Maus, Ratte, p1500, big German Tanks etc.

Fruitcake of the Foul Temper! (there must be some Viking named like that )

It's not a matter of being corrected, there are a lot of more or less charitable myths around and the fact that most if not all have been debunked does not entail that everyone hears of it.

I'm not going to give myself the trouble to look up as I don't have the time, but I believe you would be interested to know that at the Falaise Gap among the carnage about one quarter of the tanks had been abandoned by their crews without a scratch - most others blown up by their own - so those rockets did have an indirect effect.

Now for motor- and horse-transport it is a different matter, we have somewhere here a thread on Falaise, in which Sapper gave his views as a eye-witness.


I really don't mind being corrected, Za. I got it wrong and now I know.

I do appreciate that a good number of the armoured vehicles in the Falaise Gap were abandoned by their crews - how much of that can be attributed to roving Allied 'Jabos', I think, can never be known!

I've spoken to a number of veterans who swear that the Tiffy's rocket backed punch was a significant contributor to defeating armour. I just assumed (wrongly) that they were accurate and devastating. It seems that the former is not correct and the latter is more psychological!

 

A mission kill is the result of an attack or damage inflicted by a weapon that does not destroy a military vehicle but results in it taking no further part in its intended mission.
If the Tiffy attack ends up with the panzer crew melting away in the landscape, the end result is the same

 

I have read that US pilots liked to get Tanks when they were on the road and deflect the .50 rounds up from the metaled road service into the under belly of the Panza.

Question did they ever use Napalm against tanks?

 

Za, interesting stats for the rocket firers.
I must say that any footage I have seen of them seems to show the rockets dropping short of what I would have thought was the target. Presumably pilots got used to this and adjusted accordingly but they do seem to be slightly inaccurate.
But devastating if on target.
Any views on this?

 

I have read that US pilots liked to get Tanks when they were on the road and deflect the .50 rounds up from the metaled road service into the under belly of the Panza.

Question did they ever use Napalm against tanks?

Dare I say that's another myth? I saw that particular one debunked elsewhere and I'd have little trouble tracing it, but basically if you're not shooting from the ground you have to have a very hard surface to ricochet, and then you have to ask yourself how effective will be a machine-gun bullet (Ball) already deformed and misaligned by the previous impact on said surface. Thirdly, you have to hit the sweet spot.

In short: bollocks

As for napalm, probably but I don't remember having seen anything on it in terms of specific damage. Napalm is a wide area weapon, so it would affect anything on its path. Ans a tank would have to have something combustible on the outside to burn, so I doubt the effectiveness.

But devastating if on target.
Any views on this?

If: the magic word If slap bang on an armoured target, yes, a 60lb will be fearful, but otherwise a near miss (very near miss) may damage suspension or yank an aerial or send a splinter into an optic.

Back on track - Maus in combat?
Still debated if I recall BoA, but there are some interesting photos of an example that possibly fired off a few rounds in the fighting around Kummersdorf.
I'll have to dig out some stuff to remind myself as I got/get very tired with Maus & 'Paper Panzer' talk in general. Will merge this onto the other Maus & Ratte threads.



Za, can you remember if we've got other threads on the effectiveness of Air-to-ground rockets against armour? as I know we've discussed 'em both before - might have been in another place though. Same for that KV holding up the bucketheads for so long, I know I've posted a more complete summary of what happened, but the mind's a blank.


Hard to say without some digging, these matters crop up everywhere from time to time! Especially with these online tank games I'll take a look sometime today.

Never sae this pic before, the Maus trying to catch catfish. What is the uniform of the guy in the left? Might be a clue.

 

The fighting around Kummersdorf would have made an interesting sight with all those tanks there for testing. Theres a few photos of allied tanks in Kummersdorf in April 1945, will have a goo around for them.

 

I was going to mention Jentz but you got there foist

I also have the Wladimir Trojca book, but I don't remember whether it's in Polish or in Engrish, I'll check later, but in any case I have an old wargames scenario involving a Maus but that was strictly an What-If scenario

 

I wonder if the Germans got a P1.500 on the battlefield if it would effect the war? I bet the Allies would send 200 B-17's to talke it out!

 

Adam,
From what I have read, there were only two examples at the proving ground under test and both were set with demolition charges and exploded in order to render them unuseable to the advancing Soviet Forces.

One tanks turret was left intact and the other tanks main body was also left intact.

There must not have been much time to render both totally userviceable as the Soviets mated up the two good parts and the result is the Kubinka Maus.

Regards
Tom

 

I wonder if the Germans got a P1.500 on the battlefield if it would effect the war? I bet the Allies would send 200 B-17's to talke it out!
Or they might send a lone Sherman with news of a bank full of gold. It worked for Sgt. Oddball once...

 

The originals are from the Sikorski Institute in London. However I bet they were copied from one of the Panzerwrecks series which was the first to publish them. I have looked through the 1944-45 images in the Sikorski Institute and what stood out for me was the number of dead Germans that were photographed!
It illustrates what I believe to be one of the greatest drawbacks to this internet age-the copying of a photo with a caption(at some time) that gets and re-posted without the original information. The wheel has to be constantly re-invented because of this crave for 'photos'. It may seem like a good idea to the poster but for the life of me I can not understand the mentality.

 

I think that the Germans might have tried to power the P100 with beer, considering how much they must have saved with alcohol tickets (1 per week so everyone wouldn't end up having a bit too much . Just like my friend Boris who cools his PC with Vodka while playing video games.

 

Nor I. Evidently taken at Krupp's proving range at Meppen.

Extract from 21AG AFV Technical Report No.25.

 

Rare detailed photographs of the "Maus" in Kubinka, 1998, published in Waffen-Journal nr 108