Panzer IV zimmerit question

the doog wrote:

Generally, zimm on the side skirts is rare to begin with. SOme late J's had Thoma Shield skirts--the wire kind. But even the normal kind rarely had zimm on the skirts. They were after all, designed to "take a hit", so a mine being attached to them wouldn't be very effective, and a Russian soldier who wasted a mine on a zimmerit skirt would have been shot by his commisar! LOL! Though you might find a pic or two of G's or H's with it, you generally won't find many examples. I'd opt for "no".

Doog looking at those zimmermit photos it appears that a tile trowle was used to apply it. If you ever laid ceramic tile you would use a grooved or "toothed" trowle to groove the mortar to make it so the tile has mor surface to stick to but the ridges on the zimm look the same as what I described and not every zimmermit is the same either.

I found a couple more photos in my references of H's with zim on both side schurzen and turret schurzen. These included zim on the face of the turret and at the base of the gun but none of my references show anything on the turret sides of a IV. I do have a photo of a IV with the "shadow" of zimmerit (where it had been removed)on the face of the turret and on the lower angled corners, but the sides of the turret look clean. If we take the OKH order as a resource it states that zimm is not for the turrets so the front of the turret is evidently out of spec. AS most of the photos show a relatively neat and precise application on the turret face, I assume it is factory applied, unlike the rough "field application" zimmerit we see that looks much more haphazard on its identified examples.

This is an area of research where a concerted bit of detective work needs to be done. Somewhere, in all the paperwork that was generated by the german industrial machine, there has to be an actual general order or production order, factory order, spec sheet, drawing, some sort of factory documentation yadda yadda, that clearly defines the application and procedure for zimmerit. I have a copy of a kettenkrad manual that actually talks about taking the front wheel off for use in extremely rough terrain (since the front wheel was really only for stability at higher speeds) yet one of the most elusive things in reference material outside of a few general orders, allied evaluation information or photo documentation, is zimmerit.

Thanks for the back and forth guys. I'm enjoying it.

MR, that's an astute observation...zim on the turret front yes, turret sides, no seems to be a very consistent thing...although zim on the turret front seems to have ended when they stopped zimming the schurzen, which would make sense when you consider. The few photos that I've got showing zim on the turret front show clean the angled side plates (what's visible that is). The zim on the turret front again seems to be limited to the Hs as near as I've been able to tell in a spot check of my references but others may have additional info to add.

Just to add fuel: I've never seen a MkIV w/ zimm on the turret sides...when I write turret sides I mean the side of the turret w/ the hatch...all of my refs show zimm only on the turret front (where schurzen is absent) and gun housing...anyone have a pic of zimm on actual side???

wbill76 wrote:

If you want the simplest and most common arrangement, it's zimmed hull and no zim on the schurzen.

I think that is the safest bet.

Thanks Mike for your research. Much appreciated.

some assembly required wrote:

ok now my question is:how do you know which unit the pz belongs to? where is the unit id located? is it any diff on zimmed tanks? this little tid bit has cost me time and hair!!!

Depends on the vehicle and the timeframe...unit insignia, when carried, moved around from the superstructure side plate, the turret side, the superstructure front, the hull rear, etc. Most of the time though you are dependent on the captions provided to correctly ID the unit and timeframe (the good references are able to do this using other photos and research to support it...the not-so-good ones just copy other publications captions ) as the insignia isn't always present or visible on the vehicle in question.

H's definitely cause the most heartburn...because some photos of supposed "Hs" are really late G's and also early Js depending on the circumstances in question! There are many, many photos of zimmed J's with turret and side schurzen with no zim on the schurzen since the J was the last model and stayed in production past the time when zim was discontinued. If you want the simplest and most common arrangement, it's zimmed hull and no zim on the schurzen.

ok now my question is:how do you know which unit the pz belongs to? where is the unit id located? is it any diff on zimmed tanks? this little tid bit has cost me time and hair!!!

Tigerman,

There is a photo of a J of 12th Panzer Regiment, 11 SS panzer Div. Tank number 635, in France.

Zim on the recuperator housing and mantlet, turret and turret schurzen but none visible on the side skirting. Zim on the hull and front fenders. 3 color camo pattern.

Who loves ya baby?

In the Trojca book on the IV G/H/J There are some photos of J's in Russia and Hungary with no schurzen on the hull but on the turret no zim on either. One of a popped J  with clean turret schurzen and drahtgeflechtschurzen (wire mesh) on the hull sides. No zim on the vehicle itself.

H's seem to be the magic vehicle with the zimmed turret schurzen and there are lots of photos with H's sporting the turrets with zimmed schurzen, no side schurzen or clean schurzen on the hulls.

Have to agree with you Bill, all or none. Finally, one last senario: how about zim on the hull, but none on the schurzen, which to me makes the most sense. Whoo. I'm zimmed out. This is supposed to be fun, isn't it? LOL

The pics that I've got of turret schurzen with zim only don't have the side skirts fitted...so it's not much to go by...I would say that if 1) both side and turret are fitted and 2) if the turret schurzen are zimmed then 3) the side skirts would also have zim. Doesn't make much sense to have zim on one and not the other. Since zim was done at the factory as a rule and the schurzen were shipped along with the vehicle as opposed to manufactured in the field, it would stand to reason that unless the entire lower side skirts had been replaced with different/new plates, then both would have zim. Anything is possible though with German armor if you look long and hard enough...the question is how much of an outlier do you want this one to be?

Thanks everyone for the responses. Let me go further........could the turret schurzen only have the zimmerit? Anyone have a pic of turret schurzen w/zimmerit, but none on the side schurzen? Wing_nut, how are you doing yours?

I think it's pretty safe to say that J's wouldn't have had zim on the schurzen in terms of exception vs. rule...it's very tough to tell at a distance if schurzen have zim (the schurzen themselves were only 5mm thick so you don't have a heavy surface to begin with). There are cases where zim was applied to both the turret and the side schurzen, but these seem to be rare and confined more to the timeframe of the H's production. There's the added problem that when schurzen are fitted, it becomes harder to tell an H from a J too! The number of photos of Pz IVs with schurzen without zim far outnumber the pics with zim that's for sure.

 

 

Zimm on schurzen is very rare...schurzen was designed to defeat shaped charges and anti-tank rifles...

I have a photo of an H with zimmerit on the schurzen. Ref:Panzer IV in Action p.40

There is an OKH order dated 1943-12-29 : Zimmerit was to be applied to all surfaces of the hull and superstructure, including surfaces under the armour skirts. Zimmerit should not be applied to armour skirts, turret, external engine parts, lamps, tools, tracks and similar places....

I think the H is an exception to the rule and though there may be some cases of schurzen with zimmerit, it had to have been a "field adaptation" and should not be considered the norm. But as is usually the case, as soon as you say "It wasn't practicle or didn't happen" someone, somewhere will find a photo of a J that some crewman found a schurzen from an H that had zimm and used it to fill in a blank spot on the side. (Yet no one can find a photo of zimm being applied.....)

Thanks Karl and Marc. I think I saw a line drawing with the zimm on the side schurzen, so that got me thinking. I'm with you Karl, I couldn't see the German's wasting time or material to zimm the side schurzen. Also, you're right about the Thoma shields, the Tamiya kit errs more to the Early J, so solid Schurzen was still the norm.

Well this teaches me to rememebr to save the photos of things like this when I see them.  NUTS.  When I was looking for the same type of pics for my H I found several of the H with the zim on the turret skirt.  But I did see just 1 pic of the side skirts with zim too.  I cannot tell you though if it was an H or a J.  I also can't rememebr if they were in that German Federal Acrchive stuff released not to long ago.

I owuld defer to the doog on thsi one and go with his suggestion.

Generally, zimm on the side skirts is rare to begin with. SOme late J's had Thoma Shield skirts--the wire kind. But even the normal kind rarely had zimm on the skirts. They were after all, designed to "take a hit", so a mine being attached to them wouldn't be very effective, and a Russian soldier who wasted a mine on a zimmerit skirt would have been shot by his commisar! LOL!

Though you might find a pic or two of G's or H's with it, you generally won't find many examples.

I'd opt for "no".