Möbelwagen

The 3.7 cm ''Flak auf Fahrgestell Panzerkampfwagen'' IV (sf) (''Sd.Kfz. 161/3''), nicknamed ''Möbelwagen'' ("Moving Van") because of its boxy shape, was a self-propelled anti-aircraft gun built from the chassis of the Panzer IV tank. It was used by the Wehrmacht in the European Theatre of World War II.

In 1943, due to the waning ability of the Luftwaffe to combat enemy ground-attack aircraft, ground-based anti-aircraft weaponry was becoming increasingly important to the Wehrmacht. In early 1943, the idea of creating a gun platform on the chassis of the Panzer IV was first proposed. The prototype displayed to Hitler on December 7, 1943, used the '' 2 cm Flakvierling 38'', which was deemed too weak for the latest aircraft, which were constantly being improved to fly higher and faster. Only a single prototype with this gun was produced before the design was rejected. A second design with an upgraded single 3.7 cm Flak 43 L/89 was approved as a temporary stopgap until better ''Flakpanzers'' could be created. 240 ''Möbelwagens'' were built with production beginning in March 1944 and continuing until around April 1945. The first 24 units arrived on the Western Front in June of 1944.

The ''Möbelwagen'' was built on Panzer IV chassis that had been damaged on the Eastern Front and returned to the factory for repair. These were fitted with an open-top superstructure that provided the gun mount. The first 20 units produced had walls made of two spaced 12 mm thick armored plates. The next 25 produced had 10 mm armored walls. Once it was determined that spaced armor at this thickness offered no benefits to protection, they were replace with single-piece 25 mm plates with the upper angle removed (later models had 20 mm plates). These plates had two operating positions: they could be lowered for full 360 degree traverse, allowing flat or low-level firing (it was found that the 3.7 cm gun was very useful against soft and lightly armored ground units), or they could be half-closed, being pinned together to hang slightly open. In this position, the gun had full 360 degree rotation, but only for firing at airborne targets. For ground targets the front wall had to be lowered at least partially. Lowering the walls left the crew extremely vulnerable. The fully closed position was only used for transport, in order to give the crew some protection from small arms fire and shrapnel.

Though intended to be a stopgap solution, the ''Möbelwagen'' served the anti-aircraft platoons of the Panzer Divisions on the Western Front. Only 240 were produced, and it was eventually succeeded by the first true ''Flakpanzers'': '' Wirbelwind'' and '' Ostwind'', both of which featured full rotation and protection while firing at both air and ground targets. A surviving example can be found at the Auto + Technik Museum in Sinsheim, Germany.http://the.shadock.free.fr/Surviving_Panzer_IV_variants.pdf

Comparable vehicles

* 40M Nimród
* Ostwind
* Wirbelwind
* M19 Multiple Gun Motor Carriage
* Crusader Mk. III Anti-Aircraft Tank Mk. I
* ZSU-37

References

Bibliography

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Mobelwagen
World War II self-propelled anti-aircraft weapons of Germany
Military vehicles introduced from 1940 to 1944

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