RSO Pak: Great on Paper - Terrible at the Front
A look at RSO Pak (7,5 cm Pak 40/4 auf gep. Selbstfahrlafette Raupenschlepper Ost) was the combination of the Pak 40 with the RSO. Although the firing trials were regarded successful, the vehicle ultimately turned out to be a failure. This video covers experience reports, development, a brief overview on the RSO, firepower, mobility and "armor protection".
Disclaimer: I was invited by the Panzermuseum Munster in 2020.
English Channel of the Panzermuseum: / germantankmuseum
German Channel of the Panzermuseum: / daspanzermuseum
RSO footage recorded at Militracks 2019 at the Overloon War Museum: www.militracks.nl - www.oorlogsmuseum.nl/en/home/
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» SOURCES «
Jentz, Thomas L.; Doyle, Hilary Doyle: Panzer Tracts No.7-3 Panzerjaeger (7.5 cm Pak 40/4 to 8.8 cm Waffentraeger) development and employment from 1939 to 1945. Panzer Tracts: Boyds, MD, USA: 2006.
Kwok, Peter; Duske, Heiner F.: Nuts & Bolts: Vol. 09: 7,5 cm Pak 40/4 auf gep. Selbstfahrlafette Raupenschlepper Ost (RSO). Nuts & Bolts Verlag GbR: Neumünster, Germany, 2010.
Doyle, Hilary L.; Jentz, Thomas L.: Panzer Tracts No.7-2 Panzerjaeger (7.62 cm F.K.(r) auf gp.Sfl. to Marder 38T)) development and employment from 1941 to 1945. Panzer Tracts: Boyds, Maryland, USA, 2005.
Andorfer, Volker; Greenland, Tony; Konetzny, Lutz: Nuts & Bolts: Vol. 29: Raupenschlepper Ost „RSO“. Nuts & Bolts Verlag GbR: Neumünster, Germany, 2012.
BArch, RH 10/56: Erfahrungen Taktische Berichte der Truppe Band 1, 1942-1943.
www.tankarchives.ca/2020/08/a...
de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raupens...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raupens...
#RSOPak,#RSO,#RaupenschlepperOst
== Corrections & Clarifications == 1:15 The icon text "Soviet Tanks '40" is wrong, should be 41. (Thanks to Andrew for pointing this out.) 1:30 I say "986 kg" but it is "950 kg" onscreen, the 986 kg is the more correct value and technically it should be rounded to 1000 kg not down to 950 kg. (Thanks to Andrew for pointing this out.) 11:47 There is an error in the quote "but couldn't the same objective have been met simply by placing the 7.5 cm Pak 40 with is [should be 'its'] original wheeled carriage . . ." (Thanks to Andrew for pointing this out.)
hello, the germans not fabricated tanks with main gun in a semitrailer for evaluate or war?
hello, i would like to ask you something , are there any reports of it achieving some succses(tank kills, etc.)?
Don't want to nitpick, but since you're publishing, you might want to know: it's *fewer* components, not "less". The former is used with countable, the latter with uncountable nouns (obviously, the same is true for their base forms, "little" and "few", sometimes being more obvious: the meaning of "little components" is entirely different). P.S.: love your well researched videos, thanks for the huge amount of effort invested!
Do not worry about all those minor errors. Your content is amazing. Keep it up!
RSO is probably the most unknown, most produced German Vehicle of WW2. And I mean that Germans produced over 23.000 RSO during the war but people are always surprised by what it is.
Yes German solution to brining up logistics over poor terrain/roads of the east mid war. . I gather they were slow [17kph] and had other problems. but almost 60-70k trucks were converted with these tracks as improvised half track trucks [3 ton & 4.5 ton trucks].
yeah, I never heard of it, until Oleg Maddox asked me for photos about it in 199X and I was: what I never heard of that thing, what is an RSO?
It makes me laugh, how everybody gets so excited by the RSO... and they always say - Did you know Russia copied it after the war? [TDT-40 and TDT-55A Logging Tractors]. What they forget to mention is that the Germans captured lots of Russian STZ-5 Artillery Tractors and found them so useful, that they copied them in order to make the RSO in the first place! I guess people think it is cooler to be a Panzer FanBoy than to be historically accurate or recognise that quite a lot of WW2 Russian military engineering developments were actually pretty good - even if the casting texture looked like a potato field on the outside of some tanks.
@@paulosborne6517 about 35 to 40 years ago I worked a few days logging with a surviving "Motor-Mule", those where RSOs built after the war from leftover pieces. Very powerfull vehicle/winch combination. The oldtimer driving it had got it from some family member. Hope it survived long enough to get caught in the "antique tractor" wave. And yes, it was loud.
@Paul Osborne you seem to mix up two aspects here. 1) It is quite astonishing that the vehicle is rather unknown due to its rather large production numbers. I wouldn't call that "excited", especially since those people also mention that the various German vehicles that were produced in far lower numbers (or not at all) get a lot of attention. 2) From the stuff I read about the RSO it was clearly mentioned that it likely was a copy(edit: heavily inspired, it was based on Steyr truck) of the STZ-5. Also this has likely to do less with "Panzer FanBoy"-ism than with the lack of coverage (and of course interest) on a) non-combat vehicles (how many books are there on the RSO?) and b) especially Soviet vehicles... I did videos on the IS-2 and SU-76 last year and oh boy there is almost nothing out there and of that stuff that is out there, there were plenty of errors, etc. Yeah, there are "Panzer FanBoy"s but copying their lack of knowledge and nuance is clearly not the way going forward.
"Too large an unarmored target" - This is represented very well in Steel Division 2. Also very easy to spot, haha!
Yeah Chamberlain & Doyle report this beast at 2.6m height including PAK-40, while notional 3 ton towing tractor is 2.1m height without PaK-40 and armoured SPW-251, was 2.17m height with PaK 37/75L24 gun. As long as it stays in shadow of bushes etc , it might be OK. If these are part of Divisional mobile Panzerjagger battalion ; the armored SPW 251/21 [PaK-40] should be OK.
actually, in SD2 it has armor :D
@@ivvan497 i recall they were SD-3 if they were 3 ton truck with armoured body like mounting "Panzerwerfer" [ with Nebelwerfer ].
@@paullakowski2509? I am talking about RSO in steel division 2. It had no armor but they patched it and gave it 5mm to the front so it can withstand small arms fire.
Is that game worth getting in your opinion? The Steam reviews give a very mixed opinion on it and the price is very steep for me (I am very broke to say the least. Let's just say don't become a full time carer for a parent for the money). However I am not opposed to saving up for it. I was/am a big fan of the Wargame franchise, not to mention a pseudo ww2 historian, so the game seems very up my street. It's just as I say the steam reviews have left me in two minds about it, not to mention that I have concerns about if the game's multiplayer is still popular enough to warrant it. Thanks for your opinion on this.
Wehrmacht troops: "Towed AT guns are too vulnerable and ineffective, but full on tank destroyers are too expensive. We need a solution!" Engineers: "Okay, what if we basically just slap the gun onto the back of the towing vehicle as minimally as possible. There will be some compromises, but it should still be an--" Wehrmacht Procurement: "Sounds great, but first we're going to need this long list of complex requirements that will grossly complicate this design and render it so bloated it's development will be delayed years, for extremely dubious tactical advantage." Engineers: *sigh* Just Wehrmacht things™.
Meanwhile 17pdr and 25pdr towed carriages go pew pew and continue in use until the 60's....
Also, it needs to be capable of dive bombing.
*laughs in portee 6 pounder.*
Still happens today in most programs eg f35 vtol requirement.
@@mikearmstrong8483 Udet you know what would be great if it was a dive bomber.
It boggles my mind that not only was dismounting self-propelled guns possible, but was considered mandatory by many decision makers in the German army.
There is benefits to this, like mentioned ability to move gun from wrecked vehicle to stationary mount and gun carriage keeping the gun in fight even if mount was lost beyond repair. Its that just their execution could been better. Mounting pak40 to carriage like that was great idea, just that maybe get improved carriage for it. Whole German weapons development was huge lack cluster and if they had not went with 400 different designs with custom parts they would have had better military force... but then again they have learned from that and early 2000 you could swap parts between makes and models of VAG cars pretty easily. Sadly that lesson was learned bit late.
Something else not mentioned in the video was that a LOT of fighting, especially by the infantry divisions for whom this vehicle appears to have been intended, was from prepared defensive positions/lines. In situations like this it's MUCH better to have a towed gun than a vehicle mounted one, especially if the vehicle is unarmored. You can conceal a towed gun far more easily, and it's much easier to construct a protected earthwork firing position for a towed gun. At the same time mobility and 360 degree traverse are far less important to such usage. The Soviets loved heavy pre-assault artillery concentrations (and were good at performing them) and by early 1944 had plenty of sturmoviks prowling around. In the face of either of these threats I'd rather be manning a towed gun than sitting in an RSO.
Towed guns have advantages, the US tank destroyer force even decided to switch from SP to towed with many of its battailions.
@@malkavianstr450 And how long did that last? While the artillery officer in charge of Army ground forces thought towed guns were superior to tank destroyers so ordered a number of tank destroyer units turn in their tank destroyers for towed guns.
@John Taylor I may not explain this well, but building a self-propelled anti-tank gun, and then taking the gun off the vehicle component, is completely invalidating the whole design to begin with. You might as well not build the chassis; hell, the gun is now less mobile than a towed AT gun and more likely to be lost.
So how much armor do you want to shave off for mobility? Yes.
"Ja"
"Jawohl"
"No panzer ist beste panzer!" -Wehrmacht 1943
No armour best armour meta
Greetings! It's interesting that the German soldiers had similar noise problems with their RSO as the Hungarian military with their HSCS KV-40 and -50 artillery tractors. The Soviets always knew if the Hungarian heavy artillery started moving because of their towing vehicles, so both models earned the nickname "Traitor". However, sometimes the treacherous noise was used to disguise some other military movements. A Hungarian Armour Enthusiast
Thank you for sharing this with us! Keep up the amazing reserch work :D
Thank you! Will do!
Thanks for covering this. I had been fascinated with the RSO PAK from years ago playing the old Steel Panthers game, which includes rare/oddball items in the weapons inventory. Your assessment of the vehicle is more critical than some I've read, but I trust your research and insights over others!
wait the RSO PAK was in Steel Panthers? I played that game a lot, but never came across it. I only know it from Steel Division 2. Was it Steel Panthers World at War? Because I played that far less than Steel Panthers 1 & 3.
This vehicle has some similarities to the Archer, a 17 pounder gun on an obsolescent tank chassis. This powerful mobile gun had some success in France in 1944.
Yes, the Archer served into the 50s, and perhaps shows a good example of how to get it right whilst this video shows how to get it wrong. The Archer weighed a ton less than the Valentine donor tank; it had a tried and tested propulsion, suspension and steering design made for a vehicle of its weight, and managed to keep its crew in an open topped but splinter/bullet proof superstructure; everything in it looks low down, so no centre of gravity issues either.
Yes, tracks and a gun *. . .*
@@letoubib21 and an engine, please be fair 🙂
Closer probably to the British 2-pdr portee trucks.
If you're fighting in bocages in France after D-Day wise you'd expect a slightly more mobile gun platform with a small sillouette perform better than lets say in the eastern front.
This is right up there with the M6 GMC (Americans threw a 37mm on the back of a jeep as they were really hurting for something, ANYTHING that could stop a tank)
Might be a lousy idea, but it's the best lousy idea we have available.
honestly I wish stuff like that got more coverage. XD its kinda like using towed 88mm as anti tank units
At start of war [1940] a compromise SP gun was explored . It mounted a 88mm flak 36 on the back of a 12ton and 18 ton Semi-tractor [3/4 tracks]. The large AA pedestal for these Flak conversions made these huge targets and cumbersome to use, in the field. The fighting vehicle height was 3.0m to 3.6m tall...and weight 5-7 tons more than the 12-18 ton semi tractors. The torsion bars had to be strengthened and ½ in of armor was bolted around the engine & crew cabin plus a fold down side hull plates with out rigger jacks for stability when deployed. Few were used in Russian and did OK , but the idea never died. About the same time some ambitious PaK troopers mounted their 50mm PaK 38 AT Guns [minus their split trails & wheels ] turning it into improvised SPATG. At the same time LW was mounting 20mm FLAK on backs of 1 ton semi tractors and by 1941 they were mounting a 37mm flak on 5 ton semi tractor. By mid war 3 ton semi tractors were to get LeFH-18M howitzers mounted in back [Hitlers idea !] while later 5 ton semi tractors were to be converted to mount 75L70 Pak 42 guns. A lot of ideas but fair number were actually converted .~ 800 were issued to Wehrmacht for Barbarossa in 1941.
At least two of the 8,8cm FlaK half tracks were still active in spring '45. They were in the area of Stargard.
@@MrPorkmann thanks for the update !!!
Thanks for the video! Your videos are always great and it must take you forever to do all this research. Thank you for sharing with us and keep up the good work!
Glad you like them!
its so hilarious how they had problems with the tow version, but then required the mounted version to also be able to be a towed version with all its problems all over again completely negating the point of making a mounted version
And it is lost if the vehicle is destroyed,so you can't tow it in the most likely event that would require that.
@@naamadossantossilva4736 Right. One rifle bullet to the engine and your PaK is stuck on top of a vehicle, with no option to dismount the gun and tow it somewhere else. The RSO wasn’t built to stick on the front but deliver material or tow guns to it. It wasn’t suppose to be a tank destroyer but a gun carrier. The main advantage of the system was that the PaK could be used any time while it was transported but that’s probably not worth the effort. The lack of armor protection from small arms and artillery fragments makes the system just too vulnerable. Instead of potential losing a PaK you now lose a RSO as well.
@Kim Janek So...how are you supposed to transport the gun if there are no wheels on it? If the chassis is knocked out, you've basically lost the gun as well until the battle is over, at which point you'd be able to recover a directly mounted gun anyway
Troops dismounting the PAK to move it a new firing position: wo sind die Pferde?! Commander: Pferde sind wir! Perhaps the best exchange from the movie “Stalingrad”
The canopy roofing makes it look so cosy.
Look excellent for a camping weekend on the Steppe 👍
true 🥺
I never knew this vehicle existed. Thanks for the awesome video man!
Thank you for presenting this video.
This seems like interesting context for the favour given to the Hetzer around the same time. It at least made the same gun mobile under decent armour protection.
Thank you. This was awesome. I remember that the Soviets tacked this problem in the 1980s by taking a towed 85mm gun and placing a small engine on one of the trail legs, along with a seat and.a steering wheel. That gave it short range maneuverability.
America did that too in the 50/60s
The German Bundeswehr had a similar AT gun, a 90 mm gun propelled by a small engine, the same gun the kanonenjagdpanzer had *. . .*
It wasn't in the '80s, but in 1948. It was called SD-44.
@pootis The 1980s design you mention is called 2А45М Sprut-B, and it's actually a 125-mm smoothbore tank gun put on a modified D-30 howitzer carriage. Only 24 were made before 2S25 Sprut-SD self-propelled gun (same cannon, but on a light tank chassis) went into trials, that eventually resulted in its adoption in 2006.
Great content as always!
Glad you enjoyed it
Wow that museum looks amazing. I've always been fascinated by WWII-era German armored vehicles and weaponry - hope I get to see one in person some day!
Interesting. A vehicle that was far from ideal but surely better than a towed PaK. Incidentally, have you seen the PaK 40 carried on a "normal" RSO? I have a photo of a PaK 38 carried thus but not the 40.
This looks like something that would be amazing in a videogame because often in more mainstream games design doesn't have to be practical and only stats that matter are power, penetration etc. Also Goebbels described as "Loud with no substance" lol
or in wt where the engagement distance is so low anything will pen anywhere
@@l.a.wright6912 Without any armor you would get annihilated from arty and MG fire. Remember this vehicle is also terrible slow.
@@l.a.wright6912 As a american jumbo player in warthunder who has been shot by many panthers D (and its other variants), somehow lived su-152's to my side, and various other lolpen vehicles I'd say "distance is so low anything will pen anywhere" is a bit incorrect. Merely depends on the vehicles used.
@@Vxylon tbf I was mainly talking about 3.3-4.7 where heavy tanks arent the main thing both sides are fielding. also we both know that as long as you're playing realistic its almost impossible to find a good german team. it should also be mentioned that volumetric basically fricked everything when it comes to pen However as someone who plays sim I can tell you its very easy to pen the jumbo so long as you dont aim for the mg port (gaijin made it extremely trolly) and most of the time hitting the neck of the turret is an easier shot and more consistent
@@l.a.wright6912 "also we both know that as long as you're playing realistic its almost impossible to find a good german team." Honestly, I feel like it's the maps- germans definitely can get some of the shittier players but when a mostly german team is thrown into a urban environment with tanks primarily fit for sniping with low turret traverse, weak sides / unable to angle (panthers), long reloads, n stuff like that it kind of fucks the german team over. I've had plenty of 'meh' teams that were able to stomp just because we were on a open map, and plenty of good player teams who got stomped in the end just because the map didn't favor their vehicles. "However as someone who plays sim I can tell you its very easy to pen the jumbo so long as you dont aim for the mg port (gaijin made it extremely trolly) and most of the time hitting the neck of the turret is an easier shot and more consistent" Fair enough, I won't discredit your personal experience but at range and even up close I've had several people try to go for the neck shot and they've either been trolled by volumetric somehow or simply got the angle off barely and fucked up. If the MG port is very visible / flat on or facing you and the jumbo player isn't doing the wiggles, it's probably a safer shot. Although, if the jumbo hides it behind a corner then you're kind of stuck praying to gaijin to get the neck shot. edit: On checking the jumbo too out of curiosity, where do you actually even shoot the neck to not get gaijin'd by volumetric? It's 152mm plates that In certain areas jump up to over 230-260mm of effective thickness in the middle and anywhere from 160-180mm on certain tiny side-ish parts depending on angle, which is then surrounded by more 200mm+ effective thickness plates around these tiny spots. There are two flat 152mm plates in the middle but It seems like you're more likely to get gaijin'd by volumetric trying to go for them since they're on the very top and bottom.
I love the part what is been filmed in Overloon. Really good museum and Militracks is a lot fun. Can call my self a Lucky one to be a passenger of a Kettengrad. Nice video greetz from holland
Glad you enjoyed it!
Excellent video !! Congrats
First I have heard of this equipment. Thank you.
Great video on this vehicle! Never saw that gun before, so it is a learning opportunity.
Love that museum. Felt like a child in amusement park. To touch history.... WoW!
Geez you'd hate to be the driver/codriver on this thing in combat .
Thank you again for an informative episode on an antitank gun I never knew existed. It seems to have been a "stop-gap" vehicle to fill an urgent need on the Eastern Front until true Tank Destroyers were available. Why was the RSO so noisy, i.e., the engine, the tracks, and/or the suspension?
Interessant und gut dokumentiert wie immer! 👍 Durch viele deiner Analysen zieht sich wie ein roter Faden der Einfluss Hitlers auf die Waffentwicklung. Könntest du einen clip darüber machen, wie und wie weit Hitler ganz allgemein persönlich in die Waffenentwicklung eingriff?
Some years ago, I as a Dane visited the P. M. Museum during a Historical tour to the area, also the infamous Dora factory and KZ camp at Kohnstein, but I would like to come back, when an eventual new built has been made for the Museum. I have also seen other films made in this museum, by the "Chieftain" and others.
Excellent video
Great video!
This is lovely and I want one. Why didn't I know this existed until now?
A video with a light Anti Tank Capability is always welcome..... even if it is only limited.
Thank you.👍
When it comes to the whole mounting / de-mounting concept, it almost seems like they should have just had a vehicle that carried all the wheels and the crane for a battery of guns if they really wanted to go that route. Even then, the utility of being able to dismount the guns is dubious. Sure, "when the vehicle is lost, the gun is lost". If you're on the offensive, that could be a headache because you have a gun that's well in the rear, waiting for a track or engine to be fixed. Yet, even if you could dismount the gun, it's going to be slowing you down, anyway, because it needs help. Then, when you're on the DEFENSIVE, what are the odds that the crew will have the luxury of time and safety that will let them go through the de-mounting process? For a defender, the benefit of self-propelled guns is you need even less warning before you can leave and avoid being overrun. Having a gun that you can mount onto a vehicle isn't much more of a benefit than having a gun you can tow when it comes to bugging out.
I liked your other way of printing the information in both German and English at the same time.
Interessant!
I want just the tractor truck itself. That thing looks fun to drive!
Another idea not thought through. Great video.
There's self-propelling the PaK 40 (I swear if they tried making a kettenkrad haul this...) because its back breaking pushing the damn thing to its firing position after uncoupling from the vehicle, and then there's this thing that would probably make PaK 43 crews enjoy rotating their gun
Oh I'm sure that a kettenkrad towed around a Pak 40 at some point during WW2, it's probably about at it's weight limit though.
The RSO was an artillery tractor intended for the Russian Front (mud, minimal roads) and there was a half track version which was a good gun platform - it looked a lot like the Hanomag. Minitanks used to model it in 1/76 scale - long ago, in the 1960s veteran Wargamer CS Grant adopted the flak version as an APC for his wargame troops
I'm always amazed at the variety of military vehicles because when I was growing up they only showed us only the well known vehicles on tv and in school.
When you were growing up? But you are still a little baby! Lol
@@gon4455 when you grow up, you will understand
Thanks
By this point, I have really lost track. Roughly, (and counting StuGs) how many different tracked antitank vehicles did the Germans have?
Build as antitank or used as antitank? Since initially StuGs were just a mobile artillery it would be better to count those that had been built with antitank function. Rough count is: 2 versions of Marder II, 2 versions of Marder III, Panzerjäger 1, Marder I, Hornisse/Nashorn (same type, 2 names), Ferdinand/Elephant. That's 8. 4 Jagdpanzer types: 38(t) AKA Hetzer, Jadgpanther, Jagdtiger, Jagdpanzer IV. We have 12 now. 4 version of StuG III (F with 2 different guns, F/8 and G) That's 16. StuG IV used sane gun as StuG III G so we have number 17. "4,7 cm Pak (t) auf Panzerjäger Renault R35(f)" gun used on Panzerjäger but put on captured French Renault R35. That's 18. Sturer Emil and Dicker Max, 2 different prototypes, 2 vehicles of each type. That's 20...
@@PobortzaPl And these from the people that love order and standardization.
*how high can you count?*
@@looinrims Depends on if I take my socks off.
How many breads have you eaten in your life?
While the first vehicles were rolled out from the production line, Steyr started testing an improved version that incorporated a wider chassis and tracks; these changes improved cross-country performance and lowered the center of gravity, a problem in a vehicle of such a high ground clearance. None of the improved version ever reached the front.
Interesting weapon system that I had seen around but didn't know anything about.
The RSO managed to sit on the worst spot between a towed gun and an real tank destroyer. It had the bad features of both types without significant advantages. The usual over ambitious requirements did not help ...
Sounds like a half AT gun half tank destroyer that mixes the worst of both, being too big, complicated and conspicuous to be an AT gun and too weak, slow and exposed to be a TD
Wow, did not even know about this vehicle!
Neat transport.Neat video of the vehicle going down the trailers in Germany? Wish I could have this when overseas many year's ago? Danke.
There really is no vehicle at the DPM that you didnt film yet, apparently :)
:D well, there are a few and a lot in the post-war section.
Which is good, because the museum itself offers only very limited (next to none) information value for its visitors. So one can watch these videos and then go to see in real historical artifacts that were already properly presented by MHV. DPM is not really a museum, it is just a publicly accessible tank storage facility run by people who don't really like tanks.
@@MilitaryHistoryVisualized Just leave a few for the rest of us :) And go and write a book about that authentic German Aricraft carrier you love driving around ;)
@@dusanbolek8004 I know. I am a member of the friends of the DPM. At the last yearly meeting of the friends organization they did show plans for new information "Walls" to be procured (payed for by funds from the friends organization). They (and I) hope that they will be able to tell more stories and give more context with those. I for one am looking forward to it. Because if you get there as a "normal" person you realy dont take away much info from your visit as it is.
On paper it works, though right off the bat i'd agree "minimal" armor protection vs fragments is almost a necessity. though with small changes to doctrine this weapon system could have worked... First, pairing it with a carry vehicle. heavy wheeled vehicle, such as a flat bed truck, that could carry 2 of them. This would let you move them around a theater quickly, then deploy them on a tactical level. their low speed on their own would prevent them from being useful in anything but static locations. however even without the carry vehicile they would still be able to move away from an area or advance on their own. next, operating them from "prepaired" positions, where they could be dug in placed behind sandbags and such would limit their venerability to fragments and such but for that you'd still want to keep the vehicle as low as possible to limit how high you'd need to place the bags/earthen works at the prepaired defensive position.
"Worse than it looks" *Me:* "Looks great."
Are you planning on doing a video about the German motorcycles? Many thousands were used and various side car combinations and towed 2 wheel trailers and other features were used. Another video I'd be interested to see is the many types of horse drawn carriages and wagons and trailers, as well as the more well known horse drawn artillery guns. Infantry carts and a similar trailer were used by platoons, 5cm and 8cm granatwerfers had their own carts for the ammunition, twin mounts for the MG-34 with traverse and elevation gear, AA sights and gunners seats were used to provide mobile close range AA defence and could be horse or light vehicle drawn. Special versions were built for field kitchens, ambulances, ammunition, signal equipment, baggage, rations, etc and some units were issued with hundreds of wagons/carts/trailers/artillery equipment that were towed by between 1 and 6+ horses, as well as horses for officers and military police, recconaissance and other troops and to equip the different logistics trains at platoon/company/battalion/regimental and higher level units. (Apologies if you have already made a video about this subject 👍😆).
There is some stuff planned, without covid there might have been a ride with a local collector. Got quite some literature as well, it will eventually happen, but likely in small steps.
Interesting vehicle, I would try and lower the silhouette and lengthen the vehicle at least one more wheel set to allow more room to allow crew to be behind engine rather than beside. Is the track design contain a bushing or just steel pin?
It looks so inadequate sitting next to the Jagdpanther
👍 Interesting .. thanks. Looks somewhat like a 'Design by a Committee' effort. The further divorced the Committee is from the Front, the better. Aside .. the movie 'Pentagon Wars' .. the development of the Bradley AFV is a good watch regarding ..
No. Just no.
Really interesting stuff, more of that kind please.. I couldnt understand why they were calling it Austria's revenge though..
The chassis of the RSO was of Austrian manufacture.
The basic idea and the initial implementation were quite sound from the perspective of the state of Germany's military affairs at the time, but the limitations of execution and the unreasonable dismountability criterion were really dragging it down. Well, good for us it turned out that way.
The RSO is a curious vehicle and I know little about it. I assumed it was dedicated to the Eastern front but I noted a crashed on on a roadside in a Canadian newsreel about the battle of the Scheldt. Do you have any information or thoughts on the deployment of this vehicle?
I will look into this, particularly the table of organization and equipment for the infantry divisions. In the PzDiv 44 it did not show up.
@@MilitaryHistoryVisualized I couldn't find an mention of them either but I'll try and find the newsreel clip itself. It was one of the rounded front cab cargo versions, perhaps supplied to handle the marshy ground in the area but I couldn't make out any markings. It was sitting presumably damaged and abandoned in the ditch and from the direction of the passing Canadian troops it had been retreating from the front. Nothing earth shaking but seeing it there piqued my curiosity.
They wanted a PaK on pallet carried by a forklift, with an additional pallet truck *** ***this might not work in mud
Mounting and dismounting the PaK is already difficult and time consuming, now try doing that under fire
Great stuff......Ta!
Tank motorcycle is awesome.
Once again, thanks, and proving that not all WWII German weapons were “wunderwaffe”.
I can't remember where i read or saw this, but somebody argued that the only ww2 german weapon that was realy better (and worked outside the drawing board) than anything the allies had AND was fielded in any numbers to have any meaningfull impact on the war was the MG34 and 42. I believe that man had a good point because the number of wunderwaffe that where used by any first rate military after the war is saying it all lol
But luckily at least one survived and can be visited. The Eierlegendewollmichsau was not found and they might have missed to want a silent, powerfull tow. My suggestion: they wanted the giant, I mean the powertrain of the remotely operated bomb as their silent tower to move a pak around At least as fast as the crew can walk should be enough speed. Not so much weight but I guess they then will demand a truck for ammunition and all the other stuff needed. Most likely such nsu track motorbike might have done the job which were also used as puller for the ME 262 while on ground.
The early prototype had a fully enclosed driver cabin
Some soldier: Pak on a track Some general: Good idea
it's a truck mounted anti-tank gun. the lesson is - direct fire weapons need to be either very small, or armored
Are the dismountable guns a fuel shortage thing? If you can't drive into position because you don't have fuel, at least you can haul it into place manually. Just speculation, but makes sense to me
I would think it's more a height thing, a towed gun is a lot shorter than when mounted on a vehicle (edit) therefore a harder target to see and hit. That and what was mentioned in those reports with concerns about the vehicle it's mounted on getting disabled... though that one's kind of a moot point when the vehicle in question is that small, as the gun would probably be effectively destroyed by whatever destroyed the vehicle.
@@Kneb587 yep
One of the coolest things about your channel is finding out things that one never heard about. One thing no one ever discusses are the failures. Something does not work out, it is dead to history. Here it looks like there were too many conflicting constraints to make it possible.
looks like schmitler had a bit of fun in the new tank designer...
Nice :) never heard of it
"Rain, open-topped tank, great engineering." - Random German from Company of Heroes 1
We have an Aussie blitz truck with a rearfacing40 mm bofors. Could be fired mounted on truck or rolled off on rails and winched back on.
I could see this Pak working in a shoot-and-scoot scenario, where you could take keyhole shots down streets or valleys and then disappear around a street corner or behind a crest, before return fire wiped you out. Where I can’t see it working is on the open steppes of the eastern front…….
In The Late Stages of the War, They mounted both Flak and Pak on Any Vehicles that could carry Them. Mobilty.
I think the biggest problem with the RSO was the same problem with the Hetzer: The year it was introduced into service (1943). By then, Germany was losing the war and the allies had air superiority, making any new vehicle it introduced into service a sitting duck for allied planes. When you introduce a new vehicle into service, it always works out better when you do it at a time when you aren't the losing side.
A Hertzer is not a sitting duck, only a direkt hit of a bomb or rocket will hurt it, and that probeblity is very low. But splinter will hurt the suporting infantery and logistic train/trucks/hors wagons the Hertzer need to operate. Yes it mutch better to be on a wining side, a lost caterpillar tracks will not be a combat lose but a fast fix.
@@kirgan1000 The Hetzer was a sitting duck for planes, in that it was defenseless against them. Like most armored vehicles, it took a bomb or a rocket hit to take it out, but there were plenty of those falling from the sky on a daily basis by 1943, as the Allies had total command of the skies by then. My point was I think the RSO would have done a lot better if it had been around in the earlier years of the war, when the Germans had control of the air.
The driver of that thing needs to be paid some serious danger money!
14:42 Can someone explain what "Austria's Revenge" exactly means ? Is it a slur ? Thanks.
I love Bernhard’s Germlish. Dame slow chap (damn slow chap) & rolling coffing (rolling coffin). Way better than my high school German of 40 years ago, however.
> Dame slow chap (damn slow chap) so it was written written in the book, should have added [sic!] > rolling coffing (rolling coffin) if I wrote that, it was a typo > Way better than my high school German of 40 years ago, however. considering that a US native speaker proof reads all my scripts, I am rather sure it is.
@@MilitaryHistoryVisualized I hope you weren’t offended. I’m sure you’d prefer perfection but the slight imperfections add to the charm of the channel and your personal charm as it’s host. The flip side is that your command of the German language provides credibility to your understanding and interpretation of primary German source material. I wouldn’t be a long time subscriber if I didn’t enjoy what you do.
I suspect the problem in the employment of this was that they were thought of as, and employed as tanks, rather than more mobile than usual AT guns.
The weight for the regular PaK includes the weight of a towing RSO. Since the PaK on RSO didn’t have wheels or the Spreizlafette etc, it had less weight. But in general that comparison doesn’t make much sense. Sounds like they were making up arguments for the PaK on RSO.
They coud solve 360° recoil whit simple fall down legs whit screw adjusment on the sides. Even a 90° traverse is not bad. A bit of fall back armour whoud be perheaps to much in weight
They wanted it to be able to bug out quickly. Really, they needed an M10 or M18.
Well, no. They needed a porpouse designed light chassis.
Could the 6300 kg weight of the towed cannon perhaps be the total of the gun and the towing vehicle as one unit?
Thanks!
Really enjoyed this episode. What a hilarious vehicle!
thank you!
I was looking at one at our local armour and artillery museums yesterday and Oh I wouldn’t want to operate one I’d feel too exposed, my father who was with me agreed (we are both ex-military)
@9:40 It looks like numbers are for a everything required for one gun - gun itself, RSO, ammo and crew. And with RSO Pak it's obviously less, because you have a smaller crew and lose a really heavy gun carriage, other factors being somewhat the same
What is interesting is that much ado has been made about unarmored mobile 20mm and 30mm installations being effective in infantry support yet the crews were just as much exposed as the RSO crews would have been. I am thinking they might not have been using the right tactics with the RSO Pak 40's. The Pak 40's were lost in great numbers due to fragmentation (one of the benefits of the 75 gun in a Sherman) AND getting bypassed. Aw, the Germans were losing the war anyways and this is just an oddity. I also think the removable aspect of the RSO Pak 40 was going to be the only way it COULD have been viable. The RSO was just a way to get the gun to a position, not fight from it. Perhaps it might have been more valuable when Germany had the initiative and could have used them as standoff support weapons but by the time they were considered the Allies had the initiative and concealment was mandatory.
I'm curious where the loud part comes from. If RSO had been converted from some truck its noise level should be in line with other ww2 trucks ? On a battlefield with tanks with even bigger engines that can be heard from kilometers away, mg fire, mortars, artillery shell explosions, rocket artillery salvos... etc.. how loud did it have to be for it to be unusually so ? And why ?
yea loudness never show at picture and video especially when a music is replacing real noize
It is not a bad idea honestly. I imagine that these would be better for offensive use, and as long as you can dismount the gun and use it in a dug-in towed mount while on the defense you would get the best of both worlds. The implementation however is lacking, and I wonder if they could have made a better (lighter, more stabile and lower) RSO by dropping the 360 degree movement requirement.
如這把75換成 更小的50甚至 37mm。或許 這台WT還是會更有用些 不過，不是有88 在半履帶車上的變形嗎?
It looks kinda like the Belgian T-13 tank destroyers (b2 version)
Maybe the total weight of Pak 40 (6,3 t) is counted together with its towing vehicle?
Most likely :)
Theres gotta be a merch t-shirt there. Rolling Coffin East.
Interesting