Zimmerit

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A Panzer V with Zimmerit

Zimmerit was a coating produced for German armored fighting vehicles during World War II for the purpose of combating magnetically attached anti-tank mines, although Germany was the only country to use magnetic mines against tanks in great numbers. It was created by the German company Chemische Werke Zimmer AG.

The coating worked by providing a non-conducting, irregular surface that would reduce the area of contact between a mine and the tank's hull, as well as putting more distance between the hull and the mine. This would cause a magnetic mine to fall off due to its own weight and the vibration of the vehicle. Zimmerit possessed no anti-magnetic properties of its own, rather it defeated the mines by simply disallowing contact and providing distance.

Zimmerit was applied to all tanks and closed-top self-propelled guns produced from about August 1943 to September 1944. It was only rarely applied to open-top AFVs. The rough appearance of the coating gave a distinct appearance to the vehicles it coated.

Application of zimmerit was done at the factory, but it appears that a few vehicles received field applications before factory-applied zimmerit was actually available. The many variations seen in application designs, from the regular ridge-shaped pattern, to a less common waffle-shaped pattern, are mostly related to the factory producing each type of AFV. For example, the waffle pattern was seen almost exclusively on Sturmgeschütz III assault guns. In general, existing vehicles already in service were not given coats of zimmerit.

Zimmerit was phased out of use in September 1944. This may have been due to (probably baseless) concerns that projectile impacts could set the zimmerit on fire, which was proved false later. Application of zimmerit also added several days to the time required to produce each AFV, and this was unacceptable when a shortage of AFVs existed. Following the war the British carried out trials of a similar material on Churchill tanks but decided not to implement it. No similar material was used on post-war tanks, probably because the widespread use of man portable HEAT rockets such as the Bazooka rendered magnetic mines obsolete.