Today on Cybermodeler i found info about new Trumpeter paperpanzer E-75 Flakpanzer, No 1539. But there is no information about such Panzer in any webpage. How this tank look like, anybody know, any ideas about armament (flakzwiling 88 like E-100 UA) ?

Regards Wojtek

http://www.cybermodeler.com/special/2010_armor_manuf.shtml

Are you sure it's an E-75 flakpanzer and not an E-50 flakpanzer with the Rheinmetall 5.5cm Flakzwilling?

cheers,

john

Hmmm, just checked out that link and you are right an E-75 Flakpanzer is listed. Intriguing!

J

Maybe it should be E-100 Flakpanzer but for this moment it's E-75 Flakpanzer

http://www.cybermodeler.com/special/2010_armor_scale.shtml

Regards
Wojtek

I found this link on Trumpeter's page today....

http://www.trumpeter-china.com/war513/products/en_message.asp?id=900

Cheers

Wojtek

Man, those Germans were good! They hadn't even designed a turret for the gun-tank yet in April 1945 but they'd purpose built a flak turret for it by the end of 1944! Wow. Who writes this crap for Trumpeter anyway? I can't wait to see this info being authoritatively posted on wikipedia and forums all over the net. . . Yeesh

They are fairly nice kits though, Bruce Crosby did a great, if uncredited, job mastering them.

Matt

Matt

I hope that next Trumpeter paperpanzer will be E-100 UA Alligator...

Joking aside, I want a Lowe. Heck, there's a resin one out that they can use as a template.

Matt

I don't think the six-wheel E-50 tank is selling very well (though it comes with enough parts to make it an eight-wheel version, the holes in the hull for the suspension mounts are predrilled at three per side). So Trumpeter is essentially giving us an either-or choice in the Falke flak followon.

I doubt, _very seriously_, if a 1945 German Heer would be wasting E-75 hulls on a flak tank, however it is just possible, given they had two separate hull assembly points and one was overrun, leaving a bunch of unused turret blocks.

Which brings up the critical issue: you don't fit two different diameter turret designs to a 'common' hull. Drilling out the turret lathe and getting everything squared up and balanced out is one of the toughest of all the stages of tank engineering development and manufacture and there are further considerations of hull width (overhang when traversed) and peculiar-to-turret drive and auxilliary systems installations to consider.

If there ever was a need for a resin conversion, I would suggest it is for a common turret for the Trumpeter E-50 and E-75. I would base it on the fictional 'E-90' turret shown here-

http://www.nast-sonderfahrzeuge.de/fotosammlung/albums/userpics/10002/DSC08773.JPG

The Panther Turret was a serious shortcoming on the vehicle which the Soviets claimed they could penetrate from nearly all angles, including thru the mantlet with and without AP ammo. Since the turret is the most exposed element across the entire frontal arc, it would make sense that, even with an 80-100mm glacis front limiter on a modified KT chassis, you would ditch the schmalturm for something that was both a little thicker skinned and able to 'universal mount' accept -both- an 88mm with autoloader -or- later 105mm main tubes.

And while you're at it, include the Pepper Pot muzzle brakes and complete FuG-1250 Sperwer kits! My understanding is that the PP brake fixed the issue of using sabot rounds that required the removal of the conventional brake and
the Great Wall night vision gear set is 14 bucks for two sets of optics when you need three sets.

It's a Paper Panzer folks, in for a penny, in for a pound.

Comparitively, (other thread) the Flak Alligator is a neat looking tank but without proximity fuzes it's low rate of fire would be of limited operational utility against lightweight fighters and medium bombers as the war switched increasingly to anti-jabo type work. And fuel consumption on the E-100 hull would be enormous, even supposing you could ship it by rail, which I doubt.

The kit I want to see some release data for is the Trumpeter E-100 Krokodil (#1596). The New Connections resin conversion is very hard to get from Europe (89 Euros + 30 Euro delivery fee) but I don't see or hear anything about the styrene Stug coming before the New Year.

I bet it sells like hotcakes when it gets here.


LEG

Agreed, I think the thing is there was apparently never a turret designed for the series so who can say what it would look like? I think Bruce designed the scratchbuild that got bought by Cromwell with the -F's turret becaause it was the only one still to be in production that could carry a reasonable gun in the second half of 1945. the Royal Tiger and turret were to be out of production so rather than make one up he put on the pinhead turret! Then Gordon put a KT turrret on the E-75 and then Trumpeter copied it, so there you go. . .

Matt

Matt,

The thing with the Schmalturm is that it only worked with the 88mm if they flipped the recoil cylinders and made them concentric (which is why it has the funny shaped mantlet in the kit). To ease the loader's task behind the gun, I have also heard that a special, 'fat case' ammunition was being developed along with a vertical loading breech which together, functionally shortened the rammer-stroke length of the improved 88mm L71 ammo without giving up the 'magnum load' powder charge as muzzle velocity.

All of which is fine except that you have essentially redesigned the KWK43/L71 into a new gun for an _inferior turret_, both in terms of operating volume and protection. Yes, the Schmalturm is better than the original Panther design with that stupid mantlet setup and thin sides/corners which even lightweight AT weapons in the 37-50mm range are effective against.

But judge the internal volume likely to be available from the side views and compare them to the effective armor thicknesses of a nominal 'E-75' (VIb chassis)-

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_KezhQ6waZT0/TFjf-gurKTI/AAAAAAAAXrI/VPxPMZp2QNA/s1600/pantff.jpg

http://www.nast-sonderfahrzeuge.de/fotosammlung/albums/userpics/10002/E75_-_TIGER_II_C_2seitenA.JPG

..............Panther ST King Tiger
Turret Front: 120mm 185mm
Hull Front: 85mm 150mm
Bull Nose: 75mm 100mm

And then realize that late '43 specification changes to the schmalturm required an MG42 coax, a Sperwer night sight and room for command radios to also be included. In '44 this equipment list was expanded yet again to include stereoscopic range finders and provision for a stabilized periscope sight plus 60-70 88mm rounds.

All this in a tiny little turret which -is not- (at war end) optimized for the L71 like the KT is?!?! You can't even remove the loader because the 4rd 'clip' system and automatic rammer were for the 75mm KWK42 mod that was functionally obsolescent with the arrival of the IS-3.

OTOH, you have some similar problems with the KT turret in that the frontal area is not as well protected (as a function of mantlet overlap) as it could be and the forward turret roof slope offers a lot of exposure to plunging fires in what remains a 40mm thick vulnerable area common to all German armor. A vulnerability which would have to be increased (greater inclination angle = more relative target area = easer to-hit probabilities) even more to mate up with the turret front plate, if you extend the flat part of the roof forwards to allow for a level mount on the stereoscopic rangefinder heads.

Something which we know would have happened (was planned for) with the last run of VIb Tigers in what, July 1945? That kind of vulnerability cannot be permitted, particularly as the terrain again opened out in Germany and the threat started fielding tanks capable of engagements in the 2,000m ranges.

So... go for the bigger Tiger II turm, and save yourself the hassle of rebalancing the tank to a narrower turret ring. Also keep the traditional L71 (which was just about equal to the American 90mm and Russian 122mm) while retaining the option to go to the bigger 105mm Flak 38/39-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10.5_cm_FlaK_38

Later.

The latter ordnance, while only 2ft longer overall than the 18ft KWK42, had almost 3ft longer breach section, courtesy of it's high elevation flak heritage and extended recoil cylinders and so -never- would have fit into ANY Panther turret .

Then simplify the subtle curves of the Tiger II's turret side armor-

http://www.achtungpanzer.com/images/tig2_kr.jpg

Into _flat panels_-

sonderfahrzeuge.de/fotosammlung/albums/userpics/10002/DSC08773.JPG

In essence, the standard KT turret has one wide, 185mm turret front panel and two elongated, very vulnerable if highly oblique, 80mm side panels which are exposed in the 2-10 o'clock frontal sector to easy penetration with any degree of traverse as the turret warps inwards from about the mid point (under the commander's hatch).

If you instead 'bend' that 185mm turret front around into two angled cheek pieces, you end up with full depth turret protection across the entire frontal arc of perhaps 200-220mm swept equivalency. AND you can make the sloping section of the turret top (which is now both shorter in length and narrower in width) about 100-120mm thickness. Leaving the 80mm sides alone but 'retracting' their presented area much further back along the flank of the vehicle.

If the turret has a constant width, to the cheeks, it has greater internal volume at the same time it displays substantially narrower frontal area behind a larger mantlet (in essence, the flat front is little more than a slot for the main tube to slip thru) and this 'gun shield', instead of covering up a hole can essentially extend -into- the front armor, ala M1 Abrams. And thus can be anything up to 400mm equivalent thickness, depending on breach balance issues, strength of the hydraulics and the thickness of the elevation trunnions).

Point Blank: The Tiger II turret doesn't require any rebalancing or turret ring diameter changes on a Tiger II chassis. All that you have to do is modify the turret front to improve protection against 100mm class enemy AT fire and allow for the incorporation of bigger guns to compensate for threat caliber changes, later in the production run.