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The Flakpanzer IV (Sd.Kfz. 161/3) Möbelwagen ("Furniture Van") was an anti-aircraft gun carrier built on the chassis of the Panzer IV. It was used by the German Wehrmacht in the European Theater of World War II. American troops man an anti-aircraft gun near the Algerian coastline in 1943 Anti-aircraft, or air defense, is any method of combating military aircraft from the ground. ...
The Panzerkampfwagen IV (PzKpfw IV), more commonly referred to as the Panzer IV, was a tank developed by Nazi Germany and used extensively in World War II. It was designed initially as an infantry-support medium tank, to work in conjunction with the anti-tank Pzkpfw III. Later in the...
Wehrmacht was the name of the armed forces of Germany from 1935 to 1945. ...
German Führer Adolf Hitler Preceding events (See also Events preceding World War II in Europe and Causes of World War II.) Germany was in debt after World War I, due to the Great Depression and the forced payments to the victors of World War I. Germans wanted a leader that...
In 1943, due to the waning ability of the Luftwaffe to combat enemy ground-attack aircraft, ground-based anti-aircraft weaponry was becoming increasingly important to the Wehrmacht. In early 1943, the idea of creating a gun platform on the chassis of the Panzer IV was first proposed. The initial design used a 20mm quad-gun ("Flakvierling") that was deemed too weak for the latest aircraft, which were constantly flying higher and faster. Only a single prototype with this gun was produced before the design was rejected. A second design with an upgraded single 37mm Flak 43 was approved as a temporary stopgap until better Flakpanzers could be created. This design was designated Flakpanzer IV Möbelwagen, and the first production models were put into service on the Western Front in April of 1944. 1943 is a common year starting on Friday. ...
The Luftwaffe (literally, air weapon, pronounced looft-vaaf-feh) is the air force of Germany. ...
The 2cm Flakvierling 38 was a quad mount for four 2cm Flak 38 anti-aircraft guns produced during the second world war by Germany. ...
See Western Front (disambiguation) for other meanings. ...
1944 was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar). ...
The Möbelwagen was built on Panzer IV chassis that had been damaged on the Eastern Front and returned to the factory for repair. These were fitted with an open-top superstructure that provided the gun mount. Around this, four hinged 20mm armored plates were placed. These plates had two basic operating positions: they could be lowered for full 360 degree traverse, allowing flat or low-level firing, or they could be half-closed, being pinned together to hang slightly open. In this position, they had notches that allowed the gun full rotation, but only for firing at airborne targets. Still, both of these positions left the crew extremely vulnerable. The fully closed position was only used for transport, when the plates would give the crew some protection from small arms fire and shrapnel. The Eastern Front was the theatre of combat between Nazi Germany and its allies against the Soviet Union during World War II. It was somewhat separate from the other theatres of the war, not only geographically, but also for its scale and ferocity. ...
Though the Möbelwagen was intended to be a stopgap, it served the anti-aircraft platoons of the Panzer Divisions extremely well on the Western Front. Despite this, fewer than 300 were produced, and it was eventually succeeded by the first true Flakpanzers: the Wirbelwind and the Ostwind, both of which provided the crew with armored protection and full rotation when firing at either ground or air targets. The Flakpanzer IV Wirbelwind (Whirlwind in German) was an anti-aircraft vehicle based on the Panzer IV. It was developed in 1944 as a successor to the earlier AA tank Möbelwagen. ...
External links
- Information about the Möbelwagen at Panzerworld (http://www.panzerworld.net/flakpanzeriv.html)
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