Tank factory
A tank factory (also Panzer Montagewerk or Schwere Waffenfabrik ) is a factory for the arms industry , in which battle tanks and other heavy, armored ground vehicles are manufactured.
In some cases, tank factories carry out improvements in combat value and repairs to battle armored vehicles .
First World War
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
Tank factories have been around since World War I , when the tank ( Little Willie , Big Willie and Mark I ); So the main battle tank and other armored vehicles have been developed. The secret British project to manufacture tanks was so secret that not even the workers in the tank factories knew what they were making there. They were told that they work on caterpillar- mounted water tanks, which is how the term tank for tank came about.
France
During the First World War, production at Renault and other French plants changed. Cars were no longer made, but military equipment, engines for tanks and planes, and ammunition. Renault stood out for its innovative technical solutions. The Renault FT was the first tank with a rotating turret and a self-supporting body .
After the end of the First World War, Renault and other plants began building tractors .
The German Imperium
When the First World War broke out, Rheinmetall was one of the largest armaments manufacturers in the German Empire and employed almost 8,000 people. By the end of the war, the workforce had grown to almost 48,000 workers and employees, including around 9,000 women. As a reaction to the new types of tanks used by the Allies on the battlefields, the German Empire had its own tanks designed and built in tank factories, but not in as large numbers as the Allies. The heaviest tank construction project was the production of the large combat vehicle , but this was not fully realized.
Austria-Hungary
In Austria-Hungary (and later in the German Empire) Gunther Burstyn submitted designs and proposals for the Burstyn motorized gun (battle tank design) and their production as early as 1911 , but they were not implemented.
Italy
Since 1915 there were some private projects for the construction of armored vehicles in Italy . Fiat began its first studies in 1916, which led to the construction of the first prototype of the Fiat 2000 (Mod. 17) in 1917 , to which a second prototype (Mod. 18) was added at the beginning of 1918. These two 40-ton tanks, built by Fiat in-house, were taken over by the Italian army and, together with the aforementioned French tanks, formed the basis of the first Italian tank unit in Verona . After the German K-Wagen (Großkampfwagen) they were the heaviest tanks of that time.
United States of America
In the United States , the Holt Manufacturing Company in collaboration with General Electric built the first American tank, the Holt Gas-Electric Tank , in 1917 . Later in 1918, the Steam Tank was designed by an officer in the US Army's Corps Of Engineers . The project was started by General John A. Johnston with the help of the Endicott and Johnson Shoe Company and funded by the Boston bankers Phelan and Ratchesky. The expertise was from the Stanley Motor Carriage Company in Watertown , Massachusetts contributed, the steam cars produced. However, only a single prototype was produced.
Between the wars
Since the tank had proven its worth on the battlefield, the development of armored vehicles continued after the end of the First World War, but actually less rapidly. Many states no longer saw the need for armored forces . In addition, the redevelopment of tanks was postponed a little, as the global economic crisis and economic stagnation previously made it difficult to implement new weapon systems . After the experiences of the First World War it became necessary to build a tank weapon. The constructions, however, proceeded in completely different ways.
Second World War
German Empire
In the German Reich and the Greater German Reich , the largest and most productive tank factory was the Nibelungenwerk near Linz in Upper Austria, commissioned on September 19, 1939 . The armor parts were supplied by the Oberdonau ironworks . With Demag Fahrzeugwerke Falkensee GmbH, a large factory was built that was to be used by the private tank manufacturers for their production in order to minimize the entrepreneurial risk for the German state compared to the Nibelungenwerk. Thousands of foreign forced laborers and concentration camp prisoners were used in the factories .
Italy
After the capitulation of Italy in September 1943, the Wehrmacht continued production in the Italian tank factories, which were within the German sphere of influence, under German management.
Soviet Union
In the Soviet Union , the construction of gigantic tank factories had already begun before the outbreak of the war (e.g. for the BT series based on plans by John Walter Christie , which led to the T-34 ). For example, during the Barbarossa operation in 1941, German troops conquered a tank factory that was supposed to employ 30,000 workers in the first shift and over 60,000 when fully expanded. The working conditions, food and housing for the working masses were inhumane. Such immense war effort allowed Josef Stalin to go to war with an estimated 24,000 tanks. Since these tank factories were still under construction around 1939, the Wehrmacht leadership had no idea of their existence, let alone of their enormous production rates.
United States of America
The US tank factories focused more on light to medium tank types to keep costs down and mass-produce more supplies to win the war. Increasingly more women were employed as workers in tank factories.
present
Federal Republic of Germany
In the Federal Republic of Germany , most of the armored vehicles for the Bundeswehr are built in the tank factories of Rheinmetall AG , ThyssenKrupp and Krauss-Maffei Wegmann .
Media reception
- Die Panzerfabrik ( Ultimate Factories - Abrams Tank ), documentary , USA 2006 (55 min.) - This show introduces two US tank factories that build and repair the M1 Abrams main battle tank and increase the combat value of older models.
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ The Burstyn motorized gun from 1911. The Burstyn motorized gun from 1911
- Jump up ↑ Modern History - Gunther Burstyn (1879–1945)
- ^ Die Nibelungenwerke ( Memento of March 14, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Panzerfabrik Nibelungenwerke
- ^ "Demag Fahrzeugwerke Falkensee GmbH" ( Memento from March 14, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Panzerfabrik Falkensee Demag Fahrzeugwerke Falkensee GmbH
- ^ Tape recording of Adolf Hitler in conversation with the Finnish general Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim, recorded by the Finnish sound engineer Thor Damen in 1942