Tanks on manouevre

[iannima]

Here is another scanned photograph with some T55s (I believe) and a couple of SPW 52 (BTR 52). The vehicles in the far distant are not easily identifiable and I haven't got a clue of what they might be.



This is a good demonstration why a military vehicle needs to be all wheel drive... not necessarily because the terrain would demand it, but because the tank in front has made such a mess of it!

Just have a look at those ruts... I have the impression that the SPW52s are keeping to the side so as not to ground their axles...
From many photographs I have seen before I get the impression that the sandy soil of Eastern Germany turned into a sea of mud during the wet months. It must have been a great delight to clean up the vehicles after an exercise...
There is a scene in the TV film Offiziere showing precisely that.

[Ralph P]

Matteo - The person in the chemical suit in the BTR-152 is in the process of signalling...You can just see a yellow flag that he is waving...

[torstenbel]

From many photographs I have seen before I get the impression that the sandy soil of Eastern Germany turned into a sea of mud during the wet months. It must have been a great delight to clean up the vehicles after an exercise...
There is a scene in the TV film Offiziere showing precisely that.

Hi Matteo, I think this one is quite fitting... Cheers, Torsten.

[Ralph P]

Hi Matteo, I think this one is quite fitting... Cheers, Torsten.

[Ralph P]

Here is another view of the 152...

[MikeW]

Wasn't the SPW 52 copied from the M2/M3 American halftracks?

[Dag]

Wasn't the SPW 52 copied from the M2/M3 American halftracks?

I don't think it was a copy of anything. The Red Army found that they had no real means of armoured transport for infantry in WW II. (Except from some lend-lease hardware). The best and cheapest option was to build an armoured wheeled truck. Considering the fact that they had plenty of halftracks of various sizes to study/copy, it was probably considered the easiest way to armour a truck. As the ZiS, on which the BTR 152 is based, was in itself a copy of the Studebaker and there are only certain variants of effective armour design, it is understandable that the end product looks like a cross between the M2/M3 and a truck.

Dag