It is a most underrated fact that the German army had rather strict rules and thet they were to be obeyed.
So here's the rule I'm talking about : when going to combat zone, a Panzer with two towing cables has to tie one to the front of the tank and the second one to the rear of the tank.
When towing is needed one member from each tank grabs one cable from his tank (whether front or rear depending of the situation I guess) and ties it to the other tank. This allows maximum speed which under direct enemi fire has got to be one advantage.
Now we seldom see this on pîcs and this morning courtesy of Romsits Adam on Missing Links we have these four pics of Tigers that follow the rule.
This one has one cable tied to the right front hook :
while that one has one cable tied to the right rear hook, obviously both ends of the same cable are seen here :
This makes sense as the cables do have to be crossed when towing another tank. The cable goes from front right to rear left (or vice-versa) so both cables are connected to the right hook, none to the left.
The pics of "122" clearly show the end of the cable beeing loose unfortunately pics of "301" do not show the other end of the cable but according to the pics it is not tied either but loose.
How come modellers never apply this German army rule on their models ?
I do not know.
Now we may ask how come we seldom see pics showing this ?
a few explanations ... this rule was for combat zone and most of the pics we have were not shot under ennemi fire but before or after, many a so-called "shot during combat" pic beeing in fact a reconstitution after the battle for the benefit of the PK. You do not have to follow this rule when away from the combat zone do you ?
How come we sometimes see pics of Panzers with cables attached to both front hooks or both rear hooks ?
This I do not know but please refer to the aove explanation ... not a real "combat zone pic" probably.
Plus we have to admit it is possible that sometimes rules were not followed under certain circumstances ... go figure.
Anyway, any help with this topic is most welcome and please feel free to search in your picture collection for evidence of towing cables beeing tied to the hooks following the rule : one to the front one to the rear.
I'm afraid most of the times we see only one side of the tank, front OR rear so if cables are to be tied then there's only one ...
.
