Sd.Kfz. 251

Sd.Kfz. 251

Sd.Kfz. 251/1 Ausf. A Ungepanzerte
Type Half-track armored personnel carrier
Place of origin Nazi Germany
Service history
In service 1939–1945
Used by Nazi Germany
Kingdom of Romania
Hungary
Italian Social Republic
Wars World War II
Production history
Designer Hanomag
Manufacturer Hanomag, Adlerwerke, Horch, Škoda, Borgward
Number built Approx. 15,252
Specifications
Weight 7.81 tonnes (8.61 short tons)
Length 5.80 m (19 ft)
Width 2.10 m (6 ft 10 in)
Height 1.75 m (5 ft 9 in)
Crew 2 + 10 passengers
Armor 6-14.5 mm (0.24-0.57 in)
Main
armament
 MG 34 or MG 42
Secondary
armament
 MG 34 or MG 42
Engine one Maybach HL 42 6-cylinder petrol engine
100 PS (99 hp, 74 kW)
Power/weight 12.8 hp/tonne
Suspension Half track
Operational
range
 300 km (186 mi)
Speed 52.5 km/h (32.5 mph)

The Sd.Kfz. 251 (Sonderkraftfahrzeug 251) half-track was an armored fighting vehicle designed and first built by the Hanomag company during World War II, and based on their earlier, unarmored Sd.Kfz. 11 vehicle. The larger of the pair (the Sd.Kfz. 250 being the lighter one, designed and built by Demag) of the fully armored wartime half-tracks of the Wehrmacht, the Sd.Kfz. 251 was designed to transport the panzergrenadiers of the German mechanized infantry corps into battle. Sd.Kfz. 251s were the most widely produced German half-tracks of the war, with at least 15,252 vehicles and variants produced by various manufacturers, and were commonly referred to simply as "Hanomags" by both German and Allied soldiers.[1]

Design

There were four main model modifications (Ausführung A through D), which formed the basis for at least 22 variants.[1] The initial idea was for a vehicle that could be used to transport a single squad of 10 panzergrenadiers to the battlefield protected from enemy small arms fire, and with some protection from artillery fire. In addition, the standard mounting of at least one MG 34 or MG 42 machine gun allowed the vehicle to provide support by fire for the infantry squad once they had disembarked in battle. Later in the war, doctrine changed as they found that they could fight the battle from inside the vehicle, and greater weaponry was added to increase firepower. Unlike the thin-skinned US halftracks, the 251 could survive small arms fire on the battlefield.

The armour plates were designed to stop penetration by standard rifle/heavy machine gun bullets (like the Mauser 7.9X57mm bullet) by using both metal thickness and armour sloping. The fairly vertical front-facing plates were 14.5mm thick; the sides were steeply angled, V-shape and just 8mm thick, saving weight. These plates were both safe against the normal (non-tungsten) rifle AP round, which could pierce about 8mm of vertical armour. This German use of angled plate to reduce penetration, and on their similar armoured car designs, reveals that their military were fully aware of the benefits of sloped armour from early on, but didn't use any of it on their slablike tanks until faced with the T-34.

Positive aspects of the open top included greater situational awareness and faster egress by the infantry, as well as the ability to throw grenades and fire over the top of the fighting compartment as necessary while remaining under good horizontal cover. The downside was a major vulnerability to all types of plunging fire; this included indirect fire from mortars and field artillery, as well as depressed-trajectory small arms fire from higher elevated positions, lobbed hand grenades, even Molotov cocktails, and strafing by enemy aircraft.

The first two models were produced in small numbers from 1939. A and B models can be identified by the structure of the nose armor, which comprised two trapezoidal armor panels - the lower of which had a cooling hatch. The B model, which began production in 1940, eliminated the fighting compartment's side vision slits. The C model, which started production in mid-1942, featured a simplified hexagonal-shaped forward armored plate for the engine. Models A through C had rear doors that bulged out. The C model had a large production run, but was quite complex to build, involving many angled plates that gave reasonable protection from small arms fire. From early 1943, the D model was developed with the purpose of halving the number of angled body plates, simplifying the design and thus speeding up the production. D models can be easily recognized by their single piece sloping rear (with flat doors).

The standard personnel carrier version was equipped with a 7.92 mm MG 34 or MG 42 machine gun mounted at the front of the open compartment, above and behind the driver. A second machine gun could be mounted at the rear on an anti-aircraft mount.

Variants were produced for specialized purposes, including with anti-aircraft guns, light howitzers, anti-tank guns and mortars or even large unguided artillery rockets, as well as a version with an infrared search light used to spot potential targets for associated Panther tanks equipped with infrared detectors.

Another potentially good design feature of the Sd.Kfz.251 was the large track area, with the characteristic "slack track" design with no return rollers for the upper run of track, and the Schachtellaufwerk system of overlapping and interleaved main road wheels common to virtually all German halftracks of the period. This lowered the ground pressure and provided better traction, giving the Sd.Kfz.251 better cross country performance than most other nations' half-tracked vehicles. The 251 also had tank steering, whereby the normal steering wheel moved the front wheels, but after more turning of the steering wheel, the tracks are braked to cause turning, like on a tank. This is more complicated, but gives greater mobility than US halftracks. However, the interleaved and overlapping main road wheels shared a major problem with the Tiger I and Panther tanks that also used such roadwheel configurations - in muddy or winter weather conditions, such as those during a rasputitsa mud season or the coldest Russian winter conditions, accumulated mud and snow could freeze solid between the road wheels, immobilizing the vehicle.

Use

The early production models of this vehicle were issued to the 1st Panzer Division in 1939.

These vehicles were meant to enable panzergrenadiers to accompany panzers and provide infantry support as required. In practice, there were never enough of them to go around, and most panzergrenadier units had to make do with trucks for transport.

Variants

Sd.Kfz. 251/7 "Pionierpanzerwagen"
Sd.Kfz. 251/9 "Stummel"
Sd.Kfz. 251/1 Ausf.D captured by the Polish Home Army during the Warsaw Uprising in 1944
Tatra OT-810 - a Czechoslovak post-war version of the SdKfz 251 produced by the company Podpolianske strojárne Detva in Slovakia.

There were 23 official variants, and sundry unofficial variants. Each variant is identified by a suffix to the model number; however, there was some overlap in the variant numbers.

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Green, Michael. Anderson, Thomas. Schulz, Frank. German Tanks of World War II. Zenith Imprint, 2000.ISBN 978-0-7603-0671-0
  2. ↑ Sd.Kfz. 251/3 was produced after Sd.Kfz. 251/6, and changed designations in the process
  3. ↑ "404". wwiivehicles.com.

Sources

External links

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