Pzkw Iv Ausf F2 Tank In North Africa

Discussion in 'North Africa & the Med' started by angie999, Jul 4, 2005.

  1. angie999

    angie999 Very Senior Member

    I am currently reading An Army at Dawn by Rick Atkinson, which is an account of the Operation Torch landings in North Africa in November 1942 and the subsequent campaign in Tunisia.

    One criticism which I have so far is that you would be hard put to it to realise just from this book that the British had been fighting a war in North Africa since 1940, that the Operation Torch landings actually took place just after el Alamein and that Rommel's Panzerarmee Afrika was in the process of being expelled from Libya and into Tunisia.

    American armoured forces in M3 Stuart light tanks first came up against the Pzkw IV Ausf F2 on 26 November 1942 with predictable results and Atkinson claims that this tank was unknown to Allied intelligence, an incredible assertion.

    The Panzerkampfwagon (Pzkw) III and IV had been the mainstays of German Panzer formations since the start of the war. They were often used in combination to deadly effect, the Pzkw III equipped with a high velocity 50mm gun with good armour piercing ability and the Pzkw IV with the short 75mm KwK 37 L/24 gun, not so good at defeating armour, but with a useful HE shell. The short 75mm gun was fitted to all models up to the Ausf F1, but when the Ausf F2 was introduced into service in 1942, it was filled with a high velocity gun, the 75mm KwK 40 (L/43). This gun was also fitted to the early production of the Ausf G model, but was later replaced with a longer (L/48) gun which remained standard for all later models.

    The Ausf F2 was issued to Panzerarmee Afrika some time before el Alamein in small numbers and became known to the British as the "Mk IV Special". It most certainly did not make its debut against the western Allies in late November 1942. So, if US forces did not know of its existence, there may well have been a communications failure rather than lack of intelligence.

    Can anyone throw any light on this?

    Notes on German nomenclature:

    1. Tanks: The German army had introduced six tank series into service by the end of WWII, from the very light Pzkw I to the Pzkw VI, the Tiger series, but many models (model = Ausfûhrung or Ausf.) were produced within each series.

    2. Tank guns were Kampfwagenkanonen (KwK). This was preceeded by the calibre in centimetres, although I have used milimetres which most people are more familiar with, and followed by the model number. Finally, the barrel length in calibres was given. Thus, L/43 means a length of 43 calibres, or 43 x 75mm = 3.225 metres, which is an internationally understood convention. It is a good rule of thumb to equate longer barrels with higher velocity.
     
  2. halfyank

    halfyank Member

    I haven't read the book, but it's one I plan on getting. It sounds like from your description of it, and your post on Historical Battles about the claim the Massachusetts having all duds, that the author might be a bit light on factual details. That doesn't always detract from a books value, as long as you're aware of it before excepting some things as gospel.
     
  3. angie999

    angie999 Very Senior Member

    Originally posted by halfyank@Jul 4 2005, 04:43 PM
    It sounds like from your description of it, and your post on Historical Battles about the claim the Massachusetts having all duds, that the author might be a bit light on factual details. [post=36126]Quoted post[/post]

    Actually, the book is packed with details, including quotes of converations which I bet were never recorded verbatim at the time and which should not be in quotation marks. My problem is what to believe.

    In the instance being discussed here, it is quite possible that the information in question had not made its way from the British 8th Army to the American armour landed in Torch, so it does not follow that he is totally wrong.

    Anyway, it was hardly the most powerful gun the Germans had. Later in the Tunisia campaign, a few Tigers would turn up with their 88mm guns and the Germans had been using their 88mm AAA in this role for a long time.
     

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