january/february 1996 • 9 politically-correct readers may...

January/February 1996 • 9

olitically-correct readers maywonder what what the heck

an article on tanks is doing ina publication nominally dedi-cated to Porsche. They shouldremind themselves thatExcellence is the “MagazineAbout Porsche Cars.” DerSprecher is dedicated to allthings Porsche. This “dark

Pchapter” in the marque’s history is rarely cov-ered in the more mainstream publications.Porsche Panzerkampfwagens (PzKpfws;armored fighting vehicles)—at once fearsomein their capabilities and comical in their limita-tions—provide a fascinating counterpoint to thefleet and nimble sports cars manufactured bythe company after the war. One can admirethem while still deploring their purpose, muchas one can admire a Porsche sports car whileusing it to break the legal speed limit. Besides,it’s midwinter, there’s a scarcity of Porschenews and I need filler.

King of the Forest: Königstiger with Porsche tur-ret—note how shot striking lower turret face will ricochetinto driver’s head; also hatch bulge on port side of turret

Article by DON HOLLWAYArticle by DON HOLLWAY

Used with permission and undercopyright of Squadron/SignalPublications, Inc.

10 •

point few German tanks packed as much asa short-barreled, low-velocity 75mm.Luckily the Soviets deployed their tanks inpiecemeal fashion, for even one at a timethey were nearly unstoppable. The first T-34ever met by the 17th Panzer Division, nearSenno on the Dneiper River on 8 July 1941,singlehandedly drove over nine miles intothe German lines, shooting up everything inits path and actually rolling over a 37mmantitank gun (which the Germans wouldsoon refer to as their “Army doorknocker”),until finally shot from behind by a 105mmartillery piece. On 23 June a single KV-1,wedged in a defile in front of the 6th PanzerDivision, had held up the German advancefor two days, its thick armor shrugging offall attempts to destroy it. Finally, while its

Russian crew werebusily destroying someWehrmacht light tanks,the Germans maneu-vered one of their88mm antiaircraft gunswithin 900 yards. Withits 17-foot barrel, thehigh-velocity, flat-

shooting “Eighty-Eight” could hit a bomberfive miles up; it also succeeded in penetrat-ing the KV right through the front.

But each 88mm gun weighed nearly fivetons and requiring towing. What was neededwas a tank capable of packing this heavyweapon. In fact, one month prior to the inva-sion of Russia, on 26 May 1941, theWaffenamt had issued a requirement for sucha tank, designated VK4501. Among others,Porsche and heavy-equipment manufacturerHenschel und Sohn (which had also attempt-ed a VK3001 design) accepted the chal-lenge. At the time, the only urgency was thatthe new prototypes had to be ready for

demonstration by der Führer’s next birth-day—20 April, 1942. It would take porscheand Nibenlüngenwerke all eleven months.

To begin with, a muzzle brake went on theend of the gun, to deflect propellant gasesrearward and thereby shorten recoil in acrowded turret. The turret itself, designed byPorsche and built by the Krupp armamentsworks, was enclosed within a single piece ofsteel, three inches thick and bent into ahorseshoe shape. Taken together, this massedsome 20 tons and necessitated a low-gearedpower traverse mechanism. Porsche alsoenlarged each V-10 to 15 liters, good for 320hp at 2,500 rpm, and reportedly consideredabandoning his electrical transmission for anhydraulic system. Time constraints dictatedthat he simply scale up the Typ 100. As aresult the final product, the Typ 101, exceed-ed its weight requirement by some 12 tons.

On the day before the demonstration boththe Porsche and Henschel prototypes weretransported by rail flat car to Rastenburg, stillalmost seven miles from Hitler’s headquar-ters. Upon offloading via crane, the Typ 101sank up to its belly in soft ground. Henschelengineers offered the use of their prototypeto tow it out—rather overconfidently, as theVK4501(H) was no lighter, posessed fewerhorses, and had yet to be driven under itsown power. (For the record, Porsche refusedtheir help.)

On the trip to headquarters both tanksbroke down multiple times and requiredoverhauls. On the next day, however, thePorsche made a 1,000-yard speed run at asustained 30mph. The Henschel could do nomore than 900 yards at 25 mph, and its sin-gle watercooled, 21-liter, 600-hp Maybach V-12 overheated near to catching fire. But ithad eight forward and four reverse gears, anda novel suspension of eight independently

VK4501(P) (Porsche Typ 101): At Rastenburg, 20 April 1942

War was already inevitable in 1939, whenthe design bureau of Dr. -Ing. h.c.F. Porsche,KG, started work on its first panz-erkampfwagen. It was natural that AdolfHitler would ask his favorite engineer, Prof.Ferdinand Porsche—designer of the People’sCar, der Volkswagen, and chief engineer ofthe government-backed Auto Union teamwhich dominated auto racing through the1930s—to lend his natural talent to tankdesign. The Army Ordnance Office, theHeereswaffenamt, had issued a requirementfor a heavy “breakthrough” tank—surelyunnecessary for a purely defensive military,as Germany’s was supposed to be—packinga 75mm gun and designated VK3001:Vollkettenkraftfahrzeug (fully tracked experi-mental vehicle), 30 tons, design #1.

The Porsche submission, VK3001(P), wasknown within the company as the Typ 100 or“Leopard.” It featured a number of innova-tions stemming from Porsche’s automotivebackground: externally-mounted, longitudi-nal torsion-bar suspension and two ten-literV-10 air-cooled engines delivering 200horsepower each at 2,500 rpm. These werenot linked directly to the treads, but suppliedpower for generators driving electrical trans-missions (remember, Porsche was by train-ing an electrician), which turned the sprock-eted drive wheels. Two prototypes, sans tur-rets, were built by the Steyr-Daimler factoryat Nibelüng. Extensive testing throughout1940-41 proved the concept sound, but theengines unsatisfactory. By that time, howev-er, VK3001 itself was obsolete. The inva-sions of France andRussia had changedvery the definition of“heavy tank.”

British and Frenchtanks already out-gunned and outar-mored German panz-ers; only a highdegree of training and blitzkrieg tacticsemphasizing speed and maneuver enabledthe Wehrmacht to conquer France. And theRussians had unveiled their revolutionary T-34, an evolution of an unused Americandesign but heretofore unknown in the West.It weighed just 27.6 tons and featured widetreads and a 500-hp V-12 diesel for mobilityin Russian mud and snow. A low profile andthick, sloped armor warded off enemy fire.The heavier KV-1, though not as sophisticat-ed in concept, was the most formidable tankin the world. Both mounted a high-velocity,76.2mm cannon, which could penetratepanzers from over 1,000 yards away; at this

VK4501(P): At a sustained 30mph,the sports car of Porsche Panzers


sprung torsion bar axles per side, with threerubber-rimmed roadwheels per axle, in aninterleaving arrangement. This made it moremaneuverable and better-riding than thePorsche—no small considerations in a 50-ton tank. It was selected to become thePzKpfw VI, the famous Tiger (though itretained the Porsche turret, with some minormodifications to the roof line, and its enginewas later upgraded to 23 liters and 700hp).

As a sort of consolation prize (and just incase the Henschel project suffered unfore-seen delays—building each Tiger requiredsome 300,000 man-hours) Porsche was con-tracted for 90 examples of his own design.He completed five (slated for the NorthAfrican front, where their air-cooled enginesmight prove advantageous), but he wasunable to resolve the model’s drivetrainproblems. Production ceased in October. 85uncompleted chassis went into storage atNibelüng; the completed models wentinstead to the training center at Döllersheim.

Meanwhile the Russians were busilyupgrading their T-34s with an 85mm gunthat could, at close range, penetrate even aTiger. Keeping them at arm’s length requiredGerman tanks to pack an even more power-ful gun. Lengthening the 88’s barrel to 20'7" would impart to a 19 1/2-pound shell amuzzle velocity of almost 3,700 feet persecond—enough drill half a foot of sloped,homogenous armor plate 2,200 yards away.But there was not yet a tank turret capableof holding such a long, muzzle-heavy piece;even with a double-baffle muzzle brake,recoil could reach nearly two feet.

The solution was to build a tank withouta turret—simpler, stronger, cheaper. The 85chassis at Nibelüng came out of mothballs.Dr. Porsche oversaw the conversions him-self, and the new jagdpanzers (huntingtanks) took his name: Ferdinand.

A roomy superstructure, 9 3/4' tall, wasinstalled where the Porsche V-10s formerlyresided: at the far rear, where it minimizedthe immense overhang of the gun. The gun’slimited traverse—14° up, left and right and8° down—was partially offset by the extra-ordinary armor thickness of almost eightinches on the frontsurfaces (thicker thanon some First WorldWar battlecruisers)and a little over threeinches on the sidesand rear. Two 11.8-liter, watercooledMaybach V-12s yield-ing 300hp apiece—but still linked to the electrical drive—wentinto the former fighting compartment in thecenter of the tank. Whether or not movingfrom a rear- to a mid-engined layoutimproved handling, as power went down andweight went up (to 71 tons!), the new panzerwas even less mobile than the Tiger. Thefactory standardized its color selection onPanzer Grey and Sand Yellow (Guards Redand Fly Yellow evidently proving too garishfor gunshy crews), but in winter months cus-tomers would often add a snow-coloredovercoat of whitewash—a style of the timeswhich has not caught on among postwar

Used with permission and under copyright of Squadron/Signal Publications, Inc.

Elefant, after stepping on a mine: Distinguished from Ferdinand by hull-mounted machine gun, raised commander’s cupola and extra armorplate in front of gun mount. Note zimmerit anti-mine paste on lower hull

Porsche owners.In summer 1943 the Ferdinands were

rushed to central Russia, where, with armorimpervious to frontal fire and guns able totake out T-34s from three miles away, theyshould have reigned as supreme standoffweapons on the open steppes. Instead theywere used to spearhead the greatest tank bat-tle in history: Kursk. Pushing in among themassed Russian defenders they proved alltoo vulnerable. Typical shooting range fell toless than 100 yards—for tanks, point-blank—and the lack of rotating turrets leftthe Ferdinands wide open to flanking fire.Tank-hunting parties of Russian infantrymendraped explosive charges over the gun bar-rels or attached them to the hull sides. (Thecorrugated appearance of many Germantanks derives from a coating of zimmerit, apaste intended to prevent enemy soldiersfrom attaching magnetic mines to theirhulls.) A crucial oversight in the Ferdinands’redesign was the lack of a machine gun withwhich to sweep aside enemy infantry; crewswere said to have used their gunsights tospot Russian troops, and then spray machinegun fire down their gun barrels—a techniquewhich Colonel-General Heinz Guderianreferred to as “quail shooting with cannon.”

However, more Ferdinands fell tomechanical difficulties than enemy action.The small number produced meant there wasa dearth of spare parts; those which brokedown were cannibalized rather than repaired.The Ferdinand has the unfortunate distinc-tion of being the conspicuous failure in a

battle which was a turn-ing point of the war. Thatthis was a product ofmisuse, rather than afailure of design, was notlost on the German highcommand. Survivors ofKursk were taken backto Nibelüng to havemachine guns mounted

in their hulls, extra armor plates added totheir gun mounts, and cupolas installed atopthe superstructures for better visibility.Renamed “Elefant,” they were redeployed toItaly, a mountainous country in which theywere relegated to (barely) mobile pillboxes.Ironically they found their niche in thisdefensive role: Firing from fixed, strategicpositions, they made short work of theAmericans’ thinly armored, highly com-bustible Sherman tanks, at least until theybroke down or were outflanked.

But now the tide had turned against theGermans. The Tiger’s Henschel suspension,

Elefant: Armor thicker than a battlecruiser, gun able to take out T-34s from three miles away

12 •

ed to become the Tiger II, also called theKönigstiger (King or Royal Tiger), the mostpowerful tank of the war. At 75 tons, it wasalso the heaviest; a 23-liter Maybach V-12averaging 600 horses (and peaking at 700)could theoretically move one at 35mph, butonly on solid, level ground. Mere transporta-tion and deployment involved numerous dif-ficulties, not the least of which was that dri-vers had to take care, when negotiatingrough ground, not to dig the long gun’s muz-zle into the dirt. The first Königstigers rolledoff the assembly line in January 1944, butdidn’t reach combat units until June.

Once in action their gun/armor combina-tion was more than enough to defeat thenewest Allied tanks, yet was not invulnera-ble. A full 360° rotation by the two-speed

power traverse stilltook at least 19 sec-onds, and more usual-ly up to 75, hardly fastenough to follow aspeeding Sherman orT-34. But manual rota-tion of the turretrequired both the

loader and gunner to turn hand cranks—680times for the former and 700 for the latter! Itwas said that more Königstiger crewmendied of overwork than enemy action. On theother hand, enterprising gunners found thatif they removed the cannon’s spent-shelldeflector shield and opened the rear turrethatch, sheer recoil was sufficient to kickempty casings completely out onto the reardeck.

More seriously, combat showed up theflaws in the Porsche turret itself. A bulgeaccomodating the commander’s cupola tend-ed to catch shells skittering along the port

RAC tank museum

Königstiger, Normandy 1944: Note long gun barrel, curved turret faceand rotation of turret—outflanked & shot from behind?

with its multitude of roadwheels, provedtoo easily jammed with mud and snow—particularly in the Russian wastes, wherethe enemy attacked at dawn when Tigertreads were frozen solid. Its slow turret tra-verse allowed the enemy to get round it andattack from the rear. With the British andAmericans obviously gearing up to invadeEurope, the Germans needed to mount theElefant’s tank-killing cannon in a more con-ventional, more mass-produced panz-erkampfwagen, and quickly.

Prof. Porsche had already solved theproblem. The gun’s immense length wouldcause it to bear hard on the leading edge ofa finely-machined turret ring mechanism;his solution was to spread the load byextending the turret both to the front andrear. The rear bus-tle, with armorthree inches thick,provided extraroom for ammostorage; the front(armored to overfour inches) andsides were ballisti-cally sloped and curved to deflect shot. Thiscomplicated manufacture and induced flawsyet to be revealed, but Porsche was sureenough of a production contract to under-take construction. He produced a hulldesign in two variants: the Typ 180, withthe turret mounted in the hull center, andthe Typ 181, with a rear-mounted turret.Despite a wartime shortage of copper, he’dpersisted in trying to work the bugs out ofhis electrical drive—unsuccessfully.

As a result, a new Henschel hull design,with sloped armor like the T-34’s and a sim-plified roadwheel arrangement, was select-

Königstiger with Porsche turret:More than enough to defeat Allied tanks

PORSCHE TRIVIAEst. fuel economy, Porsche 993:

13 mpg city, 19 highway

Est. fuel economy, Königstiger:.47 mpg road, .33 cross-country

0-60mph, ’96 911 Turbo: 4.4 seconds

0-60mph, 88mm shell: .0000045 seconds

0-60mph, Porsche panzer: Never

Lap around the Old Nürburgring(14-mile Nordschliefe circuit):1937 Auto Union C: 10.3 min

1970 Porsche 908: 8.3 min

VK4501(P) (theoretical): 28.3 min

Length, gun barrel, Elefant: 20' 7"

Length, overall, Porsche 928: 14' 9"

Armor thickness, Elefant: 8"

Armor thickness, Porsche 911: .05"

Power-to-weight ratios:1996 911 Turbo: 242 hp/ton

Jagdtiger: 8 hp/ton

Number which slid off tight turns:Porsche 911: More than 911

drivers like to admit

Jagdtiger: Zero

Horsepower, Maus air cooler: 150

1965 Porsche 911: 130

50 tons of Maus turrets: 150 tons of 1996 Porsche 993s: 32.6


turret side, and there was a major shot trapbelow the curved gun mantlet, where incom-ing shells were deflected not away but down,through the thinly armored roof and into thedriver’s compartment.

Armored combat no longer forgave suchflaws. The Russians had already introducedtheir “Josef Stalin II” tank, with a brutal122mm gun. The British had taken to APDSshot (armor-piercing discarding-sabot;essentially an inert casing, or sabot, whichfell away after exiting the muzzle and left aslim tungsten-carbide dart to proceed to thetarget at almost 4,000 feet per second).Shaped charges, which did not rely onvelocity and could be fired by one man froma recoilless, shoulder-held rocket launcher(bazooka), attackedarmor plate with a jetof superhot gas andmolten metal andoverpressures of up to2000 tons per squareinch. With all theseweapons arrayed againstthe tank, no lack of protection could betaken for granted. As a result—collectors,take note!—only the first 50 Königstigerscarried the Porsche turret; the rest (439) car-ried a redesigned Henschel turret, with a flatface and simpler sides. But manufacturing aKönigstiger still absorbed much time andmaterial that could been better used in pro-ducing a simpler, less impressive design, andconsumed the Henschel facilities.

So it fell to Nibelüngenwerke—andPorsche—to entertain the increasingly rabidfantasies of the German high command. If aTiger could be upgunned to make a

Ferdinand, they wondered, what could bemade of a Königstiger? The “next gun up”from the “88” measured an incredible128mm across the bore—five inches,approximately the same as that on a typicalnaval destroyer—with a barrel 23 feet long.It could out-range any other gun and pene-trate any other tank, even at maximumrange—slamming a 75-pound shell throughalmost six inches of sloped steel at over2,000 yards. But its recoil alone measuredthree feet—what monstrous vehicle couldfire it? From this pointless exercise arose theincredible Jagdtiger (“Hunting Tiger”), themost stupendous armored fighting vehicle ofthe war—indeed, of all time.

Dr. Porsche’s close relationship withthe factory allowedhim some leeway intampering with thedesign. He startedwith a slightlylengthenedKönigstiger hull,extending the sides

up to form another blocky superstructurewhere the turret used to be. The front of thishe armored to almost ten inches of steel.Weight, of course, went up yet again, to 77tons, more than another other widely usedarmored fighting vehicle before or since. Tomove this mass, Porsche designed a 700-horsepower diesel engine, the Typ 212; tobear it (and to conserve interior space andmanufacturing time) he redesigned theKönigstiger’s suspension, using sprungrollers and nine small(er) road wheels perside instead of the Königstiger’s eight largeones. Two Jagdtigers—serial numbers

Jagdtiger: The most stupendousarmored fighting vehicle of all time

Used with permission and under copyright of Squadron/Signal Publications, Inc.

Jagdtiger tamed: Under examination by American troops, 1945.

PORSCHE TYP NUMBERS

Typ 7: Wanderer car chassis

(actually the first Porsche

design; numbered 7 instead of

1 to create an impression of

experience among customers)

Typ 22: Auto Union Grand Prix

car

Typ 52: mid-engined, V-10,

three-abreast sports car

(Wonder if McLaren copied

the blueprints for their F1?)

Typ 60: People’s Car

Typ 80: Daimler-Benz land

speed record car

Typ 82: Kubelwagen jeep (later

resurrected as the Volkswagen

“Thing”)

Typ 101: Tiger tank prototype

Typ 110: farm tractor




Typ 135: Wind-driven generator



Typ 180: Tiger II prototype

Typ 181: Tiger II prototype

Typ 205: Superheavy tank

Maus

Typ 212: 700-horsepower diesel

engine for Jagdtiger

Typ 323: 11-horsepower diesel

tractor

Typ 360: Cistalia race car

14 •

Maus (Porsche Typ 205): Turreted version on trials, June 1944

305001 and 305004, for you Porsche triviabuffs—were built with this suspension, andpossibly one of these with this engine.During testing, however, one of themsnapped off a set of wheels. To avoid gettingsidetracked in a design exercise—at thispoint in the German war effort, time wasincreasingly crucial—it was decided to stickwith the existing suspension and theKönigstiger’s gasoline engine. Productionwent on apace with that of the Königstigerand the prototype was completed in April1944. 150 production models were orderedbut only about 60 were available in time forthe Ardennes offensive—the Battle of theBulge—in December of that year.

In action the Jagdtiger was difficult tohide from Allied aircraft, which had com-plete control of the air and could destroy itwith a well-aimed bomb on the roof. It alsosuffered frequent breakdowns of over-stressed engines and suspension. Top speed,on paper, was a blistering 23mph; on asphaltit was nearer 9mph. In fact a singleJagdtiger, straddling a Belgian road, oncecompletely stopped the American advancedespite the fact that it had been abandoned.The Americans simply couldn’t move itaside. They finally had to build a new roadaround it.

Hitler was already contemplating evenmore outlandish and impractical panzers. Asearly as June 1942 he’d personally autho-rized Porsche to design a new class of tank,the superheavy. The resultant Porsche Typ205, codenamedMammut (Mammoth)would mount at least the128mm cannon (150mmand even 170mm gunswere considered) with a75mm—the heaviest tankgun available at thebeginning of the war—as a coaxial sec-ondary armament. Armor was to be on theorder of ten inches on the hull front, 9 1/2

inches on the turret face, eight inches else-where. As might be expected, Porsche envi-sioned longitudinal torsion bar suspension,an air-cooled engine and electrical transmis-sion. Over the objections of the Waffenamt,who now took Porsche’s ideas with a grainof salt (and in fact embarked on their ownsuperheavy tank project with Henschel,which never reached completion), in August1943 Hitler gave him the go-ahead to pro-duce prototypes.

As the first one took shape it wasrenamed, with evident cynicism, Maus(Mouse). It weighed no less than 207 tons—

the turret alone, some 10 feet across,weighed 50 tons, and just its air coolerrequired 150 horsepower! Porsche’s engineand suspension never worked out. Therewasn’t room enough for all the necessarytorsion bars, so the prototype rolled on 48road wheels and a volute suspensiondesigned by the Czechslovakian firm Skoda.Its 1,080-horsepower Mercedes-Benz air-craft engine still powered a Porsche electricdrive, which was now essential: Since nobridge could support the Maus, it wasintended to cross rivers up to 25 feet deep byrolling across their bottoms, breathingthrough a snorkel and drawing electricalpower via cable from a second Maus on theriverbank! Completed in November 1943,the prototype tested in December with a

mock turret, andagain in June 1944with a turret andarmament. A sec-ond, turretlessmodel began test-ing thatSeptember, but its

Benz diesel engine was accidentallydestroyed and went unreplaced until April1945; Hitler had ordered all superheavy tankprojects set aside to concentrate productionon existing tanks. Still, two more Maus hullswere under construction when the Sovietsthreatened the Krupp testing area atMeppen. To prevent them from capturing theprototypes, all were blown up.

Porsche himself referred to these projectsas mere mobile fortifications, but who washe to deny the Führer’s wildest wishes?Captured at war’s end were plans for a Mauswith a 12-inch mortar, called Bär (Bear),and a preliminary layout for a 1,500-tonmonster tank powered by four U-boat dieselengines (keep in mind that most U-boats

only used two), with ten-inch armor andthree turrets—a pair of 150mm guns and amain, 800mm cannon. Compare this bore—31.4 inches—to the 380mm (15in.) mainguns on the German battleship Bismarck,and you’ll begin to understand the extent towhich the Nazi high command werederanged. Perhaps the war would actuallyhave been shortened, had such projects goneinto production—no doubt the entireGerman labor force would have been tied upin bringing them to fruition.

In April 1944 the Porsche facility atStuttgart had been hit by American bombsand the company had since moved to thefamous abandoned sawmill outside Gmünd,Austria. To keep busy it designed andrepaired farm tractors and wind-poweredgenerators. When the Allies finally advancedinto Gmünd the Professor was brieflydetained, investigated for war crimes, andfreed. The French, however, lured him, hisson Ferry and son-in-law Dr. Anton Piëch toFrance to build some kind of FrenchPeople’s Car, and threw them into prison.French reasoning remains unclear. It’s a factthat Dr. Porsche had taken up the cause ofFrench workers at Peugeot when that compa-ny was under control of the German SS.Possibly the French auto industry wished toeliminate potential competition. If so, theyfailed. Ferry Porsche, freed early on, ran thecompany in concert with his sister Louiseand raised the half-million francs bail moneyby designing a racing car, the Typ 360, forthe Italian firm Cistalia. After two years theFrench dropped all charges but never repaidthe money; and upon his release theProfessor, at over 70 years of age, soon real-ized their fears. For the Gmünd factory hadalready embarked on the first carthat would bear the Porsche name:the Typ 356.

Maus: The mother of all Porsches

january/february 1996 • 9 politically-correct readers may...

Documents