- Chapter 22 -
The Contemporary View No. 21 is an article on enemy vehicles tested at the Aberdeen Ordnance Research Centre from the January 21st, 1944 issue of Yank. The cover is an image of German Tiger I tank from the 1.Ko. of s.Pz.Abt. 504 which was captured by Allied forces in Tunisia.
The US Army did little to prepare for combat against the Tiger despite their assessment that the newly-encountered German tank was superior to their own. This conclusion was partly based on the correct estimate that the Tiger would be encountered in relatively small numbers. Later in the war, the Tiger could be penetrated at short range by tanks and tank destroyers equipped with the 76mm gun M1 when firing HVAP rounds, and at long range with the M2/M3 90mm AA/AT gun firing HVAP, and the M36 tank destroyer and M26 Pershing by the end of the war.
A Tiger I laden with grenadiers moves up towards the front during January 1944.
THE CONTEMPORARY VIEW NO. 21
ENEMY VEHICLES FROM ‘YANK’
At Aberdeen’s Ordnance Research Centre, inquisitive experts finds what makes an Axis vehicle tick, and their tests produce facts worth remembering.
By Sgt. MACK MORRISS and Sgt. RALPH STEIN, YANK Staff Correspondents
ABERDEEN, MD.
This extract is taken from Yank magazine
The first thing you learn at the Foreign Material outfit here is never, ever, to call a Nazi tank a “Mark Six” or a “Mark Four.” The correct designation is Pz. Kw. VI or Pz. Kw. IV. “Mark” is a British way of saying model, whereas Pz. Kw. means what it says: Panzer Kampfwagen, or armoured battlewagon.
For more than a year captured enemy vehicles have been arriving here from every battle front on earth. The first was a half-track prime mover that came in sections and required three months of trial-and-error tinkering to be completely reconstructed. Missing parts, which were requisitioned from North Africa, never arrived; mechanics in the Base Shop section made their own.
The worst headache for repair crews here is the difference in measurement caused by the European metric system. Nothing manufactured in the U.S. will fit anything in a Nazi machine unless it is made to fit. In reconstructing the captured stuff, it has sometimes been necessary to combine the salvaged parts of two or three vehicles in order to put one in running order. The mechanics have made their own pistons or recut foreign pistons to take American piston rings; they’ve cut new gears; they’ve had to retap holes so that American screws will fit them.
Changing the huge front sprocket on the Tiger I was a regular job as the sprocket itself was set too low to the ground without much clearance and as a result was frequently damaged by obstacles.
Specially assigned recovery crews, ordnance men trained to know and work with enemy material, roam the battlefields of the world to collect the captured rolling stock, which is being accumulated here. It arrives with the dust of its respective theatre still on it, plus the names and addresses of GIs who scratch “Bizerte” or “Attu” or “Buna Mission” in big letters on the paint.
Generally speaking, ordnance experts here have found German stuff exceptionally well made in its vital mechanisms, whereas the less essential parts are comparatively cheap. The motor of a Nazi personnel carrier, for example, is a well-built affair, while the body of the vehicle is little more than scrap tin. Japanese pieces of equipment for the most part are cheap imitations of American or British counterparts.
Tigers training in perfect conditions in Normandy during May 1944.
The engineers, who judge by the mass of detail employed in all German-built machines, are convinced that the Nazi idea has been to sacrifice speed for over-all performance and manoeuvrability. The German equipment, from the sleek motorcycle to the massive Pz. Kw. VI, is rugged.
The famous Tiger is the largest and heaviest German tank. Weighing 61 1/2 tons, it is propelled at a speed of from 15 to 18 miles an hour by a 600-to-650 horsepower Maybach V-12 cylinder engine. Maybach engines are used in many of the Nazi Panzer wagonen and in submarines. The Pz. Kw. VI has an armour thickness which ranges from 3 1/4 to 4 inches. An additional slab of steel mounted in conjunction with its 88mm forms frontal armour for the turret. Besides the long-barreled 88, it carries two MG34 (Model 1934) machine guns. Largest tank used in combat by any nation today, the Tiger is more than 20 feet long, about 11 3/4 feet wide and 9 3/4 feet high. It has a crew of five.
The reconnaissance element of a Tiger company had an equally difficult and dangerous job. This evocative study was taken in Russia during March 1944.