Questions about Soviet AT capabilities.

[Rinaldi]

@Bulletpoint definitely brought this conversation back down to earth. Tanks rarely take and hold positions, and there's plenty of accounts that have German (or anyone's, really) armor aborting an otherwise successful attack because their infantry aren't up there to protect them; sometimes all it took was skilled indirect fire.

Edited August 16, 2017 by Rinaldi

[danfrodo]

indeed, heavy tanks were very rare.  And on a 1000 mile front the russians would be only sometimes be facing significant numbers of tigers or even panthers -- that's why the germans ended up reeling backwards over & over again.  The russians were stopped as much by supplies as by the germans in many of the major campaigns of 1944-45. 

[MikeyD]

I was recently reading articles about late war eastern front and the phrase 'last German tank offensive of the war' popped up ('Operation Solstice' Feb 45, though I don't know why 'Operation Spring Awakening' in early March wouldn't count). Which implied that otherwise there were no grand German tank offensives. I suppose game-style 'meeting engagements 'would mostly be Germans rushing armor forward piecemeal to plug holes in the front or limited-scope spoiling attacks. No attempts to gain significant territory. 

Edited September 15, 2017 by MikeyD

[jdg]

The Soviet also quite effectively used the ATR against  AGTs, to punch holes in buildings, and dug in MGs.