soc.history.war.world-war-ii

Geoffrey Sinclair wrote:
: "Bruce Burden" wrote in message
:
:> desirable. The lack of helical gear cutting capacity was apparently a
:> major reason the Panther II was cancelled - it was to share the Tiger
:> steering gear.
:
: Interesting. On the information I have this is not a machine tools problem,
: in terms of overall supply anyway. Could it be a more specialist supply
: problem? I mean it is not a case of a machine tool is a machine tool, the
: various types have their differences.
:
I wonder what the definition of a "machine tool" is, for
the purposes of your response?

We may be working around the same issue - that there was no
lack of, say, drill presses, but indexing tables to make the
helical gears, there was a definite lack?

It was my impression that gears were now cut on hobbing
machines, and the use of an indexing table was "old school", as
that method is simply too slow (having dabbled with some very
rudimentary attempts at cutting gears, I can attest to how slow
the indexing method is), but I did not see anything on a quick
google search about hobbing helical gears.

The Panther info, BTW, comes from Tom Jentz: "Germany's
Panther Tank", which is a very dry, but well researched look at
that vehicle.

Bruce
--
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"I like bad!" Bruce Burden Austin, TX.
- Thuganlitha
The Power and the Prophet
Robert Don Hughes