Assault armored car Upper Silesia
| Assault armored car Upper Silesia | |
|---|---|
.png)
Drawing of an assault armored car Upper Silesia |
|
| General properties | |
| crew | 5 (commander, driver, gunner / loader, two machine gunner) |
| length | 6.7 m |
| width | 2.34 m |
| height | 2.97 m |
| Dimensions | 19 t |
| Armor and armament | |
| Armor | 14 mm |
| Main armament | 1 × 3.7 cm or 5.7 cm cannon |
| Secondary armament | 2 × MG 08 7.92 mm |
| agility | |
| drive |
132 kW (180 PS) |
| Top speed | 16 km / h (road) 9 km / h (terrain) |
| Power / weight | 7.0 kW / t (9.5 PS / t) |
| Range | ? km |
The Sturmpanzerwagen Oberschlesien was a German tank project from the First World War .
history
Towards the end of the First World War , the development of German armored vehicles moved more and more away from vehicles of the heaviest construction to mobile light assault armored vehicles. Their higher speed should not only enable these tanks to break through enemy lines, but also to take advantage of this breakthrough, since heavy tank types such as the German A7V and the British Mark IV were completely unsuitable for this task. In addition, a simple design and industrial production should enable mass production (the A7V was handcrafted).
A total of 13 companies applied to build this “assault armored car”. In the middle of 1918 the design of a captain Müller was selected and the Oberschlesische Hüttenwerke in Gleiwitz was commissioned to build two prototypes in October of that year . The project was given the code name Upper Silesia .
Neither the test models ordered nor the planned improvement "Oberschlesien II" were completed before the end of the war.
construction
The construction of the "Sturmpanzers Oberschlesien" contained features that were copied from tanks of the Entente :
- Driver in front
- Separation of fighting and rear engine compartments
- central arrangement of the rotating towers
- Circulation chain that did not take up the entire height of the vehicle
The 14 mm armor could withstand infantry fire and the armament with a 3.7 cm (or 5.7 cm) cannon in a turret and two 7.92 mm machine guns was sufficient to fight any potential enemy to be able to. However, the performance data of this tank were no better than those of the Entente tanks that were already mass-produced. The "Sturmpanzerwagen Oberschlesien" was inferior to the Renault FT, which was already in use in large numbers, in terms of planned armor and armament . Only in terms of speed (both off-road and on the road) could the Sturmpanzerwagen keep up with the Renault FT.
See also
literature
- Wolfgang Schneider, Rainer Strasheim: Waffen-Arsenal Volume 112. German combat vehicles in the First World War. Podzun-Pallas Verlag, 1988, ISBN 3-7909-0337-X .