youtu.be/NBI9d0-IfEM To my fellow US Army 19 Kilo Tankers, other military brethren, and history enthusiasts, this is a must read. Tank duel that was one of WWIIs most famous! Panther vs Sherman battle in Cologne. Note: there are some disturbing and graphic images. Viewer discretion is advised. Not for little uns. A US Army cameraman was in an auspicious position to be able to film the battle. But first, some background info to those with little armor or WWII tank knowledge. While German Panzers like the Panther and Tiger enjoyed technical superiority to most of the Allies tanks and the Wehrmacht employed innovative tactical doctrines later emulated by all, near the end of the war the Allies had caught up because of myriad factors. This dual started between the US Armys inferior Sherman tank versus the Wehrmachts mighty Panzer Mark V aka Panther. It had the ubiquitous German engineering excellence and had state of the art armor features like sloped armor, a high velocity gun, excellent ammunition, and gun sighting system optics. The Panther was arguably the best well rounded tank of WW II, but I digress on that front. Anyway, the Panther later encounters a Persing which was the US Armys newest tank which saw limited action at the end of the war and was their much belated answer to the Tiger and Panther. It had a 90mm main gun while the Sherman has a short 76mm gun, the latter of which could almost not penetrate the Panther at point blank range. The Panther had a 76mm too, but it was long barreled which meant it had high muzzle velocity that is key to armor penetration capability of kinetic energy rounds. It also had superior ammunition due to the manufacturing and design expertise of the German armaments industrial complex. At any rate, in an urban environment like this battle was fought, much of a tanks capabilitys are compromised. You lose the Panthers standoff range, expose your weaker armor sides, and maneuverability among other things. So watch the video. Its chilling. While a tanker myself during my Army days, this video hits home how violent and deadly armored warfare is however beautiful and magnificent tanks and their incredible engineering is. In modern warfare, our tank technology has become so advanced that the fight distance between tanks has increased where you cannot see you enemy with the naked eye; you see a vehicle and no faces in an optics system that looks more like a video game especially in thermal mode than a combat duel to the death. You wont have to see the aftermath up close, which is catastrophic due to the lethality of todays armored weaponry. At least one can take solace in the fact that while ostensibly savage, a tank round hit is a quick and fast extinguishment. A kinetic energy round like the m829A2 tactical sabot round which shoots a sub caliber depleted uranium penetrator that looks like a giant dart travels at around 1670.48 meters per second (if memory serves me correctly) and punches through advanced armor and causes catastrophic shrapnel and debris called spall from the created heat energy to travel through the tank and basically vaporize everything. It causes secondary explosions due to it causing the tanks fuel and ammo to explode. While some of my exposition travelled outside of the scope of what I wanted to say, I felt it was integral to explain to non-military and people uninitiated on some of the finer points of armored warfare. At any rate, in this video you see the use of armor piercing kinetic energy rounds of the time, which had tungsten penetrators instead and were the forerunners of our modern sabot rounds. You will see how lethal they are. Excellent web page written by a German civilian that gives detailed commentary and analysis of this tank battle. It even gives follow up info on the tank crew members involved on both sides and what happened to them. One quick aside about history: Otto Carius, one of Germanys most decorated and most famous Tank Aces became a pharmacist after the war and opened an pharmacy called Tiger Apothecary. Guess what? Its still open and Otto still works there, although sparingly now due to semi-retirement (much overdue, ya think?). How cool is that? Amazing. Enjoy. Tell me what you think. The video: youtu.be/NBI9d0-IfEM Cologne Tank Duel article: anicursor/colpicwar2.html
Posted on: Mon, 01 Sep 2014 18:55:33 +0000