Russians will hate the lates

[PoorOldSpike]

RUSSIANS WILL HATE THE LATES

In the first half of 1942 two AFV's arrive on the Eastern Front that between them end the dominance of the T-34/76 and KV-1 at a stroke.
The first is the PzIIIJ(late) which arrives in April, its gun has only an average chance of penetrating T-34 hulls frontally, and very little chance of penetrating KV-1's (until it gets tungsten) but its front armour is very difficult for the Russians to penetrate, and the second is the Sturmgeschutz IIIF(late) which arrives in June whose gun can easily take out both Russki types, AND its front can't be penetrated by them.
Make sure you buy the right models, the Pz IIIJ(late) has 70mm armour, and the Stug IIIF(late) has 80mm.
Later on in the war other models will have the same armour and may come cheaper but these babies were the first.

[wigam]

Very interesting, how did they go in RL ?

Thanks Spike.

[PoorOldSpike]

Bolting on extra armour in April 42 to create the useful IIIJ(late) extended the standard PzIII's life span a bit, but it was already past its sell-by date because proper tanks (PzIV-longs) had begun arriving the month before in March.
The first Stug III-longs had already started arriving in March too, then when more armour was added to create the IIIF(late) in June, the Germans at last had an AFV that could shrug off T-34 and KV-1 frontal shots with ease..

[Dominator]

Yet both PzIII and StuG front armour were vertical against sloped T-34. And in RL Russkies also were adding extra armour sheets welded on standard one of T-34.

[PoorOldSpike]

Yah bolting on extra armour is so simple I often wonder why tanks didn't have more armour added in the field. Sure it'd slow them down but would make them tough as nails.
Then if the tanks were expected to do a long march somewhere without combat, it could be quickly unbolted again to increase speed and reduce wear and tear.
And if the tanks were in dug-in defensive posture with little moving to be done, they could have tons of the stuff bolted on to make them invulnerable..
Every tank formation could have engineer vehicles full of armour plating following it around ready to bolt/unbolt as the situation required..

[Ratzki]

Owning a '48 Willys truck, my guess would be that the bolt on plates were probably drilled and tapped by hand with no template. My truck came from the factory with bolt holes nowhere near the same location from side to side. I have to do the funky chicken with a fender just to put it back on after I remove it as the holes don't line up. I would imagine that a 30mm plate would not bend that well to try to get the holes to re-centre. I could not imagine driving the tank for a hundred miles with the plates removed over terrible roads, with -20deg cold and then have to sort out, the jigsaw puzzle of whose plate is where and then hammer and bend to get the plates back into position. ..."Now where are those bolts for the plates?" "They were in the truck that ran over the mine, we are picking them up right now, it's a bit of a chore with a foot and a half of snow on the ground."

[PoorOldSpike]

Okay, to simplify the procedure of bolting on armour, they needn't use bolts at all, just slot them into place with gravity where they'd be held by lugs and brackets that were welded onto the tank at the factory, then just tighten a few screws to stop them jolting out, a 5-minute job at the most..:)
Hey that was how armoured side skirts were attached to some Stugs and panzers, they just hung on a welded-on frame, so it's nothing new except I'm talking about thick slabs of armour to be slotted into brackets on the hull and turret fronts..:)

[Der Kuenstler]

Those IIIJ lates would be really useful except for the 50mm gun - often it has to pierce those KVs 3-4 times before they die...by that time the KV has already KO'd the IIIJ with one shot....

[Kelen]

Yes but the side skirts where a) only a few mil thick, and b) where not additional armour as such. They were only intended to defeat shaped charge AT weapons by detonating them early.

At the end of the day if it were that easy I'm sure it would have been done, (and I'm sure that there were greater minds than ours working on tank design and modifications).

[Ratzki]

Not having built a tank or added extra armour to one lately, I would guess that a bracket from which the armour plates hung on would not last through all the rough handling of normal wear and tear. I have a feeling that if it was a workable idea, they would have done it. The idea seems sound but making it work might have been to difficult.