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I have heard that the low production number was because of the low attrition rate for flak vehicles..... supposedly. As long as they avoided direct-fire weapons on the ground, this seems reasonable. And yes, this is a good weapon and did lead to the Gepard (the best of this type ever) Side note; Thailand was the first to mass-produce armored flak.... if you can call 36 machines a "mass". They put a 40mm on a Vickers 6-ton in the 1930s, incidentally creating the first tank that was actually useful in a jungle.
@@johnwolf2829 I believe the low production was more because they moved to better vehicles like the Ostwind. The 20mm was limited by range and damage which is why the flakvierling was used to begin with
@@ConeOfArc Good point, and true... but isn't it a hell of a thing to see that planes back then were too tough for a 20mm? Makes you wonder why the US put so much faith in the Vulcan.
Thanks to the shape of the turret, German soldiers referred to the tank as "Keksdose" (cookie box), due to a bakery from that time selling their products in similar shaped boxes.
Cardamom was difficult for the Germans to get, as it came mostly from South Asia. They grew a lot of it in the former principality of Sikkim. Much more readily available to the allies. 😜
Next time don't click,ok. Go search and find the V12 and the flying sub and when you find it Click harder than even and say out loud "screw the Wirbelwind" this is the real deal. Oh,and again next time please don't click on something that screws you,ok. Good luck with the Sub V3 and by the way also click on the Lousy British WW2 tanks and everything else. I'am pretty sure that subject is way more fascinating that the Wirbelwind.
I grew up on C.F.B. Borden. As a child, I actually played on the Wirbelwind. It was had a fence sealing of the inner compartment of the turret, but was still fun for us kids playing war. There was also a Panther tank (which now resides at the Canadian war museum.)
15:32 i believe it absolutely deserves to be Forged For Battle tier. Although it wasn't tested in battle long enough for a true analysis, conceptually it is a great work. As shown at the end of video, the spaa configuration pioneered by the WW, is still used to this very day. If it were Cursed tier, the design would have been abandoned much sooner
Nein, nicht ganz richtig, das diese Lösung "Wirbelwind", auch noch Heute verwendung findet. Der Vergleich des deutschen Bundeswehr-Antiluft-Panzers "Gepard", ist eher eine Weiterentwicklung des in den letzten Kriegmonaten entwickelten Typ "Kugelblitz", der einen völlig geschlossenen Drehturm hatte, und mit 2 x 3,7cm Flak ausgerüstet war. Der "Kugelblitz" kam aber nicht mehr zum Einsatz
@@firehazardentertainment8381 imagining alternate history scenario where there is Quadruple Ostwind and the turret is two "cookiebox" turrets welded together Don't worry about how that would function. Rule of cool applies
@@ThommyofThenn You know, they made quad and octuple versions of the mark VIII 2 pounder QF gun for the RN. Not the best guns ever made, but still they fired a 40mm shell. If the rule of cool applies, then sticking these on a tank chassis should get a pass too. As a bonus, you don't even have to imagine how they work, since they really did (edit: work that is).
Remember the scene from Saving private Ryan where the 2cm flak gun decimates the paratroopers climbing on the tiger tank? Yea, that was just one gun, now imagine that but with four guns. The wirbelwind must have been absolutely devastating in ground support role if it got to engage infantry.
It likely would have had the same problems most gun-armed SPAA had/have when engaging infantry, which is that the sights are only designed to engage at distance and generally pointing upwards. Their visibility at close ground targets is almost always abysmal and their fire has to be directed by the commander standing up to spot targets (or in the case of vehicles like the Shilka, by a nearby dismounted individual they're in radio contact with). That's why there're very few accounts of people witnessing infantry getting mowed down by SPAA, but many accounts of people being engaged by them and having to flee. So for SPAA at least, they were formidable and intimidating anti-infamtry weapons, but would not be able to easily or quickly directly target infantry. They would have likely been used more for detterance and suppression to keep infantry away from attacking the otherwise quite vulnerable vehicles. This goes for allied examples as well, to be clear. The Skink prototype that saw combat isn't noted as having definitively killed any Germans, but it was effective at flushing them out of entrenched positions, and caused surrenders and injuries.
Germany also made extensive use of 20mm cannon for ground operations. It's high rate of fire made it an effective weapon against troops, trucks and light armored vehicles. One of my favorite naval authors who served in the Royal Navy during World War II called the 20mm (Oerlikon) "a vicious, high velocity weapon, deadly in trained hands."
20mm when used in an anti-personnel role has always sounded terrifying to me. I mean, a dual or quad 7.62 or 12.7 (general speaking using nato sizing) is still scary but 20mm? The damage is horrendous. Truly horrific to be on the receiving end.
Ahhhhhh .... I sure miss playing Panzer General II! Had a blast playing and creating scenarios back in the day! I always included a Wirbelwind unit when creating the German columns of armor..... Great Video! Very Informative! Thx!
While seemingly not too common, can you imagine being the poor guy having one fire on you? 20mm would probably be overkill already but i guess it would be 10mm worse if that makes sense
As a youngster I was gifted a model that featured the battle at Anzio, Italy. It featured several model vehicles to glue, paint and add stickers. There was an US Jeep and yep, the German Wirbelwind.
I remember building the Monogram model of the Wirbelwind almost 50 years ago!! Loved the looks of it! Several years later I picked up Panzer Leader published by Avalon Hill. A couple game pieces represented the aforementioned SPAA unit in platoon strength. I was more than delighted!
I attended a house party back in 1972 where Farley M. was playing the piano, having a great old time, and drinking up a storm. It was at my girlfriend's parent's house in Mississauga Ontario. He definitely was the life of the party. Quite a character, and his book is a pretty good read. So glad they have started to restore all those war trophies that sat outside at CFB Camp Borden Ontario. It was a shame to see them just rot away. For the most part, they have been rescued and brought indoors to a much better fate. Especially the soft-skinned vehicles.
The Whirbelwind was one of the first models i built as a kid. Out of all the vehicles in the German armed forces of that time, it was probably the coolest looking of them all. Looking past the surface, as a weapons platform....it most certainly was a very effective piece of equipment. Point air defence and ground fire support is were it excelled. Its ironic how many air defence weapons have proven themselves to be equally lethal, if not more, against ground targets. Just take the 88mm, or like this now, the 20mm...or a bit more extreme, the 128mm AA guns in the flaktowers in Berlin when they turned them against the Red Army tanks. Remember reading about a US 40mm Bofors gunner...he said that when they turned the barrel down and pumped a few rounds into the trenches, hands would soon come up yelling "nicht schisen". Man, imagine being on the receiving end of automatic gun fire....terrible thing... Great video by the way👏👍
That's mostly a simple perspective from WW2 movies and games. Using AA guns, especially heavy flak like German 88s, while powerful on paper, in actual battlefield they were rather impractical. Firstly, the size and weight issue, especially for heavy AA like Flak 88. In ground combat, including AT gun duties, effective concealment of guns contributes heavily to the survival of the gun unit. But for AA guns this became difficult, as they presented higher profile than regular field guns of comparable role. In fact the German Flak 88s were higher than a StuG assault gun. And another major factor on the weapon effectiveness and survivability on ground was mobility, on how quickly the gun could relocate and switch positions - for heavy AA they were at disadvantage, having longer setup time and being more clumsy and slower to move. Even for light AA such as 20 mm German Flak, these disadvantages were still evident when compared to its closest ground counterpart - Heavy MG on tripod that could be carried away by just two men under a minute. And then there is the complexity, and hence the cost-effectiveness of AA guns as ground support. Dedicated flak guns were built with complex expensive ranging equipment for engaging planes high up in sky, but completely unnecessary for ground targets. Both German Flak 88 and Pak 40 could take out Sherman tanks, but only Flak 88 could take out B17 bomber and not the Pak 40. Using them as solely ground support would be wasteful, especially when they were lost in the field without downing a single plane using that complex equipment. Hence, by mid-war when Germany got more capable regular AT guns, many Flak guns, mainly 88s, were pulled back for home defense.
I'd say Forged for Battle is exactly the right category. As you said, the design was working as intended and had not major drawbacks while improving efficiency in it's designed area and giving the crew a better protection. It's not a major design flaw if the industry wasn't able to produce it in high enough numbers. Well made video, learned a few new things today. Thank you for that.
One of my favorite vehicles Germany made during WW2. Forged out of necessity with a venerable chassis and became an iconic German vehicle of WW2. Plus I just love the name "Whirlwind" is such a cool name.
Another great video, one of my most favourite oddballs. I remember seeing the Borden display at the Canadian Tank Museum during Aquino. Such an amazing restoration project. Can’t wait to what’s next!
Great machine. Absolutely purpose built and deadly effective. It’s really a good thing that it wasn’t introduced sooner and in greater numbers. Cool vid mate. Thanks! 😎👍
Thats the complex beauty of ww2 germany equipment. Mostly smart designs and of good quality. But they would have benefitted from streamlining. Which I realise would have been very difficult as they lost their industrial capacity
@@ThommyofThenn If successful designs would have been introduced earlier und in greater numbers, the good guy's would have won WWII. Is that easy enough to understand?
Fun fact: Japan had a license to produce the flak 38, 20cm gun as a result of its partnership with germany. Designated as the Type 2, 2cm. It would be produced in Japan from 1942 until the end of the war in 1945. The guns themselves would be used by the japanese army, and a project to create a self-propelled AA known as the type 98 20cm AAG ( based on the Ke-Ni light tank) in single and twin gun configurations. But the Vehicle would only remain a prototype.
I remember the small metal "Tinker-toy" version we played with as a child in the late 1950's and early 60's. My dad used to paint lead soldiers for us to play with. He fought with Gen Terry Allen's BIG RED ONE. Because I was crazy about horse cavalry he even built me and painted a true to detail "Yellow boy" trooper, and yes a "Whirbelwind".
I've been (re)watching all of your video's and the quality of your work has gone up so much lately, the progress is insane! Very well done, keep it up and I can't wait for the next tank essay :)
Great video! I always like looking at the Wirbelwind prototypes made in France by Karl Wilhelm Krause.The first 3 were sent to the 12th SS HJ who instantly saw them as superior to their flakpanzer 38(t)s. They had an interesting look. No armor panels, just a stripped down panzer IV G late or H early/mid with a Flakvierling on top. Custom shop welded mounting cleats for the Flakvierling.
The one in Canada (cfb Borden) was part of a static display outside for decades, I used to climb all over it when I was a kid...the top of the open turret had a grate welded over it but you could climb up and look in, along with a Sherman crab minesweeper...many great tanks there and an amazing weapons display in the indoor museum.
Tank Chan is too cute. /edit And i think the concept of the Wirbelwind was indeed a good one. And even more needed today than it was during WW2. With the advent of drones, close air defense is even more important than ever.
The German 20mm single portable gun was very popular with troops in the Spanish Revolution for ground fighting, as was the American quad .50 half track, and in Vietnam the M-42 dual 40mm "Duster". The speed of modern jets has made the gun based AA systems less effective.
It's not necessarily the speed which makes them less effective it's more the fact that most fighters are equipped with weapons that have effective ranges farther than the guns can reach. Gun based systems are still completely capable of knocking jets out of the sky with modern tracking systems
Yugoslavia partisans took at least one supplied Stuart light tank, removed the turret and placed the German quad 20mm on top of it. A crude version similar to the German version.
There was this game called Jane’s WW2 fighters and this vehicle always shot me down, and when they were in large groups u couldn’t go near the ground without huge losses….think I got ptsd from this thing.
It should be noted, Farley Mowat was also a well known popular author in the late 20th century primarily focusing on nature stories. He wrote over 40 books from the 1950s until his death in 2014. Some of the most popular of these being "People of the Deer" (1952), "The Curse of the Viking Grave" (1966), "Never Cry Wolf" (1963), “A Whale for the Killing" (1973), "The Snow Walker" (1976), "And No Birds Sang" (1979). "The Farfarers" (2000). Some of these - like Never Cry Wolf, The Curse of the Viking Grave & The Fafarers - were even turned into movies.
I've read "A Whale for the Killing" and also "The Boat That Wouldn't Float" (about his experiences of owning and sailing a converted Newfoundland fishing boat). I didn't know about his military service.
Absolutely Forged For Battle. The only problems were as you said, not entering production soon enough or in enough numbers. Also, it is nice when you can have a completely sealed turret, but you can't get everything.
Absolutely forged for battle, the moment I saw the Gepard and the Russian equivalent (was it called the Terminator?) it made me think of the flakpanzers/wirbelwind.
Speaking of Ukraine: Germany wanted to phase out the Gepard and has massive problems getting the 35mm ammunition from Switzerland (since they were dumb enough to rely on foreign-made ammunition). However, it was quickly noticed in this war that drones are a major threat, and using surface-to-air missiles costing 100x as much as the drone is not just an overkill, but a quick way of losing the battle of attrition! Until lasers become reliable enough, automatic cannons will protect the skies against cheap threats...
In regard to the problem of the 35 mm ammo for the Gepard, I understand it's been solved with the installation of a factory in Germany to produce those rounds.
A great video which reminded me of anecdotal stories about the use in the wirbelwind's use as an anti- partisan weapon in Greece and Yugoslavia which proved particularly murderous in the mountain terrain. Out of respect for the SOE members I drank with, I wont mention any names but I will say that it was a benefit of my pub crawling around Aldershot in my youth in the late 70's and 870's.
Farley Mowat wrote a great book called "And no birds sang" about his time fighting in Italy. He is also the author of "Never cry wolf". I didn't know he brought so much back to Canada.
I was playing my friend in the game Combat Mission. I ran into one of his M4 Sherman, so I thought I was dead. Luckily, the 37mm AP in the Ostwind with it's high rate of fire was able to penetrate the side of the Sherman's turret, taking it out of action.
One of my very favourite AFVs. Very interesting video. Well done ! I also like the Hungarian AA tank known as the Nimrod which fired against ground and air targets and was purpose built from the very start. 41C
how expensive it was to made? how difficult it was to maintain? how complicated was the gun system? how heavy it was? these are the 4 questions that still bother modern artillery as to why they haven't made 2 (or more) barrel artillery. even when it makes sense in artillery/mortar.
Yep... But the Wirbelwind, was only a semi solution. The introduction of the Kugelblitz in a larger scale, would have killed the production of the Wirbelwind. But the Kugelblitz came to late... But if you are aware of the power of the 30 mm Mk 108, which was used in the Kugelblitz, you'll understand this. Here is a less than 3 minutes British test video with the basic version of this weapon, short after the war ended in Europe... ua-cam.com/video/91LUxqn1QY0/v-deo.html
@ConeOfArc you mentioned this one, and the one Oshawa Tank Museum has parts of a separate one I thought, unless it's all one thing and I'm getting junbled
I honestly don't know about how CAS worked on the Eastern Front, I don't hear much about it, and I might be wrong but it seems like it would be an excellent anti-personnel system.
The funny thing is that there's a strong inverse correlation between caliber and shots-to-kill ratio! The biggest AA gun fielded by the Germans was the 128mm and it had the longest range, which could, in theory, threaten the highest-flying bombers, but at that distance, you'd need many shots before you score a hit (by shrapnel and not even a direct hit). To add to this, we have a very slow reload and traverse rate. The 30 cal has the shortest range and is the fastest in terms of fire and traverse, but it wasn't really used against hard targets including planes. This makes the 20mm the strongest contender and it hit pretty much the sweet spot of having a range where it can affect planes before they become a threat to you, but being still close enough most of the time that you can score a direct hit. This means that if a plane targets a convoy and mistakes a Wirbelwind as a regular Panzer IV, this could very well be the last mistake the pilot ever makes! Especially, if the crew holds fire until the convoy gets straved ensuring that they'll be able to hit the plane. A single hit can rip off a wing!
As "I recall" most the ETO, Med or N Afrika vets I Knew, Had a buddy armored recovery and up front in the Bulge he used a bow saw to get the frozen crew out of battle damaged armor and stack the SS massacred frozen allied POW's he packed tite in trucks back to the lines, a 1st or 2nd grade they teacher survived Bastone, knew this thing. or auto 20's to be a CRAZY Ground Attack Anti Everything, Just Run. or hide? and a threat, a cause of concerns and hesitation from the air, just go around. One gramps fought for the RCAF, RAF, USAAC from Battle of Britain to the end, one fishing buddy downed 2 behind lines, resucued both via underground and a brit sub in the Med, Italy, or around Greese or the Bultic, battle damaged landed in a Bedouin village with lit candels N Afrika RIP! GREATEST! Thanks for 60 plus Years of No WWIII I Miss You Y'all YA"LL! Thanks CANADA for the restoration, had one Gramps Woody, he flew for the RCAF, RAF, USAAC, every Ally and the french, started under aged and got his own pilots Lic in the US flew into WWII before the battle of britain.
Imagination is more important than knowledge. For while knowledge defines all we currently know and understand, imagination points to all we might yet discover and create.
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I have heard that the low production number was because of the low attrition rate for flak vehicles..... supposedly.
As long as they avoided direct-fire weapons on the ground, this seems reasonable. And yes, this is a good weapon and did lead to the Gepard (the best of this type ever)
Side note; Thailand was the first to mass-produce armored flak.... if you can call 36 machines a "mass". They put a 40mm on a Vickers 6-ton in the 1930s, incidentally creating the first tank that was actually useful in a jungle.
@@johnwolf2829 I believe the low production was more because they moved to better vehicles like the Ostwind. The 20mm was limited by range and damage which is why the flakvierling was used to begin with
@@ConeOfArc Good point, and true... but isn't it a hell of a thing to see that planes back then were too tough for a 20mm? Makes you wonder why the US put so much faith in the Vulcan.
Ah, a fellow Cobi enjoyer!
Great vid I think it was a good design for the time and is very distinct.
One of the few later war german vehicles that was sane, justified, and reliable. Absolutely forged for battle tier.
Thanks to the shape of the turret, German soldiers referred to the tank as "Keksdose" (cookie box), due to a bakery from that time selling their products in similar shaped boxes.
I would like cookie or biscuit from this place. Probably had cardammon and that large grain sugar on top
Cardamom*
I carda'd your mom last night.
Schwarzpulver flavoured.
Cardamom was difficult for the Germans to get, as it came mostly from South Asia. They grew a lot of it in the former principality of Sikkim. Much more readily available to the allies. 😜
Great video! Forged for Battle is a perfect title. Necessity is the mother of invention, and this design was absolutely necessary.
German army war machines where like the Decepticons ❤
Agreed
Screw the Wirbelwind, mad respect for those guys stealing a freaking V2 from the british and disguising it as a submarine
That isn't even the craziest part of his story. Definitely looking forward to covering his insane exploits
Next time don't click,ok.
Go search and find the V12 and the flying sub and when you find it Click harder than even and say out loud "screw the Wirbelwind" this is the real deal.
Oh,and again next time please don't click on something that screws you,ok. Good luck with the Sub V3 and by the way also click on the Lousy British WW2 tanks and everything else.
I'am pretty sure that subject is way more fascinating that the Wirbelwind.
@@jpmtlhead39 You sound like a schizo with that comment. No offense.
@@andyfriederichsen with no Offense,you sound like an absolute Idiot with your's.
@@andyfriederichsen I think they're fed up with people commenting something not related to the subject just to get attention
13:32 ok that writing is just wholesome. "Hanni my love"
probably his wife or daugther i guess
I grew up on C.F.B. Borden. As a child, I actually played on the Wirbelwind. It was had a fence sealing of the inner compartment of the turret, but was still fun for us kids playing war. There was also a Panther tank (which now resides at the Canadian war museum.)
This is being rebuilt by volunteers.
@@steveg3981 I know.
in General Worthington Park aka Tank Park across from the base museum
lol, it was my favorite
15:32 i believe it absolutely deserves to be Forged For Battle tier. Although it wasn't tested in battle long enough for a true analysis, conceptually it is a great work. As shown at the end of video, the spaa configuration pioneered by the WW, is still used to this very day. If it were Cursed tier, the design would have been abandoned much sooner
Nein, nicht ganz richtig, das diese Lösung "Wirbelwind", auch noch Heute verwendung findet. Der Vergleich des deutschen Bundeswehr-Antiluft-Panzers "Gepard", ist eher eine Weiterentwicklung des in den letzten Kriegmonaten entwickelten Typ "Kugelblitz", der einen völlig geschlossenen Drehturm hatte, und mit 2 x 3,7cm Flak ausgerüstet war. Der "Kugelblitz" kam aber nicht mehr zum Einsatz
@KG-li7kg danke
"How many guns you want?"
"YES."
@@firehazardentertainment8381 imagining alternate history scenario where there is Quadruple Ostwind and the turret is two "cookiebox" turrets welded together
Don't worry about how that would function. Rule of cool applies
@@ThommyofThenn You know, they made quad and octuple versions of the mark VIII 2 pounder QF gun for the RN. Not the best guns ever made, but still they fired a 40mm shell. If the rule of cool applies, then sticking these on a tank chassis should get a pass too. As a bonus, you don't even have to imagine how they work, since they really did (edit: work that is).
@@whyjnot420 awesome!! Thanks for new things for me to research in the upcoming week.
Remember the scene from Saving private Ryan where the 2cm flak gun decimates the paratroopers climbing on the tiger tank? Yea, that was just one gun, now imagine that but with four guns. The wirbelwind must have been absolutely devastating in ground support role if it got to engage infantry.
It likely would have had the same problems most gun-armed SPAA had/have when engaging infantry, which is that the sights are only designed to engage at distance and generally pointing upwards. Their visibility at close ground targets is almost always abysmal and their fire has to be directed by the commander standing up to spot targets (or in the case of vehicles like the Shilka, by a nearby dismounted individual they're in radio contact with). That's why there're very few accounts of people witnessing infantry getting mowed down by SPAA, but many accounts of people being engaged by them and having to flee.
So for SPAA at least, they were formidable and intimidating anti-infamtry weapons, but would not be able to easily or quickly directly target infantry. They would have likely been used more for detterance and suppression to keep infantry away from attacking the otherwise quite vulnerable vehicles. This goes for allied examples as well, to be clear. The Skink prototype that saw combat isn't noted as having definitively killed any Germans, but it was effective at flushing them out of entrenched positions, and caused surrenders and injuries.
Thats why it has a small fold in the front of the turret to shoot at around 0 degrees
Germany also made extensive use of 20mm cannon for ground operations. It's high rate of fire made it an effective weapon against troops, trucks and light armored vehicles. One of my favorite naval authors who served in the Royal Navy during World War II called the 20mm (Oerlikon) "a vicious, high velocity weapon, deadly in trained hands."
20mm when used in an anti-personnel role has always sounded terrifying to me. I mean, a dual or quad 7.62 or 12.7 (general speaking using nato sizing) is still scary but 20mm? The damage is horrendous. Truly horrific to be on the receiving end.
Ahhhhhh .... I sure miss playing Panzer General II! Had a blast playing and creating scenarios back in the day! I always included a Wirbelwind unit when creating the German columns of armor.....
Great Video! Very Informative! Thx!
You didnt hear of Panzer Corps by any chance?
Yeah, PGII is great. Still playable on Dosbox. :)
The "Destroyer 45" with it's quad 30mms would have been an absolute nightmare for Allied ground attack aircraft and ground units alike...
While seemingly not too common, can you imagine being the poor guy having one fire on you? 20mm would probably be overkill already but i guess it would be 10mm worse if that makes sense
You are dead with the 20mm, you are even more dead with the 30mm@@ThommyofThenn
@@alias_aka_aliaswell put!
It's in Warthunder, and it comes with AP Composite rounds and it rips through anything that doesn't have decent armour 😂
@JetfireQuasar the wirble?
Born for war The concept is still valid today with the excellent Gepard, as you just showed a short clip of one.
Well... The ancestor of the Gepard, is more likely the Kugelblitz...
As a youngster I was gifted a model that featured the battle at Anzio, Italy. It featured several model vehicles to glue, paint and add stickers. There was an US Jeep and yep, the German Wirbelwind.
I remember building the Monogram model of the Wirbelwind almost 50 years ago!! Loved the looks of it! Several years later I picked up Panzer Leader published by Avalon Hill. A couple game pieces represented the aforementioned SPAA unit in platoon strength. I was more than delighted!
I have my Monogram model of Wirbelwind too almost 50 yrs, and still have it !😅
I forgot l also still have a Ostwind from the Monogram too !!😅
The Whirblewind being rebuilt at CFB Borden is great to check out. They’re always looking for volunteers
I attended a house party back in 1972 where Farley M. was playing the piano, having a great old time, and drinking up a storm.
It was at my girlfriend's parent's house in Mississauga Ontario.
He definitely was the life of the party. Quite a character, and his book is a pretty good read.
So glad they have started to restore all those war trophies that sat outside at CFB Camp Borden Ontario.
It was a shame to see them just rot away. For the most part, they have been rescued and brought indoors to a much better fate. Especially the soft-skinned vehicles.
The Whirbelwind was one of the first models i built as a kid.
Out of all the vehicles in the German armed forces of that time, it was probably the coolest looking of them all.
Looking past the surface, as a weapons platform....it most certainly was a very effective piece of equipment.
Point air defence and ground fire support is were it excelled.
Its ironic how many air defence weapons have proven themselves to be equally lethal, if not more, against ground targets.
Just take the 88mm, or like this now, the 20mm...or a bit more extreme, the 128mm AA guns in the flaktowers in Berlin when they turned them against the Red Army tanks.
Remember reading about a US 40mm Bofors gunner...he said that when they turned the barrel down and pumped a few rounds into the trenches, hands would soon come up yelling "nicht schisen".
Man, imagine being on the receiving end of automatic gun fire....terrible thing...
Great video by the way👏👍
That's mostly a simple perspective from WW2 movies and games. Using AA guns, especially heavy flak like German 88s, while powerful on paper, in actual battlefield they were rather impractical.
Firstly, the size and weight issue, especially for heavy AA like Flak 88. In ground combat, including AT gun duties, effective concealment of guns contributes heavily to the survival of the gun unit. But for AA guns this became difficult, as they presented higher profile than regular field guns of comparable role. In fact the German Flak 88s were higher than a StuG assault gun. And another major factor on the weapon effectiveness and survivability on ground was mobility, on how quickly the gun could relocate and switch positions - for heavy AA they were at disadvantage, having longer setup time and being more clumsy and slower to move.
Even for light AA such as 20 mm German Flak, these disadvantages were still evident when compared to its closest ground counterpart - Heavy MG on tripod that could be carried away by just two men under a minute.
And then there is the complexity, and hence the cost-effectiveness of AA guns as ground support. Dedicated flak guns were built with complex expensive ranging equipment for engaging planes high up in sky, but completely unnecessary for ground targets. Both German Flak 88 and Pak 40 could take out Sherman tanks, but only Flak 88 could take out B17 bomber and not the Pak 40. Using them as solely ground support would be wasteful, especially when they were lost in the field without downing a single plane using that complex equipment.
Hence, by mid-war when Germany got more capable regular AT guns, many Flak guns, mainly 88s, were pulled back for home defense.
I'd say Forged for Battle is exactly the right category. As you said, the design was working as intended and had not major drawbacks while improving efficiency in it's designed area and giving the crew a better protection. It's not a major design flaw if the industry wasn't able to produce it in high enough numbers.
Well made video, learned a few new things today. Thank you for that.
One of my favorite vehicles Germany made during WW2. Forged out of necessity with a venerable chassis and became an iconic German vehicle of WW2. Plus I just love the name "Whirlwind" is such a cool name.
I slapped a Wirbel's turret on my engine deck.
T77E1: i want more than “yes”
Another great video, one of my most favourite oddballs.
I remember seeing the Borden display at the Canadian Tank Museum during Aquino. Such an amazing restoration project. Can’t wait to what’s next!
Great machine.
Absolutely purpose built and deadly effective.
It’s really a good thing that it wasn’t introduced sooner and in greater numbers.
Cool vid mate.
Thanks!
😎👍
Thats the complex beauty of ww2 germany equipment. Mostly smart designs and of good quality. But they would have benefitted from streamlining. Which I realise would have been very difficult as they lost their industrial capacity
Why is that a good thing?
@@frankcoala5890 i think everyone would be better served by you explaining why you think it wasn't. Please go into detail! Don't be shy
@@ThommyofThenn If successful designs would have been introduced earlier und in greater numbers, the good guy's would have won WWII.
Is that easy enough to understand?
The wirbelwind was a german spaa not allied. @frankcoala5890
Awesome ! Thanks for promoting the Borden Flakpanzer Restoration Project!
Did an awesome Monogram model of an Ostwind around 1976. To this day my fav. 😊
The Ostwind of the Monogram turret is different than the Tamiya model !😮😅
Fun fact: Japan had a license to produce the flak 38, 20cm gun as a result of its partnership with germany.
Designated as the Type 2, 2cm. It would be produced in Japan from 1942 until the end of the war in 1945. The guns themselves would be used by the japanese army, and a project to create a self-propelled AA known as the type 98 20cm AAG ( based on the Ke-Ni light tank) in single and twin gun configurations. But the Vehicle would only remain a prototype.
It most certainly ain’t cursed by design. They fielded so many and it’s almost iconic. It did exactly what it was designed for.
I remember the small metal "Tinker-toy" version we played with as a child in the late 1950's and early 60's. My dad used to paint lead soldiers for us to play with. He fought with Gen Terry Allen's BIG RED ONE. Because I was crazy about horse cavalry he even built me and painted a true to detail "Yellow boy" trooper, and yes a "Whirbelwind".
Always a beast when it appears in video games.
I've been (re)watching all of your video's and the quality of your work has gone up so much lately, the progress is insane! Very well done, keep it up and I can't wait for the next tank essay :)
As a Canadian, I was very surprised and pleased to find out that my country has one of the only two Wirblewind's in the World!!
So damn cool!!
Thanks for the presentation. Very good.
How did I not know theres a wirbelwind in my city
CFB Borden! And the restoration team at Aquino! Nice!
Great video! I always like looking at the Wirbelwind prototypes made in France by Karl Wilhelm Krause.The first 3 were sent to the 12th SS HJ who instantly saw them as superior to their flakpanzer 38(t)s. They had an interesting look. No armor panels, just a stripped down panzer IV G late or H early/mid with a Flakvierling on top. Custom shop welded mounting cleats for the Flakvierling.
The one in Canada (cfb Borden) was part of a static display outside for decades, I used to climb all over it when I was a kid...the top of the open turret had a grate welded over it but you could climb up and look in, along with a Sherman crab minesweeper...many great tanks there and an amazing weapons display in the indoor museum.
I remember seeing a mobelwagen with a quad gun on it. Even had a 1/72 or HO scale one as a child.
They still are interesting. Great video, thanks!
Tank Chan is too cute.
/edit
And i think the concept of the Wirbelwind was indeed a good one. And even more needed today than it was during WW2. With the advent of drones, close air defense is even more important than ever.
The German 20mm single portable gun was very popular with troops in the Spanish Revolution for ground fighting, as was the American quad .50 half track, and in Vietnam the M-42 dual 40mm "Duster". The speed of modern jets has made the gun based AA systems less effective.
It's not necessarily the speed which makes them less effective it's more the fact that most fighters are equipped with weapons that have effective ranges farther than the guns can reach. Gun based systems are still completely capable of knocking jets out of the sky with modern tracking systems
Yugoslavia partisans took at least one supplied Stuart light tank, removed the turret and placed the German quad 20mm on top of it. A crude version similar to the German version.
I love the flak tanks. Modern German Gephart is serious kit.
Great video- I always been interested in the 4 barreled flak weapon!
A very informative video on an excellent vehicle.
Excellent presentation.
I love it!..I have a 1/35th scale Academy model with crew...
Ahh yes, the Flakpanzer IV, not enough of them in real life, but a deeply feared vehicle in Games like War Thunder and Battlefield 5 :)
There was this game called Jane’s WW2 fighters and this vehicle always shot me down, and when they were in large groups u couldn’t go near the ground without huge losses….think I got ptsd from this thing.
It should be noted, Farley Mowat was also a well known popular author in the late 20th century primarily focusing on nature stories. He wrote over 40 books from the 1950s until his death in 2014. Some of the most popular of these being "People of the Deer" (1952), "The Curse of the Viking Grave" (1966), "Never Cry Wolf" (1963), “A Whale for the Killing" (1973), "The Snow Walker" (1976), "And No Birds Sang" (1979). "The Farfarers" (2000). Some of these - like Never Cry Wolf, The Curse of the Viking Grave & The Fafarers - were even turned into movies.
Read westviking.
"The Dog Who Wouldn't Be" Is a good one.
I've read "A Whale for the Killing" and also "The Boat That Wouldn't Float" (about his experiences of owning and sailing a converted Newfoundland fishing boat). I didn't know about his military service.
8:57 and 10:05 - Yay, Cobi, Polish brand of toys
Absolutely Forged For Battle. The only problems were as you said, not entering production soon enough or in enough numbers. Also, it is nice when you can have a completely sealed turret, but you can't get everything.
Absolutely forged for battle, the moment I saw the Gepard and the Russian equivalent (was it called the Terminator?) it made me think of the flakpanzers/wirbelwind.
Absolutely forged for battle
Thanks for the vid
Speaking of Ukraine:
Germany wanted to phase out the Gepard and has massive problems getting the 35mm ammunition from Switzerland (since they were dumb enough to rely on foreign-made ammunition).
However, it was quickly noticed in this war that drones are a major threat, and using surface-to-air missiles costing 100x as much as the drone is not just an overkill, but a quick way of losing the battle of attrition!
Until lasers become reliable enough, automatic cannons will protect the skies against cheap threats...
In regard to the problem of the 35 mm ammo for the Gepard, I understand it's been solved with the installation of a factory in Germany to produce those rounds.
Whirblewind flak regiment in Normandy! Used in the ground roll. It would've chewed Allied infantry.
Read up on the Crusader AA the British AA tank. It was made in much greater numbers and often used against German infantry.
Forged for battle can you do a video on the rear drive panzer 4
I plan to once I get the chance to film it in person
Forged for battle is a pretty cool guy eh includes water colour painting of wirblewind and doesnt afraid strafing run
A great video which reminded me of anecdotal stories about the use in the wirbelwind's use as an anti- partisan weapon in Greece and Yugoslavia which proved particularly murderous in the mountain terrain. Out of respect for the SOE members I drank with, I wont mention any names but I will say that it was a benefit of my pub crawling around Aldershot in my youth in the late 70's and 870's.
I think you are conflating the vehicle with the gun.
In Hearts of Iron 4 medium self propelled AA are the most effective armored vehicles to use against AI opponents.
20 round magazines, reminds me of the infamous 25mm aa guns of the IJN
It was my favorite model as a kid
0:32 that guy was reloading fast wtf
Über Deutsche Force
The Flak can be reloaded notoriously quickly as it had an autoejector
Eastern front had no time for slow reloads
Bros on German medicine made for „better performance“
Monograms Models had a 1/32 model of the Wirbelwind. I built one. Agreed it was a good idea, too little, too late.
It is a very cool looking Panzer, that's for sure !
Farley Mowat wrote a great book called "And no birds sang" about his time fighting in Italy. He is also the author of "Never cry wolf". I didn't know he brought so much back to Canada.
It's design for infrantry surprising fire.
4 barrels is wasteful if you’re just trying to suppress infantry. multi barrel systems are better for anti air
@@TheSebsFilms Well... Open fire on some intantry in a house, is no party for the men in there...
Farley Mowat was a prodigious Canadian author. I read several of his books in my youth.
I was playing my friend in the game Combat Mission. I ran into one of his M4 Sherman, so I thought I was dead. Luckily, the 37mm AP in the Ostwind with it's high rate of fire was able to penetrate the side of the Sherman's turret, taking it out of action.
One of my very favourite AFVs. Very interesting video. Well done ! I also like the Hungarian AA tank known as the Nimrod which fired against ground and air targets and was purpose built from the very start. 41C
So what about the Crusader AA tank?
@@michaelkenny8540 That was an adaptation without a large production either in Bofors or 20mm variants. Nimrod was used from start to finish of WWII.
a whirlwind is being restored in a Canadian tank museum right now, i got to see the turret there but there wasn't an haul yet
Silences make the real conversations between friends. Not the saying but the never needing to say is what counts.
For some reason, UA-cam completely stopped recommending me your videos. I'm still subscribed, they just stopped showing me that you uploaded
how expensive it was to made?
how difficult it was to maintain?
how complicated was the gun system? how heavy it was?
these are the 4 questions that still bother modern artillery as to why they haven't made 2 (or more) barrel artillery. even when it makes sense in artillery/mortar.
So Wirbelwind could be build from pz4 damaged by aircraft? revenge story.
Yep... But the Wirbelwind, was only a semi solution. The introduction of the Kugelblitz in a larger scale, would have killed the production of the Wirbelwind. But the Kugelblitz came to late... But if you are aware of the power of the 30 mm Mk 108, which was used in the Kugelblitz, you'll understand this. Here is a less than 3 minutes British test video with the basic version of this weapon, short after the war ended in Europe...
ua-cam.com/video/91LUxqn1QY0/v-deo.html
@melchiorvonsternberg844 i just made a joke...
I wonder if any flakpanzers had ace gunners🤔 Some gunners must have been talented at downing planes.
The Wirbelwind was awesome good in AA and ground support roles. Few were built however to make the difference: only 4 per Panzer Division.
Interesting video, thanks.
Very cool! I've always been interested in this vehicle
I didn't even know we had a mostly full Whirbelwind on Canadian soil to begin with, but the fact we have 2 trying to be restored is quite interesting
There's only one in Canada, the one being restored
@ConeOfArc you mentioned this one, and the one Oshawa Tank Museum has parts of a separate one I thought, unless it's all one thing and I'm getting junbled
@@owenadams1169 You may be thinking of the display the Borden museum set up at Aquino which are parts from the one being restored
Great video!! Thank You!
Ahhh, the good ole days!
He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the universe.
I honestly don't know about how CAS worked on the Eastern Front, I don't hear much about it, and I might be wrong but it seems like it would be an excellent anti-personnel system.
Good stuff
A good ground weapon as well against troops and lightly armoured vehicles.
Super cool
We never understand how little we need in this world until we know the loss of it.
The destroyer of worlds
it is the stuff legends were made of
This things nickname irl is keksdose. Not even joking.
FEELSGOODMAN
The funny thing is that there's a strong inverse correlation between caliber and shots-to-kill ratio!
The biggest AA gun fielded by the Germans was the 128mm and it had the longest range, which could, in theory, threaten the highest-flying bombers, but at that distance, you'd need many shots before you score a hit (by shrapnel and not even a direct hit). To add to this, we have a very slow reload and traverse rate.
The 30 cal has the shortest range and is the fastest in terms of fire and traverse, but it wasn't really used against hard targets including planes. This makes the 20mm the strongest contender and it hit pretty much the sweet spot of having a range where it can affect planes before they become a threat to you, but being still close enough most of the time that you can score a direct hit.
This means that if a plane targets a convoy and mistakes a Wirbelwind as a regular Panzer IV, this could very well be the last mistake the pilot ever makes! Especially, if the crew holds fire until the convoy gets straved ensuring that they'll be able to hit the plane. A single hit can rip off a wing!
Most as had the effect of keeping planes at a distance
Okay, the fact that the Canadians stole a V2 from the British and disguised it as a submarine to sneak it home is absolutely hilarious and ballsy.
Respect.
The Brits also had a fully turreted flak version of the Cromwell and the Russians had a sp 37mm on a t70 chassis I believe.
As "I recall" most the ETO, Med or N Afrika vets I Knew, Had a buddy armored recovery and up front in the Bulge he used a bow saw to get the frozen crew out of battle damaged armor and stack the SS massacred frozen allied POW's he packed tite in trucks back to the lines, a 1st or 2nd grade they teacher survived Bastone, knew this thing. or auto 20's to be a CRAZY Ground Attack Anti Everything, Just Run. or hide? and a threat, a cause of concerns and hesitation from the air, just go around. One gramps fought for the RCAF, RAF, USAAC from Battle of Britain to the end, one fishing buddy downed 2 behind lines, resucued both via underground and a brit sub in the Med, Italy, or around Greese or the Bultic, battle damaged landed in a Bedouin village with lit candels N Afrika
RIP! GREATEST! Thanks for 60 plus Years of No WWIII I Miss You Y'all YA"LL!
Thanks CANADA for the restoration, had one Gramps Woody, he flew for the RCAF, RAF, USAAC, every Ally and the french, started under aged and got his own pilots Lic in the US flew into WWII before the battle of britain.
Imagination is more important than knowledge. For while knowledge defines all we currently know and understand, imagination points to all we might yet discover and create.
One of my favorite vehicles in War Thunder.
I’d say due to the fact that troops had already started making these vehicles on an individual basis… it was not cursed but required
Farley Mowat wrote "Never cry wolf" and "The boat that wouldn't float" along with many other books.
They would have been very effective on the Eastern Front where quads were used in an anti-personnel role to bolster already stretched thin lines.
I would go with Forged for Battle . 👍