BG Part15: RSO Kaetchen & SdKfz 11(A)

Vinnie

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97a RSO:
Raupenschlepper Ost "Caterpillar Tractor East" was a fully tracked, lightweight vehicle. It was conceived in response to the poor performance of wheeled and half-tracked vehicles in the mud and snow during the Wehrmacht's first autumn and winter on the East Front.
Amoung the variants of this vehicle built were the basic cargo carrier, and a self-propelled antitank vehicle armed with a PaK 40 gun (German Vehicle Note 44b), and one mounting the FlaK 38 gun (German Vehicle Note 93a). All shared the same chassis. Some 23,000 of these were built during the course of the war.
See also German Vehicle Note N, BG.
 

Vinnie

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98b Kaetchen:
The Gepanzerter Mannschaftstransportwagen Kätzchen (Gep. MTW Kätzchen) ("kitten") was a armoured personnel carrier. Auto-Union delivered two prototypes during 1944-45. The hull's shape was similar to the hull of the Panzerkampfwagen Tiger II, but much smaller. The vehicle had front wheel drive with five or six overlapping steel road wheels.
Auto-Union was ordered to stop work on their design and instead, BMW was given the task of adapting the Hetzer tank destroyer chassis for the role. This was referred to as the Vollkettenaufklärer 38(t) Kätzchen.
See also German Vehicle Note BG.
 

Vinnie

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8381838299a SdKfz 11(A):
This is a varient of the standard SdKfz 11 (German Vehicle Note 99. It represents vehicles that were produced to transport ammunition The "artillery" body had an ammunition compartment separating the driver's compartment from the crew compartment. The ammunition compartment had doors that opened on each side of the vehicle and could be configured for different sizes of ammunition. The crew entered from the rear of the vehicle.
† The vehicle is treated as unarmoured through the front hull VCA as indicated by "HullVCA AF=★" on the counter.
† Despite being armoured, the passengers may never be buttoned up and need not share the same status as the crew.
See also German Vehicle Note N, BG.
 

Justiciar

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97a: Should that be "...Eastern Front" vs East Front. Para 2 strike "built" this is already understood by the use of the word "variant" earlier in the sentence.

99a You are missing ")" after 99. Replaces "sizes" with "calibers".
 

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View attachment 8379View attachment 8380
98b Kätschen:
The Vollkettenaufklärer 38(t) Kätschen ("kitten") was an armoured personnel carrier. BMW was given the task of adapting the Hetzer tank destroyer chassis for the role. Two prototypes were produced and sent to the Western Front for testing in 1945, where they were captured by American forces.
See also German Vehicle Note BG.
bold

Edited as per Justiciar below.

Edited entry name - the file name is incorrect, but I learned that later.
 
Last edited:

Justiciar

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"an armoured" need the an before the a of armored. Western Front. It is a recognized proper name like Eastern Front (the latter I have seen you and Vinnie use in that form).
 

Michael Dorosh

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I have a KStN for the 65th Infantry Division in Italy, and just to emphasize the Raupenschlepper Ost was not just used in Russia. The 65th had a large number on its establishment, I presume for use as gun tractors.
 

Michael Dorosh

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Some further info on the RSO for interests' sake:

The strength report of 65. Infanterie Division on 1 August 1944 noted that the division was given an allotment of 70 RSO vehicles, with 25 actually on hand (following the retreat from Anzio through Rome and the Trasimene Line to positions on the Arno, near Florence), and 13 more on short term repair (under three weeks). This was in addition to 1 small prime mover and 18 large (8 to 18 ton) prime movers. The division was also allotted 16 Maultier half-tracks, 170 all-wheel drive trucks and 264 regular trucks. The divisional anti-tank battalion had 14 StuG and 14 StuG M42 (Italian assault guns - vehicle notes 39 and 40). The number of horses allotted for this division was 3461 and somehow the division was over-strength with 3533 (including 12 ponies). I believe this may have been the result of a recent draft arriving in the division, with reinforcements coming from another division that was broken up.

The 65th had converted to a Type 1944 Division at the start of the year, and was authorized 12,134 officers and men. So basically one horse for every four men.

Maybe BG should be modelling different types of draft animals, too....
 

Justiciar

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....
The 65th had converted to a Type 1944 Division at the start of the year, and was authorized 12,134 officers and men. So basically one horse for every four men.

Maybe BG should be modelling different types of draft animals, too....
Given that ASL, driven by various TPP, have begun to parse out aircraft into greater detail...this has some merit, ...you would have wagons with different PP values given the horsepower ay the front end... from the simple single panje with pony, onup to the known draft horses and oxen...then in tandem of same.
We can also see if Weir is as good as IDing horseflesh as he is rolled steel. ;)
 

Paul M. Weir

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I never knowingly ate horseflesh, I swear, even the one time I visited France!
 
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