Paul Lakowski

Its supposed to allow for better slanted penetration.

They could have solved both the fuel shortage and the truck shortage prior to Babarossa by not diverting the men and materials that were bound for the auto industry and oil industry in the first two years of the war in order to maintain staffing levels on infantry divisions they didn't need in the first place. Most of these decisions where Hitler's. The structure of the supply system was due to the 'cottage industry' nature of the German economy, something that Reich minister Todt tried to change through 1941 only to be blocked by Hitler and his power hungry gaultiers. What more people don't seem to recognize was that Germany produced 3 times as much steel as Russia and almost as much oil as Russia ...and yet with all this production the Russians produced 3 times as many weapons in all categories [ except trucks]....after there industrial base was shattered and relocated 1500km east into the ural mountains. If such a 'back ward' people could do that much , then any complaint about how the Germans couldn't produce enough of this or that war material is just making excuses! What was wrong with Germany was in the structure of there economy that inhibited its conversion to a total war economy....but instead keep the power base in the hands of Hitler's power hungry Nazi Cronies.

....and Lewis you have an abrasive approach, which makes discussing things with you very difficult at times. If the aim is to share info , why don't you control your sarcastic tone and just stick to the facts. Its hard enough as it is with out having to deal with all that crap.

This is exactly the point I was getting to , as a study of the German tank strength goes down the same route..... I found "survival" rates of 60% in 1942 for each 6 month period and 55% in 1943 and 50% in 1944.And this seemed to be the same wether it was Pz -IV or Tiger. The conclusion I drew was that mechanical survival must be driving this. A simple study of the AT gun inventory shows that there survival rate was about 1/2 the above figures....so by mounting a Pak 40 on a Captured tank chassis you doubled its survival. By late war the inventory strengths of AT guns can only support about 20 x AT guns per Infantry Division....thats about 2 per infantry battalion and a company with ~ 8 at the Divisional level attached to the Fusilier Battalion [Divisional reserve]. Yes thats why a 35 ton Panther entering production in mid to late 1942 ,would have been a much better choice than 45 ton Panther entering production in early to mid 1943. Not only do you end up with alot more Panthers produced , you also can sustain a much larger Panther force in the field, enough to completely requip every Panzer Battalion with 'Lighter Panther' by early 1944.

Claus you say they looked similar, did that include cutaway of the interior of the penetrator? I had a pic some where that shows 17lb with a ballistic cap over the penetrator under the windscreen, does the pics your looking at show the same?

This is very similar to my conclusion, I did a simple calculation that I'll get into later .

Jeff to make it clear the loss figures are all Russian, the germans are estimates of Russian losses while the Russian is from there archives.

OK thats Sqrt of [1/COS² 55°+ 1/COS² 15° -1 ] Sqrt of [ 3.04 + 1.07 -1] = 1.765 or ~ 55-56° How did you work yours out?

Your missing the point, If you look at things through the eyes of the Panzers then yes they had better tanks . However if you look at things from the infantry they had none at all so any tank , even a poor one is better than no tank at all. Most of the divisions that fought on the eastern front were infantry divisions and these captured tanks were often used to tow arty and other gear in the poor road net. Again since there was no record kept we can't be sure but there's plenty of photo references that suggest this was done.

OK first some figures Soviet Tank inventory <PRE> Hvy[KV& JS] medium[T-34] light* Total 1941 500 900 21,200 22,600 1942 600 800 6,300 7,700 1943 2000 13,400 11,900 20,600 1944 1600 9,200 11,000 21,100 1945 4,700 12,400 8,200 25,400 </PRE> * T-26/BT5/7 in 1941 and T-26/BT-7/T-40/60/70 in 1942 and T-60/70 rest of the years. Thats the number of each type and total inventory at the end of each year ,except 1941 which is 22 June 1941 and 1945 which is May 7th 1945. Below is a sample of where all the tanks were on Oct 31st 1944 [German estimate] At front = 3,160 In Reserve = 2,060 In Rear Area= 2,880 Unlocated units = 4,370 Far East etc= 930 Repair & in Transit = 4,800 Crews <PRE> SU production SU crews 1943 4,000 4,335 1944 11,958 13,032 1945 6,267 10,115 </PRE> Varing loss estimates of Russian Tks & SUs <PRE> German Soviet Production Loss Production Loss 1941 4,900 21,000 5,600 20,500 1942 14,400 16,197 28,000 15,100 1943 20,250 17,333 27,300 23,500 1944 25,500 19,050 34,700 23,700 </PRE> As can be expected the German estimates on losses are quite good until they start to loss, buit contray to expectation they tend to under estimate Russian actual losses. Sources for the above "The Soviet Economy and the Red Army 1930-1945" Walter S Dunn Jr ; Praeger [This message has been edited by Paul Lakowski (edited 03-09-2001).]

It seems to me the reason they could suffer such losses is because they had 20,000 tanks in the inventory through out most of the war and only committed 7-10,000 to the field forces. That way any unit could be selectively replaced and brought up to full strength on a as needed basis.

All due respect , but I don't see how you can make such a statement since OKH never keep any records of captured Russian Tanks, thousands fell into German hands and they even operated a tank factory near Kharkow with 2000 russian workers [ run by Krupp]. Truth is most were wasted away , take ATGuns for example , there may have been as many as 7000 x 76mm guns captured along with millions of rounds of ammo to go with them....in all OKH only used 1200 of which half were mounted on Marder AFVs. Experiments show that you could even mount a 75mm french gun on a T-26 in a self propelled design....mean while all the German infantry divisions were being bleed to death because they had no armor to counter Russian Tank attacks...go figure!

Greetings John , by comparison German tanks in 1944 only had a 55-60% of surviving 6 months.... They were consumed in battle. Not nessessarly destroyed though, just had to be replaced.

I gather from talking to Andrew Jaremkow , that the APDS problems were solved by the Canadians after the war , infact apparently much of the design of the 20lb and 105 APDS owes it origines to Canadian research. I have 1969 Canadian research papers on the possible development of a DU APDS which also reviews tungsten carbide and alloy penetration. The shatter gap is evident in the work and the researchers show how its 'reboud effect'as striking velocity increases can be controlled by the shape of the nose. Extensive radio flash imagery show that any deviation of the projectile while penetrating occurs within the first 40-50 microseconds ...or so. This is important because that means the round 'turns or doesn't turn' before the main body of the projectile digs into the armor plate . This is why I believe its all in the projectile nose sharpness and tip design.

I certainly look forward to the book too. For years I've been quoting Robert to any one whole cares to listen, now I can refer to a book ....always sounds better that way However we differ on a couple of points. I've been looking at penetration and armor resistance for years in both modern and WW-II context. I've come to the conclusion that estimating relative projectile plate interaction from the POV of the armor is a mistake and misleading. The success or failure is dependant on the relation between these two. In some cases deficency in the projectile are a factor while in other cases its flaws or hardness in the plate.In some case the flaws in the projectile or plate don't enter into the equation ...because they don't reach that level. I find it easier to explain by using the modifications to adjust both projectile penetration and plate resistance if needs be. So for example I don't use your 'slope modifiers', I use reduction to the projectile efficence at angle.....still have too factor in 'T/d' though. Thats not so easy as there's not a lot of engineering data in this area, but it can be done.

Considering that theres no other game in this scale and catagory you have no other choice . It depends on what you what, it seems like alot of model builders like the game as they get to tinker with mods. Personally I've seen games come and go for decades and no longer impulse by them. I wouldn't wast my money on the game.

Didn't Lorin have a formula for predicting velocity down range based on the MV ?

Yes Well I can tell you from talking to Robert that he was NOT AMUSED! As to the formula it ignores the 'L/d effect' and the increasing impact of erosion as striking velocity increases,and theres no reference to the impact that differing nose shape makes .

Once range has been 'bracketed'it won't suffer if the tank moves a few meters or dozen meters in any direction , its just a question of keeping the aim on the target. You'd think by the way some people talk these guys have no training at all. They know all this and often fire hundreds of rounds before going into combat. Where the statistical figures on gunnery get get crucified by averaging is when you go into battle with half your tanks only 5 hours of gunnery training . Those guys can't hit the back side of the barn and never last either. But the numbers leave there mark on company averages etc. Elite gunners were as accurate as the antidotal evidence suggests the key is accurately modeling the frequency and effectiveness of poor gunners . I work with a X Serb Tanker [ T-55 & 72], he told me that most of the guys in his unit were poorly trained and couldn't hit the back side of a barn in combat. He was usually able to hit with 2 to 4 shots in battle with T-55 [ APDS & no lazier] , but there was one 6 foot 4 inch gunner in the company , named the gypsy who "Never Missed ever"!!!

Yeah I suggested that yonks ago, With the LEO-2 using visual range estimation the aux sight and hand traverse firng HEAT and APFSDS I got the following results. Target stationary hit on second or third shot at 1500-2000m range. Target moving towards me hit on third or fourth shot at 1500-2000m range. Target moving crossing sight ~ 20 shots with HEAT [Vs BMP] @ the same range. I found that ranging was the biggest factor and Lead against a moving target. If I guessed the range right the above figures could work well , but if I guessed wrong I'd have to fire another round or two to get the range. With some practice I found I was pretty good at estimating range....even adjusting before first shot and hitting on the second round. Now this was the test range and I find accuracy is reduced to about 2/3 of test range figures when there shooting back at you. Hand cranking the turret around was a bitch and took for ever!!!

Actually that sounds about right to me!! This sounds like the PzIV Vs Sherman debate, where some people got constant german advantage while others got constant Sherman advantage. I noticed that if you run Steel Panthers the exact same scenario again and again the first time would advantage one side and the next time advantage the other side.... Has anyone noticed this on CM?

Theres a formula for calculating ricochet and its clear that a degree or two more should not affect ricochet too much .

OK lets do some more number cruching... German TANKs & AT guns produced... ~ 4000 37mm AT guns 10,000 50mm AT guns 24,000 75mm AT guns > 4000 88mm AT guns Say 1000 converted russian 76mm ATGs plus ~ 35,500 tks and SP guns also produced during WW-II. OK thats ~ 80,000 weapons to produce 96,500 kills in the east. now not all kills were from tanks or AT guns say 80% , thats 80,000 weapons netting ~ 77,000 kills or about 0.96 kills per weapon. But this is the east if you add N Africa , Italy & France, thats maybe 1.1 kill per weapon. So if we lookk at the ammo produced thats 1000-2000 rounds per weapon . But if ammo production mirrors ammo load outs thats 50-50 AP-HE so thats 500-1000 rounds per weapon. Thus approximately 1.1 kill per 500 to 1000 rounds fired , thats 550:1 to 1100:1. PanzerFaust & HEAT Grenades production looks like > 22 million HEAT grenades & 7 million PFs or 29 million rounds producing 14,000 kills over the war.Thats about 2071:1 ratio. But this doesn't include PzSchreck or AT mines so say 35 million producing 14,000 kills or 2500:1 kill ratio. so thats Infantry =2500:1 AT/Tk = 550-1100:1 so from the economic POV thats infantry AT weapons are 1/2 to 1/4 as effective as tanks and AT guns.Understand this isn't a tactical argument but economical , so lets look at cost. Off the top of my head a Pz-III is 150,000 Rm while a PzF is ~ 7000 Rm thats ~ 21 :1 cost ratio. But the cost of a Pz-III in the field is alot more than just the purchase price so the real ratio could be 40 or 50 :1 or alot more.And this dosn't address training cost of transportation etc. 50 PzF could equipp 3 companies, so which would you want one Pz-III or a bn with Panzer fausts. Infantry battalions were chronically short of AT weapons relying on an average of 4 AT Guns per battalion from 43 on.With the PzF they could greatly increase the Infanttry AT capabily very quickly.

your not going to find the answers to your questions this way, for every AT Gun produced there was often 1000 -2000 rounds per year produced and how many produced kills? Start to look at the total logistics package and see how much wast is involved.

Jason 'am I to understand that your basing this on the mear fact that 7 million PF were produced so they should have killed many more ? is that it? You know that half those 7 million 'rounds' were produced in Jan to mar 1945, when they were issuing them to old men and women to defend there home towns from the red hord? I wonder how many actually got close enough to use them and how many just ditched them.