Design
To increase space for a radio operator the rotating turret of the PzKpfw IB was eliminated and replaced with a larger fixed "box" superstructure. This allowed room for map boards, paperwork and a more powerful FuG6 radio transmitter in addition to the earlier FuG2 radio (Panzer I's had only FuG2 radio receivers). Despite these modifications the vehicle's interior remained small, a factor leading to its rapid replacement by conversions of larger tanks. The cramped quarters also made operation of the vehicle's single ball-mounted MG13 or MG34 machine gun virtually impossible. Because of this, most SdKfz 265 were also equipped with pistol ports, and many had their machine guns removed entirely. A large frame antenna was mounted to the hull of many early version SdKfz 265s. The antenna gave the upgraded radio transmitter units better range and reception.
Because it would be necessary for a command tank to keep up with the tanks under its command, the original 60 hp Krupp M305 gasoline engine of the Panzer I was replaced by the more powerful 100 hp Maybach NL38TR gasoline engine, resulting in a design that was 3 km/h faster, despite weighing 300 kg more than the Panzer I. Increased fuel capacity also gave the SdKfz 265 a range of 180 miles, nearly 100 miles further than the Panzer I.
Despite its ungainly appearance, the SdKfz 265 was 1.97 m high, only 25 cm taller than the original Panzer IB.
Read more about this topic: Sd Kfz 265 Panzerbefehlswagen
Famous quotes containing the word design:
“With wonderful art he grinds into paint for his picture all his moods and experiences, so that all his forces may be brought to the encounter. Apparently writing without a particular design or responsibility, setting down his soliloquies from time to time, taking advantage of all his humors, when at length the hour comes to declare himself, he puts down in plain English, without quotation marks, what he, Thomas Carlyle, is ready to defend in the face of the world.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“For I choose that my remembrances of him should be pleasing, affecting, religious. I will love him as a glorified friend, after the free way of friendship, and not pay him a stiff sign of respect, as men do to those whom they fear. A passage read from his discourses, a moving provocation to works like his, any act or meeting which tends to awaken a pure thought, a flow of love, an original design of virtue, I call a worthy, a true commemoration.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“A good scientist is a person with original ideas. A good engineer is a person who makes a design that works with as few original ideas as possible. There are no prima donnas in engineering.”
—Freeman Dyson (b. 1923)