Tero
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Posts posted by Tero
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<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Juha Ahoniemi:
I don't think so. Finland purchased a few Landsverk Anti flak vehiches (one is at armor museum of Parola quite near my home)from Sweden, and they were only AFVs from there AFAIK.
Juha<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Then there was that single armoured car. Can't remember the designation right now.
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Originally posted by bfamily33:
and also procured, without the Russian's consent, quite a few T-26s.
Procured ? I quess that is one way of putting it.
They were tresspassing and all violators were prosecuted. Some were found quilty and unable to pay the fines their vehicles were reposessed or remanded to the Finnish army.
[ 10-13-2001: Message edited by: tero ]
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<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Pak40:
I think this is not a bug. The reduction in firepower is because there are no belt feeders for the Heavy SMG squad, but the SS Motorized Squad has enough men to have riflemen act as belt feeders thereby increasing the MG42's firepower to full strength.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
What about the saddle drums which require no feeder ?
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Originally posted by Vanir Ausf B:
The exact opposite is true. Turretless vehicles are more effective in CM than in real life because they can all rotate in place, partially negating the penalty of having no turret.
Yes. Only I think the rotation was done to compensate for no veering to the side while on the move. Or was it the fact that Tiger was used IRL like a Stug to compensate for slow turret, I forget.
Anyway, you still can not make them take a hull down position in the same way the turret tanks.
Also, the German TDs with highly sloped frontal armor (Hetzer and JPz IV/70, mainly) are underpriced for their effectiveness.
That's 2 out of how many thin skinned or non-sloped armour models in the game ?
To me, this seems to "culminate the undelying tech-spec and TacAI currents" which would seem to point towards pro-German bias
Only if the hull down sloped armour TD defeats a 37mm round at 1000 meters in 100% of the cases.
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Originally posted by aka_tom_w:
that ALL the stats and historical data prove that the tanks and units in CMBO are ALL modeled without ANY bias.
All the technical stuff seems to be in line.
By and large the game is OK, should I venture to say even great. Anyways the best game in the market. (No, I have not been assimilated.
)But there are some vehicles which seem to culminate the undelying tech-spec and TacAI currents which would seem to point towards pro-Allied bias, like the M5 light tank and any of the Allied AC's with 37mm or 2prd gun. Going up against them with a PzKw-IV is more of a hazard than going up against a Chaffee.
There are these precious Kodak-moments when the illusion is shattered by a convergence when the planets line up during an eclipse and as a result a 37mm gun gets a frontal penetration and KO's a Tiger at 750 meters.
Technically it may be possible but it just plain feels wrong. OK, I know: for the player all the games are cumulative but for the game engine each game is unique. But in all fairness all the battles were cumulative to the men who went through them. And all the sources I have read indicate that the M5 light tank was ill-suited to go deliberately against a Tiger, frontally even more so.
Also, there is a definitive bias against non-turreted tanks and AT vehicles. Low silhouette does not count when the terrain tile size designed to suit the turreted tanks (?) prevents effective hull down positioning by the player. The Allies are not much affected by this because their inventory is predominantly turreted vehicles.
Then there are the bunkers and pillboxes, which are only available to the Germans. When playing as Germans I usually opt for plain AT guns or plain HMG's. This is because the bunkers and pillboxes get spotted and killed way too easily. And they give out sound contacts which reveal their location too accurately (this neat "feature" won me a PBEM game once when playing as English against the Germans).
this evenly balanced and historical accurate simulation.
With all the approximations and abstractions I'd rather call it a tactical level wargame than a combat simulation.
As for evenly balanced..... lets just say the designers say the key to realism is playing with green troops. How many of the players opt to choose green vs veterans or elite in a QB ?
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<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Madmatt:
Rob, don't quote us please...I get all itchy when YOU quote us.
By the way, specific plane types are not modeled in CMBO. We never said wheter or not they would be in CMBB.
Don't assume so much my young apprentice...
Madmatt<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Didn't it go at some point something like: "the rockets are out, the bombs are in ?", sensei
That would not exlude different models of AC, only different weaponsystems carried by then (not necessarily excluding heavier guns/cannons
). But that remark was made quite some time ago so at the rate things change.... :cool:
[ 10-11-2001: Message edited by: tero ]
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Originally posted by rexford:
6-12 shots per kill at 1000m-1500m for 75L46 ATG looks consistent with 88 Flak report.
Agreed.
BTW: what is also missing the number of hits. You could hit the target several times without actually killing it. They might get the first hit with the 3rd shot but kill the target with the 12th shot.
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Some options I did not spot:
Reconnoiter and identify: a limited recce mission with the sole purpose of identifying enemy assets in the area. Friendly casualties to be avoided.
Recce by force: a swift and short strike into enemy held territory to reconnoiter enemy positions and assets. Inflicting casualties to the enemy is a bonus but not a must.
Spoiling attack: a swift hit on detected enemy positions to cause casualties and delays in enemy plans. Grabbing some terrain features for a short period and then pulling out can be also done.
Assorted:
- Pursuit: keep in contact with the enemy force.
- Break contact
- Decoy: lure the enemy into a trap
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Originally posted by Scipio:
6-12 shots on a distances of 1000-1500m were necessary to shot down an enemy tank.
Did it list any figures for distances under 1000m ?
The 7,5AT-gun97/38 needed double so much!
That was propably due to the fact that the AP shot with the 97/38 had a mean recoil. The undercarriage was the same as was used for the 50mm PAK38 and it was prone to be damaged under stress. IIRC the Germans called it the Mustang.
Finnish 75mm 97/38 gunners were instructed to use HEAT instead of AP as it was effective enough at average combat ranges (15 - 1000 meters) and the recoil was not as violent.
So much about 'guns are not accurate enough in CM' (mea culpa). It seems they are still to accurate.
That applies only to tanks with fast turrets and stabilizers while firing on the move.
The average combat range in CM is well below 1000 meters.
AT guns do not get any concealment/ambush bonuses in targeting.
AT guns expose themselves too eagerly to trivial infantry targets.
And here are some casualty stats:
in 1943 7334 ATG40 were produced, 2332 destroyed
in 1944 10937 were produced, 7579 destroyed
Interesting. Thank you. I'm sure I can use this info elsewhere.
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>All the Germans have going for them, in fact, is superior doctrine, emphasizing combined arms and operational maneuver - not infantry support all along the line in penny packets, -nor- independent cavalry action by pure tanks.
Agreed.
>It is superior to it in gun and armor duel specs. It penetrates more armor plate at every range, by 10-15%. It will penetrate any front surface of the original (not uparmored) Pz III out to 1000 yards. While the 50L42 can't penetrate any portion of the far thicker hulled Matilda - front, side, rear, point-blank, PzGr 40 special AP ammo, you name it.
Again, why pick the Matilda ? All non-CS tanks in the British inventory were armed with the 2prd but not all tanks in the inventory were Matildas.
>the difference between a Matilda and an early Pz III is greater, in favor of the Matilda, than the difference between a Tiger I and a vanilla Sherman 75mm.
Yes. But how many Matildas were there deployed in BEF or 8th Army compared to A9 or A10's ? And how many PzKw-III's were there in the German inventory in France or North Africa ?
>Earth to tero again. They did. In less than a year.
Earth to Jason: you start counting the German up-gunning from 1939-40. The Sherman saw action the first time in 1942 while the 76mm gun was installed in 1944. I count two years for the Sherman up-gunning. And the Shermans did not get the tunsten ammo through the regular channels because of the prevailing TD doctrine.
>The US fielded 8000 Sherman 76s and provided 3000 more in lend-lease.
Out of a production run of how many vehicles ?
>On top of the 9200 TDs with 76mm or 90mm.
What is that supposed to prove ?
>The total number of German tanks capable of stopping a short 75 round from the front, sent against the west, was less than 3000. Including the ones sent against the Brits.
The number of Allied armour capable of stopping the 75L48 round was how many ? Including the ones sent encountered in the East.
>I can hear it now "but some tankers still had the old guns".
The Finnish army was still employing guns from the 19th century.
>And a year after the long 75 was fielded - which was already 2 years after the Matildas had shown up at Sedan, making 3 years all told - 1/3rd of the German tankers rode into Kursk with 50L60, 75L24, or 50L42 guns.
That seems to cover the PzKw-III which could not take the 75L43/48 in the turret. So ? Could the Sherman take a 50L42 or 50L60 round in the nose without any fears of being penetrated ?
>Nope, still incapable of hearing a rational argument to save your life, it seems.
Still incapable of bearing the thought that you might be wrong, it seems.
>The Germans were the ones with the inferior tanks in the first half of the war.
Myopia setting in ? Please name all the Allied models with numbers in service. Please name all the German models with numbers available. Please point out the Allied models that were clearly superior to the German models.
>It was not tank tech specs that stepped into the picture, it was doctrine. Superior doctrine, not tech specs, was decisive in the first half of the war, when the Germans were winning. Tech specs were against them, but that didn't matter.
So you keep saying. But how many times did the tanks clash in the west and how many times were the Germans up **** creek ? I can think of Sedan. Any other large scale engagements that were won due to doctrine alone ? Can you make these sweeping conclusion based on one engagement only ?
>And in the second half of the war, it was numbers.
Yes.
>doctrine was mostly neutral.
If that was true then it should follow that when two forces of equal numbers with equal weight of fire collide the outcome could go either way. Can you name any such engagement when an Allied force came on top in this kind of scenario ?
>Thus the tech dominance fallacy can be clearly seen. The Germans conquered Europe in Panzer IIIs in every gun-armor sense inferior to the AFVs they faced. ..... The side with the worse tanks won in both halves of the war.
These sweeping generalizations do not hold water.
>Having better tanks did not save the early war Allies from the effects of better German doctrine. And having better tanks did not save the late war Germans from the effects of superior Allied numbers.
At the startegic level this is true.
>"logictics did not play as big a part when talking about combat. Each unit had a basic load of supplies that carried it through a period of time."
This is a complete misunderstanding of the importance of logistics in warfare, and especially of their dominant role in attrition strategy warfare.
In tactical level combat a unit is able to sustain itself for a period of time without resupply. When talking about the strategic level you are correct, the logistics matter a great deal. When talking about the tactical level the role of logistics is not that pronounced.
>A side that can fire 20,000 artillery rounds per day at an enemy that can only reply with 2,000, is going to win. It is just a matter of time, of how long it takes the excess tonnage being blasted at the enemy to wear down his formations, reduce divisions to battalion KGs, and make it impossible for the remnants to hold the line.
Yes. The big question determined at the tactical level is timeframe. This was clearly demonstrated in Winter War. At the tactical level those 20 000 artillery shells were shot randomly while the 2 000 rounds were fired with precision. In the end the Finns had to yield but not totally and unconditionally.
>And it most certainly can and does win wars.
I am not contesting this.
>I don't see that there is much to debate. They are comparable vehicles, with the edge to the German ones, .... In gun and armor terms, they are roughly equal vehicles with the edge to the German types. The T-34/85 could KO either at longer range, and in pure gun and armor terms is probably superior. But the T-34/76 was not.
But were the German models superior ? A matter of sematics but you seem so big on using it I would rather you used the term consistently.
>Boy you are being dense here.
No, just pushing your buttons by asking questions in a futile effort to make you see POV's other than your own.
>Of course doctrine and numbers matter, that is the whole bleeding point. They matter far more than the minutae of technical AFV specs.
First you refuse any and all arguments pertaining tactical level that undermine your strategic level point (the fact that armour tech-spec had a fundamental effect on the tactics, doctrine and strategic level planning) and then you take tactical level aspects (doctrine and numbers while you choose to leave out the tech-spec inherently embedded in the doctrine) and use them to support your strategic level argument.
>No, JasonC, the guy you are debating at ridiculous length,
Infuriating, isn't it. Somebody has the audacity to match the lenght of your posts.
>as though you disagree with this proposition.
I do not disagree with it in its entirety.
>The faustpatrone is not the panzerfaust
Check your sources !
http://www.geocities.com/Augusta/8172/panzerfaust2.htm
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Other designations of this weapon were Faustpatrone 1 or Panzerfaust 30 klein; however, it was common to refer to this weapon simply as the Faustpatrone.
Initially designated Faustpatrone gross or Faustpatrone 2, this larger weapon quickly adopted the suggestive name Panzerfaust ("Tank-Fist") and the weapons with the larger warheads were henceforth commonly referred to under that name. The first direct successor model to the Fautpatrone klein was the Panzerfaust 30 m, developed to iron out the problems encountered during early trials with the
Faustpatrone klein, providing for sights - fixed at 30m (100 ft. ) range - and a change in the warhead's shape. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
>Why you think an AT weapon has to be man portable to be effective is one of those eternal mysteries.
For it to be a true infantry AT weapon it has to be man portable.
>The fact remains, as you agreed to with a "yes, but", that towed PAK are the principle AT weapons of infantry formations,
A point of order: the PAK's organic to the infantry formations at what level ?
>And the infantry weapons only became a significant portion of the overall weapon mix in about the last year of the war, when fausts were fielded in impressive numbers.
Depends what you call impressive.
>By then it was of course too late for that to matter very much;
In the strategic level, yes
>they helped infantry maintain its physical integrity on the battlefield.
In the tactical level, yes.
>But the PAK still remained the main infantry-formation tank killer, for the obvious reason, their vastly superior range.
The PAK could also get killed at those ranges.
>The proper comparison to PAK, anyway, are not fausts but tanks.
Looking from the POV of infantry this is not the case.
>It is much easier to bypass weapons with a range of 100-150 yards than to bypass weapons that will kill with accuracy at 1500 yards.
If this happens you have chosen poor defensive positions. Or the terrain does not favour defence against an armoured force and you need to find another location.
You are also disregarding such factors as artillery safety zones, blind angles of the AFV's etc. With PAK's these did not apply.
>All you have to do is site the latter with overlaping fields of fire. Which was the principle means of defending all infantry positions from tanks.
Not all defensive positions could be turned into a PAK front.
>If my sensors tell me where you are before yours do the same about me, I'll (1) hide for now and (2) drop a 120mm terminal IR homing HEAT mortar round onto your top armor, from 5km away, and from behind a hill.
Where did you get that ? You said you only had your sensors.
>You still don't seem to get it. I am arguing that the guys with the better armor often, or even usually, -lose-. This case fits that pattern to a tee.
What you have failed to do is define "win" and "lose".
>But you seem to have no idea of the position of the man you are arguing against, making me wonder why you are bothering to argue the point
I am just arguing that while valid in the macro level your thesis is not allencompassing and universally valid at all levels.
>(besides a native love of doing so that we obviously share - LOL).
I have not yet met a person who is not über-something or another.
>I am arguing armor grogginess is an almost singularly poor predictor of who will win, and that numbers and doctrine are far more important.
That is totally dependant on the level of engagement. At the strategic level your argument is true. At the tactical level it does not work.
It seems you work from the top down while I work from the bottom up.
>I'd call your example numbers and groggier tanks proving no match for superior doctrine and crew quality. The idea that the doctrine of Russian attacks in Finland were "state of the art" is, incidentally, laughable.
Do not discount the 1944 Red Army tactics and doctrine.
>But surely you would not put that case down to victory through superior gun and armor specs for the winning side's vehicles.
First off we'd need to define the term win and lose. And at what level it was acheived in the campaign.
>You call it better quality armor, but perhaps the quotation marks are meant to be some way of weaseling out of the conclusion.
No. It is still unclear what you accept as criteria when determining the superiority of an AFV.
>Uberfinns will not save you. Uberfinns did not win because they had King Tigers against 75mm Shermans. They didn't have King Tigers. And they faced IS-2s.
Did we win ? What did we lose ?
>"I'd love to see the loss figures for British armour."
Well, German claims for all AFVs KOed in Normandy, US as well as Brit, are 3750. Their own records show they lost 2200 by the end of Falaise.
For the whole war by the theater and campaign.
>That would seem to be because you hesitate to ever acknowledge that anything German was worse than anything Allied.
No. I hesitate to ever acknowledge that everything Allied was better than anything German.
>The side with the better tanks usually lost because their tank fleet was usually only marginally better -and- the odds (including logistics) were high against them, or they faced enemies with superior doctrine, using better operational maneuvers, etc.
And there were never engagements that did not match the criteria you set down ?
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That's a first: this will be a two post reply. Jason, eat your heart out !
>What I said about the late war is that the Allies caught up -enough-in this category that numbers became decisive instead.
Did they catch up enough or did they compensate with greater numbers ? The further I read the book on British training the more surprised I am.
>As for the idea that US armor doctrine was inferior to British, that was true in Tunisia, but beyond that point is a rather silly claim.
Not inferior. Different but equally bad. And the TD doctrine did prevail until the end of the war.
>Integration of the various arms was considerably tigher in the US armor formations, and there is no US counterpart to a fiasco like Goodwood.
Apart from Kasserine Pass, no. But when did the US armour go against German armour the way (in the scale) the British did, apart from Kasserine Pass ?
>In fact the 3:1 attackers maxim is a tactical, not an operational, let alone a strategic, point.
Really ? And it had no effect on the operational or strategic level planning whatsoever ?
>The Russians took the initiative in 1942 with approximate parity in overall forces. They continued their offensives with only 3:2 to 2:1 odds down to the end of 1943.
Local or global (strategic) odds ?
>The Brits took the initiative in North Africa with approximately 2:1 odds.
Against the Italians ?
I must point out that this is a clear example of superior, smaller force with armour tech-spec superiority winning the campaign against a larger force with inferior armour.
>The initial force odds in Normandy, when the German forces arrived that is, were also about 2:1.
Again, local or global odds ? Are you counting in all German forces (including Luftwaffe) west of Paris ?
The bulk of the German reserves were NOT in Normandy. And they did not arrive in a landslide directly at the front lines.
>There isn't one "leap"..... False, the tankers re-evaluated their AFVs after encountering Matildas a year earlier in France.
Yes. But how many new, better tech-spec designs (excluding upgunning of older models) were ordered built because of the Matilda ?
>Horsepucky, they simply did not even try.
Poppycock. They did not think they had to try. The fact that Hitler started the war earlier than he promised his generals is not relevant in this context.
>What they eventually managed to do when they finally did mobilize, down to 1944, despite greater materials shortages and heavy bombing, shows just how much slack there was in the economy in 1941.
Yes. But by 1944 they had also lost the edge in trained/experienced men.
And the fact that the economy in 1941 was not in total war footing does not mean the industrial capacity was not working at 100% capacity.
>They were wrong.
Hind sight is 20/20 only after the fact.
>German AFV losses in 1941 were very small.
What about the number of write-off because of non-combat losses ? It does not mean there is no attrition if there is minimal combat actions going on.
>The statement "production could hardly keep up" is thus innaccurate on its face, for the early war period.
Why then did they have to increase production capacity later on, if they could build up a reserve pool of vehicles with the production capacity they had available to them already but which they failed to utilize ?
>The idea that they were at capacity at the earlier date is therefore ridiculous.
100 % production capacity in 1939 did not equal 100 % production capacity in 1944. They were at capacity at the earlier date because that was the capacity at that date. Any increase in capacity by taking up any slack not being used effectively did not affect the production retroactively.
>And they did field numerous additional mobile formations. The number of mobile divisions in the field increased over the whole war, from 10 at the outset and 21 at the time of Barbarossa, to 40 at the time of Kursk and 47 by the time of Normandy.
What was the number of AFV's in a formation in 1939 and what was it again in 1944 in the opponent formations ? How did it compare to the respective German formations ?
>The slowing of the ascent in formation number from late 1943 on was due to increases in the AFV loss rate as they began losing the war, not to production.
Actually the effect of decreasing the number of vehicles in the formations did not show up in the overall attrition figures until late 1943. Before that some of the attrition could be "written off" with the new organizational charts. The formations did not get replacements during the transition period because the new organization did not need the same number of vehicles than it had required earlier.
>Yes, later war formations had fewer AFVs apiece, due to doctrinal changes about the proper combined arms mix of armor to infantry,
I thought you said their doctrine was as good at it got and it was the allies who gained them by changing tactics and doctrine and their force organization.
It was a conjuring trick. The doctrinal changes were due to the fact that there was not enough vehicles to go around. It is an amazing coincidence the organizational and doctrinal changes coincided with the arrival of the übertanks and the Pzfaust and Pzschreck. Right ?
>Very late, the armor per formation was also low from losses, and the stop-gap practice of leaving burnt out KGs in the line essentially until gone.
What was that 3:2 force ratio calculated on ? Did it take into account the German frontline units being depleated ?
>They were not "forced" to make such changes, and would still have made them if they had twice as many tanks. The just would have had twice as many armor formations with the newer, more nearly correct armor:infantry mix.
Why then the separate armoured and Pzgrenadier formations ? If they were all the same doctrinally ?
>(and even that they still used for a while to make goliath demolition vehicles).
That is news to me. What is your source ? The only PzKw-I demolition vehicle I know of was an engineer vehicle. The Goliath was a remotly controlled demolition vehicle but to my knowledge it was not based on the PzKw-I chassis.
>It was consistently ahead of the tanks.
By infantry AT I meant infantry AT, not AT artillery. Between PzB-38 ATR and the Pzfaust/Pzschreck there were the Molotov, the satchel charge and other devices such as the Panzerwurfmine and the Hohlhaftladung, all of which worked reasonably well but all of which were dangerous to the user.
The AT artillery was in par with the armour, at least after the arrival of the PAK40. But the infantry AT was behind, or more precisely the infantry AT weaponry was not up speed with the doctrinal requirements it was expected to fulfill, from 1939 until 1942-43 when the stand off recoilles weapons were introduced.
>The better PAK were fielded in numbers before each major upgunning of the main AFV force.
Each ? How many were there ?
>which make the lead of the towed gun systems even larger.
Yes. How, if at all, was this accomodated in the tactics and doctrine ? How much did that affect the tech-spec development of the vehicles ?
>Nor did the AT firepower of the infantry depend on late war fausts.
Yes it did. One of the reasons the Red Army started using tankodesantniki was because of the close range infantry AT assets got good enough to pose a real danger to the armour.
>Most of the kills of enemy AFV were still scored by the dedicated AT guns or DP guns like 88 Flak, not be hand-helds with tiny maximum ranges.
This is perhaps true. Nevertheless AT guns could not move easily in volatile situations. If a position lost its AT gun screen it was basically up **** creeck before the fausts and schrecks were made available.
>The PAK 40 was a far bigger deal, but is often ignored because it was a vanilla weapon, rather than any radical new development.
This is true. It has been ignored also because the German doctrine has been presented as having almost solely relied on armour.
But even if this was true there are extenuating circumstances. The initial Finnish rout in the summer of 1944 was contributed, among other things, to the lack of potent enough close range, man portable stand off AT assets. Along with the customary Molotovs and satchel charges the PAK38 and PAK40 were in the Finnish army inventory. Especially the PAK40 was an excellent tank killer but because of their inherent lack of battlefield mobility the PAK's were not ideally suited to volatile (defensive) operations. Nor could they help out the infantry in all tactical situations due to being moved around from one position to another or what not. When the Pzfausts and Pzschrecks became available the Finnish infantry rallied.
>Tanks are not the only item on the battlefield, and the other arms are not defenseless before them.
Basically true. However many of the more spectacular routs that took place included also the forces who themselves were relying on the shock effect of the tank. The psychological effect brought on by propaganda worked both ways. One of the reasons the defence of Singapore was undermined was the fact the British troops thought the rattle the Japanese bicycles made came from tanks.
>Those other arms are at least as large a portion of the overall combat power equation as the tanks themselves, and they typically differ by far less.
So if tactics and doctrine were at comparable level and every asset in the battlefield cancels each itself out why the quite clearly unreasonable narratives and demands (presented at all levels below Army/Front level) for assets capable of withstanding the opponent ordnance and defeating the opponents assets when they already had adequate numbers and were in most cases in a fair enough logistical situation ? They were all unfounded gripes based on meaningless tactical considerations ?
>40% of Russian 1942 production were as light, with either 20mm or 45mm guns.
Yet the Germans felt the urgend need to build smaller numbers of new übertanks instead of more plain vanilla types. Why ?
>50mm guns, towed or on tanks, were the #1 Russian tank killers in the German force mix by numbers knock out, down to the Stalingrad counterattacks.
Care to reveal your source ?
>They were in no danger whatever of early defeat because tank specs didn't decide the campaigns.
What if the Anglo-French counterattack in 1940 had been succesfull ? Why the constant and consistent references to the employment of 88 FLAK in France, North Africa, Russia to help out the armour ?
>The 88s certainly helped, but they also knocked out both Matildas and T-34s with 105mm HEAT.
So why the reverence of the 88, not the 105, by the users and the opponets alike ?
>And capable enemy heavy tanks were modest portions of enemy fleets, most of which could be KOed by vanilla German tanks.
Yet it was this modest portion that made the Germans sweat and call up the 88 to the rescue. And in the case of the T-34 and KV-1 start drawing up plans for new vehicle models.
>Allied armor doctrine, both east and west, was also so abysmal at the start of the war that local successes by heavy armor had no operational effect.
Yes. But was that due to poor tactics or inconsequential tech-spec's of the tanks ? In the West the encounters with the heavies were relatively few because they were usually encountered in complete formations. Each early encounter in the East with the T-34 and KV-1 deployed singly all around the battlefield has been described as being traumatic in each case.
>Matildas broke through around Sedan, but did not stop the fall of France. T-34s crashed into Kleist's armor group early in the 1941 campaign, but did not stop the breakthroughs to Minsk and beyond.
True. But what was the immediate responce and remedy to these tactical situations ? What were the respective tech-spec consequences of these actions ?
>Armies are large combined arms entities and "self-sealing" in the face of merely tactical set backs.
Yes. And no. If your statement was true we would still be using clubs, spears and possibly bows and arrows as there would be no need to revise the tech-spec, only the logistics and tactics and doctrine to ensure superior numbers at the strategic level.
It is the mere minor tactical set backs that send the armies to their corners. They come out again with (or without as the case may be) modified tactics and assets with approriate tech-spec changed made. If the self sealing layer is too thin the holes start to leak seriously unless something is done to the sealant.
>Opponents without full combined arms coordination weren't going to get anywhere just by having a modest portion of well armored beasties. And they didn't.
I think it has been established "well armoured" does not translate into "superior AFV" directly.
Or has this been an armour thickness thing to you all along ?
An other thing: how do you define victory ? Is it an absolute term with only one possible outcome with one side losing totally while the other side wins totally.
The Germans were able to halt the Allied advance in Tunisia, mainland Italy, German western border for a long period of time, yet following your definition and timelimit caveats they lost the campaigns and thus any and all tech-spec stuff is to be ignored.
With all the failings and "benefits" you list above present in the Finnish army the Red Army assault failed to reach its objectives and Finland was not occupied as a consequence. But we lost the campaign because we had to sing an unfavourable armictice.
>As for my use of the term "campaign", I have already specified what I mean. A fight on a given front (not all, like strategic things), involving units on the scale of armies (not just a day's battle by a division), over periods of time measured in months (not days, but not the whole war either).
Your definition of the terms are flexible enough for your thesis to bend around any corners and resilient enough for you thesis to go over any bumps.
>If you don't have a clear mental picture of the division of the war into a set of such linked campaigns, then I recommend some general histories or the official staff studies of the war.
My mental picture of the of the division of the war into a set of such linked campaigns has not been formulated by the Anglo-American histories alone. From a non-Anglo-American point of view the causalities, connections and divisions look a bit different. For one in Anglo-American general histories the political aspects have been for all intents and purposes severed from the military actions. For example there is no link in them between Winter War and the Norwegian campaign.
>the Bulge is a campaign, North Africa before Torch is a campaign, ...I am honestly puzzled by your claim there is any confusion on this point, because I did not detect any, going either way.
North Africa before Torch was definitely not a single campaign that can not be disected into distinctive and separate "campaigns" or operations (unless of course you only allow post-El Alamein events to be included). Some of the ones you mentioned and many of you did not mention (the ones you left out on purpose ?) are not clear cut and definable only by timeframe and name given. They include distinctively different phases inside them that form "sub-campaigns" or operations.
>....and the number of tanks in the fleet increases, .....
You make it sound like they were deployed like the RN Home Fleet, ready to sail anywhere at any given form at ease.
>The reason not to have 2 armor regiments and 1 infantry regiment is because that isn't enough infantry for combined arms; nothing else.
Are you sure you are not miswriting this ? Not enough INFANTRY ???
I have read it was the other way around: It was 1 armour regiment and 2 infantry regiments because there was not enough armour. They could not form proper armoured formations so they had to form Panzergrenadier formations instead, except they lacked the necessary motor transport and HT's to become fully effective.
>I had just said they could easily have increased production more and earlier.
Yes. But because of political considerations they did not do that.
>You say "they could have yes", and then immediately claim that "yes there was" some impossibility involved in not doing so.
Domestic politics, consumer confidence, call it what you will. The impossibility was in the fact that they could not step up production with current resources without going to total war footing (increas the number of shifts buy starting to employ women in the factories more etc).
>That is what "could" and "impossible" mean.
That also implies a what-if situation which is not at the core of this furball.
>Why you pretend there was still some impossibility involved, is utterly beyond me.
Thy could not just wish one production line doing one shift to start putting out the production of two lines. Their production was at maximum and only drastic changes would have made and did make more capacity available.
>It is only the single must important mistake of the entire war, generally well know and often discussed, so your apparently inability to think clearly about it is rather surprising.
Perhaps you should reread your own statements which I was responding to. I see nothing wrong in your basic stament. Then you you go ballistic with a what-if that is clearly contradicting the statement you made. Yes, they could have increased production dramatically early on. They made the necessary adjustments in 1943. No, it was impossible for them to do it with current resources as of 1941 without the changes they were not willing to make in 1941.
>Long 75mm StuG III and Pz IV, which are what they later did focus on.
1941 ~1,700 PzKw-III 50mm gun tanks, 540 StugIII's. In -42 ~2,500 50mm gun tanks, ~850 Stugs. 1943 ~250 50mm gun tanks, ~3,300 Stugs. Some of the production of Stugs was remanufactures.
>so there was obviously no technical impossibility involved.
No technical impossibility in tech-spec, technical impossibility in increasing actual production
>But only in that sense. The Panther weighs 45 tons, twice the weight of a Pz IV, and the same weight as a KV-1, an IS-2, or a Pershing, and heavier than a Churchill or Sherman Jumbo.
There are no light and heavy MG's, only heavy and damned heavy MG's. Should all MG's be classed by weight and not by the deployment, thus making all of them heavy MG's unless they weigh less than 5kg with ammo ?
>It was a heavy tank by any other name, uparmored and upgunned as much or more as any of the above.
Only it is what the Germans called it what should count. What the Soviets called their tanks weighing the same is irrelevant.
>If the Panther is a medium tank, then there weren't any heavies in the war besides Tigers.
You are caught in the trap I have seen before. It stands to reason to call it a heavy tank because it was heavy for a medium tank. But the Germans deployed it the same way they deployed lighter medium tanks.
>while by 1943 these were actually superior to the T-34/76s they faced, they were roughly comparable in ability.
Only they were more able, by virtue a plethora of factors starting with the 75L48 gun, to deal with the Soviet übermodels than the T-34/76 was in dealing with the German übermodels.
>Because the difference in the average, vanilla portion of the fleets was not extreme.
In tech-spec, agreed. Here is when the superior numbers step in even at tactical level.
>It is no more surprising that this modest portion of the fleet was not decisive in 1943, than that the 1/6th of the Russian AFVs of 1941 that were KVs or T-34s proved less than decisive in 1941.
Only the in 1943 the Soviets had enough replacement vehicles in the pipeline to sustain and disregard the losses they were sustaining. In 1941 the Germans faced a totally different scenario in AFV quality at hand and numbers available.
>Well, first industrial capacity is definitely the wrong term because they obviously weren't at capacity until 1944,
They were at capacity early on. Otherwise they would have been able to increase production dramatically without making any changes.
> because they delayed mobilization too long.
True.
>But second, the Germans did match and exceed the capabilities of the T-34/76 in 1943.
To a certain degree already in 1942. But they could not match or exceed the production.
>Your bald statement that "the Germans were still catching up when the Russians entered Berlin in 1945" is simply balderdash.
The Soviets had already moved on from the simple sloped armour to ballistic armour (sauce pan turrets etc) when the Germans were still toying with the original T-34 armour configuration.
>They were well ahead by the fall of 1943, in gun-armor terms.
Gun, yes. Armour, no. Their design effort went on unfocused. They were still reacting to the first generation of superior Soviet designs when the Soviets were already designing and fielding a new generation of vehicles. The 75L48 equipped vehicles were adequate because the gun was powerfull enough to deal with all comers. Their main fleet gun carriers just could not take the punishment metered out in the battlefield.
>Because of little things, like the Russians smashing Army Group South to driftwood.
The number of AFV's lost in that debacle was not critical. The number of men lost was critical.
>How many times do I have to repeat this?
As many times as you need until you reveal what makes a tank superior compared to another in your opinion.
>The Germans did not have superior tanks in North Africa.
I know their fleet mix in North Africa was pittyful. They perfected the art of using tanks to lure the British armour into AT gun traps. Bu the fact still remains the 50mm armed PzKw-III's and later the PzKw-IVF2's were superior to the British Cruisers and Crusaders, even the Lees and Shermans.
>But whether you accept those or not, accept the blatant fact that their early war tanks simply were not superior in gun and armor terms.
That is a sweeping generalization that seems to be plaqueing your entire thesis. When did early end and late start ? When did the early tanks turn into late tanks ? The PzKw-III was an early tank but it went from 37mm main gun to the 50L42 (already in 1940 ~50% of the PzKw-III production were 50L42 being around 460 vehicles) and on to 50L60 main gun in a matter of 2 years. The PzKw-IV was an early tank which went from the 75L24 to the 75L43 and 75L48 guns in a matter of 3 years (not until 1942 ~90% of the production were 75L43 being around 870 vehicles).
I agree their fleet mix was not not at all ideally suited to their tactics and doctrine, nor was their fleet superior overall. But.... it seems you like to think ALL of their vehicles were not superior compared to the Allied vehicles. Which brings about (again) the question about what you think determines what makes an AFV superior.
>Sometimes you seem to have acknowledged this, and then you turn around and make a statement like the above.
Not all of the German AFV's were superior in any respect. Some of them were superior even despite their nondescript tech-spec's (hint: crew layout, communicatios etc).
>But they were not technically better tanks in gun and armor duel terms.
Are you sure ? That depends what they are compared against: TK, FT-17/18, Mk-IV light, 7TP, R-35, H-38, H-39, S-35, A9, A10, A13, T-26, BT-5/7, T-28. All of these were by and large inferior or comparable to the German fleet even without counting in tactics and doctrine. Then there were those who gave them major headaches: Matilda, Char-1B, T-34, KV-1. Of these only the T-34 and KV-1 did make the Germans start designing new models. The heavy tank development had been going on since 1937 and it culminated in the Tiger series but the Panther was a crash project started in November 1941.
>StuGs did not exist at the outbreak of the war; production began in 1940.
Yes. But The concept was layed down in 1935 by von Manstein who <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>"proposed that Sturmartillerie units were to be formed and used for direct support of infantry divisions. They were to be equipped with assault guns mounted on tracked chassis. Used to accompany the infantry into the attack, the assault gun's main aim was to knock out pill-boxes, machine gun nests, anti-tank guns and other obstacles.
On June 15 1936, the order was given to Daimler-Benz AG to develop and produce an armored infantry support vehicle mounting 75mm gun. The gun was to have a limited traverse of minimum 25 degrees in order to provide direct support up to 6 kilometers. The gun was to be mounted in a superstructure that provided full protection for the crew. The height of this vehicle was not to exceed the height of an average man. Daimler-Benz AG being already involved in the development and production of Panzerkampfwagen III tank decided to use its chassis and components for this new vehicle. The experimental "0" series of five prototypes was produced in 1937 by Alkett. Prototypes were pre-production Panzerkampfwagen III Ausf B tanks mounted with mild-steel superstructures housing short-barreled 75mm StuK (Sturmkanone) gun designed and produced by Krupp. Vehicles were extensively tested at Kummersdorf, Doberitz and other testing / training facilities. Prototypes remained in use as training vehicles as late as 1942. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
This raises the question why it was not deployed earlier. Could it have something to do with the fact that only ~300 PzKw-III's had been built by the end of 1939 ?
>As for pre-war Russian heavy tanks, of course I have heard of them but they still don't qualify.
Why ? Just because they were land-battleships does not mean they were not in the inventory.
>There were a reasonable 227 model E T-28s produced, but many of them didn't come back from Finland.
Actually the E-model uparmouring was done as a result of experiences during Winter War.
>The archaic early 30s versions had no more armor and a worse gun than a Pz IV 75L24,
http://history.vif2.ru/t28.html
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>German Pz-III and Pz-IV had an equal armor protection but were much more maneuverable, but the T-28 was better armed than any German tank in 1941 and could hit any German tank from long distances. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
I take that referers to the model armed with the L-10 gun.
>and hardly qualify as "heavy tanks".
The T-28 was actually classified as a medium. My mistake.
>These numbers compare to 12,000 T-26s and 7,700 BT series. In other words, ~2% of the fleet had 76mm infantry guns and 40mm of armor.
So ? 2% from 20 000 is a hell of a lot more than 2% of 100.
>and in 1941 the T-34 qualifies as a heavy as well.
Except it was a medium.
>But both went into production after the start of the war but before Barbarossa, as I already said.
This is getting convoluted.
>Earth to tero - there isn't any "lack of qualitative seperation" between a Matilda and a 37mm Pz III.
The Matilda is just plain better in every gun-armor respect, by miles. The Germans and the Allies aren't equal in gun armor terms because of non-existent similarities in doctrine.
Earth to Jason: we are talking about the lack of qualitative separation in design concepts here. The norm for armour thickness and layout was the roughly the same in each respective vehicle class. The tank gun norm of the era was 37mm for gun tanks. For support tanks it was 75mm. Check them out if you do not believe me.
Crew layouts were the same, the notable exceptions were the indiginous German models with a 5 man crew/3 man turret and the French models with 1 man turrets. Most of the rest had either 3 or 4 man crews with 2 man turrets.
Your pairing is a valid one. But why do you choose to pick the extreme ends ? And you have pair off vehicles from different classes to boot. The Matilda was designed to support infantry in assault, the PzKw-III was designed to tackle with enemy armour. Why not pair off the PzKw-38t and 7TP, R-35 or A9 ?
You yourself have pointed out that at the time percentagewise the Matilda and the PzKw-III did not represent the median vehicles in the fleet mixes and thus they played no part in the equation. But that applies of course only when that argument supports your POV.
>And the German tanks aren't better in gun-armor terms, either. In the early war, the Allied tanks are.
No, it is not as simple as that. Most of the pre-war tanks were built around the same specs: 37mm class gun and armour which could defeat the 37mm class round. Or 75mm class gun and armour to defeat the 75mm class round. Tank for tank the German armour were not especially excellent. But they did not suck big time either when compared to similar vehicles in other armies. The Allies had more tanks and the Germans could match the lower edge types. But they had nothing in their inventory to match the better Allied tanks (Char-1B and Matilda, possibly also the Somua).
>All the Germans have going for them, in fact, is superior doctrine, emphasizing combined a
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What is the word on the prepared positions in CMBB: will there be sections of dugouts and foxholes available for purchase like you now purchase minefields and road blocks ?
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Unlike Jason I have limited time and my typing is not as good as his.
I post my reply as a series to keep the discussion going on.
Certainly sides tried to get advantages - whether just tactical ones or not - from fielding better tanks. The question is whether they succeeded, or whether they mutual efforts basically cancelled each other out at operational and higher scales. I claim they cancelled out.
At first this does make sense. But when you think about it was not as simple as that. It would seem that it was the tank grog tech-spec cancelled each other out. You maintain for one that the tactics and doctrines were withing acceptable range to be regarded equal at higher levels. Were their combined arms doctrine up to speed with the Germans ? I've just started Military Training in the British Army, 1940-1944 and it says the British tactics and doctrine were inferior to the German tactics and doctrine. Since the Germans supposedly held the British in higher regard than the Amis it can be assumed the US tactics and doctrine were equally bad. So it would indicate that in the large scale it was down to weight of fire and logistics.
The basic strategic/operational axiom is the attacker needs a 3-1 superiority for the attack to succeed. Arguably early on the Germans (with a fleet mix which was generally inferior) managed to overpower their adversaries with overall odds which were worse than that (even negative odds) by getting local superiority which threw the adversary into a disarray. This was true until the USSR was not knocked out of the war as they had expected.
How many times did later Allied attack on the Germans succeed with less than 3-1 force ratio ?
The quantum leap in AFV's with the T-34 and KV-1. With failure to KO the USSR out of the war and the arrival of these the Germans had to for the first time re-evaluate their AFV fleet and its operational usefulness in earnest AND what to do to the situation to rectify it. They faced several problems:
1) Their (war) economy was not up to speed with total strategic war in two fronts. It could not sustain prolonged large scale operations. Yet they did not go to total war footing in economy until 1943.
2) Normal wear and tear was attriting their AFV's and other vehicles (IIRC the peace time monthly attrition of lorries was around 3000 units). Current production could barely keep up with this in the case of the AFV. They had to resort to using captured vehicles. This meant they could not build up new formations and keep the number of AFV's in a formation at the pre-war level (even with the captured vehicles thrown in). Ergo later formations had fewer AFV's. The lorries they had to take from whereever they could find them.
2A) Their AFV fleet was comprised of so many models from so many different sources that it burdened their logistics unreasonably.
3) Their infantry AT could barely keep up with the enemy AFV development. The 37mm PAK had already proven to be too weak. The 50mm PAK was on the way to become the backbone of the AT arm but but it was still born when pitted against the T-34 and KV-1. Relative parity was restored with the introduction of the 75L43/48 but not until the arrival of the Pzfaust and Pzschreck did the infantry reclaim the battlefield. But then the Germans no longer had the upper hand in other battlefield assets like artillery.
4) I think it is safe to say the 88mm FLAK saved Germans from early defeat. They were able to maintain confidence in their superior tactics even with a AFV fleet mix which was less than ideal (or even suitable) because they could rely on the 88 to come to the rescue if and when the feces hit the ventilation.
I.e. the effect of armor spec -dominance-, which is an advantage of one side over another at the same time and place, was too small to change the outcome of campaigns.
You field the terms operation and campaign in a way which seems random. Everytime your operation-reasoning gets nailed you switch to campaign and back to local battles. And it also seems that your reasoning is flexible when it comes to limitations like timeframes. You seem adamant to disregard the fact that the operations and campaings were designed with the tank grog tech-spec in mind.
At the campaign/operation level it is the 3+ - 1 superiority in favour of the attacker that counts. How many times were the Germans able to get decisive victories against a Allied force in similar logistical state with a local 1-1 or even 1-2 force ratio ? How many times were the Allies able to get decisive victories against a German force in similar logistical state with a local 1-1 or even 1-2 force ratio ? If there times when either side had to stack them higher than 3-1 to be able to obtain a victory what were the reasons for it ?
The contrary to my claim would be, sometimes campaign outcomes turned on who had the better tanks.
It would be. In a perfect thesis - anti-thesis - synthesis world.
This is obviously meant to refer to the Germans in the period of developing the Tiger I and Panther. Because all others were "stepping up production".
Just to prevent any über-panic-paranoia buttons being pushed.
No, they certainly were capable of doing so, and they did so to a minor degree in the period,
At the same time when they were increasing production of adequate vehicles they were diminishing the number of vehicles in field units. Why ?
and they could easily have done so to a much greater degree and earlier.
They could have, yes. But that was however a strategic decision brought on by non-military considerations. And it is a what-if anyway.
There was no impossibility involved.
Yes there was.
As for the Pz III turret issue, that problem was easily solved by simply moving to a turretless AFV, the StuG III.
How much did that increase the pool of available vehicles ?
The Tigers and Panthers were no substitute, but a supplimental heavy force
A point of order: the Panther was a medium tank inteded to replace the PzKw-IV.
added to the top end of a distribution of vehicles still centered on the main production models, the Pz III and Pz IV chassis, supplimented by Marders on lighter chassis.
While they may have been added on the top there was constant flow out from the bottom. The level did not rise, the mixture thickened.
In calendar 1943, the Germans were turning out 3 75mm "vanilla" AFVs for every heavy one.
This is beside the point. How much better were all these compared to the opponents production in tech-spec terms and how many did the opponents have to expend to knock one out ?
I think there was a basic misunderstanding
No. The lack of tech-spec variations between different nations was because the basic doctrine was the same all around (outside Germany and the USSR). Most designs were some way or another copies of each other. There was a quantum leap with the introduction of the T-34. The Germans followed that leap but failed because their industrial capacity was not up to speed in meeting the demand. The Western Allies stuck to the pre-war design concepts and they dropped behind in the development. They went for superior numbers instead.
For instance, if tech specs were in some sense 10% better for side A than for side B, while force strength was 100% better for side B than side A, then my statement holds.
In fact it does not hold. You altered the example and slipped out of the timeframe again to make the conditions of the example fit your claim.
My original example reads: If force A has adequate logistical support from day 1 to day 30 to sustain its operations while force B is cronically low on supplies during that same period. Force A has marginally inferior tech spec, force B has tech spec superiority. Lo and behold force B trashes force A in an operation that last from day 1 to day 30. On day 33 force B has to retreat because of worsening overall situation.
OK, I forgot to include the force ratios but that does not matter.
My claim is that in each case, the armor-grog tech differences are small, over whole fleets fielded. Small enough that they are swamped by the other operational factors.
This does not apply in the case of the initial contact with the T-34. This is the focal point where the plot thickens. The initial deployment of the T-34 was faulty but nevertheless it sent the Germans scurrying back to come up with new weapons, not new tactics, to overcome this menace in the future. They were still catching up when the Red Army entered Berlin in 1945.
The observation is that who has the better tanks does not predict who wins a campaign. This requires explanation. If A has better tanks than B but B wins, then obviously B had something else going for it, that was more important in the magnitude of its effect, than the tank difference in present in that case.
Now you are misunderstanding. In the example (read North Africa) Force A (the Allies) had inferior tanks while Force B (the Germans) were at the mercy of failing logistics. In addition to that they had by far inferior numbers of AFV's (and they included the Italian vehicles which did not exactly bring the quality average up). The Germans were able to beat back and hold back the Allies in numerous occasions, even post-El Alamein.
As for the claim about infantry vs. cavalry tanks, in fact distinction was a matter of British doctrine, and by no means general.
The actual terminology is irrelevant.
The Germans had no infantry support tanks in those terms.
The Stug series was built initially to support infantry in assault (Sturmgeschüts = assault gun).
Not all light tanks were even fast.
That is irrelevant.
The Russians had fast tanks (BT) and light tanks (T-26) that were essentially equal in ability,
But different in deployment and employment. The BT was a cavarly tank, the T-26 an infantry support tank.
and in 1939 no heavy tanks.
Wrong. Ever heard of T-28, T-35, T-100, SMK ?
That is a large part of my own argument, and it seems to have been completely missed. I was not under any false impression that the early German tanks were superior in gun and armor terms.
That is not the issue. The seeming lack of qualitative separation was due to similarities in design filosophy and tactics and doctrine concerning their use. The Germans departed from that but they used vehicles built to match the design filosophy out of necessity.
Its 2 lber, while lacking HE, was superior to the 50L42 as an anti-tank weapon,
AFAIK it did have HE but it was not made available to the troops or something to that effect. Was it really superior to the 50L42 ? In what respects ?
The Germans screamed for long 75 guns in 1940, at least as loud as US tankers in Normandy screamed for 76 Shermans. They didn't get them for more than two years.
I think they screamed for the 50mm gun in 1940. In 1941 they screamed for the 75mm gun. The Germans got their wish. The reason the US tankers did not get the 76 Sherman was because of the TD doctrine.
Those other factors are superior combined arms doctrine for the Germans in the first half of the war, and superior numbers and logistics for the Allies in the second half.
So what you are saying is then when the Allies did not have local superior numbers the superior tech-spec stepped into the picture and the Germans were able to sweap the floor with the Allied forces ? At local (operational) level the logictics did not play as big a part when talking about combat. Each unit had a basic load of supplies that carried it through a period of time.
That is part of the reason better tanks did not prove more decisive in 1943.
Now we can get into the debate wether the PzKw-IV (or Stug) armed with 75L43/48 was superior to the T-34 or not.
This was of course the precise period when only T-34/76s faced the better German types (the T-34/85s, IS, and ISUs were not out yet). But those better German types were only ~1/5 the German AFVs and less than 1/10 the fielded AT weapons, counting PAK. The Russian had only ~1/6 KVs and T-34s in 1941, and those didn't prove decisive either.
The differences in small unit tactics and doctrine and the disparity in the number of available vehicles do not play a part in the equation ?
But PAK were still the primary AT defense of infantry formations.
Yes. But it was not man-portable. At 1000 kg's it was not exactly ideal for fast movement in volatile situations.
Perhaps you might say they were really too numerous after Kursk - but that is when the Panthers and Tigers and quite a few 75 longs were around to deal with them. Fausts weren't out yet either. Maybe you meant they became too numerous in 1944.
I trust you know when the Pzfaust was first issued to the field units:
From http://www.adeq.simplenet.com/pzfaust1.htm
Development of the so-called Faustpatrone ("Fist-Cartridge") started in the summer of 1942 at the german company HASAG with the development of the smaller forerunner-prototype called "Gretchen" ("little Gretel") by a team headed by Dr. Langweiler in Leipzig. The basic concepts of a recoilless cannon and a rocket were combined into a weapon for the first time.
Deliveries on the first order of 50,000 began in August 1943 with 6,800 pieces. Production ran until August 1944, then it was switched over to successor, the Panzerfaust 60. The first large quantity of this weapon made available to the Wehrmacht, the German armed forces, was the delivery of 8700 pieces in September 1943.
The truth of the matter is they were too numerous in the whole second half of the war, but it wasn't for lack of decent weapons on the German side.
There was a lack of decent, potent infantry portable weapon on the German side.
It was because those weapons were being KOed in the field.
That is undounbtedly true. But there was a gap between close range (infantry) and intermediate range AT (PAK) capability that needed filling. It was easy to bypass heavy AT assest and attack the helpless infantry.
The Germans fielded 34,000 AT weapons, towed or AFV, in 1944. The Russians only added 14,000 T-34s that year.
How many other makes did they have and how many of these were fielded ?
Once the second front opened up they had more worries than they could handle, certainly.
No argument there.
I'd still put my money on the side with logistical and doctrinal dominance, and in the category of tech I'll take better sensors over better armor any day.
It takes more than IR, FLIR or any sensor you care to mention to kill anything. Without an asset that is capable of killing better armour your better sensors are useless. I'll drive over you in my superior tank while you are wathcing with your superior optics.
I stand by this; you will not find a single exception.
Are you so sure ? Your thesis has a lot going for it and if the scale is big enough it holds. But you keep evading strict limits and smaller scales and you refuse to allow non-Anglo-American sources and examples as evidence. The Soviet summer assult of 1944 against the Finns is an example when superior numbers of "better" quality armour (T-34/85, IS-2, ISU-152 etc), superior numbers of just about any asset you care to mention using state of the art tactics and doctrine were beaten back with the help of a handfull of "inferior" vehicles (Stug-IIIG), stand off infantry AT assets and different but arguable equal tactics and doctrine. The timeframe was months (June-August). The fact that Finland signed an armistice in September is irrelevant because our leaders had been looking for a way out since mid-1943.
Even there it is open to debate how much of the cause was armor specs, and how much was doctrine.
I'd love to see the loss figures for British armour.
The only other cases where the guys with the better tanks even won, were the Russian Stalingrad counterattack, which was a clearly overdetermined case mainly caused by numbers, operational factors and no retreat decisions; and El Alamein, where the decision was achieved by numbers and attrition.
In Stalingrad there was no armour to oppose the counterattack at the point where they attacked. In El Alamein I hesitate to say the British armour was better.
The stack of cases where the guys with the better tanks lost are as long as your arm.
But did they lose because the opposing armour was technically not-so-inferior or because they lost in the logistics and other aspects ?
In other words, if you can't perforate them with armor piercing, baffle them with horsefeathers.
No. Others picked up the punch line better already.
The guys with the better tanks are losing campaign after campaign, and I am noting that this means whatever effect groggier tanks had, sure wasn't bigger than the other things agin 'em, like superior combined arms doctrine, or superior numbers and logistics.
You can not outrun a Pinto with a Porche if the Pinto has more petrol than the Porche.
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Originally posted by JasonC:
Which certainly does not mean 1918 "Mothers" are as good a M-1 Abrams, or any other such straw man.
But does it mean that both were/are without any operational effects in their day and age ?
It is a point about what mattered at the operational scale and up in WW II, and about why armor tech specs (in grog gun and armor terms) was not decisive in any operation.
However there are cases when we can pin point an instance in a specific point in time during an operation when a small groupd or even a single man/gun/vehicle with a feat of skill, balls or luck (or all of the above) turned the battle around which in turn turned the operation around. And more often than not they involve a weapon or a gun or a vehicle which had qualities that were better than the rest of the assets in the field. Be it Audie Murphy with a 50cal, Antti Rokka (I know this is the name of the character from the book but forget the name of the real man who was behind it in the RL feat depicted in the book
) with a Suomi SMG or Michale Wittman with a Tiger.To tss and Michael on the Finns - really guys, this is the second time I've asked. Get a Finns thread, please. The stuff is interesting and well worth talking about, but pushing it into every thread is just distracting.
Why is it distracting ? Because it moves in uncharted waters ? Or do you object to the inclusion of data based on the Finnish experiences only because it cramps your style with data that contradicts your thesis ?
Apart from the US, the UK, Germany and the USSR also Finland along with other little people took part in the contest. So far all of the data presented here (well, most of it anyway) has been on the subject at hand with specific examples drawn from historical sources. These sources happen to be Finnish. They should not be any better or worse than Anglo-American sources since they can be corraborated and crossreferenced.
I am eagerly awaiting your rebuttal on my post which did not have any refrences to the Finnish apart from the being broke in the -30's bit.
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I hope this comes out OK.
The last time I tried this the board crapped out:
http://uk.geocities.com/lepte2000/tanks2.jpg
http://uk.geocities.com/lepte2000/tanks1.jpg
Two pictures (one panoramic picture really) from Tali-Ihantala battles. A IS-2 and a T-34/76 have their turrets facing 6 o'clock.
http://uk.geocities.com/lepte2000/tanks3.jpg
Some Soviet armour after a Finnish artillery barrage / aerial bombardment.
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Originally posted by tss:
Now, so that I will not be accused of überFennoism,
Come on, admit it. You are a closet überFinn.
I will add a short summary of the Stug
attack to Talinmylly, on 27 June: Soviets stopped the attack, 2 Stugs were unrecoverably lost, 2 seriously damaged, and only one escaped unharmed.
One of the lost Stugs drove into a "friendly" mine. The other was taken out by the enemy.
In Kuuterselkä we lost 5 Stugs and while the counterattack was a partial success the troops were ordered to widraw soon after the operation was over.
That particular battle is nicely on-topic to this thread since Finns would most probably have lost it even if the Stugs had been replaced by King Tigers.
Agreed.
...as well as a lot of accurate artillery.
Their use of balloons for the FO's has been understated and rather disregarded in Western histories. Does anybody know if the Germans ever encountered them ? For the Finns the balloons were very irritating because they could direct in artillery accurately on positions and from what I have read quite fast too.
The attackers would have had to expose vulnerable flanks to at least some of them.
They never got even that far.
So, unfortunately, English references about Finnish armor are in very short supply.
Finnish army in general is in English is in short supply.
The highest military award in Finland. It could be awarded both to officers and enlisted men. A total of 191 were awarded.
In prestige it was akin to the CMOH, the VC or the Iron Cross 1st class with swords, diamonds and laurels. It has not been awarded after the war.
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Did fighting on Finnish soil impart any advantages on Finn tank/SPG crews?
That's very difficult to quantify.
I agree. It is hard to tell which instances have to do with fighting in Finnish soil and which have to be considered normal battlefield occurances.
What conclusions can be drawn here? Not much, the sample size is way too small.
Agreed.
However it could be extrapolated that the Soviet crews were more prone than the Finnish crews to bail out of operable vehicles when facing the possibility of encirclement or imminent actual close assaults by infantry. And there are accounts about how Soviet crews had to be smoked out of damaged vehicles which our troops meant to recover. There are accounts of Finnish crews fighting buttoned up against enemy infantry close enough for throwing hand grenades on the vehicles.
Finnish crews did not linger too long inside seriously damaged vehicles to fight to the last. One of the lost Stugs was a command vehicle which was abandoned intact when a shell exploded in front of the vehicle and the crew thought they had hit a mine.
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Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:
I see he just came in here and repeated some of them.
While talking shop with tss in the original thread is fun I felt I had some point to make here also. Without dragging in the Finnish army to boot.
Logistics, morale, etc., are all intermixed.
There are very few factors that stand alone without any effect on other factors. I do agree with Jason that armour specs alone did not win or lose battles. But I disagree with his notion that they had no bearing what so ever in the proceedings.
In my opinion he is going from the general to the specific at random and he is choosing the specific aspects which to focus on so that they suit his point. His big picture is too big and his selected details are isolated and too small in relation to the other aspects he chooses to take into account.
The main point of Mark IV - that the Allies won, so what does it matter in the end - is one I can agree with (if that is what he meant).
Yet again storm in a glass of water that is larger than life.
Had those shiny American tanks been used in front-on charges against massed German 88s, the results would have been the same as earlier battles.
Did the M4 earn its nick name Ronson in the British service or did it get it only after the US landed in Africa ?
EDIT:
Just remembered they went by the name Tommy cooker also.
their true role goes beyond the physical - as is the case with any weapon.
Indeed. During the Polish campaign the (supposed) cavarly charges against tanks were cut down with MG's, not tanks rolling over the horses. Yet it is said they were charging tanks, not MG's.
Perhaps, JasonC, you might start to see the disadvantages of trying to quantify the unquantifiable, and look more outside the scientific realm.
Lets bow our heads down for a prayer:
Yea, though I walk through the the valley of the shadow of National Bias I shall fear no evil because we were the biggest, baddest and meanest mothers in the valley....
Seriously, I just got from the library a study on the Finnish army force morale during the summer of 1944 battles. Talk about psycobable.... It is hard enough to follow in Finnish. I'll post tidbits from it ASAP.
Tero, what say you on this?
Over to tss......
I'll continue from there if there is anything to add.
[ 10-02-2001: Message edited by: tero ]
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The argument is that technical armor dominance as a supposedly critical operational or strategic factor, is nowhere in evidence in WW II.
I think it is. Why, oh why the race to build better and better tanks if the dominance was not, if not critical, then decisive ? Every time there was a quantum leap in operational introduction of or encounter with a superior vehicle or AT asset each participant went through the ripple effect motions of updating or modifying their AFV and AT arsenals along with battlefield tactics and doctrine.
Granted, in reality much of the superiority of the new vehicles (and AT assets) laid in their suitability to the developing operational tactics and doctrine they were built to match, not in their technical features, which were or were not inherently superior as such.
The most significant criteria for AFV development remained allways the same: ability to defeat existing AT assets (and then some) and battlefield mobility. Which counted in the balance more was determined by the doctrinal and strategic thinkers, not the tactical nitpickers.
Those who had built up or were relying to an experienced and proficient force did not want to waste away their most important assets: experience and proficiency. Those who had just building up or rebuilding their force were after sufficient numbers, not necessarily technical superiority. Those who wanted to protect the crews but could not step up the production of adequate AFV's switched to totally new models in an effort to fill the gap with fewer high quality AFV's manned by high quality crews. Those who did not have the experienced crews stepped up the production of a basic model (which had to be determined first) which was then modified only if the production quantities (but not necessarily vehicle qualities) were not affected. But they were able to get the necessary numbers to overcome the fewer high quality vehicles.
We must not forget that doctrinal and other issues not only helped but also impeded the development. The US had their TD doctrine, the British had a division between infantry support and cavarly tanks, the Germans sacrificed sufficient numbers at the altar of technical superiority, überFinns were so broke in the 30's they had to opt to buy AFV's only without their guns etc.
Tech specs mostly varied over narrower ranges,
This is an illusion. Tech specs varied at a narrower range only because the role of the AFV was not in 1939 what it had developed into in 1945. Many of the vehicles in service in 1939 were built around an armoured doctrine that was proven flawed.
Basically there were two main categories of AFV's: infantry support tanks and fast moving cavarly tanks. There was no such AFV in 1939 that could be considered to be a MBT. The PzKw-III/PzKw-IV family came close but they had still been built around the 30's armoured/AT doctrines. The only real techical innovations they had incorporated in them were brought on by revolutionary tactical thinking: crew layout, intercom and cooperation with other branches. Otherwise they were quite unimpressive vehicles technically.
The first real instigator that lead into the MBT concept was the T-34 in 1941. It brought on the Tiger, Königstiger and the Panther along with the 75mm PAK40 AT gun with its mounts and AFV applications. Once the T-34 became too numerous the recoilles stand off man portable AT weapons appeared to fill in for the missing AFV's and AT guns. This in turn altered dramatically the doctrinal role of the regular infantry. They were no longer at the mercy of the AFV's in the way they had been when the armour/infantry doctrine altered on them in September 1939.
The full circle has been traveled and today it is the technical superiority of a AFV over other AFV's and AT assets that determines the outcome of any conventonal war. If you can beat the opponents AFV's the day is yours.
and narrow or wide they did not decide campaigns.
Again, they did decide them but not overtly.
Overconfidence or doubt in your own equipment brought on many a defeat. Also belief that the enemy assets were better or invincible erod force morale contributing to the events that follow.
No sides seeks fair fights in war. And these other factors varied enough to swamp whatever leftover effects of tactical tech-spec differences still existed up at the damped level of month-long campaigns on whole fronts.
Any given campaing in North Africa and the numerous operations around Kharkov are examples when tech-spec differences were NOT swamped by other factors. In both locations both forces were buiding up and launching offensive operations simultaneously and in both locations it was the tech-spec differences that determined the outcome.
Sure, superior German tactics could say to be the determining factor in the case of Kharkov. But they could not have succeeded without assets capable of overcoming the technical superiority of the Soviet AFV's. In the case of North Africa one could say it was the logistics that determined the ultimate outcome of the entire campaing. In essense it became a holding action ever since the initial Afrika Korps push failed to reach Alexandria. But it the outcome was considerably delayed because of German technical as well as tactical and doctrinal superiority. Superior tactics and doctrine carry you only so far in face of numerical superiority.
My argument does imply things like, the German decision to delay full economic mobilization was far more decisive than the design qualities of the T-34, and nothing like counterbalanced by the engineer successes of the Tiger and Panther designs.
However your argument does not take into account the strain the decision to switch production to new vehicles put on the German war economy in 1941-42 while they went to full war economy only in 1943. And that strain is clearly attributable to the T-34 and the T-34 alone. The supply of older vehicles was winding down causing severe problems as the attrition remained the same but there were no new replacement vehicles to be had.
Incidentaly, I have always wondered why the Germans did not tap into the captured French arsenal more. They made a number of 75mm PAK97-38's from older French 75mm gun mated with the 50mm PAK38 carriage. The French 75 was capable of taking out the T-34, and I suppose there was enough ammo to go around. Yet they did not use it more.
It implies things like, getting the TOE and tasking and inter-branch cooperation of an armor division right, to support true combined arms, was more important than having uniform easy-eight 76mm Shermans.
However it would have mattered if they would have had M3 Lees to work with. With all these implications you can not deny that even the US Army was working to get better and better AFV's up front. Just because they chose quantity over quality does not alter that basic fact.
It means the economic planners and the staff generals had more to do with the outcome of the war than the armor-grog engineers.
True. But the economists and staff generals do need the armour-grog engineers input when they do their calculations and projections to be able to foresee what raw materials and other stuff they need to build tanks that are technically within their reach.
For exampe, infantry or artillery parity can neutralize a moderate armor edge, by breaking up combined arms.
It can. However there were very few ME situations with comparably sized forces
It also depends on who is attacking and who is defending.
The logistical (or operational, doctrinal, etc) seems to be necessary as well as sufficient. The tactical, tech spec superiority seems to be unnecessary and not alone sufficient.
Another illusion. It totally depends of the timeframe. If you limit the timeframe then you must also limit the effects of the logistics to match the timeframe you choose. If force A has adequate logistical support from day 1 to day 30 to sustain its operations while force B is cronically low on supplies during that same period. Force A has marginally inferior tech spec, force B has tech spec superiority. Lo and behold force B trashes force A in an operation that last from day 1 to day 30. On day 33 force B has to retreat because of worsening overall situation. Do the events on day 33 reflect on the campaign of day 1-30 ? Does the overall logictical situation have an impact on it ? Does the eventual outcome of the entire string of operations have an impact on it ? Should they ?
A case in point: North Africa.
The Israels won their earlier wars too, when they had Shermans [7QB]
Shermans upgunned with tank-grog Panther 75mm and 105mm guns.
[QB]The Russians did try to keep up with the Germans in armor spec terms, but for the most part just copied the moves they saw the Germans make, then beat them on production.
Actually it was the Russians who had the lead. It was the Germans who copied and had to respond to new developments. And the Russians beat the Germans on production.
The western Allies eventually understood the importance of upgunning AFVs, but didn't field uparmored types and didn't need them.
Really ? The TD doctrine played a part in the upgunning delay.
What constitues uparmouring in your opinion ? Why the added armour plates on the M4/M4A1 ? Why did they make the Jumbo if it was not needed ? Why all the hard and soft add on armour field applications, if they were not needed ? Why the demand for the M-26 to be shipped over if it was not needed for its better armour protection ? Tank grog BS by the field units ?
Just upgunning a portion of the fleet kept armor specs close enough to counter the German investment in the technical dominance idea.
Was the upgunning done only to appeace the front line tankers in your opinion ?
They might still have lost to the western Allies, though it might have taken atom bombs to do it.
With the provisos you gave on the German armour production in 1939-42 what makes you think the Western Allies would have been at war with Germany by late 1943 ?
the combined industrial and military might of 2/3rds of the world focused on the cockpit of Normandy.
How is that 2/3rds calculated ? What was the industrial and military might portion you attribute to the Soviets and the Germans ? 1/3rd combined ?
But having innaccurate, exaggerated ideas about how important better tanks are, can get you killed.
Not only BETTER tanks. Much of the early war tank "superiority" was psychological. Interwar period publicity had overemphazised the abilities of armour. That meant that rickety blind boxes got results way out of proportion to their actual abilities. Had the western analysts been on the Tcheckoslovakia annexation they would have surely found out just how many German tanks broke down just by driving on the paved roads. That may have altered their view of the German "superiority".
Then again the stunning victory in Poland enhanced the image of the armour as a decisive force. That is why the Red Army failed initially during Winter War. They believed their own propaganda and they took the German experiences in Poland at face value.
Later the AFV's developed to actually resemble the psychological image but again they lost the edge again when stand off weapons for infantry became available.
Or what the Germans spent 1941 and 1942 doing on the armor front, which counted on better technical designs being more important than just upgunning, then ramping production of what they had.
There was also a matter of PzKw-III turret ring not being able to take the long barreled 75mm. And their doctrine dictated after all that the armour of the vehicle must be able to defeat a hit from a gun comparable to the gun the tank is carrying itself. They were planning ahead with the initial PzKw-III and PzKw-IV and they continued the trend with the Tiger and the Panther.
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Interesting ideas.
I just wonder how the AI model is built. If there were negative modifiers could it mean that the squads would start out and remain panicked throughout the game ? Or would squads in fanatic state become panicked at a flick of an eye when they come into contact with such leaders ?
I would hesitate to induce negative values on such things as combat but to make only HQ units diddybob around with negative stealth values would be realistic as any sensible squad would dig in deep when a notoriously loud or careless officer was in the neighbourhood.
Also negative values on command would be realistic to depict unpopular commanders and their effect on the performance of a unit.
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I find it disconcerting that I as a commander cannot order a bridge blown, a minefield breached or a gap blown in wire,
... or call up a platoon of King Tigers, or call in 8" artillery, etc. etc. What you are talking about is game theory vs. battlefield reality. In the game you are a lowly commander with little to no influence over what you have, when you have it, or how to employ it strategically. That is about as real as it gets.
With regards to bridge blowing: any chance of getting the FO's do a single gun precision stitch firing to hit point targets like bridges ? With applicable LOS restrictions of course.
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Originally posted by Germanboy:
IF geocities works for a change, that is...
Sort of off-topic remark:
It would seem that if you take a look at the URL by righ-clicking and copying from properties the pic will show up on and off afterwards as it is in your HD cache.
Could it be that with all the web worms about some of the servers have disabled most or all Java script features for good measure.
Back to our regular programming.....
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<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by killmore:
Not true. Whitman bailed out of several tanks and also lost some crew man. Thus his kill ratio was NOT 141:1.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Please read more carefully.
I do not even begin to maintain he had a 141:1 kill ratio. The number of kills attributed to him correspond the kills of ~28 AT assets if going with the German claim that each and every AT asset in the German arsenal killed 5 tanks.
I do not recall off hand the number of armour kills attributed to Rudel, 300 ? If it was he would have corresponded 60 AT assets.
This is the wonderful world of averages.
[ 09-29-2001: Message edited by: tero ]
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Originally posted by tss:
Umm. No. At least that part of being in the same formation.
But you do agree that the Stugs were being used as regular gun tanks. They were even detailed to spearhead the counter attacks. As to not being in the same formation: true. But they did take part in actions side by side.
There was also difference in crew backgrounds. Many Stug crews had originally been artillerymen who were transferred to assault guns when the batallion was formed in 1943.
Yes. They started out with the BT-42's.
The figure usually given is either 87:8 or 89:8 (I can't remember whether that 87 include those two Soviet tanks that went uncredited during war).
I know. But 80+ seems better to a casual reader. It also translates to 10-1 kill ratio better than 89-8.
However, that is comparing apples to oranges: the Finnish figure includes only total losses, not damaged vehicles. It is not know how many of the 87 KO Soviet vehicles could be later repaired.
It is not apples and oranges. It is smack in the middle of this furball. Were these 87 KO'd tanks out of the loop for long enough to matter and influence the outcome at the operational level ? Wether they were write offs or not does not pertain to this particular debate as such. The kill-loss ratio of Finnish Stugs does pertain to this debate. Can the (Finnish) Stugs be considered technically superior to T-34's, IS-2's and ISU-152's ? How much do tactics and doctrine affect the equation ? What about the contribution of other battlefield assets ? How much did the Stug specs affect the tactics and doctrine at operational level ?
The Finnish kill claims for that summer range from 600 to 900. I have even seen figures that state it was over 1000. Counter claims point out that the Red Army did not have those kinds of numbers deployed. Soviet sources (according to Glantz) admit to 294 AFV lost. If these 294 are write offs then the Finnish worst estimate gives 2:1 rate for claim/loss, the best estimate 3:1 rate for claim/loss. We (Finns) know for a fact the Red Army recovered repaired and sent forth tanks KO's once or more. We also know that after stand off infantry AT weapons became available the Red Army tactics changed. They no longer lead the attacks with the tanks, the tanks stayed behind giving fire support while the infantry attacked. It has been postulated that at that point the Red Army armoured units were starting to run low on vehicles.
In theory, a tank kill was only a tank kill if it burned, but in practice non-burning KOs were often also counted. Though, this depended on the military branch. Persons assessing kills by infantry and AT guns were usually more strict, and those assessing kills by tanks or assault guns more lenient.
Moreover, as counter attacks were common any enemy vehicles left sitting in or behind the positions was counted as a kill. IIRC 9 T-34/85's were captured during the summer and those that could not be recovered were blown up if at all possible.
For some time I've been planning to go through my sources to compile a list of total Finnish Stug losses, including mission-kills, but I haven't had time to do it, yet.
There is a comprehensive list of the write offs in Laguksen Rynnäkkötykit. As for other combat losses I have to look it up. I know there was a number of firing pin and other mechanical failures but the number of actual combat losses was not readily apparent.
Question fo all those "Finnophiles"
in Combat Mission Archive #3 (2001)
Posted
Originally posted by bfamily33:
That camo scheme on that site served as the basis for this Finnish Stug:
Looking good. (The scenery should perhaps be a summer scenery though as the camo scheme is a summer scheme.)
A few pointers: Finnish Stugs did away with the remote control MG so the shield should be the older type while the loaders hatch can the newer type (hindges in the sides, not front and back). The MG itself was traded for a Russian DT (the MG-34 was wrong caliber and deemed not as reliable as the DT).
[ 10-13-2001: Message edited by: tero ]