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Armored Cars in WW2


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Well, that Luchs only came along in the mid 1970's - arguably Sdkfz 222 was replaced by the Spz Kurz in the bundeswehr, which only latterly brought back wheeled vehicles. ^_^

 

Unlike the brits who had armoured cars continuously until the withdrawal of Fox.

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Many years ago, AFV-G2 magazine had a series on the various TOE variants for German Armored Recce Abteilungen.

 

Light companies could have either motorcycles with side car or Kubelwagens.

 

Heavy companies could have armored cars, half tracks, or light tanks.

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The Royal Armoured Corps used the Daimler Dingo to go ahead of troops of tanks to sniff out opposition using their small size and quiet running, so that the tanks knew what was ahead of them. The fact that these little vehicles were well protected and agile was very useful.

 

Also, they created a quandary for the defence, in that it the Dingo crew was efficeint they would locate targets, and if the defence shot at the Dingo it would give away the location of defensive positions. Being open they also had very good visibility. The loss of a Dingo, whilst regetable, would usually mean one less tank being destroyed. Dingos having a crew of only two and being much less valuable than a tank.

 

The grim economics of war.

This is my understanding of armored recce, a very messy business. Send them out there, as stealthy as possible, but if uncovered, they have to run. If ambushed, they die in place. Looking for gaps in the enemy defenses usually means 'finding' their strong positions or countermoves with lethal regularity. Heavy recce, such as the US Army adopted after Korea, is intended for the recon in force mission, a decidedly different thing, usually requiring a regiment in strength to both probe and 'develop the situation' [something that can go either way],

 

Maybe our German experts can come up with it, but I seem to rememebr that the Heer had exhausted their stocks of armored recce vehicles by late 42/early 1943 and the newer vehicles never came in sufficient numbers to restore unit strength, except in the usually favored divs of the army and W-SS.

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This is my understanding of armored recce, a very messy business. Send them out there, as stealthy as possible, but if uncovered, they have to run. If ambushed, they die in place. Looking for gaps in the enemy defenses usually means 'finding' their strong positions or countermoves with lethal regularity. Heavy recce, such as the US Army adopted after Korea, is intended for the recon in force mission, a decidedly different thing, usually requiring a regiment in strength to both probe and 'develop the situation' [something that can go either way],

 

Yup, I practiced it for 6 years in the late 60s/early 70s. It´s a bit difficult to "advance to contact" stealthily!

 

The most important weapon is a functioning radio to get off that all-important contact report.

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This is my understanding of armored recce, a very messy business. Send them out there, as stealthy as possible, but if uncovered, they have to run. If ambushed, they die in place. Looking for gaps in the enemy defenses usually means 'finding' their strong positions or countermoves with lethal regularity. Heavy recce, such as the US Army adopted after Korea, is intended for the recon in force mission, a decidedly different thing, usually requiring a regiment in strength to both probe and 'develop the situation' [something that can go either way],

 

Maybe our German experts can come up with it, but I seem to rememebr that the Heer had exhausted their stocks of armored recce vehicles by late 42/early 1943 and the newer vehicles never came in sufficient numbers to restore unit strength, except in the usually favored divs of the army and W-SS.

 

And, at least in the case of the British, this was reflected in the armament carried by the Daimler Dingo - which was essentially no armament. Sure, a Bren Gun could be held to fire over the top and the driver and observer had their personal weapons, but the Dingo was never intended to actually fight anything or anybody.

 

Other armoured cars obviously were intended for the classic cavalry roles of scouting, interdiction and exploitation, and were armed accordingly.

 

To show some of the thinking during the war years about armoured cars it is instructive to look at one which did not enter service. That is the T18E2 Boarhound, that was developed in the USA as a heavy armoured car, similar in concept to the German Sd Kfz 232 series, but which was eventually not wanted by the USA, but were further developed to carry the 6pdr gun for the British, with view to their use in North Africa. The British ordered 2,500 of them, but only 30 were delivered. Comparison of specifications between the then current British cruiser tank, the Crusader, and the Boarhound, shows that the armour was very similar, the Boarhound actually weighing more than the tank.

 

It is not hard to envisage, if the desert campaign had continued, that the entire 7th Armoured Division would have been reequipped with these heavy armoured cars in place of tracked vehicles.

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....

It is not hard to envisage, if the desert campaign had continued, that the entire 7th Armoured Division would have been reequipped with these heavy armoured cars in place of tracked vehicles.

Heh! Or not! Just think about it! Who are you going to destroy with Little [semi-] Armored Vehicles??

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Heh! Or not! Just think about it! Who are you going to destroy with Little [semi-] Armored Vehicles??

 

Same thing you destroy with the semi-armored tracked vehicles. You'd just have longer legs and higher speeds. Until the cromwell came along those cruisers weren't any better armoured than the armoured cars were.

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Same thing you destroy with the semi-armored tracked vehicles. You'd just have longer legs and higher speeds. Until the cromwell came along those cruisers weren't any better armoured than the armoured cars were.

 

Exactly, the Boarhound was arguably as well armed and armoured as the Crusader, which is why the better armoured Valentines, despite their slower speed, were pressed into service as cruisers. Even the Staghound has as good armour as the Crusader.

 

In terms of 'semi-armoured' vehicles, you could include in the category the M18 or even the M24, as both were fairly thin skinned.

Edited by DougRichards
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I seem to recall that the Germans tended to ignore armored cars.But would pop off at the first tank they saw so Commonwealth recce units usually managed to find themselves find themselves fairly deep behind the line before someone took a shot at them.

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I seem to recall that the Germans tended to ignore armored cars.But would pop off at the first tank they saw so Commonwealth recce units usually managed to find themselves find themselves fairly deep behind the line before someone took a shot at them.

 

. . . in other words front line troops did not give away their positions by firing at reconnaissance vehicles?

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Heh! Or not! Just think about it! Who are you going to destroy with Little [semi-] Armored Vehicles??

 

 

Ken, is there a reason you feel such ingrained contempt for reconnaissance vehicles, and presumably those who crew them?

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Ken, is there a reason you feel such ingrained contempt for reconnaissance vehicles, and presumably those who crew them?

Get up on the wrong side of the bed this morning, Jim?

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Exactly, the Boarhound was arguably as well armed and armoured as the Crusader, which is why the better armoured Valentines, despite their slower speed, were pressed into service as cruisers. Even the Staghound has as good armour as the Crusader.

 

In terms of 'semi-armoured' vehicles, you could include in the category the M18 or even the M24, as both were fairly thin skinned.

Uh, I think we have time/space problems with this stuff. The Staghound entered production in late 42, never made it to N Africa; the Boarhound, which at least had a 57mm/6pdr gun, was cancelled after the first 30 units. So 'armor as good as' ought to be perhaps compared to British tanks entering service in 1943? Just a thought.

 

Of course, by 1943, the good old days of free-ranging armored recce were about ended. What remained was the messy business of checking out this and that route, and 'is there any enemy in that treeline...ouch!'

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Every Damilar I have seen was equipped for a Bren gun and had storage for about 20 mags.

 

Bren gun, 25 magazines in the bin up front, with some mills bombs, and other personal weapons. There's a space behind the crew for stowage of an enfield if need be.

 

The armor protection is good, it's just not great to be fighting from up close given it's a light armoured vehicle AND it's open topped. One potato masher in the car and it's all over. Not to say some recce troopers didn't do so from their cars successfully. The chaps who captured Dickie's Bridge in fact got there along a route that saw them killing some germans from the scout car with a Mills bomb or two.

 

The little scout cars, for their size, speed, armor, the Bren gun to buy some precious time (make germans dive for cover) and the thickness of the armor (1" forwards) made them probably the best SMALL recce platform of the war. Sure as heck more survivable than a Jeep, Kubelwagon or Sidecar hack.

 

Having used it tactically, albeit in re-enacting, it has some capabilities that people underestimate until you've run circles around them in it. My car and another fellow's car managed to run circles around some "Germans" who thought they had a good ambush (string of mines on the road with infantry on one side covering it with MGs, rifles and presumably panzerfausts). We showed them otherwise by stopping short (it smelled like an ambush point) and then leap frogging around their position with each car assuming the base of fire in turn. The next car would move around behind, take over as the base of fire and the other car would reverse quickly and move to the next position.

 

There are a number of humorous encounters where scout cars zipped down a road, found Germans lounging around an 88 in a square, gave them a magazine of .303 and zipped through the square. Of course, they couldn't go back THAT way.

Edited by rmgill
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  • 3 years later...

Pete, do you happen to have a serial for the M8 that tagged the Tiger I? Might there also be a photo of the vehicle?

 

Tamiya has a very nice kit of the M8, which I'd like to do up appropriately. PM me on FB if that's more convenient for you.

 

 

 

Shot

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Pete, do you happen to have a serial for the M8 that tagged the Tiger I? Might there also be a photo of the vehicle?

 

Tamiya has a very nice kit of the M8, which I'd like to do up appropriately. PM me on FB if that's more convenient for you.

 

 

 

Shot

All I had was the Wiki article. I hope there's more info (and pics) available!

 

I'm glad I peeked at this thread!

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Shot, you making a diorama?

I hadn't planned to, but I might if I get some good info.

 

At the moment the only thing I would need in terms of data is the serial for the vehicle, and the unit insignia. The latter would be easy enough to generate even if I don't have a shot of the vehicle, since the unit it belongs to was listed in the wiki entry.

 

The Tamiya kit makes for a sweet build, I did one a couple of years ago and I got another as a result of an estate sale. I'd love to do this one up as 'Jack the Giant' (okay, 'Tiger') 'Killer'.

 

For a sardonic giggle, a little more research found me an article which said that the Tiger was still traversing its turret when the Greyhound back-shot it, and that the Greyhound got off a total of three shots before the Tiger could return fire.

 

 

 

Shot

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Pete, do you happen to have a serial for the M8 that tagged the Tiger I? Might there also be a photo of the vehicle?

 

Tamiya has a very nice kit of the M8, which I'd like to do up appropriately. PM me on FB if that's more convenient for you.

 

 

 

Shot

 

My understanding is that according to German records, no Tigers were in that area on that date. The crew were likely wrong about the type of vehicle they engaged. Seeing as it would likely have been camouflaged (nets, evergreen foliage, or the like,), and the armoured car crew were under some stress and in a hurry, such an error would not be surprising.

 

My source is a series of posts in this thread here on imdb. Unusually for that site (and the person posting), "Buddy Love63" seems to know what he's writing about.

 

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066206/board/nest/175974222?d=178723184#178723184

 

Scroll down to Buddy's Tue Feb 22 2011 22:01:06

Edited by R011
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I found a snippet a bit after I posted this which -rightly- suggested that misidentification of tanks was commonplace, as US troops routinely labeled anything with a long-ish barrel and a cylindrical turret rear as a Tiger. Put schuerzen on a Mark IV and it would probably look 'Tiger' enough to anyone, especially the crew of an armored car going up against something a lot tougher and harder-hitting than they could be.

 

Still, there's the turret-traverse question for the Tiger; and there's the fact that a Tiger of either sort is a lot larger than a Mark IV.

 

 

 

Shot

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And if your main weapon is 37mm, any gun larger than that looks like a direct way to Heaven.

 

Misidentifying everything but Panther as Tiger and everyithing as Ferdinand was really common. Same way, every gun (as long as it destroyed Allied tank) had much better chance of being reported as "88".

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