Flakpanzer I
Contents
Description
The Flakpanzer I Ausf. A is a rank I German Self-Propelled Anti-Aircraft (SPAA) vehicle with a battle rating of 1.3 (AB/RB/SB).
General info
Survivability and armour
The Flakpanzer I does not have good survivability, unlike the Panzer II, III, and early IV models. It has only two crew and is hull breakable, so it generally gets knocked out by an incoming shot. Even 7.5-8 mm machine guns can disable or destroy a Flakpanzer frontally. It is also hull-breakable, so early-game vehicles firing HEAT rounds will be your nemeses.
Mobility
The mobility of the vehicle is decent to good for the tier, at 31kph forward and 6 kph backwards. The power-to-weight ratio is reasonably good at 10.36hp/ton fully upgraded. It is responsive when steering on most terrain, though snow can be troublesome at times.
Armaments
Main armament
The Flakpanzer I is armed with the 20 mm FlaK 38 cannon, which turns out to be fantastic for a cannon of this tier. It boasts a high fire rate, 20-round magazines, useful HE rounds to shred low-flying planes, 46 mm penetration AP-I, and 64 mm pen APCR. The gun will destroy most enemies it can encounter with the APCR belt, even though it is only half APCR.
Usage in the battles
The Flakpanzer I is extremely versatile, unfortunately, the trade-off for a lighter vehicle is the lack of protective armour. This vehicle is best used as a flanker and tank-killer with situational use against unaware patrolling aircraft. The mounting platform of the gun is VERY wobbly, so do not expect to be able to do quick reaction shots in surprise encounters. Turret traverse is very fast, however, allowing it to react fast when not moving to new threats not immediately aware of its presence. While it can essentially spray 20 mm rounds at targets, it is advisable to maintain trigger control and conserve ammunition, firing when absolutely need to, because reload time between ammunition magazines is rather long and punishing for the tier when time is of the essence.
While the gun is great, there are some enemies it encounters that you should straight-up avoid if at all possible. These are the Valentine MkI, B1 bis, and B1 ter. If used in 1.7 lineups, the Matilda MkII, T-28E, and M3 Lee/US Grant I/UK Grant I/RU M3 Medium are also significant threats. It can kill the B1 bis, T-28E, and M3 Lee variations in some situations, but the B1 ter, Valentine, and Matilda are totally immune even to the APCR belt outside lucky turret ring hits.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- High penetrating gun for tier
- Fast turret traverse
- Mobile enough for tier
- Responsive handling
- High rate-of-fire
- Large magazine size for ammunition
Cons:
- Long reload times
- Gun is insufficient against the more armoured opponents
- Nonexistent armour and survivability due to two crew and hull-breakability
- Many of the other vehicles it will face are faster than it
- Vulnerable to surprise-strafing from planes
History
Describe the history of the creation and combat usage of the ground vehicle in more detail than in the introduction. If the historical reference turns out to be too big, take it to a separate article, taking a link to an article about the vehicle and adding a block "/historical reference" (example: https://wiki.warthunder.com/Name-vehicles/historical reference) and add a link to it here using the main template. Be sure to include links to sources at the end of the article.
In-game description
In early 1940, the ordnance logistics department directed the Alkett and Daimler-Benz companies to develop a weapon mount with a circular field of fire, to be mounted on the chassis of the Pz.Kpfw. I Ausf. A tank. The outdated chassis was used since the Germans were intensely seeking alternative ways to use chassis.
The Flakpanzer I had a hull, engine, transmission, and chassis which were similar to the Pz.Kpfw. I Ausf. A tank. In the modified turret box, in the place of the dismantled old turret, a 20 mm Flak 38 gun was installed on a platform. The gun had an operational fire rate of 220 rounds per minute and allowed the tank to effectively engage low-flying targets. This gun's vertical angle ranged from -10 to 87 degrees.
A total of 24 of these self-propelled anti-aircraft vehicles were built with two more built utilising 2 cm FlaK 30 guns. All of the Flakpanzer I guns which were released were used by the 614th flak battalion, which fought on the Eastern Front at Stalingrad. The guns were often used for direct fire support for ground troops, firing against ground targets.
One of their flaws was that the trajectory calculation was cumbersome. In order to compensate for this, folding metal sides were added, but they did not do much to remedy the situation. Therefore, attacking ground targets required 5 people, but anti-aircraft fire required a crew of 8. The anti-aircraft vehicle was protected by nothing but its front armour. Most of the ammunition was placed in a specially designed Sd.Ah.51 trailer. Communication between vehicles was carried out using signal flags since the radio equipment had been dismantled. The vehicle's biggest advantage was that the 20 mm anti-aircraft guns could be dismantled and installed on a platform towed behind the vehicle. These dismantling and installation procedures took 4 and 6 minutes, respectively.
Media
An excellent addition to the article will be video guides, as well as screenshots from the game and photos.
Read also
Links to the articles on the War Thunder Wiki that you think will be useful for the reader, for example,
- reference to the series of the vehicles;
- links to approximate analogues of other nations and research trees.
ETC.
Sources
Paste links to sources and external resources, such as:
- topic on the official game forum;
- other literature.
