Neubaufahrzeug.

Armed conflicts in the history of humanity from the ancient times to the 20th Century.
steffen19k
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Neubaufahrzeug.

Post by steffen19k »

Anyone ever heard of this one?? It was built in the mid 30s, and was a multi turret tank design that the Germans had been working on.

Its armament consisted of a 75mm gun, a 37mm gun in a single gun mantlet, and there was a machine gun turret (identical to the one used on the Pz I) in front of the main gun turret, with one more behind.

The vehicle weighed in around 25 tons, and it could attain a reasonable speed (for 1930s) of 16 mph. A few even saw combat in Norway, even though they were little more than mild steel design studies. Its biggest flaw was the doctrine that controlled it.

I've been reviewing the design, and it had potential. In my personal analysis, it would compare favorably to Panzer III & IV.
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Byron Angel
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Re: Neubaufahrzeug.

Post by Byron Angel »

steffen19k wrote:Anyone ever heard of this one?? It was built in the mid 30s, and was a multi turret tank design that the Germans had been working on.

Its armament consisted of a 75mm gun, a 37mm gun in a single gun mantlet, and there was a machine gun turret (identical to the one used on the Pz I) in front of the main gun turret, with one more behind.

The vehicle weighed in around 25 tons, and it could attain a reasonable speed (for 1930s) of 16 mph. A few even saw combat in Norway, even though they were little more than mild steel design studies. Its biggest flaw was the doctrine that controlled it.

I've been reviewing the design, and it had potential. In my personal analysis, it would compare favorably to Panzer III & IV.

..... I recall seeing that vehicle in a Hoffschmift & Tantum publication back in the 60s. IIRC, only a handful of pre-production vehicles were ever built and they were committed to the Norway operation.

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tommy303
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Re: Neubaufahrzeug.

Post by tommy303 »

Byron is right. The tank prototypes were sent to Norway and dragged out from time to time for propaganda purposes:

http://www.lexikon-der-wehrmacht.de/Waf ... rzeuge.htm

The concept of a multi-turreted tank was not new and there were Soviet vehicles of the same genre (even the early Mk of the British Crusader if I recall). However, the Neubaufahrzeuge did not fit in well with the developing German mobile warfare tactics and was a dead end.

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