*
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
March 28, 2024, 01:06:51 PM

Login with username, password and session length

Donate

We Appreciate Your Support

Members
Stats
  • Total Posts: 1686482
  • Total Topics: 118102
  • Online Today: 857
  • Online Ever: 2235
  • (October 29, 2023, 12:32:45 AM)
Users Online

Recent

Author Topic: Mauser Tank Gewehr vs. British Tanks  (Read 1090 times)

Offline Metternich

  • Scatterbrained Genius
  • Posts: 2559

Offline monk2002uk

  • Mad Scientist
  • Posts: 727
Re: Mauser Tank Gewehr vs. British Tanks
« Reply #1 on: December 24, 2017, 06:59:20 AM »
Here is an anecdotal account from a British tank. It is a quote in 'Band of Brigands' from an action that took place on 23 August 1918. This was 15 days after the opening of the Battle of Amiens, when the British Third Army took the lead in the rolling series of battles that characterised the last 100 days:

'[2/Lt] Bell's tank had not proceeded very far before a bullet struck the right-hand sponson severely wounding the gunner. He immediately jumped out and nothing more was ever seen of him afterwards. Several more bullets struck the tank and two more gunners were hit. The anti-tank rifle was spotted by the man who had taken the 6-pdr gunner's place. He immediately layed the gun and fired, blowing the rifleman and all his gear to smitherens. [Another rifle opens up with AP rounds which] penetrated the cast-iron cylinder of the water jacket pouring out boiling hot steam.

Another pierced the front cab and wounded the hotchkiss gunners. There were now only three effective men in the crew; the engine would be too hot to run, so Bell started to return. Armour-piercing bullets still struck and penetrated the tank but so far the driver had escaped. After about 150 yards the engine seized up...'

This is an indication of how T-Gewehre operated as teams. A gun was relatively easy to spot when it fired.

Robert

Offline monk2002uk

  • Mad Scientist
  • Posts: 727
Re: Mauser Tank Gewehr vs. British Tanks
« Reply #2 on: December 24, 2017, 07:01:59 AM »
This is taken from the journal 'Waffen Revue':

"In 1918, the German Lehr Infantry Regiment conducted live-firing tests with T-Gewehrs. A British heavy tank was used as the target. On 25.9.1918, Army Group Crown Prince presented a report of the results to OHL:

1) All 4 shots at the fuel tank, which struck at an angle of around 60°, richocheted away. The tank would have remained battleworthy.

2) Four rounds were fired at the door, observations slits and MG port in the sponson from a range of 300 m, impacting at an angle of 45°. One round penetrated and the rest richocheted away. The tank would have been capable of moving and fighting.

3) Four shots were fired as described in 2) but impacted at an angle of about 90° from a range of 200 m; one shot penetrated, one bounced off, and two missed. The tank would have remained battleworthy and would have only become incapacitated by severe damage to the engine.

4) All 3 shots fired from 100 m penetrated the targets described in 2). A tank crewman operating the machine gun or main gun would have been injured or killed and the engine damaged. The tank could possibly have been incapacitated.

5) Three shots fired at observation slits and gun ports from an angle of about 75° and a range of 100m resulted in one round passing through the open gun port, a ricochet and a miss. The first shot would have knocked out the machine gun, injured or killed the gunner, or damaged the engine. The tank would eventually have become immobile."

The evidence showed that a gunner had to be relatively close to a tank in order to maximise the chance of causing damage but this increased the risk of being spotted.

Robert

Offline Metternich

  • Scatterbrained Genius
  • Posts: 2559
Re: Mauser Tank Gewehr vs. British Tanks
« Reply #3 on: December 24, 2017, 08:14:49 PM »
And a tank is not a "big game animal" - one penetrating round from a solid slug with no HE would not do significant damage.  As you noted Robert, unless the gunner was lucky enough to put a round into a critical element, there probably would be either no effect or a single crewman killed/wounded (which would not put a larger tank, such as the Mark 1 and its progeny, out of action). 

 

Related Topics

  Subject / Started by Replies Last post
1 Replies
1143 Views
Last post September 26, 2011, 11:53:23 PM
by Calimero
5 Replies
1849 Views
Last post December 01, 2011, 10:01:17 AM
by Capt. E.W. Brimmage
41 Replies
10355 Views
Last post July 04, 2016, 07:36:57 PM
by nic-e
13 Replies
3102 Views
Last post July 15, 2016, 11:56:56 PM
by Hydra
4 Replies
773 Views
Last post October 28, 2020, 02:27:59 PM
by TheDilfy