Two new pages of Western Desert images

Originally posted by Gunner
Thanks for the detailed reply.

My question is about steel tyres on steel rims... all the references I have show that motor or horse drawn, the German made guns were fitted with solid rubber on stamped or cast rims. Field, medium and heavy guns with steel tyres would play havoc with metalled surfaces not to mention transfer all the vibration to the gun, accelerating wear. It wouldn't make sense to have a fleet of guns that had two different wheels as it would limit any upgrades to motorisation. It strikes me that bonding a rubber tyre or heat shrinking a steel tyre would cost about the same in time and energy.

It does seem odd, however the gun recoil is probably far greater than even a walking pace shock over a hard surface, my friend says:
"Some of it is obvious and some of it is not so, to answer the last question first, the Germans were severely short of rubber, so any savings were welcome (ref late Tiger tank road wheels and some Panthers), in addition they used vast amounts of horses for towing, even the little infantry trailer (the Infantrie Karrier Jf8, like I have) is often steel tyred as it was only meant to be manual or horse pulled anyway.

But even then the Germans varied, most FLAK guns were on pneumatics, though really not meant to be fired on them, as they could all be dismounted for static use, but.......!.

PAK guns, above 3.7cm were almost all solid tyred, whilst ARTILLERY in general could be either solid rubber of solid steel, most if not all German pneumatic tyred artillery were captured items.

It has to be understood that most of the towed artillery would be found in the mass of German infantry divisions, which unlike their western counterparts, really were foot marching soldiers, they had no choice, they had few vehicles but many horses, and were this way until the end of the war.

Such considerations as worrying about metalled road surfaces (in a fighting zone !! or someone elses occupied country!!), upgrading to motorisation (what, with the German problems of vehicle manufacture and supply !!!) are rather unimportant.

These points maybe of great concern to a western army in WWII, but WWII was not like that for the Germans, shortages of equipment, vehicles, fuel, rubber etc., were everywhere from day one of the war until the end, and it DID govern their actions, where to fight, were to occupy, how long to stay somewhere, what to give up what not to give up, and so on and so on.......,including the design of vehicles and equipment, ammunition and even uniforms ."

R.