PJungnitsch

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>As for the US not getting theirs, that is just "we didn't have time for anything non-German," on the part of BTS. The US RRs would be more common in the late war and more effective, since e.g. the 57mm would be a medium speed infantry team instead of a limited speed towed gun. But then quad 50 cal halftracks aren't there either, so what else is new?<hr></blockquote> I wouldn't bitch too hard, the US did get the Super Pershing in the game, of which all of two were produced. And the Panther and King Tiger turrets are still way too slow. No doubt Brian has a list on the Commonwealth side of things. Everyone can find something to complain about. AFAIK American use of recoiless rifles in WWII was very limited, Hogg only gives use by 17th Airborne near Essen, which must have been at the very end. The only recoiless rifle that really mattered in the war would be the humble Panzerfaust, anyway.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Brian: Ah, yes, but then the role of the JSII was not primarily to take on other tanks. It was intended as a "breakthrough tank" and as such, was meant more to support and assist the infantry through the enemy's main line of resistance and allow medium tanks to exploit the resulting hole. <hr></blockquote> The same mistaken ideas that the Americans labored under with the tank destroyer concept. The slow rate of fire was felt by the Germans as the main drawback of the Stalins. Karl Bormann, Tiger II commander: <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>...since we shot complete rounds as opposed to the separate warhead and charge used with heavy Soviet tanks, my loader was quicker in reloading. The 88 was unbeatable!<hr></blockquote>

I remember Ian Hogg talking about them, but the book's at home. A quick search turned up this roughly translated account from Lexicon der Wehrmacht: <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>According to the principle of the high and low pressure the 8-cm PAW (antitank defense thrower) was developed 600 at the company Rheinmetall. With this weapon a control unit-stabilized 2.75 kg heavy projectile was fired by 81,4-mm-Kaliber. The 0.36 kg heavy propellant the throw garnet was at the tail. With the firing a printing was achieved by approximately 1100 RKS. This printing was reduced by a perforated tile, and if about 550 RKS had accumulated behind the throw garnet, a safety lock pin broke, and the garnet left the pipe. The all resulted in a light pipe and thus a light carriage. From this mentioned weapon heavy at the troop tank throw cannon (PWK) 8 H 63, 610 kg became from that 2980 mm is enough for pipe the 620 mm for a long time and 7 kg heavy Wgr.Patr. 4462 fired. The 2.7 kg weighing HL projectile achieved thereby a V0 of 520 m/s and pierced 145-mm-Panzerungen. In January 1945 the first 81 weapons were supplied to the front, which originated almost all from the production of the company Wolf- Magdeburg. With end of war only the armored infantry regiments ordered 30 and 31 over altogether 105 these weapons.<hr></blockquote> And from Achtung Panzer: <blockquote>quote:</font><hr> Krupp also proposed to mount Hetzer with modified PzKpfw IV turret armed with 80mm PAW (Panzerabwehrwerfer - smoothbore anti-tank gun) 600 gun, but it was also not realized. First examples of the gun were made in December of 1944 and till March of 1945 only 20 pieces were made. It was an advanced design anti-tank gun. The gun was light 640kg piece and could penetrate up 140mm at 750m.<hr></blockquote>

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Germanboy: Would that concrete not shatter on the impact of a round, and be pretty useless against a follow-on shot? Also, what are the weight implications? Was it seen as useful?<hr></blockquote> Doing some reading it seems as though the concrete was a pretty standard late war add-on over the drivers plate, which must have been a weak point. I suppose even if it stops one shot it would be enough to warn the crew they are targetted and to get their Stug out of the hot zone. Concrete being concrete it would be easy and cheap to 're-armour' later. I see the Finns went to much greater lengths, adding concrete as well to the mantlet plus logs to the sides. From Achtung Panzer:

Here's an article on tactical use of the Tiger II, from both the German and the Soviet perspectives: Tiger II in action The Germans appear very satisfied with the results of the King Tiger if there is enough infantry support to eliminate flank a/tk guns and infantry tank hunter teams. The Soviets comment on the great care the Germans take to always attack frontally and avoid flanking fire, keeping the front plate towards the threat even if it is necessary to reverse to do it. The overall impression from both sides is that the front of the KT is virtually impregnable, with attack from the flanks or close in assault being key to success or defeat.

Am I right in thinking that Rokossovsky was one of the best of the Soviet commanders? That is an impression I've gotten somewhere. About the bitterness thing, I crossed the (then) Soviet Union on the Trans-Siberian once, and when mangled English/Russian didn't work I was surprised that the Soviets I met were quite happy to speak to me in German.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Dan Robertson: The problem is that the system assumes that a turret is a essentially a rectange with front sides and rear. The Tiger II's turret is however a flattened hexagon. So about 1/3 of the turret front is actually the side armour at a massive angle, of about 70degrees. This makes this portion of the frontal protection impervious to any weapon until APFSDS rounds started to appear. <hr></blockquote> An illustration:

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>The british say that the range was 700 meters, the Germans 800 meters. If the Germans had dialed in their guns to 700 meters, I wonder if the shell would have knocked out the tank rather than just clipping an open hatch.<hr></blockquote> Good point. They were probably surprised and pleased to be alive afterwards <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>From post-war interviews Tom Boardman and Joe Ekins recount they obviously had no idea that it was Wittmann and Tigers from s.SS.Pz.Abt.101 they had just encountered. Lord Boardman later stated "Had I known who was commanding those Tiger tanks, and his record, I should have been even more concerned than I was - if possible. It was bad enough to know that we only had four tanks in the Squadron with guns capable of penetrating a Tiger's armour and that I had only one of those in my section of the battlefield."<hr></blockquote> Imagine taking on 9 tigers with one Firefly, ambush or not. All the 75mm Shermans would have been good for is distracting the Tigers aim. Brave men.

This is the gist of it: <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Hans Höflinger now describes the subsequent course of the attack from his experience: 'Then we drove off, Michel (sic) right of the road and I left, four others with Michel and the brother of Heinz Von Westernhagen with me. Approximately 800 meters to Michel's right there was a small wood which struck us as suspicious and which was to prove fateful to us. Unfortunately, we couldn't keep the wood under observation on account of our mission. We drove about one to one-and-a half kilometres, and then I received another radio message from Michel which only confirmed my suspicions about the wood. We began taking heavy fire from anti-tank guns and once again Michel called, but didn't complete the message. When I looked out to the left I saw that Michel's tank wasn't moving. I called him by radio but received no answer. Then my tank received a frightful blow and I had to order my crew to get out as it had already begun to burn fiercely. My crew and I dashed toward the rear and got through. I stopped to look around and to my dismay discovered that five of our tanks had been knocked out. The turret of Michel's tank was displaced to the right and tilted down somewhat. None of his crew had got out. I climbed into Von Westernhagen's tank and, together with Heurich, whose Tiger was undamaged, tried to get to Michel's tank. We could not get through. Dr. Rabe also tried it, but in vain...I can state the exact time of the incident; it was 1255 hours, near the Falaise-Caen road in the vicinity of Cintheaux." Agte then follows up on p.425 with the British account of the incident: "...At 1240 hours Captain Boardman gave Sergeant Gordon's tank the order to fire. The Tigers were seven-hundred meters distant. The Firefly's gunner was Trooper Joe Ekins, who hit the rearmost Tiger of the three Tigers in his sight with two shots. The Tigers had failed to spot the well-camouflaged Shermans, and it was only after the first shots had been fired and a Tiger knocked out that Wittmann transmitted the message referred to by SS-Hauptscharführer Höflinger: 'Move! Attention! Attention! Anti-tank guns to the right! - Back up!...'." ....I believe this was Sgt. Gordon's last action as he was wounded in return fire when one of three rounds from another Tiger struck his half opened hatch which slammed it shut striking him on the head - he climbed out dazed and was then further wounded.<hr></blockquote> Nice find Rexford.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Planes are different from light armor because they are more vunerable machines that fail catastrophically with the loss of fewer important subsystems<hr></blockquote> Sigh... 1) Planes have a LOT of empty space inside. All planes. There's a reason why they are so much lighter for the same volume than a tank. 2) Most of what they are skinned with is aluminum or very light steel. The result of this is that rounds will often punch through and not do any damage other than the hole. High explosive cannon shells are the best but even then wings and fuselage can all be terribly chewed up and the plane will still be flyable. Pilot armour was usually on the back of the seat and there are a few stories in which that got a pretty good hammering (shells passing through the fuselage) but the plane made it home. B-17's and Thunderbolts were famous for being able to come back after being chewed up all to hell. Other differences are that planes are often multi-engined and have other redundant critical systems, fuel tanks are self sealing, plus it is much more of a committment to bail out of a plane than an AFV, so that more of an attempt will be made to nurse one home and then patch it up or scrap it. AFV's on the other hand are made to be as small as possible (I'm always surprised how cramped tank interiors are). Rounds are not wanted inside at all but those that do will very likely damage something. Again, the ability of a 50 cal or 20 mm to shoot down a plane does not have much to do IMO with how easily they can disable a Hetzer or Hellcat. [ 11-02-2001: Message edited by: machineman ]</p>

Here's a reply from Charles to a similar thread a year ago: <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>The U.S. .50 cal was designed to destroy light armor. It can penetrate 12.7mm at 1000m, and 19mm at 550m, according to "Hell On Wheels" referencing the War Department's "Defense Against Mechanized Units". Obviously, at point-blank range, the penetration would be even greater (somewhere in the 22-25mm range, IIRC, sorry I don't have my data in front of me at the moment). That's enough to defeat the Hetzer's 20mm side armor. And there's more... The Hetzer has low quality armor.Very low quality. The kind that doesn't have the strength you'd expect. We rate it at 85% which is probably generous. So the effective side armor basis of the Hetzer is 17mm, which the .50 cal can penetrate quite easily at short ranges. And imagine what it's like. It's not a single shell penetrating. It's five, ten, maybe twenty or more. All richocheting around inside the tiny crew compartment, fragments flying everywhere. And more shots coming very quickly (no need to reload some big cannon, just squeeze the trigger!). The side of that Hetzer would look like Schweizer Käse. The .50 cal is a big bad mama jama. Charles<hr></blockquote> Thought that might be interesting. And no, I don't think the plane analogy holds a lot of water either, planes have gotten severely riddled and still made it home, but they are completely different machines than light armoured ground vehicles.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Scipio: MACHINEMAN - HEAT ammo is something completly different and can't be compared with a 2cm shell, even if both makes only a small hole. And again, the tank is NOT BURNING!!!<hr></blockquote> I don't know exactly what BTS bases their damage model on, but I'd wager hollow charge type penetration is probably LESS damaging inside the tank than a 50 cal type shell racketing around. What isn't directly in the way of the penetrating jet isn't touched. The big advantage of shrek type weapons is that they can get through heavy armour, not that they can do a lot of damage once inside. A 50 cal shell, on the other hand, is a big hunk of metal going very fast, that would bounce around for a while inside. Who knows what it can damage in the tanks innards without causing it to burn or blow up, but probably plenty. Sure the tank may be able to be recovered and patched, but BTS just models battlefield knockouts.

Took this off the Russian Battlefield site. Apparently the biggest fear of the IS-2's was fausts and shreks, which also don't make a very big hole: <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>"Here is a tank with battened down hatches... but the crew is silent. They respond to neither radio nor knock. There is a small hole with a diameter no more than a cent. That was a "faust", that was its work. A shield was torn off, and a next round penetrated the armor...<hr></blockquote> And this maybe gives a reason why a tank crew may get the hell out of a tank while the going is good: <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Those who saw a tank battle knew how terrible death could be for tankers. If a round hit the ammunition or fuel tanks, a tank would be destroyed at once - just blast off and the crew perishing without any torture. Often a round just penetrates the tank's armor but doesn't hit the ammunition or fuel tanks. All crewmembers are wounded, their tank is burning, but the crew is unable to extinguish the flame. They need to escape the tank and run off to a safe distance. However, the tankers are wounded and they simply can't do that, they can't open the locked hatches. And you can hear the cries of those being burned alive. You can't help them because the hatches are locked inside..."<hr></blockquote>

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Crash-Neptune: Also, Did later large-bore tanks like the Patton or M60 have this 2 part round?<hr></blockquote> Stalins with their 122mm gun also had a two part round and this apparently was one of their major drawbacks vs Kingtiger.

A quote on what has to be the greatest ground support pilot of all time, from that link I posted: <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>An aside on Rudel….by the end of the war, he had amassed an astounding reputation as the top Stuka pilot, finishing the war with more than 2,500 sorties, and credit for the destruction of 519 tanks, one battleship, one cruiser, one destroyer, 70 landing craft, four armored trains, and nine enemy aircraft…all in an aircraft judged by some to be obsolete by the start of the war. He was shot down 30 times by ground fire (never by another aircraft) and was wounded five times, including one instance where he lost his leg…and continued flying with an artificial one! The Soviets put a 100,000 ruble bounty on his head, dead or alive.<hr></blockquote> From his book 'Stuka Pilot' <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>"In the East we have long since ceased to develop practice from theory; we do just the opposite. One can do no more than give the formation leader his assignment; how he performs it is his affair, for it is he who has to carry it out. At the present time the war in the air has become so variable that one can no longer rely on theories; only formation leaders have the necessary experience at the critical moment and are likely to make the proper decisions. It is a good thing we realized this in the East in time, otherwise it would be a sure thing that none of us would be flying any more.<hr></blockquote>

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Iron Chef Sakai: that is actualy false, i dont mean to sound like dorosh, but i am realy interested in where you read that from. Hitlers interference was worth a great deal, as is any dictators influence on the country he rules, thats why there are dictators, thats what they do, what they say goes, no debates<hr></blockquote> No, that's true in what I've read as well. Here's an example from 'Wings of the Luftwaffe' from Captain Eric Brown. <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>While obviously proud of the Me 262, the German pilots were equally obviously somewhat apprehensive of it, especially of the two-seat night fighting version....turbojets were unreliable and had, we were told, an overhaul life of 10 hours and a total life of no more than 25 hours.<hr></blockquote> Apparently the problem was a scarcity of alloys, for which the top priority was the new U-boat program. The 262 was designed modularly and the engines were easy to change, which helped out somewhat. Adding bomb shackles was a fairly minor mod (AFAIK) to a aircraft that had a lot of variants throughout its lifetime. Ie R4M rockets, 50mm cannon, RATO takeoff, and two seat radar equipped nightfighter versions. Back to the subject of ground attack, here's a nice link to a history of German ground attack aircraft in WWII

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>However it is also fairly common to find references to the crudity of Soviet War Time equipment. See Dmitriy Loza's assessment of the Sherman Tank relative to his experience with the T34. This crudity was no doubt a reflection of the extreme conditions the Soviets were facing during the war.<hr></blockquote> This I've heard a lot and only buy up to a point. Communism is just not good at a)innovation, and b)quality stuff. Just look at what they built during peace time. Lada cars, Belarus tractors, Ural motorcycles.... all crudely made, poorly designed and unreliable, and usually based on some old Western plan they got hold of somehow. Not saying they were not capable of some brillant designs, but the system itself did not favor them.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Ziess had a 93 year history of manufacturing quality optics prior to the outbreak of WWII. Soviet Ziess -LOMO -- had a history of 3 yrs? How much of that 3 yr experience involved construction of Military Optics? If I recall correctly Ziess had been manufacturing rangefinders and binoculars for the German Army since at least the 1880's.[/QB]<hr></blockquote> Good point. Thinking about it, this was also interesting: <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>In 1945 Russia captured Jena, and the Zeiss factory, and in 1946 transported the equipment, technicians, and engineers to Leningrad...... The German captives were repatriated in 1953 and 1954 (some stayed in Russia). In those eight years they trained an entire work-force. The present workers like to brag that their teachers were taught by Germans. And they are quick to point out that they have learned not only skills, but an entire work ethic. They consider the quality of their workmanship to be as important as their wages and other rewards. Cooperation continued with the East German Zeiss (or Aus Jena) factory until recently.<hr></blockquote> If the Soviets optical industry would have been so good during the war there would have been no need to use so much German technology and skills post-war. The plant built in the 30's may have been more of a 'taster' that whetted their appetite.

I did some searching on Soviet optical companies and came up with: <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>LOMO® – abbreviation for Russian words Leningrad Optic and Mechanical Company. The history of LOMO® started in 1936 when the PROGRESS factory located in the Soviet Russia began to fabricate microscopes with the aid of the ZEISS company, Jena, Germany. First microscopes were exact copies of the Zeiss microscopes but by 1938 the PROGRESS factory developed models of its own.<hr></blockquote> Maybe wartime Soviet optics were based on German designs to some extent?

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>For the German, non-turreted TD's, all your reasoning is sound except the lower silhouette. That was a nice by-product, not a desired effect<hr></blockquote> In the original Stug development contract the main specification was for a low silouette ('ideally, no higher than a man' was what it stated, AFAIK). This ruled out the use of a turret. In combat, the low silouette was felt to give tremendous benefit, especially as the drivers were trained to take advantage of terrain. The ease of construction and the ability to upgun otherwise obsolete chassis with a more potent gun than could be fitted into a turret were all additional advantages that were especially important with the manufacturing constraints the Germans were under late in the war.

Ran into this just now on the tanknet forum, thought it may be of interest: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>My father, who was in the Tank Destroyer command during the war, years ago looked at one of my tank models (a StuG with scheurtzen [sp?] screens ) and was prompted to tell me of the training he had received for use of bazookas against German armor. According to him, they had been taught that bazooka rounds could not penetrate German armor frontally, nor through the screens on the flank. So two tactics were in order. 1) The prefered deployement for a bazooka man was in a deep foxhole. He was to allow the German tank to overrun him, and then rise and shoot it from the rear. My father did not think too highly of this tactic. (You want me to do WHAT?!? ) 2) If the German tank was on a road, a frontal shot could be attempted by shooting downward ONTO the road, with the intent of skipping the round up into the belly of the panzer. My father seemed to think THIS was a perfectly reasonable tactic.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by rexford: So maybe it is psychological.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> No doubt it is another important factor. Once a tanker 'got the hang' of a Tiger after transferring up from a Stug or PZIV, he would realize that 1) He's got a gun at his disposal that shoots very flat and pretty much destroys whatever it hits 2)He's got the optics to match the gun 3)There is enough armour around him that under most conditions he can calm down and concentrate on knocking out the other guy. The resulting confidence no doubt enhanced the training and equipment advantages. Note -by mid '44 some of these advantages were gone, to the point that warnings were circulated, ie: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Now the Tiger, for long time regarded as a 'Life Insurance Policy', is relegated to the ranks of simply a 'heavy tank'<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> But by then many crews were probably through the learning curve far enough they could still be extremely dangerous. Many of those 1350 or so Tigers produced seemed to last an extremely long time considering the odds against them, some ending up in the French army after the war.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>The damn things just won't die. My understanding of AT guns in the last war was that once you'd got one shot off you were rapidly eliminated unless you got the hell outa there. Not here they ain't. I had three tanks within yards of the one on the right and none of em could hit it! Are they all like this? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> May not have been quite that simple. Here a quote from Tiger ace Otto Carius: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>The destruction of an antitank gun was often accepted as nothing special by lay people and soldiers from other branches. Only the destruction of other tanks counted as a success. On the other hand, antitank guns counted twice as much to the experienced tanker. They were much more dangerous to us. The antitank cannon waited in ambush, well camouflaged and magnificently setup in terrain. Because of that, it was very difficult to identify. It was also very difficult to hit because of its low height. Usually, we didn't make out the antitank gun until they had fired the first shot. We were often hit right away, if the antitank crew was on top of things.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> And from Michael Wittman: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>The antitank gun is harder to spot than the tank; its able to get off more rounds before can find it<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Mind you if an antitank gun was within yards of a tank in RL the tendency would be for the tank to do some 'tread greasing' [ 10-16-2001: Message edited by: machineman ]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>If a target tank is diagonally facing the firer, so that a round could equally well hit the side as the front, is this 'sideways' slope taken into account in calculating side penetrations?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> This was a fairly common technique in RL that Tigers and Stalins used, to position the tank 'oblique' (diagnol) to the line of fire. This took advantage of the relatively heavy side armour on both tanks to give the frontal armour a lot more effective slope. The same reasoning was followed designing the Tiger II Henschel turret, in that the flat frontal area is minimised in favor of increasing the highly angled side area of the turret.

Err, don't want to interrupt anyones flame war here but I think it is pretty hard to sort out who made the most contribution as efforts were so intermingled amongst the Allies (and very fortunate they were, too). Anyway, here's an alternative history article that may be of interest on what may have happened if Dunkirk had been a fiasco and the British empire had been knocked out of the war.