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Old 07-02-2009, 08:56 AM
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Default Czech Skoda PA2 "Zelva" Armoured Car


During the early 20-ies most armoured car when armoured cars were little more than what they had been during the Great War, i.e. standard truck chassis supplied with angular armoured plating, the Czech Skoda PA-II appeared as a really revolutionary design. First, it had a specially designed chassi, with all four wheels steerable, two drivers (one to the front, and one two the rear) and, most characteristically, a special armour designed for maximum ballistical protection, aimed at deflecting bullets. The first model, the PA-I, appeared already in august 1923, but it had problems, and the new model, the PA-II, was designed and accepted by the Czech Military, who ordered 12 of them. The first were delivered in december 1924. The new model was equipped with four Schwarzlose HMG:s (with a total of 6250 rounds), had a weight of some 7.3 tons, a crew of five and an armour of maximum 5.5mm. It had a 70hp motor, which gave it an impressive road speed of 70km/h, but the heavy weight of the vehicle menat that the cross-country performance was poor. But the performance on good roads menat that it could be used in a highly mobile role, for instance when nine of these vehicles 1933 were rushed to the German-Czech border, to quickly bolster the defences againt the nazis.
The PA-II, nicknamed "Zelva", "The Turtle" - for obvious reasons - was later gradually substituted for the new PA-III, and three of these now freed from service were sold to Austria, were they saw action during the aborted Nazi coup in 1934. (I don't know if they were used during the Civil War the same year, but that is highly probable.)
Many countries wanted to buy "The Turtle" but eventually the export to Austria was all that came to be. When WW2 started it was since a long time obsolete, and the Germans took control of some of these when the occupied Czechoslovakia, and used them themselves, at least one, and that one was modified by adding a large aerial - see the photo up to the left.




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