As part of its Combo Kit campaign to offer convenient and appealing vehicle pairings, Dragon is offering two complementary subjects in its latest release: a German Sd.Kfz.10 1t halftrack towing a 10.5cm le.FH.18 howitzer.

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Thanks!

Interesting combination. Halftrack is rated as 1 ton tow capacity, gun is approx 2 tons. Ive red that such combination was delivered to Sweden, before start of the war. Sd.Kfz.11 is much better suited for the task. As two separate kits - maybe, but then again, price is going to be in similar range as well.

The allowed towed load was one ton (total weight of everything behind the towing hook).
The vehicle was used to tow the PaK 40 (1425 kg, 1.425 tons).
It was sometimes used to tow up to 1.8 tons.
The leFH 18/40 weighed 1.955 kg (vary close to 2 tons)

A gun tractor usualy also carries the crew and some ammunition so I would consider this combination unlikely.

Maybe it is a clever way to buy both kits in one box if that gets the price down for someone who wants to fill up their stash with both of these.
/ Robin

Holy Moly, you guys certainly know a lot
And as we know Dragon... it will be cheaper to buy each "old" kit from ebay. So I dont see the value in this.
I bet the boxart will be nicely done by Ron, but besides this?
Nice day to all

Even though it is clearly beyond the rated weight limit this was done. Combat accounts constantly stress the lack of transport and using anything that was available. There are even accounts of crews pulling and man handling guns so as not to abandon them. The situation was often desperate and desperate measures were called for.

I asked Google .....
/ Robin

I was under the impression that the tow rating of a German prime mover represented the amount of horizontal pulling force the vehicle could exert on level, hard ground. Having little direct connection to the overall weight of the object being towed.

While I agree that the 105 looks to be a bit much for that poor little D7, I suspect in reality the vehicle's one ton towing capacity is more than enough to pull a wheeled object weighting two tons. It might not make it up a 45 degree incline with that gun or through soft mud but it could certainly pull it on level hard ground.

Also in this case the weight of the gun crew inside the vehicle would most likely just add to the vehicle's tractive effort. (The extra weight would make for better adhesion between tracks and the ground.)

However I could be mistaken.

p.s. I agree, a PAK38 or PAK40 would have been a better pairing choice I think.

That is what I thought to, before I did some checking ...
The Sd.Kfz. 10 (1 ton) had 1.5 ton payload (what it could carry), allowed trailer weight 1 ton BUT the pulling force measured at the hook was 2.7 ton.
At the other end of the range of vehicles we have the Sd.Kfz. 12 DB 10 (12 ton) which had a payload of 2 tons (less than twice that of the smallest one ...), the allowed trailer weight was 12 ton and the pulling force was 8 ton.

The smallest had a pulling force 2.7 times larger than the allowed trailed load and the second largest had a pulling force which was considerably less than the allowed trailed load.
The DB 9 version was only allowed to pull 12 tons even if it did have the same pulling force ...
I couldn't find reliable data on the pulling force of the Sd.Kfz 9, otherwise I would have used that for the comparison.
Note that the Sd.Kfz.9 pulled the Sd.Anh. 116 which was allowed to carry loads up to 22 (later 23) tons and the fact that the trailer had to weigh a few tons of its own.
Maybe it was because the 116 had a rear end driver which could operate brakes? The Sd.Kfz. 8 was also used to pull this trailer, hmmmm....
Fast and easy guidelines anyone ???


/ Robin

I believe the later Sdkfz 10 was uprated to increase it's towing capacity as the normal load i.e the Pak36 (3.7cm gun) quickly became obsolete. I have seen photos of it towing a Pak 40, which is more likely, as I have seen a Pak 40 being towed by a Steyr 1500. The supposition would seem to be that if it could tow a Pak 40 it could tow a LeFH 18/40, but the ordnance is heavier. The standardised tractor was the Sdkfz 11, or Sdkfz251 both rated at 3 tonnes. While I wouldn't discount the use in an emergency, there was a chronic shortage of tractors in the Wehrmacht. Continual overloading as in this case would not do wonders for the life of the vehicle!

What was the tow rating of a team of horses?

Shouldn't there be a limber with the fieldpiece?

I believe they would have towed with anything available.

Gaz

This business of tow capacity prompted me to revisit my resources and get more information. According to John Milsom in "German Half Tracked Vehicles of WW2", the Sdkfz 10 (Demag D7) was specifically designed to tow the Pak 36, LIG18, Flak 30 and other 2cm Flak (which seems a rather indulgent use a scarce resource) and interestingly, the SIG33. This latter piece weighs 1700 kg, so almost as much as the LeFH 18/40 (1955 kg)(both Hogg, German Artillery of WW2). The business of towing as opposed to carrying a load is an interesting one. For example there are competitions where strong men pull vehicles (trucks or buses). Once a load is on the move, particularly on a flat, even surface (say a road) it retains a force (momentum) that causes it to accelerate and may require considerable force to stop it. So presumably if a vehicle can get a load moving, it doesn't require a great effort to keep it moving, so long as it stays on a flat surface (no hill). So the problem may be not whether a vehicle can tow the load but rather if it can control it. If the vehicle is too light the load may "run away" particularly on a downgrade.

Horses? How many horses? Saddle horses or draft horses?
A six horse hitch of Clydesdale draft horses can easily exert a starting force of over 5 tons at the wagon hitch. However a multiple horse hitch such as that almost always requires a limber. (Unless you were just relocating the gun a short distance,)


For automotive type vehicles a limber was only required when the downward weight at the hitch, of the object being towed, exceeded the rated load weight of the prime mover.

Lots of detail...I think that we can all agree that this was probably a poor choice in terms of pairing and that an Sd Kfz 7 with the 105 would have been more reasonable, but the big question is DO YOU WANT ONE? I personally could care less and I think that buying them separate makes more sense but ultimately the buyer will prevail. Dragon should be commended for combining things that people will actually buy and perhaps some effort should go into offering things that we have long wanted (a 251 "A", the long-missing Uhu (I ended up having to buy the AFV Club version) etc. They could have offered a kick-ass Bergepanther YEARS before Takom & Meng were even a glimmer in some Chinese capitalist's eye but NO! they had to sit on their laurels and continue to offer us the same meaningless [auto-censored] on their DragonUSA website that they have been shoveling our way for the past several YEARS! I, for one (of many) am sick of being offered the unwanted left-overs from other markets. Big deal if they have a sale IF THEY HAVE NO STOCK! Arrgghh! Gee, now I feel better...

Ohhh! I'm Baad! I said a naughty word! Anyways, the kits are probably okay but largely kind of pointless and all of you out there already have a couple of each in your stash already -am I right? Give us something THAT WE REALLY WANT. That's the path to success in plastic karma in a time of plenty.

I think Dragon is releasing previous model kits with extra stuff again for Christmas. They try to increase the sales. I remember that Dragon had released new kits for 2-3 months like 10 years ago.
I would buy sdkfz 10 if the price is a bit low. Dragon would release Sd.Kfz.7 8t halftrack with sFH18 15cm Howitzer (extra bonuses) I believe its great combo.
Stop buying their kits like 8 year ago because their high prices and the other model companies have brought different subjects.

A couple of shots of D7's towing a PAK40 and a PAK38 to show relative size:




Photos Copyright Michael Koenig - All Rights Reserved

Photobucket?!?!?! Seriously? You must be joking?
No offense but I thought we had all been through the PB shiite ...


Prime Portal

Bundesarchiv





MilitaryImages.net

/ Robin

Robin

Due to the large number of photos I have been hosting, literally for years on the Photobucket site, I have been paying a VERY SMALL, (very small, as in tiny) fee each month. This was originally to cover the overly large amount of bandwidth I use daily on their server.

It appears now that I have therefore been grandfathered in and have been able to avoid (without interruption) all the many hassles and shut downs (and costs) that others have had to suffer through this past year.

My motto: "Don't fix it, if it ain't broke!"

_____________________________________

CORRECTION: In the second photo the Demag is towing the PAK38 rather than the larger PAK40. I took both these photos at various public reenactment events held at the Patton Museum, Ft. Knox, KY. (Back in the good ole days when the Armor School actually HAD an Armor Museum open to the public.)

Hi Michael,
OK.
But:
The links in your post showed up as broken (i.e. not the one way road sign) and when I tried to deconstruct them and actually vist the PB-site I only got a white field with a lot of advertising around.
I do not know if others managed to view the images ....
/ Robin

Edit: It works now! Must have been a temporary glitch
The second "PaK 40" does indeed look as if it has been through the "De Luxe Premium" program at Weightwatchers (TM)

In the past 24hrs the PB site has been up and down with technical difficulties. I assume that is the cause for these broken links. It seems to be working now.

This is only the second time in these many years that I have experienced such a breakdown. However there have been a number of times when the site shuts down after 2am EST for maintenance.

Mike: I do not believe Robin was trying to insult you, just questioning the use of PB and its habit of killing links after X views. Please continue this thread in the way it was going as I was finding it interesting to read while having nothing to add personally.

Here is yet another one ton, this time towing a small AT rifle. This vehicle is owned by Bob Graebe out of the Chicago area and seen here at another Patton Museum reenactment event.

I believe this is the same vehicle as seen in the last photo that Robin posted above, seen there towing a PAK40 during a military event formerly held at the Buckley Homestead Historic Farm; Lowell, IN.

This link has the official prescribed towing vehicles for various towed pieces:
https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/missinglynx/what-vehicle-pulled-the-2cm-flakvierling-t19065.html#p367154

Regards,

Marc