Fahrpanzer
The Fahrpanzer was a mobile artillery piece that was manufactured in Germany before the First World War . From 1890 it was used in German border fortresses and exported to various countries.
history
The Fahrpanzer is the transportable variant of an armored turret . Armored turrets are rotatably mounted on a ball bearing ring and cover a field of fire of up to 360 degrees. Maximilian Schumann and Hermann Gruson revised the armored turrets, which had been tried and tested for installation on a ship's deck or for coastal defense, for use by the land forces and developed them into the armored carriage from 1878 (Schumann).
Further successor designs then led to the design of a movable (Schumann and Gruson), dismountable armored turret for a 12 cm howitzer as well as a mobile armored mount (called Fahrpanzer for short) for a 5.3 cm rapid fire cannon caliber length L / 25. These guns were then used in the Sereth line in Romania .
Schumann's mushroom tower, which was developed in 1878, was used in all modern German tank fortifications and batteries as the "Krupp-Gruson tank tower" after Friedrich Krupp AG took over Grusonwerk AG Buckau in Magdeburg . Schumann also worked as a consultant in Italy, Switzerland and Romania.
The Fahrpanzer was used in Switzerland under the designation 5.3 cm cannon 1887 L / 24 in the Gotthard area ( Fort Hospiz , Forte Airolo , Stöckli ) and St. Maurice ( Dailly ). Shooting continued in Dailly until 1947, when shooting was banned because of a gun bolt.
For a long time it was believed that the only surviving specimen was in the possession of the Army Museum in Brussels , until photos of restored armored vehicles appeared from Greece, Switzerland and South America. There is also a restored copy in the museum grounds of the Kaiser Wilhelm II festivals .
Main ingredients
The bogie or pivot was in two parts and consisted of the cylindrical armor and the armored dome.
The carriage or frame of the armored vehicle had a round base plate on which a cylindrical armor was riveted. The armor was provided with a double door. The base plate was reinforced with profile iron, which rested on two axles provided with track rollers. The armor rotated on the track plate, sliding against the upper surface of the ring gear. It was broadly expanded to improve the gun's standing when shooting. The armored dome turned with the armor and carried the actual mount and barrel.
crew
All Fahrpanzer were fully armored and were operated by a two-man crew. They were brought into position and ammunitioned either by the crew or by a team outside the driving tank.
The Fahrpanzer could not move independently, as the original design intended, but could only be guided from the outside.
The lack of self-propulsion and self-ammunition capabilities put the crew in danger, forcing them to leave the protective armor.
Use in the fortress gun post
The Fahrpanzer was designed so that it could be driven to the battle position on 60 cm narrow-gauge railroad tracks. When not in use, it could be withdrawn from the danger zone.
mobility
Since artillery pieces of all kinds were in short supply during the First World War, the Germans removed many armored vehicles from their fortresses, moved them to the front lines and installed them in trenches.
They had special driving devices for road transport and were pulled by horse and cart. All export models were sold with such driving systems, which apparently were never dismantled during their military career.
Armament and firing
The armament consisted of a 5.3 cm rapid-fire Gruson cannon in a tank turret that could be rotated through 360 degrees and had an elevation range of +10 and −5 degrees. The cannon could fire a 1.75 kg shell with a muzzle velocity of 495 m / s and a maximum of 30 shells per minute. The ammunition was fed to her by the two-man crew, which was completely protected by the armor. The firing shook the Fahrpanzer so badly that the aiming accuracy often suffered.
Variants of the cannon barrel insert
The 5.3 cm pipe was used in addition to the Fahrpanzer in three other ways:
- Versenkpanzerturm: This type of mount consisted of a gun room and a counterweight room to raise the turret into the firing position. The armored cover and the ring were retractable, and a walled-in hard cast armor protected the position.
- Casemate cannon: The 5.3 cm barrels were placed on casemate mounts that resembled those of the 8.4 cm caponier cannon.
- Stand mount : A more modern type of mount that was used was the (stand) mount manufactured by Sulzer .
Further developments
It is not clear whether Fahrpanzer were later retrofitted so that they could drive themselves. A contemporary illustration shows remote-controlled mobile tanks armed with machine guns in trench warfare, but there is no evidence that this idea was further developed beyond the conceptual phase. Such a further development of the driving tanks was overtaken by the development of tanks operating autonomously on the battlefield .
Technical specifications
- Tube: caliber 5.3 cm
- Manufacturer: Krupp-Gruson
- Tube length: 1302 mm
- Closure: vertical wedge closure
- Weight tube and cap: 144 kg
- Shot rate: 20-30 rounds / minute
- Muzzle velocity: 447 m / s
- Firing range grenades : 3200 m at 1.63 kg
- Firing range of grapes : 400 m at 1.88 kg
- Firing range shrapnel : 3000 m at 1.63 kg
- Directional range height: −14 / + 15 degrees
- Swivel range : 360 degrees
literature
- Maximilian Schumann (engineer officer, inventor): The importance of rotating artillery tanks (tank launches) for permanent attachment . 2 volumes, Potsdam 1885
- Julius von Schütz (engineer of the Gruson works): The tank launches on the shooting ranges of the Gruson works near Magdeburg-Buckau and Tangermünde . Second completed edition in 1889
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Matador Model's 1/76 Gruson 5.3cm L / 24 Fahrpanzer - page at Landships ; As of June 5, 2011 (English)