If I was an Allied or Axis tank driver who was dropped into my enemies’ tank, would I have much trouble with driving it, apart from the language? (I’m also curious about other vehicles but I’ll stick with tanks for now😄.)
They were similar enough that trained crew could drive them with limited instructions.
Drive. Not operate.
I’m not an expert in WW2 tanks but AFAICT, getting tanks of that era moving were significantly similar to driving other heavy equipment of the era (construction, agricultural etc), someone trained to drive a tank would find tanks they weren’t trained to drive similar enough I think they’d be able to get an enemy tank started and rolling.
The bigger issue is tanks especially in WW2 weren’t vehicles you just drove around and started firing shells out of and that was your only concern. The tank crews needed to know a lot about the mechanics of their specific tank to keep it properly maintained and operated, and without specific training on the other side’s tank, while they may be able to get a tank rolling and use its main gun, they would likely quickly have problems keeping it operational in comparison to a native crew for that vehicle.
AIUI, allied troops would normally disable/destroy enemy tanks as opposed to capturing them.
All the tanks had pretty similar controls, based on the common controls of tractors and the like of the period. Agree with the above that you could probably get it moving, and with a competent crew maybe even get it firing. Of course, that immediately raises concerns about getting blown away by your own side because they don’t know you are in there.
Where the problem lies is assuming that if a crew was “dropped into” an enemy tank, or any other piece of relatively complex machinery in the middle of a battle, it could function effectively.
We might call this the “U-571 fallacy”, after the movie in which American sailors find themselves in a captured U-boat and somehow thwart their enemies.
Captured tanks were used by the Germans in North Africa (Stuart, valentine, Matilda of British origin) and Russia (T-34). But this was done after some adaptation time: the fire control, the gearbox and even the wheel could be slightly different, and some motors were fragile with a tendency to stop or overheat if used in the wrong way.
In the same manner planes were used but not in a “hop in and fly” way but more as “try carefully and be ready to bail out” way.
Words to live by…
In just about any situation.
…And in a great landing, you get to re-use the plane.
Making a tank turn was not as simple as driving tractors and typical construction equipment. Tanks needed to be more mobile than a bulldozer and turn while traveling over rough terrain without slowing down from power loss, or overheating from odd torque transfer mechanisms. It wouldn’t require a large amount of info to be able to start one up and drive it slowly but tank battle maneuvers would entail special training.
I’ve heard the term “tank controls” for two independent controls (typically levers) for motors driving the left and right treads, each of which can run forward or backwards at various speeds. For instance, to go straight forward, you push both levers forward the same amount, and to turn in place, you push one forward and one backwards. Is that not an accurate description of actual tank controls?
I’d go the the Chieftain’s YouTube channel and watch some videos of WWII tanks. While controls are similar, there are a few odd quirks to some tanks.
ISTR my grandfather (a M5A1 Stuart driver at one point) saying that you didn’t steer it like a car- you had to basically stop one tread, and pivot around the other, using some kind of hand levers that you pushed and pulled.
Did all tanks of that era work like that?
They all had different mechanisms for doing this. The trick was finding a way to distribute power to both tracks. The simplest systems just used a clutch to release one track while the other would drive it one direction or the other, but at a great loss of power, and an inability to have the tracks run in opposite directions and stay in place. That would work with a bulldozer a bulldozer doesn’t have to worry about a tank firing shells at it. The solutions involved more complex that could overhear when using braked clutches and other power transfer mechanisms. Half-tracks were developed as a solution to steering tanks by using conventional truck wheels in front and tracks providing power in the rear but apparently they had their own problems. I don’t know a lot of details about the WWII tanks but the modern versions have greatly different transmissions with multiple differential systems to allow independent control of each track.
He just did one on a tank that solved the turning problem by having separate engines for each track.