The Fiery Failure of the Dicker Max | Cursed By Design

constructed from concrete and steel stretching along the 280 M French German border the magino line was a daunting Target for the German army with their upcoming plans to invade France it seemed inevitable that they would need the Firepower necessary to blast their way past these numerous fortifications while in reality it may not have prevented the eventual fall of France the imaginal line did leave a deep impact on German armored vehicle design which persisted for some time even after the surrender programs for vehicles such as the Panzer 1f and Panzer 2J as well as early heavy tank designs which eventually led to the tiger were heavily influenced by the fortifications of Germany's surrounding countries today we will look at one such design created with the intent of being a dedicated bunker Buster this is the story of the 10.5 CM armored self-propelled gun more commonly known as the Dicker [Music] Max bunkers and other fortifications have been a vital part of conflicts for centuries 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sponsoring now let's get back to our main topic with the magal line on their mind development of heavy bunker busting Vehicles would begin in the late 1930s several weapons were considered for this role with both the 10.5 cm and 12.8 CM cannons being potential candidates the latter of these two would end up being used as the Armament for the vehicle known as the shura Emil which I have covered in a previous video but the 10.5 CM would also be chosen for a design of its own unlike its bigger brother armed with the 12.8 CM which used a modified vk30 one Hull this 10.5 CM arm design would use a more proven chassis that being the one from the Panzer 4 with this kup would begin development of this vehicle presenting two proposed layouts on April 25th 1939 these were quite different from each other with one featuring the engine in the rear of the vehicle and a lower mounting point for the gun and the other having the engine mounted further forward beneath the gun of the two the second one was favored as the loud for a larger fighting compartment and less overhang from the barrel off the front of the vehicle with that choice in mind crup was to provide a revised drawing by the 15th of May yet more compromises were made as development continued with the engine being changed from the 12 cylinder Maybach hl1 120 from the original Panzer 4 to a significantly less powerful 6-cylinder HL 66 engine this was one of several choices made in an attempt to reduce the weight of the vehicle with a another being the use of the transmission from the VK 901 crup would meet their deadline of the 15th submitting their new proposal for a vehicle with a total weight of 22 tons approval for this design followed shortly after with a wooden mockup being requested another similar design was considered using a six- wheel torsion bar suspension however that added around 430 kg 948 while interest was still shown in this and eventually a single test check chassis was ordered it would never actually be produced as for the wooden mockup it was completed on the 19th of August 1939 while no photos of this exist we can assume based on some of the requested changes that the design at this point was already quite similar to what the final vehicle would look like the main changes requested were a reduction of the inside hole width by 100 mm and shifting of the crew compartment floor 100 mm lower with those and some other changes in mind crup was finally presented with a contract for two prototypes along with the binding design guidelines for them this consists of a basic description of the vehicle with a 10.5 CM l51 cannon with a muzzle brake using two-piece ammunition Maybach HL 66 engine connected to a vg1 15319 transmission fiveman crew and an open fighting compartment mounted at top the Panzer 4 chassis with the planned armor protection being 30 to 50 mm frontally with 20 mm on the side the total weight of the SPG was to be limited to 20 metric tons despite this however prior to the construction of the prototypes the decision for the transmission changed gear suddenly with the decision to instead use the SSG 46 transmission from the Panzer 2 and the steering unit from the Panzer 4 this seems to have been at least partially due to both already being in production and the steering unit having already been proven for the Panzer 4 the VK 901 and VK 902 program itself would suffer far more from this inability to make a decision on the transmission with that project seeing numerous systems tested driving production to a standstill but that's a story for another day as for the Dicker Max this change came with some major drawbacks as the gear ratio of the new transmission caused the estimated maximum speed to plummet from 35 kmph to 25 km per hour or around 15 mph when combined with the final combat weight of the vehicle being 22 metric tons this resulted in significantly worse Mobility from the initial plans for the self-propelled gun while this was not much of a concern if used against static fortifications the same cannot be said for other targets production of the first two trial vehicles of the Dicker Max was expected to be completed by August of the following year with a prospective order for 100 to follow it would not be until January of 1941 that the two were actually completed though these would be presented to Hitler at a demonstration on the 31st of March 1941 and despite the delay the order for a production run of the vehicles was planned for spring 1942 pending the results of troop trials it was also around this time in August of 1941 that the designation of the vehicles would go from 10 cm Canon Panzer Subs fetta 4 a to 10.5 CM kenona genser sub faleta do note that despite the change from 10 cm to 10.5 cm in the name the gun was the same for both the name Dicker Max which translates to Fat Max or thicker Max seems to have appeared later for the sake of Simplicity I will use that name for the remainder of the video unfortunately for the Dicker Max by this point combat in the west had finished an entire year before they were completed meaning they were no longer needed for their originally intended purpose however with the invasion of the USSR only weeks away their powerful guns could be put to work against new targets those being Soviet tanks tanks such as the KV series heavy tanks and t-34s proved quite resistant to the German guns during the early Invasion but with the 10.5 CM Cannon they would be able to make short work of such vehicles their introduction to combat would occur not long after the invasion began with the two self-propelled guns now being assigned as tank destroyers as part of paner abong 521 arriving with the unit sometime just before the beginning of the invasion their first foray into combat would come just one day after the operation began starting on the 23rd of June the two tank destroyers would fire against groups of infantry as well as anti-tank guns and artillery after roughly a week of this they would engage their first armored Target that being of all things an armored train due to a mechanical failure this Mission would result in Failure as the dickermax arrived 5 minutes too late with the train pulling away and out of the line of fire things would only get worse for the dickermax in the days following with one of the two having a catastrophic failure this occurred as the crew was making their way to slook along a road on a particular ularly hot day while the open top may have provided some relief for the crew compared to their fellow tankers the same cannot be said for their vehicle which caught fire and promptly exploded the exact cause of this was not determined in the report but according to the crew they saw flame shooting out of the cartridge storage prior to the explosion it seems likely that a combination of the heat of the day with the heat from the engine may have caused the ammo to cook off whatever the case this completely destroyed the Dicker Max which was slowly picked apart for spare parts in the following weeks the crew were lucky enough to escape with their lives bailing out of the vehicle the remaining dickermax would continue in service after this eventually getting the chance to engage armored Targets in late August as expected of a vehicle fitted with such a powerful gun it had little difficulty engaging those with three of the tanks in the column being knocked out although it was not clear if the 10 .5 CM gun was responsible for this interestingly the action report notes that the first tank was engaged with a high explosive shell as that was already loaded and upon inspection this may have damaged the tracks of the enemy tank this success continued into the following months with the dickermax engaging and either knocking out or completely destroying several heavy tanks these engagements would provide valuable information about the performance of the tank destroyer with complaints primarily being made in regards to the mobility Not only was the speed poor making it incapable of being part of lead units but when combined with the limited Traverse of 18° this made it difficult to fire on moving targets as it required the entire vehicle to be repositioned if the target moved out of the gun's Arc it was also noted that the blast from the muzzle break caused it to be impossible for the crew to observe where their shot landed to resolve this either an observation post would be needed to direct shot or multiple Vehicles would need to work together to direct their fire another more minor issue was found with the steering brake which is also identified as the failure which delayed the engagement with the armored train despite these issues though the vehicle was available and effective so it remained in combat until the end of the year when it was then pulled out of service and returned to kup for repairs and rebuilding the surviving Dicker Max would return to combat the following year in June now joined by the 12.8 CM armed stura emils with the potential for a production order having come and gone this species of paner would go extinct by the end of 1942 presumably being lost in combat or from a breakdown somewhere near Stalingrad in what is believed to be the last known surviving photo of the vehicle it is shown with 18 kill marks on the barrel being inspected by a Soviet Soldier following that the dickermax Disappeared with it seemingly being scrapped after its capture overall the Dicker Max while promising as a weapon for destroying fortifications and armored targets proved to be held back by the many concessions made during its development had it been given a more powerful engine perhaps it would have impressed the Army design office enough to Warrant fullscale production but it could just as likely have suffered the same fate regardless the time spent on this design was not wasted though as the information gathered from the time in combat would prove to be very useful for development of new designs like the nasorn but what do you think about the dickermax was it a good design held back by compromises or is it another example of a German wonder weapon doomed to fail let me know in the comments and while you're there be sure to like the video If you enjoyed it and subscribe for more don't forget to also give call of War a try to get your free bonus for being a viewer of the channel huge thanks to them for supporting these videos and to all of you for watching one final thanks to all these awesome people who support the channel as YouTube members I really appreciate it if you enjoyed this video check out my other video on the stur Emil and learn about another failed German project hope to see you there

Channel: ConeOfArc

Views: 124,975

Keywords: ConeOfArc

Id: JDZSNw7-4r0

Length: 13min 47sec (827 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 30 2024