Armoured plates for weapon-emplacements
These armoured plates were used in machine-gun and
anti-tank gun casemate and had to protect this weapon from enemy
fire. The plates differ in size, weight, thickness,
observation-slots and firing-openings. Some plates were 82cm by
95 cm and 4 cm thick while other plates were 3 square meters and
30 cm thick. There were two main categories of
observation-openings : the first are just normal observation-slot
that had to be closed armoured-slides (on a rail) and the second
category are armoured tubes (with different lengths, depending on
the thickness of the plate ) that were placed through the
armoured plates. In this tube (called
"Panzerbeobachtungswinkelfernrohr") an optics was
placed which enabled a view of 180 degrees.
De firing-openings could also be closed with
armoured slides (on a rail) or bullet-shaped gas-proofed
stoppers. The armoured plates used for entrance- and
close-defense purposes were usually smaller than the plates for
the main-armament, there are however some absurd examples;
(almost) all machine-gun casemates (Regelbau 105) with a close
defense room from the "Zitadelle" of St.Malo have a
17500 kg plate instead of the normal plate with a weight of 25
kg.
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