun and with an inclined arrangement of armor plates - as on our T 34.
In January 1943, Aders and Porsche received an order for a tank with 150mm frontal armor. Porsche did it simply by remaking his "tiger", but his project was rejected. Then the stubborn designer proposed another version of the combat vehicle, which was initially approved. Moreover, Wegmann was even offered to develop a new tower for it, but since Porsche still insisted on the use of electric transmission, his brainchild was again given up.
The military also rejected the first draft of the improved "tiger" Aders. The second version, in fact a new car, was adopted in 1943, assigning it the designation T VIB "royal tiger". The company "Henschel" began to produce it in January 1944 and managed to create 485 vehicles before the end of the war. Sometimes the "royal tiger" was called a hybrid of "panther" (hull shape, engine, road wheels) and "elephanta" (88 mm cannon).
Our story would be incomplete without mentioning "Sturmtiger" and "Jagdtiger". The first was the result of the conversion of the T VIH into a fully armored self-propelled gun with a 380 mm gun, at the same time playing the role of a launcher for rockets. A total of 18 of them were produced in the fall of 1944. The order for the anti-tank self-propelled gun "jagdtigr" (based on the "royal tiger"), armed with a 128 millimeter cannon, was issued at the beginning of 1943, and until the end of the war the Wehrmacht received 71 combat vehicles of this type, considered the heaviest of all that ever entered the field battle. The thickness of her frontal armor reached 250 millimeters!
All these tricks, however, did not help the Nazis to win the Kursk Bulge. For 50 days of battle in the course of three operations - defensive Kursk (July 5-23) and offensive Orel (July 12 - August 18) and Belgorod Kharkov (August 3-23), our troops killed the entire "menagerie".
But considerable forces were gathered there. Each of the 12 tank divisions of the Wehrmacht numbered from 75 to 136 vehicles. These were mainly medium T IV and, to a lesser extent, T III, with about a third - namely, tanks with 50 and 75 mm short-barreled cannons - were considered obsolete.
The Ferdinand tank destroyer was considered new; the Broomber 150mm assault gun based on the T IV; anti-tank self-propelled gun "Marder III" based on the Czech TNHP tank; 88 mm Nashorn; self-propelled guns with field artillery systems of 150 mm caliber - Vespe howitzer, TNHP-based gun and Nashorn-based howitzer; as well as modifications of the main tanks T IIIM and T TVG.
However, in the memory of veterans, the Battle of Kursk is associated with the names of three formidable combat vehicles: "Tiger", "Panther" and "Ferdinand". What was their number? What were they like?
Back in the early 1930s, the creator of the Wehrmacht armored forces G. Guderian proposed to equip them with two types of tanks: relatively light, with an anti-tank gun, and medium, designed for direct artillery support of the advancing infantry. Experts believed that a 37 millimeter cannon was enough to effectively defeat enemy anti-personnel and anti-tank weapons. Guderian insisted on a caliber of 50 millimeters. And subsequent battles showed that he was right.
Nevertheless, when the T III tank was ordered by Daimler Benz and the latter began their mass production in December 1938, the first samples were equipped with a 37 mm cannon. But already the experience of battles in Poland showed the obvious weakness of weapons, and from April of the next year, the T III began to be equipped with a 50 mm cannon with a 42-caliber barrel. But against Soviet tanks, and she was powerless. From December 1941, the troops began to receive the T III with a 50 mm cannon, the barrel of which was lengthened to 50 calibers.
In the Battle of Kursk, 1342 T IIIs with such guns took part, however, they also proved to be ineffective against our T 34 and KV. Then the Nazis had to urgently install 75 mm guns with a barrel length of 24 caliber; it was also used in the early T IV versions.
The T IIIN tank performed the task of artillery escort thanks to even more powerful artillery weapons. A company of "tigers" relied on 10 of these machines. In total, 155 of these tanks participated in the Battle of Kursk.
The medium 18–20 ton T IV tank was developed in 1937 by the Krupp company. At first, these tanks were equipped with a 75 mm short-barreled cannon, protected with 15 mm, and then with 30 and 20 mm armor. But when their helplessness in battles with Soviet tanks was revealed on the eastern front, in March 1942, modifications appeared with a cannon, whose barrel length reached 48 calibers. Using the screening method, the thickness of the frontal armor was brought to 80 millimeters. Thus, it was possible to equate the T IV with its main enemy, the T 34, in terms of armament and protection. The new German anti-tank gun, equipped with a specially designed sub-caliber projectile, surpassed in armor-piercing the 76.2 mm F 32, F 34 ZIS 5 and ZIS Z guns, which were armed with our T-34s, KB, KV 1S and Su 76 By the beginning of the Citadel, the Germans had 841 T IVs with such a long-barreled cannon, which led to heavy losses of our armored vehicles.
Assessing the merits of the T 34, the German generals offered to copy it. However, the designers did not obey them and went their own way, taking as a basis the shape of the hull with large angles of inclination of the armor plates. Specialists from Daimler Benz and MAN worked on the new tank, but if the former proposed a vehicle that resembled the T 34 both externally and layout, the latter remained faithful to the German model - the engine in the back, the transmission in front, the turret with weapons between them. The undercarriage consisted of 8 large road wheels with double torsion bar suspension, staggered to ensure even pressure distribution on the tracks.
A gun specially developed by the Rheinmetall company with a barrel of 70 calibers and a high muzzle velocity of an armor-piercing projectile was a masterpiece of artillery work; the tower had a polyk rotating with it, which facilitated the work of the loader. After the shot, before opening the bolt, the barrel was purged with compressed air, the spent cartridge case fell into a closable pencil case, where powder gases were removed from it.
This is how the T V tank appeared - the famous "panther", on which a two-line gear and rotation mechanism was also used. This increased the maneuverability of the machine, and the hydraulic drives made it much easier to control.
From August 1943, the Germans began to produce T VA tanks with an improved commander's cupola, reinforced chassis and 110 mm turret armor. From March 1944 until the end of the war, the T VG tank was produced, on which the thickness of the upper side armor was brought to 50 millimeters and the driver's inspection hatch was removed from the front plate. Thanks to a powerful cannon with an excellent optical device, the "Panther" successfully fought tanks at a distance of 1500-2000 meters.
It was the best tank in the Wehrmacht. In total, about 6,000 "panthers" were manufactured, including 850 T VDs from January to September 1943. A commander's version was produced, on which, having reduced the ammunition load to 64 shots, a second radio station was placed. On the basis of the "Panther" they also made repair and recovery vehicles, which instead of a tower were equipped with a cargo platform and a winch.
On the Kursk Bulge fought "Panthers" T VD with a combat weight of 43 tons.
In June 1941, as we already know, Germany did not have heavy tanks, although work on them began back in 1938. Having "got acquainted" with our KB, the company "Henschel and Son" (leading designer E. Aders) and the famous designer F. Porsche accelerated the development and in April 1942 presented their products for testing. Aders' car was recognized as the best, and the Henschel plant began production of the T VIH Tiger, having produced 84 tanks by the end of the year, and 647 tanks the next year.
The Tiger was armed with a powerful new 88 mm cannon, converted from an anti-aircraft gun. The armor was also very solid, but the frontal armor plates did not have rational angles of inclination. However, the case with vertical walls was quickly assembled during production. In the undercarriage, large-diameter road wheels with an individual torsion bar suspension were used, located, like the Panther, in a checkerboard pattern to improve cross-country ability. For the same purpose, the tracks were made very wide - 720 millimeters. The tank turned out to be overweight, but thanks to a shaftless gearbox, planetary swing mechanisms with a double power supply and a semi-automatic hydraulic servo drive, it was easy to control: no effort or high qualification was required from the driver. Several hundred of the first machines were equipped with equipment for overcoming water obstacles along the bottom at a depth of 4 meters. The disadvantage of the "tiger" was the relatively low speed and power reserve.
In August 1944, the production of the T VIH was completed. A total of 1,354 vehicles were manufactured. During the production process, the commander's cupola was unified with the one on the "Panther", rollers with internal shock absorption and a new engine were used. A commander's version was also produced - with an additional radio station and ammunition reduced to 66 rounds.
Before participating in the Citadel, the Tigers had been in battles several times: on January 8, 1943, a company of 9 vehicles was sent on an offensive on the Kuberle River in an attempt to unblock the 6th Army encircled in Stalingrad; in February of the same year, the British met 30 "tigers" in Tunisia; in March, three companies went to battle near Izium.
The idea to support the infantry with mobile artillery was realized in 1940 with the creation of the StuG75 assault guns. They were produced on the basis of the T III and T IV and, in fact, were fully armored 19.6 ton reckless tanks with a short-barreled 75 mm cannon installed in the wheelhouse, as on the earlier T IV modifications. However, they soon had to be re-equipped with long-barreled cannons of the same caliber to fight enemy tanks. Although the new guns retained their name and belonging to artillery, they were increasingly used as anti-tank guns. As the modernization increased, the armor protection was increased, the vehicles became heavier.
Since October 1942, 105 mm StuH42 assault guns with a combat weight of 24 tons have been produced at the same base, assembled as StuG75. The rest of the characteristics were about the same. StuH42 participated in the Battle of Kursk.
On the basis of the T IV, the production of the Broomber assault tanks was launched. 44 of these vehicles in the 216th assault tank battalion went into battle on the "arc of fire".
The first special anti-tank self-propelled guns of the open type were the "Marder II" and "Marder III". They were manufactured from the spring of 1942 on the basis of T II and captured Czech tanks and equipped with 75 mm or 76, 2 mm captured Soviet cannons, which were mounted in an open top and stern thin-armored wheelhouse and therefore resembled our SU 76.
Since February 1943, on the basis of the T II, a 105 mm Vespe self-propelled howitzer similar to the "marders" has been produced.
In 1940-1941, Alquette developed a chassis for assault guns on a slightly lengthened T IV base (running gear, drive wheel, sloth) using a transmission, final drives and T III tracks. It was decided to install an anti-tank 88 mm gun, like on the Elephant, or a 150 mm howitzer with a 30-caliber barrel. The engine in the block with the gearbox was moved forward, the fighting compartment was moved to the stern. The gun servants in front, on the sides and partially in the back were protected by 10 mm armor shields. The driver was located in the armored room in front of the left.
88 mm self-propelled gun "Nashorn" ("rhino") entered the army in February 1943; until the end of the war, 494 units were produced. For anti-tank warfare, its armor was insufficient, and the vehicle was too high. On the southern face of the Kursk salient, 46 Naskhorns fought as part of the 655th heavy tank destroyer battalion.
The 150 mm self-propelled gun "Hummel" ("Bumblebee") was produced in 1943-1944. A total of 714 cars were produced. Its high-explosive projectile weighing 43.5 kilograms hit targets at a distance of up to 13,300 meters.
Self-propelled guns were listed in the artillery regiments of tank divisions, 6 each in a heavy battery of self-propelled howitzers.
In addition to them, the Wehrmacht was armed with 12 ton infantry guns of 150 mm caliber based on 38 (t).
In the spring of 1943, 100 vehicles were built on the basis of the T III, in which the cannon was replaced with a flamethrower that threw a combustible mixture at a distance of up to 60 meters. 41 of them operated on the southern flank of the Kursk Bulge.
At the beginning of World War II, the Zündapp company produced a tracked vehicle, which was called a “light cargo transporter”. Of course, she had nothing to do with this name. It was a wedge heel about 60 centimeters high. Despite the absence of a driver, the car maneuvered across a dug field, drove around craters, overcame trenches. The secret turned out to be simple: there was still a driver, but he was driving the car from a distance, being in a carefully camouflaged trench. And his commands were transmitted to the wedge heel by wire. The vehicle was intended to undermine pillboxes and other fortifications of the Maginot Line and was completely filled with explosives.
Our soldiers encountered an improved version of the "land torpedo" during the battles on the Kursk Bulge. Then she was named "Goliath" in honor of the biblical hero, who was distinguished by tremendous physical strength. However, the mechanical "goliath" turned out to be as vulnerable as the legendary hero. A blow with a knife or a sapper's shovel on the wire, and the slow-moving machine became the prey of the daredevil. In their spare moment, our soldiers sometimes sat astride the captured "miracle weapon" as if on a sled and rolled it out, holding the control panel in their hands.
In 1944, a "special machine 304" appeared, this time controlled by radio, with another encrypted name "Springer" ("Chess Knight"). This "horse" carried 330 kilograms of explosives and was to be used, like the "Goliath", to undermine Soviet minefields. However, the Nazis did not have time to launch the serial production of these machines - the war came to an end.
In 1939, the first prototype of a four-axle truck drove into the water, and in 1942 the first amphibious armored car "Turtle" sailed. But their number was not in any way significant. But the imagination of the designers continued to seethe.
When the war was already drawing to a close, another vehicle entered the secret tests. On its relatively short tracks, a 14-meter cigar-shaped body towered. It turns out that it was a hybrid of a tank and an ultra-small submarine. It was intended for the transfer of saboteurs. They called him "Seeteuffel", that is, "Monkfish".
The car was supposed to slide into the sea under its own power, dive, secretly get close to the enemy's coast, get out in a convenient place on land and land a spy. The design speed is 8 kilometers per hour on land and 10 knots in the water. Like many German tanks, the "Sea Devil" turned out to be inactive. The ground pressure was so great that on soft muddy soil the car became helpless. This "amphibious" creation fully reflected the absurdity of both the technical idea itself and the sabotage method of fighting "from around the corner" to which the Nazis decided to resort at the end of the war.
The supertank project created by Porsche during the implementation of the top-secret "Project 201" turned out to be no better. When a bulky monster was rolled out to the Kummersdorf test site near Berlin … in a wooden design, Porsche, apparently realizing that the factories, overloaded with the implementation of current programs, would not accept for serial production this elephant-like lump, named for conspiracy purposes "Mouse" ("Mouse"), made a "knight's move" - he invited Hitler to the training ground, with whom he was in close relations. The Fuhrer was delighted with the new venture of the "father of German tanks."
Now everyone was in favor, and only in June 1944 two prototypes were built: "Mouse A" and "Mouse B" weighing 188 and 189 tons, respectively. The frontal armor of the giants reached 350 millimeters, and the maximum speed did not exceed 20 kilometers per hour.
It was not possible to organize the serial production of "supermice". The war was coming to an end, the Reich was bursting at all the seams. The ridiculous miracle of tanks did not even deliver to the front line, they were so huge and heavy. Even the "honorable mission" entrusted to them - to protect the Reich Chancellery in Berlin and the headquarters of the ground forces near Zossen - they did not fulfill.
