coe

engineering text? really? I would surmise it also might be the equipment the germans used too... it seemed the most mobile assets were 75mm with alot of 50mm...I do recall American accounts in Aachen using 150mm guns

I guess for instance, the tractor works or Pavlov's house...I'm puzzled why the latter was able to hold out so long...I presume if the Americans were attacking it, they'd flatten it with HE and more HE and then have tanks fire at it from standoff range.

hmmm still that doesn't seem to account for the enourmous casualties from fighting that both sides suffered lets say compared to the Americans and Germans in Aachen or perhaps even Kharkov? It appears that combat casualties were huge.... For example, if it were the Americans fighting the Soviets in the Urban environments in Stalingrad would it have been as casualty intensive (from teh fighting part alone)? or were they using different tactics.

actually no according to wikipedia - about 5000 casualties on both sides over 20 days...

I'm puzzled a bit by the inability of the Germans to have taken Stalingrad - I understand there was a question of improper weapons (rifles) and possibly training too but comparing to other city battles - Aachen, Berlin, those were much shorter...in Aachen the casualties were much less and supposedly the Americans weren't experienced as the Germans were in city fighting..- is it because in the other city battles the cities were surrounded and in Stalingrad, the Russians just kept feeding people in? C.

speaking of russian offensive...- so I have to ask, in something like Operation Bagration...how is it that the soviets in scoring a major victory managed to lose almost just as much as the Germans did so to speak. I mean I know it was a victory in that they could afford to lose more people...but you don't see the same kind of allied losses against germans in the west once there were breakthroughs or were there equivalent losses? Conan

quick question, seeing how the russians and Americans have huge ammo loads (even with the Americans having M-1 semi-autos) how much does that translate into for actual number of rounds carried as opposed to German?

According to Mr. Kenney's stats the tanks in question took about 1.625 hits on average to KO - so since you can't have 1.625 hits on a tank (hits are discrete) so it tends to about 2 hits... hmmm 8 hits on a tank? I wonder was that hit repeatedly because the other team thought it was still alive, or tried to set it on fire? Or was it just lucky until the 8th hit? Stay warm, it's cold out.

20 million? wow...I hesitate to say this but KO 110000 allied tanks - does that include knockout and return to duty then get knocked out again - does that count as a single KO....but then there are shots that bounced...and some shots that penetrated but in the wrong place and I might be wrong but wasn't it sometimes policy to shoot till it burns...and then there's the ammunition that was left in the tank and never fired (e.g. lets say Panther gets KOd with 20 rounds of AP) or stuff in the ammunition dumps. But I started this thread more thinking about the crack tankers...I should have been more specific. Those people are the results I can't quite seem to get.

actually one thing I noticed...if you have a tank that matches up with another tank...it will stay and duke it out...and that it will stay even if against 10 tanks are against it as long as if each individual tank would be equal to it (thus the odds make it a bad situation to stay around in).

a few things I found out though if you get a PzIVH within 500 meters of a greyhound things can get very dangerous for the PzIV even from a frontal aspect.... Also I haven't had much luck with IVH or Js at distance against M-10s (Veteran IVH and J) against regulars)...we're talking 900-1000 meters... Something is happening because the 76mm L/55s seem to hit with uncanny accuracy whereas my IVHs and Js L48 have trouble hitting (this has happened several times) - I wonder is it the tactic to stay till you hit something then move like hell away?

actually I did think of one thing you fire at a tank, you miss but it then disappears in the smoke a little, so instead of the tank waiting till the dust/smoke disappears it targets another tank...but when the first enemy tank reappears (the smoke/dust is gone), does the our tank require it as if it was a brand new tank or does it have a bit of memory as to the range so its first shot after reacquiring the target has a higher to hit chance? Conan

Naturally the rock stars are few but particularly in Russia there seemed to be a fair amount of success. Perhaps is some of it the borg spotting that goes on? E.g. German plain vanilla Panzer IVs stopping russian charges at Kursk...especially at the July 13 th battle, or Von Mellenthin claiming an attack where the russians thought 25 panzers were part of their own, or Wittman surviving on the russian front.

Ok this should ignore the lorraine campaign...well as you know there were various german tank aces, in WWII and I do know that they did get tanks shot out from under them from time to time. And some of these did this in plain vanilla Pz IVH or StuG IIIs when out numbered...I find this rather hard to do in CMBB or CMAK as usually even when in prepared positions, they get beaten or when running to outflank they get tracked by multiple enemy tanks (who miraculously see them)...is there some stuff in CMBB or CMAK going on that is distorting thing (btw, this is despite the StuG IIIs being overmodeled. Conan

question, if sitting on the defense through attrition is the way to win why is it even in prepared defenses that were well sited, etc. the Germans still lost more men than the Allies did when the Allies would attack?

I'd like to know how he did the attack part that pushed an entire battalion back 350 yards with only 50 men while inflicting alot of casualties but only losing 2 men.

maybe the best company commander is one we don't hear of being a personal hero but one who took care of the men, advocated for their needs, set them up in the best possible positions that were available, had retreat routes etc. In other words the best company commander maximizes his/her unit's chances of survival and maximizes its effectiveness...there's not much you can hold against a good commander who receives orders that are so over above his unit's capability that despite what he does the chances of his unit's success is really low. (e.g. you must charge over an open plain against a well entrenched enemy who has tanks and artillery and you are unsupported). Speaking of kill ratio stories, you always hear of western allied soldiers doing something like eliminating 5 machine gun nests single handedly or killing 14-20 enemy soldiers etc. but you never hear of stories of axis soldiers doing the same thing upon the western allies....is this because it didn't happen or just never reported? e.g. who was the Autie Murphy of the Germans or Japanese or Italians in the later part of the war fighting against the Americans and British and Canadians and New Zealanders etc.

ok I'm open ears to the distinction that is beyond the noses - is the distinction based on one physically destroys enemy stuff and the other forces the enemy to surrender (lack of supplies etc.) or is it attrition is more positional? Guesses here on my part.

hold on a second, isn't maneuverism the same thing as attrition. You are supposed to destroy the other side's capability to resist... You can maneuver and cut off large forces which get "destroyed" due to lack of supplies, or you can go to some place the enemy wants and sit there build defenses and let the enemy come, or you can somehow destroy the logistical or command part of the enemy so that the enemy is confused and can't resist. Either way you are also attritioning in some way the resistance capabilities - in some methods are done slightly incrementally, some are done in larger leaps. Depends on how you look at it, encircling one division and destroying it can be a maneuver, but doing that same thing repeatedly can be seen as attrition?

On a separate note, seeing the picture of the Priest in the Pacific, I wonder how different things would be if the japanese had decent anti-tank assets - e.g. lets say the Germans were able to get their designs for the Pak 40 and Panzerfausts/schreks over to the Japanese who were able to produce them. Or better yet a japanese Tiger or Panther cruising down the road in China/Burma or the Philippines. Assuming you could shield the AT weapons from artillery things would be a lot slower and trickier. Anybody want to switch the topic to AT guns vs. Tanks in the pacific theatre?

*** hits head on the table repeatedly*** :mad: :mad: ON a personal note I'd still like to be pointed to a source which specifically states the doctrinal role ... Yes I agree TDs destroyed tanks. In that respect anything that destroyed tanks was a TD. If you can go with a screwdriver and unscrew the bolts on a tank and make it fall apart you are a tank destroyer

actually I was thinking, after a gun gets knocked out it (not a vehicle) the crew should pretty much be fully armed (whoever they are). It isn't gamey to use them as infantry...however since they are specialists...the price for losing them in combat should be high (i.e. the final tallies/score).

on a strange note - TDs seem to be doing a number on my Pz IVH/Js even when I get the drop on them (i.e. surprise them)...it might be probability but the number of misses - then their return fire...devastating but it's nice to see Hellcats bounce a StuGIII or a JPz IV at long range when the StuGIII/JPz IV can still tag it...

OK OK I am responsible for diverting this thread and I don't like the name calling, everyone looking down upon eachother, I'm going to pull rank here (having the low membership number) and ask for peace!! As for the M10 armour thickness there is a point: side and rear armour seems to be 50% of the M4 (e.g. since we are used to seeing armour in mm: 23.5mm as opposed to 47mm). Front too..that does have weight and protection implications. I won't go into the physics but if the M4 has 100% more armour on the sides and 30-50% more armour on the front...that isn't trivial. You can go from not being able to stop a door knocker to being able to stop one and having much better odds against a 50mm (at least based on the side increase). We should ask if the TDs were ever used in an offensive mode against German Armour - we know that German SPs were used in offensive modes and kinda didn't do so well. In the time of an offense , were the TDs shuffled off to the rear ready to react or what would be done if artillery wasn't available and there were heavily armoured Panzers sitting there (NOT on the offensive) to oppose the offensives? The counterpunch can work but I assume the idea isn't to counter punch head on into an attack but to rather make favorable jabs at the flanks and possibly rear areas - cause losses and then withdraw (or if you sense winning big go for it)...in that sense it could be better than just sliding forces in front of the enemy becasue you will be facing their front. Incidentally if I remember correctly - Goodwood, the Germans did the TD doctrine, massing to destroy british armour from good ground etc....I guess however in the end their losses were about even? But is that heavily due to the Air attack before hand? which makes me wonder if their were huge carpet bombing attacks on the Allies, would the TDs come out better or in the case of Goodwood, would the germans have come out just as well if they used "lightly" armoured TDs (I say lightly with quotes because we are debating if the TDs are lightly armoured. Don't forget the spirit of the season! [ December 30, 2006, 08:49 PM: Message edited by: coe ]

hold on I do have to ask for an explanation - the german doctrine failed in the east despite that the Russians didn't have air superiority...1944 onwards they started to have a pretty good airpower but from what I do understand it didn't seem to hinder movement of reserves...we did see German counterattacks seem to do better in the East even in 1943-1944 in terms of more than a few miles of ground taken and loss ratios I think...thus something of the doctrine might have been working better there than in the West. here's one - TDs vs. T-44s, ISII and ISIIIs T-34/85s etc.