In 1943, tanks with very strange grooved armor began to appear in the armed forces of Nazi Germany on the eastern front. It existed for about one year, but at first the Germans tried with great persistence to equip all armored vehicles with it. What was it and what was it intended for, and most importantly, why did the Wehrmacht ultimately abandon the use of corrugated booking?
In 1942, a new anti-tank weapon was created in Germany - a hand-held cumulative mine with a magnetic mount "Hafthohlladung" or HHL-3. It was created as a weapon against light and medium tanks. The mine was very effective in terms of penetrating armor, however, its use in practice was virtually impossible, since the fighter had to literally come close to the tank and place the mine. Nevertheless, the appearance of its own magnetic mine led the Wehrmacht command to believe that very soon, similar anti-tank weapons may appear in the allied countries, primarily the Soviet Union.
Therefore, the German chemists were tasked with developing a means that would not allow the installation of magnetic mines on German tanks. So in the middle of 1943 the company "Chemische Werke Zimmer & Co." introduced a special coating called Zimmerit. It was intended for any armored vehicles, primarily tanks and self-propelled guns. Since it was necessary to create the maximum distance between the armor and the surface of the protective compound, it was applied in the form of a grooved pattern using a special notched trowel. The rough surface also made it possible to reduce the potentially usable contact area of the magnetic mine.
In terms of its chemical composition, zimmerite was not very complex and at the same time terribly effective. The substance was created on the basis of barium sulfate, which was up to 40% in the putty. About 25% of the composition accounted for the binder polyvinyl acetate, another 15% for the ocher pigment, 10% for zinc sulfate and another 10% of the paste was filler. As the latter, ordinary sawdust was used. Zimmerite was applied to the armor already covered with anticorrosive. In the second half of 1943, the protective structure went to the troops.
German tank crews and the field command greeted the novelty extremely coldly. Zimmerite was applied to the surface of the armor for a long time and difficult, and most importantly, it solidified for a long time. Depending on weather conditions, the coating could dry up to 8 days. In addition, almost immediately, rumors circulated among German tankers that zimmerite burned perfectly when an incendiary projectile hit the tank. All this led to the fact that some crews began to simply sabotage the coating of the armor. It all ended with the fact that at the beginning of 1944, the Wehrmacht completely abandoned the use of protective putty. The decisive end in this story was put by the fact that the Soviet Union did not have hand magnetic mines for tanks at the front due to the complexity and danger of using the latter.
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If you want to know even more interesting things, then you should read about did the "Panther" break so often?, as they write about it.
A source: https://novate.ru/blogs/180521/59050/
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