WesWorld

April 2, 1930 - Berlin

The airship Graf Zeppelin, reprising her role from last year as a diplomatic workhorse, has left Fredricshafen for Hyderabad carrying Foreign Minister Stresseman to the Indian Victory Day event.


April 4, 1930 - Dresden

The light machinegun competition at the Infanterieschule Dresden has completed its testing phase, what remains is the determining of the winner and the placing of orders, if any. Reports suggest that the going-in favorites, the Swiss MG30 and the Czech ZB26, remain the favorites, but the old reliable MG08/18 was making a stronger showing than originally expected.


April 5, 1930 - Berlin

The Foreign Ministry has announced that the airship Graf Zeppelin has reached Hyderabad. The Foreign Minister is expected to meet with the Raj before the planned events of the 12th.


April 8, 1930 – Grafenwöhr

The normal quiet has finally returned to this part of Bavaria, with the ending of the demonstration phase of the tank competition. The apparent favorite, given comments overheard, seems to be the Christie M1928 or a reported successor to that design that the inventor has spoken of and shown plans for to the German representatives. A pair of dark horse candidates appear to be the Polish Type B and the Japanese Type 90, for different reasons: the Type B is a solid design with few flaws that appeared in the testing, while the Type 90 appears to be a superior vehicle suffering from normal prototype flaws.


April 22, 1930 - Dresden

The final report on the machinegun competition has been issued. It's findings were that the MG30 won the competition by the slimmest of margins over the ZB26, and by somewhat more over the MG08/18.

Colonel Rommel's comments in the conclusion, though, were rather interesting: "It is the recommendation of the testing team that a small number of these weapons be acquired as a adjunct weapon, while work is done on a new weapon that combines the light weight and handiness in the attack of the box-magazined weapons and the firepower in the defence of the belt-fed weapon. Such a weapon, if provided with multiple barrels and the ability to change barrels easily while hot, would allow the use of a single type of machinegun for both the medium and light machinegun roles. A single weapon could, if so equipped, go from a hand-help, box or drum-fed bipod-fired weapon in the attack to a belt-fed tripod-mounted fixed weapon when the infantry squad has attained it's objective and is now in defence."

[And so, Mauser will get to work on this, and in 1933, the MG33 (the real-world MG34) will be standardized as the standard machinegun for the Heere.]

May 1, 1930 - Wilhelmshaven

The head of the Kreigsmarine, Grand Admiral Raeder, has toured the ready to launch submarine U-1, in company with the American Naval Attache. The two men, and their entourages, could also see the keel and frame of the follow-on U-2 being worked on in the adjacent slipway. The Grand Admiral commented, "It is good to see a German submarine being built again, the Kreigsmarine has feared the lack of the capability that these vessels bring to the naval defence of the Reich. I look forward to the report of our guest today as well, to help calm the nerves of those countries that might overreact at the mere mention of 'German U-boat'."


May 19, 1930 - Berlin

A contract has been announced with the U. S. Wheel Track Laying Corporation for the delivery of 30 tanks. These are to be of an improved type to the M1928 demonstrated at Grafenwöhr, equipped with a turret rather than the fixed gun and open machinegun mount of the M1928. The vehicles will be shipped from the U.S. without armament or radios, though they are to be delivered with their armor. It is expected that if any armament is fitted in Germany that it will be a 37mm gun and a 7.92mm machinegun in the turret.

Isn't the lack of armour on the Christie tank (M1931/32?) slightly worrying? Its not much use as a tank when a heavy machine gun bullet can penetrate out to 500m+

Could a lesser tank be useful in developing a more powerful unit later on?

Not really, Germany's not buying them for combat. They're being bought for training and doctrine development. Also, not many European armies of the day HAVE a heavy machinegun, most all of them only use rifle-caliber weapons. Not to mention that the sloped armor will help increase the effective thickness of the armor.

But the real reason Germany's not concerned about the armor is that these are, as I've said, not intended for use in actual combat. It could happen, yes, if things go badly, but they, like the historical Pz I, are not intended for combat use.

Actual combat designs will be called for in, probably 1933 or so, once Guderian and Co. get a chance to work with these and develop/refine a doctrine to use them effectively.

Quoted

Could a lesser tank be useful in developing a more powerful unit later on?

Very much so, certainly that's the pattern that most tank development followed (the branches that didn't end in dead-ends, like the multi-turret branch). The Christie M1931 begat the BT-2, which begat the BT-5, which begat the BT-7, which, with various additions and subtractions, begat the T-34, for example. You have to start someplace, and Germany was not overly impressed with it's home-designed A7V tank of the Great War.

Quoted

Germany was not overly impressed with it's home-designed A7V tank of the Great War.

But Land Battleships are so much fun.



In reality all tanks are compromises. You can have armour or speed, but both results in a tank that is too heavy to be useful. Even 30tons is too large for most european situations.

"You can have firepower, armour, or speed - pick any two."

It's more like: "Firepower, speed, armor, or low weight. Pick any three." Aftere all, given sufficient size and power, you can have armor, firepower, and speed, but then you tend not to fit on trains and may not be able to use unreinforced bridges....

This is the main reason different types of tanks were designed, to use all of these atributes in varying degrees of importance.

The Atlantean approach to tanks is similar to that of historical Russia. Plans call for...

1) Reconnaissance tank: light, fast, lightly armored and armed, difficult to detect.

2) Persuit tanks: main battle tanks capable of dealing with enemy armor, machine guns and enemy strong points

3) Special purpose tanks: self propelled guns, communication and command tanks

4) Armored cars

To achieve this, Atlantis primarily developes its own designs but isn't above incorperating other nations idea's into its own program, hence the purchase of the Christie design.

Unlike the French, Germans and British, Atlantis hasn't had any tank on tank battles.

Germany is, in 1930, still developing doctrine on the subject so doesn't know what it's going to build. I expect it will end up being fairly historical in breakdown, though hopefully with fewer light tanks (Pz Is, Pz IIs) having to serve as medium tanks.

1 - Armored cars, for long-range recon.
2 - Light tanks, for short-range recon
3 - Medium tanks, for general battle service
4 - Support tanks, for use against infantry and gun positions (outmoded once the medium tank's main gun reaches 75mm in size).
5 - Heavy tanks
6 - Assault guns
7 - Self-propelled artillery.

Italy has far different requirements.

1. A tank that is small in size, low in weight, but with lots of armour, a good HE gun, good power to weight ratio, high mobility, low CoG. This is for Alpine use and just on the Italian mainland in general. This will be quite hard as limited to probably 20tons max. Or just try and go for a waterproof tank instead of bridge crossing.

2. A tank for speed, long range and with a long ranged gun for desert use. Something like Crusader but with modifications.

3. Maybe instead of going with a tank for desert use, a large armoured car instead. Something like the B1 Centauro, but suitably dated for 1930s.

Given the relatively poor off-road capability of armored cars of the day, I'd be leary of trying the armored car instead of a tank idea. It might work, a bit, in the 1930s (ie, 37mm-40mm guns), but probably not in the 1940s.

May 22, 1930 - Berlin

A contract to the Mauser Werke for 1,000 updated T-Gewehr-type anti-tank rifles has been announced. It is unclear if these rifles will be the same as the Great War anti-tank rifles or if they will differ in cartridge, action, or both.

June 2, 1930 - Berlin

The Luftwaffe has placed an order of 60 Arado Ar-66 primary trainers. These are expected to be very busy training up new pilots, once they are delivered. An additional contract was let to the Junkers company for 10 militarized G-38 aircraft, armed and fitted to serve as heavy bombers.


June 10, 1930 - Berlin

Rumor out of the Foreign Ministry claims that an inordinate number of cables are coming and going from the German embassy in Karlskrona, Nordmark. What it is about, the rumor mill refused to say.


June 19, 1930 - Wangerooge

The 305mm guns in the coastal defence battery here were fired today with new projectiles supplied by Krupp. These projectiles were supposed to provide improved range, which reports say they did. After re-calibrating, the remaining new projectiles were fired at the target ship Zahringen which sustained light damage from a shell that passed through her stack. The battery's commander, Fregatte Kapitan Muller, explained: "These shells were inert, being filled with no explosive, but even so they could and did do some damage. This is normal, though, for a ship of this type, the idea is to prevent any serious damage being done to the ship."