V8 engine
A V8 engine is an eight-cylinder V configuration engine with the cylinders mounted on the crankcase in two sets of four, with all eight pistons driving a common crankshaft. Most banks are set at a right angle to each other, some at a narrower angle, with 45°, 60°, 72° most common. In its simplest form, the V8 is two parallel inline-four engines sharing a common crankshaft. However, this simple configuration, with a flat- or single-plane crankshaft, has the same secondary dynamic imbalance problems as two straight-4s, resulting in vibrations in large engine displacements. Since the 1920s, most V8s have used the somewhat more complex crossplane crankshaft with heavy counterweights to eliminate the vibrations; this results in an engine, smoother than a V6, while being less expensive than a V12. Many racing V8s continue to use the single plane crankshaft because it allows faster acceleration and more efficient exhaust system designs. In 1902, Léon Levavasseur took out a patent on a light but quite powerful gasoline injected V8 engine.
He called it the'Antoinette' after the young daughter of his financial backer. From 1904 he installed this engine in a number of early aircraft; the aviation pioneer Alberto Santos-Dumont saw one of these boats in Côte d'Azur and decided to try it on his pusher configuration, canard-design 14-bis aircraft. Its early 24 hp at 1400 rpm version with only 55 kg of weight was interesting, but proved to be underpowered. Santos-Dumont ordered a more powerful version from Levavasseur, he changed its dimensions from the original 80 mm stroke and 80 mm bore to 105 mm stroke and 110 mm bore, obtaining 50 hp with 86 kg of weight, including cooling water. Its power-to-weight ratio was not surpassed for 25 years. Levavasseur produced its own line of V8 equipped aircraft, named Antoinette I to VIII. Hubert Latham piloted the V8 powered Antoinette IV and Antoinette VII in July 1909 on two failed attempts to cross the English Channel. However, in 1910, Latham used the VII with the same engine to become the first in the world to reach an altitude of 3600 feet.
Voisin constructed pusher biplanes with Antoinette engines notably the one first flown by Henry Farman in 1908. The V8 engine configuration was used in France by 1904, in race car and aircraft engines introduced by Renault, Buchet among others; some of these engines found their way into automobiles in small quantities. In 1905, Darracq built a special car to beat the world speed record, they came up with two racing car engines built on camshaft. The result was an engine with a displacement of 1,551 cu in, 200 bhp. Victor Hemery achieved the record on 30 December 1905 with a speed of 109.65 mph. This car still exists. Rolls-Royce built a 3,535 cc V8 car from 1905 to 1906, but only three copies were made and Rolls-Royce reverted to a I6 design. In 1907, the Hewitt Motor Company built a large five-passenger Touring Car, it was equipped with a V8 engine that developed 50/60 horsepower and had a bore of 4 in and a stroke of 4.5 in. The Hewitt was the first American automobile to be equipped with a V8 engine.
De Dion-Bouton introduced a 7,773 cc automobile V8 in 1910 and displayed it in New York in 1912. It inspired a number of manufacturers to follow suit; the limiting factor in mass production and sales of V8s was the difficulty in starting large engines using a hand crank. Not only does increasing the size of the engine make this harder, the number of pistons is a factor, because with a 4 cylinder engine, a piston comes into compression every half turn of the crank, overcoming this with the crank is not difficult. With eight cylinders, there is only 1/4 of a turn of the crank before another cylinder comes into compression. To overcome this problem, electric starters were developed; the first marque to equip its cars with electric starter motors was Cadillac, in 1912, Cadillac was the first production automobile with V8s, introduced 2 years later. It sold 13,000 of the 5.4 L L-head engines in its first year of production, 1914. Cadillac has been a V8 company since. Oldsmobile, another division of General Motors, introduced its own 4 L V8 engine in 1916.
Chevrolet introduced a 4.7 L V8 engine in 1917 and installed in the Chevrolet Series D. In February 1915, Swiss automotive engineer Marc Birkigt designed the first example of the famous Hispano-Suiza V8 single overhead cam aviation engines, in differing displacements, using dual ignition systems and in power levels from 150 horsepower to around 300 horsepower, in both direct-drive and geared output shaft versions. 50,000 of these engines were built in Spain, the United Kingdom, Italy. Wright Aeronautical built them in the United States during World War I, with the French-produced versions getting almost-exclusive use to power the SPAD S. VII and SPAD S. XIII fighter aircraft. E.5 fighters and Sopwith Dolphin fighters. The H. S. 8-series overhead cam valvetrain V8 aviation engines are said to have powered half of all Allied aircraft of the WW I era. By 1932, Henry Ford introduced one of his last great personal engineering triumphs: his "en block", or one piece, V8 engine, its simple design made possible the greatest production V8 to the masses.
Offered as an option to an improved 4-cylinder Mo
Tiger I
The Tiger I listen is a German heavy tank of World War II deployed from 1942 in Africa and Europe in independent heavy tank battalions. Its final designation was Panzerkampfwagen VI Tiger Ausf. E shortened to Tiger; the Tiger I gave the German Army its first armoured fighting vehicle that mounted the 8.8 cm KwK 36 gun. 1,347 were built between August 1942 and August 1944. After August 1944, production of the Tiger I was phased out in favour of the Tiger II. While the Tiger I has been called an outstanding design for its time, it was over-engineered, using expensive materials and labour-intensive production methods; the Tiger was prone to certain types of track failures and breakdowns, was limited in range by its high fuel consumption. It was expensive to maintain, but mechanically reliable, it was difficult to transport, vulnerable to immobilisation when mud and snow froze between its overlapping and interleaved Schachtellaufwerk-pattern road wheels jamming them solid. This was a problem on the Eastern Front in the muddy rasputitsa season and during periods of extreme cold.
The tank was given its nickname "Tiger" by Ferdinand Porsche, the Roman numeral was added after the Tiger II entered production. The initial designation was Panzerkampfwagen VI Ausführung H where'H' denoted Henschel as the designer/manufacturer, it was classified with ordnance inventory designation Sd. Kfz. 182. The tank was re-designated as PzKpfw VI Ausf. E in March 1943, with ordnance inventory designation Sd. Kfz. 181. Today, only seven Tiger I tanks survive in private collections worldwide; the Tiger 131 at the UK's Tank Museum, captured during the North Africa Campaign, is the only one restored to running order. Henschel & Sohn began the development of a large tank design in January 1937 when the Waffenamt requested Henschel to develop a Durchbruchwagen in the 30–33 tonne range. Only one prototype hull was built and it was never fitted with a turret; the Durchbruchwagen I's general shape and suspension resembled the Panzer III, while the turret resembled the early Panzer IV C turret with the short-barrelled 7.5 cm L/24 cannon.
Before Durchbruchwagen I was completed, a request was issued for a heavier 30-tonne class vehicle with thicker armour. Overall weight would have been 36 tonnes. Only one hull was built and no turret was fitted. Further development of the Durchbruchwagen was dropped in 1938 in favour of the larger and better-armoured VK 30.01 and VK 36.01 designs. Both the Durchbruchwagen I and II prototype hulls were used as test vehicles until 1941; the VK 30.01 medium tank and the VK 36.01 heavy tank designs pioneered the use of the complex Schachtellaufwerk track suspension system of torsion bar-sprung and interleaved main road wheels for tank use. This concept was common on German half-tracks such as the Sd. Kfz. 7. The VK 30.01 was intended to mount a low-velocity 7.5 cm L/24 infantry support gun, a 7.5 cm L/40 dual purpose anti-tank gun, or a 10.5 cm L/28 field gun in a Krupp turret. Overall weight was to be 33 tonnes; the armour was designed to be 30 mm on the side surfaces. Four prototype hulls were completed for testing.
Two of these were modified to build the "Sturer Emil" self-propelled anti-tank gun. The VK 36.01 was intended to weigh 40 tonnes, with 100 mm of armour on front surfaces, 80 mm on turret sides and 60 mm on the hull sides. The VK 36.01 was intended to carry a 7.5 cm L/24, or a 7.5 cm L/43, or a 7.5 cm L/70, or a 12.8 cm L/28 cannon in a Krupp turret that looked similar to an enlarged Panzer IV Ausf. C turret; the hull for one prototype was built, followed by five more. The six turrets built were used as part of the Atlantic Wall; the VK 36.01 project was discontinued in early 1942 in favour of the VK 45.01 project. Combat experience against the French SOMUA S35 cavalry tank and Char B1 heavy tank, the British Matilda II infantry tanks during the Battle of France in June 1940 showed that the German Army needed better armed and armoured tanks. On 26 May 1941, Henschel and Ferdinand Porsche were asked to submit designs for a 45-tonne heavy tank, to be ready by June 1942. Porsche worked on an updated version of their VK 30.01 Leopard tank prototype while Henschel worked on an improved VK 36.01 tank.
Henschel built two prototypes: a VK 45.01 H1 with an 8.8 cm L/56 cannon, a VK 45.01 H2 with a 7.5 cm L/70 cannon. On 22 June 1941, Germany launched the invasion of the Soviet Union; the Germans were shocked to encounter Soviet T-34 medium and KV-1 heavy tanks, according to Henschel designer Erwin Aders: "There was great consternation when it was discovered that the Soviet tanks were superior to anything available to the Heer.". An immediate weight increase to 45 tonnes and an increase in gun calibre to 8.8 cm was ordered. The due date for the new prototypes was set for 20 April 1942, Adolf Hitler's 53rd birthday. Unlike the Panther tank, the designs did not incorporate sloped armour, an innovation taken from the T-34. Porsche and Henschel submitted each making use of the Krupp-designed turret, they were demonstrated at Rastenburg in front of Hitler. The Henschel design was accepted because the Porsche VK 4501 prototype design used a troubled gasoline-electric hybrid power unit which needed large quantities of copper for manufacture of its electrical drivetrain components, a strategic wa
Republic of China (1912–1949)
The Republic of China controlled the Chinese mainland between 1912 and 1949. It was established in January 1912 after the Xinhai Revolution, which overthrew the Qing dynasty, the last imperial dynasty of China, its government moved to Taipei in December 1949 due to the Kuomintang's defeat in the Chinese Civil War. The Republic's first president, Sun Yat-sen, served only before handing over the position to Yuan Shikai, leader of the Beiyang Army, his party led by Song Jiaoren, won the parliamentary election held in December 1912. Song Jiaoren was assassinated shortly after and the Beiyang Army led by Yuan Shikai maintained full control of the Beiyang government. Between late 1915 and early 1916, Yuan Shikai tried to reinstate the monarchy before abdicating due to popular unrest. After Yuan Shikai's death in 1916, members of cliques in the Beiyang Army claimed their autonomy and clashed with each other. During this period, the authority of the Beiyang government was weakened by a restoration of the Qing dynasty.
In 1921, Sun Yat-sen's Kuomintang established a rival government in Canton City, Canton Province, together with the fledgling Communist Party of China. The economy of North China, overtaxed to support warlord adventurism, collapsed between 1927 and 1928. General Chiang Kai-shek, who became KMT leader after Sun Yat-sen's death, started the Northern Expedition military campaign in 1926 to overthrow the Beiyang government, completed in 1928. In April 1927, Chiang established a nationalist government in Nanking, massacred communists in Shanghai, which forced the CPC into armed rebellion, marking the beginning of the Chinese Civil War. There were industrialization and modernization, but conflict between the Nationalist government in Nanking, the CPC, remnant warlords, the Empire of Japan. Nation-building took a backseat to the Second Sino-Japanese War when the Imperial Japanese Army launched an offensive against China in 1937 that turned into a full-scale invasion. After the surrender of Japan at the end of World War II in 1945, the Chinese Civil War resumed in 1946 between the KMT and CPC, with both sides receiving foreign assistance due to the Cold War from the USA and USSR, respectively.
During this period, the 1946 Constitution of the Republic of China replaced the 1928 Organic Law as the Republic's fundamental law. Near the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949, the Chinese Communist Party established the People's Republic of China, overthrowing the nationalist government on the Chinese mainland; the Government of the Republic of China moved from Nanking to Taipei in 1949, controlling only the Taiwan area after 1949. The official name of the state in the mainland was the "Republic of China". Shortly after the ROC's establishment in 1912, while it was still located on the Chinese mainland, the government used the short form "China" to refer to itself, which derives from zhōng and guó, a term which developed under the Zhou dynasty in reference to its royal demesne, the name was applied to the area around Luoyi during the Eastern Zhou and to China's Central Plain before being used as an occasional synonym for the state during the Qing era; the ROC used alternate names throughout its existence were Republican China or Republican Era, as well as the Beiyang government, the Nationalist government.
A republic was formally established on 1 January 1912 following the Xinhai Revolution, which itself began with the Wuchang Uprising on 10 October 1911 overthrowing the Qing dynasty and ending over two thousand years of imperial rule in China. From its founding until 1949 it was based on mainland China. Central authority waxed and waned in response to warlordism, Japanese invasion, a full-scale civil war, with central authority strongest during the Nanjing Decade, when most of China came under the control of the Kuomintang under an authoritarian one-party military dictatorship. At the end of World War II in 1945, the Empire of Japan surrendered control of Taiwan and its island groups to the Allies, Taiwan was placed under the Republic of China's administrative control; the communist takeover of mainland China in the Chinese Civil War in 1949 left the ruling Kuomintang with control over only Taiwan, Kinmen and other minor islands. With the 1949 loss of mainland China in the civil war, the ROC government retreated to Taiwan and the KMT declared Taipei the provisional capital.
The Communist Party of China took over all of mainland China and founded the People's Republic of China in Beijing. In 1912, after over two thousand years of imperial rule, a republic was established to replace the monarchy; the Qing dynasty that preceded the republic experienced a century of instability throughout the 19th century, suffered from both internal rebellion and foreign imperialism. The ongoing instability led to the outburst of Boxer Rebellion in 1900, whose attacks on foreigners led to the invasion by the Eight Nation Alliance. China signed the Boxer Protocol and paid a large indemnity to the foreign powers: 450 million taels of fine silver. A program of institutional reform proved too late. Only the lack of an alternative regime prolonged its existence until 1912; the establishment of the Chinese Republic developed out of the Wuchang Uprising against the Qing government on 10 October 1911. That date is now celebrated annually as the ROC's national day known as the "Double Ten Day".
On 29 December 1911, Sun Yat-sen was elected president b
Horch
Horch was a car brand manufactured in Germany by August Horch & Cie, at the beginning of the 20th century. It is the direct ancestor of the present day Audi company, which in turn came out of Auto Union, formed in 1932 when Horch merged with DKW, Wanderer and the historic Audi enterprise which August Horch founded in 1910. According to insiders, a resurrection is planned. August Horch and his first business partner Salli Herz established the company on November 14, 1899 in the district of Ehrenfeld, Cologne in Cologne. August Horch had worked as a production manager for Karl Benz. Three years in 1902, he moved the company to Reichenbach im Vogtland. On May 10, 1904 he founded Cie. Motorwagenwerke AG, a joint-stock company in Zwickau; the city of Zwickau was the capital of the South Western Saxon County and one of Saxony's industrial centres at that time. After troubles with the Horch chief financial officer, August Horch founded a second company on 16 July 1909, the August Horch Automobilwerke GmbH in Zwickau.
He had to rename the company because Horch was a registered brand and he did not hold the rights to the name. On 25 April 1910 the name Audi Automobilwerke was entered in the company's register at the Zwickau registration court. Audi is the Latin translation of horch, from the German verb "horchen", which means "listen!". The Audi name was proposed by a son of one of Horch's business partners from Zwickau. In 1932 both companies from Zwickau merged with Zschopauer Motorenwerke J. S. Rasmussen and the Wanderer car-production facilities to become the Auto Union corporation of Saxony; the Silver Arrow racing cars of the Auto Union racing team in Zwickau - developed by Ferdinand Porsche and Robert Eberan von Eberhorst, driven by Bernd Rosemeyer, Hans Stuck, Tazio Nuvolari and Ernst von Delius - became known the world over in the 1930s. The company began producing 5 hp and 10 hp twin-cylinder engine automobiles near Cologne in 1901; the first Horch had a 4.5 hp engine, with a unique achievement in those days.
It had an open-body design, with lighting provided by lanterns with candles in them. In contrast with the powerful cars of years, the first Horch could reach a top speed of 32 km/h, it was significant at that time because it used a friction clutch, had a drive shaft to power the wheels. The firm soon ran into financial troubles, not surprising considering the pioneering nature of the automobile business at that time. Horch had to seek new partners. In March 1902, August Horch produced a 20 hp four-cylinder car with a shaft drive in Reichenbach in Vogtland. Horch cars were considered more advanced and superior to those being built by Mercedes or Benz. By 1903, Horch had built a car with a four-cylinder engine. In March of the following year, he introduced his new car at the Frankfurt Fair. In 1904, August Horch developed the first six-cylinder engine, which appeared in 1907. In 1906 a Horch automobile driven by Dr. Rudolf Stöss from Zwickau won the Herkomer Competition. In the 1920s, Moritz Stauss, a cosmopolitan Berliner, was the principal stockholder of the Horch company.
He succeeded in making the Horch brand desirable by introducing art into the advertising of their products. He recognized. In 1923, Paul Daimler worked for Horch as the chief engineer for 8-cylinder engines. Horch vehicles were subsequently the first to introduce 8-cylinder engines in series production. In 1909, the supervisory board of the corporation forced out Horch. Horch went on to found Audi as Audiwerke GmbH, which became effective on 25 April 1910; the name was a solution to the legal dispute with his old company over use of the Horch brand and a clever play of words. In 1928, the company was acquired by Jørgen Skafte Rasmussen, owner of DKW who had bought the remains of the US automobile manufacturer Rickenbacker in the same year; the Rickenbacker purchase included their manufacturing equipment for eight-cylinder engines. On 29 June 1932, Audi, DKW and Wanderer merged to form the Auto Union AG, Chemnitz affiliated group; the current Audi four-ring logo is the Auto Union logo that represents the merger of these four brands.
In the 1930s, Horch introduced a new line of smaller and cheaper, but still presentable, V8 automobiles. In 1936, Horch presented the 25,000th 8-cylinder luxury car in Zwickau; the Auto Union Grand Prix racing cars types A to D, were developed and built by a specialist racing department of Horch works in Zwickau between 1933 and 1939. Between 1935 and 1937 Auto Union cars won 25 races, driven by Ernst von Delius, Tazio Nuvolari, Bernd Rosemeyer, Hans Stuck and Achille Varzi. Auto Union became a major supplier of vehicles to the German Wehrmacht, such as Heavy standard passenger car, Medium standard passenger car and Half-track Sd. Kfz. 11. Civilian production was suspended after March 1940. After the war the Auto Union AG at Chemnitz was dissolved and in Ingolstadt, West Germany the new Auto Union GmbH was founded, where civilian car production continued. Due to widespread poverty in postwar Germany, only small DKW vehicles with two stroke engines were produced. After Auto Union was purchased in 1964 by the Volkswagenwerk AG, the old brand Audi was introduced aga
Armored car (military)
A military armored car is a lightweight wheeled armored fighting vehicle employed for reconnaissance, internal security, armed escort, other subordinate battlefield tasks. With the gradual decline of mounted cavalry, armored cars were developed for carrying out duties assigned to horsemen. Following the invention of the tank, the armored car remained popular due to its comparatively simplified maintenance and low production cost, it found favor with several colonial armies as a cheaper weapon for use in underdeveloped regions. During World War II, most armored cars were engineered for reconnaissance and passive observation, while others were devoted to communications tasks; some equipped with heavier armament could substitute for tracked combat vehicles in favorable conditions—such as pursuit or flanking maneuvers during the North African Campaign. Since World War II the traditional functions of the armored car have been combined with that of the armored personnel carrier, resulting in such multipurpose designs as the BTR-40 or the Cadillac Gage Commando.
Postwar advances in recoil control technology have made it possible for a few armored cars, including the B1 Centauro, the AMX-10RC and EE-9 Cascavel, to carry a large cannon capable of threatening many tanks. During the Middle Ages, war wagons covered with steel plate, crewed by men armed with primitive hand cannon and muskets, were used by the Hussite rebels in Bohemia; these were deployed in formations where the horses and oxen were at the centre, the surrounding wagons were chained together as protection from enemy cavalry. Similar wagons were used by the English army of Henry VIII, by the Chinese Empire. With the invention of the steam engine, Victorian inventors designed prototype self-propelled armored vehicles for use in sieges, although none were deployed in combat. H. G. Wells' short story The Land Ironclads provides a fictionalised account of their use; the Motor Scout was designed and built by British inventor F. R. Simms in 1898, it was the first armed petrol engine-powered vehicle built.
The vehicle was a De Dion-Bouton quadricycle with a mounted Maxim machine gun on the front bar. An iron shield in front of the car protected the driver. Another early armed car was invented by Royal Page Davidson at Northwestern Military and Naval Academy in 1898 with the Davidson-Duryea gun carriage and the Davidson Automobile Battery armored car. However, these were not'armored cars' as the term is understood today, as they provided little or no protection for their crews from enemy fire, they were by virtue of their small capacity engines, less efficient than the cavalry and horse-drawn guns that they were intended to complement. At the beginning of the 20th century, the first military armored vehicles were manufactured, by adding armor and weapons to existing vehicles; the first armored car was the Simms' Motor War Car, designed by F. R. Simms and built by Vickers, Sons & Maxim of Barrow on a special Coventry-built Daimler chassis with a German-built Daimler motor in 1899. and a single prototype was ordered in April 1899 The prototype was finished in 1902, too late to be used during the Boer War.
The vehicle had Vickers armour 6 mm thick and was powered by a four-cylinder 3.3-litre 16-hp Cannstatt Daimler engine, giving it a maximum speed around 9 miles per hour. The armament, consisting of two Maxim guns, was carried in two turrets with 360° traverse, it had a crew of four. Simms' Motor War Car was presented at the Crystal Palace, London, in April 1902. Another early armored car of the period was the French Charron, Girardot et Voigt 1902, presented at the Salon de l'Automobile et du cycle in Brussels, on 8 March 1902; the vehicle was equipped with a Hotchkiss machine gun, with 7 mm armour for the gunner. One of the first operational armoured cars with four wheel drive and enclosed rotating turret, was the Austro-Daimler Panzerwagen built by Austro-Daimler in 1904, it was armoured with 3-3.5 mm thick curved plates over the body and had a 4mm thick dome-shaped rotating turret that housed one or two machine-guns. It had a 4-cylinder 35 hp 4.4 litre engine giving it average cross country performance.
Of note, both the driver and co-driver had adjustable seats enabling them to raise them to see out of the roof of the drive compartment as needed. The Italians used armored cars during the Italo-Turkish War. A great variety of armored cars appeared on both sides during World War I and these were used in various ways. Armored cars were used by more or less independent car commanders. However, sometimes they were used in larger units up to squadron size; the cars were armed with light machine guns, but larger units employed a few cars with heavier guns. As air power became a factor, armored cars offered a mobile platform for antiaircraft guns; the first effective use of an armored vehicle in combat was achieved by the Belgian Army in August–September 1914. They had placed a Hotchkiss machine gun on Minerva touring cars, their successes in the early days of the war convinced the Belgian GHQ to create a Corps of Armoured Cars, who would be sent to fight on the Eastern front once the western front immobilized after the Battle of the Yser.
The British Royal Naval Air Service dispatched aircraft to Dunkirk to defend the UK from Zeppelins. The officers' cars followed them and these began to be used to rescue downed reconnaissance pilots in the battle areas, they mounted machine guns on them and as these excursions became dangerous, they improvised boiler plate armoring on the vehicles provided by a local shipbuilder. In London Murray Sueter ordered "fighting cars" based on Rolls-Royce and Wolseley chassis
Auto Union
Auto Union AG, was an amalgamation of four German automobile manufacturers, founded in 1932 and established in 1936 in Chemnitz, Saxony. It is the immediate predecessor of Audi; as well as acting as an umbrella firm for its four constituent brands, Auto Union is known for its racing team. The Silver Arrows of the two German teams dominated not only GP car racing from 1934 onwards but set records that would take decades to beat, such as the fastest speed attained on a public road. After being reduced to near ruin in the aftermath of World War II, Auto Union was re-founded in Ingolstadt, Bavaria in 1949 evolving into the modern day Audi company following its takeover by Volkswagen in 1964 and merger with NSU Motorenwerke in 1969; the current corporate entity which bears the Auto Union name – Auto Union GmbH – was founded in 1985 and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Audi AG. The company's distinctive logo, of four interlocking rings to represent the original four members of the Auto Union, survives as the logo of Audi.
Auto Union was formed in Germany in 1932 merging: Zschopauer Motorenwerke J. S. Rasmussen founded by Danish engineer Jørgen Skafte Rasmussen in 1916, it branched out into motorcycles, front-drive two-stroke cars built at Audi works in Zwickau since 1931. Horch – founded 1904 by August Horch in Zwickau, it built cars starting from straight-twin engines to luxury models with V8- and V12 engines. Audi – because of disputes with the CFO, August Horch in 1909 left his namesake enterprise and founded Audi across town, building inline-four-, six- and eight-cylinder-engined cars. In 1928 Audi became a subsidiary of Zschopauer Motorenwerke. Wanderer – founded in 1911, with small four-cylinder cars and a more luxurious straight-6 built in Siegmar In August 1928, the owner of DKW, acquired a majority ownership of Audiwerke AG. In the same year, Rasmussen bought the remains of the US automobile manufacturer Rickenbacker, including the manufacturing equipment for eight- and six-cylinder engines; these engines were used in Audi Audi Imperator and Audi Dresden models.
At the same time, six-cylinder and four-cylinder models were manufactured. In 1930 the Saxony Regional Bank, which had financed Rasmussen's business expansion in the 1920s, installed Richard Bruhn on the board of Audiwerke AG, there followed a brutal pruning and rationalization of the various auto-businesses that Rasmussen had accumulated; the outcome was the founding in Summer 1932 of Auto Union AG with just four component businesses, being Zschopauer Motorenwerke with its brand DKW, Audi and the car producing piece of Wanderer, brought together under the umbrella of single shareholder company Auto Union. Although all four brands continued to sell cars under their own names and brands, the technological development became more centralized, with some Audi models employing engines by Horch or Wanderer. Auto Union chairman, Baron von Oertzen, wanted a showpiece project to announce the new brand. At the 1933 Berlin Motor Show, German Chancellor Adolf Hitler announced two new programs: The people's car: a project that became the KdF car A state-sponsored motor racing programme: to develop a "high speed German automotive industry," the foundation of which would be an annual sum of 500,000 Reichsmark At fellow director's Adolf Rosenberger insistence, von Oertzen met with Dr. Ferdinand Porsche, who had done work for him before, developed his own P-Wagen project racing car based on the new 750 kg formula.
German racing driver Hans Stuck Sr. had met Hitler before he became Chancellor, not being able to gain a seat at Mercedes, accepted the invitation of Rosenberger to join him, von Oertzen, Porsche in approaching the Chancellor. In a meeting in the Reich Chancellory, Hitler agreed with Porsche that for the glory of Germany, it would be better for two companies to develop the project, resulting in Hitler agreeing to pay ₤40,000 for the country's best racing car of 1934, as well as an annual stipend of 250,000 RM each for Mercedes and Auto Union; this annoyed Mercedes, who had developed their Mercedes-Benz W25, gratified, its racing program having financial difficulties since 1931. It resulted in a heated exchange both on and off the racing track between the two companies until World War II. Having garnered state funds, Auto Union bought Porsches Hochleistungsfahrzeugbau GmbH and hence the P-Wagen Project for 75,000 RM, relocating the company to Auto Unions Horch plant at Zwickau; the Auto Union racing cars types A to D were built as Grand Prix racing cars from 1934 to 1939.
They resembled the earlier Benz Tropfenwagen built in part by Rumpler engineers, The only Grand Prix racers to wear Auto Union's four-ringed logo, they were dominant in 1936. From 1935 to 1937, Auto Union cars car won 25 races, driven by Ernst von Delius, Bernd Rosemeyer, Hans Stuck Sr. and Achille Varzi. Much has been written about the difficult handling characteristics of this car, but its tremendous power and acceleration were undeniable – a driver could induce wheelspin at over 100 mph; the cars used supercharged piston engines. Rosemeyer would drive one arou
Panzer IV
The Panzerkampfwagen IV known as the Panzer IV, was a German medium tank developed in the late 1930s and used extensively during the Second World War. Its ordnance inventory designation was Sd. Kfz. 161. The Panzer IV was the most numerous German tank and the second-most numerous German armored fighting vehicle of the Second World War, with some 8,500 built; the Panzer IV chassis was used as the base for many other fighting vehicles, including the Sturmgeschütz IV assault gun, Jagdpanzer IV tank destroyer, the Wirbelwind self-propelled anti-aircraft gun, the Brummbär self-propelled gun. The Panzer IV saw service in all combat theaters involving Germany and was the only German tank to remain in continuous production throughout the war, it received various upgrades and design modifications, intended to counter new threats, extending its service life. These involved increasing the Panzer IV's armor protection or upgrading its weapons, although during the last months of the war, with Germany's pressing need for rapid replacement of losses, design changes included simplifications to speed up the manufacturing process.
The Panzer IV was succeeded by the Panther medium tank, introduced to counter the Soviet T-34, although the Panzer IV continued as a significant component of German armoured formations to the end of the war. The Panzer IV was the most exported tank in German service, with around 300 sold to Finland, Romania and Bulgaria. After the war, Syria procured Panzer IVs from France and Czechoslovakia, which saw combat in the 1967 Six-Day War. 8,553 Panzer IVs of all versions were built during World War II, with only the StuG III assault-gun/tank destroyer's 10,086 vehicle production run exceeding the Panzer IV's total among Axis armored forces. The Panzer IV was the brainchild of the German general and innovative armored warfare theorist Heinz Guderian. In concept, it was intended to be a support tank for use against enemy anti-tank guns and fortifications. Ideally, each tank battalion in a panzer division was to have three medium companies of Panzer IIIs and one heavy company of Panzer IVs. On 11 January 1934, the German army wrote the specifications for a "medium tractor", issued them to a number of defense companies.
To support the Panzer III, which would be armed with a 37-millimetre anti-tank gun, the new vehicle would have a short-barreled, howitzer-like 75-millimetre as its main gun, was allotted a weight limit of 24 tonnes. Development was carried out under the name Begleitwagen, or BW, to disguise its actual purpose, given that Germany was still theoretically bound by the Treaty of Versailles ban on tanks. MAN, Rheinmetall-Borsig each developed prototypes, with Krupp's being selected for further development; the chassis had been designed with a six-wheeled Schachtellaufwerk interleaved-roadwheel suspension, but the German Army amended this to a torsion bar system. Permitting greater vertical deflection of the roadwheels, this was intended to improve performance and crew comfort both on- and off-road. However, due to the urgent requirement for the new tank, neither proposal was adopted, Krupp instead equipped it with a simple leaf spring double-bogie suspension, with eight rubber-rimmed roadwheels per side.
The prototype required a crew of five men. In the turret, the tank commander sat beneath his roof hatch, while the gunner was situated to the left of the gun breech and the loader to the right; the turret was offset 66.5 mm to the left of the chassis center line, while the engine was moved 152.4 mm to the right. This allowed the torque shaft to clear the rotary base junction, which provided electrical power to turn the turret, while connecting to the transmission box mounted in the hull between the driver and radio operator. Due to the asymmetric layout, the right side of the tank contained the bulk of its stowage volume, taken up by ready-use ammunition lockers. Accepted into service as the Versuchskraftfahrzeug 622, production began in 1936 at Fried. Krupp Grusonwerk AG factory at Magdeburg; the first mass-produced version of the Panzer IV was the Ausführung A, in 1936. It was powered by a Maybach HL108 TR, producing 250 PS, used the SGR 75 transmission with five forward gears and one reverse, achieving a maximum road speed of 31 kilometres per hour.
As main armament, the vehicle mounted the short-barreled, howitzer-like 75 mm Kampfwagenkanone 37 L/24 tank gun, a low-velocity weapon designed to fire high-explosive shells. Against armored targets, firing the Panzergranate at 430 metres per second the KwK 37 could penetrate 43 millimetres, inclined at 30 degrees, at ranges of up to 700 metres. A 7.92 mm MG 34 machine gun was mounted coaxially with the main weapon in the turret, while a second machine gun of the same type was mounted in the front plate of the hull. The main weapon and coaxial machine gun were sighted with a Turmzielfernrohr 5b optic while the hull machine gun was sighted with a Kugelzielfernrohr 2 optic; the Ausf. A was protected by 14.5 mm of steel armor on the front plate of the chassis, 20 mm on the turret. This was only capable of stopping artillery fragments, small-arms fire, light anti-tank projectiles. After manufacturing 35 tanks of the A version, in 1937 production moved to the Ausf. B. Improvements included
Germany
China[3] (15 in total, mostly SdKfz 222, two SdKfz 221, atleast one SdKfz 260)
Bulgaria[4]
Romania (see Romanian armored cars during World War II)
