PANTHER G ZU-FUSS

[HERMAN BIX]

On the interference issue - a mock up with the rockets standing off what I believe to be the correct distance from the side of the hull, which would include the swivel hardware & actual crate cradle, plus the angle the middle crate would sit, the turret will rotate clear.
Tactically, the application of German rocketry was becoming more and more a substitute for artillery, which was relatively cumbersome to deploy, unless it was a genuine SP gun like a Hummel for example,and more vulnerable to air & counterbattery, the '251 series mobile launchers added real punch to the infantry support as well as some comfort to counter large infantry & massed tank attacks on the Eastern front by this stage.
As far as I am aware the appendages found on the Panther(Poland) and the pictured one on the Tiger, were in the Eastern Theatre. Makes more smarts to use masses of rockets on masses of tanks, infantry & artillery the Russians were favourites of.
The concept of "wasting" a tank as a rocket carrier can be looked at also ;
The effective range of the Panther(or Tiger 1 ) gun we can agree is easy 2000M.
Line of sight of course to be on target.
Defensive tactics mean your tanks are not cavorting about looking for the fight, rather hiding from the air supremacy & hitting the enemy as they present, preferably at the greatest distance possible.
I contend that this form of expedient 'ersatz' artillery gave indirect fire to reasonable area saturation- just like a salvo from a 251, but with the added bonus of having far greater lethality on the survivours of such a salvo(s)from hidden rearward positions that they simply could not get conventional artillery to do at the time it was needed.

IF this system was employed on a tank(s) as well as the 251's it is surely plausible that the same swivels & crate clamps were used, but on the stronger mystery mounts as found on the Panther & Tiger, fired the same way & certainly reloaded the same way by the very support vehicles that carried them as offensive ordanance anyway ??

[Marc780]

I have been looking for the "Vampir" infra red gear too, I have seen both the commanders IR sight, with lighting feature included, and the gunners sight too, on Welshdragon's inventory. not sure if he has them in stock or not.

[HERMAN BIX]

I guess we will both soon see !

Here we go again, perfectly good Panther(!) now an entry of Panzer Wrecks !!
Tore H/L the aerial mount out, removed the engine cover hooks, removed the spare antenna/cleaning rod tube from the side, got carried away with things in general
The sides will be clean of any accoutrements, like the real late Jagdpanthers.
Any necessary gadgets will be on the rear plate or engine deck as space allows, and track links will be on the turret.

As this is a late 'G' not an 'A' I reckon the similarities with the JP fleet will be acceptable.

Looking at the hatches for making workable, the rear deck hatch also has the bloody hull joining spigots moulded to the underside, so no point in making the hatch work-no gain really for me as against the hassle of repositioning the joining spigots to be effective.
The front ones though, they can be handy for lubricating the gear sets, so I might do those if I can get the right metal replacements.

[HERMAN BIX]

I had a bit of an experiment with the steel wheel conversion. Dragged out the boxes of plastic left overs.
Fitted the plastic King Tiger suspension arms to the Panther chassis & fitted a couple of KT wheels.
Now after placing the plastic track on the drive sprocket and over the idler, the track guide horns run in the centre of the 2 sets of fitted wheels. Now I get that the real ones ran in the middle of the track between the guide horns & the outers ran outside the guide horn, but as a quick go, this will work.
I want to use good quality steel wheels like the ones I fitted to my KT, and without 'hackin' them up, this way will look close enough & fairly straight forward to complete. IF I can separate them without hacking, the spacing shall be done.
The alternative is to space the lead wheel into the centre of the track guide horns, split the KT outer wheel sets, space the outer-out & the inner- in. This may indeed be "hack free" but at this stage I'm happy that Ive got TWO options.
The only thing is the KT wheels are smaller diameter than the H/L plastic Panther wheels.(yet to do the work out on this)
The track droops to much on the run up to the drive sprocket & catches on the moulded bump stop.
For the sake of progress this bump stop shall be sacrificial & covered by wheels & side skirts, so would not be missed.

[HERMAN BIX]

Just a thought, the spacing on Tiger 1 late steel wheels might be closer. They would certainly look closer hub-wise anyway.
Shame I dont have any plastic ones of those handy

[PainlessWolf]

Herman,
Don't forget your track slack roller that sits right behind the sprocket. That will stop your tracks from catching on the bump stop.
regards,
Painless

[HERMAN BIX]

Brilliant thought that big guy, will look at that roller for sure. Really a puzzle as why the H/L panther wheels are quite a bit smaller than the KT ones

[HERMAN BIX]

Did some measuring & calcs.
The KT wheels are 2.5mm per side smaller that the Panther's in scale.
KT = 800mm
Panther = 880mm
Leaves 40mm divided by 16 = 2.5mm per side, smaller.Or, 80/16 = 5mm over all.
Which is about 1mm out on my wheels.
So, the roller you put on the drive assembly was supposed to stop the track 'bunching up' when reversing in real life, so it might not quite have the ability to feed the track up to the sprocket if I use these Tiger late type steel wheels.
Well worth the sussing out though. Either add a roller, or delete the bump stop
I now have to get myself a set of Tiger Late wheels to see how they go, if not used, then I will have to buy a late Tiger project to use them on eh

[wibblywobbly]

I am looking forward to seeing this, at the end of the day the use of rockets was becoming advantageous, not because of accuracy but due to the carpet bombing effect. The Russians had exploited this concept with the Katayusha's, they could drop tons of munitions on a wide area without needing to get close the enemy. A tank can only fire one shell every nine seconds.

One could also wonder whether an enterprising commander experimented with this idea, when he realised that his tank was frozen solid and couldn't move or fire (or supplies of shells had evaporated).

Either way, an excellent choice for a build, it will be unique, and may lead to the definitive answer on what the modifications were really for.

[HERMAN BIX]

Thanks Mr Wobbly, when all's said & done, this one is a diversion from what I would normally do- factually based. But this concept with two unexplained fittings on very different machines ,only one of which exists(ed) in todays history (thanks to the recovery of the Littlefield Panther in Poland) is enough to drive me to test the theory..................

The rockets will fit, the turret will rotate, the steel wheels will work either option, and if nothing else I've got /done something different.

Outside of an E-100 or scratchbuilt suchlike, its hard to conjour up a real different build, but you would already know that with that miracle application of styrene & patience that youre doing.

I had intended on adapting the PzIII idler wheel mounts (plastic) to use as the "appendages" but they are not close enough in design to really get away with.
So the mission continues