Commissioning a company to painstakingly apply 200kg of extra weight onto your tank in order to counter a non existent threat, sounds about right for 1943.
Germany 1943: "We've now improved on the captured American bazooka, giving our infantry unparalleled protection and range against any Allied armor." Also Germany 1943: "MINE ON, APPLY DIRECTLY TO TANK SIDE. MINE ON, APPLY DIRECTLY TO TANK SIDE."
@@Rutherford_Inchworm_III It have not yet ceased to amuse me that the panzerschreck protective shield was a field expedient made official. The nerds thought neeeding an protective poncho and face mask to avoid getting burnt was fine. :D
As the tanks were delivered to the frontlines uncoated with Zimmerit this meant the tank had to spend two days being coated in the rear area before being released to the tank crews. Just what you need in the middle of a war.
@@bigblue6917zimmerit Was applied in the factory over the anti rust coat. Over that a primer in RAL7028 was layed. The final camo pattern was to be applied by the units at the front
That the allies never correctly guessed what the Zimmerit coating was for is rather indicative of the fact that magnetic AT grenades were never something they considered developing and as such could not consider that the Germans who did develop such weapons would be mirroring such fears onto the allies. An informative video.
I can confirm that a British source, of soldiers in the field, thought that Zimmerit was primarily for camouflage. As it helped to break up a vehicle's hard edges (particularly if the Zimmerit was applied locally, as I've seen examples of very roughly applied coating that gave vehicles a surface like chunky papermache/ mud).
I've read multiple allied accounts of testing Zimmerit. Seems commanders officers loved to giving a bucket of concrete to bored looking soldiers. All of them had conclusions along the lines of "absolute stonking pain in the arse to apply it, we don't even use magnetic mines anyway, but the finish is quite nice for camouflage"
Spoke once with an driver of an Panzer IV - he told me that the tankcrews liked Zimmerit because it made the tanks surface, especially when wet, less slippery - so it was easier to mount and unmount and work on the tanks. And as he told me, it was much easier to get frozen snow or ice off the tank with that zimmerit-layer between steel and snow and ice.
It seems like the German '-it' suffix is just like the '-ite' suffix in English, given to a named mineral or proprietary compound. So we might have called it Zimmerite.
It's hard for me to come to grips with the idea that getting close enough to an enemy tank to slap a magnetic mine on it was the best anti-tank weapon available. Someone had a sticky one too, which I think could be thrown a few feet, and that seems just as crazy. But I've got hindsight that they didn't.
The German military to this day has the principle "Wirkung vor Deckung" "Effect before cover / protection", in that sense it was clearly the best one at the time.
Yes, but also before the age of tanks, cavalry or artillery had been attacked in point-blank-range. Also infantry with a pike or lancet. And especially the German Armies were trained to attack tanks that way, too.
4:40 - Caulk (pron kawk) is not “chalk” (pron chawk). Caulk is a soft paste that hardens into a waterproof seal, it’ll be present around your bath and kitchen sink even if you don’t know what it is. Not criticising the English pronunciation here, but the audio is a bit confusing, chalk is hard, brittle and would reduce to powder in a fire. In text Peter is saying the Zimmerit will become like a sticky paste after a fire.
@@proCaylak ironically the phoneme “Ch” is usually pronounced “K” in German/Austrian, so it may be not realising that this English “Ch” was uncommonly a “K” (its more often “Ch” in English). What’s doubley ironic is “Calking” goes back several millennia in masonry. It’s derived from the Latin word Calico (fill in with limestone or lime-wash) and so shares a word derivation with Chalk (Calx). Calking may have acquired a different “K” pronunciation just by linguistic drift, possibly being mostly associated with ship building (waterproofing) several thousand years ago. It arrived in English from Latin via Old French and not Germanic influence. Just to show how good Peter Samsonov’s observation is the 1913 Websters definition of Cauk (no L in the American, still pron Kawk) is “Barite” (Barium Sulfate) which get’s us right back to what half of Zimmerit is made of. Post WW2 Caulk is more likely to be a Silicone Latex or polyvinyl acetate mix, but it clearly shares physical properties with Barium Sulfate which would have predated it and was used to create brilliant white waterproof exterior paint. This would have been a more commonly used weather coat in early C20th therefore, but Barium was well known to be non-magnetic.
@@ohmyshou1der probably. But would they care enough to put it together when they already decided it was an anti fire measure and made no difference to how they instructed troops to destroy tanks?
@@00yiggdrasill00 looked like the germans expected their enemies to copy the magnetic charge, I don't know how effective it was and why nobody copied it. I would expect troops were instructed to provide looted equipment for examination.
@@ohmyshou1der I do expect such an order was in place. Though developing the same methods for using it is a different thing. Honestly, running up to a tank and planting a magnetic mine on it doesn't sound like a good way to help experienced troops survive. The Soviets were known for firebombs and bundle grenades early on and they ate hell doing it to my knowledge. But you use what you have.
I have read somewhere that the application of Zimmerit was ordered discontinued September 15, 1944, which interestingly is the same day the poduction of the "chin" on the Panther began.
@7:07 PVA is an organic compound. Considering that you mentioned they used a blowtorch, they might have taken a sample and combusted it. The change in mass would correspond to organics/volatile compounds being expelled or combusting. Essentially they probably did a proto-Thermogravimetric analysis and that's how they came to that conclusion.
i like how they detailed and put it in the application manual that "not to put on the lights"... foreshadowing the situation if some of the workers would be "but it says everywhere on the front" and applying it literally everywhere as "i am just following instructions"
Fiinaly, a good description of the compounds whiçh zimmerit was composed of. If you're restoring a German AFV that originally wore the stuff, that's a great thing. As far as us model builders who are replicating it on a German AFV in scale, I'll continue using Squadron or Tamiya putty to reproduce it, LOL
It's one of those weird things that makes you wonder why the Germans adopted it in the first place. Yeah, the Germans themselves used magnetic antitank mines, but none of their enemies had them even by mid-1943 when Zimmerit was being applied. Magnetic antitank mines were a weapon of desperation. The US Army started issuing the Bazooka as early as Operation Torch in late 1942. The British PIAT started appearing in early 1943 at Tunisia. Germany's enemies had zero reason to go for magnetic AT mines, yet they pushed Zimmerit application anyways in mid-1943.
Місяць тому+10
What I love about Zimmerit is that it was one of the few times where the germany in WW2 anticipated a thread and acted on it, only for that thread to never materialise :)
While it might’ve never had a chance to fulfill its original purpose, it does seem to at least disrupt the typical light glare of the armor. You can see on the second King Tiger that the side skirts and barrel reflect significantly more than the hull and turret side. That said, simple netting would be cheaper, faster to apply, and more effective.
The story I've heard was that Zimmerit failed to harden when applied in cold temperatures. During the autumn and winter, due to the rapid production of tanks and lack of space, assembled tanks from production line were being placed outside the factory before the Zimmerit was applied. This meant that the initial layer of Zimmerit, when being applied as two coatings, failed to harden and was left in a softened state. The workers would then apply the second layer and use a blowtorch to heat the surface so it would harden. Supposedly, the reports of Zimmerit being flammable was due to incoming shells breaking the outer layer and igniting the unset layer beneath.
0:58 This is why I come to this channel, to get the real facts. It did indeed influence the Croatian of a protective coating. Said Croatian didn't really like being rubbed across all tank hulls during production as it gave him a rash, but after being promised a higher salary he reluctantly agreed. 😉 (More seriously though: Ab-brennen should probably be 'to burn off' of something like you can use flames to burn old paint off of a metal surface)
2:22 as someone who used to fit an install conveyour belts and has worked at bitumen/asphalt plants the troops where correct . Worst idea ever , get any of that on you its off to a specialised burn unit at a top tier hospital
From what I recall reading (A long time ago) the production and application of Zimmerit consumed a lot of petrol too. Fuel that could have been used for something else.
Polyvinyl acetate doesn’t use oil to apply. It is made from acetic acid and acetylene (toxic process) or acetic acid and ethylene (less toxic process). It can however take up to a week to dry as it is usually used as an aqueous solution (and won’t dry at all in freezing conditions).
@@allangibson8494 Good point. It wasn't the PVA that used the petrol (not oil) though. I'm trying to remember the article, it was a few years ago, that described the application process.
Given that the magnet on the back of that light did seem to stick to some extent, and those are not very strong, I'd like to see how firmly something like a magnet fishing magnet would stick. The British did have magnetic "limpet mines" using very strong magnets for sabotage operations but presumably didn't use them for anti tank purposes due to the difficulty of application. As mentioned in other comments the actual British anti tank charges used a glue like substance and could therefore be thrown from a distance.
@@allangibson8494 In a wartime context not that rapidly - Sticky bomb 1940, Piat from July '43. Interestingly the nature and texture of Zimmerit probably made it more likely that a sticky would stick.
@@NiallWardrop The PIAT entered service in August 1942. The Sticky Bomb couldn’t penetrate anything more robust than a Panzer I. The PIAT was derived from the 1940 Blacker Bombard.
That magnet is fairly weak compared to some now days but it's still likely a neodymium magnet and during WW2 the best they would have are simple ferrous magnets which are much weaker.
@@SilvaDreams Those work lights are designed to be easily removed, they barely stick to a painted metal surface. Long before neodymium magnets were around there were things like magnetic radio antenna mounts which were hard to remove.
Grahvel, not graevel :) Caulk is the word on the screen, (4:49) not chalk (mentioned), not sure what the correct thing is, but caulk and chalk are two different things. Caulking (Caulk) is the material you put in around a bathtub or whatever, forming a waterproof gasket/seal. chalk is for drawing on blackboards in school etc. ALSO Very happy to finally know all of this. It seems to me the tiger II at a prior date likely had it removed due to the fire hazard rumours... wasting time and resources twice. The stoppage of the application makes sense, see also waste of time, but the removal does not (What's there probably wouldn't hurt it too much)
I have 2 questions. 1 : is it hard enough to set off a shaped scharge before making contact with the hull? And 2 : If number 1 is true does it give enough space between the coating and thew hull to disapate any of the shaped charges payload?
1) I am very certain it is. If have never heard of something "too soft" to not trigger a shaped charge, they might also use inertia fuzes. 2) No, it might actually increase the effects, it depends on the shaped charges, but modern ones have usually a tip, from what I know that tip is to extend the distance, so that the jet can properly form.
Given that the other 4 proposed counter measures "were rejected by troops due to the fire hazard." It's a little ironic that one of the reasons it was discontinued in September 1944 was because of rumours that it could be set on fire by shell impacts. Though this was tested and officially disproved.
By the numbers, the Hafthohlladung had decent enough penetration, though I don't know much about its beyond armor effect or ease of use. Nor does anyone say if the attachment points just very strong iron magnets, or something a bit more exotic. In turn its a bit hard to say if the allies were missing out not developing magnetic weapons of their own. It probably would have been safer than the sticky bombs designed in Britain (nitro explosive in a glass ball surrounded by adhesive...)
why not try recreat Zimmerit and apply it on a steel plate? Just an idea, would be interesting. use „Zahntraufeln“ for the pattern. Just an idea, the materials sound not so hard to get
Our veterans in Bulgaria : call it "Klop-mine" , because the sound which the tank crew listened when it was implied by panzer-grenadiers of 6th SS army.......
I'm suprised they didnt try covering in wooden slats. Sure It'd be weaker and have some fire risk (less than tar though), but it'd be infinitely lighter than concrete and cheaper too.
Can we all just appreciate how a youtube historian/researcher (a good one at that) is using a surprised Pikachu as the graphic for germany realizing no one used magnetic AT mines against them.
The fact that just simply sticking mud on the tank will make zimmerit almost useless,believe it or not the Soviets did this in their tanks in Operation Bagration
I have no opinion on Zimmerit application wether it was a good or bad idea. Just because the Hafthohlladung was not copied by the Allies does not mean Zimmerit was a 100% waste. What many fail to understand is that military technology can also have a deterrence effect. Why utilize/copy a weapon that is badly working against German tanks because of Zimmerit? Germans could have waited with the Zimmerit application, see if Allies would field mag mines. It can be a good idea to keep your new inventions in the backhand, especially with Zimmerit being able to applied quickly even in the field but Germans decided to put it on despite no intentions yet by the enemy to field mag mines. This might indicate that they wanted to play out the deterence effect as it was clear that the enemy would notice and study the new paste on German tanks. With the advent of AT launchers the deterence effect was superflous and so they stopped applying it. Another mistake is rating a technology solely by retrospective without taking perspective. By 1942 AT rifles coudn´t keep up and there was a infantry anti tank tech gap until AT-launchers started to appear later. Germans filled it with means such as the Hathohlladung and it made sense for them to fear that the allies might field this rather cheap and simple weapon aswell. Few really knew then that AT-launchers will become the next big thing. But all of this aside we all know Germans invented this to give model makers 50 years later a hard time.
Used to play on tigers, panthers, jagd-panter as a kid at the local tank museum/then dump. Zimmerit killed your jeans and sneakers instantly and got you bloddy fingertips.
It always seems like the Germans were trying to play chess with checkers while the Allies never considered chess as an option, for themselves or the enemy.
The test proves that it has mild anti magnetic properties, but nothing else. The lack of the full weight of the mine means that it’s much likely to stick than simply a magnetic panel. The weight of the mine is offset substantially from the panel, and clearly even with the setup that was actually used, the magnets weren’t that effective because the mine had to be placed by hand, it couldn’t be thrown and be expected to stick on a tank lacking zimmerit. Likely with an accurate prop or actual artifact tested here, it just wouldn’t stick.
Oh very interesting and looking forward to this one. Does anyone know if one of my tank books is wrong or correct in saying that most of the tanks covered in Zimmerit paste went to the Eastern Front while mostly naked tanks (tanks without Zimmerit paste) were used on the Western Front?
It's non magnetic and would stop limpet mines from being attached... The Russians never used magnetic mines like that, so they stopped putting it on. Interestingly enough, Germany did have a magnetic mine...
From what I've heard, seems like zimmerit was a scam. Someone though "hey, could we squeeze a few additional reichsmarks out of every tank for additional work?" and boom, a zimmerit coating was born. The fact that nobody else aside from Germans themselves used magnetic mines kinda points in that direction.
@@melonetankberry5211 dude, if you go to the car service and in addition to changing oil in your car the serviceman also changes a liquid in your windshield spray washer for some patented bullshit which costs 9000 usd for gallon and you totally didn't asked him to do that, would you call him a scammer if he would try to push that additional cost on you?
By "strong magnet" do you mean a modern rare earth magnet (like a neodymium magnet)? If so, this wouldn't be an accurate test, since rare earth magnets weren't available in WWII.
Zimmerit seems like a product typical of German genius. It serves as a protective fire retardant coating, acts as camouflage, fire retardation, and mine defense. It does 4 different jobs in one! all of which were wholly unnecessary or redundant projects.
Germans: We´re gonna make magnetic AT mines! Allies: We´re not. Germans: And we´re gonna make a special layer for our vehicles that makes those mines not stick to our tank. Allies: Ok, now we´re gonna not make magnetic AT mines EVEN MORE.
Zimmerit: a solution in search of a problem that never really existedh. Because magnetic anti-tank mines were _so_ great that the Germans mostly phased them out by 1943 when they had a better infantry AT expedient than having some poor sod with more balls and bravery than self-preservation run up to a 40 ton tank and slap an explosive refrigerator magnet* on it. So the Heereswaffenamt naturally believed that the Allies, who already had Bazookas (Americans), PIATs (British), and no real shortage of various effective ways to kill Panzers (Soviets) would yet downgrade to magnetic mines... because reasons. Granted, I guess some partisans COULD ostensibly capture some Werhmacht stocks of Haftholladung 3 mines, or maybe even make their own at home. If you understand the principle of shaped charges and can work with energetic compounds without sending yourself and your workshop/lab flying skyward in small, flaming pieces, then you can probably improvise something similar to an H3 mine out of commonly available materials. Perhaps, if you captured an intact model of one, reverse-engineering it wouldn't be prohibitively difficult. It would certainly be easier than manufacturing your own artillery tubes and ammunition. And whilst the H3 is far from an ideal man-portable anti-tank weapon, it does have some slight, perhaps niche/situatioonal advantages over the other contemporary expedients. Its operation is virtually silent (at least until it detonates)--no muzzle flash, report, and cloud of highly visible dust upon firing; no backblast to worry about either. I imagine that these things were also dirt cheap to produce, as they're basically just a metal funnel stuffed with HE, a detonator, and with some strong magnets bolted to one end. And a single man could easily be taught how to use the weapon in very short time, compared to a more complex, crew-served system like a PaK 40. And it's a lot easier to hide an H3 under your coat than a Panzerfaust or Panzerschreck when mean-looking Kettenhund asks you, "Papieren, bitte?" So maybe the Heereswaffenamt was concerned about the threat of magnetic mines from _partisans_ rather than regular Allied forces? Those magnetic mines could make rather nasty ambush weapons in forests, urban areas, or simply just some partisans infiltrating a poorly guarded Wehrmacht vehicle depot on the Eastern Front to stick magnetic mines on all the parked AFVs, then be gone before the fireworks start. None of this changes that Ziimmerit was, in hindsight, a waste of resources that could have been spent on more relevant projects and efforts. Germany didn't lose the war because of Zimmerit, but the decision to retrofit existing AFVs with it and increase the production time of new ones by adding it was just one of many mind-boggling decisions the Germans made during the war.
Correction: The Stug from the Tank Museum is a Stug III G not F, thanks to @shockblaster1201 for pointing this out.
Commissioning a company to painstakingly apply 200kg of extra weight onto your tank in order to counter a non existent threat, sounds about right for 1943.
Germany 1943: "We've now improved on the captured American bazooka, giving our infantry unparalleled protection and range against any Allied armor."
Also Germany 1943: "MINE ON, APPLY DIRECTLY TO TANK SIDE. MINE ON, APPLY DIRECTLY TO TANK SIDE."
@@Rutherford_Inchworm_III It have not yet ceased to amuse me that the panzerschreck protective shield was a field expedient made official. The nerds thought neeeding an protective poncho and face mask to avoid getting burnt was fine. :D
As the tanks were delivered to the frontlines uncoated with Zimmerit this meant the tank had to spend two days being coated in the rear area before being released to the tank crews. Just what you need in the middle of a war.
@@bigblue6917 3:08 he mentions it was generally applied by factories. Those two divisions who tested it were an exception.
@@bigblue6917zimmerit Was applied in the factory over the anti rust coat. Over that a primer in RAL7028 was layed. The final camo pattern was to be applied by the units at the front
That the allies never correctly guessed what the Zimmerit coating was for is rather indicative of the fact that magnetic AT grenades were never something they considered developing and as such could not consider that the Germans who did develop such weapons would be mirroring such fears onto the allies.
An informative video.
even the hafthochladung that the germans used was completely useless in the field ....
I can confirm that a British source, of soldiers in the field, thought that Zimmerit was primarily for camouflage. As it helped to break up a vehicle's hard edges (particularly if the Zimmerit was applied locally, as I've seen examples of very roughly applied coating that gave vehicles a surface like chunky papermache/ mud).
I've read multiple allied accounts of testing Zimmerit. Seems commanders officers loved to giving a bucket of concrete to bored looking soldiers.
All of them had conclusions along the lines of "absolute stonking pain in the arse to apply it, we don't even use magnetic mines anyway, but the finish is quite nice for camouflage"
Spoke once with an driver of an Panzer IV - he told me that the tankcrews liked Zimmerit because it made the tanks surface, especially when wet, less slippery - so it was easier to mount and unmount and work on the tanks. And as he told me, it was much easier to get frozen snow or ice off the tank with that zimmerit-layer between steel and snow and ice.
Why would they get snow and ice off the tank? It's free camouflage.
And military modelers have regretted that decision ever since.
It seems like the German '-it' suffix is just like the '-ite' suffix in English, given to a named mineral or proprietary compound. So we might have called it Zimmerite.
Yes, it is the same suffix, e.g. Magnetit = Magnetite, Hämatit = Hematite
And here I thought the informal “-ish” suffix 😊
this makes sense, given that english is a german language
Romani ite domum
@@wolf310ii Romans the people they go the house? 🤪
It's hard for me to come to grips with the idea that getting close enough to an enemy tank to slap a magnetic mine on it was the best anti-tank weapon available. Someone had a sticky one too, which I think could be thrown a few feet, and that seems just as crazy. But I've got hindsight that they didn't.
The German military to this day has the principle "Wirkung vor Deckung" "Effect before cover / protection", in that sense it was clearly the best one at the time.
What about Russian magnetic mine dogs….
Yes, but also before the age of tanks, cavalry or artillery had been attacked in point-blank-range. Also infantry with a pike or lancet. And especially the German Armies were trained to attack tanks that way, too.
I think it was the British with the sticky one.
That’s why tanks need infantry support and vice verse.
The polyvinyl acetate was probably to bind everything together since most of the other components are of a dry granular consistency
Dry fine powders…
"Historian in its natural habitat" gets me every time.
Have a good one, Herr Kast.
The surprised Pikachu was a nice touch
"Nintendo used a copyright lawyer. It's super effective!"
Panzerchu
4:40 - Caulk (pron kawk) is not “chalk” (pron chawk). Caulk is a soft paste that hardens into a waterproof seal, it’ll be present around your bath and kitchen sink even if you don’t know what it is. Not criticising the English pronunciation here, but the audio is a bit confusing, chalk is hard, brittle and would reduce to powder in a fire. In text Peter is saying the Zimmerit will become like a sticky paste after a fire.
To be fair, I had a hot minute of confusion when he said chalk
It sounds like it was unintentional but it could also have been a strategic anti-UA-cam-censorship mispronunciation
@@xeroprotagonistunlikely. his english pronunciation has always had similar quirks. I don't think it's intentional.
@@proCaylak ironically the phoneme “Ch” is usually pronounced “K” in German/Austrian, so it may be not realising that this English “Ch” was uncommonly a “K” (its more often “Ch” in English).
What’s doubley ironic is “Calking” goes back several millennia in masonry. It’s derived from the Latin word Calico (fill in with limestone or lime-wash) and so shares a word derivation with Chalk (Calx). Calking may have acquired a different “K” pronunciation just by linguistic drift, possibly being mostly associated with ship building (waterproofing) several thousand years ago. It arrived in English from Latin via Old French and not Germanic influence.
Just to show how good Peter Samsonov’s observation is the 1913 Websters definition of Cauk (no L in the American, still pron Kawk) is “Barite” (Barium Sulfate) which get’s us right back to what half of Zimmerit is made of. Post WW2 Caulk is more likely to be a Silicone Latex or polyvinyl acetate mix, but it clearly shares physical properties with Barium Sulfate which would have predated it and was used to create brilliant white waterproof exterior paint. This would have been a more commonly used weather coat in early C20th therefore, but Barium was well known to be non-magnetic.
@@MsZeeZed thanks for the lenghty story about the linguistics around "caulk" and the history of the material itself :)
Got zimmerit on my VW Polo, it works!!
I can assure that my charge couldn't stick on it
Do parking tickets stick to it?
@@Blue-bf8lv No, not anymore
I like how the Soviets couldn't even figure out what Zimmerit was even for!
Why would they? They didn't use magnetic mines as AT weapons.
@@00yiggdrasill00 They probably looted several at some point
@@ohmyshou1der probably. But would they care enough to put it together when they already decided it was an anti fire measure and made no difference to how they instructed troops to destroy tanks?
@@00yiggdrasill00 looked like the germans expected their enemies to copy the magnetic charge, I don't know how effective it was and why nobody copied it. I would expect troops were instructed to provide looted equipment for examination.
@@ohmyshou1der I do expect such an order was in place. Though developing the same methods for using it is a different thing. Honestly, running up to a tank and planting a magnetic mine on it doesn't sound like a good way to help experienced troops survive. The Soviets were known for firebombs and bundle grenades early on and they ate hell doing it to my knowledge. But you use what you have.
I have read somewhere that the application of Zimmerit was ordered discontinued September 15, 1944, which interestingly is the same day the poduction of the "chin" on the Panther began.
Germans: It defeats magnetic mines
Soviets: Its anti molotov camo
Me: It looks cool
Nah, it looks cool the first time you look at it but especially in war thunder it gets annoying, a nice shiny tank looks cool too
@@Redstoneprofi01absolutely not, Tiger E looks significantly better than the H1 for example
@@Redstoneprofi01 Shiny is a bad thing on a battlefield. Shiny is visible from miles away.
@@unvaxxeddoomerlife6788 The comment was about how it looks cool, not how it's useful. I understand that it wasn't good on the battlefield
This is a great video.👍
I had some knowledge of Zimmerit.
But I learned a lot of interesting details here.
Excellent presentation.
Tank modifications like these are somehow very interesting topic.
@7:07 PVA is an organic compound. Considering that you mentioned they used a blowtorch, they might have taken a sample and combusted it. The change in mass would correspond to organics/volatile compounds being expelled or combusting.
Essentially they probably did a proto-Thermogravimetric analysis and that's how they came to that conclusion.
Great test and analysis. Great job you're doing, sir.
Thank you for another brilliant breakdown Bernhardt.
i like how they detailed and put it in the application manual that "not to put on the lights"... foreshadowing the situation if some of the workers would be "but it says everywhere on the front" and applying it literally everywhere as "i am just following instructions"
Fiinaly, a good description of the compounds whiçh zimmerit was composed of. If you're restoring a German AFV that originally wore the stuff, that's a great thing. As far as us model builders who are replicating it on a German AFV in scale, I'll continue using Squadron or Tamiya putty to reproduce it, LOL
Thank you for your excellent and informative work.
Much awaited, much appreciated looking forward to excellent insights as always from you.
Sehr interessant, danke :)
Said comedian, Artie Johnson, except in English.
Schön Sie auch hier zu sehen :)
It's one of those weird things that makes you wonder why the Germans adopted it in the first place. Yeah, the Germans themselves used magnetic antitank mines, but none of their enemies had them even by mid-1943 when Zimmerit was being applied.
Magnetic antitank mines were a weapon of desperation. The US Army started issuing the Bazooka as early as Operation Torch in late 1942. The British PIAT started appearing in early 1943 at Tunisia. Germany's enemies had zero reason to go for magnetic AT mines, yet they pushed Zimmerit application anyways in mid-1943.
What I love about Zimmerit is that it was one of the few times where the germany in WW2 anticipated a thread and acted on it, only for that thread to never materialise :)
Implying other nations did that a lot ?
That StuG III from Bovington looks like a G, not F, considering how different the super structure is
We had Zimmerit come and go before the Bf109 K-4 (Oct 1944)
Zimmerit is a classic example of a solution looking for a problem.
I mean that pretty much explains German engineering during the era in general. They just kept inventing increasingly more impractical devices lol.
While it might’ve never had a chance to fulfill its original purpose, it does seem to at least disrupt the typical light glare of the armor. You can see on the second King Tiger that the side skirts and barrel reflect significantly more than the hull and turret side. That said, simple netting would be cheaper, faster to apply, and more effective.
Thanks for the warning. I will be sure not to try sticking a powerful magnet onto my personal panzer collection.
Modular sections of camouflage netting spaced off armor on welded tabs. Would have been a significant improvement.
The captions are broken, there's a wall of text in first few sec and then there are no captions
Thank you, should be fixed!
The story I've heard was that Zimmerit failed to harden when applied in cold temperatures.
During the autumn and winter, due to the rapid production of tanks and lack of space, assembled tanks from production line were being placed outside the factory before the Zimmerit was applied.
This meant that the initial layer of Zimmerit, when being applied as two coatings, failed to harden and was left in a softened state.
The workers would then apply the second layer and use a blowtorch to heat the surface so it would harden.
Supposedly, the reports of Zimmerit being flammable was due to incoming shells breaking the outer layer and igniting the unset layer beneath.
The problem with Engineers is, they designed things to fill a problem that doesn't exist occasionally.
0:58 This is why I come to this channel, to get the real facts. It did indeed influence the Croatian of a protective coating.
Said Croatian didn't really like being rubbed across all tank hulls during production as it gave him a rash, but after being promised a higher salary he reluctantly agreed. 😉
(More seriously though: Ab-brennen should probably be 'to burn off' of something like you can use flames to burn old paint off of a metal surface)
I like the look, but I love the name.
2:22 as someone who used to fit an install conveyour belts and has worked at bitumen/asphalt plants the troops where correct . Worst idea ever , get any of that on you its off to a specialised burn unit at a top tier hospital
From what I recall reading (A long time ago) the production and application of Zimmerit consumed a lot of petrol too. Fuel that could have been used for something else.
Polyvinyl acetate doesn’t use oil to apply. It is made from acetic acid and acetylene (toxic process) or acetic acid and ethylene (less toxic process).
It can however take up to a week to dry as it is usually used as an aqueous solution (and won’t dry at all in freezing conditions).
@@allangibson8494 Good point. It wasn't the PVA that used the petrol (not oil) though.
I'm trying to remember the article, it was a few years ago, that described the application process.
@@ptonpc Possibly drying the PVA…
Waiting a week before you could use a new tank in 1944 was probably a nonstarter for the Germans however…
Just figure out the polarity of ennemy's magnets and coat your tank with magnet of the same polarity => explosives get repelled => profit.
Given that the magnet on the back of that light did seem to stick to some extent, and those are not very strong, I'd like to see how firmly something like a magnet fishing magnet would stick. The British did have magnetic "limpet mines" using very strong magnets for sabotage operations but presumably didn't use them for anti tank purposes due to the difficulty of application. As mentioned in other comments the actual British anti tank charges used a glue like substance and could therefore be thrown from a distance.
And the sticky bombs were rapidly replaced with shaped charge projectile weapons (that didn’t stick to the user).
@@allangibson8494 In a wartime context not that rapidly - Sticky bomb 1940, Piat from July '43. Interestingly the nature and texture of Zimmerit probably made it more likely that a sticky would stick.
@@NiallWardrop The PIAT entered service in August 1942.
The Sticky Bomb couldn’t penetrate anything more robust than a Panzer I.
The PIAT was derived from the 1940 Blacker Bombard.
That magnet is fairly weak compared to some now days but it's still likely a neodymium magnet and during WW2 the best they would have are simple ferrous magnets which are much weaker.
@@SilvaDreams Those work lights are designed to be easily removed, they barely stick to a painted metal surface. Long before neodymium magnets were around there were things like magnetic radio antenna mounts which were hard to remove.
Grahvel, not graevel :)
Caulk is the word on the screen, (4:49) not chalk (mentioned), not sure what the correct thing is, but caulk and chalk are two different things. Caulking (Caulk) is the material you put in around a bathtub or whatever, forming a waterproof gasket/seal. chalk is for drawing on blackboards in school etc.
ALSO
Very happy to finally know all of this. It seems to me the tiger II at a prior date likely had it removed due to the fire hazard rumours... wasting time and resources twice. The stoppage of the application makes sense, see also waste of time, but the removal does not (What's there probably wouldn't hurt it too much)
I have 2 questions. 1 : is it hard enough to set off a shaped scharge before making contact with the hull? And 2 : If number 1 is true does it give enough space between the coating and thew hull to disapate any of the shaped charges payload?
1) I am very certain it is. If have never heard of something "too soft" to not trigger a shaped charge, they might also use inertia fuzes.
2) No, it might actually increase the effects, it depends on the shaped charges, but modern ones have usually a tip, from what I know that tip is to extend the distance, so that the jet can properly form.
It looks incredibly cool and ahead of its time
Given that the other 4 proposed counter measures "were rejected by troops due to the fire hazard." It's a little ironic that one of the reasons it was discontinued in September 1944 was because of rumours that it could be set on fire by shell impacts. Though this was tested and officially disproved.
By the numbers, the Hafthohlladung had decent enough penetration, though I don't know much about its beyond armor effect or ease of use. Nor does anyone say if the attachment points just very strong iron magnets, or something a bit more exotic. In turn its a bit hard to say if the allies were missing out not developing magnetic weapons of their own. It probably would have been safer than the sticky bombs designed in Britain (nitro explosive in a glass ball surrounded by adhesive...)
Did they make the grooved pattern with a tile trowel?
why not try recreat Zimmerit and apply it on a steel plate? Just an idea, would be interesting. use „Zahntraufeln“ for the pattern. Just an idea, the materials sound not so hard to get
Clearly at 2:35 there is mistake - it should be "House of the Maus". Please do better :)
The tracks on the Stug sitting beside the Churchill has its left track on backwards,anyone else notice that? 🤷♂️
The Stug 3 F
Look how much extra weight modern MBT are fitted with all the extra reactive Armour that is fitted and now anti drone and shoot down AT rockets .
Sounds like when designing a tank the engine should be over-built, so to speak, just in case additions become necessary.
Our veterans in Bulgaria : call it "Klop-mine" , because the sound which the tank crew listened when it was implied by panzer-grenadiers of 6th SS army.......
Finally tested?!?!? It was extensively tested both during and after WW2.
I thought the irregular surface was also developed to counter the British "sticky anti tank bombs" ?
"Ribbed for your pleasure" vibes here
Heard it did help in the thrust
Could you do a video on why Russia or Ukraine aren’t converting old tank hulls into StuG’s??
Ochre is a mineral, so could be the main source of quartz.
I'm suprised they didnt try covering in wooden slats. Sure It'd be weaker and have some fire risk (less than tar though), but it'd be infinitely lighter than concrete and cheaper too.
did not know it was not the metal
it makes a lot of sense now . the Germans weren't wasting a lot of money protecting the tanks from magnets
Interesting.
Can we all just appreciate how a youtube historian/researcher (a good one at that) is using a surprised Pikachu as the graphic for germany realizing no one used magnetic AT mines against them.
New to the channel?
I can't believe Pikachu made a cameo appearance in this video 😮
You are real masters! Your content always pleases with high quality and professionalism. Continue to please us with your works.🐗🌕🧐
Ok bot
The fact that just simply sticking mud on the tank will make zimmerit almost useless,believe it or not the Soviets did this in their tanks in Operation Bagration
I have no opinion on Zimmerit application wether it was a good or bad idea.
Just because the Hafthohlladung was not copied by the Allies does not mean Zimmerit was a 100% waste. What many fail to understand is that military technology can also have a deterrence effect. Why utilize/copy a weapon that is badly working against German tanks because of Zimmerit? Germans could have waited with the Zimmerit application, see if Allies would field mag mines. It can be a good idea to keep your new inventions in the backhand, especially with Zimmerit being able to applied quickly even in the field but Germans decided to put it on despite no intentions yet by the enemy to field mag mines. This might indicate that they wanted to play out the deterence effect as it was clear that the enemy would notice and study the new paste on German tanks. With the advent of AT launchers the deterence effect was superflous and so they stopped applying it.
Another mistake is rating a technology solely by retrospective without taking perspective. By 1942 AT rifles coudn´t keep up and there was a infantry anti tank tech gap until AT-launchers started to appear later. Germans filled it with means such as the Hathohlladung and it made sense for them to fear that the allies might field this rather cheap and simple weapon aswell. Few really knew then that AT-launchers will become the next big thing.
But all of this aside we all know Germans invented this to give model makers 50 years later a hard time.
thought the idea was you couldn't get a charge to stick to like a moving tank thats shaking and rolling
Is wood glue organic?
Used to play on tigers, panthers, jagd-panter as a kid at the local tank museum/then dump. Zimmerit killed your jeans and sneakers instantly and got you bloddy fingertips.
4:40 It behaves like caulk not chalk. A little diffrence.
When I think of zimmerit, I think of those Japanese gardens with raked pebbles.
It always seems like the Germans were trying to play chess with checkers while the Allies never considered chess as an option, for themselves or the enemy.
I mean even if its somewat useles it just looks cool
so they thought about putting stucco on a tank?
The test proves that it has mild anti magnetic properties, but nothing else. The lack of the full weight of the mine means that it’s much likely to stick than simply a magnetic panel. The weight of the mine is offset substantially from the panel, and clearly even with the setup that was actually used, the magnets weren’t that effective because the mine had to be placed by hand, it couldn’t be thrown and be expected to stick on a tank lacking zimmerit. Likely with an accurate prop or actual artifact tested here, it just wouldn’t stick.
Nobody, not even the Nazis, should ever question the need for waffles.
The quarz likely came from some sand mixed in.
DO NOT start the video with subtitles on in the first second.
Seems like an opportunity for a "please"
This video is like a Panther - starts whit disclosures Ausf. D and Ausf. A
Cant imagine the horror when a tanker was told his tank would be coated in tar to make it resistant to antitank mines.
Ok it s a german panzer video but I laughed at the pikachu icone .
Plot twist: It was applied to fool everyone and make everyone wondering for decades what it was for and put time and resources into researching it.
Ochre pigment isn’t organic. It’s an iron oxide (ferric oxide).
Oh very interesting and looking forward to this one.
Does anyone know if one of my tank books is wrong or correct in saying that most of the tanks covered in Zimmerit paste went to the Eastern Front while mostly naked tanks (tanks without Zimmerit paste) were used on the Western Front?
I want something cursed like a modern day leopard with zimmerit just too see how it looks 😜
That surprised pikachu face though 😂
The allies never used magnetic mines against tank in ww2 ships yes
Germany thought they did a 200 iq move when they created an anti magnetic armour beforehand only to realisation nobody uses it lol
It's non magnetic and would stop limpet mines from being attached... The Russians never used magnetic mines like that, so they stopped putting it on.
Interestingly enough, Germany did have a magnetic mine...
Good against magnet
You know you can just put it on top right?
Extra steps yes, but not too hard
From what I've heard, seems like zimmerit was a scam. Someone though "hey, could we squeeze a few additional reichsmarks out of every tank for additional work?" and boom, a zimmerit coating was born. The fact that nobody else aside from Germans themselves used magnetic mines kinda points in that direction.
the fact that it legit worked its claimed purpose makes it sound like a scam? google what scam means. NOT doing what it promises.
@@melonetankberry5211 dude, if you go to the car service and in addition to changing oil in your car the serviceman also changes a liquid in your windshield spray washer for some patented bullshit which costs 9000 usd for gallon and you totally didn't asked him to do that, would you call him a scammer if he would try to push that additional cost on you?
@@hind6799 tl;dr
By "strong magnet" do you mean a modern rare earth magnet (like a neodymium magnet)? If so, this wouldn't be an accurate test, since rare earth magnets weren't available in WWII.
wouldn't showing a neodymium magnet failing to properly attach be an even better way to showcase the effect of the coating?
Zimmerit seems like a product typical of German genius. It serves as a protective fire retardant coating, acts as camouflage, fire retardation, and mine defense. It does 4 different jobs in one! all of which were wholly unnecessary or redundant projects.
soviets must have captured lot of these mines so some use against them i suppose.
Germans: We´re gonna make magnetic AT mines!
Allies: We´re not.
Germans: And we´re gonna make a special layer for our vehicles that makes those mines not stick to our tank.
Allies: Ok, now we´re gonna not make magnetic AT mines EVEN MORE.
Zimmerit: a solution in search of a problem that never really existedh. Because magnetic anti-tank mines were _so_ great that the Germans mostly phased them out by 1943 when they had a better infantry AT expedient than having some poor sod with more balls and bravery than self-preservation run up to a 40 ton tank and slap an explosive refrigerator magnet* on it. So the Heereswaffenamt naturally believed that the Allies, who already had Bazookas (Americans), PIATs (British), and no real shortage of various effective ways to kill Panzers (Soviets) would yet downgrade to magnetic mines... because reasons.
Granted, I guess some partisans COULD ostensibly capture some Werhmacht stocks of Haftholladung 3 mines, or maybe even make their own at home. If you understand the principle of shaped charges and can work with energetic compounds without sending yourself and your workshop/lab flying skyward in small, flaming pieces, then you can probably improvise something similar to an H3 mine out of commonly available materials. Perhaps, if you captured an intact model of one, reverse-engineering it wouldn't be prohibitively difficult. It would certainly be easier than manufacturing your own artillery tubes and ammunition.
And whilst the H3 is far from an ideal man-portable anti-tank weapon, it does have some slight, perhaps niche/situatioonal advantages over the other contemporary expedients. Its operation is virtually silent (at least until it detonates)--no muzzle flash, report, and cloud of highly visible dust upon firing; no backblast to worry about either. I imagine that these things were also dirt cheap to produce, as they're basically just a metal funnel stuffed with HE, a detonator, and with some strong magnets bolted to one end. And a single man could easily be taught how to use the weapon in very short time, compared to a more complex, crew-served system like a PaK 40. And it's a lot easier to hide an H3 under your coat than a Panzerfaust or Panzerschreck when mean-looking Kettenhund asks you, "Papieren, bitte?"
So maybe the Heereswaffenamt was concerned about the threat of magnetic mines from _partisans_ rather than regular Allied forces? Those magnetic mines could make rather nasty ambush weapons in forests, urban areas, or simply just some partisans infiltrating a poorly guarded Wehrmacht vehicle depot on the Eastern Front to stick magnetic mines on all the parked AFVs, then be gone before the fireworks start.
None of this changes that Ziimmerit was, in hindsight, a waste of resources that could have been spent on more relevant projects and efforts. Germany didn't lose the war because of Zimmerit, but the decision to retrofit existing AFVs with it and increase the production time of new ones by adding it was just one of many mind-boggling decisions the Germans made during the war.
Anyone else think zimmerite also helped with camouflage? Looks like it reduces shine and reflection to human eye?
Even soviet weren't that suicidal to use that weapon
Caulk is a putty substance. It is not chalk. :)