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Real tank duel


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3 hours ago, Bloody Bill said:

I had never seen it before and just thought I would share with you gents.  I find the video amazing, horrible and sad all at the same time.

Totally agree. Thanks for posting this version though. I've seen the footage but not with this degree of detail, background or remastered footage. Thanks for posting.

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2 hours ago, Pak40 said:

I do recall seeing this in documentary, probably on the History Channel. IIRC, the real life camera man was being interviewed or narrating the footage. I wish I knew the title of the documentary.

There was a documentary with this in it I watched.  It was mainly about U.S. Armor during the war.  How U.S. tanks were killed in mass in a lot of fights.  One of the guys in the documentary was a maintenance chief talking about cleaning out the tanks when they were recovered.  I don't know how accurate this is since I have never seen the data but he stated that the U.S. tank Battalion he was with lost five tanks to every one German tank.

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43 minutes ago, Bloody Bill said:

There was a documentary with this in it I watched.  It was mainly about U.S. Armor during the war.  How U.S. tanks were killed in mass in a lot of fights.  One of the guys in the documentary was a maintenance chief talking about cleaning out the tanks when they were recovered.

Was it this one?

 

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"Engineering disasters: The Sherman tank"

What a load of bull man, I know its cool to hate the sherman and love the kitties, I went through that at a young age, but the myth just lives on and we keep getting crap like this from the "History" channel.

Edited by Raptorx7
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12 minutes ago, Bloody Bill said:

Well I am a believer in General Patton......If he wanted them there was a good reason for it.  The Sherman most definitely played a major role to winning the war.

Well the uncomfortable truth is that often, what ultimately wins the war is not always the same as caring about the life of the individual soldier. As long as they could churn out the Shermans fast enough and find people to crew them, they were winning, because the Germans couldn't keep up with that forever.

Edited by Bulletpoint
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1 hour ago, Raptorx7 said:

"Engineering disasters: The Sherman tank"

What a load of bull man, I know its cool to hate the sherman and love the kitties, I went through that at a young age, but the myth just lives on and we keep getting crap like this from the "History" channel.

You can thank that useless hack, Belton Cooper for this tired trope.

German tanks had a horrifyingly bad loss ratio given that they were on the defensive in the ETO, and they performed even worse when they counterattacked. This silliness has to end eventually....perhaps when I have grand children myself -_-

 

Quote

 

Well the uncomfortable truth is that often, what ultimately wins the war is not always the same as caring about the life of the individual soldier

 

...Yes as clearly evidenced by the high survival rate of Allied tankers and the AGFs insistence that anything brought to the ETO be throughly tested and proven first (unlike the Germans rushing designs into battle; Panther Ausf. D -- WEW LAD). Lmfao, please stop. 

Edited by Rinaldi
WEW
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2 hours ago, Anthony P. said:

Last I checked, the average casualties suffered when one of those "engineering disasters" was knocked out was 1 KIA and 1 WIA. Considering that the average casualties when a T-34 ("the tank that won the war") was knocked out was pretty much the entire crew...

What I have heard about that is that the Soviets used a formulation in their HE shells that was more powerful but at the cost of being less stable. So, not only was a penetrating hit liable to produce a secondary explosion sooner, it was going to go off with a bigger bang.

Michael

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Bloody Bill,

Thanks for this! On balance, it was much better in overall quality (despite unfortunate video issues after the Panther's been hit several times and the abrupt need for a Steadicam) than what I'd seen before. The titles were more than a bit over the top and at times blocking the view, but the overheads showing who was where and who went there were quite valuable. Somehow I never really grokked that the Combat Camera guy got ahead of the Pershing and filmed it looking back while watching it fire. Big cojones on that man! My understanding is that the TC lost a foot, but the improved film quality and zoom show there was a traumatic amputation of the leg just below the knee. Since the stump is smoking, I'd say he got hit by red hot metal of some sort. Considering how short the range was, the Pershing's shot group wasn't impressive and a positive outcome from firing into the flank didn't need a Pershing, but this geometry wasn't guaranteed as this engagement commenced. The crew survivors bailing out, and the progress of the brew up is something to behold. I also noted that early in the fight, the Pershing lit up a stretch of first floor windows, doubtless to deal with Panzerfaust and similar threats.

Anthony P.,

Do you happen to know whether those are aggregate numbers from D-Day to VE Day? If so, then the Wet Shermans and other tanks so equipped would tend to drive down the overall loss rate occurring prior to their significant arrival in combat. This is a date I don't know offhand--if I ever knew it.

Regards,

John Kettler

Edited by John Kettler
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Another thing to consider regarding German armor is that the the big cats, in particular the Panther, were rare animals operationally because they were extremely mechanically unreliable. The original Panther D had a operational rate of only 16%. While the later models were better, the general operational rate of Panther units was about 30-45% of tank inventory for a given units (even on the later model Panthers like the A or G). The highest operation rate ever achieved was by the units in Normandy just before the fighting started because they were sitting around doing nothing, which tends to make maintenance easier. By the battle of the bulge most units were sitting around at a mere 25% or so. Not due to combat losses, but from mechanical failures. This mechanical unreliability was mainly due to the fact that the Germans used a spur gear in the final drive which caused failures if not handled gently. On top of this, the final drive on the Panther was hard to work on due to its placement in the tank, and that meant that when such a failure occurred the tank was sidelined for long periods. The Panther was indisputably the best tank of the war from a point of view of pure combat potential, but it only when it was running.  

In Summary: A tank that cannot show up for the fight may as well not exist. 

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15 hours ago, Raptorx7 said:

"Engineering disasters: The Sherman tank"

Ironic really; the one thing the Sherman wasn't was an engineering disaster. Reliable, easy to manufacture hence cheap, reasonable to repair. Almost the definition of well engineered. The cats on the other hand... And yet, always this rubbish. The Sherman was victim of a role definition that differed from what happens in combat sometime, coupled with masses jumping on the exceptions. If 4 or 5 Shermans were lost per cat, what happens to the Many thousands that didn't have any cats to meet? Slightly too tall, and outgunned in Normandy etc until 76mm or 17pdr versions were more available. Otherwise, it's all Axis fan boys and a few famous cases oft quoted.

Every German tank must have been very busy driving round frightening tens of thousands of Sherman crew men before finally killing its 4 (or 5) and getting knocked out. Which is odd really given the reliability of most of them...

 

and then of course there are all the Shermans taken out by the 88's!   

I don't know if this site is totally accurate but it does cast the doubt rather well:

 

ftr.wot-news.com  (search for  common myths). Sorry, will sort a proper link when on my PC rather rhan phone...

Edited by Sailor Malan2
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5 hours ago, shift8 said:

Another thing to consider regarding German armor is that the the big cats, in particular the Panther, were rare animals operationally because they were extremely mechanically unreliable. The original Panther D had a operational rate of only 16%. While the later models were better, the general operational rate of Panther units was about 30-45% of tank inventory for a given units (even on the later model Panthers like the A or G). The highest operation rate ever achieved was by the units in Normandy just before the fighting started because they were sitting around doing nothing, which tends to make maintenance easier. By the battle of the bulge most units were sitting around at a mere 25% or so. Not due to combat losses, but from mechanical failures. This mechanical unreliability was mainly due to the fact that the Germans used a spur gear in the final drive which caused failures if not handled gently. On top of this, the final drive on the Panther was hard to work on due to its placement in the tank, and that meant that when such a failure occurred the tank was sidelined for long periods. The Panther was indisputably the best tank of the war from a point of view of pure combat potential, but it only when it was running.  

In Summary: A tank that cannot show up for the fight may as well not exist. 

By the way: If you would like to see a cat, in this instance a Kingtiger, turned inside out, have a look at:

www.koenigstiger.ch

They are reconstructing a King-tiger since a few years and have brilliant foto selection of all steps of the works. Interesting pic's of extreme details.

I think, they bought the wreck in France a few years ago, completely broke it down to pieces and now reconstruct, repair and put it back together. Sounds like a huge project.

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20 hours ago, Raptorx7 said:

Yeah the only way the poor allies could beat the uber Germans was to throw as many useless tanks at them as they could.

If you were replying to me, well, that's not what I meant.

What I did mean was that in any war, production and logistics mean more than the performance of the individual tank.

I didn't post the link to the video because I necessarily agree with it, it was just to ask Bill if that's the one he was talking about.

Edited by Bulletpoint
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10 hours ago, Michael Emrys said:

What I have heard about that is that the Soviets used a formulation in their HE shells that was more powerful but at the cost of being less stable. So, not only was a penetrating hit liable to produce a secondary explosion sooner, it was going to go off with a bigger bang.

Michael

 

I've not heard of that (not quite as well read on the Eastern front as the Western) but I wouldn't doubt it. That and all that fuel stored inside the crew compartment, man... I'd take out a hefty life insurance before going to war with one of those, provided I could actually afford one that covered such risks!

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10 hours ago, John Kettler said:

Anthony P.,

Do you happen to know whether those are aggregate numbers from D-Day to VE Day? If so, then the Wet Shermans and other tanks so equipped would tend to drive down the overall loss rate occurring prior to their significant arrival in combat. This is a date I don't know offhand--if I ever knew it.

What I've read is that those were with wet storage. Commonwealth forces without wet storage had an average of 1 extra WIA for each knocked out Sherman, and they'd burn 80% of the time, as opposed to 5-10% for American Shermans with wet storage. Apparently this number was consistent with American Shermans in Italy that had lacked wet storage.

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23 hours ago, shift8 said:

In Summary: A tank that cannot show up for the fight may as well not exist. 

Actually it is worse than this. A tank that never existed didn't represent any loss, but a tank that was designed, produced, and transported to the theater, but couldn't make it to the battle represents a huge investment down the tubes.

Michael

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