Hi everyone.
I had a random thougth today, and my time in the Army could not answer it because I was not around much armor. Do tanks, past or present, use thier pintle mounts for actually towing anything, from a water buffalo to a standard trailer like I pulled behind my Duece? The pintle is there, but I cannot remember actually seeing any photos of anything being towed, other than some fuel bowsers for flamethrowers.
thanks
David
My understanding is that it’s there to use in assisting other tanks that might get stuck and/or disabled and require a tow, but isn’t there for normal towing. However, I’ll defer to the more knowledgeable here regarding actual armor usage if I’m wrong. [:D]
It is not common to see a tracked vehicle towing anything, but it can if needed. As stated above, they are usually used to tow other vehicles that are damaged, broken down, stuck, etc. I have pulled a standard M105 trailer with an M577 before. Engineer M113s routinely pull M105 trailers and the M58 MICLIC trailer as well.
I do recall seeing images of some british tanks in the africa campaign pulling small trailers, in one image inparticular im almost certain it was an valentine and it was captioned as being ammo trailer.
In the polish armored brigades, they had more fuel trailers than they had trucks to haul, so they had their frontline tanks pull them along instead. There aren’t many pics of this to the best of my knowledge, but apart from using the assigned battalion motorcycles, its the only way possible.
EDIT WW2 polish 7TP battalions
Back in the Day… We pulled other tanks using a towbar. When I was in Germany we were set to pull a trailer BUT never did.
Good Hunting, G.W.
seems to me i saw panzer 3 or 4 pulling an ammo.limber.but as for tanks pulling tanks it was preety much verboten.as this put a severe strain on the vehicles driveline.this was in the german army.i have seen m-113’s pulling a variety of cargo trailers.nothing worse than a rusty pintle
The only time I saw the tow pintle used on armored vehicles was when dragging around deadlined vehicles or pulling stuck vehicles out of the mud. Most towing was down with a tow bar but we used the tow cables when the tow bar wasn’t around. The towing vehicles seemed to always be another armored vehicle. I personally haven’t seen a water buffalo or other trailer towed with one but when you have to saddle up, I’m sure anything goes.
We actually used to drag deadlined vehicles to the field with the theory being they’d get fixed there. Since we were in Germany, the vehicles would be towed onto a railway car and lashed down and then dragged back off the train when we arrived at the training center. I’ll see if I can’t find some pictures of that
During the early stages of Operation Barbarossa, German tanks could be seen towing single axle fuel trailers such as this one;
I do have a picture of US M19 motor gun carriage pulling an ammo trailer during Korean War.
I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen any tracked vehicle pulling anything.
Most likely to be UK 25 pounder Howitzers (field-modded on brigade level), in large boxy turrets, on a Valentine chassis, & towed the guns’ original limber called BISHOP
Alanger & Dragon did kits for the Bishop, but only Tamiya did the 25pdr & Limber…
http://armorama.co.uk/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=2232&mode=thread&order=0
http://armorama.co.uk/modules.php?op=modload&name=Reviews&file=index&req=showcontent&id=730
There was also a 17pdr gun on 25pdr chassis, “Pheasant” which ‘did’ use the same 25pdr limber,
& also the 17pdr on a valentine chassis, called Archer, which ‘may have’ also used the 25pdr limber, but that was Anti Tank, & ‘they do things differently there’…
The US M8 HMC did have an Ammo Limber, Forget designation, but Verlinden did a resin kit of it…
On an M1, there are 4 tow hooks (2 on the front, 2 on the back). I’ve pulled out other tanks when they are stuck or throw a track.
The tow cables cross like an X when they are in use. The M1 comes with tow cables on the side of the turret. I’ve never seen an M1 tow anything else though.
An M1 has 5 hooks on the back but the only ones I used were the top 2 circular ones on the side of the exhaust on the back deck. There are 3 other hooks on the lower part of the hull in the back that were mainly used to secure the tank when you load it on a train for transport.
Here’s a good photo of it:
http://ipmslondon.tripod.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/m1a1chains.jpg
http://ipmslondon.tripod.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/m1a13.jpg
This was the image i was meaning it was captioned as pulling a “rotatrailer” with extra fuel and ammunition.
Hmm, From MEMORY, this was developed as a fuel bowser, & ammo carrier, but not used in combat…
Googling rotatrailer gave lots of stuff:
Our collegues at track link have lots of info:
http://www.track-link.net/forum/research_ww2/9817 Follow links for pictures & stowage
http://www.track-link.net/forum/modelling_construction/2562
Available in 1/35, thread here: http://www.track-link.net/forum/news_industry/3295
& http://www.track-link.net/reviews/k952
& http://www.jadar.com.pl/armo/armo35-a.htm
& micro-dot 1/ouch http://www.abfigures.co.uk/battlefield_accessories.htm
& http://miniatures.de/html/int/neu_list2uk.html
enjoy
I think it’s safe to say that if an occasion required it, tracked vehicles would use whatever they had available. I just read about the Easter '41 repulse of German armored units at 1st Tobruk by Aussie and UK forces. A motorized artillery unit had been hit hard by Allied barrages and they abandoned their vehicles and guns to retreat on foot. A retreating German tank company saw the abandoned guns, stopped to hitch them to their Mk IIIs and Mk IVs in order not to lose them. However, accurate allied artillery started hitting the retreating encumbered tanks. They eventually cast off the cannons and continued their retreat.
Also the M8 HMC and the M7 Priest HMC could tow the M8 and M10 ammo trailers, both kitted by Tiger Model Designs in 1/35 scale. Each of them had an emergency release lever which could be actuated by a crewman by a line.
If you see other tanks hauling trailers and such, it’s probably to assist in the movement of the unit’s gear during redeployments and such. Going into battle, the mobility of a gun tank is one of its greatest assets. Having a 1-ton trailer behind you wouldn’t be wise at all.
HTH
I have seen pictures from Vietnam with a M113 towing a piece or artillary. There was an operation and/or battle where many trucks were blown up an the M113 was press into duty to tow the gun back to base. According to the caption.
Grizz
Interesting that this subject came up. I was watching a show on the Military Channel a few nights ago, a 1/2-hour show about various WW2 battles. This one was on the Bridge at Remagen. Anyhow, they showed several newsreel shots of armored convoys and there were scenes with Stuarts and Shermans towing cargo trailers. One shot showed a Sherman just heaped with all kinds of cargo on the hull front & back, and towing a trailer packed with gear & loosely covered with a tarp. It made me want to build one of my Shermans like that if I can find a decent trailer kit.
I agree with T26E4 that these configurations are just for the armored column on the move & wouldn’t be used in any battle action. Still, I’m working on getting a trailer & just loading a Sherman up with a lot of gear from my spares box. Anyone know of a good WW2-era cargo trailer in 1/35th, or maybe even 1/48th? I still have 2 1/48th scale Tamiya Shermans to build.
This is nice Battle of Kursk
T34 towing a damaged…destoyed T34
ANother nice Image
Russian owned M3 captured and put into service by the Hungarians towing a Pzkpfw??
Tiger towing another Tiger (hooray for having a crappy mechanic [:)] )
THese though are extreme cases, or not ordinary cases where damage or destroyed vehicles had to be towed. Operation Barbarossa was a huge effort by the German Army, which proved to be too big, I wouldn’t be suprised to see Pzkpfw’s to tow something.
Almost any time you see a tank towing something you can find it quite out of the ordinary.
The M113 example from Vietnam, well atleast it was an APC 
EDIT:
I just found this Bizzare Tow by the US Army, VIDEO!
Schwarzpanters 3rd picture is in one of the Panzer Colors books. It roughly says that was against army regulations to tow another tank. I presume it is because the towing tank is not in battle and because it puts wear and tear on the tank. That is what recovery tanks are for. But as you can see sometimes there is a need for it.
In WW2 it was not uncommon to see the US vehicles from the assault gun platoon of a tank battalion (M4/M4A3 with 105 Howitzer or M8 Howitzer Motor Carriage) or the Assault gun troop of a Mechanized Cavalry Squadron (M8 HMC) towing M8 or M10 armored ammo trailers to increase their ammo load. Same for M7 105mm Howitzer Motor Carriages - the “Priest” is often seen in Europe with an ammo trailer.
Tanks don’t generally drag trailers because 1) the trailer doesn’t match the cross country ability of the tank and 2) it makes the tank a better target. A tank is a combat system and the pintle is more for emergency use than routine towing.