Shurzen

[PanzerBob]

Originally Posted by cbo

Nope, both types of Schürzen were designed to defeat ATR rounds. When tested in February 1943, both the solid plate and the wire-mesh types were tried out and both worked against ATRs. The solid plates were choosen, because the brackets for the wire-mesh type was not ready. Later, that problem was solved and the wire-mesh type introduced as a weight saving measure, AFAIK

AFAIK the "bedsprings" were in fact specially designed anti-HEAT shields, the purpose being to catch the slow moving PzFaust wearhead without detonating it. The distance between the shield and the main armour was insufficient to prevent penetration if the round went off.

Claus B

Thanks Claus, certainly makes sense, and certainly explains what he idea behind the "bedsprings" was. Interesting how decisions made can have effect all out of perpective to the orginal intent. The Soviets retained their ATR's when other forces had dumped them. Figuring any weapon was better than none and they would at least usefull against light armoured vehicles. The result was causing the Germans to waste even more resources defending against them and causing the invention or at least the first particial stand-off armour. And people question how can WWII history can remain interesting!!!???

Bob out

[chuckfourth]

Hi
Well I guess someone better put the con argument for AT shurzen heres what John D Salt has to say at
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.m...tary.moderated

"1. There is no need to hang the outer plates at such a distance
from the main armour (with the attendant difficulty of having
them knocked off) unless one wants to increae stand-off distance;

and

2. There were no 14.5mm ATRs or anything comparable on the
Western or Italian fronts, yet German AFVs continued to wear
Shurzen there.

It also seems to me that, whereas an outer plate struck at an
angle might succeed in reducing the penetration of a 14.5mm APCR
round, it would make little difference with a normal impact. The
performance of the 14.5mm against the 30mm side armour of the Pz
III or Pz IV is so marginal that I would have thought it would
mostly fail at any great angle anyway. While not disputing that
Shurzen might indeed reduce the effect of 14.5mm (though, as
mentioned in another post of mine, it might not), it beggars
belief that anyone would put such engineering effort into a
counter to such a marginal threat when there are plenty of other
things to worry about.

Finally, I have yet to hear any basis for the statement that
Schurzen were intended to protect against 14.5mm apart from a
misreading of a single Spielberger book, which is nicely
contradicted by the same author in a companion volume. Does
anyone have any evidence they can point to of Pz IIIs and IVs
going down like flies to 14.5mm ATR teams, at any time in the
war? I'd be fascinated to hear about them. "

Makes sense to me.

Im sure that plenty of bazooka and PIAT rounds got fired at shurtzen in the brocage etc, now if these weapons could penetrate the plate and the armour behind dont you think the germans might have changed the configuration slightly? or just left them off?
Best Regards Chuck.

[chuckfourth]

Hi Claus
I think this is a copy of the new British test results we are talking about?

http://home19.inet.tele.dk/cbo/div/heat/wo194-755.htm

I notice one odd thing here.
In this Forum you says this
"PIAT could, on a good day, in fact penetrate a 6mm plate, reach across 50cm of space (that's about 20") and still penetrate a 32mm armour plate"
However the test results say that the space was 38cm.
Have you made a mistake here Claus?
Best Regards Chuck.

[cbo]

Originally Posted by chuckfourth

Hi Claus
I think this is a copy of the new British test results we are talking about?

http://home19.inet.tele.dk/cbo/div/heat/wo194-755.htm

I notice one odd thing here.
In this Forum you says this
"PIAT could, on a good day, in fact penetrate a 6mm plate, reach across 50cm of space (that's about 20") and still penetrate a 32mm armour plate"
However the test results say that the space was 38cm.
Have you made a mistake here Claus?

Of course not

As Don points out, this is actually a compilation made by me with the data from one of the tests. There are two additional tests that I found.

But why dont you try taking a look at the figures in 194/755, for starters:

You argued previously, that Schürzen were about 15" from the hull of the Panzer IV - i.e. 38cm. If you look at PIAT shots 3-5 fired at target 5-6, they actually penetrated the 6mm skirting plate, breached the 38cm of space and just managed to make a hole in the 32mm armour plate. Shot #6 just made a bulge. The report concluded that this was probably a critical target for the PIAT, i.e. the target where some hits would fail and other succed in penetration (IIRC 50/50).

In another test, the 6mm skirt was penetrated, 48cm of space crossed and the 32mm armour just penetrated while the third hit nearly made it through. Again showing that the PIAT could do the job, but with very little damage behind the main armour.

While the sample is small, one could draw several tentative conclusions from these tests. One being that there were considerable variation in the performance of individual PIAT rounds, another that spacing between plates might not have mattered that much, at least not until you reached distances which were impractical on tanks anyway.

As for John Salts comments, I suggest you read through the entire thread and the other threads on that page. Then it will become pretty obvious what the point of Schürzen was. Hint: It wasn't to stop HEAT.

But if you want to believe that they were, I'm not going to try to persuade you otherwise.

Claus B

[chuckfourth]

Hi Claus
In your paraphrased document
http://home19.inet.tele.dk/cbo/div/heat/wo194-755.htm
you say this
"PIAT with improved filling"
So do you have a service entry date for the -new- improved pait round? did it even get used during WWII?
Best Regards Chuck.