Tero
-
Posts
2,033 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Posts posted by Tero
-
-
Interesting pertinent parrallel discussion at:
-
Originally posted by Vanir Ausf B:
Anyway, Tero will have a fit when he finds out. I anticipate many long threads
Now, where did I put that paper bag again. I better stock up before I run out of them later on.
Thanks for the heads up. Can't say I am surprised.
-
Originally posted by JasonC:
That may make a difference.
That referred to the weekly figures per army. The total ETO figures stand. I'll post the weekly totals in a moment.
The former is rather more likely to be returned to service successfully.
This does not explain the presence of recovery teams in US armoured units.
That was the point of my comment that it isn't obvious, though it is possible, that US tanks got knocked out more each before total write off.
I read it backwards then.
The Bulge. But is this M4s with 75mm, or does it include the 76mm?
The number is ETO totals so all variants are included (for all I know).
The 2855 figure would be believeable to me as dead Sherman 75s, rather than dead Shermans.
Do you mean KO's or write offs ?
10 AD went into the line in early November, and 12 AD, 9 AD, and 11 AD entered combat in December.
Not quite what is inferred. The number represent all serviceable M4's in ETO as per unit strenght returns.
A quick look at
http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/documents/eto-ob/etoob-toc.htm
ORDER OF BATTLE OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY WORLD WAR II EUROPEAN THEATER OF OPERATIONS
revealed that:
9AD was assigned to the Ninth in 27 Aug 44 in ETOUSA Army Group. First in-country CP was at Ste-Marie-Du-Mont, Manche, France in 28 Sep 44.
10AD was assigned to the Ninth in 26 Aug 44 in ETOUSA Army Group. First in-country CP was at Cherbourg, Manche, France in 23 Sep 44
11AD was assigned to the Ninth in 26 Sep 44 in ETOUSA Army Group. First in-country CP was at Horst, Limburg, Netherlands in 3 Dec 44
12AD was assigned to UK Base in 7 Oct 44 in ETOUSA Army Group. First CP was at Tidworth Barracks, Wiltshire, England in 5 Oct 44. It was reassigned to the Ninth in 13 Nov 44. First in-country CP was at Auffay, Seine-Inferieure, France in 17 Nov 44. It was reassigned to the Seventh in 5 Dec 44. The CP was moved to Kirberg, Bas-Rhin, France in 5 Dec 44.
That should mean that all of them were issuing status reports to ETO CHQ well before Nov 20th.
Only 2nd and 3rd AD were in action then, along with the independent battalions supporting the infantry divisions. ADs 4-7 activated for Cobra or during it, from the end of July to mid August.
Again, not quite in line with the ETO totals. The 4th AD was in ETOUSA already in 18 Dec 43. I fail to see how they could have avoided giving status reports and strenght returns before they arrived in France in 13 Jul.
Only the first few days are in the previous - the attack began on the 16th of December.
Unfortunately the Germans failed to observe the US Army strenght return cycle.
So on these figures, tanks losses by the US in the Bulge, defensive and offensive phases, would only be around 650-750 Shermans.
What kind of operations were conducted from around Nov 20th until Dec 16th that would have cost the US Army 250 - 350+ tanks ?
Unless it is only the 75mm tanks;
Both 75 and 76 are included.
then the TDs and 76s between them might be equally numerous, and there would be my missing half of the losses, which might run 1300-1500 mediums, instead.
20 Nov-20 Dec 44 and 20 Dec 44-20 Jan 45 the TD write offs were 249.
That is the 9-12 ADs coming into the line, a 50% increase in fielded ADs.
But I just demostrated that their AFV's must have been in ETO strenght returns already earlier.
Some additional may reflect second line "stores" for those formations, too.
Where from ? Did the field units have parking lots filled with unused second hand tanks ?
As for TOE, most ADs were running 90% of TOE at the time of the Bulge, while the independent tank battalions were averaging more like 80%.
Total number of vehicles or serviceable vehicles ?
So they operate on the principle "if I don't have it anymore and once did, it is a loss", regardless of the cause.
From personal experience I know the military are VERY anal about lost equipment. I doubt they would be misplacing tanks without proper paperwork.
Which is not conventional wisdom, to put it mildly.
Would you say POW's should be included in the German losses when talking about infantry combat losses ?
I mean when you look at the other side's reports. A says "I got 100 B", and B says "I just lost 50".
Agreed. But then there are instances when A really did get 100 B while the B wrote off only 50. In the macro level that does not count but in a tactical situation the loss of 100 for a short time benefits A even if he knows B will be able to field 50 of them in the morning.
Apples must be compared to apples. Unless there are truly vast differences in repairability or reliability, and even then only if those two don't offset each other, will there be any net effect from killing the same thing twice, etc.
When talking about kill claims there is much controversy.
The first are tanks killed twice before they show up in total losses.
Yes. But they can show up in the kills twice.
The second are tanks killed never before they show up in total losses.
Assuming the opponent knows it broke down in the first place.
Total losses and total kills are still going to be close, because there are about as many 0s as 2s.
In a perfect world perhaps.
I do not rely on any forced conclusions about T-34s killed many times to arrive at this. I am not counting T-34s multiple times, any more than you are counting each Sherman multiple times.
But you are allowing German claims that may be multiple kills in the case of the T-34 but only single kills verifiable by US sources in case of the M4.
I suspect some sort of 75 vs all Sherman confusion is behind an undercount of dead tanks, here, and that the real figure with 76mms included is closer to the ~7K I expected.
I would like to see some pre and post total figures for M4's in ETO.
If I am wrong about that and the figures given reflect all US mediums lost, then the Americans did far better than conventional wisdom, including my own, says they did.
Calculating 53 tanks in a medium battalion with 3 battalions in a division the number of M4's in ETO should be around 2385 mediums in 15 armoured divisions by VE day.
With ~3000 written off they should have received ~3000 replacements. That is ~7000 vehicles. What happened to the 33000+ others ?
[ 10-24-2001: Message edited by: tero ]</p>
-
Originally posted by Michael emrys:
One thing that has not been factored in is the quantity of armor in the 7th. Army. I'm sure they had tanks and that they had some shot out from under them. But the post I began this thread with only accounts for the 1st., 3rd., and 9th. Armies.
Yes. I'm using the same source.
Then there is the armor in the French army.
And the British, the Canadian and the Polish armies.
-
EDIT: Important I just noticed the weekly figures are for M4(75) only. I'll post the total medium figures posthaste.
Originally posted by JasonC:
Nor is it obvious, though it is possible certainly, that American tanks got knocked out more each, before being written off.
A kill racked up by the Germans could well have been a penetrating hit that did not do any serious damage but it did make the crew bail out.
The Germans were the ones that kept anything still resembling a tank ("waste not"), and got tanks back into operation that the other major powers would have ditched.
I am not convinced this is true. For one there are no records available to show how many Allied tanks were shipped over as replacements after the break out from Normandy was effected.
The high mark of American M4's reported as available for combat was 4561 in 20 Dec 44-20 Jan 45. 20 Oct-20 Nov 44 there were only 2832 reported available for combat and in 20 Nov-20 Dec 44 the number rose to 4076. (The low mark was 20 Jun-20 Jul 44 with only 2093 available for combat.)
The average available number of M4's a month was 2901. With total losses of 2855 the turn over rate was 98,41 %.
The highest loss percentage was 20 Jul-20 Aug 44 when the losses amounted to 21,78 % (2557 available, 557 lost). During the Bulge (going by the monthly periods 20 Nov-20 Dec 44 with 4076 available and 495 lost and 20 Dec 44-20 Jan 45 with 4561 available and 585 lost) the total losses during the Bulge were 1080 but the loss percentage was "only" 12,49 (average with montly percentages of 12,14 and 12,83 respectively).
I do not know how many new amroured formations were deployed to ETO between the periods of 20 Oct-20 Nov 44 and 20 Nov-20 Dec 44 but the number of M4's available for combat rose by 1244 vehicles (by ~44%). If we count 53 M4's in a medium battalion that would make around 23 new full strenght medium battalions. Or most of the formations were running at 50% strenght all the time until 20th Nov. When was the US advance stopped again ?
I seem to remember that at some point the ETO was in jeopardy of running dangerously low on serviceable medium tanks. Go figure.
The US types also burned more easily, and were more often penetrated catastrophically rather than marginally.
I saw a stat on that not long ago in a board somewhere but for the life of me I can not remember where. Anyway the stat showed that not all M4's KO'd by Pzfaust or Pzschreck had burned. The figure was suprisingly low.
And actually, the real figure is usually more like 1, because for every tank KOed twice there is one that breaks down mechanically without being KOed.
How will that broken down be listed in the stats ?
Also on the other side, the losses to PAK, AT mines, and fausts were high on the attacking US side, probably far higher than losses to US arty or air (the last is vastly overstated in Allied claims, and clearly a small factor for tanks themselves in German records. Trucks and such were another story there, of course).
That does not make them any less KO'd or written off. This is the distiction that has to be made when looking at the statistical figures.
If the US losses of mediums are really only ~3500 through the Bulge, then claims of high kill ratios per tank, by the Germans, just can't hold up.
Are the German claims made on battle by battle basis and not by the big sweeps you prefer to use ?
If to support such claims one has to trot out how many Stuarts (were killed by Panthers?) just to get the results up near 4 to 3 - ignoring the late war when it is probably worse - the stretch taffy is getting pretty thin.
Can you give the breakdown of the German AFV losses you use ? That would resolve if there were any "secondary" AFV's counted in the German list.
If they didn't kill anything like 7500-10000 US mediums, then they didn't score 2-3 to 1 against US Shermans, even though the Shermans were a weaker tank technically. If true, that is news.
You are in a pit here. You accept the German 3 T-34 for 1 German tank without any regard to the fact that any number of the T-34's could have been recovered and used again (which they IRL did) and killed again (which did happen). Then you disregard any other German kill against the Sherman and stick to the number of actual write offs. Nearly 50% of all written off US AFV's were M4's. The recovery units in US armoured formations did exists. What did they do if they were not recovering battle damaged tanks ? These recovery formations were sustaining losses themselves when the Germans were retreating. Did they lead the units into mined roads ?
In the week in question in the figures you gave - which is the week of Cobra, the end of July - US 3rd Army was activated.
You choose not to disclose which units exactly were transferred from 1st Army to the 3rd Army. Why ?
Were all the armoured units in the 3rd Army ex-1st army ?
1st army:
6 Jun-1 Jul 1944, operational 764, lost 187 (24%)
2-8 Jul 1944, operational 867, lost 21 (2,5%)
9-15 Jul 1944, operational 913, lost 75 (8%)
16-22 Jul 1944, operational 1102, lost 33 (3%)
23-29 Jul 1944, operational 748, lost 79 (10,5%)
30 Jul-5 Aug 1944 operational, 656, lost 68 (10%)
6-12 Aug 1944, operational 580, lost 76 (13%)
13-19 Aug 1944, operational 808, lost 39 (5%)
20-26 Aug 1944, operational 865, lost 19 (2%)
27 Aug-2 Sep 1944, operational 865, lost 35 (4%)
3rd Army:
1-11 Aug 1944, operational 301, lost 35 (11%).
12-18 Aug 1944, operational 794, lost 101 (13%).
19-26 Aug 1944 operational 782, lost 48 (6%)
27 Aug-2 Sep 1944, operational 780, lost 37 (5%)
3-9 Sep 1944, operational 614, lost 2 (0,3%)
9th Army
9-16 Sep 1944, operational 94, lost 2
17-20 Sep 1944, operational 94, lost 0
21-28 Sep 1944, operational 40, lost 0
29 Sep-5 Oct 1944, operational 79, lost 0
6-12 Oct 1944, operational 84, lost 0
13-20 Oct 1944, operational 81, lost 0
21-28 Oct 1944, operational 319, lost 19 (6%)
If all these big changes in the numbers of operational M4's can be explained with troop transfers then somebody better start explaining where did all those 1244 extra Shermans appear from in Nov 20th to the ETO figure.
[ 10-24-2001: Message edited by: tero ]</p>
-
Originally posted by tss:
Well, for example, Finns had 19 Stugs at Kuuterselkä. Of those, 4 (21%) had to retreat because of gun troubles. One got a gun hit, loading mechanism malfunctioned in one, and two lost aiming mechanisms.
IIRC of these only the actual gun hit was AFV vs AFV related. The aiming mechanisms were damaged when enemy infantry tossed grenades on the vehicles.
BTW: has anybody come across any stats on misfires and/or other ammo related gun troubles like tube detonations ? In artillery that was common enough to warrant procedures to clear the ammo from the gun chamber. I would think the 5sec wait in an AFV would be a tense one.
-
Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:
Well, the Finns probably could, you know...
Every überFinn knows you can foul the running gear with sawdust.
-
Originally posted by Spook:
All of the above is given with some speculation, because again, I haven't confirmed yet. But I think it timely to mention it here in this topic, if someone else has seen this behavior, and to discuss if future CM versions will rectify this.
I have seen it and regarded it as a normal CM phenomenon.
If done properly there should be a separate Adjust command which appears after the FO has given a Target command and the fire for effect has started. And the barrage should be limited to a preselect number of rounds. That way any gamey uses of the Adjust command could be avoided as each fire mission would be a limited, separate entity. Firing on a previous target should get benefits of course.
The current absolute target spot with too limited margins for adjustment is a bit too restrictive in a world of abstractions and approximations.
[ 10-23-2001: Message edited by: tero ]</p>
-
Originally posted by JasonC:
A typical Russian infantry division did not lack tubes, but the main Russian type was a 76mm gun, which leaves something to be desired in oomph.
Compared to the 120mm mortar yes. But it made up for some of this in range. And in direct fire mode it was at least as nasty as the 45mm AT gun.
Many of those 76mm batteries - 2/3rds of div arty - fired direct on targets they could see, for lack of the equipment and training to use indirect fire effectively.
It was also SOP prior to Barbarossa.
But did so to an operational plan, instead of reacting flexibly to the needs of subordinate units as they arose.
They tried to force the enemy to play their game instead of playing the game according to the enemys rules. Fail or succeed, the result was in most cases, if not always, spectacular.
Later, the Russians used higher level artillery formations for that sort of massed fire. But did so to an operational plan, instead of reacting flexibly to the needs of subordinate units as they arose. The sub units had their "assigned" support, and it was about as much as anybody else could count on, as "assigned". They just didn't "cross over" as much. That German and western trick got more out of each gun, letting it support several units, in effect, as long as their tactical needs happened in sequence instead of all at once.
In other words the Red Army used artillery in a more focused way.
-
Originally posted by Slapdragon:
I agree with regards toi a retarget from one shot that is in LOS to anotrher shot that is in LOS, but not for out of LOS-shots. Here the FO is firing based upon passed information or sounds, or dust clouds, or even the map and intuition. Since the rounds cannot be seen to be called, the process would naturally take longer to assure a safety factor.
You are mixing things here. Directing fire is one thing, call it in is another. Once you have given the coordinates for the initial fire mission and it takes X minutes to start falling the direction bit is simple "XXX meters to here/there, XXX meters up/down. That is irrespective of the LOS to the actual target area and realistically it should not take that long to adjust it if the adjustments do not require any recalculation or large motions of the gun.
In fact out of LOS shots may be to easy to do now.
I'd like to see no spotting rounds for the out of LOS fire as it is pointless. But there could be more uncertainty in the impact position. But again directing it should not be affected.
-
<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by RMC:
Is going hulldown will one really self-defeating?
This is right up Jason's statistical alley. Does the reduction in hit chance out weight the guaranteed turret hit or is the overall chance of being killed lower with the hull exposed?<hr></blockquote>
Cross section targeting.
-
Originally posted by JasonC:
Most of the tanks the Germans listed as "long term repair" would have been called total losses in any other army (except the Finns).
Beggars can't be choosers. Waste not, want not.
The entire Finnish WWII armoured force was built around repaired captured Red Army tanks and a few Vickers 6tons (which were renamed T-26E and armed with guns from those Soviet BT's which could not be salvaged before our troops had to pull back or which could not be repaired to running condition). There were all in all over 144 ex-Soviet tanks in the Finnish inventory.
Only 8 Finnish Stugs were lost to the enemy, all the damaged vehciles that had to be salvaged were taken back. After the war they served until 1966 as runners and after that into the late -80's as static gun emplacements. A sizable portion of the worlds Stug-III runners are ex Finnish Army vehicles.
There were 10 T-26's repaired to more or less running conditions (one was powered with IIRC a Ford motor and a few were towed behind by those who could run under their own power) for the movie Winter War.
The other nations were not that hard up for parts, or tanks.
Our airforce had to keep in the air Soviet, British, American, French, German and Italian aircraft.
If you read accounts of particular fights, you find lots of tanks "blow up by crew" after they ran over an AT mine, etc. Everybody else would just list what caused the bail out.
There is a real diffrence. The self-destruction was a part of their SOP. In case the crew had to abandon the vehicles and there was no way to salvage it they were under orders to demolish it.
But the incredible things are less in evidence in the relative performance implied by the US loss numbers, if those are accurate. I'm not sure they are, but they are saying something that is not conventional wisdom.
The "problem" here is the fact that the numbers represent write offs reported up the chain of command.
An example (source Rick Andersons XLS sheet on weekly losses):
1st army, M4(75's)
9-15 Jul 1944, 7 days, 913 available, 75 reported lost
16-22 Jul 1944, 7 days, 1 102 available, 33 reported lost
From previous period the number of available rose 189 vehicles
23-29 Jul 1944 7 days, 748 available, 79 reported lost
From previous period the number of available fell 354 vehicles.
The total number of vehicles reported lost during those 3 weeks was only 187.
Disregarding any large formation transfers out of the 1st army during that period there were clearly vehicles "in the system" that were neither available for duty nor were they write offs.
The daily in's and outs of combat do not show but at the weekly level it can clearly be seen that things were not all hunky-dory for the US tankers.
This kind of fluctuation would explain the "inflated" German kill claims that are not supported by official US Army loss reports.
If the US only lost 2850 Shermans in the same period, even allowing for TD losses too, the overall loss ratio would be around 1:1.
Hmmmmmmm..... in addition to those 2 855 (the number as of May 12th 1945 was 3 139) there were:
M4(105) total write offs 124, TD (M10, M18, M36) 631, light tank (M5, Chaffee) 1 069, M8 AC 672, M20 AC 364, M8 AG 175, M7 SP 182, M32 recovery 114 (interestingly most of the M32 losses were sustained when the US Army was on the move ie. after the break out and again during the Bulge).
Your premise also disregards the facts that nearly all the German vehicles were write offs while the US losses were not all write offs.
And if the US only lost 500 more Shermans in the rest of the war, then the loss ratio for that part was probably above 1:1.
The write-off ratio can well be close to 1:1 but I think it is safe to say the kill ratio was in favour of the Germans.
This is not the usual picture of vastly superior armor worn down by overwhelming numbers despite much higher kills. That might be true enough against the Russians, but it won't fit the loss totals given above. Either there is something wrong with those numbers (they are leaving something out e.g.), or somebody has been projecting things that were true vs. T-34s, and may have been true through Goodwood for the Brits for all I know, onto the American case.
I think it is more a case of drawing conclusions from data compiled after the war and which was never toutched again when Cold War set in and all things American just had to be better than all things Soviet. Including the war record.
That is why German sources on the war were accepted at face value as they invariably spoke highly of the Americans while they painted a belitteling picture of hordes of formidable Soviet masses of tanks and infantry. It could be concluded that since we (the Americans) beat the Germans singehandedly all our stuff was better than the Soviet stuff since we had the irrevocable statistical proof.
See, if the Americans were doing no better than the Russians, you'd expect that loss figure to read 10,000 tanks.
Indeed. But how many were written off and how many were KO'd and repaired ? The total US AFV write off's were 6 470 (for the M4 3 263 alone) so how many were KO'd in combat and returned to active duty ?
It also lost only the same number.
Of that one type. The other AFV types do not count ?
If the loss figure is right, then US armor did rather remarkably well, not with "a few tanks" (like the Germans in Russia), but with "cheap" ones.
Hmmmmmm..... did the US armour face the German armour alone and kill ALL the German AFV's in the west ?
[ 10-23-2001: Message edited by: tero ]</p>
-
Originally posted by Michael emrys:
Generally speaking, it is as you say, mainly a matter of the caliber of the firing battery, with the smaller stuff having a smaller CEP and being faster responding. But something else to look out for is whether you are moving the targetting point to a location where the FO does not have an LOS. That will effectively double the response time.
However I find it extremely ridiculous and frustrating to incur a 2 minute retargeting penalty for moving the hot spot some distance from the original targeting spot which has already been fired on. Say, 100 meters to the west.
I can understand a shift from one edge of the map to another in a 3000 pt game with a wide map but 100 meters from a target which has already been fired on for crying out loud. For that you do NOT have to turn the guns around 359º, only turn the wheel a turn or so (depending on the range of course).
Yes, I am an arty puke.
-
Originally posted by Triumvir:
Are you guys serious? Two exercises in six months? Alas for the uberfinn...
I think those two exercises mean two one week field exercises in special sites. There are a lot of "in house" (=1 day) small unit tactical excersises conducted in the garrison grounds (most garrisons have adjacent training grounds).
I do concede the age to you uber-finns, though; to serve till sixty is a long, long time. My term runs out when I'm forty five.
We are only ~5 million so to keep up the numbers we need every swinging dick we can muster if the feces hits the ventilation. It will wreck our economy but what the heck, it is in ruins already so what do we have to lose ?
-
They are good infantry support tanks. Let the AI do the targeting unless you see a priority target (MG, mortar).
When using them to support infantry advances it is imperative you preceed with infantry well ahead of them. The infantry can absorb punishment better and they do the spotting.
BTW: I do not know if this has been reported before: a regular PBEM opponent of mine have found out that there is a low-LOS spotting anomaly that lets your units spot the opponent units better if it is the infantry unit who acquires the target first. The other way around the infantry unit will not benefit from the armour absolute spotting. We have observed several instances when an infantry unit can not spot/target an enemy tank eventhough a friendly tank has spotted and targeted it.
In general: keep them well back with good field of fire, cover the flanks though. If contact with armour is imminent do NOT target with the main gun unless it is a do or die situation. I personally try to have at least one platoon covering one PzKw-IV.
Pairing them with pzschrecks is a good way to confuse enemy armoured tracking and targeting.
-
Originally posted by Affentitten:
I'm not disregarding it.
The remark was not directed at you personally.
Soembody above said that all armies in WW2 were conscript armies and that they always beat the regulars.
Not always (and not even exactly like that either
). Only when the odds were not decisively in favour of the armies based on small scale pre-war professional army backed up by a limited reserve of volunteers.I cited Australia as proof against.
Hmmmmmmmm......
When did Australian troops enter the fray in serious numbers in earnest ? IIRC not before 1941-42. By then the British (Commonwealth) Army had started mounting up the odds after they had barely survived the initial reverses.
If this is the case then you have actually proven my point.
The army doesn't want it, the politicians don't want it and neither does the public.
The army does not want people in who think for themselves, the politicians want what gets them elected in the next election and the public can not have it both ways: not having anything to do with it AND getting maximum protection against the world ?
-
Originally posted by Jarmo:
Yeah. My viewpoint is certainly affected by me serving in an island garrison...
Isosaari sucked.
Something like 9 out of 10 choose the easy/short way, the armed service.
Of these 9 I'd say ~7 do not even consider the other two options as options.
Actually, the only purely volunteers (in addition to the staff officers) in finnish army are the women.
The first case of female conscript NCO misconduct (bullying) was reported recently. Why am I not surprised ?
(OK, I am married with children. But still
)A permanent professional army is being considered for finland, but I don' think that'd be to replace the conscription system.
They bloody politicians think that if we were a part of NATO we'd get all the help we need if the Russians decided to invade us. As if !
I believe about 95% of finns would opt for the civilian service if there'd be a chance of conscripts being sent to war in Afganistan or some other such place.
Agreed.
The strongest point in favour of conscription has been the fact that our army is an defence force with the sole mission and purpose of defending Finland.
-
Originally posted by Juha Keratar:
"On maamme köydä ja siksi jää"
Our country is poor, hence the ice.
I bet that if I had been ie. driver or medic, I would have spent a lot more time drinking pepsi and eating doughnuts though.
When I served the most "demoralized" people were the ones who had nothing meaningful to do.
-
Originally posted by Jarmo:
Getting paid doesn't make you a better soldier. Training does.
True. But is the training the conscripts get always inferior to the training the professionals get ?
In finland, the mandatory service period has been shortened to 6 months for a regular infantryman.
It used to be 8 months (I myself did 11 months). The cut was made due to budget and the lack of meaningful service.
Of this, maybe a couple of months are spent actually training.
Which is actually 30-50% of the 6 month service. Sounds a bit different if you say it in this way.
You should perhaps tell the "official" curriculum to the others before going general as the system is not known to the foreigners.
The year 2000 edition of the Taistelijan Käsikirja (Warriors manual) states that basic training is 8 weeks and it is the same to all. After this the curriculum gets separated according to the "line": The shortest (180 days) is Combat Infantry specialist training is 9 weeks followed by 9 weeks of "unit training" aimed at reaching some proficiency in acting as a part of a unit. After that they get discharged. Other specialist serve 270 days and they receive up to 35 weeks of specialist training. The reservist NCO training takes 16 weeks, the reservist officer training takes 21 weeks. This is followed by 23-28 weeks of service as a troop leader during the basic training period of the next batch of conscipts. The last 9 weeks is unit training. The leaders serve 362 days.
Of the remaining time, most is spent in the cafeteria eating doughnuts and drinking Pepsi.
At least you guys got most of the weekends off. In my time it was 2 out 1 in. At best.
Did you get to seit in the cafeteria all they long, without any service whatsoever ? Where did you serve ?
Then there is some marching.
Which is mentioned in the curriculum as being a part of the PT programme.
During my 285 day service, we went parade marching about 50 times. Combat training in the forest about 5 times.
Parade march how many hours at a time ? Combat training : hours, days, weeks ?
Shooting two times.
How many shots ?
Does this include dummy, non-live ammo ?
This because of budget cuts, marching is free, the rest costs extra.
Marching is also a form of PT. Luckily the Finnish army sargeants do not march up and down the square like they depict the British army sargeants in that Monthy Python movie.
On the contrast, most(?) of the finnish professionals (the officers) spend their time eating doughnuts and drinking vodka. Twenty years of that don't make them much better than conscripts. They are more likely to get a heart attack, but that doesnt really help.
Concur. But in all fairness I have to say that the standing army cadre is only what, 5 -10 000 men (of them I dare say not all are drunks) while the fully mobilized army can reach from 300 000 to 500 000 men. Most of these will be older reservists who will also be highly motivated in their quest to defend the country. You will stay in the reserve until you are 60 years old.
BTW: have you seen the latest NATO poll ? Only 16% support joining NATO, the number used to be higher.
My point of view is that training makes a difference. Getting paid does not. And the training has to be combat training, closely resembling actual combat situations.
So, was the training you received like that or not ?
[ 10-22-2001: Message edited by: tero ]
-
Originally posted by JasonC:
The Japanese were hopelessly outmatched in every respect. They made up for it somewhat in the depth of their bunkers and caves, and the relative lack of cover for men above ground on many of the Pacific islands also helped. But they still suffered a colonial era loss ratio of 10:1 against. It wasn't tanks that did that, either, it was overwhelming fire support.
True. But they did try such expedients as AT bamboo poles. What if they had had proper stand off weapons ?
As for unknown cause kills, there is no reason to expect them to break out particularly different from the known ones. You can prorate them over the known causes, of course remembering there is some room for error in all such measures.
Lie, damned lie, statistic.
As for multiple kill awards, they are possible sure, but all kills are rare enough (for the number of weapons fielded, or men trying, etc) that the excess is probably quite small.
I have seen a picture of a German soldier with 4 kill emblems in his sleeve. The caption stating the they denoted 20 kills.
If one person in your platoon got one, in the whole war and including all its personnel turnover, that was par for the course.
Agreed. But how many kills went unrecorded and unrewarded ? From the Panzerfaust site figures we can extrapolate certain things, like the saturation of these weapons in the German front line units. From other source we can get the numbers of AFV's and AT guns in the region and we know roughly how many German AT guns and AFV's were lost during that period of time. With a 35% margin I would venture to say that statistically the chance of them being attributable to infantry stand off AT weapons would be greater than AT guns/AFV's. Given the type of operations being conducted in the region (ie huge Red Army break through attacks followed by exploitation and German retreat).
The rate seen in early 1944 is low enough it leaves plenty of room to jump in the last year of the war and still reflect only one KO per award.
What does your source state about the awards exactly ?
And it is just as likely that 2-3 people got an award together for killing (or overkilling and both claiming) a tank, as that many of the awardees ran up large scores.
I think not. I think it was nothing like the airforce kill claims where all the men in the area claimed a kill when they saw one buy it.
-
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Jeff Duquette:
Tero, I dont follow the significance of the timing here between incident and meeting?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
I was thinking more about the date of the actual doctrinal change and the meeting itself vis-a-vis the Barbarossa debacle and the Red Army improvement of artillery doctrine which supposedly took place at a later date.
The Red Army was implementing doctrinal changes at a time when it was supposed to have been at the very lowest water mark of its development history. The doctrine was implemented into front line troops re-training already in December 1939/January 1940.
Makes you wonder how slow to respond and mechanic the Red Army artillery really was in action and how much of it was just higher echelon red tape, like the interference of the comissars.
In the beginning of Winter War the barrages were truly inept, mostly fired using map spotting with preselected and enforced target areas and strict second-by-second schedules.
I think it is quite important to take notice how rapidly the Red Army artillery was able to snap out of the mechanic doctrinal routines and start using viable methods. The change during Winter War took effect in just over a month. In that time the force commander was replaced but I doubt they changed the entire officer corps and all the men in the formations. The initial assault stalled in December and the new assault begun in early February.
In CMBB terms: should there be a difference in the Red Army artillery proficiency depending on the rating of the overall commander of the force or that section of the front as it is supposed to be dependant on the timeperiod ?
[ 10-20-2001: Message edited by: tero ]
-
Originally posted by JasonC:
Yet infantry AT got relatively few kills, compared to AFVs and towed guns. In periods for which there is data, you see figures like 100 per month by infantry AT for the whole Russian front, at a time when overall Russian tank losses were running 100 per day.
Looking at the total kills/cause known figures in the site you mentioned you leave out the rather pertinent fact that full 35% of the kills can be attributed to "causes unknown". The high mark was ~50% of the kills attributed to causes unknown.
The Finnish analysts calculated during the war that to kill a tank you had to plant 1 000 (one thousand) AT mines. And even then it was theoretical because most of the time you had to rely on the laws of statictics.
The Germans issued something like 16,000 tank killer awards, enough to account for ~7% of Allied tank losses.
Care to ellaborate: did one kill mark equal one kill ? Or were these awards awarded to 16 000 indidual men ? Were there any provision for a kill mark for men who killed more than one tank ? Are these multiple kill awards figured in in the total number of awards given ?
It wasn't the AT weapons that were scarce, it was opportunities to get close enough to use them, without getting killed first.
Or getting killed after making the kill.
If the Japanese had had these the USMC would have been hard pressed to use its armour in close support.
-
Originally posted by Jeff Duquette:
see at least one of your references indicating Red Army tanks following along behind a creeping\rolling barrage.
I hope you took a special notice about the date of the meeting. The incident described happend a few months before the meeting. IIRC in mid-February 1940.
Have you come across other examples?
There are several instances described in Finnish histories, especially in those written about the summer assault of 1944.
There are were also numerous instances of small scale applications during the static phase when it was apparently rehearsed in small scale raids and POW snatching missions.
I'm sure there are references to that in Valeras site in the first hand account war stories section.
[ 10-20-2001: Message edited by: tero ]
-
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by argie:
I'm the living proof that conscription worths nothing
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Well, we speak Finnish here in Finland today thanks to conscription.
The last war our army fought was NOT against Sweden over the outcome of the icehockey world championship or the traditional yearly athletics match.
American Armor Production Numbers
in Combat Mission Archive #3 (2001)
Posted
Originally posted by Michael emrys:
I wonder if in our discussion of numbers we may be overlooking Shermans taken and modified to other uses, either as funnies, ARVs and other engineering purposes, and Priests. Or are those simply accounted for in a completely separate way?
Can't be told from the source. That only lists straight combat models and their availability and losses.
Another problem is the assumption that tank battalions in US armored divisions were pure Shermans. But isn't it the case that each AD battalion contained a company of Stuarts?
Yes. But the text book number of M4's in a battalion was 53.
http://www.britwar.co.uk/salts/salt3.htm
[ 10-25-2001: Message edited by: tero ]</p>