Why no German Flail Tanks?

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In this video we discuss why the Germans did not have a Panzer with a mine clearing flail like the British Matilda Scorpion or the Sherman Crab. For this we look at doctrine, organization, industry and various other aspects.

Disclosure: This video is sponsored by free-to-play game World of Warships. Thank you to the Forum Panzermuseum Munster for inviting me.

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» SOURCES «

Jentz, Thomas L./Doyle, Hilary Louis: Panzer Tracts No.14: Gepanzerte Pionier-Fahrzeuge (Armored Combat Engineer Vehicles): Goliath to Raeumer S. Darlington Productions: Darlington, Maryland, USA, 1998.

Munzel, Oskar: Die deutschen gepanzerten Truppen bis 1945. Maximilian-Verlag: Herford, Germany, 1965.

Spielberger, Walter J.: Spezial-Panzerfahrzeuge des deutschen Heeres. Spezialausg., 1. Aufl, Motorbuch-Verl: Stuttgart, 2012.

#sponsored #mineclearing #panzer

00:00 Intro
01:11 World of Warships
02:38 Alkett Räumer & Krupp Räumer
03:20 Early Development: Multi-purpose
04:45 Early Tests with Flails failed
06:04 Matilda Scorpion
06:55 Other Approaches: Mine Rollers, Cord Nets, etc.
08:31 Organizational History
09:05 Experience at Kursk 1943
10:18 Sherman Crab
11:22 German Industry Limitations
12:15 German Doctrine Radio controlled Tanks 1944
14:04 Conclusion

[MilitaryHistoryNotVisualized]

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[patrickwentz]

So in Afghanistan our engineers clearing mines got rotated off the vehicles after 3 mines were hit. Anything more than three mines and the engineers started getting a little shell shocked and twitchy in the cabs of the mine clearing vehicles.

[porpoise]

6:20 Correction there, the Sherman Crab was made by the British with the key figure in its development being South African. The Americans used some provided to the by thr British.

[DC.]

As part of the 79th Armour Division they had this mad thing called Conger was a 2-inch (51 mm) woven hose launched by a five-inch (127 mm) rocket. The tube and rocket were mounted in a Universal Carrier which had been stripped out to reduce it down to an armoured tracked trailer that could be towed by a tank, often a Churchill AVRE.
The rocket was fired, trailing the hose across the area to be cleared. Compressed air was then used to pump the liquid explosive – just over a ton of "822C" nitroglycerin – into the hose before it was detonated.
It all went pear shaped in Normandy when they were reloading a system, it detonated with catastrophic results killing over 50 engineers. After that it was abandoned has a system.

[michaelguerin]

Thank you Bernhard for another well researched and presented video. Cheers from NZ.
There are always reported complications in mine clearance work. During our Engineer Corps Training at Linton Military Camp, New Zealand in 1984, the Chief Instructor was then Staff Sergeant Ben Akari. He had recently returned from UN mine clearance work in the Sinai Peninsula. One of the technical challenges was that some of the minefields had been laid in wadis—dry river beds—in the 1950s and decades of ‘flash floods’ had redistributed the mines in random fashion!
Another issue, as reported to me by one of our Squadron Quartermaster Sergeants, was that: the Bedouin herders would steal the barbed wire fences that were erected, complete with mine signs, to keep people safe. The thefts meant that other Bedouin subsequently entered the unfenced minefields BUT that did not seem to bother the thieves. I suspect that similar problems have beset mine clearance teams from the introduction of the mass produced land mine.

[christopherwebber]

It's interesting to read that the Matilda Baron, a very similar design to the Scorpion, was only used for training, and the Baron and Scorpion were built in different places due to military secrecy preventing knowledge of their respective constructions. Next, I would like to see a video about the tauchpanzer, schwimmkorper, landwasserschlepper, Brukenlager, Sd Kfz 251/7, Infanerie Sturmsteg auf Panzer IV, and particularly the ladungsleger Pz I & II (still not sure how the explosive charge was supposed to be placed - was it lifted over the front of the tank, or was the tank reversed onto the target, exposing its pitifully thin rear armour?). There were also Panzer II & III flamethrowers. You can read my article about these vehicles in "World at War" #50.

[captainhurricane]

There were few offensives after Kursk, but there were plenty of Corps or Divisional attacks that required enemy minefields to be cleared. Anyway, nice vid!

[alexandercorbett]

Hmm this seems pretty visual for a non visual channel… 🤔 nonetheless always good to see my fav Austrian 👍

Thank you for answering this question I recently asked myself.

For me it was intersting that the first organisational charts for the Heavy tank battalions had some of the Borgward as an integral part of the unit. I asked Wolfgang Schneider about this and he said only two units goit them (from memory) and apparently it wasnt a sucess, because later that practice wasnt continued.

But it does make sense at first glance to include them because Tiger Units were after all meant for breakthrough operations at the focal point of an offensive. So mine clearing and blowing up defences would have been part of that.

[RasEli]

It feels so weird to see mtv stand where I stood in the panzermuseum munster

[whyandaccount]

Pretty sure the British built the "crab" as an upgrade to the "scorpion" - another element of 79th Armoured Division.

[MagiciansApprentice]

Isn't the main issue that by 1943/4 Germany needed every tank it could get for defence, whereas mine-clearing is an offensive item that German was rarely doing.

[eighthelement]

Germans constructed improvised flails for at least 1 Panzer II tank in Africa. Several photos surfaced of this tank. This design was initiated because minefields at Tobruk were a problem, and they crippled German attacks against the fortress on 14 April and 1 May 1941.
In one photo, an obvious problem with the flails can be seen. Tank is moving forward and there is large cloud of dust behind (perfectly normal in Africa), but there is also a smaller cloud between the flails and the tank. This second cloud appears to be large enough to completely blind the driver.
We will never know if this design was successful because German assault against Tobruk (planned on 20 November 1941) had to be cancelled, because of the British offensive on 18 November 1941.

[marcusott]

Much awaited, much appreciated looking forward to excellent insights as always from you.

[JGCR]

The german approach makes sense for immidiate combat situations. Mine fields in combat should always be covered by fire. Using expendable or semi expendable vehicles there makes sense. A Sherman flail is very good at removing mines in situations where the enemy has abandoned covering the minefield or has no anti-tank assets to do so.

[edward]

Another fascinating video! Love your work!

[thearisen]

Converted Panzer IIIs might of worked but we'll never know

[CGM_]

There are photos of the 130 ton Krupp Räumer S (Both front and rear sections) captured by the US in 1945. The photo clearly shows the marking OTIT 9 on the vehicle. Ordanance Technical Intelligence Team, so it was being transported for evaluation at that time. Strange it never made it as far as the Aberdeen Proving Ground. Given that the booms on a Liberty Ship having a maximum lift capacity of 50 tons, that may explain the decision to evaluate the miner sweeper in France. The "somewhere" in France was Ordnance Technical Intelligence Team Dépôt O-644 near Paris

[MilitaryHistoryNotVisualized]

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[whirving]

Pieper was held up for 8 or more hours at the beginning of the Battle of the Bulge because he hit mines in his and other tanks. That was an extremely costly time loss for their schedule.