The Sd.Kfz. 11 ('' Sonderkraftfahrzeug'' – special motor vehicle) was a German

half-track A half-track is a civilian or military vehicle with wheels at the front for steering and continuous tracks at the back to propel the vehicle and carry most of the load. A half-track combines the soft-ground traction of a tank with the Car handl ...

that saw widespread use in

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. Its main role was as a prime mover for medium towed guns ranging from the 3.7 cm FlaK 43

anti-aircraft gun Anti-aircraft warfare (AAW) is the counter to aerial warfare and includes "all measures designed to nullify or reduce the effectiveness of hostile air action".AAP-6 It encompasses surface-based, subsurface ( submarine-launched), and air-ba ...

up to the 10.5 cm leFH 18 field

howitzer The howitzer () is an artillery weapon that falls between a cannon (or field gun) and a mortar. It is capable of both low angle fire like a field gun and high angle fire like a mortar, given the distinction between low and high angle fire break ...

. It could carry eight troops in addition to towing a gun or trailer. The basic engineering for all the German half-tracks was developed during the Weimar era by the 's Military Automotive Department, but final design and testing was farmed out to commercial firms with the understanding that production would be shared with multiple companies.

Borgward Borgward was a car manufacturing company, based in Bremen, Germany, founded by Carl F. W. Borgward (1890–1963). It produced cars of four brands, which were sold to a diversified international customer base: Borgward, Hansa, Goliath a ...

The actual development was done by Hansa-Lloyd, a subsidiary of the Borgward Group. was chosen to develop the second smallest of the German half-tracks and built a series of prototypes between 1934 and 1937. However development was taken over in 1938 by Hanomag who designed the main production version, ''H kl 6''. The chassis formed the basis for the '' Sd.Kfz. 251'' medium

armored personnel carrier An armoured personnel carrier (APC) is a broad type of armoured military vehicle designed to transport personnel and equipment in combat zones. Since World War I, APCs have become a very common piece of military equipment around the world. Acc ...

. Approximately 9,000 were produced between 1938 and 1945, making it one of the more numerous German tactical vehicles of the war. It participated in the

Invasion of Poland The invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign, Polish Campaign, and Polish Defensive War of 1939 (1 September – 6 October 1939), was a joint attack on the Second Polish Republic, Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany, the Slovak R ...

, the

Battle of France The Battle of France (; 10 May – 25 June 1940), also known as the Western Campaign (), the French Campaign (, ) and the Fall of France, during the Second World War was the Nazi Germany, German invasion of the Low Countries (Belgium, Luxembour ...

, the Balkans Campaign and fought on both the Western Front and the Eastern Front, in

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and in

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

. Nine were also received by the

Kingdom of Romania The Kingdom of Romania () was a constitutional monarchy that existed from with the crowning of prince Karl of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen as King of Romania, King Carol I of Romania, Carol I (thus beginning the Romanian royal family), until 1947 wit ...

in late 1942.

Description

The ''Sd.Kfz. 11'' used a conventional ladder frame. Power was provided by a front-mounted

Maybach Maybach (, ) is a German luxury car brand owned by and a part of Mercedes-Benz AG. The original company was founded in 1909 by Wilhelm Maybach and his son Karl Maybach, originally as a subsidiary of ''Luftschiffbau Zeppelin GmbH'', and it was ...

six-cylinder, water-cooled, ''HL 42 TRKM'' gasoline engine of . It had a Hanomag ''U 50'' transmission with four forward and one reverse gears. Maximum speed was and it could ford water deep.Spielberger, p. 158 Both tracks and wheels were powered as well as used for steering. The steering system was set up so that shallow turns used only the wheels, but brakes would be applied to the tracks the farther the steering wheel was turned. The drive sprockets had rollers rather than the more common teeth. The rear suspension consisted of six double roadwheels, overlapping and interleaved in the ''Schachtellaufwerk'' system, mounted on swing arms sprung by torsion bars. An idler wheel, mounted at the rear of the vehicle, was used to control track tension. The front wheels, carried on the rigid front axle, had transversely mounted leaf springs and shock absorbers, the only ones on the vehicle, to dampen impacts.Spielberger, p. 158 Two different upper bodies were built over the production run of the ''Sd.Kfz. 11''. The "artillery" body had an ammunition compartment separating the driver's compartment from the crew compartment. The ammunition compartment had doors that opened on each side of the vehicle and could be configured for different sizes of ammunition. Bench seats on the sides of the vehicle, with under-seat storage, could accommodate six men. The crew entered from the rear of the vehicle. The windshield could fold forward and was also removable. A convertible canvas top was mounted above the ammunition compartment. It fastened to the windshield and to the rear of the crew compartment when erected. Side pieces could be mounted to protect the crew from the weather.Spielberger, pp. 36-38 The "engineer" body had three bench seats for the crew and a convertible canvas top was mounted at the upper part of the rear body. It fastened to the windshield when erected. Side pieces could be mounted to protect the crew from the weather. There was a storage compartment at the rear of the vehicle, underneath the crew seats. Photographic evidence shows both "artillery" and "engineer" versions were used by artillery units.Spielberger, pp. 36-38

Design and development

Preliminary design of all the German half-tracks of the early part of the war was done by Dipl.Ing. Ernst Kniepkamp of the Military Automotive Department (''Wa. Prüf. 6'') before the

Nazis Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

took power in 1933. His designs were then turned over to commercial firms for development and testing.

was assigned to develop the towing vehicle with the first ''HL. kl. 2'' prototype produced in 1933. It had a six-cylinder, , Hansa-Lloyd Type 3500 L engine mounted in the front, a four-speed Hansa-Lloyd-Goliath transmission, had only four roadwheels per side and weighed . The improved ''HL. kl. 3'' pre-production model followed in 1936, but differed only in details from the earlier prototype. The first production model was the ''HL.kl.5'' which still used the Type 3500 L engine and the Hansa-Lloyd-Goliath transmission, but was lengthened by two roadwheels per side. It weighed and could carry a payload of while towing a load. 505 were made by Borgward between 1936 and 1938 at the price of 20,000

Reichsmarks The (; Currency sign, sign: ℛ︁ℳ︁; abbreviation: RM) was the currency of German Reich, Germany from 1924 until the fall of Nazi Germany in 1945, and in the Bizone, American, British and French occupied zones of Germany, until 20 June 19 ...

each. Hanomag took over development of the vehicle in 1938 and designed the ''H kl 6'' which initially used a Maybach HL38 TUKR engine that was superseded early in the production run by a HL42 TUKRM developing around 100 hp/PS. Hanomag replaced the Hansa-Lloyd-Goliath transmission with their own four-speed ''U 50'' transmission and enlarged the fuel tank to . The vehicle weight climbed to , but the payload also increased to .

Production

Borgward and Hanomag initially built the ''Sd.Kfz. 11'' chassis, but later Adlerwerke of

Frankfurt-am-Main Frankfurt am Main () is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Hesse. Its 773,068 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the List of cities in Germany by population, fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located in the forela ...

, Horch of

Zwickau Zwickau (; ) is the fourth-largest city of Saxony, Germany, after Leipzig, Dresden and Chemnitz, with around 88,000 inhabitants,. The West Saxon city is situated in the valley of the Zwickau Mulde (German: ''Zwickauer Mulde''; progression: ), ...

and Škoda of

Mladá Boleslav Mladá Boleslav (; ) is a city in the Central Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 47,000 inhabitants. It lies on the left bank of the Jizera (river), Jizera River. Mladá Boleslav is the second most populated city in the region. I ...

were added to the production plan. On 20 December 1942 some 4209 were in service. 2133 were built in 1943 and 1308 in 1944. All told, over 9000 were built by 1945.

Variants

Sd.Kfz. 11/1

There were two vehicles created during the war and given this designation. The earlier vehicle was a version of the Sd.Kfz. 11, an ammunition carrier for the 10 cm Nebelwerfer 35 or 40 mortar. The ammunition compartment had racks to hold the shells and their propellant with side-opening doors.Spielberger, p. 39 The later version created in 1944 was an anti aircraft vehicle using the armoured front superstructure of the Sd.Kfz. 251 and mounting a 2 cm Flak 38 gun.

Sd.Kfz. 11/2

The ''Sd.Kfz. 11/2'' was a chemical decontamination vehicle fitted with a capacity spreader and space for eight barrels of decontamination chemicals. This left room for only three crewmen. The barrels were stowed on platforms over the tracks with foldable outer rails.Spielberger, p. 39

According to a reliable report the medium vehicle carries of bleach; a strip wide and 1.4 kilometers (just over a mile) long can be decontaminated by using a density of of bleach per square meter. The density at which the vehicle distributes decontaminant is independent of the vehicle speed, the maximum potential density is per square meter. In addition to this, each vehicle carries 16 decontamination canisters, each holding of decontaminant, for use by hand on isolated areas.

Sd.Kfz. 11/3

The ''Sd.Kfz. 11/3'' was equipped with a tank and spray system to lay down poison gas barriers. The spray nozzle swung back and forth to cover a width of . 125 were built in 1937.Spielberger, p. 39

Sd.Kfz. 11/4

The ''Sd.Kfz. 11/4'' was an ammunition vehicle for units using the '' 15 cm Nebelwerfer 41''

multiple rocket launcher A multiple rocket launcher (MRL) or multiple launch rocket system (MLRS) is a type of rocket artillery system that contains multiple rocket launcher, launchers which are fixed to a single weapons platform, platform, and shoots its rocket (weapon ...

. Its ammunition racks could carry mortar shells, or rockets. It could carry thirty-six 15 cm or ten 21 cm rockets as well as the six man crew of the launcher.Spielberger, p. 39

Sd.Kfz. 11/5

The ''Sd.Kfz. 11/5'' was an ammunition vehicle for units using the

Nebelwerfer The () was a World War II Nazi Germany, German series of weapons. They were initially developed by and assigned to the German Army (Wehrmacht), Army's . Initially, two different mortars were fielded before they were replaced by a variety of roc ...

. Unlike earlier Nebelwerfer ammunition vehicles it was given a wooden upper body with two compartments. The forward cargo compartment was open-topped and lacked the racks of earlier models. The rear crew compartment had a bench seat facing the rear of the vehicle with rifle racks on each side of the seat.

Notes

Footnotes

References

* * Chamberlain, Peter, and Hilary L. Doyle. Thomas L. Jentz (Technical Editor). ''Encyclopedia of German Tanks of World War Two: A Complete Illustrated Directory of German Battle Tanks, Armoured Cars, Self-propelled Guns, and Semi-tracked Vehicles, 1933–1945''. London: Arms and Armour Press, 1978 (revised edition 1993). * Niehorster, Leo W. G. ''German World War II Organizational Series, Vol. 4/II: Mechanized GHQ units and Waffen-SS Formations (28th June 1942)'' Milton Keyes, Buckinghamshire: Military Press, 2004 * Spielberger, Walter J. ''Halftracked Vehicles of the German Army 1909-1945''. Atlgen, PA: Schiffer, 2008

External links

Lexikon-der-wehrmacht.de

Half Track SdKfz 11
from wwiivehicles.com

* ttp://www.cybermodeler.com/armor/sdkfz11/sdkfz11_walk.shtml photo walk-around of a surviving "engineer" bodied half-track {{WWIIRomanianAFVs World War II armoured fighting vehicles of Germany World War II half-tracks Half-tracks of Germany Military vehicles introduced in the 1930s SPGs. SPAs. Armored cars and trucks of 1938