Wednesday 27 May 2015

Odd Recognition

Tank identification posters are nothing new. Every army needed some kind of quick guide to let their troops figure out what kind of tank they saw. Here is one such poster.


Seems good at a glance, right? Well, aside from the fact that soldiers were unlikely to see a T1 Heavy tank in combat and by the time this poster was circulated, odds are that there were no T-35s left at all. The Nb.Fz. (here labelled as PzKw V) was also probably not something that soldiers would have to worry about.

What is most interesting to me is that while the authors managed to identify the KV-1 correctly (it was very often called simply KV, due to the tiny amount of any other kind of KV tank), they seem to have had trouble with the KV-2, as it is simply labelled "T". 

3 comments:

  1. This is probably '42 and the T1E2/M6 tank was still believed to be viable for combat in due time.

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  2. I think its just an exercise. So there are tanks with different identification features as mentioned on the poster.
    F.e. some with multiple targets (T-35, Nb.Fz), some with covered bogies, some with front mounted turrets (Char B1, T1), etc.

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  3. meant turrets, not targets o.c.

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