Warspot Digest: July 2020

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Warspot Digest: July 2020

	P.1000 Super-Heavy Tank: Steel Sarcophagus All sorts of stories have been spun around the half-mythical P.1000 super-heavy tank. Enthusiasts even made up a name for it: Ratte, German for "rat." It's hard to get to the truth under all the tales, but we can try. Such a tank was really designed, and was really considered by the Third Reich. In addition, models of two variants of the P.1000 were built. [READ MORE]
	EMIL and the KRV: Sweden's Autoloaders Sweden's tank industry was in crisis in the second half of the 1940s. On one hand, the middle of this decade was a time when Swedish self propelled artillery thrived. That is when the Swedish army finally received assault guns, tank destroyers, and SPAAGs. However, the tank program lagged behind. Sweden's luck ran out with the Strv m/42. Pricken, LS 46, Leo, all of these projects remained on paper. Attempts to build a new tank weighing between 25 and 30 tons encountered various problems. A way out of this dead end appeared in the early 1950s, which led to two interesting heavy tank projects: the EMIL and the KRV (Kranvagn). [READ MORE]
	Т-34-85: A Tank from a Former Ally The T-34 was a mystery for the USSR's allies for most of WWII. A sample of the legendary tank was only sent abroad in 1943, but information about an improved variant with a three-man turret and an 85 mm gun became available soon after. Very little was known about this tank up until the spring of 1945, and with the end of the war the remote possibility of getting a sample vanished altogether. However, the odds of seeing this tank again increased with time. The Korean War broke out on June 25, 1950. The Korean People's Army received aid from the USSR, which included T-34-85 tanks. [READ MORE]
	Pz.Sfl.IVb: Halfway to the Hummel German wartime SPGs are well known. However, it took some time to develop the "selbstfahrlafette" concept of a large open casemate, like the one used on the Hummel. Initially, the idea was to built medium SPGs instead of light ones, and their layout differed noticeably from the vehicles that showed up on the battlefield in 1943. Even though German SPGs developed along a different path, the Pz.Sfl.IVb was built and even got to fight. [READ MORE]