Paul Lakowski

Is this related to the reports that only 1 in 8 or 10 soldiers actually aimed their rifles in actual combat? I recal when we discussed this decades ago it was concluded that in most cases the soldiers couldn't 'see' their enemy but knew the general direction of fire...so shot back in that direction.

truth is the TOE of the platoon was what ever you could get your hands on. By late 44 most companies might be down to 7-10 tanks. May be when brought up to strength for a campaign , they might reach four platoons of 4 or 5 tanks per , but most of the time it would be something like 10-13 AFVs per company.

Yes I agree , but its more than this. Its a physical fact that the penetration time of a shaped charge is any where from 250-400 microseconds while the 'ricochet' even takes only 50 micro seconds. Assuming these warheads detonate on impact they will undergo the ricochet while the shaped charge liner is still driving through the armor.If the detonation is delayed in any way it risks detonating after the shell has ricochet. Its also a fact that all projectiles including HEAT ricochet ricochet its just a question of if this is before or after jet detonation .Slow shells ,100-300m/s velocity light short projectiles, will ricochet at very low angles. With modern projectiles theres a good chance that with a very long probe/tip the jet is detonated early enough that the jetting event is over before the main body of the missile/rocket strikes.Its a question of how much time ? [This message has been edited by Paul Lakowski (edited 03-22-2001).]

I get real worried when I hear crap like that. A serious study on the true effectiveness of a weapon in combat is dismissed because it doesn't fit with your version of histroy.honesty A similar problem was encountered with HEAT rounds fired from the 75L24 , the answer may be very simple. HEAT rounds in order to penetrate properly have to hit the target straight on and who knows how many fail to detonate due to a realistic impact....do you know that the ricochet chance of a RPG type warhead is 50% @ 30-40° impact angle?If nothing else these HEAT jets are probably cutting a swath across the armor unless they hit dead on with out YAW.

Well Alex Buchner and others don't agree, veterans were concentrated at the Battalion Regimental in the 'assault company' and the 'Fusilier battalion' at the Divisional level. Good No one is saying 60 on one target ,but unlike you I'm atleast looking . All I was suggesting was over kill is normal in battle. You miss the point I'm not advocating any thing I'm examining the data that I can lay my hands on, I have hunch the PF should be more effective but I'm more interested in the data ....and BTW my points are atleast no more 'tendentious' than yours. Jason you have a definate goal and are craming what ever data you can find to prove the point ....even if it means, making the 'facts fit the theory' ....rather than adjusting the theory to accomadate any new facts. I actually have given several bits of data from sources that report Accuracy strongly dependant on training ,which by that point in the war was poor for Front line German infantry. Often more shooters Vs fewer targets [ overkill]....dilutes the above kill rates. Ratio of hit to penetration low [ 1 in 8 for RPG in vietnam].... could crucify the above kill rates. Less Pf at units than assumed....most cases units were well bellow TOE strenghts. Heres some more oblique but none the less relavant data In Iran IRaq war ATGMs were used by both sides these were mostly Sagger Milan and TOW. The stated kill % of these weapons were TOW & Milan 80% Sagger 60-70% The battle field accuracy turned out to be TOW & Milan 30-40% Sagger 10% The reason was inadequate training that reduced the kill prob by any where from half to 1/6 in real battle. We don't know ..... The Real Shelf life figures this stuff is more like ammo , rather than weapons. How many users became casualties before they even got to fire. How many were destroyed by arty and being over run by enemy. How many service warheads actually detonated on impact. Whats the real chance of a penetrating PF actually killing a tank. If we could find answers to these questions we'd have a better understanding...why don't you start digging through archives and get some of this data for us?

Jason part of the problem I have is that firstly most front line infantry should be average at best. Germans as far back as 1942 were consentrating the veterans in elite platoons held in reserve at the Battalion Regimental and Divisional level.The front line troops were regular at best. By 1944 this situation would have been much worst with probably half the front line troops as 'green'. Next, a german infantry platoon could count its self luck to have more than 5 x PF each , let alone 5 per squad....may be in 1945 they could count on 5 per squad. Another factor you've ignored is 'overkill', an example in ODS there was a situation where something like 40 RPGs were fired at several Abrams. All the Abrams where hit atleast once but no kills due to chobham & spaced armor. But 40 shots is something like a company firing , probably at long range for the RPGs [ 3-400m] so 10% hits sounds right....so on paper 40 -0 The same things appear to have happened in the middle eastern wars but the Israeli tanks didn't have the benifit of CHobham armor so they lost a number of tanks but in most cases each tank 'kill' was hit by several RPGs.....on paper the RPGs don't look good but their statistical kill rate was well below the actual hit rate. Heres something some one wrote to me years ago about the RPG-7 in vietnam. "Vietnam: RPG VS M113 NCHfreak <NCHfreak@hotmail.com>1999/02/26 : soc.history.war.misc Hello With ref to http://www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/shwv/articles/arm-faq.htm ,it says that there is a US army report which said that for RPG VS M113 1 prentration for every 7 RPG hit 1 hit for every 8 to 10 RPG fired 0.8 causality per prentration. Simply calculation shows that VC/NVA need 70 to 87.5 RPG fired to cause 1 causality. This means that all the RPG round in 1.6 to 2 coy needed to aim and fire at a single US M113." Note the 1 penetration for every 8 hits as the 1 hit in 8 shots is about right for average trained troops firing while under fire.... 1/2 of 30%.

Jason nice try at Diplomacy.Ok for all the daft people as you call them [ I guess that includes me too]. The maximum accuracy achieved on a test range was 60-80% and this dropped to 25% beyond the 'effective range'which is 30m for the Pz Faust 30 etc etc. We all know that in the real world battlefield accuracy are far below what can be achieved on a test range controlled shot. I suggest 1/2 the above figures with a health ± range as this does seem to work for tanks etc. Elite troops [ few and far between in German infantry battalions after 1943] should do 55-60% at short range and maybe 25% out to 50m on the Panzerfaust 30. Regular troops would do ~ 30% at effective and 10% beyond 30m [ for Pzfaust 30]. ...these would constitue the bulk of the infantry troops. And Green troops [ an increasing reality in 1944 and especially 1945] might do 15-20% at 'effective range'and 5% beyond 'effective range'. If under suppressive fire these figures might drop again by half?

YES YES , thats exaclty the point I was trying to get too. Infantry need an adequate short range AT weapon and what ever else it must be mass produceable to the max in order to produce enough to satisfy the 'normal' consumption in battle.... If you don't supply it they won't stand up to tank attack. By the end of the war the RPG type weapon emerged as the design of choice for post war planners...and that hasn't change to this day. So there has to be something to it , clearly in the hands of determined well trained troops they can be deadly!

Jason , if you go back and read what I wrote ,you'd see I stated "TEST RANGE ACCURACY"....now your new around here but there's been an ongoing debate as to how to convert ranges achieved on the test range with actual battle field accuracy. My rough conclusion was to half the test range accuracy but allow for a siginficant ± % based on crew training.....So when I say 60-80% @ effective range , that translates into about 30-40% for average crew and ± 25% range between average and 'poor' or averaga and 'veteran'. The issue is that RPGs are lethal , when used by skilled defenders in good cover....If you take the middle east , you find that the real RPG effectiveness was diluted statistically because the great tendency of all the troops in a platoon or company to fire on the same target. So they may fire a volley of 8 rounds but with 4-6 hits but on paper it took 8 x RPGs to kill a tank. [NOTE the above RPG figures are fictious and only intended for argument sake....any resemblence with person or persons real or imaginary is purly conincidental ]

Jason , just in case you didn't get it...the % figures I presented and the losses were presented by the Russian sourse ... all I did was MAKE AN ASSUMPTION ABOUT THE LINK....its total invalid because it assumes all AT guns lost were lost fighting tanks, when they were probably mostly destroyed by arty and MG fire....how can I conclude this....I can't , I make an assumption that since most battles were between infantry divisions, who had little or no tanks, then odds are most Anti tank guns weren't destroyed engadging enemy tanks. You see how the more the assumption ,the weaker the point?

Thats rich Jason, now the Red Army doesn't know how to study the effectiveness of there own Anti Tank Guns.....why , because it doesn't fit with Jasons view of the world????

A view from the other side "The Soviet Economy and the Red Army" Dunn Jr pp 133 " Over 1,200 German Mk -III Panzers and Sturmgesschutz III were converted into SU-76i at No 38 [Factory] in the fsll of 1943" 1,200 in the fall of 1943 , I had no idea that the Russians converted that many captured tanks...the chapter goes on the note that Factory 38 continued to produce SU-76s from their T-70 line and it seems the SU-76i was just a temporary expediance.

Jason I'm not going to get into your approach because its based to much on a series of assumptions that may or may not apply. Consider the following example ...... During the war the russians produced 48,800 x 45mm AT guns 5,400 x 57 mm AT guns 68,800 x 76mm guns They they estimate that eah AT gun type had the following kill ratios with tanks 45mm 0.25 57mm 3 76mm 2.5 So if we assume that ever AT destroyed in anger that should result in 1944 with 32,350 German Tanks lost????? Kill Ratio x loss = German tanks killed 45mm 0.25 x 8,200 = 2,050 57mm 3 x 1,100 = 3,300 76mm 2.5 x 10,800 = 27,000 The daily ammo production was 50,000 x 45mm Ammo and 30,000 x 76mm from one factory alone So going on 76mm ammo thats ~ 11 million rounds produced and since most were arty, then if even 10% or a million 76mm round genetrated 27,000 kills thats 41 rounds per kill.But in 1944 alot of 76s were used as AT guns and the load outs where more like 50-50 which would make the kill rate per gun About 200 AT rounds per tank Killed. Looking at the 45mm amm thats > 18 million rounds generating 2050 kills in 1944 or about 8,900 rounds per kill and this is a dediacated AT gun so 50-50 load out or 4451 AT shots per Tank kill...????? See how just a few turns of the assumption and you end up with completely screwed up figures that just don't add up [that 76mm ATG should get 10 times the kill rate of 45mm ATG...which on the face of it doesn't sound too bad] And heres another twist the production figures are from the Munitions plant # 22 near Kuibyshev and represent the production in 1943.... the total arty ammo production easly ran at 5 million rounds per month or about 60 million a year.

OK heres some % figures from Russian study of how there tanks were killed . It covers major battles from Berlin 1945 to Orel 1943 [ kursk] 7% aircraft 5% mines 14% handheld [Panzerfaust and others] 6% misc 68% Artillery. They note that in Berlin operation 24% of tank losses were due to Panzerfausts.Also Russians tend to group AT Artillery in with regular Arty .

Jason , your logic is flawed. You assume that X amount of warheads / Y amount of Kills = kill rate for that weapon].Thats a strategic rate not a tactical rate. The problem is that many many many more weapons have to be produced just to get one per squad....regardless of if there all used or none of them are used. Have you heard of "Shelf life". Panzerfausted used carboard in their construction how long do you think they last? Even modern missiles and rockets only have shelf lives of 5-10 years and thats after decades of top dollar development. The point is if 24 million "AT Rifle grenades" manufactured over two years result in a average of only 5 per squad over that same period ..... then a Pzfaust production of a few million in a year over a much larger demand [312 divison in combat in '44], is going to result in only a fraction being available.... on an 'on going basis'. The question of determining weapons effectiveness based on the total number of kills is a seperate issue. The two 'sets' don't over lap completely in fact in a lot of cases they may not over lap at all. What you need is to deterimine how many shots resutled in how many kills. [This message has been edited by Paul Lakowski (edited 03-16-2001).]

I don't agree with your analysis here Jason, lets look at Rifle fired Grenades as an example. Historically 24 million AT Rifle fired Grenades were maunfactured between early 1942 and early 1944. There were 130 infantry divisions and 20 motorized Divisions and 28 Panzer Divisions at the fronts during 1942 , while in 1943 the figures where 150 infantry 22 motorized and 34 Panzer Divisions. Thats roughly 1180 infantry battalions in 1942 and 1380 in 1943. If each battlion has 3 line companies each with 9 rifle grenade launchers as per TOE, then thats ~ 69120 Launchers over two years of combat or about 347 AT grenades manufacture for each Rifle Grenade launcher per year or about 1 x AT grenade fired a day. In reality each infantry squad won't be in battle every day infact it looks like any battalion in a battle zone spends about 1/3 of the time fighting and the rest advancing or retreatinfg and regrouping.In truth this would be more like one week in combat one and two weeks moving and regrouping. The above dosn't include divisions not in combat that would still have to be equipped with this weapon in order for it to be 'standardized'. As a rule the standard TOE for that weapon was only 5 AT grenades issued per launcher. If we look at the PzFaust production millions were produced , yes but atleast a couple of million in the last coule of months of the war. In 1944 there were only a few of million produced when the numbers needed where > 10 million , just to get the frequency of the level of the AT Rifle grenade. As to accuracy I bet alot of these weapons were fired even if they were out side effective range and I bet alot of the targets were't always tanks.A large number of Tractors Half Tracks and trucks and Armored cars were destroyed. If you look at the production of AT ammo for tank guns it was in the 10s of millions per gun and the load out was supposed to be 50-50 AT HE .

I will look for this book , in the meantime... OK I agree with this as I've read as much in the past ,but it doesn't bear close scrutiny when you start crunching some numbers, consider the following. Leg mobile infantry Korps can average 20 km per day and Motorized Korps can average about 50km per day. The distance from the Polish boarder to Moscow was 1500 km there for in a straight march, the motorized divisions could have been there in under a month and the leg mobile korps in just over two months. The invasion of France covered about 1500km of fighting and maneuvering and was completed in 5 weeks.There fore there was about 3-4 weeks of maneuver and 2-1 week of combat. If we see the invasion of France in two phases you have the race to the channel and the advance to the south. Each characterized by up to a weeks fighting followed by 1 to 3 weeks of pursuit. Yet Historically the advance on Moscow took 6 months, therefor the rate of advance was not determined by the level of motorization but by something else. Historically a quick look at Guderians Panzer Leader shows the Panzer Korps undergoing lighting advances for several days some times averaging 40-60km a day followed by days of waiting for the supplies to catch up repair and regroup . But you see a similar pattern in France, were the road net is not a problem.In fact in France you see days of fighting followed by a breakthrough and then days of advance which ends when objective is reached, then regroup for the next advance. So there is natural cycle of fight, advance and regroup and in Russia we see a similar pattern . If we look at the broad picture we have <PRE> Guderians Pz Korps Military Gas consumption *June 200 km advance 260,000 tons July 450 km advance 180,000 tons Aug 180 km advance 200,000 tons Sept 208 km advance 175,000 tons OCT 208 km advance 160,000 tons Nov 105 km advance 120,000 tons Dec 72 km advance 130,000 tons * Last week of July </PRE> The key is the fighting not the motorization. If you look at David Glantz 'Initial Period of War on the Eastern Front', the panzer spearheads are weeks ahead of the main army in only a matter of one month of fighting. When the Russian counter attacks strike they often out number the Germans 3:1 to 10:1 , thus taking a large toll of the panzer forces. What was needed was more motorization and mobile fire power for the Infantry korps. That way they could finish the encirclement battles sooner and catch up with the Panzer spearheads and take over the fight so the Panzer spearheads can flank the enemy line and continue the advance.

Sounds like a good book to get, I read that the effective range of the PzFausts was equal to about 60-80% hit probablity on the test range, after this the accuracy drops off rapidly to 25%. The maximum range was usually more than twice the effective range ...on a test range, so hits are possible but not likely then. I looked at PzFausts prodcution and its unlikely that a platoon had more than 2-3 Pzfaust or 1 per suad. By late 44 they might have as many as 6-8 per platoon or 2 per squad. In early 45 the figure is more like 20 per platoon or about 5 per squad. [This message has been edited by Paul Lakowski (edited 03-14-2001).]

OK I fianlly got the other 17Lb APDS drawing I was looking for. It looks quite different from the pic that conall sent me, the Sabot looks different and the length looks different too 4:1 length to diameter on Conalls pic and 3.5 :1 on the drawing I have also the tip looks more blunted but theres no cap as in the 105 and 120 APDS.The sheathing looks substancially thicker on my drawing compared to Conalls.Theres very little gap between the inside of the 'windscreen' and the penetrator tip , where as theres more on Conalls pic. I'll see if I can scan this and I got a website the other day so with any luck I'll get it loaded up soon. [This message has been edited by Paul Lakowski (edited 03-14-2001).]

No Conall. Two years ago Andrew Jaremkow and I were exhamining modern APFSDS projectiles [ no suprise there], I made the observation that in ballistic research most 'scale models' used as test include a hemispherical nose design. Andrew produced a ton of pics that did show German APFSDS and 105 APDS with rounded noses. I found a book 'Ammunition for the modern land battle field' that included cutaways drawings of 120mm APDS 17 lb APDS and 6 Lb, and as I recall the 6 Lb was the only one that didn't have a rounded nose. In long rod penetration studies sharp nosed penetrators take a longer route through slanted armor[ 60-70°] as one would expect but only about 1.1 times the LOS.Rounded nosed APFSDS take a shorter route through the armor, but not by much and @ 45° it takes a slightly longer route [ 1.05 times]. Flat tipped penetrators are the best taking only 0.8 times the LOS penetration route through the armor @ 60-70°. Thus most APFSDS penetrate up to 20% more than the LOS penetration value if they feature a flat nose.[M-829 series, British L23 Israeli and now Chinese APFSDS as well]. The long and short of it is that Anderson Jr [ probably the world leader in research] discovered that the effects of the nose disappear after the projectile has penetrated 2 rod diameters or about 40-50 microseconds and I found APDS studies from the 60s that show this in steel and Tungsten APDS. Every thing about WW-II and alot on modern penetration depends on that nose design.

OK you win, " Almost never any...."

OK I'll have to see if I can copy that pic I saw a while back....I'm sure it was a 17Lb with a ballistic cap...we'll see.

Markus Hofbauer "....and with few exceptions,...."

"French and Italian armored vehicles were included in the OKH lists because these occupied countries provided large numbers of armored vehicles which could bbe maintained from exsisting stocks of spare parts. Furthermore factories within the occupied territiries were manufacturing both components and full vehicles for the German Army." Armored vehicles captured from other enemies were generally used by the front line units which captured them,and with few exceptions, were not converted or listed officially by the OKH." "During the four years of war in Russia, a great deal of Russian army equipment fell into German hands . During the early period , most armor vehicles were inferior obsolete designs which were discarded by the advancing German forces.In the defensive battles of the following years , the Russian armored vehicles were generally put to good use by the units which captured them until, inevitably , they broke down and could not be repaired.Photographs clearly show the use to which Russian armor was put when captured by individual units......" Chamberline & Doyle @ Jentz Encyclopedia of German Tanks of WW-II.

Ballistic Research refers to 'Ballistic Caps' as the penetrating cap and the other cap as the 'Windscreen'