Work on the Konvoieskorteträger began shortly after the invasion of France. However, development was stopped in mid-1941 on Hitler's orders, as he felt Russia would be swept aside before it could enter production. In early 1942 the design was revistited and by the summer around two dozen Ausf A vehicles were in use, with production total reaching about 150. These had light armor on the body and the turret from an early production Panzer IV (with short 75mm gun) in mounted atop the center of the body. A full platoon of 35 infantry were carried, who exited via four doors in the left and right. Behind the passengers was the cargo area, bunks and galley and toilet facilities. An internal door led to the cargo hold, which had a drop-ramp at the rear. One MG 34 was located in the left and right sides, operated by one of the carried soldiers. The engine is at the front of the vehicle, with driver and radio operator seated behind it.
The SdKfz 255 had a crew of five, driver and radio operator in the body, gunner and loader split between the body and the turret and commander in the turret. The turret was manually rotated at 7 degrees per second by the gunner and loader. The armored car used 10.1 gallons of fuel per hour at routine usage.
Subassemblies: Very Large Wheeled chassis +5, full rotation
Large AFV turret
+2, eight off-road wheels +4.
Powertrain: 224-kW gas engine with 224-kW all-wheeled drive
transmission
and 132-gallon standard fuel tank; 4,000-kWs batteries
Occupancy: 2 CS Body, 2 CS Both, 1 CS Turret. 35 PS Body Cargo:
6 Turret, 5 Body.
Armor
Body: All 4/20
Turret: F 4/120, RL 4/80, B 4/80, T 4/40, U 0/0
Wheels: 3/5
Weaponry
75mm Short Tank Gun/wK 37 [Turret:F] (80).
Ground LMG/ MG 34 [Turret:F] (1,875).
Ground LMG/ MG 34 [Body:R,L] (750 each).
Equipment
Body: 2xMedium radio transmitters and transceivers, 50 space
cargo
hold, three bunks, small galley,
small toilet, environmental controls (50 men).
Statistics
| Size: 35'x12'x11' | Payload : 7.6 tons | Lwt: 28.4 tons |
| Volume: 445 | Maint.: 62 hours | Price: $10,500 |
HT: 10.
HP: 1,300 [body], 225 [turret], 110 [each wheel]
| gSpeed: 45 |
aAccel: 2 | aDecel: 10 | aMR: 0.25 | aSR: 4 |
Design Notes
Some mounted an additional MG 34 on a simple pintle mount on the turret
roof, operated by the commander.
A common field modification was to add one searchlight tn the left
and right sides of the vehicles, after several vehicles were destroyed
at night. A few also added a searchlight to the turret.
Variants
The Ausf B of early 1943 was an attempt at the main element of a
"hunter/killer" anti-partisan team. Internally, passengers dropped from
35 to 23 and the number of bunks were doubled. Loaded weight decreased
to 27.4 tons and gSpeed just crept up to 46 mph. Three were part of
each hunter/killer team, as well as some motorcycles (often carried as
cargo) and light armored cars. About 30 were built and they proved
unsuccessful. Most were converted back to the convoy escort role by
late 1943.
In late 1943, about a dozen Ausf A's were converted to mobile
command posts, with the turret removed and additional communications
equipment (adding one long range and one short range radio recievers
and transmitters). These were designated Ausf C. Crew was fifteen:
driver, co-driver, commander, four radio operators, four staff. and
four messengers. The two side-mounted Ms were retained and a third was
added in a AA mount where there turret ring had been. Most were
destroyed in combat by the end of 1944. Two BMW R12 with sidecars
(p.W107) were carried as standard in the cargo space (for use by the
messengers).
A very few Ausf D's were built from war-weary Ausf A's. These were
mobile hospitals, removing all armament, passenger seating and bunks.
They had a crew of driver, commander, two doctors and six medics. Two
field surgeries and twelve stretcher pallets were added. Cargo space
was mostly used for medical supplies.