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SBB Lokomotive Ae 6/6 11421 Kanton Grischun - Graubünden ( Kantonslokomotive => Hersteller SLM Nr. 4239 - Baujahr 1957 ) am Bahnhof Thun im Berner Oberland im Kanton Bern in der Schweiz
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( Ae6/611421 )
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SBB Ae 6/6 Lokomotive
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Betrieb
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- Baujahr : 1.9.5.2 P.rototypen => 1.9.5.5 – 1.9.6.6 S.erienlokomotiven
- Betriebsnummern : 1.1.4.0.1 – 1.1.5.2.0
- Betriebsnummern ( UIC ) : Ae 610 4.0.1 – Ae 610 5.2.0
- Stückzahl : 120
- Einsatzgebiet : G.üterverkehr
- W.artungswerk : B.ellinzona
- Ausrangierung : seit 2.0.0.2
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Technische Daten
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- Fahrzeugtyp : elektrische Lokomotive
- Hersteller : SLM W.interthur - BBC B.aden - MFO Z.ürich
- Achsfolge : Co'Co'
- Höchstgeschwindigkeit : 125 km/h - heute: 120 km/h
- Leistung : 4`300 kW ( 5`830 PS )
- Bergleistung : 650 - Tonnen - Zug auf 26 ‰ Steigung bei 75 km/h
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Masse und Gewicht
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- Länge über Puffer : 18'400 mm
- Breite : 2`970 mm
- Höhe : 4`500 mm
- Gewicht : 120 t / Prototypen: 124 t
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Sonstiges
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- Besondere Merkmale : 2 P.rototypen mit abweichenden Merkmalen
- Vorgänger : SBB Ae 4./.6
- Nachfolger : SBB R.e 6/6
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Ae 6/6 ist eine Baureihe von 120 Universallokomotiven der Schweizerischen Bundes-
bahnen. Sie werden aufgrund ihres früheren Einsatzgebietes den Gotthardlokomotiven
zugeordnet.
Die ersten 25 Lokomotiven werden häufig als K.antonslokomotiven bezeichnet, da sie
die Wappen der 25 Schweizer K.antone trugen. An den Lokkästen befinden sich C.hrom-
Z.ierlinien und an den F.rontseiten ein S.chnäuzchen.
Diese Verzierung, begleitet von den Wappen an den Seitenwänden, fand grossen Anklang
und machte diese leistungsstarken Maschinen europaweit berühmt.
Die weiteren 95 Lokomotiven der Serie erhielten keine C.hromverzierung, aber die Wappen
der K.antonshauptorte sowie wichtiger S.tädte und O.rtschaften.
Dort wo sich die Wappen befanden, war bei den P.rototyplokomomotiven zuerst die Fahr-
zeugnummer ( 1.1.4.0.1 - 1.1.4.0.2 ) abgebracht. Die Lokomotivtaufen wurden als festliche
Anlässe durchgeführt.
Ursprünglich waren die Maschinen t.annengrün lackiert. Heute haben etwa die Hälfte aller
Lokomotiven einen r.oten Anstrich. Mit dieser Umlackierung wurde - und das nicht nur bei
den Ae 6/6 - in den späten Achzigerjahren begonnen.
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Vorgeschichte
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In der N.achkriegszeit hatten die Schweizerischen Bundesbahnen ein zunehmendes Ver-
kehrsvolumen zu bewältigen und sahen sich daher veranlasst, einen neue, sechsachsige
Drehgestelllokomotive vor allem für die G.otthardbahn zu beschaffen.
Der Verkehr wurde bis dahin durch die SBB Ae 4./.6, die SBB Ae 4./.7 sowie die C.e 6./.8
K.rokodil - Lokomotive abgewickelt. Sie waren - aus heutiger Sicht - nur für sehr be-
scheidene Anhängelasten zugelassen. Dadurch waren am G.otthard V.orspanndienste
nötig, die zeitraubend, unpraktisch und unwirtschaftlich waren.
Das aus SLM und BBC bestehende Konsortium, zu dem sich später die Maschinenfabrik
O.erlikon gesellte, erhielt im Jahr 1949 den Zuschlag für den Bau von zwei P.rototypen.
Die technische Entwicklung erwies sich als schwierige Aufgabe, so dass die Lokomotive
1.1.4.0.1 erst am 4. S.eptember 1.9.5.2 das F.abrikgebäude der BBC in M.ünchenstein
in fahrtauglichem Zustand verlassen konnte.
Sie wurde auf eine P.robefahrt nach Z.ürich geschickt, aber nicht wie sonst üblich vom
B.undesamt für Verkehr für die Zulassung auf dem normalspurigen Schienennetz geprüft.
Sie wurde gewogen, und es stellte sich heraus, dass sie 124 t statt die vorgesehenen
120 t wog. Sie kehrte nach M.ünchenstein zurück und wurde vorerst technisch weiter-
entwickelt. Am 31. J.anuar 1.9.5.3 folgte auch die Ae 6/6 1.1.4.0.2.
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Anforderungen an die Ae 6/6
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Sechsachsige Drehgestellokomotive, die vor S.chnell- und G.üterzügen einsetzbar ist,
Stundenleistung bei 6 x 1000 PS bei 74 km/h; Dauerleistung bei 6 x 900 PS bei 78,5 km/h,
Gesamtgewicht von maximal 120 t, Toleranz von -/+ 2%,
Beförderung von 600 t schweren Zügen bei 75 km/h auf den S.teilrampen der G.otthard-
bahn, Beförderung von 750 t auf B.ergstrecken mit bis zu 21 ‰ Steigung und 1`450 t bei
10 ‰, als V.orspann- und Z.wischenlokomotive bei Geschwindigkeiten zwischen 35 und
75 km/h einsetzbar; muss mit der Beförderung dieser Lasten wiederholt in der Steigung
anfahren können, Zugkraft von 8 t bei 125 km/h und einer Fahrdrahtspannung von 15 kV,
elektrische Rekuperationsbremse, die das Eigengewicht der Lokomotive und eine
Anhängelast von 300 t in einem Gefälle von bis zu 20 ‰ dauernd abbremsen kann;
Erhöhung der Bremskraft um 20 % innert 5 Minuten, Einsetzbarkeit der elektrischen
Bremse auch bei der Höchstgeschwindigkeit, Erhöhung der Leistung um 10 % über die
Stundenleistung innert 15 Minuten.
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Einsatz der P.rototypen
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Nach der Auslieferung folgten verschiedene Versuchs- und E.xtrafahrten. Die Maschinen
erreichten die Anforderungen gemäss dem Pflichtenheft. Technische Probleme machten
sich im Regeldienst bemerkbar.
Bemängelt wurde immer wieder die schwache elektrische Bremse. Diese wurde wie im
Pflichtenheft verlangt «nur» für das Abbremsen des Eigengewichtes und einer Last von
maximal 300 t im Gefälle von bis zu 20 ‰ ausgelegt. Für die S.erienproduktion wurde
die elektrische Bremse weiterentwickelt.
Die beiden P.rototypen versahen vorerst R.egeldienste in einem Zweitagesprogramm auf
der G.otthardbahn zwischen L.uzern und C.hiasso. Sie wurden im D.epot E.rstfeld
stationiert.
Wiederholt waren einzelne Fahrmotoren defekt. Da keine Ersatzmotoren beschafft
worden waren, erhielten die betroffenen Lokomotiven vorübergehend einen Ballast,
damit das Dienstgewicht noch stimmte.
Sie mussten aber vom G.otthard abgezogen werden und wurden anstelle von Ae 3./.6 I
und Ae 4./.7-Lokomotiven in anderen R.egeldiensten eingesetzt. Sie wurden früher als
die Ae 6/6 - S.erienlokomotiven vom G.otthard abgezogen, nämlich in den späten
Sechziger Jahren, als die in E.rstfeld stationierten SBB R.e 4./.4 I.I.I schon im Einsatz
waren.
Sie waren daher nicht selten auch vor R.egionalzügen anzutreffen, die sonst mit Ae 3./.6 I
oder Ae 4./.7 bespannt waren. In den Siebziger Jahren wurden sie technisch weiter-
entwickelt, erhielten aber nie die Q.ualität der S.erienlokomotiven.
Im S.ommer 1.9.8.0 wurden sie vom D.epot E.rstfeld nach Z.ürich versetzt. Die dortige
Depotinspektion beabsichtigte im J.anuar 1.9.9.7, die beiden Prototypen für Depotmanöver
und als Druckluftspender im D.epot R.orschach einzusetzen und somit aus dem Verkehr
zu ziehen.
Aufgrund ihrer besonderen Bauweise, die sie nur innerlich von den S.erienlokomotiven
unterscheidet, waren sie viel wartungsaufwendiger und im Betrieb gewissermassen ein
Hindernis.
Infolge des Triebfahrzeugmangels kamen sie aber innert kurzer Zeit wieder in den Regel-
dienst. Infolge der Zuteilung aller Ae 6/6-Lokomotiven zu SBB C.argo fiel die D.epot-
zuteilung weg.
Diese P.rototypen hatten Drehgestelle mit starren Achsen, was im Kurvenlauf zu starkem
Schienen- und Spurkranz-Verschleiß führte. Trotz anfänglicher technischer Mängel war
man bei den SBB der Überzeugung, mit der Entwicklung der Ae 6/6 auf dem richtigen
Weg zu sein.
Nach Einbau seitenelastisch gelagerter Radsätze und Verkleinerung des Spurkranzes
der mittleren Drehgestell - Räder konnte der Serienbau 1.9.5.4 eingeleitet werden, dem
1.9.5.5 die ersten Auslieferungen folgten.
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Betriebseinsatz bis in die 1.9.6.0 er - Jahre
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Zusammenfassung
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Zu den besten Zeiten, in den 1.9.5.0 er und 1.9.6.0 er Jahren, waren die Ae 6/6 die G.ott-
hardlokomotive schlechthin sowohl im R.eise- wie auch im G.üterverkehr.
Sie waren auch am S.implon im Einsatz. Sie wurden im Turnus dort eingesetzt, damit
die R.evision durch die H.auptwerkstätte B.ellinzona gesichert war. In den späten Sech-
zigerjahren wurden die beiden P.rototypen vom G.otthard abgezogen; später folgten
auch viele S.erienlokomotiven.
Sie wurden ins F.lachland versetzt, da neuere, leistungsfähigere Lokomotiven auf dem
G.otthard eingesetzt wurden. Seit den 1.9.9.0 er Jahren werden die Ae 6/6 fast nur noch
im G.üterverkehr eingesetzt, da sie für R.eisezüge heute zu langsam sind.
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Loktaufen
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Auch die E.xtrafahrten anlässlich der Loktaufen gehören zum Betriebseinsatz der Ae 6/6.
Man übernahm einen Brauch aus E.ngland, indem man die Lokomotiven mit K.antons- und
G.emeindewappen schmückte.
Das waren festliche Anlässe, und jeder Kanton erhielt «seine» eigene Ae 6/6. Die Fahr-
zeuge 1.1.4.2.6 bis 1.1.5.2.0 erhielten G.emeindewappen von K.antonshauptorten und von
wichtigen V.erkehrszentren.
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1.9.7.0 er – 1.9.9.0 er - Jahre
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Zusammenfassung
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In den 1.9.7.0 er - Jahren wurden die Prototypen 1.1.4.0.1 und 1.1.4.0.2 technisch weiter-
entwickelt.
Sie wurden im Jahr 1.9.7.8 vor allem der Lokomotive 1.1.4.1.4 angeglichen, erhielten
aber nie die Qualität der S.erienlokomotiven. 1.9.7.1 wurden die Ae 6/6 durch die neue
SBB R.e 4./.4 III auf der G.otthardstrecke etwas entlastet. Echte Konkurrenz bekamen
sie jedoch ab 1.9.7.5 durch die SBB Re 6./.6, die als ihr Nachfolge-Typ vorgesehen war
und beinahe die doppelte Leistung hat.
Der ehemalige Star des G.otthards wurde damit in niedergeordnete Dienste verdrängt
und seither meist im M.ittelland und im J.ura und seit Mitte der 1.9.9.0 er Jahre fast
nur noch im G.üterverkehr eingesetzt.
Dies, da er für den schnellen Reiseverkehr mit der von 125 km/h auf 120 km/h herab-
gesetzten Höchstgeschwindigkeit zu langsam ist.
Eine Ausnahme bildeten die von der B.L.S gemieteten einstigen G.otthardlokomotiven,
die zur Fahrt über den L.ötschberg sogar noch vor I.nterC.ity - Züge gespannt wurden.
Im Jahr 1.9.9.7 wollte die D.epotinspektion von Z.ürich die beiden P.rototypen aus dem
Verkehr ziehen und als Druckluftspender und für Depotmanöver im D.epot von R.orschach
einsetzen. Infolge des T.riebfahrzeugmangels kamen sie aber zurück in den R.egeldienst.
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Baukastensystem
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Die Serienlokomotiven 1.1.4.0.3 - 1.1.5.2.0 wurden nach dem sogenannten Baukasten-
system erstellt. Obwohl sie teils in schwere Unfälle verwickelt waren, konnten sie innert
kurzer Zeit wieder instandgestellt werden.
Da die P.rototyplokomotiven 1.1.4.0.1 und 1.1.4.0.2 verschiedentlich anders konstruiert
sind, konnten sie von diesem Baukastensystem nur wenig profitieren.
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Unfälle
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In der Nacht vom 29. auf den 30. J.uli 1.9.8.8 kollidierte die Ae 6/6 1.1.4.1.3, die den
G.üterzug 53048 zog, in E.ffingen mit einer B.aumaschine. Sie musste in der Folge
einer Hauptrevision unterzogen werden und war am 28. F.ebruar 1.9.8.9 wieder in Be-
trieb.
Am 12. A.pril 1.9.8.9 kam es in W.interthur zu einer Flankenfahrt zwischen der SBB
Ae 6/6 1.1.4.0.1 und der SBB R.e 4./.4 II 1.1.2.8.7. Da für die Serienlokomotiven ein
ausreichendes Ersatzteillager angelegt wurde, konnten diese nach Unfällen innert
kurzer Zeit wieder instandgestellt werden. Da es sich diesmal um eine P.rototyp-
lokomotive handelte, erwies sich die Aufarbeitung als viel komplizierter.
Die Lokomotivabteilung der H.auptwerkstätte in B.ellinzona zeigte sich mit dem Ab-
bruch der Lokomotive einverstanden. Allerdings wehrten sich Eisenbahnfreunde für
den Erhalt dieser allerersten Ae 6/6-Lokomotive, so dass sie dennoch eine Haupt-
revision, eine R3, erhielt.
Es war die aufwendigste und teuerste Revision aller Zeiten. Im Jahr 1.9.9.1 wurde die
Ae 6/6 « T.icino » wieder in den R.egeldienst entlassen.
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K.antonslok J.ura
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Nach der Gründung des K.antons J.ura 1.9.7.9 sollte auch dieser Kanton seine eigene
" K.antonslok " bekommen. Da aber die letzte Ae 6/6 bereits 1.9.6.6 abgeliefert worden
war, stieg die S.tädtelok 1.1.4.8.3 P.orrentruy zur K.antonslok J.ura auf.
Sie erhielt zwar das K.antonswappen J.ura, aber nicht die C.hrom - Z.ierlinien und das
" S.chnäuzchen ". Das Wappen P.orrentruy erbte die SBB Re 4./.4 II 1.1.2.3.9.
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21. Jahrhundert
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1.9.9.9 wurden auf Grund der Restrukturierung bei den SBB alle 120 Lokomotiven in die
D.ivision G.üterverkehr ( SBB C.argo ) eingeteilt. Im G.üterverkehr ist die Ae 6/6 heute
weiterhin eine sehr zuverlässige Lokomotive.
Da die Ae 6/6 Drehgestelle mit je drei Achsen enthalten, haftet an ihnen der Makel von
« S.chienenmördern ». Der Unmut wurde besonders aufgrund von G.üterfahrten auf der
der C.hemins de fer du J.ura ( C.J ) gehörenden Strecke P.orrentruy – B.onfol laut.
Als grösster Nachteil der Ae 6/6 wird häufig die fehlende Vielfachsteuerung erwähnt.
Bisherige Pläne eines Umbaus wurden verworfen und aufgrund der ungewissen Rest-
lebensdauer auch nicht weiter verfolgt.
Für die jüngeren Lokomotiven wurde die Ausrüstung mit der F.ührerstandssignalisierung
( F.S.S ) erwogen, so dass diese auf F.S.S - Strecken fahren können, probehalber wurde
hierfür die 1.1.5.1.2 « H.orgen » umgerüstet.
Die noch betriebsfähigen S.erienloks sind heute vor N.ahgüterzügen anzutreffen, stehen
aber meist auf grossen R.angierbahnhöfen.
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W.appendiebstähle
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Unbekannte, bei denen es sich um Trophäenjäger handeln dürfte, verschafften sich im
Jahr 2.0.0.6 nachts Zugang zu den R.angierbahnhöfen und demontierten W.appen und
S.chweizerkreuze.
Um weitere Diebstähle zu verhindern, ordneten die SBB an, bei allen Ae 6/6-Lokomotiven
die W.appen zu entfernen und zu archivieren. Die Lokomotiven im neuen SBB C.argo-
D.esign erhielten neue Wappen jeweils beim F.ührerstand auf der linken Seite.
Voraussichtlich werden die Wappen nicht mehr montiert, sondern zusammen SBB
H.istoric übergeben. Im M.ärz 2.0.0.7 gab SBB C.argo bekannt, dass eine grössere An-
zahl von Ae 6/6 eine Neubemalung im sogenannten " Cargo - Look " erhalten und
noch mindestens bis zur Inbetriebnahme des G.otthard - B.asistunnels ( voraus-
sichtlich um 2.0.1.6 ) in Betrieb bleiben sollen
Die erste umlackierte Lokomotive ist - abgesehen von der Denkmallokomotive
Ae 610 4.9.2 - die Ae 610 4.8.6 " B.urgdorf ".
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Der Verbleib ausrangierter Lokomotiven
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Zusammenfassung
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2.0.0.2 wurde die erste Lokomotive dieser Serie, die 1.1.4.1.0 « B.asel - S.tadt » unfall-
bedingt ausrangiert und abgebrochen. Dies geschah, nachdem ihr bei einer F.lankenfahrt
in D.ietikon, die S.eitenwand aufgerissen wurde. Seither wurden mehrere Maschinen, da-
runter auch die P.rototypen 1.1.4.0.2 « U.ri » und 1.1.4.0.1 « T.icino » ausrangiert.
2.0.0.2 war die 1.1.4.0.1 « T.icino » kurz nach ihrem 50. Geburtstag zu Gast am Tag der
offenen Tür auf dem R.angierbahnhof M.uttenz. Nach einem K.abelbrand wurde sie am
11. S.eptember 2.0.0.3 ausrangiert.
Danach stand sie monatelang auf einem fahrdrahtlosen A.bstellgleis beim L.okomotivfried-
hof von B.iasca - anfänglich mit einigen andern Ae 6/6, die kurz darauf von der Ö.ffentlich-
keit unbemerkt abgebrochen wurden.
Dasselbe Schicksal ereilte die 1.1.4.3.3, die in B.ellinzona abgestellt war. In B.iasca
abgestellt war auch die 1.1.4.1.2, die im D.ezember 2.0.0.6 dem S.chrotthändler über-
geben wurde.
Das Schicksal ausrangierter Ae 6/6-Lokomotiven sorgt bei Eisenbahnfreunden regel-
mässig für Aufsehen.
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P.rototyplokomotive 1.1.4.0.1
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Zuletzt war nur noch die 1.1.4.0.1 « T.icino » in B.iasca abgestellt und mit R.adschuhen
gesichert. Sie gehört seit dem 12. J.uni 2.0.0.6 der SBB H.istoric, die sie seit dem
D.ezember 2.0.0.6 langfristig an den C.lub del S.an G.ottardo vermietet.
Eisenbahnfreunde machten geltend, dass an dieser und andern Ae 6/6-Lokomotiven
das S.chweizerkreuz und das K.antonswappen nicht mehr vorhanden waren. Gemäss
Angaben der SBB werden die demontierten Teile zusammen mit dem Fahrzeug dem
Käufer übergeben.
Im J.uli 2.0.0.7 wurde die « T.essiner Ae 6/6 » nach B.ellinzona überführt. Sie war dort
remisiert und man wollte mit der W.iederinstandstellung beginnen. Die Kosten erwiesen
sich aber als viel höher als budgetiert, und es erwies sich als schwierig, die richtigen
Ersatzteile zu erhalten.
Ausserdem machten sich Risse in den S.peichen bemerkbar. Seit dem 20. M.ai 2.0.1.0
befindet sich diese Lokomotive bei der S.chienenverkehrsgesellschaft S.tuttgart in H.orb
am N.eckar.
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Ae 6/6 an SBB H.istoric
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Der Stiftung Historisches Erbe der SBB ( SBB H.istoric ) wurde bereits die Ae 6/6
1.1.4.0.2 « U.ri » übergeben, die für das G.otthard - J.ubiläum 2.0.0.7 wieder mit
ihrem ursprünglichen, t.annengrünen Anstrich hergerichtet und danach im D.epot
E.rstfeld stationiert wurde.
Ebenfalls im Dienst von SBB H.istoric stehen die Ae 6/6 1.1.4.1.1 « Z.ug » ( Farbe
t.annengrün, S.tandort E.rstfeld ), 1.1.4.1.6 « G.larus » und 1.1.4.2.5 « G.enf» und
( beide mit der F.arbe r.ot und dem S.tandort O.lten), wobei die «G.larus» nicht
betriebsfähig ist und als E.rsatzteilspender dient.
Die Ae 6/6 1.1.4.0.5 « N.idwalden » wurde von SBB H.istoric ebenfalls als Ersatz-
teilspender übernommen und zunächst in O.lten abgestellt. Nach Ausbau noch
brauchbarer Teile für die Ae 6/6 « A.argau », die sich in der Obhut des Vereins
M.ikado befindet, wurde sie am 10. J.anuar 2.0.1.2 zum A.bbruch nach K.aiseraugst
überführt.
Im H.erbst 2.0.1.1 übernahm SBB H.istoric zudem die Ae 6/6 1.1.4.5.6 « O.lten ». Sie ist
in O.lten stationiert und soll im letzten Betriebszustand fahrfähig erhalten bleiben. Es
handelt sich derzeit ( Stand: J.uli 2.0.1.2 ) um die einzige S.tädtelokomotive im Bestand
der historischen Ae 6/6.
Zwei weitere Lokomotiven wurden als Leihgaben an verschiedene Vereinigungen abge-
treten.
Die Ae 6/6 1.1.4.0.7 « A.argau » wurde 2.0.0.9 von SBB Historic an den Verein « M.ikado
1.2.4.4 » als L.eihgabe abgegeben.
Die Ae 6/6 1.1.4.2.1 « G.raubünden » wurde von SBB Historic an den «Verein Erhalt
historische Elektrolokomotive Ae 6/6 1.1.4.0.3 » als Leihgabe abgegeben. Der Wider-
spruch im V.ereinsnamen und der Loknummer ergibt sich daraus dass der V.erein
zuerst die Ae 6/6 1.1.4.0.3 « S.chwyz » übernehmen wollte, diese war jedoch nicht
reparierbar defekt, so dass man auf die 1.1.4.2.1 als Leihgabe Rückgriff genommen hat.
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D.enkmallokomotive bei E.rstfeld
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Ab dem H.erbst 2.0.0.6 stand anlässlich des 125-jährigen Jubiläums der G.otthardbahn
eine D.enkmallokomotive der Reihe Ae 6/6 mit zwei S.peisewagen und einem G.epäck-
wagen auf dem Areal der A.utobahnraststätte bei E.rstfeld.
Die S.peisewagen wurden nicht zweckentfremdet - sie waren ein Teil des Restaurants.
Zur selben Zeit wurden die Innenräume der R.aststätte in F.ahrtrichtung N.ord umgebaut.
Als die B.auarbeiten fertig waren, wurden die S.peisewagen, die normalerweise in I.nter-
c.ity-Z.ügen verkehren, durch G.üterwagen ersetzt.
Die ehemalige Ae 6/6 1.1.4.9.2 " E.mmen " wurde mit dem SBB C.argo - D.esign frisch
gestrichen und bekam die Bezeichnung Ae 610 4.9.2. Mit ihrem heutigen Aussehen ist
sie allerdings erst seit ihrer Wiederinbetriebnahme im R.egeldienst unterwegs. Die einst
geplante Umdesignierung infolge der Zuteilung aller Artgenossinnen zur Division Güter-
verkehr stieß in Kreisen von Eisenbahnfreunden auf Proteste. ( Eine h.ellgrüne Farbe war
vorgesehen.) Das neue D.enkmal wurde mit einer grossen B.ahnhofsuhr am 18. O.ktober
2.0.0.6 festlich eingeweiht. Unter den Festrednern waren auch der Urner Regierungsrat
I.sidor B.aumann, der Tessiner R.egierungsrat M.arco B.orradori und B.enedikt W.eibel,
der scheidende P.räsident der SBB - G.eneraldirektion.
Im H.erbst 2.0.0.7 wurde die Lokomotive von der A.utobahnraststätte abtransportiert und
auf der G.otthardbahn wieder aufgegleist. Bei der technischen Kontrolle wurden ge-
brochene Radsterne festgestellt. Der Schaden musste behoben werden, bevor die Lok
wieder in den Regeldienst kam.
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***************************************************************************************************************
Verein 1.1.4.0.6 A.lpnachstad
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Der Verein 1.1.4.0.6 A.lpnachstad wollte die auf den K.anton O.bwalden getaufte Ae 6/6
1.1.4.0.6 als D.enkmallokomotive in A.lpnachstad erhalten. Der Verein hatte die Loko-
motive langfristig von SBB H.istoric gemietet.
Die Lokomotive wurde als nicht mehr betriebsfähig ausrangiert und als Ersatzteilspenderin
in der H.auptwerkstätte B.ellinzona ausgeschlachtet. Ihre Verschrottung war von den SBB
schon besiegelt, was vorläufig verhindert wurde.
In der Nacht vom 14. auf den 15. D.ezember 2.0.0.6 wurde sie auf der S.trasse von
B.ellinzona nach A.lpnachstad transportiert. Nach langer, aber ergebnisloser Suche
nach einem Standort in A.lpnach wurde die Lok am 17. Juni 2.0.1.1 in E.nnetmoos bis
auf den F.ührerstand, welcher für ein späteres Projekt verwendet werden soll, abge-
brochen.
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D.enkmallokomotive im K.anton L.uzern
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Zwischen D.agmersellen und N.ebikon, auf dem A.real der G.alliker T.ransport AG, steht
seit dem F.ebruar 2.0.0.7 auf Initiative des S.eniorchefs Peter Galliker die Ae 6/6 1.1.4.1.8
in roter Farbe. Obwohl sie dem Kanton St. G.allen gewidmet war, erhielt sie ein neues
L.uzerner K.antonswappen. G.alliker, ein Stammkunde von SBB C.argo, hatte die dem
Abbruch geweihte Maschine in B.ellinzona entdeckt und ihr so ein neues Zuhause ge-
geben.
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Denkmallokomotive im V.erkehrshaus
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Das V.erkehrshaus Schweiz hat von SBB Cargo die Ae 6/6 « S.chaffhausen » erworben
und stellt diese von Zeit zu Zeit im V.erkehrshaus aus.
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L.oksimulater bei der " C.hemins de fer du K.aeserberg "
***************************************************************************************************************
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Der F.ührerstand der K.antonslokomotive Ae 6/6 1.1.4.0.9 mit W.appen des K.antons
B.aselland steht im Haus der " C.hemins de fer du K.aeserberg " im F.reiburger V.orort
G.ranges - P.accot im K.anton F.reiburg in der Schweiz
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( BeschriebAe6/6 AlbumSBBAe6/6Lokomotive AlbumBahnenderSchweiz Ae6/6 Ae610
Ae 6/6 610 Schweizerische Bundesbahn Bundesbahnen Eisenbahn Lokomotive Lok
SBB CFF FFS SLM Zug Train Juna Zoug Trainen Tog Tren Поезд Lokomotive Паровоз
Locomotora Lok Lokomotiv Locomotief Locomotiva Locomotive Eisenbahn Railway
Rautatie chemin de fer Ferrovia 鉄道 Spoorweg Железнодорожный Centralstation
Ferroviaria Schweiz Suisse Switzerland Svizzera Suissa Swiss Sveitsi Sviss スイス
Zwitserland Sveits Szwajcaria Suíça Suiza )
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******************************************************************************************************************
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In Thun am 12. Juni 2004
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Letzte Aktualisierung - Ergänzung des Textes : 191221
******************************************************************************************************************
NIF
O.A.S.E. - Ort des Austauschs, des Studiums und der Entwicklung (Medical Faculty), Building 16.61
Architects: HPP Hentrich-Petschnigg und Partner, Düsseldorf, 2011
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
The "Entwicklung" tank series (= "development"), more commonly known as the E-Series, was a late-World War II attempt by Germany to produce a standardized series of tank designs. There were to be six standard designs in different weight classes, from which several specialized variants were to be developed. This intended to reverse the trend of extremely complex tank designs that had resulted in poor production rates and mechanical unreliability.
The E-series designs were simpler, cheaper to produce and more efficient than their predecessors; however, their design offered only modest improvements in armor and firepower over the designs they were intended to replace, such as the Jagdpanzer 38(t), Panther Ausf. G or Tiger II. However, the resulting high degree of standardization of German armored vehicles would also have made logistics and maintenance easier. Indeed, nearly all E-series vehicles — up through and including the E-75 — were intended to use what were essentially the Tiger II's 80 cm (31½ in) diameter, steel-rimmed road wheels for their suspension, meant to overlap each other (as on the later production Tiger I-E and Panther designs that also used them), even though in a highly simplified fashion. For instance, while the E-50/75’s running gear resembled outwardly the Tiger II’s, the latter’s torsion bar suspension, which necessitated a complex hull with many openings, was replaced by very compact conical spring coil packages that each held a pair of interleaved road wheels – with the benefit that all suspension elements remained outside of the hull. This considerably simplified production and saved time as well as scarce material.
Focus of initial chassis and combat vehicle development was the E-50/75 Standardpanzer, designed by Adler. These were two mostly identical vehicles and only differed in armor thickness, overall weight and running gear design to cope with the different weights. While the E-50 was the standardized replacement for the medium PzKpfw. V “Panther” and the last operational PzKpfw. VI “Tiger”, with an operational weight of around 50 tons, the E-75 was intended to become the standard heavy tank in the 70 ton class, as a replacement for the Tiger II battle tank and the Jagdtiger SPG. They were to share many components, including the same Maybach HL 234 engine with up to 900 hp output and the drivetrain, as well as running gear elements and almost all peripheral equipment. Both E-50 and E-75 were built on the same production lines for ease of manufacture.
This universal tank chassis would, beyond the primary use for battle tanks, also become the basis for a wide range of specialized support vehicles like self-propelled artillery, assault guns, tank hunters and anti-aircraft weapon carriers, which would gradually replace and standardize the great variety of former support vehicles, dramatically optimizing maintenance and logistics.
The E-50/75 SPAAG sub-family itself was quite diversified and comprised a wide range of vehicles that mainly carried different turrets with the respective weaponry as well as air space surveillance, targeting and command equipment. The range of armament included not only guns of various calibers for short, medium and long range in armored and mostly fully enclosed turrets, there were furthermore armored launch ramps for anti-aircraft missiles, including the guided “Rheintochter”, “Wasserfall” or “Enzian” SAMs as well as batteries with unguided “Taifun” anti-aircraft missiles.
Among this new vehicle family, the heaviest gun that was carried in a fully enclosed turret was the Rheinmetall 8.8 cm Flak 41. This was an improved version of the powerful pre-war 8.8 cm Flak 36/37 that was also developed into an anti-tank gun and became the main armament for Germany’s heavy battle tanks like the Tiger I: the 8.8 cm PaK 43 and KwK 43, respectively.
The 8.8 cm Flak 41 was a mobile field weapon on a new pedestal mounting that lowered its silhouette, and it used a longer barrel and a longer 88 mm cartridge with an increased propellant load. The shells had a weight of 9.4-kilogram (20 lb) and achieved a muzzle velocity of 1,000 m/s (3,280 ft/s), giving the gun an effective ceiling of 11,300 meters (37,100 ft) and a maximum of 14,700 meters (48,200 ft). The barrel initially consisted of three sections and had a length of 74 calibers but was then redesigned to a simpler dual-section barrel with a length of 72 calibers, for easier manufacture. Improvements in reloading raised the manual firing rate, with 20 to 25 rounds a minute being quoted. The Flak 41 could also be used against ground targets and was able to penetrate about 200 mm (7.9 inches) of armor at 1,000 m (3,280 feet), allowing it to defeat the armor of any contemporary tank from a relatively safe distance. Because of the high cost and complexity of this weapon, however, Rheinmetall manufactured relatively few of them, 556 in all. 399 were fielded, the rest went into SPAAG production.
The new pedestal mounting made it easy to adapt the weapon to a vehicle, so that this formidable weapon was immediately earmarked to be combined with a tank chassis to improve its mobility. Since an SPAAG would not need the massive frontal armor of a battle tank, the hull from the lighter E-50 was used (which still had a maximum armor thickness of 60mm at the front at 30°, which was effectively 120 mm vs. the E-75’s 185 mm), but instead of the E-50 MBT’s running gear with six steel wheels per side, the Flak 41 SPAAG used the heavier E-75’s running gear with eight wheels per side and wider tracks, effectively creating a hybrid E-50/75 chassis. This measure was taken to better distribute the vehicle’s overall weight and stabilize the it while moving and firing. In this form the new vehicle received the designation Sd.Kfz. 192/3, also known as “Einheits-Flakpanzer E-50 (88 mm)” or “E-50-41” for short.
The Flak 41 was integrated into Rheinmetall’s standardized SPAAG turret that could carry a wide range of automatic anti-aircraft weapons. It was a spacious, boxy design, optimized for maximum internal space than for effective armor protection, resulting in almost vertical side walls and a high silhouette. However, the level of armor was sufficient to protect the crew and the equipment inside from 20 mm gun shells – the typical armament of Allied fighter bombers of the time like the Hawker Typhoon and Tempest.
A heavy-duty hydraulic gun mount with a reinforced recoil system allowed an elevation of the Flak 41 between +83° and -3°. As a novel feature the weapon received a semi-automatic loading mechanism. This was the attempt to increase the gun’s excellent manual rate of fire even further, and it mimicked the magazine clips of the smaller 37 mm Flak 37 that contained seven rounds for short, continuous bursts of fire. A belt feed for truly continuous fire had been envisioned, but not possible with the long and heavy 88 mm rounds within the turret and chassis limits. A mechanical magazine solution, e. g. a drum with several rounds, was impossible, too. The most practical solution was a spiral-shaped magazine, driven by simple gravitation and directly attached to the Flak 41’s breech. This feeding could – beyond an initial round already in the barrel – hold up to three more rounds, and upon firing and expelling the empty case, a fresh round automatically fell into place. The rounds from the magazine could be fired in a fully automatic mode in a short burst with a rate of 50-55 RPM. The magazine itself had to be filled manually, though, and the gun could alternatively be fed directly, too, so that different types of ammunition could be prepared and the gunner could switch between them on short notice.
To accommodate the weapon’s longer ammunition (the Flak 41’s cartridge was 855 mm long) and a crew of four (commander, gunner and two loaders), the standard Rheinmetall Flak turret had to be extended at the rear. Anti-aircraft aiming was done visually, a stereoscopic rangefinder with a span of 200 cm (78¾ in) was integrated above the gun mount. A secondary ZF.20 scope for ground targets was available, too. Two more crewmen, the driver and a radio operator, sat in the hull in front of the turret, similar to the E-50/75 battle tank’s layout. The radio operator on the right side also acted as a third loader for the ammunition supply stored in the hull’s front.
Initially, no secondary defensive armament was provided since the new SPAAGs were to be operated in specialized anti-aircraft units, the so-called Fla-Züge, in which the SPAAGs’ protection would be taken over by supporting infantry and other dedicated vehicles. However, initial field experience quickly revealed this weak spot in the vehicle’s close-range defense: due to material and personnel shortages the Fla-Züge units could hardly be equipped with everything they needed to operate as planned, so that they were in most cases just an underserved mix of SPAAGs, occasionally augmented by a command vehicle and rarely with the protection these specialized vehicles needed. Most of the time the units’ vehicles had to operate independently and were therefore left to their own devices. As a solution, a commander cupola was soon added to the Sd. Kfz.192/3’s turret that not only improved the field of view around the vehicle to assess the tactical situation and detect approaching infantrymen that tried to attach mines or throw Molotov cocktails, it also featured a remote-controlled MG 42 that could be aimed and fired by the commander from the inside. However, to re-supply the ammunition, the cupola hatch had to be opened and someone had to leave the turret’s cover and manually insert a new box of rounds. Furthermore, a 100 mm grenade launcher, a so-called “Nahverteidigungswaffe”, was mounted into the opposite side of the turret roof, too. It fired SMi 35 leaping mines for close defense against approaching infantry. This made the cramped turret interior even more cluttered, but significantly improved the vehicle’s survivability, especially in a confined, urban combat environment. Updated vehicles reached the frontline units in late 1945 and were immediately thrown into service.
Despite being a powerful weapon, several operational problems with the Sd.Kfz. 192/3 became soon apparent. The complex Flak 41 and its feeding mechanism needed constant proper maintenance and service – otherwise it easily jammed. Spent shell casing also frequently jammed the gun. The high silhouette was an innate tactical problem, but this had already been accepted during the design phase of Rheinmetall’s SPAAG standard turret. However, the tall turret was the source of an additional conceptual weakness of the Sd.Kfz. 192/3: the sheer weight of the large turret with the heavy gun frequently caused imbalances that overstressed the turret bearing and its electric drive (which had been taken over from the E-50/75 battle tanks), resulting in a jammed turret — especially when either fully loaded or when the ammunition supply was depleted. Due to the large and heavy turret, the vehicle’s center of gravity was relatively high, too, so that its off-road handling was limited. Even on paved roads the early Sd.Kfz. 192/3s tended to porpoise in tight corners and upon braking. Stiffer coil springs, introduced during the running production and retrofitted through field kits to existing vehicles, countered this flaw, even though these kits were rare due to material shortages. Sometimes the harder coil springs were distributed between two vehicles, only replacing the suspension on the front and rear pair of wheels.
A different tactical problem was the limited ammunition supply for the Flak 41. While 57 rounds were sufficient for a comparable battle tank, the semi-automatic Flak 41‘s theoretical high rate of fire meant that the Sd.Kfz. 192/3 quickly depleted this supply and could only keep up fire and its position for a very limited period, or it had to save ammunition to a point that its deployment became pointless. After spending its ammunition, the vehicle had to retreat to a safe second line position to re-supply, and this was, due to the vehicle’s limited mobility, size and the heavy and bulky rounds, a risky undertaking and meant tedious manual labor with poor protection for the supply crews. The resulting supply logistics to keep the Sd.Kfz. 192/3 operational and effective were demanding.
Nevertheless, despite these shortcoming, the Sd.Kfz. 192/3 greatly improved the heavy Flak units’ mobility and firepower, and the weapon’s effectiveness was high against both air and ground targets. Until mid-1946, a total of around forty Sd.Kfz. 192/3 were built and put into service, primarily with units that defended vital production sites in Western Germany and Saxonia.
At the time of the Sd.Kfz. 192/3’s introduction, anti-aircraft aiming was already augmented by mobile radar systems like the “Würzburg” device or special command vehicles like the Sd.Kfz. 282 “Basilisk” which combined an autonomous radar system with a powerful visual rangefinder and an integrated analogue range calculator, the Kommandogerät 40. However, fire control development had continued, and at least one Sd.Kfz. 192/3 was used in late 1946 during trials to fully automatize gun aiming and firing remotely through electric drives through “slaving” a turret to an external director. This was a modified Sd.Kfz. 282/1 that successfully controlled the Sd.Kfz. 192/3 via cable from an elevated location 50 m away from the SPAAG’s firing position. The objective of these trials was to connect several anti-aircraft weapons to a single command unit with improved sensors and high accuracy under any weather condition for concentrated and more effective fire and an improved first shot hit probability.
Specifications:
Crew: Sixe (commander, gunner, two loaders, radio operator, driver)
Weight: 64 tonnes (71 short tons)
Length: 7.27 m (23 ft 10 ¾ in) (hull only)
9.57 m (31 ft 4 ½ in) with gun forward
Width: 3.88 m (12 ft 9 in)
Height 3.46 m (11 ft 4 in)
3.81 m (12 ft 6 in) with commander cupola
Ground clearance: 495 to 510 mm (1 ft 7.5 in to 1 ft 8.1 in)
Suspension: Conical spring
Fuel capacity: 720 liters (160 imp gal; 190 US gal)
Armor:
30 – 60 mm (1.2 – 2.4 in)
Performance:
Speed
- Maximum, road: 44 km/h (27.3 mph)
- Sustained, road: 38 km/h (24 mph)
- Cross country: 15 to 20 km/h (9.3 to 12.4 mph)
Operational range: 160 km (99 miles)
Power/weight: 14 PS/tonne (12.5 hp/ton)
Engine:
V-12 Maybach HL 234 gasoline engine with 900 PS (885 hp/650 kW)
Transmission:
ZF AK 7-200 with 7 forward 1 reverse gears
Armament:
1× 8,8 cm Flak 41 L/72 anti-aircraft cannon with 57 rounds in turret and hull
1× 7.92 mm Maschinengewehr 42 with 2.400 rounds, remote-controlled on the commander cupola
The kit and its assembly:
This fictional German SPAAG never existed, not even on the drawing boards. But I wondered, after ModelCollect had released an E-100 SPAAG with a twin 88mm gun some years ago, why there was no lighter vehicle with the powerful 88 mm Flak in a closed turret? There were plans to mount this weapon onto a tracked chassis in real life, but it would have been only lightly armored. Then I recently came across a whiffy aftermarket resin turret with a single 88 mm Flak, based on the Tiger II’s Porsche turret, and I liked the idea – even though the rather MBT-esque aftermarket turret looked rather dubious and too small for my taste – esp. the potential angle of the AA weapon appeared insufficient. From this basis the idea was born to create a personal interpretation of a Flak 41 in a fully enclosed turret on a tank chassis.
The basis became the Trumpeter 1:72 E-75 kit of the twin 55 mm Flak with its boxy turret. While I initially considered a totally different turret shape, I eventually settled on a generic design that would have been used for a variety of weapons. This appeared more realistic to me and so I stuck to the Rheinmetall AA turret. However, due to the heavy weapon its certainly massive mount and bulky recoil system as well as the long rounds and a crew of four, I decided to enlarge the Rheinmetall turret. The turret was cut into a front and rear half and an 8 mm wide plug, made from 1.5 mm styrene sheet, was implanted and PSRed. To keep the turret rotatable, the rear extension had to be raised, so that the “oriel” could move over the air intake fairings on the engine cover.
Due to the longer roof, some details were modified there. The most obvious addition is a commander cupola on the left, taken from an early Panzer IV, together with a MG 42 and a small shield on a swing arm, inspired by the remote-controlled installation on some Jagdpanzer 38(t) Hetzer. A stereoscopic rangefinder was added to the turret flanks and a periscope added to one of the loader’s hatches. A cover for a ventilator was added on the right side of the roof, together with a cover for a vertical grenade launcher underneath.
Using the original turret as base, the model’s movable mount for the twin 55 mm guns was retained and the rear extension would also become a good visual balance for the new main weapon. The armor at barrels’ base was cut off and a 1:72 Flak 41, taken from a Zvezda field gun kit, was glued to it, together with parts of the field gun’s recoil system and styrene bits to blend the new gun into the rest of the turret.
The E-75 chassis was taken OOB, since it would be a standardized vehicle basis. Outwardly the hull did not bear recognizable differences to the lighter E-50, which it is supposed to represent, just with more wheels to better cope with the bulky and heavy new turret.
Thankfully, this Trumpeter kit’s vinyl tracks were molded in black – sometimes they come in a sandy beige, and it’s a PITA to paint them! As another bonus, Trumpeter’s running gear on the 1:72 E-50/75 model is of a more sturdy and simpler construction than the one on the alternative ModelCollect kit(s), making the assembly and esp. the mounting of the tracks much easier. The Trumpeter kit is simpler than the comparable ModelCollect models with the E-50/75 basis, but the result is visually quite similar.
Painting and markings:
The paint scheme uses once more typical German late WWII "Hinterhalt" camouflage colors, namely Dark Yellow, Olive Green and Red Brown. This time, however, to adapt the livery to the boxy hull and the huge turret, the pattern ended up as a kind of a splinter scheme – inspired by a real Panzer V Panther from the Eastern Front in 1943.
The basic colors became Humbrol 57 (Buff) for the RAL 7028 Dunkelgelb, in this case as a rather pale (stretched?) shade, plus large areas of brown (RAL 8017, I used this time Humbrol 98 for a darker and less reddish shade) and Humbrol 86 for the green (RAL 6003), which appears quite pale in contrast to the dark brown. The camouflage was applied over an overall coat of sand brown as a primer coat, with the intention of letting this uniform basis shine through here and there. The distribution of the darker colors is quite unique, concentrating the brown on the vehicle’s edges and the green only to the flanks of hull and turret. However, the pattern works well on the huge E-50/75, and I can imagine that it might have worked well in an urban environment, breaking up the tank’s outlines.
As a match for the upper hull the wheels were painted uniformly in the same standard colors –without any pattern, because this would be very eye-catching while on the move. The many delicate tools on the tank’s hull are molded, and instead of trying to paint them I tried something else: I rubbed over them with graphite, and this worked very well, leaving them with a dark metallic shine. Just some wooden handles were then painted with a reddish brown.
Decals/marking came next, everything was procured from the scrap box. The Balkenkreuze came from a Hasegawa Sd.Kfz. 234/2 “Puma”, the tactical code from a TL-Modellbau sheet and the small unit badges on front and back from an UM Models Bergehetzer. A dry brushing treatment with light grey followed, highlighting surface details and edges, and after painting some details and adding some rust marks with watercolors followed a coat of matt varnish.
The tracks were painted with a cloudy mix of dark grey, red brown and iron acrylic paints, and mounted after hull and running gear had been assembled. The antennae, made from heated spure material, were mounted to the turret and, finally, the tank’s lower areas were dusted with a greyish-brown mineral pigment mix, simulating dust and mud residue.
This project was realized in just two days, made easy through the Trumpeter kit’s simple construction. Most work went into the extended turret and the different main weapon, but all parts mostly fell into place – and the result looks IMHO quite believable. In fact, the E-50/75 with a Flak 41 reminds a bit of the Italian Otomatic 76 mm SPAAG from the late Eighties?
Kamera: Pentacon SIX TL
Objektiv: Zeiss Flektogon 50mm f/4,0
Film: Lomochrome Purple
Belichtung: EI 200
Entwicklung: Cinestill Cs41
Album Timbres / Sammelalbum
Chocolats Peter / Cailler's / Kohler / Nestlé's
> Cailler / Evolution des Habitations
(Lausanne / Schweiz; Bilder von 1923-1929)
ex ephemera-collection MTP
7. Oldtimertreffen am 07.07.2012 in Greußen - Ausfahrt zahlreicher Teilnehmer nach Bad Tennstedt.
Der VW Käfer ist ein von 1938 bis 2003 von der heutigen Volkswagen AG produziertes Automodell und war bis Juni 2002 mit über 21,5 Millionen Exemplaren das meistverkaufte Automobil der Welt, bevor ihn der VW Golf übertraf.
Die Ursprünge des VW Käfer gehen auf staatliche Bestrebungen des nationalsozialistischen Deutschland zur Schaffung eines für breite Bevölkerungsschichten erschwinglichen „Volkswagens“, seinerzeit KdF-Wagen genannt, zurück. Großen Anteil an der Entwicklung hatte Ferdinand Porsche, der allgemein als Schöpfer des Käfers bezeichnet wird.
Der KdF-Wagen wurde vor dem Krieg nicht mehr in Serie produziert, weil das im Mai 1938 gegründete Volkswagenwerk bei Fallersleben (heute ein Stadtteil Wolfsburgs) noch nicht fertig war. Im Zweiten Weltkrieg wurden dort Militärfahrzeuge und andere Rüstungsgüter hergestellt, sodass die serienmäßige Produktion des dann Volkswagen genannten Wagens erst im Sommer 1945 beginnen konnte. Bis zum Jahresende 1945 wurden 1785 Wagen hergestellt und an die Besatzungsmächte sowie an die Deutsche Post geliefert. Ab 1946 konnte der VW mit Bezugsschein zum Preis von 5000 Reichsmark auch privat gekauft werden.
Der Erfolg des VW-Käfers begann in der Nachkriegszeit. 1945 bekam der Produktionsstandort, an dem bereits 17.000 Menschen lebten, den Namen Wolfsburg. 1946 wurde der erste Käfer ausgeliefert (Standardlimousine, Typ 11„ Brezelkäfer“). Nach der Beseitigung der massiven Kriegsschäden am VW-Werk lief die Produktion 1948 allmählich an.
Am 5. August 1955 wurde der einmillionste Käfer gebaut. Wie kaum ein zweites Produkt symbolisierte er das Wirtschaftswunder der Nachkriegsjahre im Westen Deutschlands.
The Volkswagen Beetle, officially called the Volkswagen Type 1 (or informally the Volkswagen Bug), is an economy car produced by the German auto maker Volkswagen (VW) from 1938 until 2003. With over 21 million manufactured in an air-cooled, rear-engined, rear-wheel drive configuration, the Beetle is the longest-running and most-manufactured car of a single design platform anywhere in the world.
Although designed in the 1930s, the Beetle was only produced in significant numbers from 1945 onwards, when the model was internally designated the Volkswagen Type 1, and marketed simply as the "Volkswagen". Later models were designated VW 1200, 1300, 1500, 1302 or 1303, the former three indicating engine displacement and the latter two being derived from the type number and not indicative of engine capacity. The model became widely known in its home country as the Käfer (German for "beetle") and was later marketed as such in Germany, and as the Volkswagen Beetle in other countries.
In the 1950s, the Beetle was more comfortable and powerful than most European small cars, having been designed for sustained high speed on the Autobahn. It remained a top seller in the U.S., owing much of its success to high build-quality and innovative advertising, ultimately giving rise to variants, including the Volkswagen Karmann Ghia and the Volkswagen Type 2 bus.
Along with cars including the Morris Minor, Fiat 500, Renault 4CV and Dauphine, and Citroën 2CV, the Beetle pioneered the modern continental economy car and later served as the benchmark for the initial two generations of North American compact cars, including the Chevrolet Corvair and Ford Falcon, as well as later subcompact cars such as the Chevrolet Vega and Ford Pinto.
The Beetle had marked a significant trend led by Volkswagen, Fiat, and Renault whereby the rear-engine, rear-wheel drive layout had increased from 2.6 percent of continental Western Europe's car production in 1946 to 26.6 percent in 1956. The 1948 Citroën 2CV and other European models marked a later trend to front-wheel drive in the European small car market, a trend that would come to dominate that market. In 1974, Volkswagen's own front-wheel drive Golf model succeeded the Beetle. In 1994, Volkswagen unveiled the Concept One, a "retro"-themed concept car with a resemblance to the original Beetle, and in 1998 introduced the "New Beetle", built on the Golf platform with styling recalling the original Type 1.
In a 1999 international poll for the world's most influential car of the 20th century, the Type 1 came fourth, after the Ford Model T, the Mini, and the Citroën DS.
7. Oldtimertreffen am 07.07.2012 in Greußen.
Der VW Käfer ist ein von 1938 bis 2003 von der heutigen Volkswagen AG produziertes Automodell und war bis Juni 2002 mit über 21,5 Millionen Exemplaren das meistverkaufte Automobil der Welt, bevor ihn der VW Golf übertraf.
Die Ursprünge des VW Käfer gehen auf staatliche Bestrebungen des nationalsozialistischen Deutschland zur Schaffung eines für breite Bevölkerungsschichten erschwinglichen „Volkswagens“, seinerzeit KdF-Wagen genannt, zurück. Großen Anteil an der Entwicklung hatte Ferdinand Porsche, der allgemein als Schöpfer des Käfers bezeichnet wird.
Der KdF-Wagen wurde vor dem Krieg nicht mehr in Serie produziert, weil das im Mai 1938 gegründete Volkswagenwerk bei Fallersleben (heute ein Stadtteil Wolfsburgs) noch nicht fertig war. Im Zweiten Weltkrieg wurden dort Militärfahrzeuge und andere Rüstungsgüter hergestellt, sodass die serienmäßige Produktion des dann Volkswagen genannten Wagens erst im Sommer 1945 beginnen konnte. Bis zum Jahresende 1945 wurden 1785 Wagen hergestellt und an die Besatzungsmächte sowie an die Deutsche Post geliefert. Ab 1946 konnte der VW mit Bezugsschein zum Preis von 5000 Reichsmark auch privat gekauft werden.
Der Erfolg des VW-Käfers begann in der Nachkriegszeit. 1945 bekam der Produktionsstandort, an dem bereits 17.000 Menschen lebten, den Namen Wolfsburg. 1946 wurde der erste Käfer ausgeliefert (Standardlimousine, Typ 11„ Brezelkäfer“). Nach der Beseitigung der massiven Kriegsschäden am VW-Werk lief die Produktion 1948 allmählich an.
Am 5. August 1955 wurde der einmillionste Käfer gebaut. Wie kaum ein zweites Produkt symbolisierte er das Wirtschaftswunder der Nachkriegsjahre im Westen Deutschlands.
The Volkswagen Beetle, officially called the Volkswagen Type 1 (or informally the Volkswagen Bug), is an economy car produced by the German auto maker Volkswagen (VW) from 1938 until 2003. With over 21 million manufactured in an air-cooled, rear-engined, rear-wheel drive configuration, the Beetle is the longest-running and most-manufactured car of a single design platform anywhere in the world.
Although designed in the 1930s, the Beetle was only produced in significant numbers from 1945 onwards, when the model was internally designated the Volkswagen Type 1, and marketed simply as the "Volkswagen". Later models were designated VW 1200, 1300, 1500, 1302 or 1303, the former three indicating engine displacement and the latter two being derived from the type number and not indicative of engine capacity. The model became widely known in its home country as the Käfer (German for "beetle") and was later marketed as such in Germany, and as the Volkswagen Beetle in other countries.
In the 1950s, the Beetle was more comfortable and powerful than most European small cars, having been designed for sustained high speed on the Autobahn. It remained a top seller in the U.S., owing much of its success to high build-quality and innovative advertising, ultimately giving rise to variants, including the Volkswagen Karmann Ghia and the Volkswagen Type 2 bus.
Along with cars including the Morris Minor, Fiat 500, Renault 4CV and Dauphine, and Citroën 2CV, the Beetle pioneered the modern continental economy car and later served as the benchmark for the initial two generations of North American compact cars, including the Chevrolet Corvair and Ford Falcon, as well as later subcompact cars such as the Chevrolet Vega and Ford Pinto.
The Beetle had marked a significant trend led by Volkswagen, Fiat, and Renault whereby the rear-engine, rear-wheel drive layout had increased from 2.6 percent of continental Western Europe's car production in 1946 to 26.6 percent in 1956. The 1948 Citroën 2CV and other European models marked a later trend to front-wheel drive in the European small car market, a trend that would come to dominate that market. In 1974, Volkswagen's own front-wheel drive Golf model succeeded the Beetle. In 1994, Volkswagen unveiled the Concept One, a "retro"-themed concept car with a resemblance to the original Beetle, and in 1998 introduced the "New Beetle", built on the Golf platform with styling recalling the original Type 1.
In a 1999 international poll for the world's most influential car of the 20th century, the Type 1 came fourth, after the Ford Model T, the Mini, and the Citroën DS.
Der Hobby-Fotograf: Dank der rasanten Entwicklung der Technik und der damit verbundenen Möglichkeit, auch als Amateur gute Fotos zu schaffen, gibt es immer mehr Hobby-Fotografen. Zum Teil veröffentlichen sie ihre Fotos im Internet auf Plattformen wie zum Beispiel Flickr.
The hobby photographer: Thanks to the rapid development of technology and the associated ability to create good photos even as an amateur, there are more and more amateur photographers. Some publish their photos on the Internet on platforms such as Flickr.
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
The "Entwicklung" tank series (= "development"), more commonly known as the E-Series, was a late-World War II attempt by Germany to produce a standardized series of tank designs. There were to be six standard designs in different weight classes, from which several specialized variants were to be developed. This intended to reverse the trend of extremely complex tank designs that had resulted in poor production rates and mechanical unreliability.
The E-series designs were simpler, cheaper to produce and more efficient than their predecessors; however, their design offered only modest improvements in armor and firepower over the designs they were intended to replace, such as the Jagdpanzer 38(t), Panther Ausf.G or Tiger II. However, the resulting high degree of standardization of German armored vehicles would also have made logistics and maintenance easier. Indeed, nearly all of the E-series vehicles — up through and including the E-75 — were intended to use what were essentially the Tiger II's eighty centimeter diameter, steel-rimmed road wheels for their suspension, meant to overlap each other (as on the later production Tiger I-E and Panther designs that also used them), even though in a much simplified fashion.
Compared with the earlier designs, the amount of drilling and machining involved in producing the Standardpanzer designs was reduced drastically, which would have made them quicker, easier and cheaper to produce, as would the proposed conical spring system, replacing their predecessors' torsion bar system which required a special steel alloy.
Focus of initial chassis and combat vehicle development was the E-50/75 Standardpanzer, designed by Adler, both being mostly identical and only differing in armor thickness, overall weight and running gear design to cope with the different weights.
There were also lighter chassis variants, though, including the light E-5 and E-10 for armored, tracked reconnaissance vehicles and the E-25. The E-25 designs, in the 25-50 tonnes weight class, were to be the replacements of all Panzer III and Panzer IV based designs, with Alkett, Argus and Adler, with involvement of Porsche. This family would include medium reconnaissance vehicles, medium Jagdpanzer and heavy Waffenträger, using five Tiger II style road wheels per side, combined with "slack-track" design. Track propulsion was switched to a rear drive sprocket, as a consequence of mating the engine and the gearbox into a tail-mounted, single and very compact power pack that made the voluminous and heavy power train through the hull obsolete. This allowed the gun mount to be directly attached to the hull floor, which lowered the overall silhouette, and the gained space offered more room for the crew’s operations as well as for ammunition storage.
The medium tank hunter received high priority and the project was called Jagdpanzer E-25/88 and ran under the inventory ordnance number "SdKfz. 198"; . It was to replace various Panzer IV tank hunters and the light "Hetzer" from 1945 onwards, which all either suffered from insufficient firepower, lack of mobility, or armor. Another tank the E-25/88 would replace was the excellent but complex and expensive Jagdpanther with its 8.8 cm Pak 43/3 or 43/4 L/71 cannon.
The Jagdpanzer E-25/88 was to eradicate all problems of the Panzer IV tank hunter family and combine the benefits from all former types, including the powerful 8.8cm PaK, which could take down any Allied tank around late 1944 at considerably distances. Even though the E-25 tank hunter was initially to be outfitted with the proven 7.5 cm/L70 gun from the Jagdpanzer IV and the Panther battle tank, it was surmised that this armament would not be enough for the enemy's next generation tanks.
Beyond its heavy armament, the new tank hunter was to offer good protection through armor and hull shape alike, as well as high mobility, while keeping overall weight at around 30 tons (the Jagdpanzer IV weighed roundabout 25 tons, while the much bigger Jagdpanther weighed 45 tons) and overall size smaller than the Jagdpanther.
Heavier tank hunters than the E-25/88, based of the new E-50 and E-75 chassis were under development in parallel, but they were all to carry heavier guns, including the 12.8 cm PaK and newly developed 10.5 cm and 13 cm cannons. An E-100 SPG on the drawing board (called "Krokodil") was to carry a 15 cm or even a 17.5 cm anti tank gun.
In late 1944, with the Allied invasion in the West and rising pressure from the East, anti tank and assault SPGs were direly needed and the rejuvenation of the German tank force was sped up in a hurry. As a consequence the Jagdpanzer E-25/88 was prematurely ushered into production before the medium E-25 chassis development had been fully completed.
As a stopgap solution, initial production tanks were outfitted with a Henschel running gear that dated back to the canceled VK20 and VK30 tank program, and these vehicles were later re-designated SdKfz. 198/1 (while the vehicles with the new/standardized running gear became the SdKfz. 198/2). However, its overlapped and interleaved roadwheel-based suspension system (called “Schachtellaufwerk”) was a considerable improvement against the Panzer IV design, even though it was more complex than the final E-25 system. Around 80 vehicles were produced with the Henschel suspension until production was switched to the simplified Alkett suspension based on the unified wheels of the bigger Einheitspanzer types.
The upper hull remained basically the same throughout production, though, and was based on proven principles. To accommodate the heavy-calibre gun, much as on previous unturreted tank destroyers, the glacis plate and sloped hull sides of the Jagdpanzer E-25/88 were extended up into an integral, turretless fixed casemate as part of the main hull itself, providing a relatively roomy interior. The Jagdpanzer E-25/88 had side armour of up to 60 mm, frontal and gun mantlet armour was 80mm. The E-25's engine was a Maybach HL 101 with 550 PS (539 hp, 341 kW), another recognizable improvement in comparison with its frequently underpowered predecessors. Maximum speed was up to 52 km/h (32 mph) on level ground, and the interleafed running gear allowed a smooth ride and high speed even in rough terrain - even though the complex design meant that the wheels could clog up easily with heavy mud or snow.
The gun was mounted in a central "Saukopf" mantlet, similar to the Jagdpanzer IV, and had a limited traverse of 11° to each side, with an elevation of −8° to +15°. 50 rounds for the main gun could be stowed. A single 7.92 mm MG-34 machine gun for frontal defence and against soft ground targets was carried in a ball mount on the right side of the front glacis plate, operated by the wireless operator. Another MG-34 was mounted in a remotely controlled turret on top of the hull, operated by the commander who sat under a cupola with seven periscopes for a good field of view. This machine gun was, in later production tanks, to be replaced by a 30mm MK 108 (actually a compact, belt-fed aircraft machine gun), but this was never carried out since MK 103 production was completely allocated to the Luftwaffe. The driver sat on the left. The gunner had a visual rangefinder and a periscope telescopic sight. The periscope - linked to the gun mount - was under an armored housing on the roof.
In service the vehicle was, due to its crouched silhouette, unofficially called "Dachs" (Badger), a name that was quickly adopted in official circles, too. The first vehicles reached Western front line units along the Rhine in March 1945. They proved to be very successful and popular with its crews, because the tank was agile, easy to handle and less cramped than most of its predecessors. Total production reached 250 vehicles until the end of hostilities, and many of the E-25/88s design features were later incorporated into the post WWII “Jagdpanzer Kanone” for the German Bundeswehr.
Specifications:
Crew: Five (commander, gunner, loader, radio operator, driver)
Weight: 31 tonnes (34.5 short tons)
Length: 6.98 metres (22 ft 10 in) (hull only)
9.93 metres (32 ft 6 1/2 in) incl. gun
Width: 3.20 metres (10 ft 6 in)
Height 2.48 metres (8 ft 1 1/2 in)
Ground clearance: 495 to 510 mm (1 ft 7.5 in to 1 ft 8.1 in)
Suspension: Torsion bar
Fuel capacity: 450 litres (120 US gal)
Armor:
10–80 mm (0.4 – 3.15 in)
Performance:
Speed
- Maximum, road: 52 km/h (32 mph)
- Sustained, road: 42 km/h (26 mph)
- Cross country: 16 to 25 km/h (9.5 to 15.5 mph)
Operational range: 210 km (130 mi)
Power/weight: 17,74 PS/tonne (16 hp/ton)
Engine:
V-12 Maybach Maybach HL 101 gasoline engine with 550 PS (539 hp, 341 kW)
Transmission:
ZF AK 7-200 with 7 forward 1 reverse gears
Armament:
1× 8.8 cm KwK 43/4 L/71 with 50 rounds
2× 7.92 mm MG 34 machine guns with a total of 5.200 rounds
(one in the casemate front and a remote-controlled gun on the commander's cupola)
The kit and its assembly:
It does not look spectacular, but this compact tank hunter is a major kitbashing, inspired by - but not necessarily an exact model of - the real but unrealized German E-25 Jagdpanzer project.
Things started with a leftover chassis from a Trumpeter "Sturer Emil" SPG with an early interleaf suspension design and a relatively long hull. I wanted to save it and incorporate it into a Heer '46 design, and soon the idea of a Jagdpanzer IV successor was born. Selling it as an E-25 design and incorporating a bigger gun was a logical step.
The build was very pragmatic. The lower hull with the wheel attachments was taken OOB, but it was shortened by 5mm. This was achieved by simply taking away a plug behind the last road wheel and in front of the sprocket wheel, which was moved from the front to the rear end.
While this sounds simple, the attachment points’ different diameters and the need for a sturdy construction (due to the kit’s vinyl tracks) posed quite a challenge. In the wake of this modification, the track’s support wheels were deleted, too, for the E-25’s simplified “slack track” layout. The tracks were shortened accordingly, and mounted/fixed with super glue (as one of the final steps after painting).
The upper hull comes basically from an Armorfast Jagdpanther, after several trials with a Jagdpanzer IV, a Brummbär and even a potentially scratched casemate. The Jagdpanther hull was reduced in height, though, and also slightly shortened, so that the new tank would be more compact than a Jagdpanther and also differ in the silhouette.
In order to change the look even more, the “Saukopf” gun mantlet from a Jagdpanzer IV/70 was implanted (even though with an 8,8cm barrel), as well as the vehicle’s protective shields for the motor deck. Overall hull width was adapted to the Sturer Emil tracks through mudguards.
The machine gun turret was scratched, and some other details changed or added, including some periscopes, a Panzer IV commander cupola and some equipment pieces on the mudguards.
Painting and markings:
This time, I wanted a disruptive scheme for this tank hunter, and adopted a rather simple livery for the E-25/88: a uniform RAL 6003 Olivgrün for the upper hull (appied with a rattle can, plus a hush with RAL 6011 on the upper surfaces), with a dense, irregular pattern of sand/yellow blotches - lighter than the authentic RAL 7028 Dunkelgelb, though (I have used Humbrol 103, Cream).
Wheels and the lower hull flanks (behind the running gear) were painted in RAL 7028 Dunkelgelb (RAL 8000, which comes pretty close, IMHO).
Similar schemes were, for instance, applied to some Ferdinand tank Hunters, operated in Italy and the Eastern Front, but also on Jagdpanthers at the Western front (e. g. in Belgium). The result reminds a bit of a Giraffe, or of the unique British "net" scheme applied to tanks on Malta.
On top of the basic paintwork, a dark brown washing was added and the edges further emphasized through dry-brushing with light grey and pale sand tones, plus some acrylic silver.
Once the wheels and tracks were fitted into place and the few decals applied, a coat of matt acrylic varnish was added. Finally, dust and dry mud were simulated with mixed pigments, applied with a soft brush onto wet stains of varnish.
This E-25 tank hunter model looks pretty conclusive, and at first glance it looks very German, because it incorporates many typical design features. But the more you look the more “unique” it looks, e. g. through the low Schachtellaufwerk, the lowered Jagdpanther upper hull and its combination with the Saukopf gun mantlet from the Jagdpanzer IV. It looks very purposeful, and the paint scheme appears to be very effective, too, blurring the outlines and details well.
Staumauer Möhnesee
Pentacon Six / Carl Zeiss Jena Biometar 80mm f/2,8
Kodak Tri-X400 @ISO3200
Spüersinn HCD-s / HCD-2 2Phasen Entwicklung
Scan vom Negativ
Pentax Z-1p | Pentax A 1.4/50 | CineStill 800 Tungsteen XPro @1600 | Push +1 | Entwicklung & Scan: meinfilmlab.de | SW-Konvertierung in Lightroom
Vielen Dank für Deine geschätzte Aufmerksamkeit!
Thank you for your kind attention!
=> www.remme.de <=
Kamera: Revue Solar 100
Objektiv: Auto Revuenon MC 1:1,4 f=50mm
Film: 35mm Lomochrome Purple 100-400
Belichtung: EI 200
Entwicklung: Cinestill Cs41
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the model, the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
The Panzerkampfwagen E-100, also known as Gerät 383 and TG-01, was a German super-heavy tank design developed towards the end of World War II. It was proposed to be the basis for a heavy artillery system, an anti-aircraft vehicle, and a heavy tank destroyer. The basic design had been ordered by the Waffenamt as a parallel development to Porsche's heavy tank design "Maus" in June 1943, but it was to become an integral part of the new, standardized Entwicklung (E) series of vehicles, consisting of the E-5, E-10, E-25, E-50, E-75 and finally the E-100. The latter was the heaviest and biggest chassis of the family, which was meant to standardize as many components and production processes as possible.
In March 1944 the Adlerwerke company from Frankfurt am Main submitted blueprint 021A38300 for a super-heavy battle tank called E-100, after the tank was proposed in April 1943 along with the other Entwicklung series vehicles. According to the blueprints, the tank would be armed with a both a 150 mm gun and a 75 mm gun in a huge turret. Two types of engines were proposed: one was a 700 hp Maybach HL230, with a transmission and turning mechanism borrowed from the Tiger II. The estimated top speed was 23 km/h, and it was clear that this powerplant was utterly undersized for the E-100, which would be almost twice as heavy as the already underpowered Tiger II. The second engine, which was favored for serial production, was a new, turbocharged 1200 hp Maybach HL 232 engine that allowed an estimated top speed of 40 km/h on roads and a decent off-road performance, should the underground allow such an adventure. Other engines in the 1.000+ hp range were considered, too, e. g. modified Daimler Benz aircraft engines, or even torpedo boat powerplants.
The Adler design had a simple hull shape and featured removable side armor skirts and narrow transport tracks to make rail transport more viable. The running gear was very similar to the original 'Tiger-Maus' proposal but had larger 900 mm diameter road wheels and a new coil spring-based suspension rather than the original torsion bars. This greatly simplified the hull’s construction, avoiding openings and therefore weak structural spots, because the coil springs and their mounts remained outside of the hull. This design also made manufacturing much easier, and the simpler coil springs saved high-quality steel. A new turret was designed, too, intended to be simpler and lighter than the massive Maus turret. In the end, the E-100 was 40 tons lighter than the 188 t Maus prototype, and a much simpler and streamlined design.
In July 1944, through the worsening war situation and declining national resources, the development of any super heavy tanks was officially halted. However, work on the E-100 continued at a low priority and with the outlook to produce a limited number of these massive vehicles for special purposes, using existing components. With increasing panic among the military staff and a desperate search for “Wunderwaffen” that could eventually turn the Allied invasion, permission was granted in early 1945 to proceed with the E-100 project as the SdKfz. 193, with the intention to build the E-100 as a supplement to the E-50 and E-75 Einheitspanzer battle tanks, primarily in the role of a long-range tank destroyer with either a 15 cm StuK L/63 or a 17 cm StuK L/53 gun as main armament, and as a heavily armored defensive vehicle.
The first prototype of the basic battle tank version was quickly completed in March 1945, but from the start several variants were slated for the limited serial production. Four battle tank variants were defined, differing basically through the turret designs and the armament. The chassis was furthermore earmarked for E-100 tank hunters and assault guns like the "Krokodil" (the Sd.Kfz. 197) with a low, casemate-style hull. Some of these SPGs also had their internal layout changed, moving the rear engine into the middle of the hull for a bigger combat compartment at the rear, so that the long gun barrel would not hang over at the front. These vehicles received the designation suffix “(m)”, for “Mittelmotor” (middle engine).
After the first E-100 battle tanks had reached frontline units in December 1945, the new chassis was greenlighted as basis for super-heavy self-propelled artillery and anti-aircraft guns. Since these vehicles were not expected to operate directly in frontline fire and to save material and production time, the hull had its armor thickness reduced considerably, and this chassis variant was called the Sd.Kfz. 199. This led to several super-heavy SPAAGs that primarily differed in their superstructures, which included open, semi-armored and fully armored/closed weapon mounts.
The latter included the Sd.Kfz. 199/4, also called the Flakpanzer E-100/88. It carried a large, box-shaped turret with a crew of five and a twin-mount for a pair of coupled 88 mm Flak 43 anti-aircraft guns, the “Gerät 288”. This heavy weapon had originally been on the Marine's drawing board for the anti-air defense of medium to large battleships since 1942, but the German fleet’s demise led to an adaptation of the coupled-weapon concept to the use on land. The huge and strong E-100 chassis eventually offered enough space to consider a self-propelled mount for a fully enclosed turret with this anti-aircraft weapon.
The Gerät 288 integrated two, originally independent guns into a massive, mutual mount, working on the Gast Gun principle developed by German engineer Karl Gast of the Vorwerk company in 1916: the firing action of one barrel operated the mechanism of the other, creating a reciprocal twin gun. This system required no external power source to operate but was instead powered by the recoiling of the floating barrels. This provided a much faster rate of fire for lower mechanical wear than a single-barrel weapon, and another benefit of this arrangement was that the recoil from one barrel was largely compensated for by the movement of the other one.
To expand range and ceiling beyond the standard Flak 43 gun the Gerät 288 featured extended gun barrels (80 gauge instead of the field weapon’s 72), which were manufactured in two pieces for easier production and replacement. With these, the guns achieved a muzzle velocity of 1,050 m/s (3,440 ft/s), giving them an effective ceiling of 11,500 meters (37,100 ft) and a maximum of 16,000 meters (52,400 ft). The 88 mm guns could also be used against ground targets and were, using dedicated armor-piercing rounds, able to penetrate ~240 mm (9.4 inches) of vertical hardened steel armor at 1,000 m (3,280 feet). This was enough to defeat the armor of almost any contemporary Allied tank from a relatively safe distance.
In the Sd.Kfz. 199/4’s massive turret, the heavy-duty hydraulic gun mount had an elevation between +70° and -5°. The Gerät 288’s combined rate of fire was up to 150 RPM, even though 120 RPM were more practical to limit structural stress and avoid jamming. Thanks to two magazines with 58 rounds each in the turret’s sides, continuous auto-fire was possible, as well as short bursts of two to five rounds per gun and single shots. The guns could also be fed manually by the loaders (one per gun from the inside). The magazines were normally loaded externally through hatches in the turret roof, but they could be accessed from the inside, too, and re-filled under armor cover from a further stock of 86 rounds that were stored in the SPAAG’s lower hull.
To improve target acquisition and fire control, the Gerät 288 was combined with a visual coincidence range finder and an integrated analogue targeting computer, a variant of the Kommandogerät (KDO) 40. In the Sd.Kfz. 199/4, this device was operated by a dedicated crew member who assisted the gunner and the commander.
This so-called Telemeter had already been introduced in 1941 to the field troops as a mobile guidance tool for stationary anti-aircraft units equipped with the 88 mm and 105 mm Flak. But it had so far – due to its size and bulk – only been deployed on an unarmored trailer and in the recent unarmed Sd.Kfz. 282 command vehicle. In the Sd.Kfz. 199/4’s turret the rangefinder’s optical bar had a reduced span of 240 cm (95 in), but fixed target reading was possible on distances from 3,000 to 20,000 m and aerial courses could be recorded at all levels of flight at a slant range between 4,000 and 18,000 m - enough for visual identification beyond a typical anti-aircraft group's effective gun ranges and perfectly suitable for long range observation, too.
The Telemeter was mounted in the turret’s roof under armored fairings behind the Gerät 288 and its magazines. In combination with the Gerät 288, the KDO 40 replaced the traditional gun scope. Due to the weapon’s weight and bulk, all weapon orientation was carried out by means of hydraulic motors via a control column that were slaved to the gunner’s Kommandogerät, so that aiming and firing was semi-automatized. The gunner still had to use the Telemeter as an optical scope to find and pinpoint the target, but the device translated this, together with additional information like range, temperature or wind shear, into electrical input for the guns electro-hydraulic controls that automatically corrected the weapon’s orientation and triggered them with an appropriate lead at an ideal moment. This automatized process made especially the acquisition of new targets easier and sped the whole re-targeting process up.
In this form the Sd.Kfz. 199/4 was cleared for production in mid-1945, but initial field experience especially with the heavy and less mobile E-100 vehicles had shown that these were very vulnerable to foot soldier attacks with mines or carefully aimed RPGs. Originally, the whole Einheitspanzer family had been designed without light defensive weapons, but this turned out to be a lethal weakness. Therefore, many vehicles were retrofitted in the field and on the production lines with close-combat weapons like a 100 mm “Nahverteidigungswaffe” grenade launcher which fired SMi 35 leaping mines against approaching infantry. Other frequent upgrades were smoke mortars and remote-controlled machine gun mounts that could be manually directed and fired from the inside. There were even complete, motorized gun barbettes available like the “Schwere Waffenlafette 45” (Heavy weapon mount). The latter was a newly developed, modular weapon platform, originally designed as main armament for lightly armored infantry fighting vehicles like the Sd.Kfz. 251 where it was simply mounted onto the armored roof and replaced the former manually operated machine guns. However, since it was an autonomous, electrically driven system on a simple ring mount with a relatively small diameter, the Schwere Waffenlafette 45 could easily be installed anywhere else, e. g. on the turret of most heavy tanks or the roof of assault guns. It had three periscopes at its base that gave a hemispherical field of view, the central mirror was combined with a target scope for aiming the weapons. The barbette either replaced the commander’s cupola, or it was, if there was enough space, directly attached to the roof as an additional outlook. Due to ample space the latter was the typical configuration on board of the Sd.Kfz. 199/4. The barbette’s mount replaced an already existing ventilation opening and was added on the roof in the right rear quadrant, next to the commander’s cupola, and it was operated by one of the loaders.
This barbette could be rotated 360°, had an elevation between -10 and +80° and carried a magnifying periscope for observation and aiming. The weapons were installed in external, co-axial pods with light armor protection on both sides of the central carrier column. Typically, these were a 30 mm (1.18 in) MK 103 machine cannon with 60 rounds (typically explosive APCR rounds against soft targets, but armor-piercing rounds could be fired, too) and a rapid-firing MG 42 machine gun (with 1.200 rounds), but other weapons and combinations were possible. Like the weapons, all ammunition was carried externally, too, so that the crew had to leave the vehicle’s protection to re-arm the weapons or deal with mechanical problems.
With all this heavy and bulky equipment as well as a total stock of 202 88 mm rounds and a crew of seven the Sd.Kfz. 199/4 weighed – despite the chassis’ reduced armor thickness – more than 100 tons, so that its mobility and tactical value were sharply restricted, even though it was markedly better than the battle tanks with their all-up weight of 140 tons and more. Due to this limited usefulness and lack of resources, only a small number were built. Production numbers vary between 15 and 25 vehicles, some might have been created on the basis of refurbished Sd.Kfz. 193 battle tank hulls. Most of the time, the few Sd.Kfz. 199/4s were used as mobile command posts for anti-aircraft units that defended vital locations like headquarters or production sites around Berlin, so that the vehicle’s short legs did not matter much.
Specifications:
Crew: 7 (Commander, Gunner, Telemeter operator, 2x Loader, Driver, Radio Operator)
Weight: 108 tonnes (119 short tons)
Length: 8.86 m (29 ft), hull only
11.62 m (38 ft 1 in), overall with guns forward
Width: 3.96 m
4.48 m (14 ft 8 in) with armored side skirts mounted
Height: 3.29 m (10 ft 10 in)
3.92 m (12 ft 10 in) with Schwere Waffenlafette 45
Suspension: Belleville washer coil spring
Armor:
Hull front: 80 – 120 mm (3.2 – 4.7 in)
Hull sides and rear: 60 – 90 mm (2.4 – 3.5in)
Hull top: 40 mm (1.6 in)
Hull bottom: 40–80 mm (1.6–3.1 in)
Turret front: 140 mm (5.5 in)
Turret sides & rear: 60 – 90 mm (2.4 – 3.5in)
Turret top: 40 mm (1.6 in)
Engine:
1x turbocharged Maybach HL232 V12 gasoline engine with 1.200 hp
Performance:
Maximum road speed: 40 km/h (25 mph)
Sustained road speed: 36 km/h (22 mph)
Cross country speed: 14 to 20 km/h (8.7 to 12.4 mph)
Power/weight: 8,57 hp/ton
Range: 120 km (74 mi) on road
85 km (53 mi) cross country
Power/weight: 11.1 PS/tonne (10.1 hp/ton)
Armament:
2x 88mm (3.46 in) FlaK 43 L/80 in a Gerät 288 Zwilling mount, with a total of 202 rounds
1x Schwere Waffenlafette 45 with:
1x 30 mm (1.18 in) MK 103 machine cannon (60 RPG) and
1x 7.92 mm (0,312 in) MG 42 machine gun
6x 76 mm Wegmann smoke mortars
The kit and its assembly:
Another fictional German WWII/Heer ’46 SPAAG, and it’s a big one with a lot of SF appeal since it makes IMHO not much sense from a tactical point of view. However, this is whifworld, so it perfectly fits, and such paper project models seem to be very popular – even though I do not understand why many modelers build them in a style that I’d almost call “Steampunk”?
I had the ModelCollect E-100 twin-88 mm gun Flakpanzer kit stashed away since it came out in 2017, but never had the nerve and mojo so far to build it, because it is simply a huge tank with twin gun barrels. This changed, in the wake of other SPAAG builds, and was a quick and straightforward build. ModelCollect‘s E-100 kit is finely molded, but it has IMHO some issues. The biggest problem I found is the hull: you have to take (a lot of) care to make sure that the hull elements are properly aligned due to their sheer size. The problem is: all outer walls are standing free with no alignment reference, and I have the impression that the rear wall is too small, so that the roof does later not properly fit into the opening. An internal engine bay bulkhead that could be used as an alignment reference is missing locator pins, so that you are left to guess where to place it.
On the positive side: the kit comes with brass gun barrels and two small boards with PE parts, e. g. for louvres on the engine cover which hides a complete engine with a detailed motor block, radiators, dust filters, etc. This way, you can easily integrate the E-100 into a workshop diorama or a similar scene. There’s also a delicate PE mount for an infrared sight.
However, building troubles easily outweigh the kit’s hardware highlights. Mounting the wheels was not easy. The sprocket wheels at the front as well as the idler wheels at the rear have complicated and flimsy constructions with very thin and short pins that hold them – any tension on the vinyl track easily bends them! To improve stability, I drilled holes through these wheels’ attachment points and put a continuous metal axis through the hull. The (nicely detailed) vinyl tracks themselves are unfortunately molded in a sandy beige, and they turned out to be too short, so that they had to be carefully stretched to match the running gear before they were painted and mounted. This should really one of the final assembly steps.
But this is not the only problem zone, you stumble upon small bugs and nuisances everywhere, like missing holes on the idler wheels, poor fit on the turret parts that call for PSR or instructions that do not match the parts. And it is not helpful that different kinds of wheel halves on the same sprue are just designated ”Part 1” and “Part 2”. All these hiccups are not fatal, but the whole kit leaves a giddy (if not lousy) impression. It’s nothing for tank kit beginners, and since this is the second time that I have built one of these with several déjà vus, I am quite disappointed by the kit.
The kit was basically built OOB, but for a more science fiction-esque twist I added a close-range defense in the form of a (fictional) remote-controlled weapon mount on the turret roof. This is an aftermarket set from ModelTrans/Silesian Models, a resin-cast gun barbette that reminds of the early German “Marder” IFV’s main weapon. However, it made IMHO perfect sense for this behemoth because it would be very vulnerable to infantry attacks, and the huge turret offered enough space on the roof and inside to mount it.
Since I did not want to depict a vehicle during overhaul, the whole engine bay interior was left away and the space under the bonnet filled with foamed plastic and later painted black. PE grates from the OOB plate were used to block views into the bay further.
Another personal modification is the omittance of the bulky side skirts that cover most of the running gear and the tracks. They make IMHO sense on the heavy battle tank and maybe assault gun versions, but on the SPAAG they just add weight and use up resources. I left them away and replaced them with scratched alternatives, created from 0.5 mm styrene sheet and profiles, slightly dented at the edges for a more natural and worn look.
Because the E-100 kit lacks any equipment on the hull (well, if this heavy vehicle broke it would certainly have been abandoned – who’s salvage it!? Another weak point of thew whole concept), I added some resin storage boxes.
Painting and markings:
It took some time to decide how to paint this huge thing. Inspiration eventually came from the idea that it would probably have only been used to defend very important targets, most probably around or in Berlin, so that an urban environment and a suitable camouflage would make IMHO most sense.
I took some inspiration from the British “Berlin Brigade” urban camouflage (consisting of square fields in bluish grey, dark brown and white) and the German late-war simplified splinter schemes. Since the E-100’s bulk would be hard to conceal, esp. with rather small mottles, I rather concentrated on disrupting its outlines and blending it with buildings in the background. Such an urban/artificial environment calls for angular and horizontal lines and edges, but I did not want to make the paint scheme look too modern, like a pixel scheme. The vehicle would furthermore be painted with only limited resources at hand, or maybe just in the field, so that typical red primer would certainly show through, with camouflage added on top.
This led to an initial overall basis in RAL 3009 Oxidrot. This was applied from a rattle can and shaded with clouds of different similar tones like Humbrol 70 and 160, for an uneven look. On top of that I added a vertically aligned splinter scheme with thinned Panzergrau (RAL 7021, Humbrol 67) and Dunkelgelb (RAL 7028, Humbrol 83), with the primer showing through and leaving the inside of the running gear uncamouflaged. The horizontal surfaces remained Dunkelgelb. The twin gun barrels were painted in a slightly different fashion: their undersides became RAL 7028, for a low contrast against the sky when raised, and onto the upper surfaces in Oxidrot I added (only) Panzergrau mottles. The remote-controlled barbette was, as an “aftermarket piece” and to reduce its contrast against the sky, too, painted uniformly in Dunkelgelb, but in a different shade (Tamiya XF-60).
I considered adding small clusters of Hellgrau (RAL 7035, Humbrol 196) and Olivgrün (RAL 6003, Humbrol 86) here and there to break up the vehicles outlines, but found that this would look too superficial and “forced”, so that the scheme remained rather a splinter scheme.
Once the basic camouflage had been applied, the kit was weathered with a highly thinned wash of dark brown, grey and black acrylic paint. Once dry the major surfaces were lightly wet-sanded, revealing more of the underlying red primer.
Tactical markings are minimal, just with Iron Crosses on the hull and a white tactical code on the turret flanks. As a unit code, the s.Pz.Abt. 505’s emblem, a charging knight on a horse, was added to the turret. The decals were protected with a thin coat of varnish before the next steps.
Details and edges were then highlighted through dry-brushing with Humbrol 70 (Brick Red) and 168 (RAF Hemp). Dust residues and some rust traces were painted with watercolors. These were also used to weather the (rather stiff) vinyl tracks, which were molded in a sand color and had to be totally painted – with an initial overall coat of acrylic black paint from the rattle can and later with grey and red brown acrylic artist paints, and some medium grey dry-brushing.
Matt acrylic varnish (Italeri) was used to seal the kit, and once the tracks had been mounted, the lower hull was dusted with grey/brown mineral pigments.
This one took some time to materialize. The E-100 kit fought my efforts to put it together constantly, and the conversions and add-ons – while not a major surgical intervention – took some time. Finding a credible camouflage concept for this hulk of a tank (a.k.a. rolling bunker with guns) was not easy either. But the idea of using the primer color as base with additional, somewhat digital camouflage on top looks credible and “works”. - e. A relatively quick build, realized in less than a week, and some (minor) challenges. What a huge vehicle the E-100 has been – but what a waste of effort, resources and tactical limitations due to the vehicle’s sheer size and weight. Looks impressive, though, esp. when you place this hulk next to a “normal” tank…
In the end I am not really convinced of my paint scheme idea, but I ran with it since I wanted something different from the obvious German late war standard scheme.
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
The "Entwicklung" tank series (= "development"), more commonly known as the E-Series, was a late-World War II attempt by Germany to produce a standardized series of tank designs. There were to be six standard designs in different weight classes, from which several specialized variants were to be developed. This intended to reverse the trend of extremely complex tank designs that had resulted in poor production rates and mechanical unreliability.
The E-series designs were simpler, cheaper to produce and more efficient than their predecessors; however, their design offered only modest improvements in armor and firepower over the designs they were intended to replace, such as the Jagdpanzer 38(t), Panther Ausf. G or Tiger II. However, the resulting high degree of standardization of German armored vehicles would also have made logistics and maintenance easier. Indeed, nearly all E-series vehicles — up through and including the E-75 — were intended to use what were essentially the Tiger II's 80 cm (31½ in) diameter, steel-rimmed road wheels for their suspension, meant to overlap each other (as on the later production Tiger I-E and Panther designs that also used them), even though in a highly simplified fashion. For instance, while the E-50/75’s running gear resembled outwardly the Tiger II’s, the latter’s torsion bar suspension, which necessitated a complex hull with many openings, was replaced by very compact conical spring coil packages that each held a pair of interleaved road wheels – with the benefit that all suspension elements remained outside of the hull. This considerably simplified production and saved time as well as scarce material.
Focus of initial chassis and combat vehicle development was the E-50/75 Standardpanzer, designed by Adler. These were two mostly identical vehicles and only differed in armor thickness, overall weight and running gear design to cope with the different weights. While the E-50 was the standardized replacement for the medium PzKpfw. V “Panther” and the last operational PzKpfw. VI “Tiger”, with an operational weight of around 50 tons, the E-75 was intended to become the standard heavy tank in the 70 ton class, as a replacement for the Tiger II battle tank and the Jagdtiger SPG. They were to share many components, including the same Maybach HL 234 engine with up to 900 hp output and the drivetrain, as well as running gear elements and almost all peripheral equipment. Both E-50 and E-75 were built on the same production lines for ease of manufacture.
This universal tank chassis would, beyond the primary use for battle tanks, also become the basis for a wide range of specialized support vehicles like self-propelled artillery, assault guns, tank hunters and anti-aircraft weapon carriers, which would gradually replace and standardize the great variety of former support vehicles, dramatically optimizing maintenance and logistics.
The E-50/75 SPAAG sub-family itself was quite diversified and comprised a wide range of vehicles that mainly carried different turrets with the respective weaponry as well as air space surveillance, targeting and command equipment. The range of armament included not only guns of various calibers for short, medium and long range in armored and mostly fully enclosed turrets, there were furthermore armored launch ramps for anti-aircraft missiles, including the guided “Rheintochter”, “Wasserfall” or “Enzian” SAMs as well as batteries with unguided “Taifun” anti-aircraft missiles.
Among this new vehicle family, the heaviest gun that was carried in a fully enclosed turret was the Rheinmetall 8.8 cm Flak 41. This was an improved version of the powerful pre-war 8.8 cm Flak 36/37 that was also developed into an anti-tank gun and became the main armament for Germany’s heavy battle tanks like the Tiger I: the 8.8 cm PaK 43 and KwK 43, respectively.
The 8.8 cm Flak 41 was a mobile field weapon on a new pedestal mounting that lowered its silhouette, and it used a longer barrel and a longer 88 mm cartridge with an increased propellant load. The shells had a weight of 9.4-kilogram (20 lb) and achieved a muzzle velocity of 1,000 m/s (3,280 ft/s), giving the gun an effective ceiling of 11,300 meters (37,100 ft) and a maximum of 14,700 meters (48,200 ft). The barrel initially consisted of three sections and had a length of 74 calibers but was then redesigned to a simpler dual-section barrel with a length of 72 calibers, for easier manufacture. Improvements in reloading raised the manual firing rate, with 20 to 25 rounds a minute being quoted. The Flak 41 could also be used against ground targets and was able to penetrate about 200 mm (7.9 inches) of armor at 1,000 m (3,280 feet), allowing it to defeat the armor of any contemporary tank from a relatively safe distance. Because of the high cost and complexity of this weapon, however, Rheinmetall manufactured relatively few of them, 556 in all. 399 were fielded, the rest went into SPAAG production.
The new pedestal mounting made it easy to adapt the weapon to a vehicle, so that this formidable weapon was immediately earmarked to be combined with a tank chassis to improve its mobility. Since an SPAAG would not need the massive frontal armor of a battle tank, the hull from the lighter E-50 was used (which still had a maximum armor thickness of 60mm at the front at 30°, which was effectively 120 mm vs. the E-75’s 185 mm), but instead of the E-50 MBT’s running gear with six steel wheels per side, the Flak 41 SPAAG used the heavier E-75’s running gear with eight wheels per side and wider tracks, effectively creating a hybrid E-50/75 chassis. This measure was taken to better distribute the vehicle’s overall weight and stabilize the it while moving and firing. In this form the new vehicle received the designation Sd.Kfz. 192/3, also known as “Einheits-Flakpanzer E-50 (88 mm)” or “E-50-41” for short.
The Flak 41 was integrated into Rheinmetall’s standardized SPAAG turret that could carry a wide range of automatic anti-aircraft weapons. It was a spacious, boxy design, optimized for maximum internal space than for effective armor protection, resulting in almost vertical side walls and a high silhouette. However, the level of armor was sufficient to protect the crew and the equipment inside from 20 mm gun shells – the typical armament of Allied fighter bombers of the time like the Hawker Typhoon and Tempest.
A heavy-duty hydraulic gun mount with a reinforced recoil system allowed an elevation of the Flak 41 between +83° and -3°. As a novel feature the weapon received a semi-automatic loading mechanism. This was the attempt to increase the gun’s excellent manual rate of fire even further, and it mimicked the magazine clips of the smaller 37 mm Flak 37 that contained seven rounds for short, continuous bursts of fire. A belt feed for truly continuous fire had been envisioned, but not possible with the long and heavy 88 mm rounds within the turret and chassis limits. A mechanical magazine solution, e. g. a drum with several rounds, was impossible, too. The most practical solution was a spiral-shaped magazine, driven by simple gravitation and directly attached to the Flak 41’s breech. This feeding could – beyond an initial round already in the barrel – hold up to three more rounds, and upon firing and expelling the empty case, a fresh round automatically fell into place. The rounds from the magazine could be fired in a fully automatic mode in a short burst with a rate of 50-55 RPM. The magazine itself had to be filled manually, though, and the gun could alternatively be fed directly, too, so that different types of ammunition could be prepared and the gunner could switch between them on short notice.
To accommodate the weapon’s longer ammunition (the Flak 41’s cartridge was 855 mm long) and a crew of four (commander, gunner and two loaders), the standard Rheinmetall Flak turret had to be extended at the rear. Anti-aircraft aiming was done visually, a stereoscopic rangefinder with a span of 200 cm (78¾ in) was integrated above the gun mount. A secondary ZF.20 scope for ground targets was available, too. Two more crewmen, the driver and a radio operator, sat in the hull in front of the turret, similar to the E-50/75 battle tank’s layout. The radio operator on the right side also acted as a third loader for the ammunition supply stored in the hull’s front.
Initially, no secondary defensive armament was provided since the new SPAAGs were to be operated in specialized anti-aircraft units, the so-called Fla-Züge, in which the SPAAGs’ protection would be taken over by supporting infantry and other dedicated vehicles. However, initial field experience quickly revealed this weak spot in the vehicle’s close-range defense: due to material and personnel shortages the Fla-Züge units could hardly be equipped with everything they needed to operate as planned, so that they were in most cases just an underserved mix of SPAAGs, occasionally augmented by a command vehicle and rarely with the protection these specialized vehicles needed. Most of the time the units’ vehicles had to operate independently and were therefore left to their own devices. As a solution, a commander cupola was soon added to the Sd. Kfz.192/3’s turret that not only improved the field of view around the vehicle to assess the tactical situation and detect approaching infantrymen that tried to attach mines or throw Molotov cocktails, it also featured a remote-controlled MG 42 that could be aimed and fired by the commander from the inside. However, to re-supply the ammunition, the cupola hatch had to be opened and someone had to leave the turret’s cover and manually insert a new box of rounds. Furthermore, a 100 mm grenade launcher, a so-called “Nahverteidigungswaffe”, was mounted into the opposite side of the turret roof, too. It fired SMi 35 leaping mines for close defense against approaching infantry. This made the cramped turret interior even more cluttered, but significantly improved the vehicle’s survivability, especially in a confined, urban combat environment. Updated vehicles reached the frontline units in late 1945 and were immediately thrown into service.
Despite being a powerful weapon, several operational problems with the Sd.Kfz. 192/3 became soon apparent. The complex Flak 41 and its feeding mechanism needed constant proper maintenance and service – otherwise it easily jammed. Spent shell casing also frequently jammed the gun. The high silhouette was an innate tactical problem, but this had already been accepted during the design phase of Rheinmetall’s SPAAG standard turret. However, the tall turret was the source of an additional conceptual weakness of the Sd.Kfz. 192/3: the sheer weight of the large turret with the heavy gun frequently caused imbalances that overstressed the turret bearing and its electric drive (which had been taken over from the E-50/75 battle tanks), resulting in a jammed turret — especially when either fully loaded or when the ammunition supply was depleted. Due to the large and heavy turret, the vehicle’s center of gravity was relatively high, too, so that its off-road handling was limited. Even on paved roads the early Sd.Kfz. 192/3s tended to porpoise in tight corners and upon braking. Stiffer coil springs, introduced during the running production and retrofitted through field kits to existing vehicles, countered this flaw, even though these kits were rare due to material shortages. Sometimes the harder coil springs were distributed between two vehicles, only replacing the suspension on the front and rear pair of wheels.
A different tactical problem was the limited ammunition supply for the Flak 41. While 57 rounds were sufficient for a comparable battle tank, the semi-automatic Flak 41‘s theoretical high rate of fire meant that the Sd.Kfz. 192/3 quickly depleted this supply and could only keep up fire and its position for a very limited period, or it had to save ammunition to a point that its deployment became pointless. After spending its ammunition, the vehicle had to retreat to a safe second line position to re-supply, and this was, due to the vehicle’s limited mobility, size and the heavy and bulky rounds, a risky undertaking and meant tedious manual labor with poor protection for the supply crews. The resulting supply logistics to keep the Sd.Kfz. 192/3 operational and effective were demanding.
Nevertheless, despite these shortcoming, the Sd.Kfz. 192/3 greatly improved the heavy Flak units’ mobility and firepower, and the weapon’s effectiveness was high against both air and ground targets. Until mid-1946, a total of around forty Sd.Kfz. 192/3 were built and put into service, primarily with units that defended vital production sites in Western Germany and Saxonia.
At the time of the Sd.Kfz. 192/3’s introduction, anti-aircraft aiming was already augmented by mobile radar systems like the “Würzburg” device or special command vehicles like the Sd.Kfz. 282 “Basilisk” which combined an autonomous radar system with a powerful visual rangefinder and an integrated analogue range calculator, the Kommandogerät 40. However, fire control development had continued, and at least one Sd.Kfz. 192/3 was used in late 1946 during trials to fully automatize gun aiming and firing remotely through electric drives through “slaving” a turret to an external director. This was a modified Sd.Kfz. 282/1 that successfully controlled the Sd.Kfz. 192/3 via cable from an elevated location 50 m away from the SPAAG’s firing position. The objective of these trials was to connect several anti-aircraft weapons to a single command unit with improved sensors and high accuracy under any weather condition for concentrated and more effective fire and an improved first shot hit probability.
Specifications:
Crew: Sixe (commander, gunner, two loaders, radio operator, driver)
Weight: 64 tonnes (71 short tons)
Length: 7.27 m (23 ft 10 ¾ in) (hull only)
9.57 m (31 ft 4 ½ in) with gun forward
Width: 3.88 m (12 ft 9 in)
Height 3.46 m (11 ft 4 in)
3.81 m (12 ft 6 in) with commander cupola
Ground clearance: 495 to 510 mm (1 ft 7.5 in to 1 ft 8.1 in)
Suspension: Conical spring
Fuel capacity: 720 liters (160 imp gal; 190 US gal)
Armor:
30 – 60 mm (1.2 – 2.4 in)
Performance:
Speed
- Maximum, road: 44 km/h (27.3 mph)
- Sustained, road: 38 km/h (24 mph)
- Cross country: 15 to 20 km/h (9.3 to 12.4 mph)
Operational range: 160 km (99 miles)
Power/weight: 14 PS/tonne (12.5 hp/ton)
Engine:
V-12 Maybach HL 234 gasoline engine with 900 PS (885 hp/650 kW)
Transmission:
ZF AK 7-200 with 7 forward 1 reverse gears
Armament:
1× 8,8 cm Flak 41 L/72 anti-aircraft cannon with 57 rounds in turret and hull
1× 7.92 mm Maschinengewehr 42 with 2.400 rounds, remote-controlled on the commander cupola
The kit and its assembly:
This fictional German SPAAG never existed, not even on the drawing boards. But I wondered, after ModelCollect had released an E-100 SPAAG with a twin 88mm gun some years ago, why there was no lighter vehicle with the powerful 88 mm Flak in a closed turret? There were plans to mount this weapon onto a tracked chassis in real life, but it would have been only lightly armored. Then I recently came across a whiffy aftermarket resin turret with a single 88 mm Flak, based on the Tiger II’s Porsche turret, and I liked the idea – even though the rather MBT-esque aftermarket turret looked rather dubious and too small for my taste – esp. the potential angle of the AA weapon appeared insufficient. From this basis the idea was born to create a personal interpretation of a Flak 41 in a fully enclosed turret on a tank chassis.
The basis became the Trumpeter 1:72 E-75 kit of the twin 55 mm Flak with its boxy turret. While I initially considered a totally different turret shape, I eventually settled on a generic design that would have been used for a variety of weapons. This appeared more realistic to me and so I stuck to the Rheinmetall AA turret. However, due to the heavy weapon its certainly massive mount and bulky recoil system as well as the long rounds and a crew of four, I decided to enlarge the Rheinmetall turret. The turret was cut into a front and rear half and an 8 mm wide plug, made from 1.5 mm styrene sheet, was implanted and PSRed. To keep the turret rotatable, the rear extension had to be raised, so that the “oriel” could move over the air intake fairings on the engine cover.
Due to the longer roof, some details were modified there. The most obvious addition is a commander cupola on the left, taken from an early Panzer IV, together with a MG 42 and a small shield on a swing arm, inspired by the remote-controlled installation on some Jagdpanzer 38(t) Hetzer. A stereoscopic rangefinder was added to the turret flanks and a periscope added to one of the loader’s hatches. A cover for a ventilator was added on the right side of the roof, together with a cover for a vertical grenade launcher underneath.
Using the original turret as base, the model’s movable mount for the twin 55 mm guns was retained and the rear extension would also become a good visual balance for the new main weapon. The armor at barrels’ base was cut off and a 1:72 Flak 41, taken from a Zvezda field gun kit, was glued to it, together with parts of the field gun’s recoil system and styrene bits to blend the new gun into the rest of the turret.
The E-75 chassis was taken OOB, since it would be a standardized vehicle basis. Outwardly the hull did not bear recognizable differences to the lighter E-50, which it is supposed to represent, just with more wheels to better cope with the bulky and heavy new turret.
Thankfully, this Trumpeter kit’s vinyl tracks were molded in black – sometimes they come in a sandy beige, and it’s a PITA to paint them! As another bonus, Trumpeter’s running gear on the 1:72 E-50/75 model is of a more sturdy and simpler construction than the one on the alternative ModelCollect kit(s), making the assembly and esp. the mounting of the tracks much easier. The Trumpeter kit is simpler than the comparable ModelCollect models with the E-50/75 basis, but the result is visually quite similar.
Painting and markings:
The paint scheme uses once more typical German late WWII "Hinterhalt" camouflage colors, namely Dark Yellow, Olive Green and Red Brown. This time, however, to adapt the livery to the boxy hull and the huge turret, the pattern ended up as a kind of a splinter scheme – inspired by a real Panzer V Panther from the Eastern Front in 1943.
The basic colors became Humbrol 57 (Buff) for the RAL 7028 Dunkelgelb, in this case as a rather pale (stretched?) shade, plus large areas of brown (RAL 8017, I used this time Humbrol 98 for a darker and less reddish shade) and Humbrol 86 for the green (RAL 6003), which appears quite pale in contrast to the dark brown. The camouflage was applied over an overall coat of sand brown as a primer coat, with the intention of letting this uniform basis shine through here and there. The distribution of the darker colors is quite unique, concentrating the brown on the vehicle’s edges and the green only to the flanks of hull and turret. However, the pattern works well on the huge E-50/75, and I can imagine that it might have worked well in an urban environment, breaking up the tank’s outlines.
As a match for the upper hull the wheels were painted uniformly in the same standard colors –without any pattern, because this would be very eye-catching while on the move. The many delicate tools on the tank’s hull are molded, and instead of trying to paint them I tried something else: I rubbed over them with graphite, and this worked very well, leaving them with a dark metallic shine. Just some wooden handles were then painted with a reddish brown.
Decals/marking came next, everything was procured from the scrap box. The Balkenkreuze came from a Hasegawa Sd.Kfz. 234/2 “Puma”, the tactical code from a TL-Modellbau sheet and the small unit badges on front and back from an UM Models Bergehetzer. A dry brushing treatment with light grey followed, highlighting surface details and edges, and after painting some details and adding some rust marks with watercolors followed a coat of matt varnish.
The tracks were painted with a cloudy mix of dark grey, red brown and iron acrylic paints, and mounted after hull and running gear had been assembled. The antennae, made from heated spure material, were mounted to the turret and, finally, the tank’s lower areas were dusted with a greyish-brown mineral pigment mix, simulating dust and mud residue.
This project was realized in just two days, made easy through the Trumpeter kit’s simple construction. Most work went into the extended turret and the different main weapon, but all parts mostly fell into place – and the result looks IMHO quite believable. In fact, the E-50/75 with a Flak 41 reminds a bit of the Italian Otomatic 76 mm SPAAG from the late Eighties?
93 Bild Serie Erstfeld - Göschenen:
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SBB Lokomotive Ae 6/6 11440 Herisau ( Hersteller SLM Nr. 4281 - Baujahr 1958 ) unterhalb Amsteg
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Das Foto wurde aufgenommen zwischen Erstfeld und Amsteg - Silenen an der Gotthard Nordrampe in der Schweiz, Europa!
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( Ae6/611440 )
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SBB Ae 6/6 Lokomotive
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Betrieb
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- Baujahr : 1.9.5.2 P.rototypen => 1.9.5.5 – 1.9.6.6 S.erienlokomotiven
- Betriebsnummern : 1.1.4.0.1 – 1.1.5.2.0
- Betriebsnummern ( UIC ) : Ae 610 4.0.1 – Ae 610 5.2.0
- Stückzahl : 120
- Einsatzgebiet : G.üterverkehr
- W.artungswerk : B.ellinzona
- Ausrangierung : seit 2.0.0.2
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Technische Daten
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- Fahrzeugtyp : elektrische Lokomotive
- Hersteller : SLM W.interthur - BBC B.aden - MFO Z.ürich
- Achsfolge : Co'Co'
- Höchstgeschwindigkeit : 125 km/h - heute: 120 km/h
- Leistung : 4`300 kW ( 5`830 PS )
- Bergleistung : 650 - Tonnen - Zug auf 26 ‰ Steigung bei 75 km/h
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Masse und Gewicht
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- Länge über Puffer : 18'400 mm
- Breite : 2`970 mm
- Höhe : 4`500 mm
- Gewicht : 120 t / Prototypen: 124 t
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Sonstiges
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- Besondere Merkmale : 2 P.rototypen mit abweichenden Merkmalen
- Vorgänger : SBB Ae 4./.6
- Nachfolger : SBB R.e 6/6
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Ae 6/6 ist eine Baureihe von 120 Universallokomotiven der Schweizerischen Bundes-
bahnen. Sie werden aufgrund ihres früheren Einsatzgebietes den Gotthardlokomotiven
zugeordnet.
Die ersten 25 Lokomotiven werden häufig als K.antonslokomotiven bezeichnet, da sie
die Wappen der 25 Schweizer K.antone trugen. An den Lokkästen befinden sich C.hrom-
Z.ierlinien und an den F.rontseiten ein S.chnäuzchen.
Diese Verzierung, begleitet von den Wappen an den Seitenwänden, fand grossen Anklang
und machte diese leistungsstarken Maschinen europaweit berühmt.
Die weiteren 95 Lokomotiven der Serie erhielten keine C.hromverzierung, aber die Wappen
der K.antonshauptorte sowie wichtiger S.tädte und O.rtschaften.
Dort wo sich die Wappen befanden, war bei den P.rototyplokomomotiven zuerst die Fahr-
zeugnummer ( 1.1.4.0.1 - 1.1.4.0.2 ) abgebracht. Die Lokomotivtaufen wurden als festliche
Anlässe durchgeführt.
Ursprünglich waren die Maschinen t.annengrün lackiert. Heute haben etwa die Hälfte aller
Lokomotiven einen r.oten Anstrich. Mit dieser Umlackierung wurde - und das nicht nur bei
den Ae 6/6 - in den späten Achzigerjahren begonnen.
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Vorgeschichte
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In der N.achkriegszeit hatten die Schweizerischen Bundesbahnen ein zunehmendes Ver-
kehrsvolumen zu bewältigen und sahen sich daher veranlasst, einen neue, sechsachsige
Drehgestelllokomotive vor allem für die G.otthardbahn zu beschaffen.
Der Verkehr wurde bis dahin durch die SBB Ae 4./.6, die SBB Ae 4./.7 sowie die C.e 6./.8
K.rokodil - Lokomotive abgewickelt. Sie waren - aus heutiger Sicht - nur für sehr be-
scheidene Anhängelasten zugelassen. Dadurch waren am G.otthard V.orspanndienste
nötig, die zeitraubend, unpraktisch und unwirtschaftlich waren.
Das aus SLM und BBC bestehende Konsortium, zu dem sich später die Maschinenfabrik
O.erlikon gesellte, erhielt im Jahr 1949 den Zuschlag für den Bau von zwei P.rototypen.
Die technische Entwicklung erwies sich als schwierige Aufgabe, so dass die Lokomotive
1.1.4.0.1 erst am 4. S.eptember 1.9.5.2 das F.abrikgebäude der BBC in M.ünchenstein
in fahrtauglichem Zustand verlassen konnte.
Sie wurde auf eine P.robefahrt nach Z.ürich geschickt, aber nicht wie sonst üblich vom
B.undesamt für Verkehr für die Zulassung auf dem normalspurigen Schienennetz geprüft.
Sie wurde gewogen, und es stellte sich heraus, dass sie 124 t statt die vorgesehenen
120 t wog. Sie kehrte nach M.ünchenstein zurück und wurde vorerst technisch weiter-
entwickelt. Am 31. J.anuar 1.9.5.3 folgte auch die Ae 6/6 1.1.4.0.2.
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Anforderungen an die Ae 6/6
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Sechsachsige Drehgestellokomotive, die vor S.chnell- und G.üterzügen einsetzbar ist,
Stundenleistung bei 6 x 1000 PS bei 74 km/h; Dauerleistung bei 6 x 900 PS bei 78,5 km/h,
Gesamtgewicht von maximal 120 t, Toleranz von -/+ 2%,
Beförderung von 600 t schweren Zügen bei 75 km/h auf den S.teilrampen der G.otthard-
bahn, Beförderung von 750 t auf B.ergstrecken mit bis zu 21 ‰ Steigung und 1`450 t bei
10 ‰, als V.orspann- und Z.wischenlokomotive bei Geschwindigkeiten zwischen 35 und
75 km/h einsetzbar; muss mit der Beförderung dieser Lasten wiederholt in der Steigung
anfahren können, Zugkraft von 8 t bei 125 km/h und einer Fahrdrahtspannung von 15 kV,
elektrische Rekuperationsbremse, die das Eigengewicht der Lokomotive und eine
Anhängelast von 300 t in einem Gefälle von bis zu 20 ‰ dauernd abbremsen kann;
Erhöhung der Bremskraft um 20 % innert 5 Minuten, Einsetzbarkeit der elektrischen
Bremse auch bei der Höchstgeschwindigkeit, Erhöhung der Leistung um 10 % über die
Stundenleistung innert 15 Minuten.
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Einsatz der P.rototypen
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Nach der Auslieferung folgten verschiedene Versuchs- und E.xtrafahrten. Die Maschinen
erreichten die Anforderungen gemäss dem Pflichtenheft. Technische Probleme machten
sich im Regeldienst bemerkbar.
Bemängelt wurde immer wieder die schwache elektrische Bremse. Diese wurde wie im
Pflichtenheft verlangt «nur» für das Abbremsen des Eigengewichtes und einer Last von
maximal 300 t im Gefälle von bis zu 20 ‰ ausgelegt. Für die S.erienproduktion wurde
die elektrische Bremse weiterentwickelt.
Die beiden P.rototypen versahen vorerst R.egeldienste in einem Zweitagesprogramm auf
der G.otthardbahn zwischen L.uzern und C.hiasso. Sie wurden im D.epot E.rstfeld
stationiert.
Wiederholt waren einzelne Fahrmotoren defekt. Da keine Ersatzmotoren beschafft
worden waren, erhielten die betroffenen Lokomotiven vorübergehend einen Ballast,
damit das Dienstgewicht noch stimmte.
Sie mussten aber vom G.otthard abgezogen werden und wurden anstelle von Ae 3./.6 I
und Ae 4./.7-Lokomotiven in anderen R.egeldiensten eingesetzt. Sie wurden früher als
die Ae 6/6 - S.erienlokomotiven vom G.otthard abgezogen, nämlich in den späten
Sechziger Jahren, als die in E.rstfeld stationierten SBB R.e 4./.4 I.I.I schon im Einsatz
waren.
Sie waren daher nicht selten auch vor R.egionalzügen anzutreffen, die sonst mit Ae 3./.6 I
oder Ae 4./.7 bespannt waren. In den Siebziger Jahren wurden sie technisch weiter-
entwickelt, erhielten aber nie die Q.ualität der S.erienlokomotiven.
Im S.ommer 1.9.8.0 wurden sie vom D.epot E.rstfeld nach Z.ürich versetzt. Die dortige
Depotinspektion beabsichtigte im J.anuar 1.9.9.7, die beiden Prototypen für Depotmanöver
und als Druckluftspender im D.epot R.orschach einzusetzen und somit aus dem Verkehr
zu ziehen.
Aufgrund ihrer besonderen Bauweise, die sie nur innerlich von den S.erienlokomotiven
unterscheidet, waren sie viel wartungsaufwendiger und im Betrieb gewissermassen ein
Hindernis.
Infolge des Triebfahrzeugmangels kamen sie aber innert kurzer Zeit wieder in den Regel-
dienst. Infolge der Zuteilung aller Ae 6/6-Lokomotiven zu SBB C.argo fiel die D.epot-
zuteilung weg.
Diese P.rototypen hatten Drehgestelle mit starren Achsen, was im Kurvenlauf zu starkem
Schienen- und Spurkranz-Verschleiß führte. Trotz anfänglicher technischer Mängel war
man bei den SBB der Überzeugung, mit der Entwicklung der Ae 6/6 auf dem richtigen
Weg zu sein.
Nach Einbau seitenelastisch gelagerter Radsätze und Verkleinerung des Spurkranzes
der mittleren Drehgestell - Räder konnte der Serienbau 1.9.5.4 eingeleitet werden, dem
1.9.5.5 die ersten Auslieferungen folgten.
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Betriebseinsatz bis in die 1.9.6.0 er - Jahre
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Zusammenfassung
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Zu den besten Zeiten, in den 1.9.5.0 er und 1.9.6.0 er Jahren, waren die Ae 6/6 die G.ott-
hardlokomotive schlechthin sowohl im R.eise- wie auch im G.üterverkehr.
Sie waren auch am S.implon im Einsatz. Sie wurden im Turnus dort eingesetzt, damit
die R.evision durch die H.auptwerkstätte B.ellinzona gesichert war. In den späten Sech-
zigerjahren wurden die beiden P.rototypen vom G.otthard abgezogen; später folgten
auch viele S.erienlokomotiven.
Sie wurden ins F.lachland versetzt, da neuere, leistungsfähigere Lokomotiven auf dem
G.otthard eingesetzt wurden. Seit den 1.9.9.0 er Jahren werden die Ae 6/6 fast nur noch
im G.üterverkehr eingesetzt, da sie für R.eisezüge heute zu langsam sind.
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Loktaufen
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Auch die E.xtrafahrten anlässlich der Loktaufen gehören zum Betriebseinsatz der Ae 6/6.
Man übernahm einen Brauch aus E.ngland, indem man die Lokomotiven mit K.antons- und
G.emeindewappen schmückte.
Das waren festliche Anlässe, und jeder Kanton erhielt «seine» eigene Ae 6/6. Die Fahr-
zeuge 1.1.4.2.6 bis 1.1.5.2.0 erhielten G.emeindewappen von K.antonshauptorten und von
wichtigen V.erkehrszentren.
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1.9.7.0 er – 1.9.9.0 er - Jahre
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Zusammenfassung
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In den 1.9.7.0 er - Jahren wurden die Prototypen 1.1.4.0.1 und 1.1.4.0.2 technisch weiter-
entwickelt.
Sie wurden im Jahr 1.9.7.8 vor allem der Lokomotive 1.1.4.1.4 angeglichen, erhielten
aber nie die Qualität der S.erienlokomotiven. 1.9.7.1 wurden die Ae 6/6 durch die neue
SBB R.e 4./.4 III auf der G.otthardstrecke etwas entlastet. Echte Konkurrenz bekamen
sie jedoch ab 1.9.7.5 durch die SBB Re 6./.6, die als ihr Nachfolge-Typ vorgesehen war
und beinahe die doppelte Leistung hat.
Der ehemalige Star des G.otthards wurde damit in niedergeordnete Dienste verdrängt
und seither meist im M.ittelland und im J.ura und seit Mitte der 1.9.9.0 er Jahre fast
nur noch im G.üterverkehr eingesetzt.
Dies, da er für den schnellen Reiseverkehr mit der von 125 km/h auf 120 km/h herab-
gesetzten Höchstgeschwindigkeit zu langsam ist.
Eine Ausnahme bildeten die von der B.L.S gemieteten einstigen G.otthardlokomotiven,
die zur Fahrt über den L.ötschberg sogar noch vor I.nterC.ity - Züge gespannt wurden.
Im Jahr 1.9.9.7 wollte die D.epotinspektion von Z.ürich die beiden P.rototypen aus dem
Verkehr ziehen und als Druckluftspender und für Depotmanöver im D.epot von R.orschach
einsetzen. Infolge des T.riebfahrzeugmangels kamen sie aber zurück in den R.egeldienst.
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Baukastensystem
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Die Serienlokomotiven 1.1.4.0.3 - 1.1.5.2.0 wurden nach dem sogenannten Baukasten-
system erstellt. Obwohl sie teils in schwere Unfälle verwickelt waren, konnten sie innert
kurzer Zeit wieder instandgestellt werden.
Da die P.rototyplokomotiven 1.1.4.0.1 und 1.1.4.0.2 verschiedentlich anders konstruiert
sind, konnten sie von diesem Baukastensystem nur wenig profitieren.
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Unfälle
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In der Nacht vom 29. auf den 30. J.uli 1.9.8.8 kollidierte die Ae 6/6 1.1.4.1.3, die den
G.üterzug 53048 zog, in E.ffingen mit einer B.aumaschine. Sie musste in der Folge
einer Hauptrevision unterzogen werden und war am 28. F.ebruar 1.9.8.9 wieder in Be-
trieb.
Am 12. A.pril 1.9.8.9 kam es in W.interthur zu einer Flankenfahrt zwischen der SBB
Ae 6/6 1.1.4.0.1 und der SBB R.e 4./.4 II 1.1.2.8.7. Da für die Serienlokomotiven ein
ausreichendes Ersatzteillager angelegt wurde, konnten diese nach Unfällen innert
kurzer Zeit wieder instandgestellt werden. Da es sich diesmal um eine P.rototyp-
lokomotive handelte, erwies sich die Aufarbeitung als viel komplizierter.
Die Lokomotivabteilung der H.auptwerkstätte in B.ellinzona zeigte sich mit dem Ab-
bruch der Lokomotive einverstanden. Allerdings wehrten sich Eisenbahnfreunde für
den Erhalt dieser allerersten Ae 6/6-Lokomotive, so dass sie dennoch eine Haupt-
revision, eine R3, erhielt.
Es war die aufwendigste und teuerste Revision aller Zeiten. Im Jahr 1.9.9.1 wurde die
Ae 6/6 « T.icino » wieder in den R.egeldienst entlassen.
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K.antonslok J.ura
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Nach der Gründung des K.antons J.ura 1.9.7.9 sollte auch dieser Kanton seine eigene
" K.antonslok " bekommen. Da aber die letzte Ae 6/6 bereits 1.9.6.6 abgeliefert worden
war, stieg die S.tädtelok 1.1.4.8.3 P.orrentruy zur K.antonslok J.ura auf.
Sie erhielt zwar das K.antonswappen J.ura, aber nicht die C.hrom - Z.ierlinien und das
" S.chnäuzchen ". Das Wappen P.orrentruy erbte die SBB Re 4./.4 II 1.1.2.3.9.
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21. Jahrhundert
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1.9.9.9 wurden auf Grund der Restrukturierung bei den SBB alle 120 Lokomotiven in die
D.ivision G.üterverkehr ( SBB C.argo ) eingeteilt. Im G.üterverkehr ist die Ae 6/6 heute
weiterhin eine sehr zuverlässige Lokomotive.
Da die Ae 6/6 Drehgestelle mit je drei Achsen enthalten, haftet an ihnen der Makel von
« S.chienenmördern ». Der Unmut wurde besonders aufgrund von G.üterfahrten auf der
der C.hemins de fer du J.ura ( C.J ) gehörenden Strecke P.orrentruy – B.onfol laut.
Als grösster Nachteil der Ae 6/6 wird häufig die fehlende Vielfachsteuerung erwähnt.
Bisherige Pläne eines Umbaus wurden verworfen und aufgrund der ungewissen Rest-
lebensdauer auch nicht weiter verfolgt.
Für die jüngeren Lokomotiven wurde die Ausrüstung mit der F.ührerstandssignalisierung
( F.S.S ) erwogen, so dass diese auf F.S.S - Strecken fahren können, probehalber wurde
hierfür die 1.1.5.1.2 « H.orgen » umgerüstet.
Die noch betriebsfähigen S.erienloks sind heute vor N.ahgüterzügen anzutreffen, stehen
aber meist auf grossen R.angierbahnhöfen.
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W.appendiebstähle
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Unbekannte, bei denen es sich um Trophäenjäger handeln dürfte, verschafften sich im
Jahr 2.0.0.6 nachts Zugang zu den R.angierbahnhöfen und demontierten W.appen und
S.chweizerkreuze.
Um weitere Diebstähle zu verhindern, ordneten die SBB an, bei allen Ae 6/6-Lokomotiven
die W.appen zu entfernen und zu archivieren. Die Lokomotiven im neuen SBB C.argo-
D.esign erhielten neue Wappen jeweils beim F.ührerstand auf der linken Seite.
Voraussichtlich werden die Wappen nicht mehr montiert, sondern zusammen SBB
H.istoric übergeben. Im M.ärz 2.0.0.7 gab SBB C.argo bekannt, dass eine grössere An-
zahl von Ae 6/6 eine Neubemalung im sogenannten " Cargo - Look " erhalten und
noch mindestens bis zur Inbetriebnahme des G.otthard - B.asistunnels ( voraus-
sichtlich um 2.0.1.6 ) in Betrieb bleiben sollen
Die erste umlackierte Lokomotive ist - abgesehen von der Denkmallokomotive
Ae 610 4.9.2 - die Ae 610 4.8.6 " B.urgdorf ".
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Der Verbleib ausrangierter Lokomotiven
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Zusammenfassung
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2.0.0.2 wurde die erste Lokomotive dieser Serie, die 1.1.4.1.0 « B.asel - S.tadt » unfall-
bedingt ausrangiert und abgebrochen. Dies geschah, nachdem ihr bei einer F.lankenfahrt
in D.ietikon, die S.eitenwand aufgerissen wurde. Seither wurden mehrere Maschinen, da-
runter auch die P.rototypen 1.1.4.0.2 « U.ri » und 1.1.4.0.1 « T.icino » ausrangiert.
2.0.0.2 war die 1.1.4.0.1 « T.icino » kurz nach ihrem 50. Geburtstag zu Gast am Tag der
offenen Tür auf dem R.angierbahnhof M.uttenz. Nach einem K.abelbrand wurde sie am
11. S.eptember 2.0.0.3 ausrangiert.
Danach stand sie monatelang auf einem fahrdrahtlosen A.bstellgleis beim L.okomotivfried-
hof von B.iasca - anfänglich mit einigen andern Ae 6/6, die kurz darauf von der Ö.ffentlich-
keit unbemerkt abgebrochen wurden.
Dasselbe Schicksal ereilte die 1.1.4.3.3, die in B.ellinzona abgestellt war. In B.iasca
abgestellt war auch die 1.1.4.1.2, die im D.ezember 2.0.0.6 dem S.chrotthändler über-
geben wurde.
Das Schicksal ausrangierter Ae 6/6-Lokomotiven sorgt bei Eisenbahnfreunden regel-
mässig für Aufsehen.
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P.rototyplokomotive 1.1.4.0.1
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Zuletzt war nur noch die 1.1.4.0.1 « T.icino » in B.iasca abgestellt und mit R.adschuhen
gesichert. Sie gehört seit dem 12. J.uni 2.0.0.6 der SBB H.istoric, die sie seit dem
D.ezember 2.0.0.6 langfristig an den C.lub del S.an G.ottardo vermietet.
Eisenbahnfreunde machten geltend, dass an dieser und andern Ae 6/6-Lokomotiven
das S.chweizerkreuz und das K.antonswappen nicht mehr vorhanden waren. Gemäss
Angaben der SBB werden die demontierten Teile zusammen mit dem Fahrzeug dem
Käufer übergeben.
Im J.uli 2.0.0.7 wurde die « T.essiner Ae 6/6 » nach B.ellinzona überführt. Sie war dort
remisiert und man wollte mit der W.iederinstandstellung beginnen. Die Kosten erwiesen
sich aber als viel höher als budgetiert, und es erwies sich als schwierig, die richtigen
Ersatzteile zu erhalten.
Ausserdem machten sich Risse in den S.peichen bemerkbar. Seit dem 20. M.ai 2.0.1.0
befindet sich diese Lokomotive bei der S.chienenverkehrsgesellschaft S.tuttgart in H.orb
am N.eckar.
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Ae 6/6 an SBB H.istoric
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Der Stiftung Historisches Erbe der SBB ( SBB H.istoric ) wurde bereits die Ae 6/6
1.1.4.0.2 « U.ri » übergeben, die für das G.otthard - J.ubiläum 2.0.0.7 wieder mit
ihrem ursprünglichen, t.annengrünen Anstrich hergerichtet und danach im D.epot
E.rstfeld stationiert wurde.
Ebenfalls im Dienst von SBB H.istoric stehen die Ae 6/6 1.1.4.1.1 « Z.ug » ( Farbe
t.annengrün, S.tandort E.rstfeld ), 1.1.4.1.6 « G.larus » und 1.1.4.2.5 « G.enf» und
( beide mit der F.arbe r.ot und dem S.tandort O.lten), wobei die «G.larus» nicht
betriebsfähig ist und als E.rsatzteilspender dient.
Die Ae 6/6 1.1.4.0.5 « N.idwalden » wurde von SBB H.istoric ebenfalls als Ersatz-
teilspender übernommen und zunächst in O.lten abgestellt. Nach Ausbau noch
brauchbarer Teile für die Ae 6/6 « A.argau », die sich in der Obhut des Vereins
M.ikado befindet, wurde sie am 10. J.anuar 2.0.1.2 zum A.bbruch nach K.aiseraugst
überführt.
Im H.erbst 2.0.1.1 übernahm SBB H.istoric zudem die Ae 6/6 1.1.4.5.6 « O.lten ». Sie ist
in O.lten stationiert und soll im letzten Betriebszustand fahrfähig erhalten bleiben. Es
handelt sich derzeit ( Stand: J.uli 2.0.1.2 ) um die einzige S.tädtelokomotive im Bestand
der historischen Ae 6/6.
Zwei weitere Lokomotiven wurden als Leihgaben an verschiedene Vereinigungen abge-
treten.
Die Ae 6/6 1.1.4.0.7 « A.argau » wurde 2.0.0.9 von SBB Historic an den Verein « M.ikado
1.2.4.4 » als L.eihgabe abgegeben.
Die Ae 6/6 1.1.4.2.1 « G.raubünden » wurde von SBB Historic an den «Verein Erhalt
historische Elektrolokomotive Ae 6/6 1.1.4.0.3 » als Leihgabe abgegeben. Der Wider-
spruch im V.ereinsnamen und der Loknummer ergibt sich daraus dass der V.erein
zuerst die Ae 6/6 1.1.4.0.3 « S.chwyz » übernehmen wollte, diese war jedoch nicht
reparierbar defekt, so dass man auf die 1.1.4.2.1 als Leihgabe Rückgriff genommen hat.
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D.enkmallokomotive bei E.rstfeld
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Ab dem H.erbst 2.0.0.6 stand anlässlich des 125-jährigen Jubiläums der G.otthardbahn
eine D.enkmallokomotive der Reihe Ae 6/6 mit zwei S.peisewagen und einem G.epäck-
wagen auf dem Areal der A.utobahnraststätte bei E.rstfeld.
Die S.peisewagen wurden nicht zweckentfremdet - sie waren ein Teil des Restaurants.
Zur selben Zeit wurden die Innenräume der R.aststätte in F.ahrtrichtung N.ord umgebaut.
Als die B.auarbeiten fertig waren, wurden die S.peisewagen, die normalerweise in I.nter-
c.ity-Z.ügen verkehren, durch G.üterwagen ersetzt.
Die ehemalige Ae 6/6 1.1.4.9.2 " E.mmen " wurde mit dem SBB C.argo - D.esign frisch
gestrichen und bekam die Bezeichnung Ae 610 4.9.2. Mit ihrem heutigen Aussehen ist
sie allerdings erst seit ihrer Wiederinbetriebnahme im R.egeldienst unterwegs. Die einst
geplante Umdesignierung infolge der Zuteilung aller Artgenossinnen zur Division Güter-
verkehr stieß in Kreisen von Eisenbahnfreunden auf Proteste. ( Eine h.ellgrüne Farbe war
vorgesehen.) Das neue D.enkmal wurde mit einer grossen B.ahnhofsuhr am 18. O.ktober
2.0.0.6 festlich eingeweiht. Unter den Festrednern waren auch der Urner Regierungsrat
I.sidor B.aumann, der Tessiner R.egierungsrat M.arco B.orradori und B.enedikt W.eibel,
der scheidende P.räsident der SBB - G.eneraldirektion.
Im H.erbst 2.0.0.7 wurde die Lokomotive von der A.utobahnraststätte abtransportiert und
auf der G.otthardbahn wieder aufgegleist. Bei der technischen Kontrolle wurden ge-
brochene Radsterne festgestellt. Der Schaden musste behoben werden, bevor die Lok
wieder in den Regeldienst kam.
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Verein 1.1.4.0.6 A.lpnachstad
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Der Verein 1.1.4.0.6 A.lpnachstad wollte die auf den K.anton O.bwalden getaufte Ae 6/6
1.1.4.0.6 als D.enkmallokomotive in A.lpnachstad erhalten. Der Verein hatte die Loko-
motive langfristig von SBB H.istoric gemietet.
Die Lokomotive wurde als nicht mehr betriebsfähig ausrangiert und als Ersatzteilspenderin
in der H.auptwerkstätte B.ellinzona ausgeschlachtet. Ihre Verschrottung war von den SBB
schon besiegelt, was vorläufig verhindert wurde.
In der Nacht vom 14. auf den 15. D.ezember 2.0.0.6 wurde sie auf der S.trasse von
B.ellinzona nach A.lpnachstad transportiert. Nach langer, aber ergebnisloser Suche
nach einem Standort in A.lpnach wurde die Lok am 17. Juni 2.0.1.1 in E.nnetmoos bis
auf den F.ührerstand, welcher für ein späteres Projekt verwendet werden soll, abge-
brochen.
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D.enkmallokomotive im K.anton L.uzern
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Zwischen D.agmersellen und N.ebikon, auf dem A.real der G.alliker T.ransport AG, steht
seit dem F.ebruar 2.0.0.7 auf Initiative des S.eniorchefs Peter Galliker die Ae 6/6 1.1.4.1.8
in roter Farbe. Obwohl sie dem Kanton St. G.allen gewidmet war, erhielt sie ein neues
L.uzerner K.antonswappen. G.alliker, ein Stammkunde von SBB C.argo, hatte die dem
Abbruch geweihte Maschine in B.ellinzona entdeckt und ihr so ein neues Zuhause ge-
geben.
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Denkmallokomotive im V.erkehrshaus
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Das V.erkehrshaus Schweiz hat von SBB Cargo die Ae 6/6 « S.chaffhausen » erworben
und stellt diese von Zeit zu Zeit im V.erkehrshaus aus.
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L.oksimulater bei der " C.hemins de fer du K.aeserberg "
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Der F.ührerstand der K.antonslokomotive Ae 6/6 1.1.4.0.9 mit W.appen des K.antons
B.aselland steht im Haus der " C.hemins de fer du K.aeserberg " im F.reiburger V.orort
G.ranges - P.accot im K.anton F.reiburg in der Schweiz
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( BeschriebAe6/6 AlbumSBBAe6/6Lokomotive AlbumBahnenderSchweiz Ae6/6 Ae610
Ae 6/6 610 Schweizerische Bundesbahn Bundesbahnen Eisenbahn Lokomotive Lok
SBB CFF FFS SLM Zug Train Juna Zoug Trainen Tog Tren Поезд Lokomotive Паровоз
Locomotora Lok Lokomotiv Locomotief Locomotiva Locomotive Eisenbahn Railway
Rautatie chemin de fer Ferrovia 鉄道 Spoorweg Железнодорожный Centralstation
Ferroviaria Schweiz Suisse Switzerland Svizzera Suissa Swiss Sveitsi Sviss スイス
Zwitserland Sveits Szwajcaria Suíça Suiza )
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Nordrampe der Gotthardbahn / Gotthard Nordrampe E.rstfeld - G.öschenen
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B.ahnhof E.rstfeld (Uri - 472m - G.rosses L.okomotivdepot der S.BB und Beginn der 26 Promil -
R.ampe) - B.ahnhof A.msteg - S.ilenen (Uri - 544.4m) - W.indgällentunnel (Länge 183 m) -
K.erstelenbachbrücke / C.härstelenbachbrücke (Länge 127m) - B.ristentunnel (Länge 709m) -
I.ntschireussbrücke (Länge 121m) - I.ntschitunnel (Länge 88m) - E.hemalige H.altestelle
I.ntschi - Z.graggentalbrücke (Länge 89m) - Z.graggentunnel (Länge 68m) - B.reitentunnel
(Länge 57m) - M.eitschligerk.urve - M.eitschlingentunnel (Länge 74 m) - S.äckenviadukt
(Länge 120 m) - M.örschlisbachgalerie (Länge 25 m) - B.ahnhof G.urtnellen (Uri - Höhe 737.6m) - H.äggeribachtunnel (Länge 92m) - P.faffensprungkehrtunnel (S.piraltunnel, Länge 1`476m) -
M.uhrentunnel (Länge 53 m) - M.ühletunnel (Länge 88m) - U.ntere M.eienreussbrücke
(Länge 60m) - K.irchbergtunnel (Länge 300m) - W.attingerkurve - U.nterer W.attingerbrücke - W.attingerkehrtunnel (Länge 1`084m) - O.bere W.attingerbrücke - R.ohrbachtunnel
(Länge 230m) - B.ahnhof W.assen (Uri - Höhe 928.1m) - M.ittlere E.ntschigtal G.alerie
(Länge 185m) - M.ittlere M.eienreussbrücke (Länge 122m) - S.trahllochtunnel (Länge 40m) -
L.eggisteinkehrtunnel (Länge 1`090m) - O.bere M.eienreussbrücke (Länge 54m) -
M.aienkreuztunnel (Länge 78m) - O.bere E.ntschigtal G.alerie (Länge 102m) - K.ellerbachbrücke
(Länge 70m) - R.ohrbachbrücke (Länge 61m) - N.axbergtunnel (Länge 1`570m) - E.ggwald -
B.ahnhof G.öschenen (Uri - 1`105.9 - N.ordportal des G.otthard - B.ahntunnel)
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Parallel dazu die Bilder der entsprechenden Abschnitte der M.odell - A.nlage im V.erkehrshaus
in L.uzern
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The Gotthardrailway go through a small valley from the r.euss and is a important line between G.ermany and I.taly in Switzerland in Europe
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Eine Reise in Bildern auf der Gotthard Nordrampe von E.rstfeld nach G.öschenen
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KantonUri AlbumGotthard-Nordrampe
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Letzte Ergänzung / Aktualisierung des Textes : 09. Juni 2012
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EB / NIF
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
The "Entwicklung" tank series (= "development"), more commonly known as the E-Series, was a late-World War II attempt by Germany to produce a standardized series of tank designs. There were to be six standard designs in different weight classes, from which several specialized variants were to be developed. This intended to reverse the trend of extremely complex tank designs that had resulted in poor production rates and mechanical unreliability.
The E-series designs were simpler, cheaper to produce and more efficient than their predecessors; however, their design offered only modest improvements in armor and firepower over the designs they were intended to replace, such as the Jagdpanzer 38(t), Panther Ausf. G or Tiger II. However, the resulting high degree of standardization of German armored vehicles would also have made logistics and maintenance easier. Indeed, nearly all E-series vehicles — up through and including the E-75 — were intended to use what were essentially the Tiger II's 80 cm (31½ in) diameter, steel-rimmed road wheels for their suspension, meant to overlap each other (as on the later production Tiger I-E and Panther designs that also used them), even though in a highly simplified fashion. For instance, while the E-50/75’s running gear resembled outwardly the Tiger II’s, the latter’s torsion bar suspension, which necessitated a complex hull with many openings, was replaced by very compact conical spring coil packages that each held a pair of interleaved road wheels – with the benefit that all suspension elements remained outside of the hull. This considerably simplified production and saved time as well as scarce material.
Focus of initial chassis and combat vehicle development was the E-50/75 Standardpanzer, designed by Adler. These were two mostly identical vehicles and only differed in armor thickness, overall weight and running gear design to cope with the different weights. While the E-50 was the standardized replacement for the medium PzKpfw. V “Panther” and the last operational PzKpfw. VI “Tiger”, with an operational weight of around 50 tons, the E-75 was intended to become the standard heavy tank in the 70 ton class, as a replacement for the Tiger II battle tank and the Jagdtiger SPG. They were to share many components, including the same Maybach HL 234 engine with up to 900 hp output and the drivetrain, as well as running gear elements and almost all peripheral equipment. Both E-50 and E-75 were built on the same production lines for ease of manufacture.
This universal tank chassis would, beyond the primary use for battle tanks, also become the basis for a wide range of specialized support vehicles like self-propelled artillery, assault guns, tank hunters and anti-aircraft weapon carriers, which would gradually replace and standardize the great variety of former support vehicles, dramatically optimizing maintenance and logistics.
The E-50/75 SPAAG sub-family itself was quite diversified and comprised a wide range of vehicles that mainly carried different turrets with the respective weaponry as well as air space surveillance, targeting and command equipment. The range of armament included not only guns of various calibers for short, medium and long range in armored and mostly fully enclosed turrets, there were furthermore armored launch ramps for anti-aircraft missiles, including the guided “Rheintochter”, “Wasserfall” or “Enzian” SAMs as well as batteries with unguided “Taifun” anti-aircraft missiles.
Among this new vehicle family, the heaviest gun that was carried in a fully enclosed turret was the Rheinmetall 8.8 cm Flak 41. This was an improved version of the powerful pre-war 8.8 cm Flak 36/37 that was also developed into an anti-tank gun and became the main armament for Germany’s heavy battle tanks like the Tiger I: the 8.8 cm PaK 43 and KwK 43, respectively.
The 8.8 cm Flak 41 was a mobile field weapon on a new pedestal mounting that lowered its silhouette, and it used a longer barrel and a longer 88 mm cartridge with an increased propellant load. The shells had a weight of 9.4-kilogram (20 lb) and achieved a muzzle velocity of 1,000 m/s (3,280 ft/s), giving the gun an effective ceiling of 11,300 meters (37,100 ft) and a maximum of 14,700 meters (48,200 ft). The barrel initially consisted of three sections and had a length of 74 calibers but was then redesigned to a simpler dual-section barrel with a length of 72 calibers, for easier manufacture. Improvements in reloading raised the manual firing rate, with 20 to 25 rounds a minute being quoted. The Flak 41 could also be used against ground targets and was able to penetrate about 200 mm (7.9 inches) of armor at 1,000 m (3,280 feet), allowing it to defeat the armor of any contemporary tank from a relatively safe distance. Because of the high cost and complexity of this weapon, however, Rheinmetall manufactured relatively few of them, 556 in all. 399 were fielded, the rest went into SPAAG production.
The new pedestal mounting made it easy to adapt the weapon to a vehicle, so that this formidable weapon was immediately earmarked to be combined with a tank chassis to improve its mobility. Since an SPAAG would not need the massive frontal armor of a battle tank, the hull from the lighter E-50 was used (which still had a maximum armor thickness of 60mm at the front at 30°, which was effectively 120 mm vs. the E-75’s 185 mm), but instead of the E-50 MBT’s running gear with six steel wheels per side, the Flak 41 SPAAG used the heavier E-75’s running gear with eight wheels per side and wider tracks, effectively creating a hybrid E-50/75 chassis. This measure was taken to better distribute the vehicle’s overall weight and stabilize the it while moving and firing. In this form the new vehicle received the designation Sd.Kfz. 192/3, also known as “Einheits-Flakpanzer E-50 (88 mm)” or “E-50-41” for short.
The Flak 41 was integrated into Rheinmetall’s standardized SPAAG turret that could carry a wide range of automatic anti-aircraft weapons. It was a spacious, boxy design, optimized for maximum internal space than for effective armor protection, resulting in almost vertical side walls and a high silhouette. However, the level of armor was sufficient to protect the crew and the equipment inside from 20 mm gun shells – the typical armament of Allied fighter bombers of the time like the Hawker Typhoon and Tempest.
A heavy-duty hydraulic gun mount with a reinforced recoil system allowed an elevation of the Flak 41 between +83° and -3°. As a novel feature the weapon received a semi-automatic loading mechanism. This was the attempt to increase the gun’s excellent manual rate of fire even further, and it mimicked the magazine clips of the smaller 37 mm Flak 37 that contained seven rounds for short, continuous bursts of fire. A belt feed for truly continuous fire had been envisioned, but not possible with the long and heavy 88 mm rounds within the turret and chassis limits. A mechanical magazine solution, e. g. a drum with several rounds, was impossible, too. The most practical solution was a spiral-shaped magazine, driven by simple gravitation and directly attached to the Flak 41’s breech. This feeding could – beyond an initial round already in the barrel – hold up to three more rounds, and upon firing and expelling the empty case, a fresh round automatically fell into place. The rounds from the magazine could be fired in a fully automatic mode in a short burst with a rate of 50-55 RPM. The magazine itself had to be filled manually, though, and the gun could alternatively be fed directly, too, so that different types of ammunition could be prepared and the gunner could switch between them on short notice.
To accommodate the weapon’s longer ammunition (the Flak 41’s cartridge was 855 mm long) and a crew of four (commander, gunner and two loaders), the standard Rheinmetall Flak turret had to be extended at the rear. Anti-aircraft aiming was done visually, a stereoscopic rangefinder with a span of 200 cm (78¾ in) was integrated above the gun mount. A secondary ZF.20 scope for ground targets was available, too. Two more crewmen, the driver and a radio operator, sat in the hull in front of the turret, similar to the E-50/75 battle tank’s layout. The radio operator on the right side also acted as a third loader for the ammunition supply stored in the hull’s front.
Initially, no secondary defensive armament was provided since the new SPAAGs were to be operated in specialized anti-aircraft units, the so-called Fla-Züge, in which the SPAAGs’ protection would be taken over by supporting infantry and other dedicated vehicles. However, initial field experience quickly revealed this weak spot in the vehicle’s close-range defense: due to material and personnel shortages the Fla-Züge units could hardly be equipped with everything they needed to operate as planned, so that they were in most cases just an underserved mix of SPAAGs, occasionally augmented by a command vehicle and rarely with the protection these specialized vehicles needed. Most of the time the units’ vehicles had to operate independently and were therefore left to their own devices. As a solution, a commander cupola was soon added to the Sd. Kfz.192/3’s turret that not only improved the field of view around the vehicle to assess the tactical situation and detect approaching infantrymen that tried to attach mines or throw Molotov cocktails, it also featured a remote-controlled MG 42 that could be aimed and fired by the commander from the inside. However, to re-supply the ammunition, the cupola hatch had to be opened and someone had to leave the turret’s cover and manually insert a new box of rounds. Furthermore, a 100 mm grenade launcher, a so-called “Nahverteidigungswaffe”, was mounted into the opposite side of the turret roof, too. It fired SMi 35 leaping mines for close defense against approaching infantry. This made the cramped turret interior even more cluttered, but significantly improved the vehicle’s survivability, especially in a confined, urban combat environment. Updated vehicles reached the frontline units in late 1945 and were immediately thrown into service.
Despite being a powerful weapon, several operational problems with the Sd.Kfz. 192/3 became soon apparent. The complex Flak 41 and its feeding mechanism needed constant proper maintenance and service – otherwise it easily jammed. Spent shell casing also frequently jammed the gun. The high silhouette was an innate tactical problem, but this had already been accepted during the design phase of Rheinmetall’s SPAAG standard turret. However, the tall turret was the source of an additional conceptual weakness of the Sd.Kfz. 192/3: the sheer weight of the large turret with the heavy gun frequently caused imbalances that overstressed the turret bearing and its electric drive (which had been taken over from the E-50/75 battle tanks), resulting in a jammed turret — especially when either fully loaded or when the ammunition supply was depleted. Due to the large and heavy turret, the vehicle’s center of gravity was relatively high, too, so that its off-road handling was limited. Even on paved roads the early Sd.Kfz. 192/3s tended to porpoise in tight corners and upon braking. Stiffer coil springs, introduced during the running production and retrofitted through field kits to existing vehicles, countered this flaw, even though these kits were rare due to material shortages. Sometimes the harder coil springs were distributed between two vehicles, only replacing the suspension on the front and rear pair of wheels.
A different tactical problem was the limited ammunition supply for the Flak 41. While 57 rounds were sufficient for a comparable battle tank, the semi-automatic Flak 41‘s theoretical high rate of fire meant that the Sd.Kfz. 192/3 quickly depleted this supply and could only keep up fire and its position for a very limited period, or it had to save ammunition to a point that its deployment became pointless. After spending its ammunition, the vehicle had to retreat to a safe second line position to re-supply, and this was, due to the vehicle’s limited mobility, size and the heavy and bulky rounds, a risky undertaking and meant tedious manual labor with poor protection for the supply crews. The resulting supply logistics to keep the Sd.Kfz. 192/3 operational and effective were demanding.
Nevertheless, despite these shortcoming, the Sd.Kfz. 192/3 greatly improved the heavy Flak units’ mobility and firepower, and the weapon’s effectiveness was high against both air and ground targets. Until mid-1946, a total of around forty Sd.Kfz. 192/3 were built and put into service, primarily with units that defended vital production sites in Western Germany and Saxonia.
At the time of the Sd.Kfz. 192/3’s introduction, anti-aircraft aiming was already augmented by mobile radar systems like the “Würzburg” device or special command vehicles like the Sd.Kfz. 282 “Basilisk” which combined an autonomous radar system with a powerful visual rangefinder and an integrated analogue range calculator, the Kommandogerät 40. However, fire control development had continued, and at least one Sd.Kfz. 192/3 was used in late 1946 during trials to fully automatize gun aiming and firing remotely through electric drives through “slaving” a turret to an external director. This was a modified Sd.Kfz. 282/1 that successfully controlled the Sd.Kfz. 192/3 via cable from an elevated location 50 m away from the SPAAG’s firing position. The objective of these trials was to connect several anti-aircraft weapons to a single command unit with improved sensors and high accuracy under any weather condition for concentrated and more effective fire and an improved first shot hit probability.
Specifications:
Crew: Sixe (commander, gunner, two loaders, radio operator, driver)
Weight: 64 tonnes (71 short tons)
Length: 7.27 m (23 ft 10 ¾ in) (hull only)
9.57 m (31 ft 4 ½ in) with gun forward
Width: 3.88 m (12 ft 9 in)
Height 3.46 m (11 ft 4 in)
3.81 m (12 ft 6 in) with commander cupola
Ground clearance: 495 to 510 mm (1 ft 7.5 in to 1 ft 8.1 in)
Suspension: Conical spring
Fuel capacity: 720 liters (160 imp gal; 190 US gal)
Armor:
30 – 60 mm (1.2 – 2.4 in)
Performance:
Speed
- Maximum, road: 44 km/h (27.3 mph)
- Sustained, road: 38 km/h (24 mph)
- Cross country: 15 to 20 km/h (9.3 to 12.4 mph)
Operational range: 160 km (99 miles)
Power/weight: 14 PS/tonne (12.5 hp/ton)
Engine:
V-12 Maybach HL 234 gasoline engine with 900 PS (885 hp/650 kW)
Transmission:
ZF AK 7-200 with 7 forward 1 reverse gears
Armament:
1× 8,8 cm Flak 41 L/72 anti-aircraft cannon with 57 rounds in turret and hull
1× 7.92 mm Maschinengewehr 42 with 2.400 rounds, remote-controlled on the commander cupola
The kit and its assembly:
This fictional German SPAAG never existed, not even on the drawing boards. But I wondered, after ModelCollect had released an E-100 SPAAG with a twin 88mm gun some years ago, why there was no lighter vehicle with the powerful 88 mm Flak in a closed turret? There were plans to mount this weapon onto a tracked chassis in real life, but it would have been only lightly armored. Then I recently came across a whiffy aftermarket resin turret with a single 88 mm Flak, based on the Tiger II’s Porsche turret, and I liked the idea – even though the rather MBT-esque aftermarket turret looked rather dubious and too small for my taste – esp. the potential angle of the AA weapon appeared insufficient. From this basis the idea was born to create a personal interpretation of a Flak 41 in a fully enclosed turret on a tank chassis.
The basis became the Trumpeter 1:72 E-75 kit of the twin 55 mm Flak with its boxy turret. While I initially considered a totally different turret shape, I eventually settled on a generic design that would have been used for a variety of weapons. This appeared more realistic to me and so I stuck to the Rheinmetall AA turret. However, due to the heavy weapon its certainly massive mount and bulky recoil system as well as the long rounds and a crew of four, I decided to enlarge the Rheinmetall turret. The turret was cut into a front and rear half and an 8 mm wide plug, made from 1.5 mm styrene sheet, was implanted and PSRed. To keep the turret rotatable, the rear extension had to be raised, so that the “oriel” could move over the air intake fairings on the engine cover.
Due to the longer roof, some details were modified there. The most obvious addition is a commander cupola on the left, taken from an early Panzer IV, together with a MG 42 and a small shield on a swing arm, inspired by the remote-controlled installation on some Jagdpanzer 38(t) Hetzer. A stereoscopic rangefinder was added to the turret flanks and a periscope added to one of the loader’s hatches. A cover for a ventilator was added on the right side of the roof, together with a cover for a vertical grenade launcher underneath.
Using the original turret as base, the model’s movable mount for the twin 55 mm guns was retained and the rear extension would also become a good visual balance for the new main weapon. The armor at barrels’ base was cut off and a 1:72 Flak 41, taken from a Zvezda field gun kit, was glued to it, together with parts of the field gun’s recoil system and styrene bits to blend the new gun into the rest of the turret.
The E-75 chassis was taken OOB, since it would be a standardized vehicle basis. Outwardly the hull did not bear recognizable differences to the lighter E-50, which it is supposed to represent, just with more wheels to better cope with the bulky and heavy new turret.
Thankfully, this Trumpeter kit’s vinyl tracks were molded in black – sometimes they come in a sandy beige, and it’s a PITA to paint them! As another bonus, Trumpeter’s running gear on the 1:72 E-50/75 model is of a more sturdy and simpler construction than the one on the alternative ModelCollect kit(s), making the assembly and esp. the mounting of the tracks much easier. The Trumpeter kit is simpler than the comparable ModelCollect models with the E-50/75 basis, but the result is visually quite similar.
Painting and markings:
The paint scheme uses once more typical German late WWII "Hinterhalt" camouflage colors, namely Dark Yellow, Olive Green and Red Brown. This time, however, to adapt the livery to the boxy hull and the huge turret, the pattern ended up as a kind of a splinter scheme – inspired by a real Panzer V Panther from the Eastern Front in 1943.
The basic colors became Humbrol 57 (Buff) for the RAL 7028 Dunkelgelb, in this case as a rather pale (stretched?) shade, plus large areas of brown (RAL 8017, I used this time Humbrol 98 for a darker and less reddish shade) and Humbrol 86 for the green (RAL 6003), which appears quite pale in contrast to the dark brown. The camouflage was applied over an overall coat of sand brown as a primer coat, with the intention of letting this uniform basis shine through here and there. The distribution of the darker colors is quite unique, concentrating the brown on the vehicle’s edges and the green only to the flanks of hull and turret. However, the pattern works well on the huge E-50/75, and I can imagine that it might have worked well in an urban environment, breaking up the tank’s outlines.
As a match for the upper hull the wheels were painted uniformly in the same standard colors –without any pattern, because this would be very eye-catching while on the move. The many delicate tools on the tank’s hull are molded, and instead of trying to paint them I tried something else: I rubbed over them with graphite, and this worked very well, leaving them with a dark metallic shine. Just some wooden handles were then painted with a reddish brown.
Decals/marking came next, everything was procured from the scrap box. The Balkenkreuze came from a Hasegawa Sd.Kfz. 234/2 “Puma”, the tactical code from a TL-Modellbau sheet and the small unit badges on front and back from an UM Models Bergehetzer. A dry brushing treatment with light grey followed, highlighting surface details and edges, and after painting some details and adding some rust marks with watercolors followed a coat of matt varnish.
The tracks were painted with a cloudy mix of dark grey, red brown and iron acrylic paints, and mounted after hull and running gear had been assembled. The antennae, made from heated spure material, were mounted to the turret and, finally, the tank’s lower areas were dusted with a greyish-brown mineral pigment mix, simulating dust and mud residue.
This project was realized in just two days, made easy through the Trumpeter kit’s simple construction. Most work went into the extended turret and the different main weapon, but all parts mostly fell into place – and the result looks IMHO quite believable. In fact, the E-50/75 with a Flak 41 reminds a bit of the Italian Otomatic 76 mm SPAAG from the late Eighties?
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
The "Entwicklung" tank series (= "development"), more commonly known as the E-Series, was a late-World War II attempt by Germany to produce a standardized series of tank designs. There were to be six standard designs in different weight classes, from which several specialized variants were to be developed. This intended to reverse the trend of extremely complex tank designs that had resulted in poor production rates and mechanical unreliability.
The E-series designs were simpler, cheaper to produce and more efficient than their predecessors; however, their design offered only modest improvements in armor and firepower over the designs they were intended to replace, such as the Jagdpanzer 38(t), Panther Ausf. G or Tiger II. However, the resulting high degree of standardization of German armored vehicles would also have made logistics and maintenance easier. Indeed, nearly all E-series vehicles — up through and including the E-75 — were intended to use what were essentially the Tiger II's 80 cm (31½ in) diameter, steel-rimmed road wheels for their suspension, meant to overlap each other (as on the later production Tiger I-E and Panther designs that also used them), even though in a highly simplified fashion. For instance, while the E-50/75’s running gear resembled outwardly the Tiger II’s, the latter’s torsion bar suspension, which necessitated a complex hull with many openings, was replaced by very compact conical spring coil packages that each held a pair of interleaved road wheels – with the benefit that all suspension elements remained outside of the hull. This considerably simplified production and saved time as well as scarce material.
Focus of initial chassis and combat vehicle development was the E-50/75 Standardpanzer, designed by Adler. These were two mostly identical vehicles and only differed in armor thickness, overall weight and running gear design to cope with the different weights. While the E-50 was the standardized replacement for the medium PzKpfw. V “Panther” and the last operational PzKpfw. VI “Tiger”, with an operational weight of around 50 tons, the E-75 was intended to become the standard heavy tank in the 70 ton class, as a replacement for the Tiger II battle tank and the Jagdtiger SPG. They were to share many components, including the same Maybach HL 234 engine with up to 900 hp output and the drivetrain, as well as running gear elements and almost all peripheral equipment. Both E-50 and E-75 were built on the same production lines for ease of manufacture.
This universal tank chassis would, beyond the primary use for battle tanks, also become the basis for a wide range of specialized support vehicles like self-propelled artillery, assault guns, tank hunters and anti-aircraft weapon carriers, which would gradually replace and standardize the great variety of former support vehicles, dramatically optimizing maintenance and logistics.
The E-50/75 SPAAG sub-family itself was quite diversified and comprised a wide range of vehicles that mainly carried different turrets with the respective weaponry as well as air space surveillance, targeting and command equipment. The range of armament included not only guns of various calibers for short, medium and long range in armored and mostly fully enclosed turrets, there were furthermore armored launch ramps for anti-aircraft missiles, including the guided “Rheintochter”, “Wasserfall” or “Enzian” SAMs as well as batteries with unguided “Taifun” anti-aircraft missiles.
Among this new vehicle family, the heaviest gun that was carried in a fully enclosed turret was the Rheinmetall 8.8 cm Flak 41. This was an improved version of the powerful pre-war 8.8 cm Flak 36/37 that was also developed into an anti-tank gun and became the main armament for Germany’s heavy battle tanks like the Tiger I: the 8.8 cm PaK 43 and KwK 43, respectively.
The 8.8 cm Flak 41 was a mobile field weapon on a new pedestal mounting that lowered its silhouette, and it used a longer barrel and a longer 88 mm cartridge with an increased propellant load. The shells had a weight of 9.4-kilogram (20 lb) and achieved a muzzle velocity of 1,000 m/s (3,280 ft/s), giving the gun an effective ceiling of 11,300 meters (37,100 ft) and a maximum of 14,700 meters (48,200 ft). The barrel initially consisted of three sections and had a length of 74 calibers but was then redesigned to a simpler dual-section barrel with a length of 72 calibers, for easier manufacture. Improvements in reloading raised the manual firing rate, with 20 to 25 rounds a minute being quoted. The Flak 41 could also be used against ground targets and was able to penetrate about 200 mm (7.9 inches) of armor at 1,000 m (3,280 feet), allowing it to defeat the armor of any contemporary tank from a relatively safe distance. Because of the high cost and complexity of this weapon, however, Rheinmetall manufactured relatively few of them, 556 in all. 399 were fielded, the rest went into SPAAG production.
The new pedestal mounting made it easy to adapt the weapon to a vehicle, so that this formidable weapon was immediately earmarked to be combined with a tank chassis to improve its mobility. Since an SPAAG would not need the massive frontal armor of a battle tank, the hull from the lighter E-50 was used (which still had a maximum armor thickness of 60mm at the front at 30°, which was effectively 120 mm vs. the E-75’s 185 mm), but instead of the E-50 MBT’s running gear with six steel wheels per side, the Flak 41 SPAAG used the heavier E-75’s running gear with eight wheels per side and wider tracks, effectively creating a hybrid E-50/75 chassis. This measure was taken to better distribute the vehicle’s overall weight and stabilize the it while moving and firing. In this form the new vehicle received the designation Sd.Kfz. 192/3, also known as “Einheits-Flakpanzer E-50 (88 mm)” or “E-50-41” for short.
The Flak 41 was integrated into Rheinmetall’s standardized SPAAG turret that could carry a wide range of automatic anti-aircraft weapons. It was a spacious, boxy design, optimized for maximum internal space than for effective armor protection, resulting in almost vertical side walls and a high silhouette. However, the level of armor was sufficient to protect the crew and the equipment inside from 20 mm gun shells – the typical armament of Allied fighter bombers of the time like the Hawker Typhoon and Tempest.
A heavy-duty hydraulic gun mount with a reinforced recoil system allowed an elevation of the Flak 41 between +83° and -3°. As a novel feature the weapon received a semi-automatic loading mechanism. This was the attempt to increase the gun’s excellent manual rate of fire even further, and it mimicked the magazine clips of the smaller 37 mm Flak 37 that contained seven rounds for short, continuous bursts of fire. A belt feed for truly continuous fire had been envisioned, but not possible with the long and heavy 88 mm rounds within the turret and chassis limits. A mechanical magazine solution, e. g. a drum with several rounds, was impossible, too. The most practical solution was a spiral-shaped magazine, driven by simple gravitation and directly attached to the Flak 41’s breech. This feeding could – beyond an initial round already in the barrel – hold up to three more rounds, and upon firing and expelling the empty case, a fresh round automatically fell into place. The rounds from the magazine could be fired in a fully automatic mode in a short burst with a rate of 50-55 RPM. The magazine itself had to be filled manually, though, and the gun could alternatively be fed directly, too, so that different types of ammunition could be prepared and the gunner could switch between them on short notice.
To accommodate the weapon’s longer ammunition (the Flak 41’s cartridge was 855 mm long) and a crew of four (commander, gunner and two loaders), the standard Rheinmetall Flak turret had to be extended at the rear. Anti-aircraft aiming was done visually, a stereoscopic rangefinder with a span of 200 cm (78¾ in) was integrated above the gun mount. A secondary ZF.20 scope for ground targets was available, too. Two more crewmen, the driver and a radio operator, sat in the hull in front of the turret, similar to the E-50/75 battle tank’s layout. The radio operator on the right side also acted as a third loader for the ammunition supply stored in the hull’s front.
Initially, no secondary defensive armament was provided since the new SPAAGs were to be operated in specialized anti-aircraft units, the so-called Fla-Züge, in which the SPAAGs’ protection would be taken over by supporting infantry and other dedicated vehicles. However, initial field experience quickly revealed this weak spot in the vehicle’s close-range defense: due to material and personnel shortages the Fla-Züge units could hardly be equipped with everything they needed to operate as planned, so that they were in most cases just an underserved mix of SPAAGs, occasionally augmented by a command vehicle and rarely with the protection these specialized vehicles needed. Most of the time the units’ vehicles had to operate independently and were therefore left to their own devices. As a solution, a commander cupola was soon added to the Sd. Kfz.192/3’s turret that not only improved the field of view around the vehicle to assess the tactical situation and detect approaching infantrymen that tried to attach mines or throw Molotov cocktails, it also featured a remote-controlled MG 42 that could be aimed and fired by the commander from the inside. However, to re-supply the ammunition, the cupola hatch had to be opened and someone had to leave the turret’s cover and manually insert a new box of rounds. Furthermore, a 100 mm grenade launcher, a so-called “Nahverteidigungswaffe”, was mounted into the opposite side of the turret roof, too. It fired SMi 35 leaping mines for close defense against approaching infantry. This made the cramped turret interior even more cluttered, but significantly improved the vehicle’s survivability, especially in a confined, urban combat environment. Updated vehicles reached the frontline units in late 1945 and were immediately thrown into service.
Despite being a powerful weapon, several operational problems with the Sd.Kfz. 192/3 became soon apparent. The complex Flak 41 and its feeding mechanism needed constant proper maintenance and service – otherwise it easily jammed. Spent shell casing also frequently jammed the gun. The high silhouette was an innate tactical problem, but this had already been accepted during the design phase of Rheinmetall’s SPAAG standard turret. However, the tall turret was the source of an additional conceptual weakness of the Sd.Kfz. 192/3: the sheer weight of the large turret with the heavy gun frequently caused imbalances that overstressed the turret bearing and its electric drive (which had been taken over from the E-50/75 battle tanks), resulting in a jammed turret — especially when either fully loaded or when the ammunition supply was depleted. Due to the large and heavy turret, the vehicle’s center of gravity was relatively high, too, so that its off-road handling was limited. Even on paved roads the early Sd.Kfz. 192/3s tended to porpoise in tight corners and upon braking. Stiffer coil springs, introduced during the running production and retrofitted through field kits to existing vehicles, countered this flaw, even though these kits were rare due to material shortages. Sometimes the harder coil springs were distributed between two vehicles, only replacing the suspension on the front and rear pair of wheels.
A different tactical problem was the limited ammunition supply for the Flak 41. While 57 rounds were sufficient for a comparable battle tank, the semi-automatic Flak 41‘s theoretical high rate of fire meant that the Sd.Kfz. 192/3 quickly depleted this supply and could only keep up fire and its position for a very limited period, or it had to save ammunition to a point that its deployment became pointless. After spending its ammunition, the vehicle had to retreat to a safe second line position to re-supply, and this was, due to the vehicle’s limited mobility, size and the heavy and bulky rounds, a risky undertaking and meant tedious manual labor with poor protection for the supply crews. The resulting supply logistics to keep the Sd.Kfz. 192/3 operational and effective were demanding.
Nevertheless, despite these shortcoming, the Sd.Kfz. 192/3 greatly improved the heavy Flak units’ mobility and firepower, and the weapon’s effectiveness was high against both air and ground targets. Until mid-1946, a total of around forty Sd.Kfz. 192/3 were built and put into service, primarily with units that defended vital production sites in Western Germany and Saxonia.
At the time of the Sd.Kfz. 192/3’s introduction, anti-aircraft aiming was already augmented by mobile radar systems like the “Würzburg” device or special command vehicles like the Sd.Kfz. 282 “Basilisk” which combined an autonomous radar system with a powerful visual rangefinder and an integrated analogue range calculator, the Kommandogerät 40. However, fire control development had continued, and at least one Sd.Kfz. 192/3 was used in late 1946 during trials to fully automatize gun aiming and firing remotely through electric drives through “slaving” a turret to an external director. This was a modified Sd.Kfz. 282/1 that successfully controlled the Sd.Kfz. 192/3 via cable from an elevated location 50 m away from the SPAAG’s firing position. The objective of these trials was to connect several anti-aircraft weapons to a single command unit with improved sensors and high accuracy under any weather condition for concentrated and more effective fire and an improved first shot hit probability.
Specifications:
Crew: Sixe (commander, gunner, two loaders, radio operator, driver)
Weight: 64 tonnes (71 short tons)
Length: 7.27 m (23 ft 10 ¾ in) (hull only)
9.57 m (31 ft 4 ½ in) with gun forward
Width: 3.88 m (12 ft 9 in)
Height 3.46 m (11 ft 4 in)
3.81 m (12 ft 6 in) with commander cupola
Ground clearance: 495 to 510 mm (1 ft 7.5 in to 1 ft 8.1 in)
Suspension: Conical spring
Fuel capacity: 720 liters (160 imp gal; 190 US gal)
Armor:
30 – 60 mm (1.2 – 2.4 in)
Performance:
Speed
- Maximum, road: 44 km/h (27.3 mph)
- Sustained, road: 38 km/h (24 mph)
- Cross country: 15 to 20 km/h (9.3 to 12.4 mph)
Operational range: 160 km (99 miles)
Power/weight: 14 PS/tonne (12.5 hp/ton)
Engine:
V-12 Maybach HL 234 gasoline engine with 900 PS (885 hp/650 kW)
Transmission:
ZF AK 7-200 with 7 forward 1 reverse gears
Armament:
1× 8,8 cm Flak 41 L/72 anti-aircraft cannon with 57 rounds in turret and hull
1× 7.92 mm Maschinengewehr 42 with 2.400 rounds, remote-controlled on the commander cupola
The kit and its assembly:
This fictional German SPAAG never existed, not even on the drawing boards. But I wondered, after ModelCollect had released an E-100 SPAAG with a twin 88mm gun some years ago, why there was no lighter vehicle with the powerful 88 mm Flak in a closed turret? There were plans to mount this weapon onto a tracked chassis in real life, but it would have been only lightly armored. Then I recently came across a whiffy aftermarket resin turret with a single 88 mm Flak, based on the Tiger II’s Porsche turret, and I liked the idea – even though the rather MBT-esque aftermarket turret looked rather dubious and too small for my taste – esp. the potential angle of the AA weapon appeared insufficient. From this basis the idea was born to create a personal interpretation of a Flak 41 in a fully enclosed turret on a tank chassis.
The basis became the Trumpeter 1:72 E-75 kit of the twin 55 mm Flak with its boxy turret. While I initially considered a totally different turret shape, I eventually settled on a generic design that would have been used for a variety of weapons. This appeared more realistic to me and so I stuck to the Rheinmetall AA turret. However, due to the heavy weapon its certainly massive mount and bulky recoil system as well as the long rounds and a crew of four, I decided to enlarge the Rheinmetall turret. The turret was cut into a front and rear half and an 8 mm wide plug, made from 1.5 mm styrene sheet, was implanted and PSRed. To keep the turret rotatable, the rear extension had to be raised, so that the “oriel” could move over the air intake fairings on the engine cover.
Due to the longer roof, some details were modified there. The most obvious addition is a commander cupola on the left, taken from an early Panzer IV, together with a MG 42 and a small shield on a swing arm, inspired by the remote-controlled installation on some Jagdpanzer 38(t) Hetzer. A stereoscopic rangefinder was added to the turret flanks and a periscope added to one of the loader’s hatches. A cover for a ventilator was added on the right side of the roof, together with a cover for a vertical grenade launcher underneath.
Using the original turret as base, the model’s movable mount for the twin 55 mm guns was retained and the rear extension would also become a good visual balance for the new main weapon. The armor at barrels’ base was cut off and a 1:72 Flak 41, taken from a Zvezda field gun kit, was glued to it, together with parts of the field gun’s recoil system and styrene bits to blend the new gun into the rest of the turret.
The E-75 chassis was taken OOB, since it would be a standardized vehicle basis. Outwardly the hull did not bear recognizable differences to the lighter E-50, which it is supposed to represent, just with more wheels to better cope with the bulky and heavy new turret.
Thankfully, this Trumpeter kit’s vinyl tracks were molded in black – sometimes they come in a sandy beige, and it’s a PITA to paint them! As another bonus, Trumpeter’s running gear on the 1:72 E-50/75 model is of a more sturdy and simpler construction than the one on the alternative ModelCollect kit(s), making the assembly and esp. the mounting of the tracks much easier. The Trumpeter kit is simpler than the comparable ModelCollect models with the E-50/75 basis, but the result is visually quite similar.
Painting and markings:
The paint scheme uses once more typical German late WWII "Hinterhalt" camouflage colors, namely Dark Yellow, Olive Green and Red Brown. This time, however, to adapt the livery to the boxy hull and the huge turret, the pattern ended up as a kind of a splinter scheme – inspired by a real Panzer V Panther from the Eastern Front in 1943.
The basic colors became Humbrol 57 (Buff) for the RAL 7028 Dunkelgelb, in this case as a rather pale (stretched?) shade, plus large areas of brown (RAL 8017, I used this time Humbrol 98 for a darker and less reddish shade) and Humbrol 86 for the green (RAL 6003), which appears quite pale in contrast to the dark brown. The camouflage was applied over an overall coat of sand brown as a primer coat, with the intention of letting this uniform basis shine through here and there. The distribution of the darker colors is quite unique, concentrating the brown on the vehicle’s edges and the green only to the flanks of hull and turret. However, the pattern works well on the huge E-50/75, and I can imagine that it might have worked well in an urban environment, breaking up the tank’s outlines.
As a match for the upper hull the wheels were painted uniformly in the same standard colors –without any pattern, because this would be very eye-catching while on the move. The many delicate tools on the tank’s hull are molded, and instead of trying to paint them I tried something else: I rubbed over them with graphite, and this worked very well, leaving them with a dark metallic shine. Just some wooden handles were then painted with a reddish brown.
Decals/marking came next, everything was procured from the scrap box. The Balkenkreuze came from a Hasegawa Sd.Kfz. 234/2 “Puma”, the tactical code from a TL-Modellbau sheet and the small unit badges on front and back from an UM Models Bergehetzer. A dry brushing treatment with light grey followed, highlighting surface details and edges, and after painting some details and adding some rust marks with watercolors followed a coat of matt varnish.
The tracks were painted with a cloudy mix of dark grey, red brown and iron acrylic paints, and mounted after hull and running gear had been assembled. The antennae, made from heated spure material, were mounted to the turret and, finally, the tank’s lower areas were dusted with a greyish-brown mineral pigment mix, simulating dust and mud residue.
This project was realized in just two days, made easy through the Trumpeter kit’s simple construction. Most work went into the extended turret and the different main weapon, but all parts mostly fell into place – and the result looks IMHO quite believable. In fact, the E-50/75 with a Flak 41 reminds a bit of the Italian Otomatic 76 mm SPAAG from the late Eighties?
Kiev 88 mit Volna 80mm und 2x Telekonverter.
Ilford HP5+ auf ISO200 belichtet (falsche Messung mit Beli....); Entwicklung in Amaloco FM74 pull -10%
21°C 4m42s/Ag. 30sec + 1x 1Min.
Scann in Apple Photos angepasst und beschnitten
Aus der Mottenkiste ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) - Scan Ilford FP4 und Konica T mit Hexanon AR f/1.7 50mm/ Entwicklung mit Rodinal ca Aug. 1975
Köln am Abend - mein erster Film mit Push-Entwicklung: Ilford HP5 (push 1) auf ISO800
My first push development. Ilford HP5 plus (push +1) ISO800
Fuji Neopan Acros 100 in Caffenol CCM(rs) 13min Kipp-Entwicklung. Könnte aber noch bissel länger baden, die Negative sind noch ziemlich dunkel.
Fascinating Iceland - Ice blocks in the glacier lagoon Jökulsárlón
new raw processing with LR 12 and pure raw
Faszinierendes Island - Eisblöcke in der Gletscherlagune Jökulsárlón
neue raw-Entwicklung mit LR 12 und pure raw
Ganz oben im Lastenheft des neuen Astra stand neben höchster Effizienz der dynamische Sound des Fahrzeugs, und das bei ausgewiesener Laufruhe. Auch im Innenraum haben die Opel-Entwickler im Internationalen Technischen Entwicklungszentrum vorbildliche Arbeit geleistet. Mehr Details im Opel-Blog: www.opel-blog.com/?p=16468
© GM Company.
Kieselalgen sind Alleskönner: Als Hauptbestandteil des pflanzlichen Planktons sind sie wichtig für die Nahrungspyramide in den Weltmeeren. Außerdem produzieren sie einen großen Teil des Sauerstoffs in der Erdatmosphäre. Selbst als jahrtausendealte Fossilien leisten sie noch wertvolle Dienste: Die kleingemahlenen Schalen der abgestorbenen Algen, auch Kieselgur genannt, dienen als Trägermaterial für Katalysatoren in der Chemieindustrie. In den etwa drei Mikrometer großen Hohlräumen der Kieselgur sitzen 200 bis 500 Nanometer große Silberpartikel – der eigentliche Katalysator. Kieselgur hat durch ihre vielen winzigen Hohlräume im Vergleich zu ihrem Volumen eine riesige Oberfläche, an der chemische Reaktionen stattfinden können. So können Grundstoffe wie beispielsweise Epoxide hergestellt werden. Wenn aus wenig Katalysator viel Produkt wird, dann ist das Chemie, die verbindet. Von BASF.
Vergrößerung 8000:1 (bei 12 cm Bildbreite)
Abdruck honorarfrei. Copyright by BASF.
Diatoms (sometimes called brown algae) are all-rounders: as the main ingredient of plankton they are an important element of the food chain in the open ocean. They also produce a large portion of the oxygen in the Earth’s atmosphere. And even as ancient fossils they play a valuable role. The finely ground shells of these fossilized algae, also known as diatomaceous earth, are used as carriers for catalysts in the chemical industry. The approximately 3 micrometer thick cavities of the diatomaceous earth contain 200 to 500 nanometer sized silver particles – the real catalyst. Thanks to its numerous tiny cavities, diatomaceous earth has, compared with its volume, a huge surface on which chemical reactions can occur. This allows raw materials such as epoxides to be manufactured. A small amount of catalyst producing a lot of product? At BASF, we create chemistry.
Magnification 8000:1 (bei 12 cm in width)
Print free of charge. Copyright by BASF.
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
The "Entwicklung" tank series (= "development"), more commonly known as the E-Series, was a late-World War II attempt by Germany to produce a standardized series of tank designs. There were to be six standard designs in different weight classes, from which several specialized variants were to be developed. This intended to reverse the trend of extremely complex tank designs that had resulted in poor production rates and mechanical unreliability.
The E-series designs were simpler, cheaper to produce and more efficient than their predecessors; however, their design offered only modest improvements in armor and firepower over the designs they were intended to replace, such as the Jagdpanzer 38(t), Panther Ausf.G or Tiger II. However, the resulting high degree of standardization of German armored vehicles would also have made logistics and maintenance easier. Indeed, nearly all of the E-series vehicles — up through and including the E-75 — were intended to use what were essentially the Tiger II's eighty centimeter diameter, steel-rimmed road wheels for their suspension, meant to overlap each other (as on the later production Tiger I-E and Panther designs that also used them), even though in a much simplified fashion.
Focus of initial chassis and combat vehicle development was the E-50/75 Standardpanzer, designed by Adler, both being mostly identical and only differing in armor thickness, overall weight and running gear design to cope with the different weights.
The E-50 Standardpanzer was intended as a medium tank, replacing the Panther and Tiger I battle tanks and the conversions based on these older vehicles. The E-50 hull was to be longer than the Panther, and in fact it was practically identical to the Königstiger (Tiger II) in overall dimensions except for the glacis plate layout. Compared with the earlier designs, however, the amount of drilling and machining involved in producing the Standardpanzer designs was reduced drastically, which would have made them quicker, easier and cheaper to produce, as would the proposed conical spring system, replacing their predecessors' torsion bar system which required a special steel alloy.
The basis development, the E-50 Ausf. A combat tank, was to carry the narrow-mantlet 'Schmalturm' turret (originally designed for the Panther Ausf. F), coupled with a variant of the powerful KwK 43 88 mm L/71 gun, but heavier guns (a new 10,5 cm gun for both the E-50 and E-75 and the 12,8 cm caliber gun for the E-75) in bigger turrets were under development.
In service the vehicle received the inventory ordnance number "SdKfZ. 191" and was officially called "Einheitspanzer 50" (Standard tank), retaining its E-50 abbreviation. The weight of the E-50 vehicle family would fall between 50 and 75 tons. The engine was an improved Maybach HL234 with up to 900 hp output. Maximum speed was supposed to be up to 60 km/h.
The E-75 Standardpanzer (SdKfz. 192), based on the same hull, was intended to be the standard heavy tank and become the replacement of the heavy Tiger II and Jagdtiger tanks. The E-75 would have been built on the same production lines as the E-50 for ease of manufacture, and the two vehicles were to share many components, including the same Maybach HL 234 engine and running gear elements. As its name indicates, the resulting vehicle would have weighed in at over 75 tons, reducing its speed to around 40 km/h. To offset the increased weight, the bogies were spaced differently from on the E-50, with an extra pair added on each side and eight instead of six wheels plus a slightly wider track, giving the E-75 a slightly improved track to ground contact length.
The KwK 45 10,5cm gun had already started in 1943 as an answer to the heavy KV and later the IS series of Soviet combat tanks, and it was ready for service in September 1945, just in time for the deployment of the E-50/75 family of tanks. The KwK 45 was specifically designed to fit into the turret mountings of the 8.8cm KwK 43. This would enable older vehicles to be upgunned with minimum modifications; hence, the fleet could be upgraded in a shorter time and at a lower cost.
The breech used a horizontally sliding breech block for loading the fixed cartridge cases. The gun recoiled only approximately 29 cm (11.5 inch) in most applications, automatically opening the breech and ejecting the empty cartridge case as the gun returns to battery from full recoil. The cannon had a weight of 1.287 kg and was able to achieve a rate of fire of up to eight shots per minute Schuss/Minute, with an effective range of 4.000 m (2.5 mi) ). HE rounds were fired with a muzzle velocity of 1.100 m (3,600 ft ) per second and APDS rounds achieved 1.500 m (4,900 ft) per second. This was sufficient to penetrate 170 mm (6.7 in) of armor at a range of 1.800m (5,900 ft) or 280 mm (11 in) of armor with APDS rounds, respectively.
In the E-50 tank, the KwK 45 was carried by the Ausf. C variant in a voluminous Henschel turret, which was similar in outline to the earlier Königstiger heavy tank, but it was a simplified construction and had varying armor strengths for the E-50 and E-75 tanks. Instead of the initial L52 barrel, which made the KwK 45 compatible with the Schmalturm turret of the initial E-50 variants, the bigger turret of the Ausf. C allowed to add additional counterweights so that a longer caliber 60 barrel without a muzzle brake could be installed, which improved the weapon's range and hitting power further. Otherwise the E-50 Ausf. C was identical to the earlier versions. Thanks to the relatively spacious turret, a total of 64 105mm shells could be carried (typically 50% high explosive and 50% armor-piercing), plus 4.800 rounds for the secondary 7,92 MG 34s on board (32 ammunition belts with 150 round each).
In order to improve the tanks' long-range strike capability, some of the new E-50/75 battle tanks were additionally equipped with launch rails and a visual guidance system for the new Ruhrstahl X-7 anti-tank missile, unofficially nicknamed "Rotkäppchen" (Little Red Riding Hood).
The aircraft-shaped X-7 was the first operational anti-tank guided missile in history. It was created on the basis of a command of the Army Ordnance Office to Dr. Ing. Kramer and its origins dated back as far the beginning of the year 1934, but it had no high priority from official side and there were numerous problems to be eradicated. An appropriate number was built in the factory in Brackwede and handed over to the army for field-testing before the war, but the weapon initially did not receive much interest. The main version was wire-steered, but other trial versions were equipped with the automatic infrared steering system "Steinbock" (Capricorn) or with the electro-optical guidance systems "Pfeifenkopf" (Pipe bowl) and "Pinsel" (Brush) - the latter used vidicon cameras to detect the difference between the target and the background. Various guidance systems were tested, too, both for anti-aircraft and anti-tank use.
As an anti-tank weapon the small, aircraft-shaped missile could easily be transported and deployed on light vehicles, but it was also tested as an auxiliary weapon for tanks, from which it could be fired and steered from the inside with the help of an optical guidance system.
The X-7 was a compact weapon and had a length of 0,95 m (37 1/2 in), a body diameter of 150 mm (6 in), a wing span of 0,60 m (23 1/2 in). Its launch weight was about 9kg (~20 lb). It was powered by a solid fuel twin rocket engine that delivered 676 N of thrust for 3 seconds at the start for a maximum speed of 245 m/s (550 mph; 476 kn; 880 km/h) and sustained 55 N for another 8 seconds, achieving a cruise speed of 100 m/s. The missile carried a 2.5 kg (5.5 lb) hollow charge, triggered with an impact fuze, that could penetrate more than 200 mm (7.9 in) of armor at a 30° angle.
For the use on board of tanks, the X-7 was carried on special launch rigs which could be easily attached to turrets or casemate hulls. Typically, two of the missiles were carried, ready to launch. The optical guidance system was based on the ZG 1229 "Vampir" infrared night vision system - but for the X-7 guidance, the device had been modified into a periscope that was mounted on the roof of the gunner's station, so that the missile could be fired and guided in the safety of the armored turret.
However, initial field tests in early 1946 revealed that the X-7 hardly offered any benefit when compared with the heavy German cannon. The potential benefit of a dive attack on a tank target, which would reduce the relative armor strength of the target or hit the weaker upper armor of such a target, was only theoretical because aiming and guiding the missile even at a direct course was not easy. A ballistic flight path was possible, but under combat conditions unrealistic. Furthermore, the missiles unprotected storage made them highly vulnerable against enemy fire, and many were lost early because the fell off of the launch racks or were simply ripped away when the tank moved through obstacles like trees or ruins. An internal storage of the weapon in a tank was also impossible. Therefore, the X-7 was soon banned from battle tanks and either mounted on light, unarmored vehicles, which could more easily employ "hit-and-run" tactics, or the light missiles were carried by two man teams for ambushes. In mid-1946, trials to fire the X-7 from a Flettner Fl 282 Kolibri helicopter ensued.
Specifications:
Crew: Five (commander, gunner, loader, radio operator, driver)
Weight: 54 tonnes (60 short tons)
Length: 7.27 metres (23 ft 8 in) (hull only)
9.36 metres (30 ft 8 in) incl. gun
Width: 3.88 metres (12 ft 9 in)
Height 3.35 metres (11 ft)
Ground clearance: 495 to 510 mm (1 ft 7.5 in to 1 ft 8.1 in)
Suspension: Conical spring
Fuel capacity: 720 litres (160 imp gal; 190 US gal)
Armor:
30–120 mm (1.2 – 4.7 in)
Performance:
Speed
- Maximum, road: 44 km/h (27.3 mph)
- Sustained, road: 38 km/h (24 mph)
- Cross country: 15 to 20 km/h (9.3 to 12.4 mph)
Operational range: 160 km (99 miles)
Power/weight: 16,67 PS/tonne (14,75 hp/ton)
Engine:
V-12 Maybach HL 234 gasoline engine with 900 PS (885 hp/650 kW)
Transmission:
ZF AK 7-200 with 7 forward 1 reverse gears
Armament:
1× 10,5 cm KwK 45 L/60 with 64 rounds
2× 7.92 mm Maschinengewehr 34 with a total of 5.200 rounds (one mounted co-axially with
the main gun and an optional AA gun on the commander's cupola)
2× X-7 "Rotkäppchen" anti-tank missile launch rails on some vehicles
The kit and its assembly:
Another Heer '46 model, and again one of the many 1:72 Modelcollect kits. Even though I rather have a knack for exotic vehicles I thought that a relatively simple battle tank could not hurt in the collection - but I still had an idea how to add a personal touch and take the basic idea further.
This came when I remembered the small X-7 missile, and wondered if that could not have been used from 1945 onwards - e.g. as an additional stand-off weapon for tanks like the post-war AS.12 in France - the light AMX-13 tank could carry four of these above the gun on its oscillating turret. And that made me wonder if and how the German missile could find its way on a battle tank?
In an initial step I scratched a pair of X-7s from bombs and styrene profile material - they look a little clumsy and they became actually too large for authentic 1:72 scale, but their outlines turned out well. Using them as benchmarks I checked different tank kits and eventually settled for an E-50 with the large Tiger-II-style Henschel turret. This offered a good size and height to mount the two missiles in racks on the turret's flanks - these are scratched from styrene profile material, too. Otherwise the kit remained OOB, I just used the kit's night vision device and some material from the scrap box to create an optical guidance gear, mounted on the turret in front of the gunner's hatch.
The E-50 kit goes together well, just some light PSR is necessary at the turret's base. This version of the kit also came with a surplus Schmalturm sprue and it did not come with vinyl tracks, like some former kits from this series that I have built, but rather with molded single track elements. I am not a fan of these, at least in 1:72 scale, and mounting these small bits was a tedious affair that took a whole day. The low mud guards hampered the process further.
Painting and markings:
The paint scheme is a variation of the classic German "Hinterhalt" camouflage, consisting of Dark Yellow, Olive Green and Red Brown. However, the pattern is a little special, because I wanted to recreate the original concept of the scheme, the ideal “factory finish”. It was intended to apply the green and brown contrast colors on top of the dark yellow in the form of overlapping small, round dots of uniform size, applied with a gauge, that let the light color shine though here and there – plus small contrast speckles added to the dark yellow. A really complex camouflage pattern, but quite effective, because it mimicked well the fractal shadows under a tree, disrupting a vehicle’s silhouette.
In real life, however, only a few tanks had been painted this way around August 1944 in the factories (I have seen Panther, Hetzer, Jagdpanzer IV/L70 and a Sturmtiger, sometimes only partly, finished in this fashion), because the application was tedious and time-consuming. Eventually, the tanks were delivered to the frontline troops in a uniform dark yellow finish, together with the green and brown as thick pastes which were to be applied individually by the crew, depending on the local needs and with whatever was at hand.
I order to mimic the original Hinterhalt scheme’s look I initially gave the model an overall coat with RAL 8001 “Grünbraun” as primer and then added 7028 "Dunkelgelb" (Modelmaster) with a wide, flat brush, creating a cloudy finish. Once dry I used two self-made stamps for the application of the red brown (Humbrol 160) and the green (RAL 6003 from Modelmaster). The stamps were made from fine expanded rubber, die-punched into circles of 3 and 4mm diameter and then glued on top of sticks with superglue. Very simple, but worked like a charm!
Adding all the circles one by one was another tedious task, esp. on uneven underground and around corners. Once this basic painting was done, the kit received an overall wash with a mix of black and red brown acrylic paint. Next came the decal application; the crosses and the “kill marks” for the barrel were taken from the OOB sheet, the red tactical code and the small unit badges were taken from a TL Modellbau aftermarket sheet. Next came a light dry brushing treatment with beige and light grey, highlighting surface details and edges. After painting some details and adding some rust marks came a coat of matt varnish (from the rattle can), the tracks were finally mounted and the lower area of the tank received a treatment with a greyish-brown pigment mix, simulating dust and mud residue.
A relatively simple project, done in four days from which one day was spent with the camouflage and another one with the fiddly tracks. Creating the small X-7 missiles from scratch was tricky, too. Nevertheless, I think the effort was worthwhile, since the addition of the missiles and their racks give the otherwise simple battle tank a special touch and some Heer '46 futurism. After all, it’s a what-if model. The complex camouflage also looks good, and it demonstrates how effective the original concept of the Hinterhalt scheme actually was, had it been applied properly. I might re-apply the concept on a mecha model in the future – probably with different colors, though.
Am Tag der Einheit 2016, ein Bild aus meinem analogen Grenzarchiv.
----
Pentax ME super, Pentax SMC 1:4/200 mm, Ilford FP4, Ilford Microphen 1:1 einmal Entwicklung.
mit dem Camino TI durch das Weinviertel,
Kodak UltraMax 400@200
Leica M6 + 3,5 3,5 Summaron M39
Entwicklung/Scan Foto Fayer Wien 1
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
The "Entwicklung" tank series (= "development"), more commonly known as the E-Series, was a late-World War II attempt by Germany to produce a standardized series of tank designs. There were to be six standard designs in different weight classes, from which several specialized variants were to be developed. This intended to reverse the trend of extremely complex tank designs that had resulted in poor production rates and mechanical unreliability.
The E-series designs were simpler, cheaper to produce and more efficient than their predecessors; however, their design offered only modest improvements in armor and firepower over the designs they were intended to replace, such as the Jagdpanzer 38(t), Panther Ausf.G or Tiger II. However, the resulting high degree of standardization of German armored vehicles would also have made logistics and maintenance easier. Indeed, nearly all of the E-series vehicles — up through and including the E-75 — were intended to use what were essentially the Tiger II's eighty centimeter diameter, steel-rimmed road wheels for their suspension, meant to overlap each other (as on the later production Tiger I-E and Panther designs that also used them), even though in a much simplified fashion.
Focus of initial chassis and combat vehicle development was the E-50/75 Standardpanzer, designed by Adler, both being mostly identical and only differing in armor thickness, overall weight and running gear design to cope with the different weights.
The E-50 Standardpanzer was intended as a medium tank, replacing the Panther and Tiger I battle tanks and the conversions based on these older vehicles. The E-50 hull was to be longer than the Panther, and in fact it was practically identical to the Königstiger (Tiger II) in overall dimensions except for the glacis plate layout. Compared with the earlier designs, however, the amount of drilling and machining involved in producing the Standardpanzer designs was reduced drastically, which would have made them quicker, easier and cheaper to produce, as would the proposed conical spring system, replacing their predecessors' torsion bar system which required a special steel alloy.
The basis development, the E-50 Ausf. A combat tank, was to carry the narrow-mantlet 'Schmalturm' turret (originally designed for the Panther Ausf. F), coupled with a variant of the powerful KwK 43 88 mm L/71 gun, but heavier guns (a new 10,5 cm gun for both the E-50 and E-75 and the 12,8 cm caliber gun for the E-75) in bigger turrets were under development.
In service the vehicle received the inventory ordnance number "SdKfZ. 191" and was officially called "Einheitspanzer 50" (Standard tank), retaining its E-50 abbreviation. The weight of the E-50 vehicle family would fall between 50 and 75 tons. The engine was an improved Maybach HL234 with up to 900 hp output. Maximum speed was supposed to be up to 60 km/h.
The E-75 Standardpanzer (SdKfz. 192), based on the same hull, was intended to be the standard heavy tank and become the replacement of the heavy Tiger II and Jagdtiger tanks. The E-75 would have been built on the same production lines as the E-50 for ease of manufacture, and the two vehicles were to share many components, including the same Maybach HL 234 engine and running gear elements. As its name indicates, the resulting vehicle would have weighed in at over 75 tons, reducing its speed to around 40 km/h. To offset the increased weight, the bogies were spaced differently from on the E-50, with an extra pair added on each side and eight instead of six wheels plus a slightly wider track, giving the E-75 a slightly improved track to ground contact length.
The KwK 45 10,5cm gun had already started in 1943 as an answer to the heavy KV and later the IS series of Soviet combat tanks, and it was ready for service in September 1945, just in time for the deployment of the E-50/75 family of tanks. The KwK 45 was specifically designed to fit into the turret mountings of the 8.8cm KwK 43. This would enable older vehicles to be upgunned with minimum modifications; hence, the fleet could be upgraded in a shorter time and at a lower cost.
The breech used a horizontally sliding breech block for loading the fixed cartridge cases. The gun recoiled only approximately 29 cm (11.5 inch) in most applications, automatically opening the breech and ejecting the empty cartridge case as the gun returns to battery from full recoil. The cannon had a weight of 1.287 kg and was able to achieve a rate of fire of up to eight shots per minute Schuss/Minute, with an effective range of 4.000 m (2.5 mi) ). HE rounds were fired with a muzzle velocity of 1.100 m (3,600 ft ) per second and APDS rounds achieved 1.500 m (4,900 ft) per second. This was sufficient to penetrate 170 mm (6.7 in) of armor at a range of 1.800m (5,900 ft) or 280 mm (11 in) of armor with APDS rounds, respectively.
In the E-50 tank, the KwK 45 was carried by the Ausf. C variant in a voluminous Henschel turret, which was similar in outline to the earlier Königstiger heavy tank, but it was a simplified construction and had varying armor strengths for the E-50 and E-75 tanks. Instead of the initial L52 barrel, which made the KwK 45 compatible with the Schmalturm turret of the initial E-50 variants, the bigger turret of the Ausf. C allowed to add additional counterweights so that a longer caliber 60 barrel without a muzzle brake could be installed, which improved the weapon's range and hitting power further. Otherwise the E-50 Ausf. C was identical to the earlier versions. Thanks to the relatively spacious turret, a total of 64 105mm shells could be carried (typically 50% high explosive and 50% armor-piercing), plus 4.800 rounds for the secondary 7,92 MG 34s on board (32 ammunition belts with 150 round each).
In order to improve the tanks' long-range strike capability, some of the new E-50/75 battle tanks were additionally equipped with launch rails and a visual guidance system for the new Ruhrstahl X-7 anti-tank missile, unofficially nicknamed "Rotkäppchen" (Little Red Riding Hood).
The aircraft-shaped X-7 was the first operational anti-tank guided missile in history. It was created on the basis of a command of the Army Ordnance Office to Dr. Ing. Kramer and its origins dated back as far the beginning of the year 1934, but it had no high priority from official side and there were numerous problems to be eradicated. An appropriate number was built in the factory in Brackwede and handed over to the army for field-testing before the war, but the weapon initially did not receive much interest. The main version was wire-steered, but other trial versions were equipped with the automatic infrared steering system "Steinbock" (Capricorn) or with the electro-optical guidance systems "Pfeifenkopf" (Pipe bowl) and "Pinsel" (Brush) - the latter used vidicon cameras to detect the difference between the target and the background. Various guidance systems were tested, too, both for anti-aircraft and anti-tank use.
As an anti-tank weapon the small, aircraft-shaped missile could easily be transported and deployed on light vehicles, but it was also tested as an auxiliary weapon for tanks, from which it could be fired and steered from the inside with the help of an optical guidance system.
The X-7 was a compact weapon and had a length of 0,95 m (37 1/2 in), a body diameter of 150 mm (6 in), a wing span of 0,60 m (23 1/2 in). Its launch weight was about 9kg (~20 lb). It was powered by a solid fuel twin rocket engine that delivered 676 N of thrust for 3 seconds at the start for a maximum speed of 245 m/s (550 mph; 476 kn; 880 km/h) and sustained 55 N for another 8 seconds, achieving a cruise speed of 100 m/s. The missile carried a 2.5 kg (5.5 lb) hollow charge, triggered with an impact fuze, that could penetrate more than 200 mm (7.9 in) of armor at a 30° angle.
For the use on board of tanks, the X-7 was carried on special launch rigs which could be easily attached to turrets or casemate hulls. Typically, two of the missiles were carried, ready to launch. The optical guidance system was based on the ZG 1229 "Vampir" infrared night vision system - but for the X-7 guidance, the device had been modified into a periscope that was mounted on the roof of the gunner's station, so that the missile could be fired and guided in the safety of the armored turret.
However, initial field tests in early 1946 revealed that the X-7 hardly offered any benefit when compared with the heavy German cannon. The potential benefit of a dive attack on a tank target, which would reduce the relative armor strength of the target or hit the weaker upper armor of such a target, was only theoretical because aiming and guiding the missile even at a direct course was not easy. A ballistic flight path was possible, but under combat conditions unrealistic. Furthermore, the missiles unprotected storage made them highly vulnerable against enemy fire, and many were lost early because the fell off of the launch racks or were simply ripped away when the tank moved through obstacles like trees or ruins. An internal storage of the weapon in a tank was also impossible. Therefore, the X-7 was soon banned from battle tanks and either mounted on light, unarmored vehicles, which could more easily employ "hit-and-run" tactics, or the light missiles were carried by two man teams for ambushes. In mid-1946, trials to fire the X-7 from a Flettner Fl 282 Kolibri helicopter ensued.
Specifications:
Crew: Five (commander, gunner, loader, radio operator, driver)
Weight: 54 tonnes (60 short tons)
Length: 7.27 metres (23 ft 8 in) (hull only)
9.36 metres (30 ft 8 in) incl. gun
Width: 3.88 metres (12 ft 9 in)
Height 3.35 metres (11 ft)
Ground clearance: 495 to 510 mm (1 ft 7.5 in to 1 ft 8.1 in)
Suspension: Conical spring
Fuel capacity: 720 litres (160 imp gal; 190 US gal)
Armor:
30–120 mm (1.2 – 4.7 in)
Performance:
Speed
- Maximum, road: 44 km/h (27.3 mph)
- Sustained, road: 38 km/h (24 mph)
- Cross country: 15 to 20 km/h (9.3 to 12.4 mph)
Operational range: 160 km (99 miles)
Power/weight: 16,67 PS/tonne (14,75 hp/ton)
Engine:
V-12 Maybach HL 234 gasoline engine with 900 PS (885 hp/650 kW)
Transmission:
ZF AK 7-200 with 7 forward 1 reverse gears
Armament:
1× 10,5 cm KwK 45 L/60 with 64 rounds
2× 7.92 mm Maschinengewehr 34 with a total of 5.200 rounds (one mounted co-axially with
the main gun and an optional AA gun on the commander's cupola)
2× X-7 "Rotkäppchen" anti-tank missile launch rails on some vehicles
The kit and its assembly:
Another Heer '46 model, and again one of the many 1:72 Modelcollect kits. Even though I rather have a knack for exotic vehicles I thought that a relatively simple battle tank could not hurt in the collection - but I still had an idea how to add a personal touch and take the basic idea further.
This came when I remembered the small X-7 missile, and wondered if that could not have been used from 1945 onwards - e.g. as an additional stand-off weapon for tanks like the post-war AS.12 in France - the light AMX-13 tank could carry four of these above the gun on its oscillating turret. And that made me wonder if and how the German missile could find its way on a battle tank?
In an initial step I scratched a pair of X-7s from bombs and styrene profile material - they look a little clumsy and they became actually too large for authentic 1:72 scale, but their outlines turned out well. Using them as benchmarks I checked different tank kits and eventually settled for an E-50 with the large Tiger-II-style Henschel turret. This offered a good size and height to mount the two missiles in racks on the turret's flanks - these are scratched from styrene profile material, too. Otherwise the kit remained OOB, I just used the kit's night vision device and some material from the scrap box to create an optical guidance gear, mounted on the turret in front of the gunner's hatch.
The E-50 kit goes together well, just some light PSR is necessary at the turret's base. This version of the kit also came with a surplus Schmalturm sprue and it did not come with vinyl tracks, like some former kits from this series that I have built, but rather with molded single track elements. I am not a fan of these, at least in 1:72 scale, and mounting these small bits was a tedious affair that took a whole day. The low mud guards hampered the process further.
Painting and markings:
The paint scheme is a variation of the classic German "Hinterhalt" camouflage, consisting of Dark Yellow, Olive Green and Red Brown. However, the pattern is a little special, because I wanted to recreate the original concept of the scheme, the ideal “factory finish”. It was intended to apply the green and brown contrast colors on top of the dark yellow in the form of overlapping small, round dots of uniform size, applied with a gauge, that let the light color shine though here and there – plus small contrast speckles added to the dark yellow. A really complex camouflage pattern, but quite effective, because it mimicked well the fractal shadows under a tree, disrupting a vehicle’s silhouette.
In real life, however, only a few tanks had been painted this way around August 1944 in the factories (I have seen Panther, Hetzer, Jagdpanzer IV/L70 and a Sturmtiger, sometimes only partly, finished in this fashion), because the application was tedious and time-consuming. Eventually, the tanks were delivered to the frontline troops in a uniform dark yellow finish, together with the green and brown as thick pastes which were to be applied individually by the crew, depending on the local needs and with whatever was at hand.
I order to mimic the original Hinterhalt scheme’s look I initially gave the model an overall coat with RAL 8001 “Grünbraun” as primer and then added 7028 "Dunkelgelb" (Modelmaster) with a wide, flat brush, creating a cloudy finish. Once dry I used two self-made stamps for the application of the red brown (Humbrol 160) and the green (RAL 6003 from Modelmaster). The stamps were made from fine expanded rubber, die-punched into circles of 3 and 4mm diameter and then glued on top of sticks with superglue. Very simple, but worked like a charm!
Adding all the circles one by one was another tedious task, esp. on uneven underground and around corners. Once this basic painting was done, the kit received an overall wash with a mix of black and red brown acrylic paint. Next came the decal application; the crosses and the “kill marks” for the barrel were taken from the OOB sheet, the red tactical code and the small unit badges were taken from a TL Modellbau aftermarket sheet. Next came a light dry brushing treatment with beige and light grey, highlighting surface details and edges. After painting some details and adding some rust marks came a coat of matt varnish (from the rattle can), the tracks were finally mounted and the lower area of the tank received a treatment with a greyish-brown pigment mix, simulating dust and mud residue.
A relatively simple project, done in four days from which one day was spent with the camouflage and another one with the fiddly tracks. Creating the small X-7 missiles from scratch was tricky, too. Nevertheless, I think the effort was worthwhile, since the addition of the missiles and their racks give the otherwise simple battle tank a special touch and some Heer '46 futurism. After all, it’s a what-if model. The complex camouflage also looks good, and it demonstrates how effective the original concept of the Hinterhalt scheme actually was, had it been applied properly. I might re-apply the concept on a mecha model in the future – probably with different colors, though.
Nepenthes Neufvilliana ist eine fleischfressende Pflanze aus der Gattung Kannenpflanzen (Nepenthes). Sie wurde 1837 vom spanischen Botaniker Francisco Manuel Blanco erstbeschrieben.
Aufnahme: Botanischer Garten Gießen
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
The "Entwicklung" tank series (= "development"), more commonly known as the E-Series, was a late-World War II attempt by Germany to produce a standardized series of tank designs. There were to be six standard designs in different weight classes, from which several specialized variants were to be developed. This intended to reverse the trend of extremely complex tank designs that had resulted in poor production rates and mechanical unreliability.
The E-series designs were simpler, cheaper to produce and more efficient than their predecessors; however, their design offered only modest improvements in armor and firepower over the designs they were intended to replace, such as the Jagdpanzer 38(t), Panther Ausf.G or Tiger II. However, the resulting high degree of standardization of German armored vehicles would also have made logistics and maintenance easier. Indeed, nearly all of the E-series vehicles — up through and including the E-75 — were intended to use what were essentially the Tiger II's eighty centimeter diameter, steel-rimmed road wheels for their suspension, meant to overlap each other (as on the later production Tiger I-E and Panther designs that also used them), even though in a much simplified fashion.
Focus of initial chassis and combat vehicle development was the E-50/75 Standardpanzer, designed by Adler, both being mostly identical and only differing in armor thickness, overall weight and running gear design to cope with the different weights.
The E-50 Standardpanzer was intended as a medium tank, replacing the Panther and Tiger I battle tanks and the conversions based on these older vehicles. The E-50 hull was to be longer than the Panther, and in fact it was practically identical to the Königstiger (Tiger II) in overall dimensions except for the glacis plate layout. Compared with the earlier designs, however, the amount of drilling and machining involved in producing the Standardpanzer designs was reduced drastically, which would have made them quicker, easier and cheaper to produce, as would the proposed conical spring system, replacing their predecessors' torsion bar system which required a special steel alloy.
The basis development, the E-50 Ausf. A combat tank, was to carry the narrow-mantlet 'Schmalturm' turret (originally designed for the Panther Ausf. F), coupled with a variant of the powerful KwK 43 88 mm L/71 gun, but heavier guns (a new 10,5 cm gun for both the E-50 and E-75 and the 12,8 cm caliber gun for the E-75) in bigger turrets were under development.
In service the vehicle received the inventory ordnance number "SdKfZ. 191" and was officially called "Einheitspanzer 50" (Standard tank), retaining its E-50 abbreviation. The weight of the E-50 vehicle family would fall between 50 and 75 tons. The engine was an improved Maybach HL234 with up to 900 hp output. Maximum speed was supposed to be up to 60 km/h.
The E-75 Standardpanzer (SdKfz. 192), based on the same hull, was intended to be the standard heavy tank and become the replacement of the heavy Tiger II and Jagdtiger tanks. The E-75 would have been built on the same production lines as the E-50 for ease of manufacture, and the two vehicles were to share many components, including the same Maybach HL 234 engine and running gear elements. As its name indicates, the resulting vehicle would have weighed in at over 75 tons, reducing its speed to around 40 km/h. To offset the increased weight, the bogies were spaced differently from on the E-50, with an extra pair added on each side and eight instead of six wheels plus a slightly wider track, giving the E-75 a slightly improved track to ground contact length.
The KwK 45 10,5cm gun had already started in 1943 as an answer to the heavy KV and later the IS series of Soviet combat tanks, and it was ready for service in September 1945, just in time for the deployment of the E-50/75 family of tanks. The KwK 45 was specifically designed to fit into the turret mountings of the 8.8cm KwK 43. This would enable older vehicles to be upgunned with minimum modifications; hence, the fleet could be upgraded in a shorter time and at a lower cost.
The breech used a horizontally sliding breech block for loading the fixed cartridge cases. The gun recoiled only approximately 29 cm (11.5 inch) in most applications, automatically opening the breech and ejecting the empty cartridge case as the gun returns to battery from full recoil. The cannon had a weight of 1.287 kg and was able to achieve a rate of fire of up to eight shots per minute Schuss/Minute, with an effective range of 4.000 m (2.5 mi) ). HE rounds were fired with a muzzle velocity of 1.100 m (3,600 ft ) per second and APDS rounds achieved 1.500 m (4,900 ft) per second. This was sufficient to penetrate 170 mm (6.7 in) of armor at a range of 1.800m (5,900 ft) or 280 mm (11 in) of armor with APDS rounds, respectively.
In the E-50 tank, the KwK 45 was carried by the Ausf. C variant in a voluminous Henschel turret, which was similar in outline to the earlier Königstiger heavy tank, but it was a simplified construction and had varying armor strengths for the E-50 and E-75 tanks. Instead of the initial L52 barrel, which made the KwK 45 compatible with the Schmalturm turret of the initial E-50 variants, the bigger turret of the Ausf. C allowed to add additional counterweights so that a longer caliber 60 barrel without a muzzle brake could be installed, which improved the weapon's range and hitting power further. Otherwise the E-50 Ausf. C was identical to the earlier versions. Thanks to the relatively spacious turret, a total of 64 105mm shells could be carried (typically 50% high explosive and 50% armor-piercing), plus 4.800 rounds for the secondary 7,92 MG 34s on board (32 ammunition belts with 150 round each).
In order to improve the tanks' long-range strike capability, some of the new E-50/75 battle tanks were additionally equipped with launch rails and a visual guidance system for the new Ruhrstahl X-7 anti-tank missile, unofficially nicknamed "Rotkäppchen" (Little Red Riding Hood).
The aircraft-shaped X-7 was the first operational anti-tank guided missile in history. It was created on the basis of a command of the Army Ordnance Office to Dr. Ing. Kramer and its origins dated back as far the beginning of the year 1934, but it had no high priority from official side and there were numerous problems to be eradicated. An appropriate number was built in the factory in Brackwede and handed over to the army for field-testing before the war, but the weapon initially did not receive much interest. The main version was wire-steered, but other trial versions were equipped with the automatic infrared steering system "Steinbock" (Capricorn) or with the electro-optical guidance systems "Pfeifenkopf" (Pipe bowl) and "Pinsel" (Brush) - the latter used vidicon cameras to detect the difference between the target and the background. Various guidance systems were tested, too, both for anti-aircraft and anti-tank use.
As an anti-tank weapon the small, aircraft-shaped missile could easily be transported and deployed on light vehicles, but it was also tested as an auxiliary weapon for tanks, from which it could be fired and steered from the inside with the help of an optical guidance system.
The X-7 was a compact weapon and had a length of 0,95 m (37 1/2 in), a body diameter of 150 mm (6 in), a wing span of 0,60 m (23 1/2 in). Its launch weight was about 9kg (~20 lb). It was powered by a solid fuel twin rocket engine that delivered 676 N of thrust for 3 seconds at the start for a maximum speed of 245 m/s (550 mph; 476 kn; 880 km/h) and sustained 55 N for another 8 seconds, achieving a cruise speed of 100 m/s. The missile carried a 2.5 kg (5.5 lb) hollow charge, triggered with an impact fuze, that could penetrate more than 200 mm (7.9 in) of armor at a 30° angle.
For the use on board of tanks, the X-7 was carried on special launch rigs which could be easily attached to turrets or casemate hulls. Typically, two of the missiles were carried, ready to launch. The optical guidance system was based on the ZG 1229 "Vampir" infrared night vision system - but for the X-7 guidance, the device had been modified into a periscope that was mounted on the roof of the gunner's station, so that the missile could be fired and guided in the safety of the armored turret.
However, initial field tests in early 1946 revealed that the X-7 hardly offered any benefit when compared with the heavy German cannon. The potential benefit of a dive attack on a tank target, which would reduce the relative armor strength of the target or hit the weaker upper armor of such a target, was only theoretical because aiming and guiding the missile even at a direct course was not easy. A ballistic flight path was possible, but under combat conditions unrealistic. Furthermore, the missiles unprotected storage made them highly vulnerable against enemy fire, and many were lost early because the fell off of the launch racks or were simply ripped away when the tank moved through obstacles like trees or ruins. An internal storage of the weapon in a tank was also impossible. Therefore, the X-7 was soon banned from battle tanks and either mounted on light, unarmored vehicles, which could more easily employ "hit-and-run" tactics, or the light missiles were carried by two man teams for ambushes. In mid-1946, trials to fire the X-7 from a Flettner Fl 282 Kolibri helicopter ensued.
Specifications:
Crew: Five (commander, gunner, loader, radio operator, driver)
Weight: 54 tonnes (60 short tons)
Length: 7.27 metres (23 ft 8 in) (hull only)
9.36 metres (30 ft 8 in) incl. gun
Width: 3.88 metres (12 ft 9 in)
Height 3.35 metres (11 ft)
Ground clearance: 495 to 510 mm (1 ft 7.5 in to 1 ft 8.1 in)
Suspension: Conical spring
Fuel capacity: 720 litres (160 imp gal; 190 US gal)
Armor:
30–120 mm (1.2 – 4.7 in)
Performance:
Speed
- Maximum, road: 44 km/h (27.3 mph)
- Sustained, road: 38 km/h (24 mph)
- Cross country: 15 to 20 km/h (9.3 to 12.4 mph)
Operational range: 160 km (99 miles)
Power/weight: 16,67 PS/tonne (14,75 hp/ton)
Engine:
V-12 Maybach HL 234 gasoline engine with 900 PS (885 hp/650 kW)
Transmission:
ZF AK 7-200 with 7 forward 1 reverse gears
Armament:
1× 10,5 cm KwK 45 L/60 with 64 rounds
2× 7.92 mm Maschinengewehr 34 with a total of 5.200 rounds (one mounted co-axially with
the main gun and an optional AA gun on the commander's cupola)
2× X-7 "Rotkäppchen" anti-tank missile launch rails on some vehicles
The kit and its assembly:
Another Heer '46 model, and again one of the many 1:72 Modelcollect kits. Even though I rather have a knack for exotic vehicles I thought that a relatively simple battle tank could not hurt in the collection - but I still had an idea how to add a personal touch and take the basic idea further.
This came when I remembered the small X-7 missile, and wondered if that could not have been used from 1945 onwards - e.g. as an additional stand-off weapon for tanks like the post-war AS.12 in France - the light AMX-13 tank could carry four of these above the gun on its oscillating turret. And that made me wonder if and how the German missile could find its way on a battle tank?
In an initial step I scratched a pair of X-7s from bombs and styrene profile material - they look a little clumsy and they became actually too large for authentic 1:72 scale, but their outlines turned out well. Using them as benchmarks I checked different tank kits and eventually settled for an E-50 with the large Tiger-II-style Henschel turret. This offered a good size and height to mount the two missiles in racks on the turret's flanks - these are scratched from styrene profile material, too. Otherwise the kit remained OOB, I just used the kit's night vision device and some material from the scrap box to create an optical guidance gear, mounted on the turret in front of the gunner's hatch.
The E-50 kit goes together well, just some light PSR is necessary at the turret's base. This version of the kit also came with a surplus Schmalturm sprue and it did not come with vinyl tracks, like some former kits from this series that I have built, but rather with molded single track elements. I am not a fan of these, at least in 1:72 scale, and mounting these small bits was a tedious affair that took a whole day. The low mud guards hampered the process further.
Painting and markings:
The paint scheme is a variation of the classic German "Hinterhalt" camouflage, consisting of Dark Yellow, Olive Green and Red Brown. However, the pattern is a little special, because I wanted to recreate the original concept of the scheme, the ideal “factory finish”. It was intended to apply the green and brown contrast colors on top of the dark yellow in the form of overlapping small, round dots of uniform size, applied with a gauge, that let the light color shine though here and there – plus small contrast speckles added to the dark yellow. A really complex camouflage pattern, but quite effective, because it mimicked well the fractal shadows under a tree, disrupting a vehicle’s silhouette.
In real life, however, only a few tanks had been painted this way around August 1944 in the factories (I have seen Panther, Hetzer, Jagdpanzer IV/L70 and a Sturmtiger, sometimes only partly, finished in this fashion), because the application was tedious and time-consuming. Eventually, the tanks were delivered to the frontline troops in a uniform dark yellow finish, together with the green and brown as thick pastes which were to be applied individually by the crew, depending on the local needs and with whatever was at hand.
I order to mimic the original Hinterhalt scheme’s look I initially gave the model an overall coat with RAL 8001 “Grünbraun” as primer and then added 7028 "Dunkelgelb" (Modelmaster) with a wide, flat brush, creating a cloudy finish. Once dry I used two self-made stamps for the application of the red brown (Humbrol 160) and the green (RAL 6003 from Modelmaster). The stamps were made from fine expanded rubber, die-punched into circles of 3 and 4mm diameter and then glued on top of sticks with superglue. Very simple, but worked like a charm!
Adding all the circles one by one was another tedious task, esp. on uneven underground and around corners. Once this basic painting was done, the kit received an overall wash with a mix of black and red brown acrylic paint. Next came the decal application; the crosses and the “kill marks” for the barrel were taken from the OOB sheet, the red tactical code and the small unit badges were taken from a TL Modellbau aftermarket sheet. Next came a light dry brushing treatment with beige and light grey, highlighting surface details and edges. After painting some details and adding some rust marks came a coat of matt varnish (from the rattle can), the tracks were finally mounted and the lower area of the tank received a treatment with a greyish-brown pigment mix, simulating dust and mud residue.
A relatively simple project, done in four days from which one day was spent with the camouflage and another one with the fiddly tracks. Creating the small X-7 missiles from scratch was tricky, too. Nevertheless, I think the effort was worthwhile, since the addition of the missiles and their racks give the otherwise simple battle tank a special touch and some Heer '46 futurism. After all, it’s a what-if model. The complex camouflage also looks good, and it demonstrates how effective the original concept of the Hinterhalt scheme actually was, had it been applied properly. I might re-apply the concept on a mecha model in the future – probably with different colors, though.