i see on some photos of real tanks trees or logs were chained on the sides what were these for or why ?

Tanks can still get stuck in mud or soft sand. So the logs or wood are used to help get them out of the soft spot by giving the tracks something to grab. They call them ditching logs, I think.

ok thanks i knew in wooded areas of battle it would help with camo but wondered about it on open roads and fields and that . cause in that case a moving log or tree would be a dead give away

Ditching logs, used to great extent by WW II German panzers, especially in Russia. If the tank is bellied up or bogged down in mud or soft turf, the log is placed across the tracks and chained or roped to the tracks. By driving forward, the log is pulled under the tank and in most cases, pulled off the obstruction or out of the mud. Problem in mud is that you can only go the length of track on the ground....then take it off, carry it to the front and tie it on again. Does NOT work well in rice paddies. [:'(]

Tanks in the field eventually get weathered to such an extent that the log blends with the rest of the tank, more so if it'd been used for its intended purpose. In any case a stranded tank is a dead tank, I would be taking my chances carrying a log around than worrying about camouflage first.

i am sure in any place were there may have been a chance of being shot at being out of your tank would be no fun what so ever. let a long have to chain a log to your track to get out of mud but it is nice to learn from people who know what things were for and why.

dont mean to sound dumb my dad was in the navy for 28 years aircraft carrier so i know of air and sea battle .but the tank thing is new and a lot of learning for me

Hey, dont feel dumb...we are all learning something, some more than others...

We all started somewhere. So don't worry about asking questions.

Cheers
Wade

I'm not sure if this is true, but I think they were also sometimes used to prevent magnetic mines getting stuck to the hull by an enemy soldier. Also, could logs have been effective to detonate an incoming shell before it hit the steel hull of the tank and therefore minimize damage? Anybody know????

Shermans actually loaded the sides of their tanks with anything they could get their hands on that would slow, stop a round or give the crew a better survivor rate. I seen pics with chopped wood held on by what looked like chicken wire.<div>we have all seen the sand bags on them. </div><div>There are a variety of reasons for this but mostly to get out of mud or get un-stuck.</div>

American tank crews were/are taught to use a tow cable for the same purpose. The cable is wrapped around the track, tow hook in the eye and the other end around the cable with the pin holding it in place. Lots easier to handle the tow cable and not mess with ropes/chains and a heavy log on the tracks and mostly when the tank is bellied up, not just bogged down. . Still a "female dog" of a job in 2 feet of soft turf or mud. This is not normally done in a situation where you are under fire. Tank is left in place and retrieved later if the incomming is so intense, or have another tank pull you out, at times using 2 or more sets of cables for distance, or even with two cables going to two tanks if the tank is up to the fenders. .

Japanese used magnetic mines in island hopping war, and many Shermans used plywood or stacked logs as a protective measure.
Open topped TDs and SP artillery (M-7, M-8) used angled chicken wire to keep grenades from landing inside the vehicles.

Bill, you always have good stuff to offer...thanks for your input.

On an aircraft carrier, doubt seriously that a ditching log would be of much help....but, if the carrier got bogged down in mud or bellied up, they might make an Italian cruise ship out of it,.

No dumb questions when you want to learn...why do they call the front of the tank bow, and the inner walls bulkheads? Tanks were originally called land ships.. on a carrier....the island (I-land) is where a pilot does NOT want to..

i am sure bellied up in anything is not a good way to be i been reading a lot off this site on the tiger 1 its a great site if anyone would like to see the plant they were even built in lot of good info and photos and other info http://www.alanhamby.com/tiger.html

The Fin's used logs as add on armor for their Stug's. Here is a great site for Stug detail photos and a history of the Finish Armor during WW2.
If you are doing a HL Stug III G this is the place to go for Stug details. Lots of photos!!!!

http://www.andreaslarka.net/ I attached some photos from this site as well.

As far as add on armor, that's probably my favorite aspect of WWII tanks. From Shermans with lumber on Tarawa to concrete on a StuG, it's great to see what these guys did to protect themselves with what was on hand.

The best, hands down in my opinion though...Russian bedspring armor. Imagine the conversation with the freezing, starving civilians about giving up there bed frames to weld on tanks.

yeah anything that kept you alive was gotten i can see .the link i gave a few posts back also has footage of tank battle were one fires at the tiger and misses the tiger fires back and the hole turret blows off you know its neat but you feel knowing  lives were in there

Suplimental armor is always interesting. Patton hated sandbags and chewed out TCs for using it...Makes sense, as it really didn't do much other than add a lot of weight to the already underpowered Sherman engines. Russians= bedsprings...yeah, no one gave them up...Russians just took what they wanted. Plywood from material supply boxes seemed to have helped against magnetic mines and may have helped with AT rockets...but not certain if Japan had any at that time.

I Korea, a Turkish unit with M-46s West of us had problems with grenades being lobbed at the tanks and they were reported to have lost a tank that way. They had cages welded around the turrets with chicken wire...may have been effective, but those poor guys really had a tough time getting in and out of the tanks.

Lots of Shermans had brackets welded to allow wood planks or sandbags to be fitted to the sides. Helped against shaped charge rounds as Panzerfaust and other AT rockets, but didn't help against a Panther or Tiger's main gun. Anything helps, even the sheet metal Schützen on Panzer sides did the trick against bazookas.

Build a weapon, make something to kill it...make a bigger weapon, make something bigger to kill it...never stops..

yes true back then they at least seen who they were up against . now days from what i gather by ones back from iran tanks can do things by radar way far away you dont even know were it came from , seems now its all just push button from far and clean up later.

Yeah, war has always been nasty, and until recently, you saw your enemy, recognized it and fired....but now you can't ID and enemy because many are using the same tanks and aircraft, and no uinforms..just civvy clothes and a towell for a helmet and no regard for human life, hence suicide bombers. Thought that had stopped when the war in Korea was over.

Technology has become very scary...artillery no longer needs a good FO.,.just send up a drone, ID and verify the location..data is sent to a satelite, returned to the gun's computer and the first round is 100% direct on target. Nobody ever saw anyone. Tankers now have FLIR and can see through smoke and have perfect vision at night. We had to turn the reostat down on the battery powered night sights to where the reticle was barely visible and did not obscure the target area and even moonlight was a hinderance in some cases. You felt pretty good when the second round showered sparks on the target, after using BOT (Burst on Target) to atain a hit with the second shot. Now, it's a guaranteed first round hit with lazer rangefinder instead of the TC estimating range.

One soldier now has more firepower that a full company in Korea and one aircraft can completely destroy a battalion of tanks with one specialized bomb. 155mm guns with the new Ex Caliber round can be off 15 degrees and the the round will guide itself via GPS direct to the target. A new land mine cluster device can be turned on or off and moved to any location and programmed for particular traffic without digging in individual mines, activating fuses etc. It can be swiched off to allow certain traffic through, then switched back on to catch the next intruder. Armor and protective devices seem to be a thing of the past and add on reactive armor also has serious drawbacks. Looks as if sandbags, chiucken wire and wooden logs will no longer be effective. War has become dangerous[X(]

Suicide bombers have been around for a long time, that's nothing new. Any time you have someone with nothing to lose, they have nothing lose...

Modern age military acceptance started with the Japanese desperate attempts to reach the B-29s, AA guns couldn't and the only way the Zeros could reach that altitude was stripped bare so they had to crash into them. Then the high command signed off officially on 'suicide diving' going after the carriers. What was news to me recently was after Okinawa, the civilian population of Japan was being trained for the inevitable invasion, mostly school children with sachel charges. I originally thought it was US casualty rates of a Japan evasion estimated in the 100,000s, hence the justification and reasoning behind dropping the Bombs. I just read some estimates would be as high as one million, which is certainly understandable, if 53 million people are being told it's death, rape and/or slavery anyway.

But yeah, technology is unreal at this point. My 10 year old is walking around with more computing power in his pocket than the Apollo capsules.

Now would the Germans have used logs in Africa in the desert?

well glad you asked that. the mixed up thing is the numbers on the tanks never changed . i have been reading a lot on the site i posted but as for colors and things they carried .by what i read these tiger 1 s were sent to diffrent fronts for battle some times every 2 months the crew changed the tracks they had travel tracks and battle tracks. color and stuff to fit in for were they went.. i guess its hard to say the model you make may have only been that way for while then could have looked another way months later