Here we have the Panzer III, this is one of the workhorses of the German Wehrmacht in World War Two.
There were a lot of these, a lot of versions, and this was ... a tank that saw a lot of action.
Not only in Europe and on the Russian front, but also in the desert. And here we see it in the desert section
in desert 'dunkelgelb', literally dark yellow, camouflage.
Now, this is the later version which has the long-barrelled 50mm gun.
And I've been told to ... explain what a 50mm gun is, because apparently some people don't know.
It's to do with the calibre, that distance there. The diameter of the hole in the front is 50mm.
So obviously the bigger the bore, the bigger the shell, the higher the volume,
the heavier the shell, and the more bang you get.
Now this particular version has been up-armoured, and you can see this on the side here.
If you come around the side, you can see that this steel plate here has been added in later.
The earlier versions didn't have this, and there's a gap in between.
And the gap is actually quite useful, because after penetrating the outer layer
the shell will be damaged slightly, blunted slightly, might be turning slightly,
and so then when it hits the main armour behind it
it won't be in such a good position to bite into the armour and penetrate.
Also, if they're using what's called a HEAT weapon, h-e-a-t, High Explosive Anti-Tank,
it means that the main charge will be detonated by the outer sheet
so that the focus of the very, very hot gas coming out of the HEAT weapon,
which is meant to burn its way through the armour will be focused too far out,
and it probably won't have a devastating effect.
But the main thing is ... this is ... mainly against simple armour-piercing shot,
just put more armour on the front because they found that the tanks were too light.
You can see also that they were going to do this with the turret, but on this particular [example]
they've got the mounting for the extra appliqué armour, but for some reason it never made it on.
Now, this is an MG ... well, it's probably a version of an MG34.
This is the tank version of the general purpose machine gun that the Germans had, and so is that.
And so is that up there.
Now, this is something you commonly see, all three machine guns on.
And sometimes on the front of the packet a kit of a tank
you'll have all three firing at once because it looks ever so spectacular.
But in fact this is a rare, very rare, to non-existent configuration.
Because that was quite often one of these two. They put it in the ... anti-aircraft configuration.
If you're frightened of enemy aircraft you want the machine gun up the top there,
which can be operated by someone with his head up out of the turret to shoot at aircraft.
But if that's not what you're worried about, and you're in the middle of a battle, you've got other things to think about,
then that same machine gun will be in one of these two positions.
So actually ... you'd never see three all in one shot, at least normally.
I'm sure some people grabbed a third one because they could, but that would not normally be the case.
Up here we have the German ...
now then, everyone you talk to says it differently: cupola, "coop-ola", "cup-ola", that thing.
And you can see that there are vision slits in the side.
And that these ones can be opened and closed, so that they're made out of very thick metal.
So that is a very well-armoured cupola.
It sticks up high out of the turret which gives the commander a good all-round view.
And of course if he is worried about some very close-by threat he can always close it up again.
And that became a standard cupola, they were trying to standardise things.
So you'll see pretty much the same thing on the top of a Panzer IV,
and certain other German tanks because they were trying to standardise.
Now, there's something called a 'shot-trap'. And there's a very good example of one ... here.
Beautiful welding by the way, the Germans were very proud of their welding, these are crafted to last.
They shouldn't be. The Germans crafted things to last far longer than the war was ever going to last,
so it was a waste of time. But anyway, beautiful welding I think you'll agree.
So if a tank shell comes in at this angle like that,
this is a shot-trap, because even if it doesn't penetrate it's going to bounce down.
And it bounces down into a weak point, into the join between the turret and the hull.
So shot-traps are something that tank designers after a while learnt to avoid.
But here we see an example of one. And I can't see exactly why this particular one existed.
Sometimes on some tanks you have to have a bit like that
so that when the turret turns, the corner of the turret doesn't knock into something.
I suppose if you had a box here, for instance, that might have been a problem.
But really the shot-trap is something that tank designers tried to, and should have tried perhaps more often, to avoid.
Now I don't know if you've seen the film "Saving Private Ryan", but in the film "Saving Private Ryan"
Tom Hanks gets his tommy gun, runs up to the Tiger tank,
puts it into the vision-port of the driver, and shoots the driver through the front of the tank.
You can't do that because there's, as you can see quite clearly on this,
come in, come in closer, you can see because it's actually been cracked, it's been hit by something pretty substantial,
there is a socking great big block of glass there.
You can't just poke a tommy gun through the front of a tank. You know, the Germans thought of this.
They thought, "But what if ... Tom Hanks comes along and pokes a tommy gun through the front of the tank?" ...
Well, there's a block of glass there, okay, so you couldn't.
In the side of the turret here you have an escape hatch,
... well, it doesn't have to be an escape hatch, it's just a way of getting in and out of the tank.
And if you were picking up ammunition and so forth and wanting to pass it into a tank,
this was a convenient place to have it. Though of course it's a weak point in the armour.
All hatches are weak points in the armour, to be avoided if you can.
I believe that flap there might actually be an ejection port for spent cartridges.
That is sometimes called a bustle, but it's really a turret bin.
A bustle sticks out the back and you can put things into it from within the tank.
But this is really just a storage bin, welded on the back of the tank.
It's a convenient place for putting your coat or whatever when you're trying to fight.
And yes, oh ... even in the heat of the desert
you're definitely going to need coats, because it gets very, very cold at night.
Being in a tank in the desert was not pleasant, because it gets so hot during the day, and so cold during the night.
You see loads of photographs of guys looking pretty miserable in trench coats and balaclavas.
In fact, I would say that most of the photographs I've seen
of people fighting the desert are guys very well wrapped up indeed.
"Ooh, ah, it's perishing."
One difference between German and British tanks is that German tanks usually,
not always, but usually, had their sprocket wheels at the front.
This is a sprocket wheel. You see it's got big teeth and these engage with the links of the track, grip it, and pull it round.
It's at the front. Which means that in a tank like this which has a conventional layout with an engine at the back,
it means you have to have a great big shaft coming the whole length of the tank
which then has a transmission at the front.
Which has one advantage of it's in front of the driver, so it gives a bit more protection to the driver.
But it does use up a lot of room in the tank.
And that then engages with this.
One advantage of this is that this bit of track here engaging with the teeth is likely to be a little bit cleaner
than if you do it the other way round. Because this bit of track here bumping over these wheels,
will be shaking all the dirt off as it does so.
So all this mud that gets caked into the tracks down here is carried to the back of the tank,
then all going well, much of it is shaken off.
So it's a reasonably clean track that's being engaged with here at the front.
Whereas on your British tank typically, again not always, but typically you have the sprocket wheel at the back.
And this is a debate - which is better? - which hasn't been settled yet.
So there are modern tanks today, which have them at the back and modern tanks with them at the front.
So one advantage, one big advantage, is that you don't have to have a shaft going all the way through
the fighting compartment of the tank taking up lots of room.
And everything can be a bit more compact and you can get the drive wheel at the back.
But it does mean that the drive wheel is getting an awful lot more gunk on it, and so it wears out a bit quicker.
It's a German tank, but it has the sprocket wheel at the back.
If you do have to carry spare track, and really
you should be carrying some spare track because track breaks quite often,
a good place to carry it is here on the front of the tank simply because it acts as more armour.
You're going to have to carry the weight anyway, so you may as well put it
where an enemy's shot might come in. And that gives you just a bit more protection at the front.
Now, you can see these lines of welding here.
So you've got a slab of metal there, welded to a slab of metal there, welded to a slab of metal there.
This is a different construction method from the one used in the very early World War One tanks.
Those have a framework to which was riveted plates.
Whereas this has no framework, the body of the tank is made up of its shell.
So the slabs welded together are the strength of the tank.
The outer shell, the box that is the outer armour, is also its own framework if you like.
These are not added to some pre-existing skeleton, some scaffolding within it.
This was a new way of making tanks.
The Germans had two main tanks which they were going to use to drive at the enemy,
the spear-point of their blitzkrieg tactics, the Panzers III and IV.
And at the start of the war the Panzer IV had a short-barrelled gun that was firing high explosives
in support of the infantry attack.
And the Panzer III was the tank for taking on other tanks with an armour-piercing based gun.
It did fire high explosives as well, but its main job was to fire armour-piercing to take on other vehicles and the like.
They actually swapped roles, they were very similar tanks in a lot of ways.
And today a country probably wouldn't have developed two separate tanks,
they'd have just gone for one main battle tank for doing both jobs.
So by the end of the war a lot of these actually had shorter barrel guns,
and these ones were firing high explosives in support of infantry.
And the Panzer IV had become a main gun tank with a 75mm long-barrelled gun for taking on ... enemy [tanks].
It was the Mark F which changed from the short to the long on the Panzer IV.
This is also an up-gunned version from an earlier one, which had a much shorter 37mm.
So this is the more powerful version, the late desert war version of the Panzer III.
[ Sorry I had to cut this so short ]
Lindybeige!
[ but I have to edit this stuff, and I was losing the will to live. ]
Okay, I couldn't lean back any further.