Pz Bridgelayer

[Sepp]

PzIV Bridgelayer,I have seen various pictures of it ,and it looks cool. But when was it actually used and why was it not used later in the advance into Russia? It seems strange that most modern armies have them now,but the german use was so limited.

[Theodore]

I haven't looked into details of when and where the bridgelayer was used.

But as to why it wasn't in a lot of situations? I would bet mostly because such bridgelayers are very limited in their application since a crossing has to be over an obstacle shorter than the span of the bridge. So you can cross an AT ditch (that could be filled in by engineers) or a small stream (that you can probably ford anyway), or a damaged bridge with a short section damaged (that could likely be fixed by engineers).

For crossing rivers the Germans relied on pontoon bridges pontoon boat ferries and were very good at that. There are few obstacles ideally suited for the armored bridgelayer so while it is good to have it in the arsenal (especially for getting armor across an AT ditch under fire) but there are few applications where another option would not work.

[TAMMY]

Only the British developed various types of bridgelayer tanks in WWII. The same can be said of "special" armoured vehicles. It is strange because a bridge layer tank is a fast way to go over small obstacles in a short time, surely shorter than any engineer works

Only 20 Pz IV were modified as bridgelayer and were used in the campaign of France assigne to the armouted engineer company (4 each) of 3 (some sources say 4) panzer divisions. It was found too heavy and of limited use so after the campaign the tanks were rebuilt as normal tanks.

Note that the bridge was designed with some sorts of "feets" so that a bridge could be laid over another in order to cover wider obstacles.

One of the problems of bridgelayers is how many reserve bridges you have. I meanyou lay your bridge on the first ditch and then? If you leave it in place you need spare bridges to procedd to other obstacles. In alternative you may recover the laid bridge and go on but in this way the following tanks will be blocked. Note also that for most of the bridges (British included) it was not possible to recover the bridge from the other end,.

[Firefight]

Has anyone bought the new release? How about a picture...

Thanks,
Mitch

[Schwerepunkt]

I realize that the super heavy tanks could not even be considered for use except as part of the bridge laying equipment but by 1942-43, PzKw Vs at 46 tons and Pzkw VIs at 56 tons might be too much to the temporary bridges to hold. Lighter vehicles were probably easier to use in crossing but the heavier tanks would probably have to go to a narrower or shallower section of the stream or river to cross. I have seen a plan for a MAUS bridge layer that might have been the best use for the monster.
Schwerepunkt

[TAMMY]

For this reason the initial Tigers had a deep waing system, deleted on later models.

For the effect of a faulty bridge see the following at minute 1.45

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTcr7AwCCBw

It is relevanmt to modern tanks but there is no difference. BTW a lot of work for recovery teams