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Comments to the initially assigned Sd. Kfz. numbers

 

 

 

 

 

The Sd. Kfz. numbers assigned in the early 1930s are a bit misterious until today. They do not really fit into the known system of the Kfz. numbers. At the time when this number system was created it could not be foreseen how complex this system would be a few years later. Firm names and numbers were at first assigned to horse drawn vehicles and for motor vehicles. Surely no numbers were at that time assigned to special motor vehicles. However the special motor vehicles which originated partially from World War I had to be classified. They got the designations Kraftwagen 19 als Geschützkraftwagen (Sd. Kfz. 1), Zugmaschine Krupp-Daimler (Sd. Kfz. 2) and gepanzerter Kraftwagen (alte Bauart) (Sd. Kfz. 3). For the first time these designations were mentioned in the Bilderatlas der heeresüblichen Kraftfahrzeuge nebst Charakteristik, the type sheets have the date 15th March 1933. A further Sd. Kfz. number is mentioned in the manual D 601+ Anhaltswerte über Kraftfahrzeuge und Gerät from June 1934. This was the Flugbetriebsstoffkesselkraftwagen (Sd. Kfz. 4). In the following time further numbers were assigned without recongnisable system, the Betriebsstoffkesselkraftwagen (Sd. Kfz. 5), the leichter geländegängiger Zugkraftwagen (Sd. Kfz. 6), the mittlerer geländegängiger Zugkraftwagen (Sd. Kfz. 7) and the schwerer geländegängiger Zugkraftwagen (Sd. Kfz. 8). First these designations were mentioned in the manual D 601+ from 8th November 1935 and the D 600 from 9th November 1935. In the D 601+ from 8th November 1935 the first Sd. Kfz. numbers appear which correspond to the known system (Sd. Kfz. 101, 121, 141, 221, 222, 223, 231 and 232).
It can be concluded that at the time when the Kfz. number system was introduced, no system was available how to classify special motor vehicles. At least until the number Sd. Kfz. 5 the special motor vehicle numbers were assigned continuously. It seems that the number range from 1 to 10 was later reserved for the half track vehicles. The numbers assigned to half track vehicles were obviously added to the range of the existing Sd. Kfz. numbers (Sd. Kfz. 6, 7, 8...). After the numbers 1 to 5 got available again, these numbers were partially new assigned (Sd. Kfz. 2, 3).

 

 

 

 

 

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