soc.history.war.world-war-ii

"Bruce Burden" wrote in message
news:fqaic702g60@enews2.newsguy.com...
> 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?

After checking the British Bombing Survey Unit the definition is
quite simple really, machine tool = machine tool, which has the
virtue of total accuracy and vice of being no help at all.

The report adds that the Germans converted 40% of the machine
tool industry to direct weapons manufacture as it had excess
capacity.

> 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?

Quite possible. I remember noting the machine tools to cut the
gears for USN warship turbines took about a year to build. Much
bigger than tank engines but of course gears need to be tough and
so must be hard to cut, and need to be cut very accurately. So I
can see it would take time to make the appropriate cutting tools.

> 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.

If this is the case then it would explain things. I have never gone
into that much detail on gear cutting.

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

Yes. By all accounts the book to read if you want to know about
the tank, as opposed to the wonder weapon dreams.

Geoffrey Sinclair
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