If you need help with muzzle brakes and discarding sabot ammunition: The Sherman Firefly had early APDS and a muzzle brake. But the APDS was terribly inaccurate compared to the regular british solid shot. Because APDS is prone to damage its sabot petals when passing the baffles of the muzzle brake. Then they dont separate simultainiously and cause the shot to deviate. Nowadays you can shape muzzle brakes and the petals to work alongside each other. But that demands higher cost per shot and lowers the efficiency of the muzzle brake. Thats why usually it just isnt done bar on extremely light vehicles that need the muzzle brake to take some recoil off. Falls du hilfe brauchst mit der Zusammenwirkung von Mündungsbremsen und Treibkäfiggeschossen: Der Windfangbeutel der Treibkäfiggeschosse kann beim Durchlaufen der verschiedenen Stufen der Mündungsbremsen beschädigt werden. Dadurch trennen sich die Bestandteile des Treibspiegels(heutzutage 3) nicht gleichmäßig oder nicht gleichzeitig vom Geschoss. Das Geschoss wird sehr stark von der normalen Flugbahn abgelenkt durch diese unsynchrone Lösung des Treibkäfigd. Was auch beim Firefly der Fall war. Mit APDS hatte dieser starke Abweichungen verglichen zu den normalen vollkalibrigen Panzergranaten. Mann kann heutzutage den Treibkäfig und die Mündungsbremse so formen, dass man beides gemeinsam benutzen kann. Jedoch ist dies mit hohen Kosten zu verrechnen die im Fall des Treibkäfigs pro Schuss anfallen. Die Mündungsbremse büßt dabei Effizienz ein. Sowas macht man deswegen nicht außer man hat es absolut nötig bei sehr leichten Fahrzeugen um den Rückstoß größerer Bordkanonen überhaupt aufgefangen zu bekommen.
Thanks Bernhardt. Easily the best video I've seen today. I recall being somewhat fascinated by this vehicle when I was a teenager. Since then I discovered things like rate of fire, fuel efficiency, railroad gauges, bridge load limits, the benefits of simplicity...
@@evilfingers4302 In almost every interview or book segment i've read with regards to Carius he somehow manages to find a moment in the interview where he can shit on the Jagdtiger lmao
The AD513629 states as follows. "With tank guns using APDS another problem arises in the form of damage from projectile and driving band components, which discard at the muzzle." "Attempts were made to overcome these difficulties, and a slotted barrel type brake attempted to retain the sabot, while allowing the gases to escape.".
The Soviets settled on a pepperpot type brake without any baffles or chambers for the T-12 100mm AT gun to avoid issues with sabots and folding fins. The holes are bored perpendicular to the axis of the barrel, rather than being canted back, so it's not a particularly efficient design, but it was deemed adequate in light of the requirements. It's also quite simple in construction, not requiring any welding or complex casting processes.
Before somebody says the muzzle brake on the 17 pounder in the Firefly is what affected the accuracy of its APDS, the '77 mm' gun on Comet was an adaptation of the 17 pounder, complete with muzzle brake, and it didn't have accuracy problems with APDS. No, I don't pretend to understand it either.
I wonder if it might be the higher velocity from the full power 17 pounder that caused the issues. Some peculiarity of the airflow during sabot separation, perhaps?
the Sabot design is relevant. The UK used cup sabots with a single petal ring, that slipped off the projectile, while more modern APDS used discarding petals on the cup sabot. The first one can be shot through a muzzle brake the second one has a good chance to get stuck or damage the muzzle brake.
@@TheSaturnV The StuG crew inside the barn are just thankful it's a tank they have some slim chance of surviving, rather than a pearl harbour survivor whose captain had a conversation with his fire control officer going something like this: "see that hill?" "Yes sir" "I don't want to" Anyway, the 17 pdr was accurate (though I think less so than the 76) with the normal rounds, it was just the sabot that had issues.
I do not know how long it takes to design and build a glacis plate, but an engine takes quite a bit of time. (I have worked as an engineer on automotive powertrains.) If one day you change the front plate from 100cm to 150cm it takes a much longer time to up the engine size to push it around. Having to reduce the maximum RPM for reliability means that engine block is at the limit of what it can take. Probably at its bore limit as well. If you do not have materials to make tough armor you are probably also short on hardened engine parts. It is a combination of the imperfect storm.
That's something that baffles me with modern MBT upgrades. Hey, let's strap on another 20 tons of composite, ERA, and electric systems and just upgrade the engine... How can they even fit a more powerful engine into a decade-old vehicle that was never meant to carry such a big engine, or handle this much weight and power? Sure, to some degree you can make an engine more powerful while keeping the size constant, but that shouldn't go far... I've heard that some remote-controlled race cars have over 1 horsepower, but their engine is as small as a coin (diameter). The problem I see is that the shaft of the engine will be under 2mm thick and with too much acceleration or load, it should bend or outright snap!
The Australian Armour & Artillery Museum has vids on here where they tour their parts source in Poland and they show and talk about just how thin the engine block is between the cylinders on the HL230 engines. I believe it was an engine out of a Tiger that they were showing, so same design but possibly different model number. P.S. It's two videos from 7 months ago entitled: "WORKSHOP WEDNESDAY: Tiger I Maybach Engine secrets REVEALED! M70 Motorbikes, SdKfz 8 and more!" "WORKSHOP WEDNESDAY: How to remanufacture a PERFECT TIGER I and restoration prep!"
@@edi9892 the size isn't kept constant though. The TLAV upgrade to the M113 for instance added over a meter of length to the chassis, for example. Often when we're talking about "upgrades" it's an entirely new vehicle on the same basic chassis or an old hull has been entirely stripped, bulkheads moved, etc. to allow for the new equipment (i.e. Lav 6 vs Lav III)
Its made worse as ww1 promises huge advance in engines but interwar financial concerns provide nothing to explore it. Most places are chasing basic machine tools too.
Two thoughts: 1 - Build in “room to grow”, in terms of space for a larger engine and 2 - More modern electronics have reduce weight - that’s added up, to my understanding.
Both Porsche suspension and Henschel suspension were based on torsion bars. But they took a variously different approach to the implementation. Henschel: normal transverse torsion bars, but in order to use thinner (softer and easier to produce) bars, they put twice as many to each side, which required either super small wheels, or overlapping wheels. Super small wheels would wear out too quickly, and large wheels offered a bit of additional protection to the weakest part of the whole tank - the lower sides. Porsche: longitudinal torsion bar in each bogie going from one wheel to the other, with a cam on one side and a fixed point on the other side of that bar. The cam connected to opposing cam on the axle of the other wheel of said bogie. This meant that if the wheels pushed away from each other (riding over a bump), it would turn the cam, which would turn the other cam on the torsion bar, which would twist the torsion bar against the fixed point on the opposite side. At least that was the theory. The practice was that the system required a rubber bushing between the cams (which wore out rather quickly) and another rubber block used as bump stop to prevent the suspension from bottoming out so badly that the wheel on the torsion bar would strike the swing arm of the main wheel which connects both to the hull. Overall it was super complicated, required precise parts and a lot of throwaway rubber parts. It looks simple from the outside, but technically speaking the Henschel suspension is much, much simpler.
Interleaved road wheels also offer amazingly smooth rides compared to non interleaved ones and have better weight distribution and ground pressure. They literally have only two disadvantages: higher material use and nightmarish maintenance.
@@MajinOthinus Ground pressure is only affected by weight of the vehicle and the surface area of the tracks that is in contact with the ground. But smoot ride is definitely its advantage, because as I wrote, these torsion bars are relatively thin and soft, meaning that the whole vehicle rides smoothly.
The more I read about these matters (German weapons and their design during WW2) the more I am surprised by the lack of logical thinking, if not plain stupidity, of the German High Command and, up to a point, of Hitler himself. It seems that logistics and industrial capacity never entered into their plans.
The logic was more like "we can t change we re outnumbered in all aspects, therefore we need superior longer lasting armor for the defensive battle closing in on us" in terms of the Jagdtiger, plus they had chassis left and in theory the Jagdtiger was meant to be a lot easier to produce than a proper turreted tank. Regarding the Tiger/ King Tiger or the Panther vs more Panzer IV style tanks: the leadership mostly followed what the generals asked for already years earlier when Germany still had chances to gain the initiative... it s just that after the war, many of these generals (incl. Guderian) were very willing to quickly forget that...
For anyone interested: original documents (after action reports) from sPzJgr.Abt.653 & sPzJgr.Abt.512 (published in the following two books listed below) describe each Jagdtiger loss due to the following causes: sPzJgr.Abt.653: 1 x Infantry (Bazooka)*/ 2 x Tank or Tank Destroyer/ 4 x Combat Loss Unknown Cause/ 2 x Artillery / 5 x Battle Damage (Mobility kills) / 2 x Combat-Mechanical Breakdown**/ 10 x Self Destroyed-Non-Combat***/ 3 x Field March-Mechanical Breakdown/ 17 x Mechanical Breakdown/ 1 x Bridge Collapse/ 4 x Abandoned [51 Total Losses] sPzJgr.Abt.512: 1 x Tank or Tank Destroyer/ 1 x Aircraft (Fighter Bomber)/ 1 x Battle Damage (Mobility kills)/ 9 x Combat-Mechanical Breakdown**/ 7 x Self Destroyed-Non-Combat***/ 3 x Mechanical Breakdown/ 5 x Abandoned [27 Total Losses] 78 [ Overall Total Losses ] Overall Losses 28 Lost due to Combat (35.9%) 23 Lost due to Mechanical Failure Only (29.49%) 17 Self Destroyed*** (21.79%) 9 Abandoned (11.54%) 1 Bridge Failure (1.28%) 78 Overall Total Losses (100%) Infantry (Bazooka)* = US sources claim killed by an M-36 TD. Combat-Mechanical Breakdown** = Typically Jagdtigers maneuvering during or just before combat which suffered track breaks or de-tracking (this was frequent failure for vehicles with the early/mid production two piece track links) or other mechanical failures. Self Destroyed-Non-Combat*** = Good order vehicles destroyed due to lack of fuel. Sources: - Münch, Karlheinz Combat History of Schwere Panzerjäger Abteilung 653: formerly the Sturmgeschütz Abteilung 197: 1940-1943, J.J. Fedorowicz Publishing Inc. 1997 - Devey, Andrew Jagdtiger: The Most Powerful Armoured Fighting Vehicle of World War II (No.2): Operational History, Schiffer Military History, 1999
If I read the equipment list of the Jagdtiger correctly a "Scherenfernrohr 14 für Sfl. mit Zubehör" (scissors binoculars for self propelled guns with accessories) was included (taken from Fröhlich: Schwere Panzer der Wehrmach page 141). As far as I remember those can be used as rangefinders, too. The additional width between the lenses compared to normal scopes makes them more accurate. I do not know if this method is also based on mils and trigonometry or completely different.
It had several, the commander had a fixed periscope facing right on his rotating hatch as well as as a sub hatch from which he could frontally protrude a hand carried binocular stereoscopic rangefinder. The gunner had a 10x zoom telescope with graduated range markings as his primary gun sight as well as two pairs of fixed rear facing binoculars in the casemate roof so he could check their six.
I think i heard the story of when a Jagdriger ambushed a column of US Shermans on the Western Front in early 1945. As it opened up fire on the Shermans driving about 0,5 km away, the 12,8 cm shells tore clean trough their armor and exited the tank without doing any harm to the tank or its crew. Its gun was hopelessly overpowered while the engine being hopelessly underpowered. Not a good match.
Random note on the Muzzle brake and sabot, apparently Singaporean Amx-13/75s had an APFSDS round developed for them (and they did retain the muzzle brake).
The US did a lot of work with sabots in the 76mm gun, which oddly enough had a copy of the German 75mm muzzle brake. And accuracy of the 17 pdr and 76mm were not "terrible", but just not as good as the HVAP. The University of New Mexico did a bunch of work on the US 76mm APDS. As to how to get a sabot through a muzzle brake a quote from the University report: "The design aimed at such strength in this ring [that constrains the sabot pedals] that it would not "explode" at the muzzle but would yield slowly enough to pass through the brake before significant expansion had occurred. The, material used in the ring was cold rolled steel of good elongation. This release is designated as "delayed centrifugal." - Work on Sabot Projectiles by The University of New Mexico Under Contract OEMsr-668 and Supplements, 1942 - 1944, J. W Greig (ADA800118) EDIT: Found the accuracy results from at test done in 1943: the 50% zone at 1100 yards was 19.2 inches horizontal and 15.6 inches vertical. Nick might consider that "terrible."
In refernce to that it was issues with sabot separation and batch issues. Differnt units did test fires and documented the results and folks love to pick certain data sets to support their opinion. But while results between units were all over the place the results IN the specfic units seemed to be consistent, like every crew in the 6th Hussars scoring around 57% but then everyone in a scotish unit averaging 90%+. To me that says some batches where botched and some worked as advertised. Its worth noting that many of these units fired APBC at the same time and all of them scored pretty consistently with that round.
Yeah, after all the Firefly was a rush job for D-day, explaining it's quirks. With the gun barely fitting in, getting that reduced recoil was probably deemed worth it at the expense of accuracy.
@@kennethreese2193 APDS issues with clean separation were known to be terrible early on. People forget Discarding Sabot was developed in the 30's. Everybody just could not get it to work well, despite them all trying to some degree for almost a decade. The lower velocity 77HV supposedly did not suffer nearly as much at all from this for some reason and was an accidental success. Most likely had something to do with fringe physics keeping the pedals intact until it cleared the muzzle. The 17lb had a fix put in the 50's using a special band around the pedals that would be sheared off with particular drag vectors.
Otto Carius in his book Tiger in the mud says this is crap and he managed only to get one kill with it, while he got dozens with the Tiger. The main reason is the gun accuracy what a complete disaster.
Good video. Only thing I wish you included were some reports from combat units detailing their experience using the vehicle at the front, so we could get some more concrete ideas about the tactical and operational difficulties of the Jagtiger. I'm also curious about how many successful engagements it had, and if the massive gun and thick armour ever allowed it to dominate the battlefield in the way its designers claimed it would. I imagine that even if it did, the enemy would quickly adapt and find ways to exploit its many weaknesses.
Muzzle brakes on vehicle mounted guns are only used if the gun mount (or the the vehicle itself) is unable to take the recoil without suffering damage. In the tanks of WW2, the turret ring in particular was prone to damage from the recoil of high powered weapons - something neither the Jagdtiger nor Hetzer have). If the gun mount and/or vehicle can easily absorb the recoil forces (as is the case for both the Jagdtiger and Hetzer) then there is no point mounting a muzzle brake. It just extra redundant weight and cost. As for muzzle brakes and APDS rounds, there will be a slight delay (milliseconds or less) after leaving the actual barrel before the sabot really begins to separate from the projectile. The hole at the front of the muzzle brake needs to be slightly larger than the bore of the gun (effectively "timed" to the separation characteristics) to account for the initial slight separation as the projectile and sabot travel thought the muzzle brake and then full separation begins just after they clear the end of the muzzle brake.
I remember reading an account where the excessive smoke from firing made the supporting volkstrum think the jagdtiger had been knocked out, so they fled.
If I'm not mistaken, this cannon has the kinetic energy of a modern MBT cannon, but it's a lot thicker and thus heavier (though it's shorter than the 88 and 75mm which went for L71 instead of L55). Only the Maus had it in a turret, and yet, modern MBTs managed to get so much smaller and lighter... Side note: the Russian 122mm is way less powerful, but later IS prototype tanks did try out a 130mm cannon, which was probably on equal terms.
Putting a 10.5cm into a smaller tank would have been a better solution. Like the Soviets, the Germans were putting naval guns into AFVs but as an evolution a 10.5 seems a more logical step.
It was junk. I still remember vividly an interview by Otto Carius where he said it was absolutely awful. In case you were wondering what he complained about the most: 1. It was huge, meaning easy to spot, very difficult to camouflage, and therefore not viable option for ambush tactics that was the standard for TDs. 2. It's gun was so huge it required recalibration after going offroad even for a modest distance. Imagine how impractical it must have been. 3. The gun was actually an overkill. Required two piece ammo that took a lot of place and affected rate of fire. In the same time - it was facing armour that could be knocked out by 88L/71 all the same, with MUCH less trouble. 4. It was not very reliable and in the same time impossible to evacuate, meaning it was easy to lose one even to trivial causes. Lastly, his unit got inexperienced crew which translated into poor performance - that's not an issue with the vehicle itself though. Rather, makes you wonder why not give the brand new, supposed super TD to experienced crews who could perhaps use its potential?
Carius was a breakthrough tank commander who got thrown into a heavy casemate self-propelled gun. Of course it was a downgrade for him. This, however, also speaks to how German command itself didn't employ this vehicle in way it was supposed to be employed. As for gun being overkill - it was because his unit faced Shermans, of course it was overkill for him, while 8.8cm KwK was about perfect for such target. But there were already threats incoming that made this gun have it's place. It had same role as 122mm D-25 in IS-2 and ISU-122, yet somehow I never hear people on the internet calling these vehicles "junk". As with majority of late-war German designs, the real problem was dwindling situation of country itself and therefore lack of tactical situations where they could actually be employed effectively. Remember all these 1945 vehicles were in fact designs for realities of 1942.
In meiner Nachbarstadt Iserlohn kapitulierten am 16.04.1945 mit der 1. Kompanie/Schwere Panzerjägerabteilung 513, geführt durch Albert Ernst, eine der letzten Einheiten die mit Jagdtigern ausgerüstet war. Dazu finden sich auch bei YT Videodokumente.
From memory. (Ps the large Muzzle flash when the Sherman Firefly produced when firing, gave it it's nickname) Sherman Firefly 17-pounder combining with the operational requirements. Did some reading, Mk II of the British QF 17 pounder, orginally had it's muzzle brake removed, but was added back in March 1944, with the introduction of the APDS shot How the problem of the discarding sabot is "solved"? Enlarge the diameter of the Muzzle brake, so most of the time, the muzzle does not affect the ballistics of the projectile.
5:24 On the question of why the Firefly had a muzzle brake but used sabot rounds.... To quote the Chieftain, the British "couldn't hit the broad side of a barn from the inside with a sabot round." The reason for this was that the sabot wrapper interfaces with the muzzle brake as it exits the barrel, causing the round to be wildly inaccurate, frequently tumbling in flight and/or striking hundreds of yards from its intended target. This is yet another example of an engineering marvel from the Germans that was botched in production, maintenance and field operations. They figured out that the way to get accurate shot placement with a sabot round was to remove the muzzle brake; but then they put it on a vehicle that was an absolute nightmare to produce and maintain.
@5:43 I do not remember source but Firefly with sabot rounds worked most of the time (only occasionally hitting the muzzle brake) and difference with muzzle brake vs no muzzle brake only manifested at extreme range with lower accuracy with muzzle brake. Germans probably tested it and deemed gun mostly working unacceptable while British decided that muzzle brake was worth the tradeoff with sabot rounds.
*A small correction: Muzzle brakes appear on german tank guns from the KwK 40/StuK 40 (75mm L/43) onwards. The KwK 36 (37mm), KwK 38 (50mm L/42) and KwK 39 (50mm L/60) didnt have muzzle brakes (exceptions are the KwK 39 on the SdKfz. 234/2 an similar). So from the PzKpfW. IV Ausf. F2 and StuG III Ausf. F onwards. The PzKpfW. II has more of a Flashhider than a Muzzle Brake. APDS works with muzzle brakes, depending on the type of Sabot used. A Cup Sabot with rigid Petals can be shot through a muzzle brake. (its basicly an APCR Round without ballisitic Cap and the Sabot parts (bottom and petal) will fall off after leaving the muzzle by wind pressure) A Cup Sabot with deforming Petals can NOT be shot through a muzzle brake, without high risk of severe malfunction. (similar to the upper one, but there the petals deform outwards to release the projectile) A Base Sabot with discarding Petals can also not be shot through a muzzle brake without risk of malfunction. If i am not mistaken, the 17pdr used Cup Sabots with rigit Petals for its APDS rounds and the german solution were discarding driving bands on the 128mm APDS (so a cup sabot with discarding petals)
If you're living in video game world where you just point and click and purchase units for imaginary points, then maybe you can make such comparisons, however in real world things get slightly more complicated.
I remember this vehicle back in Darkest Hour years ago. A gun so powerful it didn't even need to use AP, but at the same time it had some serious issues being shot in the side...
Chieftain, in a video I saw recently, indicated that the sabot round from the Firefly was very inaccurate beyond a very short distance, something like 200-600 meters.
WW2 was the war of industries. Allies hit very hard in economics, resources and air bombings on industries. That made more damage than any other military operation, Germany couldn't keep up the war machine. Great explanation, thanks.
IDK how the muzzle brake deals w/ APDS ammo, but I suspect it's a simple matter of the distance between the end of the barrel v/s the length of the actual sabot on the round. If the back of the sabot is still in the barrel at the time when the front of the sabot emerges from the muzzle brake, no separation of the sabot from the penetrator core will occur until the sabot clears the muzzle brake.
My understanding is that muzzle breaks at the time could be used with APDS, but that it really messed with accuracy which is why the firefly APDS was inaccurate.
7:45 The TS ammo (to my understanding) wasnt so much only to increase Ap performance (they also build Heds ammo), but to also increase range and velocity for greater hit chances.
Good of you mentioning declining armor quality happening due to various reasons. I never heard of the Germans dealing with this in WWII until I played "Combat Mission: Operation Overlord" tactical game from the late 1990s. A lot of the German "Big Cats" had big reliability issues. Jagdtiger just made it worse.
The war was already lost or at any rate unwinable by the time these monstrosities were being produced, that they wanted to create a war-winning behemoth at that stage, or thought they could is the measure of their unreality
I would love to see a video covering any German reports on the Allied "Funny" Tanks/engineering vehicles, and especially the DD tanks. Similar to what you did on the German view on the Churchill gun tank. Obviously this depends on there being such information in archives, but I hope it's something you can keep an eye on.
Interesting to note that the discarding sabot rounds for the 17 pounder were considered so inaccurate the US deemed them basically useless when they tested the gun. Maybe the muzzle brake is to blame?
The firefly used a pot sabot for the APDS rounds instead of the petal style commonly seen today. Just speculation but I suspect this was chosen to be compatible with the brakes the 17pdr used.
I can imagine that the Germans decided they needed to get rid of the muzzle break to make the sabot work properly. The British could not really afford to remove the 17pdr's muzzlebreak because of the weapon's savage recoil and the confined space of the sherman's turret with that gun in it. So they made it work as best they could. That being said the APDS from the 17 pdr was apparently not very accurate, they had a bit of trouble which was only really solved after the war(although this does not mean it was never used sucsessfully, it was). But the same sabot coming from the from the Comet's 77mm was very accurate, and performance wise only lost like 10mm of penetration.
I seem to remember something about the 17 pounder having poor accuracy at anything but short range and it was down to the machining of the muzzle break. If the issue was range and they had captured some of the earlier models, perhaps simply they didn't try. I don't know if this is the actual reason however.
Good video! One thing to correct: Those thicker German armour plates were not face-hardened - by design - they were homologous. Pretty good quality too - tough (see battle damage photos). Better than any cast armour. Only thinner plates (like 40-45mm on the Panther) were face-hardened.
There not thick by hardened armour standards of the era anyway, every nation that built anything more armoured than a cruiser in that era could do 12-18 inch thick plates. The glasis of a jagedtiger is only equivalent to a light cruisers belt armour.
In the case with the muzzle brake: they causes turbulances by changing the airstream. So, on long shots it depends on luck to hit the targe. The US Army competed their 76mm long barrel against the 17-pdr. and stick with 76mm. The armour penetration was less but the hit rate was much better. (by one opinion: you couldnt hit the broad side of a barn at 500 yards). For the germans accuracy at a long range was the most important thing. So they dont use a muzzle break. And there is another reason for not using. A muzzle break blasts the smoke backwards in a large radius. For a stationary Jagdpanzer was this bad because after 4-5 shots the gunner could not visit the target because of all that smoke. So subsequently some Jagdpanzer (Hetzer, Jpz IV/70) came without a muzzle break.
The doc I saw reported the problem with the sabots but evidently it was only a matter of a few inches accuracy vs having the muzzle brake. I mean, that 17 pounder barely fit into the turret to begin with.
To be honest I never seen why only the Jagdtiger often takes so much more hate from youtube historians and those kind than many other tanks/spgs/etc/etc, in all fairness there was a fair few tanks made in or up to world war 2 there also had tons of problems and was made any way for one or more reasons.
Personally I believe the Germans screwed up stopping production of the Tiger I to produce the Tiger II in general. Tiger I by 1944 had all the bugs worked out of it and despite reputation was a pretty dependable tank based on maintenance records. Tiger production was going over 100 a month when they stopped.
A two-stage projectile(shell and propellant) was common in battleship guns. So, basically the Jagdtiger was a naval gun on tracks(Current naval guns vary from 76 to 125mm in NATO navies) and a huge waste of resources. Wonder how many PAK 40s could have been made out of a single Jagdtiger. Or even Nashorrns.
04:42 I thought I read in a Jenz/Doyle Book that the Muzzle Break of the Jagdtiger was deleted because the Gun would have been to long for going through tunnels on railway cars in a bend. Probably a case of misremebering facts on my part :)
The whole idea of making tank destroyer variants of the Tiger and the Panther seems stupid to begin with, especially if those variants don't actually save weight or cost. The regular Tiger and Panther were already excellent at fighting enemy tanks, and had the versatility to be suited for a whole lot more other jobs than dedicated tank destroyers.
No ballistics expert here. Closest I get to it is virtual shooting in games like Sniper Elite and understanding how things move through air. I have some education in physics. There I'm much more on the QM side of things. You go hunting for electrons you end up finding them. I'm going to make the suggestion it's the sabot design which makes some things work and others not. Sabot design, when and how it opens, speed of the projectile out of the barrel. If you have it opening up the moment it's not contained by the barrel, other means, you put anything in front of that? You're going to have issues. The more violently it does this, the worst it is. I've seen a vid or two showing a M1A-something firing and you can see the impact from the petals of the sabot in front of the tank. You could make a game betting on where they were going to land, fly to it was that energetic and crazy. For perspective? Around a 60 degree cone from the muzzle end of the barrel and well over 15 metres odd. If you have it still contained, still moving as a singular block for say, up to three metres from the barrel, it doesn't matter what's on the end. I seem to remember they were experimenting with a form of cup sabot for the 17 pounder, Firefly gun. I have a feeling this was more 45 and 46, it was post war. I think the documentation I'm thinking about was related to penetration testing, comparing the 76mm, 17pndr and other gun. I have a feeling it was a 90mm gun. US testing. In which the sabot round was so inaccurate they decided to save the ammo for penetration testing. Nick Moran found it relating to one of his presentations here on TH-cam. If I find it, remember it will leave a reply with it. Sorry if that seems like a ramble, I've never expressly looked into this.
hitler never got over the idea of BIGGER IS BETTER, the regular tiger was so large transporting it was an issue and the crews had to spend so much time on maintenance that they needed to be highly trained. this monsted would have just been more of the same- big and scary and easily cut off, heck mostly run across a foot bridge and it's undone.
AFAIK the vibration issue was only ever a problem with the Porsche suspension, a few of which Otto Carious commanded. The Henschel design didn't suffer from this, atleast it was not ever noted about the KT, and 7 tons is not going to make such a difference. The travel lock is a normal feature for such a big gun, and is also a thing on modern SPGs. As for the statement about armour quality, I think its very dangerous to make the broad assumption that all German tanks suffered from this based on a single sample tested at Kubinka - I know Peter Samsonov loves to make such assumptions, but I don't think you should follow that unhealthy trend. The US did test firings against a good number of late war German tanks, incl. Panthers and Tiger IIs, and many demonstrated no deterioration in armour quality (and no cracking after successive hits etc), despite being of a later production date than the Kubinka example. It is known that the Germans for a period in 44 were very low on molybdenum, which affected armour production in that short period, until it was sourced again from Turkey. Hence the likely reason why the armour quality on late war German tanks was found to vary.
This SPG/tank destroyer (because it is not a tank), could be very good EITHER - if it was made 1 or 2 years earlier (but it wasn't because all Germans tank development programs were delayed and poorly developed till it was to late) OR even in late years if it has better engine and transmission and was more mobile (which was not achieved due to mention above delay in Germany tank development programs)
There is a claim that the Soviet Army donated a small amount of German weapons captured by the Soviet Army during the Korean War, such as mg34, mp38, stg44, and panzer 4 ausf g, to North Korea and were actually used in small quantities in the Korean War. I saw MG34 in a photo from Song Hae's youth (presumably from the Korean War). Also, at the DMZ Museum in Uljin, there is a never-before-discovered photo related to the Panzer 4 Ausf G. A photo of four PZ 4 Gs carrying thatched houses and mountain scenery and their crews was included as a "photo of a North Korean tank unit during the Korean War." If this is really the case that German-made weapons were used in the Korean War - or if they are fake, I would like you to find out why and whether they were actually used.
Now you've done it. I am sure i made this as a model kit as a 10 yo (didn't like its look though) and started tearing up my house trying to find it. Now i have to find it. 😖 Great video though. 👍
Engineering wise, you can't start out building a wood fire and end up with a fission reactor. There must be a lot of research and development in between. You must also accept what the statistics are telling you. I am assuming here that the engineers are aiming to build a Ratte. The Jagdtiger represents an initial step towards it. It starts out as a battlefield requirement but ends up as a propaganda tank, which all the powers get involved with to some extent. The Jagdtiger did a great job of demonstrating key areas that critically required development. Such as suspension and powerplant, which they were more than likely aware of. At this point, basic statistics and fitness for purpose were ignored while chasing Hitler's approval. They chose the largest gun in production at the time, the 128mm. Requiring 2 piece ammunition that will effectively double the load time and thus reduce its ability to meet its requirements. Also, very basic statistics were totally ignored. Such as only around 12% of tank losses came about from tank on tank actions, and the vast majority of losses came from the air. Increasing to top armour was far more important than increasing the frontal armour. So, the mindset of those involved were trapped in a tank vs. tank, including AT guns, mindset. To get it on the battlefield in the shortest possible time, some rather bad set of compromises were made. For example, the suspension chosen reduced the time required to develop the suspension needed, but the knock-on effect was contributing to the issue of keeping the main gun zeroed. For the Tiger I, in a number of books, lists an APFSDS as a round its gun was designed to fire. Yet I can't find any references for this round, actually being deployed. This may have been the case for the same round for the 128mm gun. If working towards the Ratte was to be realised, the Jagdtiger was a required step and, therefore, was not a waste of 75 tons. However, any project manager will tell you that time that is available and the timing of its delivery is every bit as important as the project itself. Given the declining situation after 1941, a lack of key materials and required technology not developed was not just a waste of 75 tons but brought to production wasted a huge amount of strategic required resources that should have been spent elsewhere. Focusing on the original requirements, the development of a one-piece AT round for the flak 105mm gun that was in development would have been a better choice. However, the armaments industry did not communicate that well with the tank designers, which was endemic throughout Hitler's Germany.
I've heard the firefly's sabot ammunition was grossly inaccurate and I wonder if the Germans had anticipated such inaccuracies with the muzzle break. Some commenters are saying it was likely an issue with specific batches of ammunition, but maybe worth looking into nonetheless
The Tiger tanks are quite a good demonstration on why the Nouvelle École translates almost 1:1 from naval to armored warfare. Even when you have the most sophisticated, idiot-proof and unproblematic super heavy tank, it still only has only one gun and you would be better off using all that steel to build 5 smaller and more versatile tanks that have, in sum, 5 guns.
Anyone who comes up with "muh megalomaniac madman hitler" card, seems to forget, that frontline units themselves requested the 12,8 Pak to be put onto a heavy tank chassis
I have a bit hard time believing that. Maybe the newer less experienced tankers started to think that since they weren't getting the expected results the fault must be in the guns they were using. In reality the 75/88mm anti-tank guns they had in '44 were more than capable of taking out any armoured vehicle fielded by the allies.
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If you need help with muzzle brakes and discarding sabot ammunition: The Sherman Firefly had early APDS and a muzzle brake. But the APDS was terribly inaccurate compared to the regular british solid shot. Because APDS is prone to damage its sabot petals when passing the baffles of the muzzle brake. Then they dont separate simultainiously and cause the shot to deviate.
Nowadays you can shape muzzle brakes and the petals to work alongside each other. But that demands higher cost per shot and lowers the efficiency of the muzzle brake. Thats why usually it just isnt done bar on extremely light vehicles that need the muzzle brake to take some recoil off.
Falls du hilfe brauchst mit der Zusammenwirkung von Mündungsbremsen und Treibkäfiggeschossen: Der Windfangbeutel der Treibkäfiggeschosse kann beim Durchlaufen der verschiedenen Stufen der Mündungsbremsen beschädigt werden. Dadurch trennen sich die Bestandteile des Treibspiegels(heutzutage 3) nicht gleichmäßig oder nicht gleichzeitig vom Geschoss. Das Geschoss wird sehr stark von der normalen Flugbahn abgelenkt durch diese unsynchrone Lösung des Treibkäfigd. Was auch beim Firefly der Fall war. Mit APDS hatte dieser starke Abweichungen verglichen zu den normalen vollkalibrigen Panzergranaten.
Mann kann heutzutage den Treibkäfig und die Mündungsbremse so formen, dass man beides gemeinsam benutzen kann. Jedoch ist dies mit hohen Kosten zu verrechnen die im Fall des Treibkäfigs pro Schuss anfallen. Die Mündungsbremse büßt dabei Effizienz ein. Sowas macht man deswegen nicht außer man hat es absolut nötig bei sehr leichten Fahrzeugen um den Rückstoß größerer Bordkanonen überhaupt aufgefangen zu bekommen.
Gibt es mehr Infos zu den Geplanten Treibspiegel Geschossen die der Jagdtiger verwenden sollte ?
Thanks Bernhardt. Easily the best video I've seen today. I recall being somewhat fascinated by this vehicle when I was a teenager. Since then I discovered things like rate of fire, fuel efficiency, railroad gauges, bridge load limits, the benefits of simplicity...
We all have, well, most of us have :D
Ich auch. Weiterhin so Dinge wie die Tragfähigkeit von Brücken, Gewichtsgrenzen im Eisenbahntrabsport usw.
It is not always the bigger gun...
While its is kinda of a shit tank, it will always be my favorite tank because it was the one that got me into tanks (also it looks cool)
@@FRGBlackBurnFine Opinion
So, you went from german to russian tank designer, eh? :
I also remember Otto Carius mentioning that the Jagdtiger easily lost its zero during any form of travel, so another negative point for that..
Otto Carius hated the Jagdtiger
I also recall him saying that they were poorly constructed and had mechanical issues, unlike his earlier tanks.
@@himwo. Just like early Shermans and early M103s.
@@evilfingers4302 In almost every interview or book segment i've read with regards to Carius he somehow manages to find a moment in the interview where he can shit on the Jagdtiger lmao
@@thenumbah1birdmanyep... He thought it was ridiculous
The AD513629 states as follows. "With tank guns using APDS another problem arises in the form of damage
from projectile and driving band components, which discard at the muzzle." "Attempts were made to overcome these difficulties, and a slotted barrel
type brake attempted to retain the sabot, while allowing the gases to escape.".
The Soviets settled on a pepperpot type brake without any baffles or chambers for the T-12 100mm AT gun to avoid issues with sabots and folding fins. The holes are bored perpendicular to the axis of the barrel, rather than being canted back, so it's not a particularly efficient design, but it was deemed adequate in light of the requirements. It's also quite simple in construction, not requiring any welding or complex casting processes.
0:05 I didn't know Austrian law legally required its citizens to visit the Bovington tank museum!
Very sensible policy - should be more widely adopted IMO.
Before somebody says the muzzle brake on the 17 pounder in the Firefly is what affected the accuracy of its APDS, the '77 mm' gun on Comet was an adaptation of the 17 pounder, complete with muzzle brake, and it didn't have accuracy problems with APDS. No, I don't pretend to understand it either.
I guess turning it sideways upset the accuracy gremlins.
I wonder if it might be the higher velocity from the full power 17 pounder that caused the issues. Some peculiarity of the airflow during sabot separation, perhaps?
the Sabot design is relevant.
The UK used cup sabots with a single petal ring, that slipped off the projectile, while more modern APDS used discarding petals on the cup sabot.
The first one can be shot through a muzzle brake the second one has a good chance to get stuck or damage the muzzle brake.
“See that barn at 800’? Put a round through it.”
Firefly gunner: “You’re havin’ a bath.”
M4A3E8 gunner: “You didn’t say which knot hole.”
@@TheSaturnV The StuG crew inside the barn are just thankful it's a tank they have some slim chance of surviving, rather than a pearl harbour survivor whose captain had a conversation with his fire control officer going something like this:
"see that hill?"
"Yes sir"
"I don't want to"
Anyway, the 17 pdr was accurate (though I think less so than the 76) with the normal rounds, it was just the sabot that had issues.
I do not know how long it takes to design and build a glacis plate, but an engine takes quite a bit of time. (I have worked as an engineer on automotive powertrains.) If one day you change the front plate from 100cm to 150cm it takes a much longer time to up the engine size to push it around. Having to reduce the maximum RPM for reliability means that engine block is at the limit of what it can take. Probably at its bore limit as well. If you do not have materials to make tough armor you are probably also short on hardened engine parts. It is a combination of the imperfect storm.
That's something that baffles me with modern MBT upgrades. Hey, let's strap on another 20 tons of composite, ERA, and electric systems and just upgrade the engine... How can they even fit a more powerful engine into a decade-old vehicle that was never meant to carry such a big engine, or handle this much weight and power?
Sure, to some degree you can make an engine more powerful while keeping the size constant, but that shouldn't go far... I've heard that some remote-controlled race cars have over 1 horsepower, but their engine is as small as a coin (diameter). The problem I see is that the shaft of the engine will be under 2mm thick and with too much acceleration or load, it should bend or outright snap!
The Australian Armour & Artillery Museum has vids on here where they tour their parts source in Poland and they show and talk about just how thin the engine block is between the cylinders on the HL230 engines. I believe it was an engine out of a Tiger that they were showing, so same design but possibly different model number.
P.S. It's two videos from 7 months ago entitled:
"WORKSHOP WEDNESDAY: Tiger I Maybach Engine secrets REVEALED! M70 Motorbikes, SdKfz 8 and more!"
"WORKSHOP WEDNESDAY: How to remanufacture a PERFECT TIGER I and restoration prep!"
@@edi9892 the size isn't kept constant though. The TLAV upgrade to the M113 for instance added over a meter of length to the chassis, for example.
Often when we're talking about "upgrades" it's an entirely new vehicle on the same basic chassis or an old hull has been entirely stripped, bulkheads moved, etc. to allow for the new equipment (i.e. Lav 6 vs Lav III)
Its made worse as ww1 promises huge advance in engines but interwar financial concerns provide nothing to explore it. Most places are chasing basic machine tools too.
Two thoughts: 1 - Build in “room to grow”, in terms of space for a larger engine and 2 - More modern electronics have reduce weight - that’s added up, to my understanding.
Both Porsche suspension and Henschel suspension were based on torsion bars. But they took a variously different approach to the implementation.
Henschel: normal transverse torsion bars, but in order to use thinner (softer and easier to produce) bars, they put twice as many to each side, which required either super small wheels, or overlapping wheels. Super small wheels would wear out too quickly, and large wheels offered a bit of additional protection to the weakest part of the whole tank - the lower sides.
Porsche: longitudinal torsion bar in each bogie going from one wheel to the other, with a cam on one side and a fixed point on the other side of that bar. The cam connected to opposing cam on the axle of the other wheel of said bogie. This meant that if the wheels pushed away from each other (riding over a bump), it would turn the cam, which would turn the other cam on the torsion bar, which would twist the torsion bar against the fixed point on the opposite side. At least that was the theory. The practice was that the system required a rubber bushing between the cams (which wore out rather quickly) and another rubber block used as bump stop to prevent the suspension from bottoming out so badly that the wheel on the torsion bar would strike the swing arm of the main wheel which connects both to the hull.
Overall it was super complicated, required precise parts and a lot of throwaway rubber parts. It looks simple from the outside, but technically speaking the Henschel suspension is much, much simpler.
Interleaved road wheels also offer amazingly smooth rides compared to non interleaved ones and have better weight distribution and ground pressure. They literally have only two disadvantages: higher material use and nightmarish maintenance.
@@MajinOthinusactually the ground pressure thing was tested and is false. I don't remember where I saw that though it might have been this channel
Incredible Vibe
Good Write
@@MajinOthinus Ground pressure is only affected by weight of the vehicle and the surface area of the tracks that is in contact with the ground.
But smoot ride is definitely its advantage, because as I wrote, these torsion bars are relatively thin and soft, meaning that the whole vehicle rides smoothly.
The more I read about these matters (German weapons and their design during WW2) the more I am surprised by the lack of logical thinking, if not plain stupidity, of the German High Command and, up to a point, of Hitler himself. It seems that logistics and industrial capacity never entered into their plans.
Perhaps they should have included cost, transport requirements, raw material comsumption and vehicle recovery/repair in their calculations!
Well they already did that with the panzer 4 and panther and didnt really work either lol
Very good observation! It seems they did not do that and, if they did it, they lived in Cuckoo Land (LOL)
The logic was more like "we can t change we re outnumbered in all aspects, therefore we need superior longer lasting armor for the defensive battle closing in on us" in terms of the Jagdtiger, plus they had chassis left and in theory the Jagdtiger was meant to be a lot easier to produce than a proper turreted tank. Regarding the Tiger/ King Tiger or the Panther vs more Panzer IV style tanks: the leadership mostly followed what the generals asked for already years earlier when Germany still had chances to gain the initiative... it s just that after the war, many of these generals (incl. Guderian) were very willing to quickly forget that...
Such a shame they didn't stick with the original name of "Übertiger". That's just awesome xD
A deeply unserious name!
They tried to go with less flashy names at the time.Poor Mammoth turned into a mouse.
The good news is the name is still available for your hair metal or Survivor tribute band.
@@naamadossantossilva4736 this legit makes me ask why military types like the word Super so much
Or at least why the US did
For anyone interested: original documents (after action reports) from sPzJgr.Abt.653 & sPzJgr.Abt.512 (published in the following two books listed below) describe each Jagdtiger loss due to the following causes:
sPzJgr.Abt.653: 1 x Infantry (Bazooka)*/ 2 x Tank or Tank Destroyer/ 4 x Combat Loss Unknown Cause/ 2 x Artillery / 5 x Battle Damage (Mobility kills) / 2 x Combat-Mechanical Breakdown**/ 10 x Self Destroyed-Non-Combat***/ 3 x Field March-Mechanical Breakdown/ 17 x Mechanical Breakdown/ 1 x Bridge Collapse/ 4 x Abandoned [51 Total Losses]
sPzJgr.Abt.512: 1 x Tank or Tank Destroyer/ 1 x Aircraft (Fighter Bomber)/ 1 x Battle Damage (Mobility kills)/ 9 x Combat-Mechanical Breakdown**/ 7 x Self Destroyed-Non-Combat***/ 3 x Mechanical Breakdown/ 5 x Abandoned [27 Total Losses]
78 [ Overall Total Losses ]
Overall Losses
28 Lost due to Combat (35.9%)
23 Lost due to Mechanical Failure Only (29.49%)
17 Self Destroyed*** (21.79%)
9 Abandoned (11.54%)
1 Bridge Failure (1.28%)
78 Overall Total Losses (100%)
Infantry (Bazooka)* = US sources claim killed by an M-36 TD.
Combat-Mechanical Breakdown** = Typically Jagdtigers maneuvering during or just before combat which suffered track breaks or de-tracking (this was frequent failure for vehicles with the early/mid production two piece track links) or other mechanical failures.
Self Destroyed-Non-Combat*** = Good order vehicles destroyed due to lack of fuel.
Sources:
- Münch, Karlheinz Combat History of Schwere Panzerjäger Abteilung 653: formerly the Sturmgeschütz Abteilung 197: 1940-1943, J.J. Fedorowicz Publishing Inc. 1997
- Devey, Andrew Jagdtiger: The Most Powerful Armoured Fighting Vehicle of World War II (No.2): Operational History, Schiffer Military History, 1999
How was the crew supposed to engage enemies at 3 km range without even a rangefinder?
Tanks are of known dimensions, you can estimate distance by seeing how many mils the enemy tank takes up in the scope.
@@IvanTreFurther, if they we in prepared defenses, you could have landmarks presighted.
If I read the equipment list of the Jagdtiger correctly a "Scherenfernrohr 14 für Sfl. mit Zubehör" (scissors binoculars for self propelled guns with accessories) was included (taken from Fröhlich: Schwere Panzer der Wehrmach page 141). As far as I remember those can be used as rangefinders, too. The additional width between the lenses compared to normal scopes makes them more accurate. I do not know if this method is also based on mils and trigonometry or completely different.
It had several, the commander had a fixed periscope facing right on his rotating hatch as well as as a sub hatch from which he could frontally protrude a hand carried binocular stereoscopic rangefinder. The gunner had a 10x zoom telescope with graduated range markings as his primary gun sight as well as two pairs of fixed rear facing binoculars in the casemate roof so he could check their six.
high velocity shell and they knew the general dimensions of M4s and T-34s.
I think i heard the story of when a Jagdriger ambushed a column of US Shermans on the Western Front in early 1945. As it opened up fire on the Shermans driving about 0,5 km away, the 12,8 cm shells tore clean
trough their armor and exited the tank without doing any harm to the tank or its crew. Its gun was hopelessly overpowered while the engine being hopelessly underpowered. Not a good match.
Random note on the Muzzle brake and sabot, apparently Singaporean Amx-13/75s had an APFSDS round developed for them (and they did retain the muzzle brake).
its down to the sabot design.
The US did a lot of work with sabots in the 76mm gun, which oddly enough had a copy of the German 75mm muzzle brake. And accuracy of the 17 pdr and 76mm were not "terrible", but just not as good as the HVAP. The University of New Mexico did a bunch of work on the US 76mm APDS. As to how to get a sabot through a muzzle brake a quote from the University report: "The design aimed at such strength in this ring [that constrains the sabot pedals] that it would not "explode" at the muzzle but would yield slowly enough to pass through the brake before significant expansion had occurred. The, material used in the ring was cold rolled steel of good elongation. This release is designated as "delayed centrifugal." - Work on Sabot Projectiles by The University of New Mexico Under Contract OEMsr-668 and Supplements, 1942 - 1944, J. W Greig (ADA800118)
EDIT: Found the accuracy results from at test done in 1943: the 50% zone at 1100 yards was 19.2 inches horizontal and 15.6 inches vertical. Nick might consider that "terrible."
Excellent presentation, as always. Thank you for your diligent research.
I believe Nic Moran noted that the British APDS ammo for the 17-pounder had terrible accuracy, might be worth asking him.
In refernce to that it was issues with sabot separation and batch issues. Differnt units did test fires and documented the results and folks love to pick certain data sets to support their opinion. But while results between units were all over the place the results IN the specfic units seemed to be consistent, like every crew in the 6th Hussars scoring around 57% but then everyone in a scotish unit averaging 90%+. To me that says some batches where botched and some worked as advertised. Its worth noting that many of these units fired APBC at the same time and all of them scored pretty consistently with that round.
Yeah, after all the Firefly was a rush job for D-day, explaining it's quirks. With the gun barely fitting in, getting that reduced recoil was probably deemed worth it at the expense of accuracy.
@@kennethreese2193 APDS issues with clean separation were known to be terrible early on. People forget Discarding Sabot was developed in the 30's. Everybody just could not get it to work well, despite them all trying to some degree for almost a decade.
The lower velocity 77HV supposedly did not suffer nearly as much at all from this for some reason and was an accidental success. Most likely had something to do with fringe physics keeping the pedals intact until it cleared the muzzle. The 17lb had a fix put in the 50's using a special band around the pedals that would be sheared off with particular drag vectors.
@@tioseba7 This. Many concessions were made for Overlord. " Ideal" had to be swapped for "good enough".
Could also be the JadgTiger gun was so heavy it didn't need a muzzle break to dampen recoil.
Otto Carius in his book Tiger in the mud says this is crap and he managed only to get one kill with it, while he got dozens with the Tiger. The main reason is the gun accuracy what a complete disaster.
Good video. Only thing I wish you included were some reports from combat units detailing their experience using the vehicle at the front, so we could get some more concrete ideas about the tactical and operational difficulties of the Jagtiger. I'm also curious about how many successful engagements it had, and if the massive gun and thick armour ever allowed it to dominate the battlefield in the way its designers claimed it would. I imagine that even if it did, the enemy would quickly adapt and find ways to exploit its many weaknesses.
Underrated comment. Shame he didn’t reply
Germn tank design: if your heavy panzer doesnt work, it means it wasnt heavy enough
Yet 80% of what the Germans built were smaller and lighter than the Sherman .
Muzzle brakes on vehicle mounted guns are only used if the gun mount (or the the vehicle itself) is unable to take the recoil without suffering damage. In the tanks of WW2, the turret ring in particular was prone to damage from the recoil of high powered weapons - something neither the Jagdtiger nor Hetzer have). If the gun mount and/or vehicle can easily absorb the recoil forces (as is the case for both the Jagdtiger and Hetzer) then there is no point mounting a muzzle brake. It just extra redundant weight and cost.
As for muzzle brakes and APDS rounds, there will be a slight delay (milliseconds or less) after leaving the actual barrel before the sabot really begins to separate from the projectile. The hole at the front of the muzzle brake needs to be slightly larger than the bore of the gun (effectively "timed" to the separation characteristics) to account for the initial slight separation as the projectile and sabot travel thought the muzzle brake and then full separation begins just after they clear the end of the muzzle brake.
Most German tanks crews took them off as they showed the enemy where they were
I got this directly from a German report from the Eastern front
I remember reading an account where the excessive smoke from firing made the supporting volkstrum think the jagdtiger had been knocked out, so they fled.
If I'm not mistaken, this cannon has the kinetic energy of a modern MBT cannon, but it's a lot thicker and thus heavier (though it's shorter than the 88 and 75mm which went for L71 instead of L55). Only the Maus had it in a turret, and yet, modern MBTs managed to get so much smaller and lighter... Side note: the Russian 122mm is way less powerful, but later IS prototype tanks did try out a 130mm cannon, which was probably on equal terms.
So glad to see you back in my feed!
Welcome back!
Putting a 10.5cm into a smaller tank would have been a better solution. Like the Soviets, the Germans were putting naval guns into AFVs but as an evolution a 10.5 seems a more logical step.
Great video. The “properly hardened armour” icon made me laugh out loud.
Glad you enjoyed it.
I've seen the one at Aberdeen. Impressive.
It was junk.
I still remember vividly an interview by Otto Carius where he said it was absolutely awful.
In case you were wondering what he complained about the most:
1. It was huge, meaning easy to spot, very difficult to camouflage, and therefore not viable option for ambush tactics that was the standard for TDs.
2. It's gun was so huge it required recalibration after going offroad even for a modest distance. Imagine how impractical it must have been.
3. The gun was actually an overkill. Required two piece ammo that took a lot of place and affected rate of fire. In the same time - it was facing armour that could be knocked out by 88L/71 all the same, with MUCH less trouble.
4. It was not very reliable and in the same time impossible to evacuate, meaning it was easy to lose one even to trivial causes.
Lastly, his unit got inexperienced crew which translated into poor performance - that's not an issue with the vehicle itself though. Rather, makes you wonder why not give the brand new, supposed super TD to experienced crews who could perhaps use its potential?
Highly recommend reading "Tigers in the Mud"
Carius was a breakthrough tank commander who got thrown into a heavy casemate self-propelled gun. Of course it was a downgrade for him.
This, however, also speaks to how German command itself didn't employ this vehicle in way it was supposed to be employed.
As for gun being overkill - it was because his unit faced Shermans, of course it was overkill for him, while 8.8cm KwK was about perfect for such target. But there were already threats incoming that made this gun have it's place. It had same role as 122mm D-25 in IS-2 and ISU-122, yet somehow I never hear people on the internet calling these vehicles "junk".
As with majority of late-war German designs, the real problem was dwindling situation of country itself and therefore lack of tactical situations where they could actually be employed effectively. Remember all these 1945 vehicles were in fact designs for realities of 1942.
@@czwarty7878Excellent post.
Overkill is a least you can call the gun. It’s the definition of “one shot one kill”. But in all other aspects it was terrible
@@maksymshkopas8686 can you tell in what aspect it was terrible? Compared to it's peers, like D-25?
Thats the best technical video i have seen about the jagdtiger!!!
Thank you !!!
In meiner Nachbarstadt Iserlohn kapitulierten am 16.04.1945 mit der 1. Kompanie/Schwere Panzerjägerabteilung 513, geführt durch Albert Ernst, eine der letzten Einheiten die mit Jagdtigern ausgerüstet war. Dazu finden sich auch bei YT Videodokumente.
Albert Ernst soll es ebenso gewesen sein, der über den Rhein hinweg Shermans auf ca. 3 Km Entfernung gesniped hat
Thank you for your research and time you took! :) I am look further for more vids! :)
So here we gave up mobility, for firepower, and protection. I see no issues, only outcomes.
From memory. (Ps the large Muzzle flash when the Sherman Firefly produced when firing, gave it it's nickname)
Sherman Firefly 17-pounder combining with the operational requirements.
Did some reading, Mk II of the British QF 17 pounder, orginally had it's muzzle brake removed, but was added back in March 1944, with the introduction of the APDS shot
How the problem of the discarding sabot is "solved"? Enlarge the diameter of the Muzzle brake, so most of the time, the muzzle does not affect the ballistics of the projectile.
its down to the design of the sabot.
5:24 On the question of why the Firefly had a muzzle brake but used sabot rounds....
To quote the Chieftain, the British "couldn't hit the broad side of a barn from the inside with a sabot round." The reason for this was that the sabot wrapper interfaces with the muzzle brake as it exits the barrel, causing the round to be wildly inaccurate, frequently tumbling in flight and/or striking hundreds of yards from its intended target.
This is yet another example of an engineering marvel from the Germans that was botched in production, maintenance and field operations. They figured out that the way to get accurate shot placement with a sabot round was to remove the muzzle brake; but then they put it on a vehicle that was an absolute nightmare to produce and maintain.
Jagdtiger in Company of Heroes 2 is no joke
😅 yea but slow as hell
Thanks to all of the documentaries, the proper pronounciation is Yag-tea-ger, not Jaged-tie-ger (which I used to pronouce it).
Great video
@5:43 I do not remember source but Firefly with sabot rounds worked most of the time (only occasionally hitting the muzzle brake) and difference with muzzle brake vs no muzzle brake only manifested at extreme range with lower accuracy with muzzle brake. Germans probably tested it and deemed gun mostly working unacceptable while British decided that muzzle brake was worth the tradeoff with sabot rounds.
*A small correction:
Muzzle brakes appear on german tank guns from the KwK 40/StuK 40 (75mm L/43) onwards. The KwK 36 (37mm), KwK 38 (50mm L/42) and KwK 39 (50mm L/60) didnt have muzzle brakes (exceptions are the KwK 39 on the SdKfz. 234/2 an similar).
So from the PzKpfW. IV Ausf. F2 and StuG III Ausf. F onwards.
The PzKpfW. II has more of a Flashhider than a Muzzle Brake.
APDS works with muzzle brakes, depending on the type of Sabot used.
A Cup Sabot with rigid Petals can be shot through a muzzle brake. (its basicly an APCR Round without ballisitic Cap and the Sabot parts (bottom and petal) will fall off after leaving the muzzle by wind pressure)
A Cup Sabot with deforming Petals can NOT be shot through a muzzle brake, without high risk of severe malfunction. (similar to the upper one, but there the petals deform outwards to release the projectile)
A Base Sabot with discarding Petals can also not be shot through a muzzle brake without risk of malfunction.
If i am not mistaken, the 17pdr used Cup Sabots with rigit Petals for its APDS rounds and the german solution were discarding driving bands on the 128mm APDS (so a cup sabot with discarding petals)
The first part was in the caption.
As I understand the 17-pdr APDS used in WWII discarding petals.
Post-war Canadians developed a cup sabot to resolve the accuracy issues..
Better off with 2 Sturmgeschütz IV.
Or the Jagd Panther.
If you're living in video game world where you just point and click and purchase units for imaginary points, then maybe you can make such comparisons, however in real world things get slightly more complicated.
@@czwarty7878what? Your the one who is living in a video game world if you think a Jagdtiger better in actual use then cheaper and lighter vehicles
@@opairsoft8100But you also need more personnel and resources in order to have more cheaper and lighter vehicles.
@@opairsoft8100Allies won the cheaper and more numerous tank race, you can't play your weakness against their strength.
I remember this vehicle back in Darkest Hour years ago. A gun so powerful it didn't even need to use AP, but at the same time it had some serious issues being shot in the side...
That does it. Calling it the Uber Tiger from now on lol
The Jagdtiger, however, is very popular as a plastic model.
Chieftain, in a video I saw recently, indicated that the sabot round from the Firefly was very inaccurate beyond a very short distance, something like 200-600 meters.
WW2 was the war of industries. Allies hit very hard in economics, resources and air bombings on industries. That made more damage than any other military operation, Germany couldn't keep up the war machine. Great explanation, thanks.
"I fear no tank, but that thing..."
*500lbs bomb*
"It scares me"
IDK how the muzzle brake deals w/ APDS ammo, but I suspect it's a simple matter of the distance between the end of the barrel v/s the length of the actual sabot on the round. If the back of the sabot is still in the barrel at the time when the front of the sabot emerges from the muzzle brake, no separation of the sabot from the penetrator core will occur until the sabot clears the muzzle brake.
My understanding is that muzzle breaks at the time could be used with APDS, but that it really messed with accuracy which is why the firefly APDS was inaccurate.
What happened to the metal music at the end?????
7:45 The TS ammo (to my understanding) wasnt so much only to increase Ap performance (they also build Heds ammo), but to also increase range and velocity for greater hit chances.
Now, that you mention german had an attempt to create sabots ammunition, I hope you'll cover this topic
Why does Austrian law require you to issue a disclosure stating that you were invited by the Tank Museum at Bovington????
th-cam.com/video/OZ3svEJA39o/w-d-xo.htmlsi=8Hb3qFoYFWYKTrjz
In the right conditions I would have thought it was a good tool! Probably used mainly in defence or heavy bombardment
I'm surprised that a ground pressure calculation wasn't shown. That would have really driven home how heavy it was.
Good of you mentioning declining armor quality happening due to various reasons. I never heard of the Germans dealing with this in WWII until I played "Combat Mission: Operation Overlord" tactical game from the late 1990s.
A lot of the German "Big Cats" had big reliability issues. Jagdtiger just made it worse.
The war was already lost or at any rate unwinable by the time these monstrosities were being produced, that they wanted to create a war-winning behemoth at that stage, or thought they could is the measure of their unreality
I would love to see a video covering any German reports on the Allied "Funny" Tanks/engineering vehicles, and especially the DD tanks. Similar to what you did on the German view on the Churchill gun tank. Obviously this depends on there being such information in archives, but I hope it's something you can keep an eye on.
Interesting to note that the discarding sabot rounds for the 17 pounder were considered so inaccurate the US deemed them basically useless when they tested the gun. Maybe the muzzle brake is to blame?
Do you shave your head for tank videos? That’s dedication!
The firefly used a pot sabot for the APDS rounds instead of the petal style commonly seen today. Just speculation but I suspect this was chosen to be compatible with the brakes the 17pdr used.
I can imagine that the Germans decided they needed to get rid of the muzzle break to make the sabot work properly.
The British could not really afford to remove the 17pdr's muzzlebreak because of the weapon's savage recoil and the confined space of the sherman's turret with that gun in it. So they made it work as best they could.
That being said the APDS from the 17 pdr was apparently not very accurate, they had a bit of trouble which was only really solved after the war(although this does not mean it was never used sucsessfully, it was). But the same sabot coming from the from the Comet's 77mm was very accurate, and performance wise only lost like 10mm of penetration.
I seem to remember something about the 17 pounder having poor accuracy at anything but short range and it was down to the machining of the muzzle break. If the issue was range and they had captured some of the earlier models, perhaps simply they didn't try. I don't know if this is the actual reason however.
Good video! One thing to correct: Those thicker German armour plates were not face-hardened - by design - they were homologous. Pretty good quality too - tough (see battle damage photos). Better than any cast armour. Only thinner plates (like 40-45mm on the Panther) were face-hardened.
There not thick by hardened armour standards of the era anyway, every nation that built anything more armoured than a cruiser in that era could do 12-18 inch thick plates. The glasis of a jagedtiger is only equivalent to a light cruisers belt armour.
In the case with the muzzle brake: they causes turbulances by changing the airstream. So, on long shots it depends on luck to hit the targe. The US Army competed their 76mm long barrel against the 17-pdr. and stick with 76mm. The armour penetration was less but the hit rate was much better. (by one opinion: you couldnt hit the broad side of a barn at 500 yards). For the germans accuracy at a long range was the most important thing. So they dont use a muzzle break.
And there is another reason for not using. A muzzle break blasts the smoke backwards in a large radius. For a stationary Jagdpanzer was this bad because after 4-5 shots the gunner could not visit the target because of all that smoke. So subsequently some Jagdpanzer (Hetzer, Jpz IV/70) came without a muzzle break.
The doc I saw reported the problem with the sabots but evidently it was only a matter of a few inches accuracy vs having the muzzle brake. I mean, that 17 pounder barely fit into the turret to begin with.
To be honest I never seen why only the Jagdtiger often takes so much more hate from youtube historians and those kind than many other tanks/spgs/etc/etc, in all fairness there was a fair few tanks made in or up to world war 2 there also had tons of problems and was made any way for one or more reasons.
ve-HE-cle. I love this channel.
nice one
Personally I believe the Germans screwed up stopping production of the Tiger I to produce the Tiger II in general. Tiger I by 1944 had all the bugs worked out of it and despite reputation was a pretty dependable tank based on maintenance records. Tiger production was going over 100 a month when they stopped.
Ralf Raths had made a 3-parts series on the Tiger II. There he claims that the Tiger II was indeed intended to succeed the Tiger I.
A two-stage projectile(shell and propellant) was common in battleship guns. So, basically the Jagdtiger was a naval gun on tracks(Current naval guns vary from 76 to 125mm in NATO navies) and a huge waste of resources. Wonder how many PAK 40s could have been made out of a single Jagdtiger. Or even Nashorrns.
Wasted steel , the moment you lose air superiority .
"Panzers...Tiger...Panther...King Tiger...Jagdpanther...und...und...und MAUS ja!"
04:42 I thought I read in a Jenz/Doyle Book that the Muzzle Break of the Jagdtiger was deleted because the Gun would have been to long for going through tunnels on railway cars in a bend. Probably a case of misremebering facts on my part :)
say what you want about the Jagdtiger but it looks cool AF
It's great in all the Panzer General iterations.
The whole idea of making tank destroyer variants of the Tiger and the Panther seems stupid to begin with, especially if those variants don't actually save weight or cost. The regular Tiger and Panther were already excellent at fighting enemy tanks, and had the versatility to be suited for a whole lot more other jobs than dedicated tank destroyers.
No ballistics expert here. Closest I get to it is virtual shooting in games like Sniper Elite and understanding how things move through air. I have some education in physics. There I'm much more on the QM side of things. You go hunting for electrons you end up finding them.
I'm going to make the suggestion it's the sabot design which makes some things work and others not. Sabot design, when and how it opens, speed of the projectile out of the barrel. If you have it opening up the moment it's not contained by the barrel, other means, you put anything in front of that? You're going to have issues. The more violently it does this, the worst it is.
I've seen a vid or two showing a M1A-something firing and you can see the impact from the petals of the sabot in front of the tank. You could make a game betting on where they were going to land, fly to it was that energetic and crazy.
For perspective? Around a 60 degree cone from the muzzle end of the barrel and well over 15 metres odd.
If you have it still contained, still moving as a singular block for say, up to three metres from the barrel, it doesn't matter what's on the end.
I seem to remember they were experimenting with a form of cup sabot for the 17 pounder, Firefly gun. I have a feeling this was more 45 and 46, it was post war. I think the documentation I'm thinking about was related to penetration testing, comparing the 76mm, 17pndr and other gun. I have a feeling it was a 90mm gun. US testing.
In which the sabot round was so inaccurate they decided to save the ammo for penetration testing.
Nick Moran found it relating to one of his presentations here on TH-cam. If I find it, remember it will leave a reply with it.
Sorry if that seems like a ramble, I've never expressly looked into this.
hitler never got over the idea of BIGGER IS BETTER, the regular tiger was so large transporting it was an issue and the crews had to spend so much time on maintenance that they needed to be highly trained. this monsted would have just been more of the same- big and scary and easily cut off, heck mostly run across a foot bridge and it's undone.
AFAIK the vibration issue was only ever a problem with the Porsche suspension, a few of which Otto Carious commanded. The Henschel design didn't suffer from this, atleast it was not ever noted about the KT, and 7 tons is not going to make such a difference. The travel lock is a normal feature for such a big gun, and is also a thing on modern SPGs. As for the statement about armour quality, I think its very dangerous to make the broad assumption that all German tanks suffered from this based on a single sample tested at Kubinka - I know Peter Samsonov loves to make such assumptions, but I don't think you should follow that unhealthy trend. The US did test firings against a good number of late war German tanks, incl. Panthers and Tiger IIs, and many demonstrated no deterioration in armour quality (and no cracking after successive hits etc), despite being of a later production date than the Kubinka example. It is known that the Germans for a period in 44 were very low on molybdenum, which affected armour production in that short period, until it was sourced again from Turkey. Hence the likely reason why the armour quality on late war German tanks was found to vary.
I didn't know they had sabot rounds in ww2 fascinating
They also tested depleted Uranium shells in early 1944 with the 75mil KwK L/48
This SPG/tank destroyer (because it is not a tank), could be very good EITHER - if it was made 1 or 2 years earlier (but it wasn't because all Germans tank development programs were delayed and poorly developed till it was to late) OR even in late years if it has better engine and transmission and was more mobile (which was not achieved due to mention above delay in Germany tank development programs)
I nearly had a stroke spading this thing in war thunder…
🫡
Hi, I'm a Jadtiger, a semi-mobile pillbox.
There is a claim that the Soviet Army donated a small amount of German weapons captured by the Soviet Army during the Korean War, such as mg34, mp38, stg44, and panzer 4 ausf g, to North Korea and were actually used in small quantities in the Korean War. I saw MG34 in a photo from Song Hae's youth (presumably from the Korean War). Also, at the DMZ Museum in Uljin, there is a never-before-discovered photo related to the Panzer 4 Ausf G. A photo of four PZ 4 Gs carrying thatched houses and mountain scenery and their crews was included as a "photo of a North Korean tank unit during the Korean War."
If this is really the case that German-made weapons were used in the Korean War - or if they are fake, I would like you to find out why and whether they were actually used.
Now you've done it.
I am sure i made this as a model kit as a 10 yo (didn't like its look though) and started tearing up my house trying to find it. Now i have to find it. 😖
Great video though. 👍
No machine guns to keep enemy infantry off it, grossly under powered and too heavy to cross many bridges. This thing was ridiculous on so many levels.
Maybe it's because it was too heavy to need muzzle brake for reducing recoil of 12.8 cm gun？
Engineering wise, you can't start out building a wood fire and end up with a fission reactor. There must be a lot of research and development in between. You must also accept what the statistics are telling you. I am assuming here that the engineers are aiming to build a Ratte. The Jagdtiger represents an initial step towards it. It starts out as a battlefield requirement but ends up as a propaganda tank, which all the powers get involved with to some extent.
The Jagdtiger did a great job of demonstrating key areas that critically required development. Such as suspension and powerplant, which they were more than likely aware of. At this point, basic statistics and fitness for purpose were ignored while chasing Hitler's approval. They chose the largest gun in production at the time, the 128mm. Requiring 2 piece ammunition that will effectively double the load time and thus reduce its ability to meet its requirements.
Also, very basic statistics were totally ignored. Such as only around 12% of tank losses came about from tank on tank actions, and the vast majority of losses came from the air. Increasing to top armour was far more important than increasing the frontal armour. So, the mindset of those involved were trapped in a tank vs. tank, including AT guns, mindset.
To get it on the battlefield in the shortest possible time, some rather bad set of compromises were made. For example, the suspension chosen reduced the time required to develop the suspension needed, but the knock-on effect was contributing to the issue of keeping the main gun zeroed.
For the Tiger I, in a number of books, lists an APFSDS as a round its gun was designed to fire. Yet I can't find any references for this round, actually being deployed. This may have been the case for the same round for the 128mm gun.
If working towards the Ratte was to be realised, the Jagdtiger was a required step and, therefore, was not a waste of 75 tons. However, any project manager will tell you that time that is available and the timing of its delivery is every bit as important as the project itself. Given the declining situation after 1941, a lack of key materials and required technology not developed was not just a waste of 75 tons but brought to production wasted a huge amount of strategic required resources that should have been spent elsewhere. Focusing on the original requirements, the development of a one-piece AT round for the flak 105mm gun that was in development would have been a better choice. However, the armaments industry did not communicate that well with the tank designers, which was endemic throughout Hitler's Germany.
I've heard the firefly's sabot ammunition was grossly inaccurate and I wonder if the Germans had anticipated such inaccuracies with the muzzle break. Some commenters are saying it was likely an issue with specific batches of ammunition, but maybe worth looking into nonetheless
This monstrosity was an armoured slab of cope superseded only by the Maus.
As a semi-mobile bunker it was Über.
The Tiger tanks are quite a good demonstration on why the Nouvelle École translates almost 1:1 from naval to armored warfare. Even when you have the most sophisticated, idiot-proof and unproblematic super heavy tank, it still only has only one gun and you would be better off using all that steel to build 5 smaller and more versatile tanks that have, in sum, 5 guns.
What is the reasoning behind that disclosure at the start of the video?
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@@MilitaryHistoryVisualized Europe big government red tape moment.
At 3000m what you be the actual impact angle?
👍👍
I reminds me of a chunky steampunk battleship turret with tracks bolted on.
Anyone who comes up with "muh megalomaniac madman hitler" card, seems to forget, that frontline units themselves requested the 12,8 Pak to be put onto a heavy tank chassis
I have a bit hard time believing that. Maybe the newer less experienced tankers started to think that since they weren't getting the expected results the fault must be in the guns they were using. In reality the 75/88mm anti-tank guns they had in '44 were more than capable of taking out any armoured vehicle fielded by the allies.
Yes
Resources would have been better spent on proven designs
15:00 ah yes
"haha big tank goes brbrbr"
USA: Haha air force goes BRBRBR