"75mm kwk 37L24 guns on Panzer IVs" Topic

I'm getting ready to paint and I cannot figure out what that thing is UNDER the barrel of this gun. Is it some tubing for a recoil mechanism? I find lots of pictures, some have this and some seem to be missing it. Please help. Thanx all!

Which company made the vehicle?

Apiece to move the antenae out of the way as the turrent traversed

That is true if it was made properly by the company with the curved part on it to push the antenna away. If however it is just a straight piece under the barrel without the curved part then it wasn't made correctly by the company. So that is why I was asking which company made the vehicle.

The above is the most common style, however I have seen others that look to have been made from tubular steel.

Im gonna go out on a limb here and say its a stop guard to keep the tube from depressing enough to fire a round into the glacious plate or front armour…

No, it was to push the radio antenna out of the way as the turret traversed. The antenna, at least in the earlier models was on the forward part of right hand side of the hull.

The base (but not the antenna which seems to have been removed) is visable in the photo above, mid-way between the cross and the afrika-corps insignia. It's right next to where the radio operator/hull machine gunner sat.

I assume that in the later models they either moved the antenna or found that the guard wasn't actually necessary.

why was the guard needed?

why was the guard needed?

In the end, it wasn't.

Why they thought it was needed is another question.

Let's remember that the Pz IV was developed in 1936/37. It is easy for us now, in hindsight, to criticize the features of various tanks from that timeframe. But there was precious little experience in tanking, and many varying ideas of what would and would not work. Every tank design was in fact an experiment, and it wasn't until about 1943 that the basics were resolved and tanks began to converge on a common layout and feature set.

In this case I offer the conjecture, totally without primary sources, that the guard was less to protect the antenna (or gun?) as the turret traversed, and more to protect the antenna (or gun?) if/as the gun was fired while in contact with the antenna. It may well have been feared that the recoil motion of the gun, if in contact with the antenna, would damage or destroy the antenna. It may also have been feared that it would draw the antenna into the outer barrel sleeve, potentially jamming the gun.

After some time in combat I expect these fears were relieved, as tanks tend to get knocked about (a lot!) and lightweight fittings like the antenna guard will often get broken and not often get replaced. If the crews found it to be useless, they might even take to removing it in advance. So later models omitted it.

OK Panzerfans … now the question is which version was first built without it?

My impression … ALL of the short-barreled Pz IVs had the antenna guard … right up to the Panzer IVF. I have seen pics of some in France in 1940 (probably -Cs or -Ds) without, but I suggest those were examples of the guard being lost or removed in action. I believe all Panzers up to AND INCLUDING the Pz IVF2 ("Mark 4 Special" in Brit-speak) were built with the antenna guard. I also believe the -H and -J were built without it. So, did it disappear between the F2 and the -G? Or between the -G and the -H? Or are my observations wrong and it happened somewhere else in the line?

Enquiring minds (and rivet counters) want to know.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

Mark makes excellent points with his conjectures; similarly, they may have feared that the antenna in contact with the gun during a transmission would likely have sent electrical energy down the gun, possibly providing a distracting shock to the gunner and/or shell fuses. All conjecture, of course.

I don' t believe I have ever seen an F2 with an antenna guard on it. All my photo research shows it without. If anyone does have a photo please post it.

Or heat from the barrel might damage the antenna?. Although, if I recall correctly, wasn't the antenna mounting a sort of 'gimbal' affair?, with a stiff rather than whip aerial, allowing it to be pushed over by the traversing barrel?

The antenna in that photograph may simply have been 'lost' in the darkroom – the background has been whited out & possibly the antenna with it. That said, the trough (see below) has been removed from the hull side.

Panzer IVC from wikipedia. The trough down the side of the hull was to hold the antenna when in the 'down' position.

I tried looking through my references, and Spielberger doesn't really mention the frame at all, and Squadron/Signal talks about it, but does not detail when and why it was deleted.

Apparently not all early Pz IVs had the frame. A version (more in an "A" shape that reaches all the way to the end of the barrel) was introduced during Ausf. C production, and might be retrofitted to earlier models, or not (I saw pics of Ausf Bs retrofitted with stowage bins but no frames), with the final version appearing in the Ausf. D. Some plans in the Spielberger book show it fitted to Ausf F2s, but the detail was largely dropped during that production run.

IIRC the frame was originally introduced indeed to push down the aerial when the turret traversed in that direction. The aerial was of a hollow rod type that did not flex, so the frame was designed to push it down without bending or breaking it if the radio operator forgot to crank it down. The trough also carried an additional rod antenna as a replacement. I had originally been under the impression that it was deleted because the design transisitoned to flexible whip antennas, but that didn't appear to happen until Ausf. H production, when the antenna was relocated to the rear of the hull.

Also note that rod antennas were used in Pz IIs, IIIs, etc, and there wasn't a need to use a frame to push down the antenna on those. When the Pz III was regunned with the 75mm L/24s, they also did not get the frame despite the presence of rod antenna (you can generally tell if it is a rod antenna as opposed to a whip antenna because the rod antenna tapers from the bottom to the top).

So I think the theory that it wasn't really usefull is probably the best one so far…

Damon.

The deflector is made of wood, as is the trough. The idea was to fold down the antenna without contacting the steel barrel – which would cause the antenna to short out. The deflector seems to have been a standard factory installation on the Pz4 with the L/24 gun. The early F2 received a deflector with a long extension under the barrel. This was changed to a J-shaped deflector for the remainder of the F2/G production run. There are lots of pictures of tanks with the deflectors in the Squadron/Signal book. They seem to be mainly visible on new vehicles. I expect that being made of wood that they didn't survive a lot of incoming fire.

The Pz3 had a similar antenna system (folding into a wood trough) but no deflector. I suspect it is because on the Pz3 the antenna could be folded from inside the vehicle by means of a lever or crank (the mount is very different from that on the Pz4) while the Pz4 lacked this facility. Tanks designed and manufactured by two different companies, each of which thought they had the better idea.

cheers

Thanx for helping. This site is a huge resource. The internet was of no use on such minutia.

Killer, which Squadron/Signal book are you referring to because I am currently looking at the one titled PzKpfw IV in action and except for some D's, E and F1's none of the F2's are shown with the deflector on it or are you just saying in general there are photos with deflectors on the tanks? And of course there are none shown on the G's in the book.

Disco Joe

I didn't post details like page numbers etc in my post above because I didn't want to make one of those awful wall of text things. But if you're a glutton for punishment here goes:

PzKpfw IV in action
Armor Number Twelve
Copyright @ 1975

pg.27 lower left: F2 training in France 1942. shows the early guard with the long under barrel extension.

pg.32 both left hand pics; pg.33 all pics : New Gs with the modified J-shaped deflector.

pg.36 bottom right : whitewashed G with a very clear view of the J-shaped deflector.

pg.36 top left : G possibly with a J-shaped deflector, but the pic is dark and it may just be a smudge on the negative.

Panzerkampfwagen IV Ausf.G, H and J 1942 -45
Osprey New Vanguard 39
Hilary Doyle & Tom Jentz

pg.6 : a very clear pic of the early deflector with the long under barrel extension.

pg.12,13,14,15 : Ausf Gs fitted with the J-shaped deflector.

For further edification you can try a search on Missing Lynx "Pz IV antenna deflector" or "Pz IV antenna guard". Those rivet counters are a regular treasure trove of info for details like this.

Please don't ask me to post pics. After my old XP desktop died of terminal hard drive arthritis I'm still struggling with a new laptop running Windoze 8.1, and my scanner is not up and running yet.

cheers

Killer, I went back and checked the photos you stated with a magnifying glass. On the photos there is something coming to the side but unlike the traditional deflector which has a straight part underneath the barrel of which the the deflector part is attached to these do not. This looks like it is attached to a bolt head on the front part of the recuperator housing and so that then is the deflector? If that is correct and that is the actual deflector then I stand corrected.

OK. Lets see if I understand what you're saying. You are referring to the later J-shaped deflector? If so, then you are correct in that it was attached with two bolts, one on the face of the recuperator housing and the other on the edge of the mantlet. On the L43/48 gun the recuperator housing is substantially longer than on the L24, consequently it is the housing and not the barrel that makes contact with the antenna. On the earlier design (I hesitate to use the term traditional) with the wishbone shape the deflector was attached via a clamp around the barrel sleeve (pg.12 of the in action book)and was not fastened at any other point. When the wishbone design was modified to fit on the L43/48 it was attached with two clamps on the (much longer) barrel sleeve. Why the manufacturer added the long extension is a mystery to me. Maybe they were worried about hitting the antenna of a nearby tank? Probably explains why it wasn't very long before it was replaced by the J-shaped deflector.

I hope this makes things a little clearer. Apologies if it does not.

PzIVF2 or G with deflector. (No idea what the long wavy strip of material is for though!)

PZIVG with late model deflector (under barrel).

Dragon 1/35 version showing the late model deflector – I can't find a clear 'real life' view like this currently.

Etranger

That first pic – very very interesting. The two pics that I have are profile shots from the right, and the under barrel attachment looks like it is made of round bar/tube stock, and has a very regular "factory" appearance – contrasted with this pic in which it looks like it was made from a strip of scrap sheet metal. This has me thinking that the under barrel attachment has nothing to do with deflecting the antenna and perhaps serves as a means of attaching netting/foliage to disguise the gun tube.

Thoughts?

I doubt it, given how rare it is to find pictures of any Pz IV with foliage before 1944.

Here's the only one I can find. You can see the deflector is separate from the admittedly token piece of foliage.

BTW here's a large view of the 'wishbone' version of the deflector, albeit damaged.

Thanks guys the photos are great. I especially like the one on the Dragon kit. The only one I was familiar with was the wishbone version. Up to this point I didn't realize they had other versions.