Paul Lakowski

I'd like to suggest that the loss to other causes could be alot higher than you think. In the first few weeks of Barbarossa the Luftwaffe shot up the Red army logistics net work so well, that on average the tanks that did get into battle [ 1/3 of the total] had only 1/3 the normal load outs. Additionally when those front line Russian divisions fell back they also captured 1/3 of the total ammo supply [ in warehouse's and depots]. They captured millions of rounds of ammo all in a matter of weeks. Now the above situation probably also describes what happened to the German armies fighting in the east at the end of the war. Their logistics and hugh supply of ammo that goes along with it, probably suffered the same fate. In preperation for overlord the Allies shot up every supply dump and colume they could lay there hands on until most german divisions were almost paralized with no fuel or supplies. The amount of wast here seems massive and clearly needs more research. According to Wolfgang Fleischer, the Panzer faust accuracy was 75-80% @ 60 meters [ Panzer faust 60] & 25% @ 80 meters range.

Glantz reports [ When Titans clash] that Red army Started the war with 22,600 Tanks produced 98,300 & lost 96,500 leaves 24,400 Tanks & SP Guns at the end of the war. But their ‘Tanks & SP Guns inventory’ numbers on May 1945 are 35,200 , so there may some difference in production and loss figures . Dunn’s “The Soviet Economy and the Red Army” puts the production figure at 102,300 ; which would make the end of war figure 28,400 Tanks and SP Guns.

I think your putting the cart before the horse. In Kursk the 1st SS division attacked as follows [ The Leibstandarte Vol-III ; Rudolf Lehmann]. Engineers cleared paths through mines under cover of night and arty harrassment fire. July 5th 2nd SS PzGd Rgt [mot] with Tiger company in the lead , followed by 2 x infantry Battalions with the Stug Battalion in accompanyment , supported by Arty Bn + 88 battery lead off the attack towards Jakowlewo. [Fixing attack] moving parrallel to this towards Bykowka, July 5th 1st SS PzGd Rgt [mot] with 3 x infantry bn & Marder Battalion plus 88 battery & arty Bn . [ turning the enemy flank] 1st SS Pz Rgt [ minus Tigers] plus SPW Bn & Marder Company plus Armored arty Bn , stand ready until above two positions cleared [ thus gap created] and then committed on July 6th which drove 20km to the second line, about 8-10 Km infront of Prokorvka. The main reason Germany was unable to continue these offensives was due to the fuel supply situation, there was no surplus from that point on...atleast not in the ammounts required to mount an offensive. [This message has been edited by Paul Lakowski (edited 02-08-2001).]

Most of what I've read supports the concept of SPW as suppressive fire assets to support the Panzers during the break through and provide a battle field taxie to closely follow those same tanks and be on hand to dismount and hold ground once won. The second MG on the SPW was supposed to be the squad MG. Kurt Mayers has some very good examples of this employment in early 1943. The SPW bn ran through several russian Bns [ shattering them in the processs] the return fire was almost none existant as the attacks were over so fast.The impression left on the Russians was decisive. Its clear SPW Bn were manuever weapons best used in the pursuit phase along side rampaging Panzer companies,relying on speed and suprise to catch there enemy off balance and defeat him that way. Part of the problem here, is that there was a war before Overlord, but most people see WW-II as 1944 only .The war was over by then and the inventory stock of SPWs probably could only support a couple of companies per Panzer division. Lets be clear here, thats 2-3 SPW companies out of 16 panzer grenadier companies per Pz Division . Thats 35-40 pz divisions out of , what 300-400 divisions, so they were as frequent as 1 to 2% of the infantry units.

Well Jason I'll have to check Glantz and my Red war Economy books when I get home. But if you look at `1973 suez , it seems that many israeli tanks where lost to RPG 7s at close range. The RPG 7 is just a step away from Panzer faust 150. Anthony Cordesmann , who made studies of modern war reports that platoons tended to fire on mass so only one kill was credited when a number of hits occur.This tended to dilute the actual effectiveness of the RPG [ on paper]...possibly by as much as 'an order of magnitude'.But it sure made a deep impression on the Israelis. Some times statistics can appear to suggest something else.The total number of kills by panzer faust divided by the number of Panzerfausts supplied doesn't equal a kill rate. How knows how many are lost in the destroyed supply columes, I gather that forward units only carried 1/3 of the supply of ammo in there companies while the rest is in columes. Given the huge loss rate on trucks alone , there lost cargo must be accounted for. Try telling infantry to stop attacking tanks , but not give them any AT weapons....They won't attack or defend themselves, just run away or hide. If on the other hand you give them a half desent weapon they will find a way to employ it as best it can.

Lewis , whats your problem! jealous?

Jason on the eastern front alone , Glantz reports the Russians lost 96,500 tanks. German tanks are roughly credited with 1/2 while AT guns 1/3 or more . That still leaves 1/6 of 96,500 or 16,000 tks lost on the eastern front to other means [ arty , air and infantry], and doesn't include other fronts.

As I understood it in 1944 German infantry platoons could count on up to half dozen Panzer faust 30s [200mm penetration & 30m effective range; max 75m ?] . Plus a Panzershreak[sp?] with 160mm Penetration & 150m effective range ; Max 400m]. Plus every squad had grenade launcher with 5 HEAT & 10 HE grenades , the HEAT warhead could do 90-125mm penetration & 60-80m effective range; 3-400m max range. In addition they had a supply of hollow charge mines that could penetrate 140-180mm armor but had to be hand placed on the target. Now in game terms you can laugh but Germans were able to immobilizes KV -1s with a cluster of grenades back in 1941 and apparently it was done through out the war in teams with some guys providing cover fire and smoke to blind and approach the tank allowing a close kill. Apparently Guderian reported 14,000 'tank destroying decorations' awarded to the infantry. Alex buchner [ German Infantry Handbook] implies thats 14,000 tanks KOed. Can any one add to or update these figures?

I had a talk with Valera on RMZ about that and they weren't clear on what was meant by poor quality armor . He recongnized that the reference to 'poor quality' could just mean that the Tigers had armor with a hardness of only 220-240 BHN.

Actually at the beginning it was superior Which then brought the armor down to 'average',but Tigers still had superior armor while Stugs went without face hardening .... as did most tanks after mid to late 1943.However the plate hardness was still good untill mid to late 44 when thick armor was 220-240 BHN and Hetzers were produced with mild steel flank armor [ 198 BHN]. Actually the results you speak of where due to the poor state of welding towards wars end [iE last year]. These created weakened zones that may or maynot effect impact ...depends on distance of impact to weld in projectile diameters. The bigger the warhead the larger this zone. I disagree it seems that all armor varied in hardness and other factors.In ballistic test this explains the large variation [ up to ± 20%]. If the game includes this then no more modification is needed. I would suggest that late model Panthers should be 100% , but increase that 'weakened zone' figure to allow higher chance of plate failure.

The qualitative superiority of German armor is not new , has been reported by Jentz years ago. I remember having talks with Robert Livingston on this and he reported that its due to the poor carbon content in allied armor [ 0.3 compared to 0.5 in German armor]. Looking at it from a modern POV most modern armor duplicates the higher German carbon content armor. So its time for you all to go back to school

Since both single hits and multiple misses do occure they should show up in the game as a matter of course , if not then somethings wrong with the gsme system. It should follow a normal distribution. I was reading Ribbentrops account of the fighting around Prochorvoka and it seemed that once they zeroed- in every shot was a hit , and he even states that much.

Yes imaging fighting at 30 below in the Russian Artic type winters !!

There was a paper that I sent around awhile ago , that showed this...must say it came as a suprise to us too. It seems that alot changes as you move from plate to plate and the penetrator can 'turn' or 'shatter'when it hits the next plate, especially when the next plate is harder. In fact this kind of effect is supposed tobe embodied in Chobham armor[ called "Interlayer Defeat"]. Hard outer layer is supposed to shatter AP projectile tip, however if the AP projectile has a ballistic cap , the shattering tends not to happen. In a series of test back in the 60s it was shown that the penetrator and plate under went 'work hardening', immediatly after penetration and this could make the penetrator too brittle , and that could lead to shatter. As always we need to do more digging.

AFV Interiors has a new mag up that includes 3 pagers on the Churchill tank, check it out. http://www.kithobbyist.com/AFVInteriors/church/church1.html "Turrets for most Churchill tanks were made from welded flat plates, but once again the later vehicle turrets were different, the turret constructed from a one-piece cast unit with steel plates welded to the top for the roof." Your not going to believe this, but this is the same construction technique in the 1980s modern Challanger -1 tank...well almost. The turret is a cast construction with Chobham armor applique added over top and hard steel plates confining the whole armor into one element.When it came out in 1985 it was the best protected turret in NATO offering 62cm KE resistance and 100cm HEAT protection.

In addition to that if the projectile impacts in any kind of Yawed manner this effect will be even more pronunced, mind you it takes alot of YAW to reduce AP penetration [ as opposed to APFSDS]. I'll do some digging and since I have you address I can always make copies and send you some papers that may be of interest.

Yes , what I need is cutaway drawings that show the penetrator and nose shape. With measurements would be good but I can live without that for now I have tons of Russian scale ammo drawings scanned that I can trade....drop me a line. I also need similar drawings for 75L70 AP ammo.

Yes but the brittle armor is an issue at cold temp.

You know I wish I could see the temp gradiant?Yes Temp does play a role.

Heres my estimate based on erosion modeling My adpated [Anderson ]Formula is V[striking velocity] x 0.52 - In of L/d x 0.15 [natural log of the projectile lenght to diameter] raised to a value for projectile sharpness [ratio of tip diameter to body diameter] x scaling factor [ from Ordnance board 1950 Penetration of armor plate] . 88 L71 mm 1000m/s 0.52- 0.18 = 0.336 ^ 0.38 = 0.66 x 1.1 = 0.727x 309mm = 224.5 mm @ 0° [3.5:1 L/d Steel APC with 6.5:1 T/B @ 1000 m/s Vs 0° RHA 300 @ muzzle ] Hogg figures are 207mm @ 0° @ 500 m suggests 224m @ 0° @ muzzle ; I don't yet have a good penetrator dimentions so it could be slightly higher. Looks like we're both heading in the same direction.

I have papers on Tungsten penetrators hitting aluminum targets that are a series of blocks at normal and slanted impact [30-45°]. The curious thing is that , as one would expect, they penetrate hugh amounts of aluminum , but in almost every case the penetrator hits the second or third block and either 'turns' an additional 30° instantly and stops penetrating or fractures into several piece, again right away and stops penetrating right away. I'll re read the paper to see if I can get any more out of it and I'll take another look at TM 9-1907.

Thanks for the explaination 'Rexford', I have problems with T/d figures though that Robert sent me years ago. It shows no difference at 30o and I've found evidence from research test that show t/d effects at all angles even @ 0o impact. But such figures don't include the effects of Yawed impact. For example I have tests of APFSDS Vs semi infinti RHA targets [ 260 BHN] and another target with stacked harder plates [ 340-380 BHN].In all cases the RHA armor target offers ~ 10% more resistance [per unit thickness], however only if there is no YAW at all in the projectile impact. All it takes is 1-2o Yaw [ happens all the time] and the stacked target offers 10-20% more resistance In addition its clear that all projecitle ,including shaped charge , are effected by t/d. THanks Jeff, I was asking more about the t/d question.

I have TM-9-1907 and I can't find this , what pages ? Yes but the projectile will undergo Yaw in the process and the longer the projectile the more its vunerable to Yaw.In addition studies of spaced plates show that the YAW is not predictable for short AP type projecties some times its large other times its quite low. So spaced plates normal have a ± 30% variation in resistance. Tests on tumble rate on APFSDS resulting from spaced plate impact @ angle suggest the following .A 1.0° YAW vs a spaced plate arrangement @ 75° results in 15 fold increase in YAW or COS² .The same impact on a 45° sloped array results in a 1.5° YAW becoming 4.5° or 3 fold increase ,closer to 1.41^3.2 . However this amount of YAW occurs only after the projectile has traveled more than one times its length from the outer to the inner plate ….in modern tanks that would require at least 30cm airgap between plates @ 75° far too impractical . Immediate Post impact tumble rates are much lower and in the above case the 1 ° YAW @ 75° becomes 2° or COS ^ 0.5 ° and 1.5° YAW @ 45° becomes 1-5- 2° or again about COS ^ 0.5 ….

Yes but are the missiles Radar guided or multi mode guidance? I always heard they were fire and forget MMW radar. If the radar can't lock on it can't be used , right?

Thats quite a claim since I heard all the Elephants were in the north! I remember that ISS Pz Div had only 4 operational Tigers at Prokorvocha. On the APDS Vs sloped plate issue Conall sent me some cutaways of 17lb APDS ammo and the penetrator nose is very sharp indeed. This explains its poor penetration Vs sloped armor . All the WW-II rounds that had sharp point and no ballistic cap suffered under slanted impact and if you exhamine all the APDS APCR & HVAP there all sharp tipped. When such a projectile strikes sloped armor the force upward is much more than a 'capped' or blunted projectile. Most of the APC and APCBC were blunted and the Russian ones were flat tipped . This may explain why there ammo reports more penetration Vs sloped armor than less.It certainly explains why APCBC was less effected by slope. I know that post war APDS all got caps and even remember seeing cut away drawings of 17 Lb , 105 & 120 APDS with such caps. The post war 105 APDS is reported by Rheinmettal to be 1/Cos^ 1.1 @ 60o impact angle.