One of the problems with the Ferdinand was that it was sent into battle at Kursk as an assault gun. As the first models had no machine guns, this led to their easy destruction. In a defensive battle they were obviously more effective.
About the Tsar Tank, Don't forget, AT THAT TIME, the whole concept of a battlefield tank was brand new. NO ONE knew what one should look like, or what attributes it should possess. Given that large wheels got stuck less than small wheels, the idea of huge twin front wheels wasn't as absurd as it seems today. Also, the Russian's weren't the technology leaders of the world, so should be given some slack.
Some slack. But just a moderate amount. But the key is that they halfway made one of these things which didn't get through testing. Every organization occasionally lays a big egg, and the Russians saw what this was very quickly, I don't think it should be in the super weapon listing, just in the failed flawed experiment listing.
Generally, the Allies actually made better use of high technology. Radar proximity fuses for artillery and AA, heavy bombers, gun stabilizers, and mass production all proved more practical and beneficial than the Me-262, King Tiger, Okha, or V2.
Mass producing primarily just the Sherman tank also helped with easy access to spare parts, as opposed to the Germans who tried mass producing something like 5 or 7 different tanks, very few of which had spare parts that were interchangeable with each other, and that’s when they even made spare parts at all, I believe in the case of the Panther they could only make as many as they did because they weren’t making enough spare parts.
The problem with that idea is, if the superweapon hadn't sucked, they'd have kept using it, and it wouldn't really be considered a superweapon anymore, as it would have become a regular weapon.
The T28 was designed for a very specific purpose, not for fighting enemy tanks, but for breaking through the German fortifications. It wasn't intended to fight other tanks, but to slowly move up to a position where it could use it's gun to destroy a heavy fortification, while under fire by the biggest anti-tank guns the Germans has. When it came to breaking through the German fortifications, the fortifications were a combination of unfinished and unmanned. However, to have a weapon able to break through the potential fortifications, development had to begin long before the true nature of the fortifications was known. As the fortifications weren't useful when they had to be breached, assault guns like T28 and the British Tortoise are often derided, but the military would have been negligent if they hadn't developed something to break through the fortifications. Take the opposite choice where the allies came upon the Siegfried line as it had been intended, and the only choice for breaching the line was a WW1 style infantry charge over nomansland, the outrage that a heavily armoured assault gun hadn't been developed would be equal to the ridicule the heavy assault guns are looked at with in this reality.
Yea I concur, it was basically supposed to be an assault gun to punch a hole in the Siegfried line. It was not designed to go toe to toe with panzer’s. A quote I love from The Chieftain, “This vehicle offends me, remove it” Well the T-28 was designed to be the thing you call in when a fortress “offends” you.
Fun fact, when they got it to the museum they wanted to put the extra tracks on. The issue they encountered was that they couldn’t mount them with modern tools. They had to use the tools issued with the tank to get them on. The mechanics that worked on it said it was a real pain in the ass and took them 6 hours to mount the first track. Second one went on faster since they figured it out through trial and error on the first track.
Well, they then realized soon enough that CAS attack with Thunderbolt went surprisingly well for assaulting fortification. No need some super specific weapon like... idk Valkria anime or Ace Combat some sort And answered why it only 2 example exist.
Biggest issue with super heavy tanks is finding bridges to take the weight. The Challenger 2 is with its upgrades now punching at a porky 80+ tons in battle trim and this has become a constraint on exercises because in peace authorities are reluctant to have them and their loaded tank transporters using their roads and bridges.
Would like to put in a correction the Ferdinand/elefant tank 🙂 they were originally Porsche tiger tank in competition with the tiger 1 before becoming the tank destroyers then 🙂
I will like to point out that the first tank was the Porsche Tiger however after it failed utterly in testing the hulls that where already made so that converted the Tiger into the Ferdinand since thay had no other use for the hull instead of a td
You don't have to do much searching to find Porsche's original Heavy Tank design, known as the Tiger P. The Ferdinands were a rebuild of the Tiger P. Otherwise, a fun video concept which I hope to see more of.
I was actually surprised to see the Ferdinand/Elephant on the list. I would have put the Maus on the list, but that would be a no-brainer for a lot of people.
to be fair to Porsche, he had built a petrol electric driven heavy field gun transport in WWI, that had worked just fine, he just thought he could rinse and repeat, but failed to take the extra weight and poorer quality materials he had to work with in WWII into account, that and he was an ass!
And as a tank destroyer, it did a decent job. Sure, there were issues (like the extremely problematic engines), but an 88 mm L/71 gun, fired by a vehicle that was at least somewhat armored? I wouldn't call that the worst
Darkness, you really need to distinguish between tanks and tank destroyers. The Ferdinand is a tank destroyer, a role where a turret isn't strictly necessary. This is due to its defensive nature. TD's operate more like snipers, and thus the limited gun traverse isn't an issue. The lack of a turret also reduces the profile, making them easier to conceal.
Uh, pretty sure he _does_ call it a tank destroyer when describing it functioning in that role. He calls it a tank when describing the contest, since that's what it was developed as initially before being repurposed as a tank destroyer. Also, the part where he criticized the lack of a turret was the part where he talked about the T-28.
The T-28 was actually a "Breakthrough" tank. It was designed to deliver heavy firepower against a limited area and had enough armor to survive even the 88mm guns of the Tiger and King Tiger tanks. It's designation was amended to heavy mobile gun carriage. The Tsar tank was ahead of it's time. Probably too far ahead, considering the technology of the day. It might have worked, maybe. You are forgetting that the Japanese considered dying in service to the emperor was the highest honor attainable.
For the Gustav gun and Dora... They were an iteration of railway artillery. Much larger obviously, but nothing about the idea itself was that crazy. Railway carriage artillery was pretty effective overall, as long as there was a railway network, they could be in place extremely quickly. At that scale though, nothing was quick. Special rails had to be built for it, and that tends to slow things down. A lot.
I would honestly put the Yamato-class battleships here. While there were some significant design flaws, as far as battleships go they were okay, but for the Japanese they were a complete waste of resources and were not built to fight the kind of war that the Pacific theatre became. The materials used were better for more aircraft carriers. They also saw little action and only became punching bags for American air attacks
The T-28 was supposed to be an assault gun, specifically aimed at the Seigfreid line fortifications. The logistical issues around getting the thing to within striking distance of the Seigfreid line were never addressed. It had failure built in to it from the start. The Tsar tank was not unreasonable when you consider the time of its development - 1914. Its failure was also built in from the start, the idea that the big main wheels would have sufficient traction to pull the little steering wheel out of any ditch or bog. If only they had made the rear wheel bigger.. Schwerer Gustav was made to reduce the fortifications of the Maginot Line. Are we seeing a theme here? Railway guns were always meant as seige weapons, to destroy fixed fortifications. Schwerer Gustav was the final extrapolation of railway guns, needing fixed track to be laid in place before it could be assembled and deployed after being transported to the firing point in smaller bits. If you like, they were fighting WW1 static warfare in WW2, which was much more dynamic. Looked good, from certain veiwpoints, Bigger! Heavier! More!... The kamikaze weapon was meant to be deployed against high-value targets, specifically USN carriers. One plane+pilot vs a carrier was seen as a good bet. The Ohka was meant to be too fast for the AA defences or fighter aircraft to intercept or destroy. Sadly, the G4M 'Betty' carrier aircraft were very easy to find and destroy, even assuming they launched at maximum Ohka range, and most Ohka missions were killed before launch. That's the real reason it was a failure. Somewhat shockingly, The Ohka pilots, members of the Jinrai Butai (Thunder Gods Corps), are honored in Japan at Ohka Park in Kashima City, the Ohka Monument in Kanoya City, the Kamakura Ohka Monument at Kencho-ji Zen temple in Kamakura, Kanagawa, and the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo Japan continues to assert that it did nothing wrong in its conduct of WW2, and teaches its children that way.
The saga of the USS Laffey (DD-724) actually demonstrates how ineffective the kamikazes ultimately were. On April 16,1945, the Laffey survived no less than twenty-two kamikaze attacks, six of which struck home and nearly wrecked her. This exploit earned her the nickname of "The Ship That Would Not Die." The thing is, the Laffey was a destroyer. In concentrating on her, the kamikazes passed up the chance to strike at much higher-value targets like battleships and aircraft carriers. But the rookies flying those kamikazes couldn't be expected to know that. And the Japanese no longer had enough veteran pilots who would have known that. In the end, the kamikazes wound up wasting precious planes and even more precious lives on targets not worth their while.
You forgot about one key thing about the Orcas. It needed a bomber to transport it. At least 2 engine bomber. In a time the Zero was being shot down left and right, the bombers didn't stand a chance. That's why they didn't really hit anything. They couldn't even make it to the fleet.
The dumbest thing about the Ferdinand was actually the lack of a machine gun. Russian infantry were sometimes able to sneak up on them and cripple the vehicle
In many wartime accounts of Soviet infantrymen against the Elefant/Ferdinand, it's mostly forcing open the rear hatch and tossing grenades and (most of the time) Molotov cocktails inside.
I am conditioned to equate this channel and ‘ Sucked’ with British Rail . It Should be called the Be-Czar tank , I want it in a steampunk game , an armored tricycle would be cool , but it would only work inside a game , especially in a computer game where you can just tell the computer that ‘ Yes it does work ! Shut up! ‘ If the Ohka was designed to kill the pilot can it not be argued that it was to some degree to be a Success ?
As a proud son of the city the T-28, I will defend the competency PC&F concerning military vehicles. We built Shermans, tank recovery vehicles, and even 300 Trolley Buses to move Defense Workers to the Boeing Seattle plant and the shipyards of Harbor Island, Seattle. The T-28 may have been "overkill," but Renton and PC&F did admirable work, and we still move America today... Ever hear of Kenworth and Peterbilt?!
Hey the flying bomb did take a carrier out, unfortunately for the Japanese, the carrier was their own when the fires caused by a torpedoe made a mess of the carrier
The Ohka ("Cherry Blossom") may have been a "stupid" design as a whole... but the fuselage & wing layout, however, sure worked well in the design of the A-10 Lightning II "Warthog"! And in light of that, I ask you... which is worse: Seeing a flying bomb headed towards you, or a flying tank-killer? ("BRRRT!!" goes the GAU-8...!😁)
The tank-killer, definitely. The flying bomb ... well, there was a reason the Americans called it "Baka" (as in "fool," or "idiot," or "Dude, WTF is wrong with you?")
want to talk about superweapons, ive recently heard a rumor about a 'design' for german battleship named H-46 that had 8 gustav guns for her main artillery and made the bismarck look like a destroyer. this clearly was never going to be made and never got beyond a napkin
Petrol Electric drive was shown to work in WW1 with the French Schneider CA tank.... OK French engineering seems to be bleeding over from a parallel universe that does not quite follow our universes rules so that is probably how they made it work. It is notable that the Schneider CA can be technically be described as a tank while still managing to miss the point entirely. But that last point is forgivable as it was a first attempt!
The Japanese also had the Kaiten suicide torpedo - same idea as the Okha, but a torpedo. They also weren't the only ones to practice kamikaze tactics. The Germans had Sonderkommando Elbe - they'd ram their BF-109s into Allied bombers, attempting to bail out just before collision
Gustav and Dora... also due to all the support crews including rail engineers etc., resulted in the gun captain needing to be of the rank of major general (2 star general)
I've only recently discovered this channel, but from what I've seen thus far, the typical British Rail locomotive would qualify as a super-weapon of sorts, don't you think?
If memory serves, a major reason for Japan using the kamikaze tactics was that as the war wore on... their capacity for flight instruction had been severely crippled by losing the vast majority of their really good pilots in the field. This made it hard to adequately replace the pilots lost in battle, leading to ugly calculation of just teaching several of the recruits and conscripts suicide tactics instead. Specific to the Oka, it was also an attempt to solve the precision issue with dropped bombs... in an ugly way.
The Ohka sorta worked. They actually sank a few US ships. The response of the US Navy was to over-burden combat ships with 3- and 4-inch anti-aircraft field guns welded down along the edges of the main decks. There are a few close-up photographs of these ships at the end of the war, and post WWII, and each of the many, many field guns had full gun crews, and lots of extra men running down to the magazines, to get lots and lots of man-sized gun rounds. Needless to say, there were severe concerns that the Navy was making the ships dangerously top-heavy, and that in a bad sea they might flip over, and sink like wrought-iron bricks in a mill-pond. So, during the Korean War, the many AA guns were replaced by radar-controlled, automatic 3-inch guns.
@@anzaca1 Well, that, too, but the Ohka were--at times--launched at short ranges from mother ships. I was an aerospace tech writer for a while, and was constantly looking for new jobs, and one project that did not pan out was a proposal to build a series of anti-aircraft (and anti-missile) cruisers. That was in 1990, if I recall, correctly. I wound up at a small recruiting symposium, and they had a documentary on the history of WWII, and our then current Aegis systems. The proposed project was to, indirectly, submit an unsolicited proposal to Defense to mass-produce upwards of three sizes of cruisers. The proposal was originally intended to set up production lines in Ohio to produce the AA weapons, the propulsion power systems, and the smallest CLAA. I think they called it the CLAA Cleveland II class. The cruisers ranged upwards in size to large aircraft carriers, and down to 555-foot length with 75-foot beam, and 17-1/2 foot draft. The smallest size could be built on the Great Lakes. Propulsion was powered by a form of nuclear, then under development. Weapons included electric railguns, focused microwaves, and the close-in defense against missiles and fighters was what seemed to be a 75mm high-velocity gun. At that period, we knew the Soviets were reducing their budgets, but there was concern about China. We had a nice, catered meal, went home, and with the collapse of the USSR, I never heard from them, again. But, I have always remembered the images of dozens of small field guns welded to the edges of the decks, complete with gun shields.
That laugh at the Czar tank says it all It might be the stupidest thing I have ever seen or heard of, well except for the Maus I guess. Any competent engineer could have predicted the problems (or should have) Huge Ground pressure, long narrow wheels are not going to help that at all.
From what i understand is that later variants of the Ferdinand had better engine reliability, though still prone to break downs , it wasnt as much as a failure later on watch cone of arcs video if i am.not mistaken as the og Porsche tiger was able to move and such it was just they Heinchle was better (that and i beleive the gas line popped on the P.tiger ) . The Ferdinand didnt catch fire as much as people think as its mainly just broken cyclinders and engine troubkes .
Just a point in pronunciation, in German words, and names, the "W" is pronounced like a "V." For example: "Luft VAFF uh." About Kamikazis and carriers, U.S. carriers had wooden flight decks, U.K. carriers had armored decks. A sailor (I think from the U.S.), after witnessing a Kamikazi impact on a British carrier that left a 5-inch dent in the deck, said, "Wow. When a kamikazi hits an American carrier, its 5 months in drydock, when one hits a British carrier, its 'Sweepers man your brooms!'" If the Ferdinand's engines powered electric motors to move the vehicle, the stress to move said vehicle would not strain the engines, but the motors. The engines were trash, though, and produced many headaches for the designers.
12:40 I saw someone calculate the effectiveness of a kamikaze squadron vs a US carrier bomber squadron. You where more likely to get killed during a carrier bomber run, compared to the chance to get called to do a kamikaze. Kamikazes also hit more targets then the carrier bombers. You would in general be better off being a kamikaze pilot then being a US carrier bomber pilot.
As a German I have to say how funny it is to hear you saying Porsche. When you are referring to him or the company you are forgetting pronounce the e from Porsche. But when you are referring to the designs in the genitive with the added s (Porsches) you pronounce it mostly right. I'm glad though that you didn't pronounce it Porschi like most american you tubers I have watched. The pronunciation of Henschel was really good though.
K class was horrible too. it couldn't crash dive in under 5 MINUTES, was steam powered(!) and could hit it's crush depth with it's Stern STILL ON THE SURFACE!
hmmmm Baka and kamikazes generally - I recently read an article about them from a statistical point of view. The author presented a thesis that the kamikazes were a better weapon for Japan than their aircraft at the time. Within the narrow framework presented I respect his viewpoint. However, the author did seem to gloss over what is probably the crucial factor. Experienced pilots are generally hugely more effective at avoiding or confronting opposition aircraft and actually striking their targets with weapons. The Japanese however had very few experienced kamikaze pilots, rather obviously. Very quickly the idea of using experienced combat pilots to fly the kamikaze ran out of experienced pilots, leaving totally inexperienced pilots knowing only how to take off and point the plane generally in the direction of the US fleet. The professionally trained and experienced US Navy pilots made mincemeat out of any Kamikaze they found and the fleet was very quickly finding out the best way of dealing with the threat. The kamikaze managed to sink two escort carriers and numerous destroyers and DE's and were effective, but not a super weapon and did not change the outcome.
The Mause (Panzer 8 "Mouse Super Heavy tank) Suffered Similar Problems and Can easily be spotted by Bombers and strike fighters and the Tsar Tank was in Toy Soldiers HD in WWI and Gustav was used in Siege of Savastapol and Leningrad and Kamikaze Pilots are... used because Japan was Desperate to defeat united states
Yeah, too bad about the exploding engines. Or the fact that these guys never heard of power/weight ratio. 😫 What were they thinking??!? 🤯 I’m surprised they didn’t just go whole hog and throw some lead-acid car batteries in too, and make a hybrid drive. It’s probably a good thing they didn’t have lithium-polymer batteries back then, because LiPo batteries + exploding engines is an excellent idea for the battlefield… as a Kamikaze! 😂😆🤣 It’s a new type of portable fireworks display… only problem is it’d be so heavy, you’d need one of those big rocket-moving platforms like NASA had; too bad NASA hadn’t been invented yet.
helllo darkness my old friend could you possibly do a video on how bad the morris marina and the austin allegro were its an interesting story about the lazyness and unwillingness of the communist workers at british leyland some cars they made were fine like i have a d reg rover sd1 3.5 v8 vittese and i love it but the marina and the allegro were disgustin the man who designed the allegro a mr harris man takes a lot of flack for the allegro undeservedly his design for the allegro was fantastic it should have been a great car but it was ruined by penny pinchers and they even gave it a square steering wheel its truly hideous i thought it might be an interesting thing for you to look into if you need any help i would be more than happy to assist you i am a subscriber and i will be joining when im back on my feet a little more i love all the videos my friend. much love
The american super hevy tank was originaly intended to be used to bust thrugh the sekfreedline and omg can you imagne if the russians got their hands on dora and started using it to schell Berlin with it ?🤣
That's not true. T95/T28 are just 2 names given to the same tank. The single track set is when it's being transported. Double track set is for actual use.
How's our Nicholas II suffered the revolution because as a reformer the people began to have hope and as are he wasn't moving fast enough to satisfy the people and there were a bunch of thugs that were willing and anxious to murder the nobility in the creation of a new and more murderous slave state.
One of the problems with the Ferdinand was that it was sent into battle at Kursk as an assault gun. As the first models had no machine guns, this led to their easy destruction. In a defensive battle they were obviously more effective.
About the Tsar Tank, Don't forget, AT THAT TIME, the whole concept of a battlefield tank was brand new. NO ONE knew what one should look like, or what attributes it should possess. Given that large wheels got stuck less than small wheels, the idea of huge twin front wheels wasn't as absurd as it seems today. Also, the Russian's weren't the technology leaders of the world, so should be given some slack.
But the concept of tracks had been around a while alreddy.
The French where the ones who really figured out how to build tanks in 1917 with the Renault FT-17.
Some slack. But just a moderate amount. But the key is that they halfway made one of these things which didn't get through testing. Every organization occasionally lays a big egg, and the Russians saw what this was very quickly, I don't think it should be in the super weapon listing, just in the failed flawed experiment listing.
But it still sucked
@@Missing_exe and stupid even in the long list of military blunders
Generally, the Allies actually made better use of high technology. Radar proximity fuses for artillery and AA, heavy bombers, gun stabilizers, and mass production all proved more practical and beneficial than the Me-262, King Tiger, Okha, or V2.
The Me-262 was a flawed prototype rushed into production out of sheer desperation and the Gloster Meteor still beat it into service
Mass producing primarily just the Sherman tank also helped with easy access to spare parts, as opposed to the Germans who tried mass producing something like 5 or 7 different tanks, very few of which had spare parts that were interchangeable with each other, and that’s when they even made spare parts at all, I believe in the case of the Panther they could only make as many as they did because they weren’t making enough spare parts.
If only the Tsar Tank was preserved. But at least it's forever a meme. Now we need a video on 5 superweapons that didn't suck.
The Ferdinand is infamous in its own way... "Ferdinand Porsche was the best tank designer the allies had."
The problem with that idea is, if the superweapon hadn't sucked, they'd have kept using it, and it wouldn't really be considered a superweapon anymore, as it would have become a regular weapon.
The T28 was designed for a very specific purpose, not for fighting enemy tanks, but for breaking through the German fortifications. It wasn't intended to fight other tanks, but to slowly move up to a position where it could use it's gun to destroy a heavy fortification, while under fire by the biggest anti-tank guns the Germans has. When it came to breaking through the German fortifications, the fortifications were a combination of unfinished and unmanned. However, to have a weapon able to break through the potential fortifications, development had to begin long before the true nature of the fortifications was known.
As the fortifications weren't useful when they had to be breached, assault guns like T28 and the British Tortoise are often derided, but the military would have been negligent if they hadn't developed something to break through the fortifications. Take the opposite choice where the allies came upon the Siegfried line as it had been intended, and the only choice for breaching the line was a WW1 style infantry charge over nomansland, the outrage that a heavily armoured assault gun hadn't been developed would be equal to the ridicule the heavy assault guns are looked at with in this reality.
Yea I concur, it was basically supposed to be an assault gun to punch a hole in the Siegfried line. It was not designed to go toe to toe with panzer’s. A quote I love from The Chieftain, “This vehicle offends me, remove it” Well the T-28 was designed to be the thing you call in when a fortress “offends” you.
Fun fact, when they got it to the museum they wanted to put the extra tracks on. The issue they encountered was that they couldn’t mount them with modern tools. They had to use the tools issued with the tank to get them on. The mechanics that worked on it said it was a real pain in the ass and took them 6 hours to mount the first track. Second one went on faster since they figured it out through trial and error on the first track.
Well, they then realized soon enough that CAS attack with Thunderbolt went surprisingly well for assaulting fortification. No need some super specific weapon like... idk Valkria anime or Ace Combat some sort
And answered why it only 2 example exist.
When the US Army found it did need something to fulfill the Intended role they simply brought up 155mm SP guns in a direct fire role.
Glad the T95/T28 was made tho
Biggest issue with super heavy tanks is finding bridges to take the weight. The Challenger 2 is with its upgrades now punching at a porky 80+ tons in battle trim and this has become a constraint on exercises because in peace authorities are reluctant to have them and their loaded tank transporters using their roads and bridges.
I sometimes wonder if the Ferdinand's engine problems were purposefully ignored so Porsche could later claim he was pulling a Schindler all along
"The slowest Porsche in the world"
And this is the same company who created sports cars.
@@astroboyftwlittleeinsteins7811 also, tractors.
Would like to put in a correction the Ferdinand/elefant tank 🙂 they were originally Porsche tiger tank in competition with the tiger 1 before becoming the tank destroyers then 🙂
Oh. Thanks man
He did talk about them starting out that way.
Now I'm disappointed that British Rail never branched out into the arms business.
luckily for all involved British Rail was a postwar disaster
Lol
I will like to point out that the first tank was the Porsche Tiger however after it failed utterly in testing the hulls that where already made so that converted the Tiger into the Ferdinand since thay had no other use for the hull instead of a td
You don't have to do much searching to find Porsche's original Heavy Tank design, known as the Tiger P. The Ferdinands were a rebuild of the Tiger P. Otherwise, a fun video concept which I hope to see more of.
I was actually surprised to see the Ferdinand/Elephant on the list. I would have put the Maus on the list, but that would be a no-brainer for a lot of people.
to be fair to Porsche, he had built a petrol electric driven heavy field gun transport in WWI, that had worked just fine, he just thought he could rinse and repeat, but failed to take the extra weight and poorer quality materials he had to work with in WWII into account, that and he was an ass!
I'd hardly call the Ferdinand a super weapon. It was meant to be a tank destroyer, just one with more armour.
And as a tank destroyer, it did a decent job. Sure, there were issues (like the extremely problematic engines), but an 88 mm L/71 gun, fired by a vehicle that was at least somewhat armored? I wouldn't call that the worst
Darkness, you really need to distinguish between tanks and tank destroyers. The Ferdinand is a tank destroyer, a role where a turret isn't strictly necessary. This is due to its defensive nature. TD's operate more like snipers, and thus the limited gun traverse isn't an issue. The lack of a turret also reduces the profile, making them easier to conceal.
Uh, pretty sure he _does_ call it a tank destroyer when describing it functioning in that role. He calls it a tank when describing the contest, since that's what it was developed as initially before being repurposed as a tank destroyer.
Also, the part where he criticized the lack of a turret was the part where he talked about the T-28.
The T-28 was actually a "Breakthrough" tank. It was designed to deliver heavy firepower against a limited area and had enough armor to survive even the 88mm guns of the Tiger and King Tiger tanks. It's designation was amended to heavy mobile gun carriage.
The Tsar tank was ahead of it's time. Probably too far ahead, considering the technology of the day. It might have worked, maybe.
You are forgetting that the Japanese considered dying in service to the emperor was the highest honor attainable.
For the Gustav gun and Dora... They were an iteration of railway artillery. Much larger obviously, but nothing about the idea itself was that crazy. Railway carriage artillery was pretty effective overall, as long as there was a railway network, they could be in place extremely quickly.
At that scale though, nothing was quick. Special rails had to be built for it, and that tends to slow things down. A lot.
I would honestly put the Yamato-class battleships here. While there were some significant design flaws, as far as battleships go they were okay, but for the Japanese they were a complete waste of resources and were not built to fight the kind of war that the Pacific theatre became. The materials used were better for more aircraft carriers. They also saw little action and only became punching bags for American air attacks
BTW, the company that built the T28, Pacific Car and Foundry, is still around as PACCAR Inc., builders of Kenworth, Peterbilt, and DAF trucks.
The T-28 was supposed to be an assault gun, specifically aimed at the Seigfreid line fortifications. The logistical issues around getting the thing to within striking distance of the Seigfreid line were never addressed. It had failure built in to it from the start.
The Tsar tank was not unreasonable when you consider the time of its development - 1914. Its failure was also built in from the start, the idea that the big main wheels would have sufficient traction to pull the little steering wheel out of any ditch or bog. If only they had made the rear wheel bigger..
Schwerer Gustav was made to reduce the fortifications of the Maginot Line. Are we seeing a theme here? Railway guns were always meant as seige weapons, to destroy fixed fortifications. Schwerer Gustav was the final extrapolation of railway guns, needing fixed track to be laid in place before it could be assembled and deployed after being transported to the firing point in smaller bits. If you like, they were fighting WW1 static warfare in WW2, which was much more dynamic. Looked good, from certain veiwpoints, Bigger! Heavier! More!...
The kamikaze weapon was meant to be deployed against high-value targets, specifically USN carriers. One plane+pilot vs a carrier was seen as a good bet.
The Ohka was meant to be too fast for the AA defences or fighter aircraft to intercept or destroy.
Sadly, the G4M 'Betty' carrier aircraft were very easy to find and destroy, even assuming they launched at maximum Ohka range, and most Ohka missions were killed before launch. That's the real reason it was a failure.
Somewhat shockingly, The Ohka pilots, members of the Jinrai Butai (Thunder Gods Corps), are honored in Japan at Ohka Park in Kashima City, the Ohka Monument in Kanoya City, the Kamakura Ohka Monument at Kencho-ji Zen temple in Kamakura, Kanagawa, and the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo
Japan continues to assert that it did nothing wrong in its conduct of WW2, and teaches its children that way.
The saga of the USS Laffey (DD-724) actually demonstrates how ineffective the kamikazes ultimately were.
On April 16,1945, the Laffey survived no less than twenty-two kamikaze attacks, six of which struck home and nearly wrecked her. This exploit earned her the nickname of "The Ship That Would Not Die."
The thing is, the Laffey was a destroyer. In concentrating on her, the kamikazes passed up the chance to strike at much higher-value targets like battleships and aircraft carriers. But the rookies flying those kamikazes couldn't be expected to know that. And the Japanese no longer had enough veteran pilots who would have known that.
In the end, the kamikazes wound up wasting precious planes and even more precious lives on targets not worth their while.
You forgot about one key thing about the Orcas. It needed a bomber to transport it. At least 2 engine bomber. In a time the Zero was being shot down left and right, the bombers didn't stand a chance. That's why they didn't really hit anything. They couldn't even make it to the fleet.
The tsar tank actually has a life size replica in a Russian tank museum
The dumbest thing about the Ferdinand was actually the lack of a machine gun. Russian infantry were sometimes able to sneak up on them and cripple the vehicle
In many wartime accounts of Soviet infantrymen against the Elefant/Ferdinand, it's mostly forcing open the rear hatch and tossing grenades and (most of the time) Molotov cocktails inside.
I am conditioned to equate this channel and ‘ Sucked’ with British Rail .
It Should be called the Be-Czar tank , I want it in a steampunk game , an armored tricycle would be cool , but it would only work inside a game , especially in a computer game where you can just tell the computer that ‘ Yes it does work ! Shut up! ‘
If the Ohka was designed to kill the pilot can it not be argued that it was to some degree to be a Success ?
As a proud son of the city the T-28, I will defend the competency PC&F concerning military vehicles. We built Shermans, tank recovery vehicles, and even 300 Trolley Buses to move Defense Workers to the Boeing Seattle plant and the shipyards of Harbor Island, Seattle. The T-28 may have been "overkill," but Renton and PC&F did admirable work, and we still move America today... Ever hear of Kenworth and Peterbilt?!
Hey the flying bomb did take a carrier out, unfortunately for the Japanese, the carrier was their own when the fires caused by a torpedoe made a mess of the carrier
Let me guess, the Taiho incident, right?
The Ohka ("Cherry Blossom") may have been a "stupid" design as a whole... but the fuselage & wing layout, however, sure worked well in the design of the A-10 Lightning II "Warthog"! And in light of that, I ask you... which is worse: Seeing a flying bomb headed towards you, or a flying tank-killer? ("BRRRT!!" goes the GAU-8...!😁)
The tank-killer, definitely. The flying bomb ... well, there was a reason the Americans called it "Baka" (as in "fool," or "idiot," or "Dude, WTF is wrong with you?")
>A-10 Lightning II
You mean Thunderbolt II, right?
The Tsar tank may have sucked but by lord it looked cool as hell
Double tank treads huh? That totally won't be a huge headache if you need to do maintenance on the inboard set...
want to talk about superweapons, ive recently heard a rumor about a 'design' for german battleship named H-46 that had 8 gustav guns for her main artillery and made the bismarck look like a destroyer. this clearly was never going to be made and never got beyond a napkin
1:13 *T U T E L*
Petrol Electric drive was shown to work in WW1 with the French Schneider CA tank.... OK French engineering seems to be bleeding over from a parallel universe that does not quite follow our universes rules so that is probably how they made it work. It is notable that the Schneider CA can be technically be described as a tank while still managing to miss the point entirely. But that last point is forgivable as it was a first attempt!
I actually have a book titled "Weapons of World War Two", and in the "Experimental" category, the MXY-7 Ohka shows up.
The Japanese also had the Kaiten suicide torpedo - same idea as the Okha, but a torpedo. They also weren't the only ones to practice kamikaze tactics. The Germans had Sonderkommando Elbe - they'd ram their BF-109s into Allied bombers, attempting to bail out just before collision
There once planned to build a Bomber that would drop its nose that contains the explosives.
Gustav and Dora... also due to all the support crews including rail engineers etc., resulted in the gun captain needing to be of the rank of major general (2 star general)
You could look into vehicles that were used for both war and peacetime, but were more successful for peaceful or commercial usage.
Hey history in the dark can you do a video about ocean liners
I've only recently discovered this channel, but from what I've seen thus far, the typical British Rail locomotive would qualify as a super-weapon of sorts, don't you think?
If memory serves, a major reason for Japan using the kamikaze tactics was that as the war wore on... their capacity for flight instruction had been severely crippled by losing the vast majority of their really good pilots in the field. This made it hard to adequately replace the pilots lost in battle, leading to ugly calculation of just teaching several of the recruits and conscripts suicide tactics instead. Specific to the Oka, it was also an attempt to solve the precision issue with dropped bombs... in an ugly way.
Yep, the Japanese never figured out that the best pilots should be rotated back home to train the new pilots.
The Ohka sorta worked.
They actually sank a few US ships.
The response of the US Navy was to over-burden combat ships with 3- and 4-inch anti-aircraft field guns welded down along the edges of the main decks.
There are a few close-up photographs of these ships at the end of the war, and post WWII, and each of the many, many field guns had full gun crews, and lots of extra men running down to the magazines, to get lots and lots of man-sized gun rounds.
Needless to say, there were severe concerns that the Navy was making the ships dangerously top-heavy, and that in a bad sea they might flip over, and sink like wrought-iron bricks in a mill-pond.
So, during the Korean War, the many AA guns were replaced by radar-controlled, automatic 3-inch guns.
No, the response was to increase the radius of their Combat Air Patrol so that it extended beyond the Ohka's maximum range.
@@anzaca1 Well, that, too, but the Ohka were--at times--launched at short ranges from mother ships.
I was an aerospace tech writer for a while, and was constantly looking for new jobs, and one project that did not pan out was a proposal to build a series of anti-aircraft (and anti-missile) cruisers.
That was in 1990, if I recall, correctly.
I wound up at a small recruiting symposium, and they had a documentary on the history of WWII, and our then current Aegis systems.
The proposed project was to, indirectly, submit an unsolicited proposal to Defense to mass-produce upwards of three sizes of cruisers.
The proposal was originally intended to set up production lines in Ohio to produce the AA weapons, the propulsion power systems, and the smallest CLAA.
I think they called it the CLAA Cleveland II class.
The cruisers ranged upwards in size to large aircraft carriers, and down to 555-foot length with 75-foot beam, and 17-1/2 foot draft.
The smallest size could be built on the Great Lakes.
Propulsion was powered by a form of nuclear, then under development.
Weapons included electric railguns, focused microwaves, and the close-in defense against missiles and fighters was what seemed to be a 75mm high-velocity gun.
At that period, we knew the Soviets were reducing their budgets, but there was concern about China.
We had a nice, catered meal, went home, and with the collapse of the USSR, I never heard from them, again.
But, I have always remembered the images of dozens of small field guns welded to the edges of the decks, complete with gun shields.
The Baka bomb's biggest flaw was the mother aircraft that carried it were sitting ducks for patrolling Hellcats
@@Losingsince It's a betty, what we should expect with medium bomber pretending to be Zero
Wheres the music from?
The Schwerer Gustav's job could be done by just one Avro Lancaster from 617 Squadron.
Thanks to goddamn Goring, their strategic bomber plane was either non-existed or really questionable at best.
The T 24 was designed to engage the fortifications of the German Seigfried defensive line.
That laugh at the Czar tank says it all
It might be the stupidest thing I have ever seen or heard of, well except for the Maus I guess.
Any competent engineer could have predicted the problems (or should have)
Huge Ground pressure, long narrow wheels are not going to help that at all.
Engine spontaneously combusts? Did Porsche later design for British Rail?
Czar Nicholas: Nice tank... build more!
"Uh... okay... but we have to find more shot down German planes....'
From what i understand is that later variants of the Ferdinand had better engine reliability, though still prone to break downs , it wasnt as much as a failure later on watch cone of arcs video if i am.not mistaken as the og Porsche tiger was able to move and such it was just they Heinchle was better (that and i beleive the gas line popped on the P.tiger ) . The Ferdinand didnt catch fire as much as people think as its mainly just broken cyclinders and engine troubkes .
Just a point in pronunciation, in German words, and names, the "W" is pronounced like a "V." For example: "Luft VAFF uh." About Kamikazis and carriers, U.S. carriers had wooden flight decks, U.K. carriers had armored decks. A sailor (I think from the U.S.), after witnessing a Kamikazi impact on a British carrier that left a 5-inch dent in the deck, said, "Wow. When a kamikazi hits an American carrier, its 5 months in drydock, when one hits a British carrier, its 'Sweepers man your brooms!'" If the Ferdinand's engines powered electric motors to move the vehicle, the stress to move said vehicle would not strain the engines, but the motors. The engines were trash, though, and produced many headaches for the designers.
Also, You want to be a 'better' version of number 1, just check out the Nashorn AKA Hornisse.
Agreed. the Ferdinand at least had some armor as a tank destroyer, while the Nashorn was poorly armored and open-topped.
12:40 I saw someone calculate the effectiveness of a kamikaze squadron vs a US carrier bomber squadron. You where more likely to get killed during a carrier bomber run, compared to the chance to get called to do a kamikaze. Kamikazes also hit more targets then the carrier bombers. You would in general be better off being a kamikaze pilot then being a US carrier bomber pilot.
As a German I have to say how funny it is to hear you saying Porsche. When you are referring to him or the company you are forgetting pronounce the e from Porsche. But when you are referring to the designs in the genitive with the added s (Porsches) you pronounce it mostly right. I'm glad though that you didn't pronounce it Porschi like most american you tubers I have watched. The pronunciation of Henschel was really good though.
The Nazis could've made more use of the Gustav guns if this guy with a shield hadn't gotten involved. ):D
The Gustav is a siege weapon, set it up and shell the opposition (London for example).
TOG II
You need to do a sequel of this and include the maus
You should have included M-class submarine (submarine with literaly Battleship gun) was build by UK and as you would expect that submarine was useless
The French Surcofs were similar
@@Losingsince M-class was way worse
K class was horrible too. it couldn't crash dive in under 5 MINUTES, was steam powered(!) and could hit it's crush depth with it's Stern STILL ON THE SURFACE!
I have been lucky enough to see one of dora’s shell casing and it’s huge asf
hmmmm Baka and kamikazes generally - I recently read an article about them from a statistical point of view. The author presented a thesis that the kamikazes were a better weapon for Japan than their aircraft at the time. Within the narrow framework presented I respect his viewpoint. However, the author did seem to gloss over what is probably the crucial factor. Experienced pilots are generally hugely more effective at avoiding or confronting opposition aircraft and actually striking their targets with weapons. The Japanese however had very few experienced kamikaze pilots, rather obviously. Very quickly the idea of using experienced combat pilots to fly the kamikaze ran out of experienced pilots, leaving totally inexperienced pilots knowing only how to take off and point the plane generally in the direction of the US fleet. The professionally trained and experienced US Navy pilots made mincemeat out of any Kamikaze they found and the fleet was very quickly finding out the best way of dealing with the threat. The kamikaze managed to sink two escort carriers and numerous destroyers and DE's and were effective, but not a super weapon and did not change the outcome.
I will not stand for the doom turtle slander
The Mause (Panzer 8 "Mouse Super Heavy tank) Suffered Similar Problems and Can easily be spotted by Bombers and strike fighters and the Tsar Tank was in Toy Soldiers HD in WWI and Gustav was used in Siege of Savastapol and Leningrad and Kamikaze Pilots are... used because Japan was Desperate to defeat united states
I'd replace the Ferdinand with the Maus
So much for being super 🤣! Super failures! Bigger doesn’t always mean better…
Very Large on tanks? Meh
Yeah, too bad about the exploding engines. Or the fact that these guys never heard of power/weight ratio. 😫 What were they thinking??!? 🤯 I’m surprised they didn’t just go whole hog and throw some lead-acid car batteries in too, and make a hybrid drive. It’s probably a good thing they didn’t have lithium-polymer batteries back then, because LiPo batteries + exploding engines is an excellent idea for the battlefield… as a Kamikaze! 😂😆🤣 It’s a new type of portable fireworks display… only problem is it’d be so heavy, you’d need one of those big rocket-moving platforms like NASA had; too bad NASA hadn’t been invented yet.
helllo darkness my old friend could you possibly do a video on how bad the morris marina and the austin allegro were its an interesting story about the lazyness and unwillingness of the communist workers at british leyland some cars they made were fine like i have a d reg rover sd1 3.5 v8 vittese and i love it but the marina and the allegro were disgustin the man who designed the allegro a mr harris man takes a lot of flack for the allegro undeservedly his design for the allegro was fantastic it should have been a great car but it was ruined by penny pinchers and they even gave it a square steering wheel its truly hideous i thought it might be an interesting thing for you to look into if you need any help i would be more than happy to assist you i am a subscriber and i will be joining when im back on my feet a little more i love all the videos my friend. much love
The american super hevy tank was originaly intended to be used to bust thrugh the sekfreedline and omg can you imagne if the russians got their hands on dora and started using it to schell Berlin with it ?🤣
For the first thing, there was 1 t28 tank and 1 t95, the t28 had only 1 set of tracks where as the t95 had 2
That's not true. T95/T28 are just 2 names given to the same tank. The single track set is when it's being transported. Double track set is for actual use.
If this video doesn't have the gay bomb...
Well that wasn't so much a superweapon as a _super_ weapon.
How's our Nicholas II suffered the revolution because as a reformer the people began to have hope and as are he wasn't moving fast enough to satisfy the people and there were a bunch of thugs that were willing and anxious to murder the nobility in the creation of a new and more murderous slave state.
Tsar tank looks like a ferris wheel