FINISHED IT 1/35th Sd.Kfz. 173/4 (1. Serie) ‘Sturmpanther’, early 1945 😁

[Wardukw]

Thanks matey   
Those tracks on the sides are where spare tracks were hung on the Panther...the ones on the front work as stand off armour and I've seen pics of a Sherman which survived a hit to the front armour from a Pak 40 75mm gun because of the extra tracks mounted to the hull front.
I think it was more protection from hollow charge rounds like the Panzerfaust and the Panzerschreck.
We still use a form of stand off armour to this day like ERA and RISE .

[Jakko]

Looking very nice there

[Dizzyfugu]

Very cool! 

[Jakko]

Tests showed that putting all that crap on a tank did nothing but weigh it down!

Don't forget the morale effect, though: if the troops inside think it will help them survive, they will keep fighting for longer. Body armour has been shown to do that for infantry: soldiers going into combat with body armour when they were used to not having it (like in Korea and Vietnam) took greater risks than they did before. That applies in the wider world too: if you know your car has advanced safety features that will keep you alive in a crash, you will likely drive a bit more dangerously than you would in a similar car that you know doesn't even have a basic airbag, let alone all the more modern stuff.

[Wardukw]

Cheers guys 😀 .
Your with it there Jak....peace of mind is bloody important in combat and soldiers will do damn anything to feel safer  ...as for body armour it's the same deal
.ive worn it a few times but 90 percent of the time we didn't.. to bulky and heavy ..we'd wear our combat rigs or vests without armour plate in them..it's always nice to loose 5kgs of steel with assault armour..I was retired when large use of ceramic/ Kevlar armour came into use and depending on it level armour ratings that could be a total waste of time.

[Old Wombat]

Oh, I'm well aware of the psychological benefits but the US Army did do extensive tests on "field expedient applied armour" during WW2 & came to the conclusion I gave, in some cases sandbags, concrete & even spare tracks actually aided the penetration of the shot by altering its trajectory to perpendicular to the armour plate whilst not reducing its velocity by any appreciable amount, & had a similar effect with HEAT (shaped charge) rounds, lining it up for a much better burn through.

(Kit's going to hate me for this but ...)

Have you seen Volvo drivers?

All the safety features under the Sun & they still drive like every other driver is out to kill them, personally!

[zenrat]

The most dangerous drivers are the young recently qualified ones who tend to drive cheap shitboxes with no safety features (or with them switched off because they spoil the fun).

Nice tank DUKWy.  Well done.
 

[Old Wombat]

The most dangerous drivers are the young recently qualified ones who tend to drive cheap shitboxes with no safety features (or with them switched off because they spoil the fun).

That's because they're in that "immortal" age bracket.

I'm past that, now ... Mostly ... Maybe?

[NARSES2]

That's come out really well sir    Especially impressed with the tracks 

[Jakko]

we'd wear our combat rigs or vests without armour plate in them..it's always nice to loose 5kgs of steel with assault armour..I was retired when large use of ceramic/ Kevlar armour came into use and depending on it level armour ratings that could be a total waste of time.

That was the other thing they found in the Korean War: after patrols where nothing happened, soldiers generally felt the armour to be dead weight they could do without, but after ones where they got shot at, they had no problems with its weight at all.

[Wardukw]

Guy the weird thing is Volvo drivers are the same here 🙄 they literally drive like ya said ..they do actually think they have targets painted on their cars ..yet we do have a metallic black V70 turbo estate here which drives like he couldn't care less 😉..probably given up on life 😀

Fred mate i have to admit some of the most fun I've had with cars are the ones with no goodies...so easy to modify without electronic gizmos getting in the way and of course built right as my dad would have killed me if I didn't 

Chris im chuffed with those tracks..hell im thinking of buying one of their other sets and then buy the tank for em 😀 just for the pleasure of building em again 😄

Jak it's ture that many blokes didn't and then wore their armour ..the moment the first rds start flying tells the story of who's butt puckers and who's don't.
The biggest problem with what we did was the weight and even tho we moved with speed quite often the main thing was moving slowly..very slowly..which is bloody hard to do .
One of my lads called it sniper speed mode 
It's extremely difficult to move very slowly and quietly with the crap we carried and we didn't want extra weight to make that even harder and of course if we had to bugger off with speed ..we could .
Trust me Africa is not a place to be wearing heavy body armour...or anything at all some days