WW2 Invasion of France

By May 1940, Europe had been at war for nine months. Yet Britain and France, despite having declared war on Germany in September 1939 following Hitler’s attack on Poland, had seen little real fighting. This tense period of anticipation – which came to be known as the ‘Phoney War’ – met an abrupt end on 10 May 1940, when Germany launched an invasion of France and the Low Countries.

The German plan of attack, codenamed Case Yellow, entailed an armoured offensive through the Ardennes Forest, which bypassed the strong French frontier defences of the Maginot Line. The advance would then threaten to encircle French and British divisions to the north, stationed on the Belgian frontier.

The German offensive quickly overwhelmed Dutch forces, and the bombing of Rotterdam persuaded the Netherlands to surrender on 15 May. And although German forces in the north encountered strong French and Belgian resistance, the main German thrust through the Ardennes met with tremendous success. French second-rate divisions in the area were not prepared or equipped to deal with the major armoured thrust that developed (the forest and poor roads were thought to make this impossible), and were hammered by incessant attacks by German bombers.

Just four days into the invasion German troops crossed the Meuse river, and had broken through the French lines. Attempts by the Allies to launch counterattacks by air and land either failed with heavy losses, or were thwarted by the pace of events. The British Expeditionary Force, along with the best units of the French army, were still in the north and had seen little fighting. But the German breakthrough to the south now forced them into rapid retreat to avoid being cut off with their backs to the sea. On 20 May German tanks reached Amiens and effectively trapped the British, who now made for Dunkirk and an unlikely attempt at evacuation to England.

In these desperate circumstances, an evacuation plan known as ‘Operation Dynamo’ was hastily prepared in Dover by Vice Admiral Bertram Ramsay. His strategy included an appeal for all civilian vessels that could cross the Channel to help ferry the troops from the beaches to larger ships offshore, or to evacuate them entirely. Between 26 May and 4 June - a period during which Hitler halted the advance of his troops on Dunkirk - 200,000 British and 140,000 French troops were evacuated to England. Nine allied destroyers and approximately 200 civilian vessels were lost during the evacuation, and the RAF suffered severe casualties covering the operation from the air.

On 5 June, the Germans swung southwards and French resistance finally collapsed, although not without heavy fighting. On 10 June, Italy opportunistically entered the war on Germany’s side. Four days later, the French capital fell, provoking the flight of the French Government to Bordeaux. The Government capitulated on 25 June, just seven weeks after the beginning of the invasion.

The British 51st Highland Division - stationed in the Maginot Line when the fighting started – was forced to surrender at St Valéry. During the final evacuation of British troops from St Nazaire on the Atlantic coast, the troopship Lancastria was sunk with the loss of around 4,000 refugees, British troops and crew.

Reluctant to take the risk that the French Navy would end up under German control, Churchill ordered the Royal Navy to present French warships at Mers-el-Kebir with an ultimatum to sail to Britain or to a neutral port for internment. When this offer was rejected on 3 July, British ships bombarded the fleet, killing 1,600 people. Although this operation did much to assure America of the strength of the British purpose, it and the evacuation of Dunkirk did immeasurable damage to Franco-British wartime relations.

WW2 era German half-tracks

There were four main model modifications (Ausführung A through D), which formed the basis for at least 22 variants. The initial idea was for a vehicle that could be used to transport a single squad of panzer-grenadiers to the battlefield protected from enemy small arms fire, and with some protection from artillery fire. In addition, the standard mounting of at least one MG 34 or MG 42 machine gun allowed the vehicle to provide support by fire for the infantry squad once they had disembarked in battle.

Positive aspects of the open top included greater situational awareness and faster egress by the infantry, as well as the ability to throw grenades and fire over the top of the fighting compartment as necessary while remaining under good horizontal cover. The downside was a major vulnerability to all types of plunging fire; this included indirect fire from mortars and field artillery, as well as depressed-trajectory small arms fire from higher elevated positions, lobbed hand grenades, even Molotov's cocktails, and strafing by enemy aircraft.

The first two models were produced in small numbers from 1939. A and B models can be identified by the structure of the nose armor, which comprised two trapezoidal armor panels - the lower of which had a cooling hatch. The B model, which began production in 1940, eliminated the fighting compartment's side vision slits.

The C model, which started production in mid-1940, featured a simplified hexagonal-shaped forward armored plate for the engine. Models A through C had rear doors that bulged out. The C model had a large production run, but was quite complex to build, involving many angled plates that gave reasonable protection from small arms fire. From early 1943, the D model was developed with the purpose of halving the number of angled body plates, simplifying the design and thus speeding up the production. D models can be easily recognized by their single piece sloping rear (with flat doors).

The standard personnel carrier version was equipped with a 7.92 mm MG 34 or MG 42 machine gun mounted at the front of the open compartment, above and behind the driver. A second machine gun could be mounted at the rear on an anti-aircraft mount.

Variants were produced for specialized purposes, including with anti-aircraft guns, light howitzers, anti-tank guns and mortars or even large unguided artillery rockets, as well as a version with an infrared search light used to spot potential targets for associated Panther tanks equipped with infrared detectors.

Another potentially good design feature of the Sd.Kfz.251 was the large track area, with the characteristic "slack track" design with no return rollers for the upper run of track, and the Schachtellaufwerk system of overlapping and interleaved main road wheels common to virtually all German halftracks of the period.

This lowered the ground pressure and provided better traction, giving the Sd.Kfz.251 better cross country performance than most other nations' half-tracked vehicles. However, the interleaved and overlapping main road wheels shared a major problem with the Tiger I and Panther main battle tanks that also used such road wheel configurations - in muddy or winter weather conditions, such as those during a rasputitsa mud season or the coldest Russian winter conditions, accumulated mud and snow could freeze solid between the road wheels, immobilizing the vehicle.

 

German King Tiger Tank

The German King Tiger Tank was introduced in early 1944 and was the most powerful tank during world war 2. With its powerful 88mm gun and an almost impenetrable front armor, it was one of the most feared weapons of world war 2. Up to the end of the war, the allies had not introduce any effective means to counter the threat.

German heavy tank development began as early as 1937 with the German Armaments Ministry issuing a specification for a new heavy tank to Daimler-Benz, Henschel, MAN and Porsche. The project however was ignored as the Panzer III and IV had so far proved effective tanks and served well  in combat. It was not until spring 1941 that the project was revived after Hitler was impressed with heavy allied tanks, such as the French Char B1 and British Matilda 1 during the campaign in the west.

 

At a meeting with Hitler on 26th May, 1941, the planning for the development of a new heavy tank begun. During that meeting, Hitler ordered for the creation of heavy Panzers which were to have an increased effectiveness to penetrate enemy tanks; possess heavier armor than was previously achieved; and attain a maximum speed of at least 40km/h. These key decisions led to the development of a new heavy tank, the Tiger 1 tank and ultimately the King Tiger. However, no clearly defined objectives or action plans were laid out for the succession of the Tiger 1 tank until January 1943 when the order was given for a new design which was to replace the existing Tiger 1.

 

Although the designation implies that the Tiger II is a succession of the Tiger 1, it is in effect a completely different tank. The first design consideration for the new tank was the selection of a more effective main gun. As with the Tiger tank, it was to mount an 88mm anti tank gun but the main gun on the Tiger II was far more powerful than that on the Tiger 1. For the development of the chassis, two firms were contracted to come up with the designs namely Henschel and Sohn of Kassel and Porsche of Stuttgart. Both firms Henschel and Porsche were responsible for only the chassis and automotive designs. Turret design was awarded to another firm Krupp of Essen.

The main gun specification of the King Tiger was to be a variation of the 88mm anti-aircraft gun. Although the 88mm was initially designed for an anti aircraft role, it proved to be an excellent tank killer. Originally, the intention was to mount an 88mm Flak 41 into a turret for the Porsche VK4501 (P) chassis. The turret had been originally designed by Krupp to hold the 56 caliber 88mm KwK 36 gun of the Tiger 1. After much experimentation and debate, it was decided in early 1943 that it was not possible to mount the 88mm Flak 41. Krupp had then been contracted to design a new turret that could mount their own version of a 71 caliber 88mm Kwk 43 gun that could fit in both the chassis for Henschel and Porsche.

The 88mm gun with the designation KwK 36 and KwK 43 indicated the model number year 36 and 43. The Tiger II with the model 43 has a length of 71 calibers (71 times 88mm) as compared with 56 calibers of the Tiger 1 with model 36. The length of the barrel itself is over 20 feet long while the rounds weighed almost 20kgs. It is in effect a much more powerful gun than the Tiger 1.

The King Tiger’s 88mm main gun has a muzzle velocity of 1000m per second when firing armor piercing rounds. It was highly accurate and able to penetrate 150mm of armor at distances exceeding 2200m. Since the flight time of an armor piercing round at a range of 2200m is about 2.2 seconds or less, accuracy and correction of fire against moving targets is more important than with older anti tank guns. This made this heavy predator ideally suited to open terrain where it could engage enemy tanks at long range before the opponent’s weapons were even in range.

For the chassis, much has been learnt from the sloped armor design of the Russian T-34. As with the Panther, the King Tiger was to have sloped and interlocked front and side armor. The front armor was 150mm thick and the side was 80mm thick. Both firms Henschel and Porsche submitted their own designs.

Porsche designed the VK4502 (P) chassis which was built on the previous VK4501 (P) design of the Tiger 1. The codename VK was for Volkettenfahrzeuge or "fully tracked experimental vehicle", 45 means a 45 ton class and 01 represents the first model. The VK4502 (P) chassis had a similar outlook with the Tiger 1, sharing many similarities such as the suspension and automotive parts. Two designs were submitted, the first one having its turret mounted centrally and the second had the turret mounted towards the rear with the engine in front. However, it used copper for the electric transmission which Germany was in shortage of. This design was rejected and did not enter production.

Henschel designed the VK4503 (H) chassis which was very similar in appearance to the Panther. The front armor was 150mm thick and sloped at an angle of 50 degrees. The side was 80mm thick sloped at 25 degrees. As with all German tanks at that time, it had a ball mounted MG34 fitted on the right front side of the hull. The suspension consisted of torsion bars with nine sets of overlapping steel rimmed wheels on each side. The tracks were 2 feet 8 1/2 inches wide, weighing 2.5 tons. Henschel’s design was accepted and destined to enter mass production.

Krupp had designed the turrets to fit both the Porsche and Henschel chassis. The initial design called P-2 Turm (or commonly known as Porsche turret) mounted a single piece (monobloc) barrel of the 88mm and had a curved mantlet in the front. The front armor was 100 mm thick, the sides were 88mm thick sloped at 60 degrees and the top armor was 40mm thick. It had space to carry 16 rounds of ammunition in the turret. However, the curved mantlet in the front acted as a shot trap by deflecting incoming shots downwards towards the roof of the hull. A new design was ordered to fix this but as an interim measure, it was decided to go ahead with the production of 50 units with this turret. This was commonly referred to as Porsche turret. The new design called Serien Turm, or commonly known as Henschel or Production turret was to retain the many features of the Porsche turret and was to be adopted for mass production. Henschel turret had the front curved mantlet replaced with one 180mm thick armor plate sloped at 81 degrees. The sides were altered to slope at 69 degrees and it could carry an additional 6 six rounds or 22 rounds of ammunition in the turret. The full combat weight was 68,500kg when fitted with the Porsche turret and 69,800kg with the Henschel turret.