I understand the difference in weight if they all had the same mechanism, but later models which can only have been heavier got faster again. Why is that?
They didnt got faster, the J1-N still have their 14°/sec like they allways had. And the E-J are still 2°/sec too slow. They should also have 14 instead of 12. Weight makes it turning easyer, however there is a limit to how fast you can turn a handwheel (or 2x, as German tanks (Pz III and IV had horizontal traverse for both gunner and loader) and as such you wont really get faster, other than changing the gear ratio, which is the same from E-N.
And what Killakiwi sayed, tho the same was also done with the Daimler AC Mk II and Twtrach Mk I.
Technically speaking, nobody knows how fast the Pz IIIs can actually turn, cince aparently nobody bothered to test it back in the day.
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I did those Daimler and Tetrarch reports. Even after the buff, it’s likely still too slow.
There’s video evidence showing the traverse. Which from the video is roughly around 4-5 seconds for 90 degrees, so 16-20 seconds for 360 degrees. Which works out to roughly 18 to 22.5 degrees per second. For reference the M2A4 and M3 Stuart state 20 degrees per second on average with their manual traverse.
The Tetrarch and Daimler manual also states each turn of the traverse wheel in high gear can do 7.06 degrees. A trained gunner can do roughly 3 wheel turns every second. So around 21.18 degrees per second, which is right in between those 2 above numbers (18 to 22.5). The reason for this is their turrets being incredibly well balanced and very light (comparatively for other tanks of the period).
The Panzer III on the other hand was around 4 degrees per wheel turn. So assuming that same 3 wheel turns every second, that’s only 12 degrees.
The Pz III has 2,25°/ turn, for loader and gunner each.
That’s low gear for precise aiming, high gear is 4 degrees.
Which model are you talking about?
I mean E-N
A-D has 4°/turn loader and gunner.
Which would at 3 turns be
13,5°
And 24 for A-D
Which is pretty close to the 20 and 14° in game.
A-D. I imagine the later Panzer III’s got slower due to the increased weight.
How do you get 13.5 for 4x3? Shouldn’t that be 12?
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2,25×2×3 is 13,5
And if you look at the comment again, you will see that below that i wrote 24 for A-D.
Are you suggesting that if the loader and gunner traversed both their wheels at the same time it’d double the traverse rate?
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Idk, yes?
I might check the manuals. Now I’m curious.
Ah, no. Turret weight increases the inertia that must be overcome to start or stop traverse, and increases the effort/force needed when at an angle or unbalanced.
Also, “how fast” is subjective and depended on how motivated you were, which is why it wasn’t tested. The 14°/sec is just an average.
The point was that many early manual crank turrets were know to be “slow” and so the game models this.
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I do not mean that a heavy turret turnes easyer, but having 2 turrets with identical gearing, you can turn the lighter one more easily, but you still wont really get over 3-4 turns a sec.
And funny enove, the british did test the speed of the Pz IV J and found out that the gunner alone is on short movement faster, <=90°, Medium just as fast 90<->120° and only looses at traverses over 120°. (Or something along the lines, i forgot the exact Degrees.)
Well you wish but it was more like a 30° turn where the electric and manual traverse where around equal 😄
According to British testing the Panzer IV’s hand traverse was faster than the electric powered traverse up to 12.5°(4 seconds for 12.5° ) & only marginally slower up to to 30 ° .
Yeah ok i sayed i forgot, but i was correct with the general idea.
I just checked. It’s highly unlikely both attempting to traverse at the same time would speed up the traverse rate. The second wheel is to add more torque. So basically if the tank is on a slope or poorly maintained then the loader can assist, but the rate doesn’t change.
Human strength doesn’t work like electric or hydraulic motors. More torque available would allow the crank to be turned faster and longer, increasing the rate of traverse.
The loaders traverse is connected directly to the gunners. There’s no sort of clutch/engagement system for the gunner. So if the loader is going ham on that traverse wheel the gunner will be trying to keep up, not adding to the traverse rate.
So there might be an initial increase in the time it takes to build inertia, but outside of that the loaders wheel is simply there to:
- Assist traversing when there’s difficulties: IE on an incline, poorly maintained, or jammed.
- Traverse when the gunner is occupied.
- Less physically taxing.
There’s a reason no-one else copied this system. If it suddenly doubled your manual traverse rate everyone would have done it.
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As many have pointed out in previous threads on this topic, but the double-wheel thing keeps coming up anyway.
Daimler and Pz IIIB still ludicrously broken in AB btw:
Tetrarch: 30.12 deg/s (AB) 16 deg/s (RB)
Daimler 84.71 deg/s (AB) 16 deg/s (RB)
Pz III B 105.88 deg/s (AB) 20 deg/s (RB)
Pz III E-J 22.59 deg/s (AB) 12 deg/s (RB)
Pz III J1-M 26.35 deg/s (AB) 14 deg/s (RB)
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I don’t see any other comments here disproving the fact that the double manual traverse didn’t increase the rate. Which I just did.