I have only had the chance to climb into one WWII tank. The King Tiger (now on display at Bovington) when it was at the Shrivenham Royal Military College of Science. The tank had just been covered with Zimmerite and they would not let you climb on it. Access was through the drivers escape hatch in the tank floor, Try as I might I could not get my shoulders through...........
I was going to mention this myself...during the early part of the 20th century the average height and weight for 17-20 year old males was easily 2-3 inches lower and several pounds lighter than today. If you noticed, the guy doing this video had a difficult time even getting in and sitting in the tanks. Also, it may be that in that era, the army actually looked for smaller framed lads to man their tanks for the very reason that space was at a premium.
Anecdotal, but I thought the reason Michael Wittman went into assault guns was because of his size. I've heard similar stories on the Allied side.
Fire as stated is not the only thing to worry about if you take a penetrating hit, remember that most if not all projectiles create massive amounts of heat, this causes sympathetic combustion within the fighting compartment, also you will get a certain amount of splash-back from bits of the round that break off during penetration, add to this the main part of the round that is then flying/bouncing around inside the turret/fighting compartment, this is mincing the crew who have not got out fast (we are talking seconds here, if your tank is hit you need to be out very fast to avoid being burnt alive/minced/blown to kingdom come by a brew up or internal explosion.
And I bet he had the imprint of your boot soles on his face!As Don Lazov can tell you, no matter how "relatively easy" it looks, getting in/out of those things in a hurry is just no fun; banged knees, scraped knuckles, bumped heads and wrenched back and all - and that's wearing proper gear! However, properly motivated you can MOVE! I remember as a young trooper sitting in the gunners position when an engine fire extinguisher acidently discharged. The bang from the explosion had barely finished reverberating through the tank (M60A1/A3) before I was standing tall outside that hunck of iron before the tank commander's legs had even cleared his hatch. I swear I used the buttons on his uniform as hand-holds un-assing that baby!
In later Shermans there is a driver's hatch, an assistant driver's hatch, a cupola escape door and a turret hatch. There is also a belly hatch under the assistant driver. I think earlier Shermans may have had only one hatch on the turret.
I was there in 1995 (for the ASL tournament) - I did not even bother to try to get in.
Apparently we did not miss much. I was talking to the people at Bovington and the tank had been gutted. They were complaining about it (they want to get it running again) and were wondering why on earth someone would do that.............I was there in 1995 (for the ASL tournament) - I did not even bother to try to get in.
Yep,In later Shermans there is a driver's hatch, an assistant driver's hatch, a cupola escape door and a turret hatch. There is also a belly hatch under the assistant driver. I think earlier Shermans may have had only one hatch on the turret.
JR
The earlier ones had four. The underbelly hatch was present on all models, as best I understand. The underbelly hatch was sometimes used to pick up wounded on the battlefield. One problem was that the turret basket interfered with access to the hull hatches for the turret crew.
The belly escape hatch has been standard for all U.S. manufactured tanks at least since the M3 "Grant". Located just below the driver (modern tanks) or slightly between the Driver and the A-Driver (older models), it greatly enhanced the safe egress of the forward crew compartment. Otherwise the forward crew would have to exit out their top hatches (not highly recommended in a firefight-see Deadeye Smoyer video) and perhaps inability to do so because of the location of the main gun at the time, or egress through the turret compartment which may entail trying to pass under the gun carriage dependent upon the position of the turret (also not highly recommended), a more time consuming process. In modern tanks, from the time the driver grabs the release handle on the hatch to full egress he should be out in 3-5 sec., a two man crew standard was 7-11 sec. IIRC (but it's been almost 50 years ago).
pretty much, casualty evacuation and just simple bailing out of a Tank was practised time & time again, but I do feel as that a lot of it would of been down to pure luck.
Hardly anecdotal, Michael. Many Russian accounts about their tankers as well as Otto Carius' book "Tigers in the Mud" mention that smaller men were often selected for tanks. WWII did not start out with "roomy" tanks such as a Tiger or T-26.
IIRC the same thing applied for the paras (at least U.S.) where I believe 5-8 (?) was the preferred height. I seem to recall that most heights over 6 ft. would garner you an almost certain posting to a glider unit.
A Pz III is positively tiny inside, & a Pz I is ridiculous.
