The Sturmtiger

The Sturmtiger

 

 

The Sturmtiger is a German assault gun built on the Tiger I chassis and armed with a large rocket launcher. Its primary task was to provide heavy fire support for infantry units fighting in urban areas. The few vehicles produced fought in the Warsaw Uprising, the Battle of the Bulge and the Battle of the Reichswald. The fighting vehicle is also known under a large number of informal names, among which the Sturmtiger became the most popular.

 

 

The Sturmtiger was based on the late model Tiger I, keeping its hull and suspension. The front of the Tiger's superstructure was removed to make room for the new fixed casemate-style fighting compartment housing the rocket launcher. This was located directly at the front of the vehicle, giving it a boxy appearance.

 

Compared to the Tiger tank, the Sturmtiger was much shorter overall, only 6.28 m (20 ft 7 in) compared to the Tiger's 8.45 m (27 ft 9 in), due largely to the fact that it did not have the long main gun of the latter which protruded far in front of the hull. It also was slightly lower than the Tiger at 2.85 m (9 ft 4 in) compared to 3 m (9 ft 10 in).

 

Since the Sturmtiger was intended for use in urban areas in close range street fighting, it needed to be heavily armoured to survive. Its sloped (at 47° from vertical) frontal armor therefore was 150 mm (5.9 in) thick, while its superstructure side and rear plates were 82 mm (3.2 in) thick. The hull front was 100 millimetres (3.9 in) or 150 millimetres (5.9 in) if it had an additional armor plate fitted. This pushed the weight of the vehicle up from the 57 t (56 long tons; 63 short tons) of the Tiger I to 68 t (67 long tons; 75 short tons).

The main armament was the 380 mm Raketen-Werfer 61 L/5.4, a breech-loading rocket launcher, which fired short-range, rocket-propelled projectiles roughly 1.5 m (4 ft 11 in) long. There were a variety of rounds with a weight of up to 376 kg (829 lb), and a maximum range of up to 6,000 m (20,000 ft), which either contained a high explosive charge of 125 kg (276 lb) or a shaped charge for use against fortifications, which could penetrate up to 2.5 m (8 ft 2 in) of reinforced concrete. The stated range of the former was 5,650 m (6,180 yd). A normal charge first accelerated the projectile to 45 m/s (150 ft/s), the 40 kg (88 lb) rocket charge then boosted this to about 250 m/s (820 ft/s).

The Sturmtiger was intended to serve as a heavy infantry support vehicle, rendering assistance with attacks on heavily fortified or built-up areas. By the time the first Sturmtigers were available, however, the situation for Germany had changed for the worse, with the Wehrmacht being almost exclusively on the defensive rather than the offensive.
Three new Panzer companies were raised to operate the Sturmtiger: PzStuMrKp 1000, 1001 and 1002.
PzStuMrKp 1000 was raised on 13 August 1944 and fought during the Warsaw Uprising with two vehicles, as did the prototype in a separate action, which may have been the only time the Sturmtiger was used in its intended role. PzStuMrKp 1001 (commanded by Captain von Gottberg) and 1002 (commanded by Lieutenant Zippel) followed in September and October. Both PzStuMrKp 1000 and 1001 served during the Ardennes Offensive, with a total of seven Sturmtigers.
After this offensive, the Sturmtigers were used in the defence of Germany, mainly on the Western Front.

The V-1 Flying Bomb

The V-1 Flying Bomb

 

The V1 has the distinction of being the world’s first operational cruise missile. It had its first flight in 1942 and was being used against Britain in large numbers by 1944. It had a range of 250km, carried an 850 kg warhead, and flew at a speed of 640 km/hr. It was propelled by a pulse jet engine which made a distinctive sound and resulted in the nickname “Buzz bomb”. The guidance of the V1 was provided by a simple autopilot which used a gyroscopic guidance system. The V1s were fired on a daily basis towards Britain and the attacks stopped only once the Allies managed to overrun and capture the launch sites.

 

 

 

The Nazis built nearly 10,000 of these destructive weapons. But the fact was, only 25% of these missiles managed to hit their targets. An effective combination of Anti-Aircraft guns, barrage balloons and fighter aircraft worked in coordination to shoot them down. The V1 was launched from a steam catapult and has the distinction of being the first air launched cruise missile as well, and the trend of air launched cruise missiles continues even today due to its effectiveness. The He-111 bomber served as a launch platform for the launch of V1s from the air.

 

 

The British faced a severe problem when the V1 started falling. They thought that it would be easy to intercept these missiles once they entered British airspace as they employed a combination of fighters and anti-aircraft guns to shoot down these missiles, but it proved to be a great problem as the V1 flew at an altitude of 600-900m which was just out of effective reach of the light anti-aircraft guns and just below the minimum optimum range of the heavy anti-aircraft guns. The British countered this problem with new electronic technology. The Anti-aircraft shells were fitted with a proximity fuse and the guns were directed by fire control radars. A proximity fuse is a small radio transmitter fitted at the tip of the shell which senses an object close to it and explodes, preferably near a target. Fire control radars helped to direct these shells effectively to the incoming V1s and thus the British were able to rapidly increase the number of V1s they could shoot down. The radar had once again saved Britain.

 

There was this other interesting method which Britain used, to intercept the V1s. It was in a way, daring and dangerous and involved making actual physical contact with the airborne missile. The RAF Spitfires would fly alongside the missile and level with the V1s wings. Then the pilot would maneuver the wingtip of his fighter under the wingtip of the V1 and make a slight roll movement with his plane so that the V1 lost its current course and toppled into the countryside. This method was employed due to a peculiar problem with shooting it down. The V1 had a sheet steel skin which rendered machine gunfire from aircraft useless. So the fighters had to use cannons to shoot it down. If these cannon shells managed to explode the warhead of the V1, then the resulting explosion would destroy the plane if it was anywhere near, and almost always the fighters were close enough to suffer the fallout of a mid-air V1 explosion. The toppling method worked quite well if the missile was toppled harmlessly into an empty countryside or the sea.