Casting of tank hulls and turrets in Pre-war and WWII

[Colin]

Just mulling stuff in my head. I assume that most tank factories of the period did not cast on site but were either co-located with a foundry or had the cast sent to them for finishing. Is that correct? 

[RichTO90]

For the US that is correct. Most major castings were manufactured offsite, with Pacific Car & Foundry being one of the possible exceptions. In Germany too the hull and turret plates were mostly forged offsite (they used few major hull castings) and were assembled onsite.

[R011]

The castings for Montreal Locomotive Works who made the Ram, Grizzly (a version of the M4A1 Sherman), and Sexton were done by the American parent company - American Locomotive Company (Alco).

[Markus Becker]

20 hours ago, Colin said:

Just mulling stuff in my head. I assume that most tank factories of the period did not cast on site but were either co-located with a foundry or had the cast sent to them for finishing. Is that correct? 

Who was even having tank factories in the inter war years? The Soviets probably but everyone else didn't order vast numbers of tanks. WAG: So you got arms factories that also made tanks as one more heavy weapon system. 

[RichTO90]

7 hours ago, Markus Becker said:

Who was even having tank factories in the inter war years? The Soviets probably but everyone else didn't order vast numbers of tanks. WAG: So you got arms factories that also made tanks as one more heavy weapon system. 

Germany. There was something like 2,800 tanks on order by 1 September 1939.Daimler Benz had reopened Werk 40 in Berlin Marienfeld as a tank assembly plant. MIAG and MAN both had large parts of their main plant dedicated to tank assembly. Henschel and Krupp both had dedicated plant for tank assembly too. Then there was Nibelungen, funded in 1939 before the war began.

[Markus Becker]

But I think Nibelungen was the only specialized plant like the Detroit arsenal Germany had. The others were heavy manufacturing plants and like you say for assembly. So we can assume that a lot of the components came from off site. 

[RichTO90]

6 hours ago, Markus Becker said:

But I think Nibelungen was the only specialized plant like the Detroit arsenal Germany had. The others were heavy manufacturing plants and like you say for assembly. So we can assume that a lot of the components came from off site. 

DTA was also an assembly plant and most of its components came from offsite. Same for Fisher Grand Blanc. Lima's assembly hall was an abandoned locomotive plant. ALCO and Baldwin used their existing plant but their foundries were offsite and most of the assemblies were from subs.

Again, Daimler's Werk 40 was idled by the Depression and was taken in hand and renovated specifically as a tank assembly plant when Daimler became subcontractor for the Panzer I and even more extensively when it became prime contractor for the Panzer III. Ditto Henschel's Werk III, which was funded for conversion to a tank assembly plant in 1939. MAN converted most of its Augsburg plant when it became prime for the Panzer II chassis, much of the existing plant was converted exclusively to tank manufacture. MIAG's Ammewerk was almost exclusively converted to tank assembly in 1938.

[Andreas]

On 2/25/2023 at 11:21 AM, Markus Becker said:

But I think Nibelungen was the only specialized plant like the Detroit arsenal Germany had. The others were heavy manufacturing plants and like you say for assembly. So we can assume that a lot of the components came from off site. 

Everyone is probably aware of this?

http://www.alanhamby.com/factory1.shtml

Would be interesting to know where the hulls were produced?

University of Kassel, my Alma Mater, is on the site of the central Henschel factory.

All the best

Andreas

[Coldsteel]

For the Australian cruiser tanks the armour castings were done by Bradford Kendall at a foundry in Alexandria I think, and heat treated and rough finished there. Final machining I'm pretty sure was done by NSW railways at the assembly annexe at Chullora. It's not a huge distance, only 15km or so, but it's definitely not next door so to speak.

A second production line was being setup in Victoria, the plan was something along the lines of armour casting was to be done by either Chas. Ruwolts who I think would also do the final machining, and possibly the Steel Company of Australia, and these components would then be sent the 70km or thereabouts to the assembly line for the tanks at the Ford plant at Geelong. Not that that one produced anything as it was much more dependent on getting components from the US, which were slow, delayed, or arrived without critical parts.

[RichTO90]

7 hours ago, Andreas said:

Would be interesting to know where the hulls were produced?

The Horde Werk of Dortmund-Hoerder Huettenverein.