"Schürtzen Question." Topic

I bought a couple of Zvezda's PZ III Flammpanzer and I want to paint them up as the tanks at Kursk in the Osprey Vanguard number 15 'Flammpanzer'.

These vehicles had Schürtzen on them and I will scratch build these from plasticard, my question is are Schürtzen made to a particular spec? If so does anyone have measurements for Schürtzen in 15mm scale?

I'm not sure exactly you mean by a particular spec, but all skirt armor should be the same from one tank to another as these were not field modifications but factory produced. I'd reccommend getting some good plans for any PzIII variant, as it should be the same.

Damon.

For the Panzer IV, IIRC the turret Schürtzen was 8mm thick and the sides 5mm. No idea if the Pz III would use the same thickness.

Since that works out to 80 and 50 microns thick in 15mm, you might want to consider a more game friendly alternative

Wouldn't the hull schurzen on a PzIII be the same as on a StuG?
Same hull after all.

I scratch built some 20mm Schurzen, took the measurements from the old Bellona prints book on the panzer III.

No it isn't the same as a Stug because the Stug doesn't have a rotating turret.

Frankly you can just eyeball it, but make up a template from card first.

Check out these guys:
skullduggerypress.com
They have templates for 15mm schurzen that you can download for free.

BWW

Cheers chaps, sorry I should have been clearer, I meant are the specs the same for each tank? In the Osprey book there is a good side view of the PzIII with a side skirt so that should help.

Brian, that link is ace, thanks!!

On a related note- Why was the Tiger never fitted with side skirts?

Tim, he asked about the Tiger, but I didn't know that about the running gear on the Panther, thanks for that bit of info. Everyday is a schoolday…

Ha ha, I see now! My mistake!!

Schürtzen on the PzKpfw IV-H, for example, as for the PzKpfw III series, had 5mm thick steel plates hanging over the hull suspension, and the skirt around the turret was 8mm thick steel. The thickness was the same for the Jadgpanzer IV-70 as for the StuG IIIG, as well – 5mm thick.

If it's profiles you want of the armor then you can reference the book:

Axis Armored Fighting Vehicles: 1:72 Scale (World War II AFV Plans)

This has all the scale drawings of the vehicles in question in all the orthographic views, i.e. top view, side view, front view, etc. This will be helpful for sizing the plates in their correct profiles.

See Amazon.com link . . .
link

Furthermore, it is a MYTH, that the armor skirts were to prevent the detonation of Hollow-charge weapons, like, bazookas. It was designed to interfere with the Russian anti-tank rifle, not rocket propelled grenades as is commonly thought. In fact, by some accounts it sometimes helped against hollow-charge weapons, but in some cases, is believed to actually enhance the detonation effects of the weapon once it penetrated the skirt armor. These are documented anomalies. I'm currently finishing a WWII miniature wargame, code-named "Schwereppunkt" designed for 15mm – 20mm models, that takes these anomalies into consideration. The game will have another name when it is released this year – hopefully by autumn 2015?!?

I'd use 0.010" thick plastic for the skirts on 15mm models, and then I'd use a cheat from the plastic model builders: sand the plates down a bit to get a thinner edge. You end up with a slightly clamshell-shaped plate when you do that.

Good luck on the game, Specforc12!

And rather than answer the question on why the Tiger was never fitted with schurzen by talking about what schurzen was NOT meant for, let's look at what it WAS meant for…

It was developed and fielded to protect armor that was vulnerable to the Soviet 14.5mm AT rifles. The sides and rears of Pz III and Pz IV (and derivatives), and the space over the running gear but below the sloped upper hull sides of Panther D and A (and JgPzr 38t) all got schurzen, because they were close to vertical and less than 40mm thick.

Tiger had more than 40mm of side and rear armor, and so was inherently immune from the 14.5mm ATR round (and the Panther G had the 45mm upper hull side extended to overhang the part of the lower hull side that was not covered by the road wheels). So there was no need for schurzen. These tanks were only vulnerable where there were intentional openings in the armor (open hatches, vision slits, MG mounts, etc.).

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

So was the schurzen arrangement a standard feature on all Panzer IVs produced after a given date?

Umm, good question. Yes, I think it probably was, for the H onwards.

It did of course fall off or was removed by crews on occasion (Plenty of photos of late war Pz IVs without Schurzen).

Yup, a missing panel here or there would add a touch of authenticity.

Armour thickness: 30 mm. 15P-II anti-tank rifle, OKB-44 bullets.
1 and 2: range of 100 meters. Dents in the main armour after penetrating the 5 mm armour screen."
link

Yep, they weren't there to ward off bazookas the Russians didn't have, but the anti-tank rifles they did have, and fielded en masse.

The sides and rears of Pz III and Pz IV (and derivatives), and the space over the running gear but below the sloped upper hull sides of Panther D and A (and JgPzr 38t) all got schurzen, because they were close to vertical and less than 40mm thick

And that space was where the panzers fuel tanks were located…the Soviets knew this and were instructed to aim for this spot if at all possible. Not single shots either, but volley fire from the whole ATR squad. Boomsky!