Hello guys,

many of you may have noticed the wooden brigde kits published by the russian company Bastion 35. Since the the anouncement, I'm sticking around with the idea of building a diorama which shall include one of those bridges. The setting will be infantry and a Panzer III Ausf. Jof the 16th Panzer division on their advance towards Stalingrad in July 1942.

The bridges of interest are:

W 3502 - Bridge constructed by German field engineers H Class (for heavy loads)



W 3505 - Summertree kneebrace bridge
H Class (heavy loads)



But there is one question that remains and I weren't able you get answered until now: Will one of the bridges above carry a Panzer III with 24 tons?

During my researches I came across the definition of light german bridges (8 tons) and heavy german bridges (16 tons), but these were in most cases ponton based ones and no "solid" wooden bridges as the ones above. I also found various pictures showing german AFV bypassing the bridges by driving directly throw the water beneath.

Are there brigebuilders out there?

Thx in advance.

Mass is not as important in this case as the pressure on the surface unit. Bridge has many supports so if you have tank's mass placed on more of them pressure is not as big as you may think. For the heaviest version of Pz III (Ausf N - 23000kg) pressure on one square cm was 1kg.
No problem for a bridge then I think.

Andrzej

Thx for the info.

I alawys thought, that the folling bridge must be able to withstand the weight of an Pz. III:
W 3502 - Bridge constructed by German field engineers H Class (for heavy loads)

But pictures like these, caused doubts.

Well... design is one thing... How the bridge had been built and what materials had been used is totally different thing . Titanic was unsunkable as well

Andrzej

I belive Andrzej is correct. One thing to remember, as armies retreat, Russian in paticular, would destory everything or sabatage things. One cut on on timber changes the strutual ability of a bridge. What better way to take out an enemy tank and bridge at the same time and have a good laugh at the same time. frm the retreaters, from the advancers.

At least on the first pic of the accidents, you can argue that the panzer drove to far to the side of the bridge.
Probably those bridges could withhold the weight of those tanks, otherwise there would be a need to build even stronger bridges as a standard and by my knowledge there aren't. could be wrong though....