The German Flakpanzer Coelian was a prototype for an anti-aircraft tank built by the Rheinmetall company. It was intended to be armed principally with two 3.7 cm FlaK 43 gun in a fully enclosed, rotating turret on the hull of a Panther medium tank.
In the first years of the war, the Wehrmacht had less interest in developing self-propelled anti-aircraft guns, but as the Allies developed air superiority, the need for more mobile and better-armed self-propelled anti-aircraft guns increased. The Wehrmacht had adapted a variety of wheeled and half-track vehicles to serve as mobile forward air defence positions to protect armour and infantry units in the field as well as for temporary forward area positions such as mobile headquarters and logistic points. As Allied ground support planes broadened their ground attack arsenal from simple machine gun strafing and bombing to aerial bazooka launchers and rockets, the air defence positions were even more vulnerable. The answer was to adapt a tank chassis with a specialized turret that would protect the gun crews while they fired upon approaching Allied aircraft. As the consequence, the German Army High Command issued a demand for anti-aircraft tank based on the chassis of the Panther[disambiguation needed] tank design. Rheinmetall developed "Coelian" in various versions, including one with four 20mm MG 151/20 guns, but kept having to revise designs based on changing government requirements (such as demands for more modern guns with longer barrels). Eventually, in May 1944 a turret with a single 5.5cm gun was developed, together with another model with a double 3.7 cm FlaK 43 gun.
However, this tank never left the drawing board, as it soon became clear that no chassis would be available for Flakpanzers for a variety of reasons, including the Allies' landing in Normandy, the increasing Allied strategic bomber air offensive, and raw material shortages. By mid-February 1945, only a wooden prototype of the desired 5.5cm turret model on a Panther D hull had been created. |
