All credits for the materials posted in this tread go to Renhaxue and his amazing blog about Swedish armor.
Hello everyone,
so, we all know about the Kanonenjagdpanzer, right? To sum it up:
There were several prototypes (some tied to Switzerland) and in the end, it was the “last urrah” of the casemate turretless tank destroyers with forward-facing gun, kind of like an oversized Jagdpanzer IV, only with a 90mm gun from Bundeswehr M47 Pattons. The gun of course was somewhat of a raison d’etre for this vehicle, since the Germans phased out the obsolete M47′s and didn’t know, what to do with the guns they had on their hands. In the end, cca 1500 were built between 1965 and 1967, some were even exported to Belgium. With the 90mm gun becoming rapidly obsolete, some were converted to ATGM tank destroyers, others were pulled back to reserve units and in one way or another, they remained in service until 1990 or so.
This is a bit boring, because you can read that on wikipedia. So here’s something that you might not know.
Seeing the German companies develop the German army and producers to develop their tank destroyers and APC’s, the Americans wanted a share of that pie as well. Specifically, the Food Machine Company Inc. (FMC), the creator of the US M113 APC (developed a few years earlier), wanted to sell something to the Germans. Therefore, in April 1963, an offer was made by FMC to the Germans for two types of armored personell carriers, called APC Type A and Type B (Schützenpanzer Typ A and Typ B).
Schützenpanzer Typ A isn’t that interesting, although it looks very pretty.
Schützenpanzer Typ B is much more interesting, because included in the proposal, something else was hidden. This is how Type B was proposed to look:
As a part of the proposal, three more vehicle variants (well, four technically) were proposed. Two aren’t interesting for us (one was a 120mm mortar carrier, the other was a dedicated ATGM launcher). Third variant however was a 90mm Kanonenjagdpanzer proposal on Type B chassis. This is how it was supposed to look:
Basically, what we have here is a 90mm tank destroyer on modified M113 suspension. Technical characteristics:
And here is the fourth variant, 90mm Kanonenjagdpanzer with (unspecified) ATGM system (Shillelagh missiles are mentioned)
As we all know from history, this offer was refused. However, it serves as an interesting example of what the Kjpz could have been.
Interesting read, SS! Surprising also that the US designed vehicles for germany only 20 years after WW II…
Why? They’d already sold them a pile of tanks barely ten years after VE Day after all.
After WW II everthing was forgotten/ignored pretty fast because the Cold War was starting and Germany was going to be the battlefield.
Is it possible we will be seeing this ” the td” in game?
Technically it’s possible, although Germany has probably many more candidates for mid-high tier tank destroyer slots.
It would fit well in the current system I think ; it seems logical to split the german TDs from tier VIII with a heavy Ferdinand-Jagdtiger-E100 line and a medium JgpantherII-90Jagpanzer-KaJgpanzer.
Most likely it will be years before it is even looked at anyways. I am more excited about the chieftain and what on earth they are going to do with the vickers.
“Food Motor Company Inc. (FMC)”
http://www.climberism.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/cooking-car.jpg
:D
M113, the most adaptable and overall usefull fighting vehicle in history.
Real shame WG had to go make the E-25 a premium. That at tier 6 branching off the Stug III, leading into this and then the Kanonenjadgdpanzer would make for a very interesting side-branch of agile bush-ninjas.
Dat Amurican Cancer-cupola :P
Murica, exporting cancer since 1960s.
What hath science wrought? :o
It is interesting when you start looking at where all of the parts/components for these designs came from.
It looks like an ISU-152 had a baby with a Patton tank.
I can hear it scream to “please kill me”. That tumor doesn’t look comfortable.
With the E-25 as a Tier 7 premium I don’t see why the KJadgPz can’t be a Tier 8 premium.
Since the M113 went into service in 1960, I beleive that the Type A & B look more like a reworked M114 and not a M113, since the height of Type A and Type B is only 5’3″, (I could not find a specific height of the M113 to the top of the hull, I am 5’10″ and the top of my head did not clear the top of the Hull. I spent 5 years on a M113 or one of its variants.) The M114 has 4 road wheels where the M113 has a fifth one. This is not counting the front sprocket or the real Idler wheel. I did see that the FMC T113 proposal has 5 road heels without a Idler wheel in the rear.
This is still a good read, and the proto-types may be off of the original T113, where they removed the rear road wheel, which could cause binding when making sharp turns, and added the Idler Wheel to counter this issue. Also could have shortened the Hull height, to make it a much lower profile target, and easier to hide.
If it was a reworked M114, what better way to move old surplus? Rework & resell, could be cheaper than making new. =)
There was another tank in the same vein as the KJPz. the Versuchsträger 1-2. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c8/Panzermuseum_Munster_2010_0699.JPG
Basically, it was a dual gunned medium tank with the guns oriented in tank destroyer fashion.