If you’d like to read a memoir about a European heading East to take down a long line of Russians you might just want to start at Balls Deep and keep reading. This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. ( September 2020) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) stars for the plot and action scenes, a single star for factual and historical inaccuracies. This being a book review and not at all about Texas, a lone star will not do. Also, perhaps the wagging of an admonishing finger for selling this as a panzer memoir, a true account - in the words of the author “nothing is invented or exaggerated” - of a panzer soldier of WW2, which is, well, a lie - I don’t know how to call it by any other name. Finally, as a historian, I'm very disappointed that this book (and other Sprech Media titles) is advertised as a historical memoir, when it is not. I am worried that readers will believe the accounts within these books are true, when they are not. Misleading people to believe these accounts as true distorts history and is a dangerous path to go down. These fantastic, outlandish fiction tales, paraded as historic fact, dishonor the real veterans who experienced the horrors of tank warfare, who suffered and lost comrades on the Eastern Front, and diminishes their real and important stories. Planned but ultimately not selected was the rotating driver’s vision device: the Fahrersehklappe – Walze. Source: Panzer Basics

I'm really disappointed by books that are now flooding my Audible feed from Sprech Media. I'm a WWII enthusiast, and was excited to see some new "memoirs" from the German point of view. However, I don't believe this book, or any other book advertised as such from Sprech Media, is a memoir. I believe most, if not all, of Sprech Media's titles are 100% fiction written by a ghostwriters. Wolfgang Faust was the driver of a Tiger I tank with the Wehrmacht Heavy Panzer Battalions, seeing extensive combat on the Eastern Front in 1943-45. This memoir was his brutal and deeply personal account of the Russian Front's appalling carnage. The first batch of turrets, made by Krupp originally for the now-canceled VK45.02(P2) project, did not go to waste and were modified with hydraulic traverse in place of the electrically-powered traverse. These were subsequently fitted to the first 50 VK45.03 chassis from Henschel. These have often been referred to, incorrectly, as the ‘Porsche’ turrets. The subsequent turret, also commonly and incorrectly referred to as the ‘Henschel’ turret, is properly known as the ‘Serien-turm’ (series production turret) and was mounted on all subsequent (vehicle number 51 onwards) VK45.03(H) hulls. Both turrets, however, were designed and built by Krupp, so the use of either ‘Henschel’ or ‘Porsche’ to describe the turrets is incorrect. The first turret was the ‘Krupp VK45.02(P2) turm’ and the second is the ‘Krupp VK45.03 Serien Turm’ although Henschel refers to the latter turret as ‘Neue Turm- Ausführung Ab.48 Fahrzeug’ (English: ‘New Turret for Model starting with the 48th Vehicle), which suggests that a couple of those 50 turrets used may originally have been intended for other purposes such as firing trials but got used on production tanks instead.However, he wants to make us believe that his Tiger unit was an army unit; when it had to have been a SS Schwere Panzer Abteiling. The memoir of a young Tiger tank driver, serialized on a German newspaper after the war, collected into a volume and translated. The translation falters on occasion, but it is very readable. The story is very violent as war memoirs go, for two reasons. The obvious one is that this is mechanized infantry and tanks, and it is more gruesome and personal than war fought between battleships or from the air — or in a spy story. The second one is that German world war two memoirs tend to eschew dates, names, even geographic locations out of fear of exposing the characters to retribution or prosecution. As a result, the story is entirely about moments and events... and most of the events available to this author were violent ones. Additionally, the serialization format requires that the reader be entertaining, at least in a grim fashion, to hold the readers attention (and the publisher's funding).

The red-brown of the rest, whether that be due to oxidation, red lead oxide paint, or whatever, is again immaterial. It's a nice colour and could be any of those things if appied in a particular way.

Furthermore, Mr Faust never identifies the unit he was fighting with, and locations are only vaguely described. From what I gather, he IMAGINES his Tiger panzer unit was engaged in the battles for the bridgeheads of the Dnieper river which happened around fall to winter 43/44. Powered turret traverse was provided by the variable speed Boehringer-Sturm L4 hydraulic motor, which was driven from the main engine by a secondary drive shaft. On early production versions of the Tiger maximum turret traverse was limited to 6º/second, whilst on later versions a selectable high speed traverse gear was added. Thus, the turret could be rotated 360 degrees at up to 6º/second in low gear independent of engine rpm (same as on early production versions), or up to 19º/second with the high-speed setting and engine at 2000 rpm, and at over 36º/second at the maximum allowable engine speed of 3000 rpm. The direction and speed of traverse was controlled by the gunner through foot pedals, the speed of traverse corresponding to the level of depression the gunner applied to the foot pedal. This system allowed for very precise control of powered traverse, a light touch on the pedal resulting in a minimum traverse speed of 0.1 deg/sec (360 degrees in 60 min), unlike in most other tanks of the time (e.g., US M4 Sherman or Soviet T-34) this allowed for fine laying of the gun without the gunner needing to use his traverse handwheel. [34] Suspension [ edit ] Clear view of the Tiger I's Schachtellaufwerk overlapping and interleaved road wheels during production By November 1942, a third firm had entered the production arena for the new heavy tank, Henschel und Söhne. In April 1942, this firm had already been working on the VK45.01(H) armed with the 8.8 cm Kw.K. L/56 and 7.5 cm Kw.K. L/70 and used this knowledge to work on a design mounting the 8.8 cm Kw.K. L/71.

Tank Museum David Willey – podcast 194". We have ways of making you talk. 8 October 2020 . Retrieved 27 January 2022. As for the somewhat pointed "experten" comment about the Ferdinand factory shot, all that shows you is shiny metal catching the light. It cannot tell you what colour the shiny metal is. An assumption is being made that all shiny metal is silvery, which is or course very far from the truth. The only guaranteed silver metal in that photo is the gun ball mount and the roadwheel tyres.ps, I am now using acrylic inks for a lot of my work, and can highly recommend Daler Rowney's Birdwing Copper and Bell Bronze acrylic inks for those particular metallic finishes. I haven't tried their other metallic inks yet, but assume them to be just as good. One aspect of the Maybach design that British investigators remarked upon was the compact nature of the engine, for a V-12. This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sourcesin this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. ( February 2019) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message)