[Tankers in WW II]

Um, you were the one who brought up the armored infantry figures, not me (except to say initially that losses in the armored infantry were higher than in the armor, which they were).

I quote you "Notice the losses in the three armored inf battalions and tank battalions. Pretty close." If all you meant to say was "in the tank battalions", then you should have said that. You are the one who mentioned the AIBs. But whatever.

The ammo usage for your German case was 2069 medium tank gun rounds per month. The 68th used 2489. The average for the 4 units in the 7th AD is 1704. I'd call that a "bracket", wouldn't you? As for total battle casualties, that was 249 for the German unit and 297 for the 68th, which comes to 36 per month and 33 per month respectively. Or if you prefer KIA+MIA per month, that is German 8.14, 68th 9.4, 7th AD 11.2, 9.8, 8.9, and 6.1 for the TDs. That is 6/5ths as many for the Sherman units (perhaps from slightly more brew ups).

Pretending numbers that close reflect widely different combat experiences, so far apart as to be incommensurable with each other, is just silly. Obviously there is enough similarity in the way medium tanks were used that ammo expenditure, losses, and even KO claims were quite close. Sure there will be variation from unit to unit, but not nearly as wide as some would have us believe.

[British Field Artillery Undermodelled?]

Very likely. The overall shell weights are easily found. Nuances of shell composition and effectiveness probably seemed far out into grogland. Would mean several weapons are undermodeled, and others overmodeled. It would also be a nice thing to see improved for CM2...

[Tankers in WW II]

Thanks for the corrected figures on the rounds. Curious that the AP figure in the total is off by so much - 2889. Perhaps each tank company had 5 Pz IIs and they expended some?

Next, in one place you say the losses for the US armor and armored infantry battalions look "close". I assume you meant "close to the example of the 68th AB", the one I gave the unit history stuff on. Because each of the armor battalions of the 7th AD averaged 85 KIA, very close to each other and to the figure for the 68th. But the armored infantry battalions lost 3 times as many KIA - around 250 each - not "the same" as the armor battalions.

Then you say I've missed the point, which is supposedly how different all the experiences are, with the German battalion fighting much more - or fighting armor much more - than the US ones. Obviously in Russia there was more armor to fight than many US units faced in France, and so far I quite agree. But the figures don't present that wide a range of experience, if you look at the divisional box score on the 7 AD site.

They claimed 710 AFVs KO'ed or captured (about 10% of them captured). That is 2.8 times the claims of the German battalion, and reflects the score of 3 armor battalions and 1 of TDs (the last only ~2/3rds as big). Roughly 3/4 as much per battalion, and the German battalion has four companies to three (mediums, that is) each for the US ones. The 75 and 76mm ammo expenditure for each battalion (counting the TDs are 2/3rds because of their numbers) runs around 16K, very close to the German battalion's figure, but a bit under that of the 68th AB in the 6th armor division. The division also claimed 944 weapons over 50mm, or roughly 3 2/3s as many gun claims, too.

The KIAs+MIAs in the German unit are only about 2/3rds the average in one of the US battalions. But they average 1.5-2.7 per tank reported lost, depending on whether one counts only "hits" or all write-offs. Similar, though not exact. The number of wounded is almost exactly the same for the German battalion as for the US 68th, and dominates "total battle casualties" if you add them up.

So, far from showing enourmous differences, I think the data on the tank battalions are all close, within a factor of about 1.5 times (as are the periods involved, number of tanks, etc). The similarity in total tank rounds fired, and in total casualties suffered, are particularly striking.

[British Field Artillery Undermodelled?]

Yes, the British used weaker, softer metal casing for their shells. They didn't do so for the blast effects, though, they did it for reasons of expense and materials economy. As a result, the casings had to be thicker to sustain the force of firing, which led to smaller charge weights for the same weight of shell. Thus the 25 and 4.5" are only 7% HE by weight, vs. more like 15% for US 105 rounds.

But the approximation of shell effectiveness as the square root of the charge weight was the one actually used by the British themselves during the war. They used it to "translate" into "25-lber equivalents", to determine volumes of fire needed for a given area to achieve a given level of effect. They did not regard their one shells are 1.4 times as effective as that, because of casings or for any other reason.

The US had far greater supplies of TNT available than any other combatant, which is why it made less use of amatol style mixtures. The Germans made the greatest use of such mixtures. Basically it stretched the available TNT. You'd get 80% of the blast effect from 60% of the explosives expense. But it did mean the destructiveness of the same weight of HE would typically be lower for German rounds, highest for most US rounds.

I have seen no sign in the blast figures given that BTS took full info on charge weights into account. For instances, the bursting charges of typical 81mm mortar rounds were roughly the same as those of 75mm HE, or at best around 4/3s as high for the 75mm. BTS gives them double, which closely tracks shell weight rather than bursting charge. The relation between 4.5" and 105 also exactly tracks overall shell weight; so does the ratio between Brit 25 lber and US and German 105s. BTS is primarily using shell weight as a proxy for blast, therefore.

Which means it favors shells with low ratios of burster to weight over those with high ones, compared to the relationship artillerists of the day used themselves to estimate relative artillery effectiveness. Which favors the Brits and penalizes the Americans.

[Were AT-dogs actually effective?]

On the effectiveness of Japanese kamikazes, people are talking past each other. The average kamikaze was certainly shot down before it reached its target, but the same was true of ordinary manned bombers. US combat air patrols and walls of flak were stupendous by late in the war, particularly around the carrier task forces, which ran as high as 100 ships and 1000 planes.

But the Kamikazes did get hits when nothing else could any longer. The highest toll came from "picket" destroyers stationed 50 miles out from main fleets - especially fleets of transports rather than carrier groups - to provide radar warning time over the sea horizon. The second main target were the transport ships, better defended than the isolated DDs but much less defended than the fleet carriers.

Kamikazes killed 5000 naval personnel and disabled more than 100 ships off Okinawa. In ship numbers, the naval losses sustained due to them were as high as those sustained by any navy, by any means, in all previous naval history. Only the destruction of the Japanese navy in the same war, or submarine actions against civilian merchant ships, are in the same category, in terms of numbers of enemy ships put out of action.

For comparison, in the Battle of the Philipines sea ("the great Marianas turkey shoot"), the Japanese expended hundreds of land and sea based planes without achieving a single hit, with almost total loss of the planes and pilots to US CAP and flak. In the battle of Leyte gulf, Japanese conventional bombers took out only one ship, the carrier Princton (surface gunfire got a few more of course).

By any measure, therefore, the kamikazes were more dangerous than conventional bombers. Especially considering the fact that the pilots that achieved such results were very green by the standards of conventional bomber training. Sure, there was no point in the US using them, instead of dive bombing with SBDs. The SBDs didn't have to go through 100 miles of radar directed Hellcat CAP then fly through a wall of 5" heavy Flak and another umbrella underneath it of 20mm and 40mm AA, so thick it created artificial shade.

[British Field Artillery Undermodelled?]

Duh. It gives anything UK a 1.4 times blast multiplier, as I already said. The question is "why?"

[British Field Artillery Undermodelled?]

You know, it is almost exactly as though a weapon gets 1.4 times the blast rating (or up by a factor of the square root of 2) just for being British. Thus, 208 / 1.4 = 149, which is 3/4 what a US 155 gets; 125/1.4 = 89, which is about what a 4.5" deserves compared to a German 105, and 59/1.4 = 42, which is what a 25-lber deserves compared to a US 75mm, just going by burster weight. The same relationship exists between a 3" mortar round and an 81mm (26/1.4 = 19) - though supposedly with more justification there, as the standard 3" bomb weighed 10 lbs rather than 7 lb.

Perhaps a 1.4 factor that is reasonable for the 3" mortar was magically granted to everything thrown by a tea-drinker?

[Tankers in WW II]

PS. If my guess about the HC kick is accurate, it leaves the question, why did they stop? The obvious reason is they fielded enough Panthers, and phased out the long 50s and short 75s, and uparmored the Pz IVs. As a result, all their guns could penetrate the T-34 at medium range, and some could at long - while the T-34s wanted to close the range. Before then, while there were still undergunned German tanks in the force mix and not many Panthers, the Russians had an incentive to stand off at 1-1.5 km ranges. That incentive disappeared by 1944, and as a result the "75mm HC at range" idea was no longer necessary or useful.

[Tankers in WW II]

I have some comments on Lewis's examples, in two passes. First the US TD stories, then the German example. On the expenditure of AP by the TDs, if Lewis checks the second case which gives that breakdown, there were 2 TD platoons firing, which is 8 guns if none were missing. They fired 59 HE, which is 7-8 apiece. That may have been more than half a full ammo load. M-10s typically carried only about 1/4 HE. The use of AP on buildings may well have reflected the local scarcity of HE, some guns running out or wishing to save at least some, or having expended theirs earlier on.

In the other example, Lewis noted with sarcasm that there is little point in a TD battalion that KOs only 4 tanks. But perhaps that is all they encountered. Consider that most late war German tank production went to the east, where the fighting went on longer on a larger front, etc. The total number of tanks available for the west was probably between 6K and 10K. The western allies fielded quite a few AFVs, easily enough to outnumber that limited total by 6 to 10 to one overall. Well, a formation of 36 TDs would then expect to face only 1/6 to 1/10 their own number, which is 4-6 tanks. In other words, the Allies *had* a battalion's worth of AFVs for every platoon's worth of German ones in front of them, overall. Not all of them could meet and kill above average numbers of their opponents. Otherwise put, they can't kill 'em if the Germans don't field 'em.

Next to The German example. First there is a minor math issue. Lewis gave the AP+HC per tank kill claimed as 24, when his own numbers make it 35. 7571+1336 / 251 claimed equals 35.5. The AP alone is 30 per claimed kill. It is also noteworthy that the 251 claimed AFVs in the reported 76 battles comes to 3.3 tanks per battle. In turn that may reflect KO'ing a company worth of tanks in about 30% of the battles, with no enemy armor present at all in many of the other ones.

Then there is the issue of the kill ratio. First Lewis gives it as 6.8, from 251 to 37 - but he also states that only 21 of the German tank losses were due to hits. Thus the ratio might appear to be as high as 12 to 1. However, it is most unlikely this ratio is accurate. The losses on the German side almost certainly refer to total write-offs, with all vehicles in short or long term repair excluded. While the kills claimed are likely to be quite inflated, first by multiple claims for the same kill, second by kills claimed that weren't kills at all, and third and probably largest, by claimed kills that were recovered and repaired, short or long term. Total write offs vs. "I got one" is not exactly an apples to apples comparison.

As anyone knows who has tracked tank returns for particular units, usually a battalion in action reports a dwindling portion of its tanks "ready", even with only modest numbers reports "total loss". Up to half the initial total will be in "short term repair", which includes everything from breakdowns to penetrations leading to abandonment, as long as the field is held to recover the tank. A better comparison to total kill claims is the total movement out of the "ready" category over a given period (gross, not net). Some of those will be mechanical, but some of the claims will also be false. Without that data, the figure of 37 total write-offs over 7 months is just not comparable to the 251 claimed figure. If it were available, I'd predict (or guess) it would be between 2:1 and 3:1, from the other numbers presented.

Certainly, actual kills of 251 for 37 losses could not be average or typical for German tank units over the whole war. Because the Germans only killed 2-3 times as many tanks as they lost in Russia, counting all causes, including PAK and heavy FLAK, which were as numerous as all AFVs.

Note also that 37 total losses is probably around 50% of the unit. We can estimate the average strength as between twice that and that, thus around 55 AFVs (initially more, less later on). It would be exceptional if their readiness were much above 80%. So, if we want to get an idea how many tanks are doing the things covered, it was probably on the order of 45 operational tanks.

Imagine 45 tanks each firing around 9 AP or HC, with the result that they KO a company of enemy armor (of course, it could occasionally be 2 companies firing twice as much each). This happens in about 30% of their battles. That would then account for the AT ammo expenditure and the claims. With some of those round types fired at other target types, it might be 6-7 instead of 9 each, but the basic picture remains. It is an awful lot of AT shooting per kill. Undoubtedly, the principle reason for the high volume of AP per kill was the inability of the 50mm long or 75mm short to penetrate the front of the T-34 at medium combat ranges.

On the HC use, I've speculated on that subject before. The Germans definitely went on a HC kick in the mid-war period, producing millions of such shells for the longer 75mm guns. By mid 44 they had practically stopped making it. My theory is that HC was used against T-34s at longer ranges. The longer 75mm lost penetrating ability against the front of the T-34 somewhere near or just beyond 1km. So the L48s at range would use it, as well as the L24s even close.

Incidentally, your figures for HC use are somewhat confusing. You give 1336 for the overall use of HC, but then say their usage from L48s amount to ~1200, and the L24s used them 3:1 compared to AP. Unless overall ammo usage from L24s was tiny indeed, all the HC is not accounted for in the 1336 figure. I suspect the 1336 figure may be for one model of HC. It came in A, B, and C varieties, each with a progressively larger HEAT warhead. The A model was not really useful against the T-34. C would be, while B would generally need side or turret hits.

[British Field Artillery Undermodelled?]

Actually, from the data on the site offered, it is the US that is being systematically undermodeled in blast numbers. The 25s may well be undermodeled in ROF, but they are if anything overmodeled in blast rating.

The table says the 25-lber was only 7% HE by weight, thus only 1 3/4 lbs of HE, or around 0.8 kg per shell. The US 105mm was 14.8% HE by weight, with a heavier shell, thus 2.2kg per shell. Leaving aside the fact that the US used pure TNT more often, while others often used amatol mixes with less explosive power, that means a US 105 had 2.75 times the bursting charge of a 25-lb round. But the blast ratings are only in the ratio 1.3 times.

Even if you assume the blast ratings should only go as the square root of the charge size (the system the UK used during the war, to convert to "25-lb equivalents"), you'd expect the US 105 to have 100 blast, or the UK 25-lber to have only around 45, or a bit of both.

Incidentally, the size of the bursting charge in the 25-lber is not much larger than that in US 75mm HE. The gun was really closer to a 75mm than to a 105mm in its HE capabilities. CM puts its blast rating exactly between the two of them (39+77/2=58) - and incidentally, above the blast rating of a German 88mm.

The 4.5" is also noticably overmodeled, with its 125 blast rating. In fact, the shell was only 7% HE burster again, and the HE load was thus lower than in a US 105 shell. But CM gives it 1.6 times the blast rating. Similarly, the 5.5" had only 2/3rds to 3/4ths of the HE burster of a US 155mm, but is given the same blast rating.

Changing 25s to 20 rounds per minute would be fine by me (each module would still be 4 guns, so you'd need 2 to simulate 8 firing simultaneously). But a blast of 45-50 each would be more reasonable. The 4.5" does not deserve what is has, and should probably get more like 85 blast at most. Naturally the cost would be adjusted along with the blast ratings. 5.5" probably deserve more like 150-175.

The current blast rating for 105s is about in line with the others for the *German* 105mm, but the US shell had a larger bursting charge - 60% larger. It does not deserve only the same blast rating. It should be more like 100, with the cost more like that of the VT battery now.

One man's opinions...

[British Field Artillery Undermodelled?]

If you want quick response artillery to suppress targets of opportunity, use the 3" mortar FO. It packs considerably more punch than most people's 81mm, and is flexible enough for that job. Best used against infantry moving in woods or the open, observed. It will KO a few men and drive the rest to ground, temporarily.

If you want to annihilate built up targets, in good cover (foxholes, buildings), then use a 5.5" or 4.5" FO. The barrage will take 3 minutes to land and 3 minutes to finish, but whoever is underneath it will certainly know. Regulars will be thoroughly broken, with serious casualties as well.

Neither is the role of the 25-lber FO. How should you use them? Well, the limitations of quick battle purchase limits can be a problem, but in scenarios or unrestricted games, or large enough fights, you can afford to use them properly. The rest of this post is about how to do that.

Don't take one FO, take 3. That is a firing battalion, and it costs about as much as a typical company with support weapons (for the Americans, or Panzergrenadiers - Brits and VG are of course cheaper before they add vehicles and such).

Pick the initial target line close enough that you think your infantry can reach it in a few minutes, far enough that you think there are enemy units on both sides of the aiming point, counting on a forward-and-back dispersion up to 100 meters each way. Target each FO with observation, at locations about 100 meters apart side to side - or less for a denser barrage. Creep your infantry to within rifle range - 200-300 meters - of the enemy during the "countdown".

When the rounds arrive, leave all three batteries firing for two minutes without adjustment. Then "lift" 80-100 yards, all three batteries simultaneously. During the first two firing minutes, your infantry should move from 200-300 meters down to the edge of the danger zone for "shorter" rounds. This can be quite close to the enemy if the aim points are a bit beyond them. When the "lift" occurs, rush the remaining enemy positions closest to you.

Leave the "lifted" barrage firing for another two minutes. Then walk it out another 80-100 yards in another lift, and fire for two more minutes. Continue to walk the infantry behind the barrage, right through the enemy positions.

The schedule for such a battalion barrage will ideally look like this -

1-3 - arrival countdown

4-5 - first aim points

6 - first lift

7-8 - second aim points

9 - second lift

10-11 - third aim points

12 - third lift

13-15 fourth aim points

The barrage will thus move forward 320-400 yards. It will also extend front to back by 80-100 yards on each side of the aim points, giving an overall depth of 500-600 yards. With an approach by your infantry to 200-300 yards from the enemy beforehand, this will allow your infantry to push ahead half a mile from the locations they were able to reach on their own, before receiving "pinning" fire. Which will carry you across most medium sized maps.

It is not a matter of an annihilation barrage on one dense enemy target. Nor a quick suppression of a firing AT gun or HMG. The first is a job for heavier stuff, the second a job for the 3" mortars. Instead the 25s, used in quantity, should provide a steady rain of shells that keep down the heads of anyone in contact with your advancing infantry. Until that infantry is right on top of them.

You don't particularly want or need high ROF for this role. What you want is enough blast to make even people in foxholes duck, and then you want to keep it up as long as necessary and cover wide areas.

To show that 25s have the firepower for this role, consider the following result from a simple test outing against the AI. I gave the AI a regular German panzergrenadier company, while taking 3 25 FOs and nothing else for the Brits. Meeting, with one big flag for the Germans to head for, on a farmland map with medium trees and hills. Walking the shells about they lasted most of the 20-turn game.

The Germans took 50% casualties (Brits took none - the FOs were never even found), with another 1/6th broken along the way ("!" at the end). 1 cowering man was alive on the objective, as most that made it that far were broken and ran away again. They were never free of the shelling.

Do you have the points to take 550 pts worth of 25 lbers, a full battalion shoot, in QBs, with their strictly limited artillery point totals? No. There is no point in trying to get one battery of the things to do what they were really designed to do. You are better off taking 3" mortars, and if you are attacking and want more artillery, add 5.5" or 4.5" howitzer to thoroughly destroy one identified, dug in position.

But outside the play balance constraints of QBs, you can use them realistically, considering a battalion's worth of artillery support an ordinary alternative to an infantry company or a tank platoon. And when you take a battalion of 25s in support, you will have artillery shooting for you not as a tactical episode, but for nearly the whole fight.

For what it is worth.

[WHAT IN GODS NAME HAPPEND WHY ARE THEY STILL ALIVE!!!!!!!??????????]

A stuart is 7' 4" wide. Two are seated side by side in the hull. Last I checked, men aren't three and a half feet wide. So only about half the area is "occupied". A 5" hole is 1 part in 17.6 of the width of the tank. As for where it might go, how about right along the transmission shaft, front to back? Probably knock the engines out the backside of the tank - but needn't kill anybody.

People seem to have the quite incorrect notion that everybody in a penetrated tank instantly became hamburger. In fact, armor battalions typically lost total KIAs in the two digits for the whole war, about 1 per tank lost. With the tank losses mostly from 75mm AP penetrations, sometimes bigger stuff, sometimes AT mines or fausts.

I also rather wonder what the bleeding point is supposed to be. Your big anti-tank gun KOed the light tank, just as it is supposed to. Nothing further is militarily useful or required. Maybe some people have been playing too many splatter games, and have forgotten they are (macabre) fantasies, not realism.

[WHAT IN GODS NAME HAPPEND WHY ARE THEY STILL ALIVE!!!!!!!??????????]

Simple. It went right through, like a bullet through a paper target, leaving a 5" hole clear through the tank. After which the engine does not exactly run, and began to burn, sure. But no one was along that 5" wide path. Nothing unbelievable about it at all.

You might think that since the energy of the round is so high, as it must be to penetrate so much armor, that the bitty tank must be knocked silly absorbing it all. But it simply doesn't absorb it all. The shell is still going on the other side. No mystery.

[CM2 limitations and tankodesantnik]

US armored infantry also regularly rode tanks, despite having plenty of halftracks. As I understand it, the nature of the practice is basically as follows -

Infantry working with an armored unit, thus in a high ratio of tanks to infantry (1:1 not 1:3 in unit size terms), would often ride the tanks instead of lighter transport. They typically would dismount as soon as they were fired upon. The point was to have immediate infantry protection for the tanks against close-in infantry AT weapons. At the ranges AT ambushes would be attempted, this meant going after the ambushers with SMGs or grenades, rapidly - not just from the tank fired on, but from the whole platoon or company.

The basic message this sent to enemy ambush attempts was that you were not going to get a short range shot at a blind beast and then get away by remaining hidden or by stealthy movement. And the effect was to make holding fire until a very short range suicidal. No matter if you bagged one tank or most of the riders on it; the riders of the rest of the tanks in the formation would be on the ground, in cover, and close by in a matter of seconds. And they would kill you, even if the tanks couldn't see you.

To avoid that outcome, infantry formations would have to open up at longer range with MGs or mortars, etc, to force the infantry to dismount. The tanks would then halt and return the fire with MGs and HE. The entire point was this outcome meant the tanks were warned of the presence of the enemy infantry from *beyond* the range of infantry AT weapons - fausts, schrecks, mag mines, etc. That the tank-riding infantry would then be left on the ground looking for cover at 200 meters or more, beyond effective SMG and grenade range, was quite irrelevant. Because at that range, the tanks would smoke the revealed defending infantry like a cheap cigar.

What the tanks required was not an ability to kill infantry from 200 meters plus - they already had that. What they needed was an ability to kill or spot infantry that held its fire down to much closer ranges than that, to attempt AT ambushes. The riders either deterred the attempt in the first place, or eliminated the attempters with SMGs and grenades.

The decision as the the range of the engagement was in the defender's hands. Long, the infantry would not hurt them, but the tanks would. Short, enough of the riders would dismount successfully, close by, that the attackers life expectancy was low.

Even people with half tracks did this, because it made tactical sense, because riding the tanks ensures the range to the tank, and the range to the infantry, are the same. The defender can't pick two ranges, one for infantry (long) and another for tanks (short), and that is the whole idea.

[I did it! I figured out Chance Encounter finally for the 9 monthes I have had it..]

I beat the AI-played Americans in CE on my second attempt. I can explain the strategy I used in case anyone wants to try it. I repeated the same approach with equally good results, and that was enough for me; I considered it "solved".

The key to CE for the Germans is understanding the principle strength of the German force. That comes from the SMGs. To make the most of them, you want as much fighting as possible to take place between the rival infantries at the closest possible range. That means fighting in the woods on the flanks, not dueling between the building positions in the more open center of the map. The building-center duel favors HE loads and ranged fire, which are the American's long suits.

The next question is which flank woods position to use as the decisive theater. The large ridge on the right is superficially attractive, because it is easily reached by covered approach, and seems to allow wide fields of fire into the rest of the map. But you don't want wide fields of fire into the rest of the map. Going into those woods in strength will result in pushing any Americans out of them, certainly. But once that is accomplished, all that is left is a ranged duel with Americans in buildings or behind walls, and all those Shermans, or falling back into the woods indecisively. Thus, the right-side ridge is a trap as a focus of the main effort. It seems easy, but winning there is not decisive.

The left side woods are farther away at the start, but much more promising. They are more attractive to the Americans as a covered approach, so more enemy can be found there - and in this case, you want to hit them where they are, not where they ain't. The woods as a whole enfilade the center wall, and reach back almost to the American edge. The ground there slopes downward toward the American positions in the center. Schrecks can reach out across the center road once it is taken.

There is also a key feature of the terrain in that area that I first discovered playing as the Americans, but is most useful to the Germans. The farthest forward patch of scattered trees is higher than the rest of the area, and the slope of the ground there allows observation fairly deep into the "open woods" from several positions far away. The top of the church can see into them; so can the light buildings along the road the Germans first come in along; and so can the heavy woods to the left of the church (from the German viewpoint), and the near side of the right ridge. That one area can be seen by most of the useful locations on the German side of the map. And it offers only moderate cover, while having tree branches overhead.

You might think that field of view makes it a useful location for the Americans. But acutally, it makes it a perfect kill zone for the Germans. The mortars will get tree bursts there, and can shoot observed from many locations safely far away. HMGs can reach into the position for locations far enough to shrug off infantry replies - and just as important, from spots deep enough in the German position that Shermans can't get easy "overwatch" to respond. Infantry can approach from two locations - the full woods on the left, slightly seperated from the main body of woods there, and through that main body itself, in a left hook through the scattered trees.

That is the spot to kill the American infantry. So, send most of the SMGs on a right flanking move, running for the woods left of the church, then wheeling rightward and forward to hit the Americans from your left, out of the woods. But do not press too fast once you get to the cover. Run for the woods, then go to ground, wheeling slowing through the dense woods on the left edge. Let the Americans come into the scattered tree position unopposed, then drop the mortars on them and open up with HMGs. Only rush them with the SMGs once the mortars have plastered them, and then do so right behind the barrage.

As for the rifle armed infantry and the StuGs, their role is to support. Send the infantry to the right side ridge and the church area, with one platoon of SMGs to support them on the right side ridge, back in the woodline. At least one schreck with each group, hanging back at first to avoid losing them quickly. Leave one StuG behind the right side ridge, staying in low-ground cover and letting the Americans come into its LOS, not the other way around. It should cover the center, crossroads area ahead of the church, but not move forward enough to be visible from the wheatfield area.

The other two StuGs should rush forward on the left with the initial main infantry effort there, and can carry forward schrecks and/or HMGs to that side. HMGs can go in the seperated woods, but aren't at their best on that side - but schrecks are essential, and will tire too much if trying to run all the way to the left-flank woods from the start line. Once in the trees, wait for the infantry and keep the schrecks well behind it.

The two StuGs on that side should position themselves to angle across the open center ground from left to right, hugging the trees for LOS cover from their left front. Their main job is to prevent Shermans actually reaching the church area - they will certainly be able to shoot it up from the center, though. Keep rifle infantry to the bottom and back, or in the woods outside, to avoid dying in the church.

After the mortars, the SMGs rush through those woods, KOing any infantry there. Then the schrecks come forward to the left-side woodline, while the two left StuGs hunt forward, either around the scattered trees, or even through them if you are willing to risk bogging. If the Shermans push ahead the StuGs get them. If they hang back behind the left woods, the schrecks get them from the treeline. Their only remaining option is to back up, toward your right. That is OK; you will have the VLs, and your StuGs can hunt over the crest after them, if you like. Often the AI won't be that smart anyway, and will lose them in the center or to the schrecks.

At the end you want an "L" shaped position, with most of your infantry in the left-forward woods as one side of the "L", and the VG rifle infantry and HMGs in the church area and right side ridge as the other side. Two StuGs will be at the "angle" between them, having come from behind the left; one StuG (if still alive - its life expectancy is the lowest of the three) supporting the rifle-HMG arm.

The more infantry the Americans send along your left side, the better. You will clobber with the mortars then SMGs-in-woods combination. And the SMG approach will come through woods, from an angle the Shermans will not be able to help. Once the "L" is achieved, the Americans will have nowhere to stand. A few may hang on in the light buildings right of the wheatfield, but that is about it. And if you manage to get the two StuGs to the crest behind the previous scattered tree "kill zone", they can KO that building in short order.

You can expect moderate losses in the infantry, and you will probably lose at least one StuG and perhaps more. But the American infantry should be slaughtered, and any living Shermans unable to advance beyond the center road.

[Tankers in WW II]

I think many have an innaccurate picture of what WW II was like for a typical tanker. I was prompted to post this because of what seem to me misconceptions in another thread. I think it relevant to CM, to get a sense of how common the "both have a few tanks in a meeting engagement" scenario actually was in the real war. And a sense of what happened the rest of the time. The related issue of casualties among tankers was the immediate issue that led to this response.

One often gets the sense from this board that some believe everyone in a penetrated tank was toast, especially if in a Sherman; that just about every Sherman was shot to bits, being rolling coffins; that the life expectancy of an Allied tanker was probably a matter of days; and presumably that all of this was overcome through a conveyor belt of suicides and scrap metal continually fed into the furnace, day after bloody day. This is not remotely the case.

The corrective to such notions is to follow the history of a given unit throughout the war, and see everything they faced. One will certainly find some periods of sustained and intense combat in which losses were high. But "high" means on the order of 10% of running tanks lost per day, spread into particular incidents in which a handful here, a company there, got shot up. And such episodes are rare, peak intensity fights, strung out between months of successful campaigning with very low losses.

Tanks mostly overcome enemies that can't hurt them at all. Or can only inflict small losses occasionally through many chances, like sustained artillery fire or numerous attempted infantry ambushes, only a few of them succeeding in bagging a few tanks. When enemies that can hurt them are encountered, local odds or heavy fire support often removed the obstacle - "scissors" brought out to counter the enemy "paper". Then the "rock" of the armor was freed up and continued on its merry way, smashing enemies it was suited to smashing. There are exceptions, of course, but exceptions are exactly what they are.

From the unit history of the 68 tank battalion, 6 Armored division, which you can read for yourself at this URL -

http://members.aol.com/super6th/tank68/index.html

"One tank was hit by Panzerfaust fire at a very close range, and was set on fire, However, the tank crew remained inside and continued to machine gun the krauts until the heat became unbearable; crawling out of the vehicle they found themselves surrounded by Wehrmacht troops who called to them to surrender. Unanimously they refused, and immediately opened fire on the group in the face of overwhelming odds, and almost certain death. Technician 5th Grade, Santo De Nunziato, Fred K. Blaylock, were cut down by machine gun fire. Nunziato was immediately killed and Blaylock died of wounds later in the hospital. Technician 4th Grade Charles E. Pidcock continued to fire his sub-machine gun at close range until his tank exploded, and threw him into a nearby hedgerow."

"Both tanks of the section were knocked out. Lt. Lundh's tank was knocked out by direct fire from a captured enemy French 75, and Sgt. Capozi's tank was knocked out by bazooka fire. The casualties were two killed, one wounded, and 4 missing". (Since the battalion had only 1 MIA at the end of the war, the 4 missing were later resolved - but how is not said).

"S/Sgt. Brock-Jones's tank was hit by bazooka fire, but he kept going and kept pouring lead into the jerries"

"our casualties were four killed in action, 24 wounded, and a vehicular loss of 2 tanks destroyed" (in an attack 9 hours long, near Nancy, under continuous artillery fire. Most of the losses were exposed TCs) "We would like to quote one statistic which sums up the action in a few words: Of the thirty-seven tank commanders in the first attack wave, eighteen were either killed or wounded". (This was a case of relatively green tankers, who had so far seen only lighter action and much less in the way of artillery, all staying unbuttoned too long).

"Company "B" while moving up the slopes northeast of Diebling came under heavy anti-tank fire from the vicinity of Metzing. It was dusk. Visibility was poor, and ground was extremely soft, thus greatly hindering their mobility. Company B, partially bogged down, was unable to extricate itself from this quagmire Enemy anti-tank guns in well defiladed positions blazed away at "Baker's right flank" and knocked out seven tanks."

"a very unusual incident occurred. Before Company A reached Metzing Lt. Kratzer's tank was hit and all members (sic) of the crew bailed out. Unknown to them Tech. 4th Grade Shunk, the driver had been instantly killed and he was in such a position that his foot kept the accelerator depressed and the vehicle rolled on in low gear, a dead man at the levers, through the enemy lines into the town, and beyond it, describing great lumbering circles before it came to a halt."

(January Bulge fighting vs. 12SS, starting Jan 2 "At this point, our attacking force was taken under very heavy anti-tank fire and small arms fire in and around the town. As a consequence, all but one of "B" Company's tanks were knocked out, and the doughs suffered very heavy casualties and were pinned down. The positions became so untenable and exposed that it was necessary to withdraw the force under cover of smoke."

(Next day, 3 Jan '45) "The enemy counter-attacked in the morning with tanks and infantry, but was repulsed with many casualties. At that time AT guns, in well concealed and defiladed positions fired on "A" Company's line of tanks, destroying four, and making their position untenable, it was imperative that they be withdrawn. Then at 1500, the task force withdrew in orderly fashion to better defensive positions north and east of Bizory. We must mention the fact here that while it was a necessary move and one to better our position, it was the first time in our experience that we had had to move to the rear due to enemy pressure."

(The same fight and heavy shelling continue through January 8) "Again on January 8th, the enemy made a coordinated tank-infantry attack against our right flank and along the axis of the Bizory-Magaret road. Six "A" Company tanks were knocked out like so many clay pigeons, and their fire couldn't effectively find Jerry in his positions along the draw; also the neighboring 69th's fire was long in coming, and ineffectual when it did. The enemy then swung the force of their attack against the hill south of the road and southwest of Magaret. Finally, however, before he could do more damage, Jerry was driven off again by our TD's and artillery fire."

On the 9th the battalion was relieved, though elements were re-committed on a few occasions in the rest of January. But by the 9th of January, "In spite of the excellent recovery and maintenance job that Captain Halloran's Battalion Maintenance men had done, we had suffered severe losses, and our total strength amounted to little better than a company of tanks."

The battalion had probably lost 2/3rds of its (then) tank strength in 7 days, half of those losses on the three occasions mentioned above, the rest spread throughout the week of heavy fighting. The losses of that one week of heavy fighting outside Bastogne accounted for around half of all the tank losses the battalion experienced in the whole war, including mechanical / non-battle causes. And the losses in that period were 2/3rds of all tank losses explicitly mentioned in the unit history.

The next few months, the unit faced only light opposition - at first refitting, later in breakthrough drives against crumbling opposition. When serious resistence was encountered, the response was a mix of changes of route, air strikes, large artillery concentrations, or infantry attacks in which the tanks only had to support by ranged fire. Losses to battalion personal were by handfuls, a dozen at most in a given action. Most opposition was smaller scale - an ambush at a defended roadblock, bridge, or town, quickly broken up by overwhelming odds.

E.g. "Later that night... when combat team reconnaissance elements reached Wabern and Zennern, they received small arms and bazooka fire, as a result of which one attached tank destroyer was crippled."

Overall losses of the battalion in the whole war were as follows -

84 KIA

1 MIA

212 WIA

272 non-battle

187 returned to duty (WIA&Non-battle medical cases)

---

-380 net losses

+373 replacements received

The overall losses were about equal to the initial strength, but with roughly 1/3rd of them returned to duty. Around half the initial personnel were still with the battalion at the end of the war; most of the rest came in after the Bulge and remained with the battalion for the rest of the war.

The battalion drew 80 replacement tanks over the course of the war, including unrecoverable losses in combat, mechanical failures, and 76mm upgrades. (It also received 17 replacement jeeps and 10 replacement trucks). TOE strength was about the same number, so the vehicles turned over once. Average losses were 2 per week, but actually 30-40 of them were concentrated in the heaviest week of fighting (thus losses around 10% per day), with around 1 per week for the rest of the war. Otherwise put, the "half life" of the battalion was about the length of the whole campaign (9-10 months) at the ordinary intensity of action, but only one week long for the highest week.

This does not mean the battalion did nothing the rest of the time - it captured Brest and Lorient, participated in the fight for Nancy and the Lorraine, the Saarland and breakthrough fighting in Germany proper. It just didn't "fight fair"; whenever it could manage it, it got overwhelming local odds. When it didn't have local odds in maneuver forces on the ground, it was supported by time-on-target artillery "shoots" of up to 18 battalions at once, and occasionally by Jabo attacks up to group strength (36 P-47s).

Most of the tank losses were from hidden PAK or the tanks and TDs of 12SS, in one week of fighting in the Bulge. But many of the personnel casualties were caused by sustained artillery fire at other times, by non-battle injuries and sickness. A few tanks were KO'ed by fausts and schrecks, but in ones and twos - the same was sometimes done by heavy HE, firing indirect for long enough that a few direct hits did something.

Most noteworthy, only hidden PAK or tanks/TDs accounted for large numbers of tanks - platoon and company strength - on individual occasions. As for losses when tanks were knocked out, overall KIAs per tank replacement were only 1 each. Some of the replacements were for non-battle causes of course, which might push it to 2 each. But some of the KIA occurred for reasons other than penetration of a tank (e.g. exposed crew, or artillery hitting men while not in their vehicles, or in the support elements, or after a successful bail-out), so 1 may be more accurate. Casualties were quite low overall if compared to those in infantry battalions. The obvious reason why is that the number one cause of infantry casualties, sustained artillery fire, was mostly (though not entirely) negated by tank armor.

There are some other interesting facts available on this battalion, about its ammo expenditure. The unit fired more than 1.8 million rounds of 30 cal MG, and around 200K of 50 cal MG. 6400 76mm and 16000 75mm tank rounds were fired by the medium tanks. That is about 1/4 76mm, so 1-2 76mm per platoon was probably standard (perhaps closer to 2 when the larger ammo load of the 75mm is taken into account). The Stuarts fired only 2750 rounds of 37mm, implying they saw much less action than the Shermans. The unit also fired 2400 rounds of 81mm from its HQ mortar platoon.

But the heavy lifting for fire support was done by the Sherman 105s, which fired nearly 11000 rounds - half as much as the rest of the Shermans put together, from only 1/9 as many tanks. The Sherman 105s fired indirect regularly, as a battery, and averaged 1800 rounds from each piece over the whole war. That was probably done in several hundred fire missions, sometimes none in a given day and sometimes several, plus a smaller amount of direct fire on occasion. Obviously, there were many occasions to fire on areas where enemy were known to be, but unseen for direct fire, or avoided. If you found PAK you got out of their way, then radio'ed the location, so 105 shells (or more) could be dropped on them. Most of the time you didn't have to duel with them in direct fire.

For the rest, the average works out to 1-2 gun rounds and 100 rounds of MG per tank per day. One can safely conclude that half the tanks weren't in action at all on a typical day, and those that were generally saw only light fighting, like small roadblocks holding up a column. In the heaviest fighting, the engaged tanks might have been going through a full ammo load every couple of days, for that peak week. They certainly did not regularly go through a full ammo load every 30 minutes, although a few of them might have, on rare occasions.

It is perhaps also worth noting that this unit fired more than 25000 direct fire tank rounds, but lost only 80 tanks (or less) in battle (some were certainly mechanical breakdowns, etc). Which gives you some idea of how much of the shooting was HE at non-AFV targets. The idea that 2-8 rounds in a tank duel shoot-out per KO'ed tank, was typical for a WW II tanker, is not at all consistent with that picture. Of course this is the experience of a US unit, on the attack and against an enemy usually without armor, or much of it. Any way you slice it, though, hundreds of rounds were expended per tank that died. By all accounts far fewer AP per kill were needed in duels. Ergo, the HE load turned over many times, in fights against unarmored opponents, for every tank duel actually run across.

[The costs of 88mmPAK vs Elephant]

The truth of the matter is the CM cost model assumes a vehicle without a turret is crippled by the lack, compared to either a turreted vehicle or a gun on the ground. The result is all the German beasties without them are bargains, because that just isn't so in practice - in the small fights CM covers and with the existing whole-vehicle turning speeds, anyway.

[The costs of 88mmPAK vs Elephant]

Sure, right. If being able to hide is worth so much, why isn't a US M-10 tank destroyer less expensive than a US 76mm anti-tank gun?

[Germans: Why pick the HMG?]

"I feel that three LMG's will give you more tactical flexability under most circumstances"

Unless those circumstances include firing more than 25 shots, or taking 2 or more casualties.

The LMGs just suck. There is no getting around it. They are good for misdirection, confusing the enemy about your numbers and strength. Take a few with leftover points to spot approaching enemies cheaply - fine. But they are a lousy way to buy additional firepower, because they just don't last (either in ammo terms or when men get hit).

[I Have Questions About Arty That Need To Be Answered]

Very slight correction to one of felixgrey's comments. The US 4.2" mortar was meant to be used as a chemical mortar. Since gas warfare wasn't used in WW II, it was planned to use them for smoke missions as well - while they remained the stand-by for gas warfare if the Germans used gas first. But at the start of the war, no HE round existed for them, and none was planned.

The HE round for the 4.2" mortar was developed by an artillery officer during the fighting in North Africa. It started life as a field mod, in effect. The army quickly adopted it, in time to use 4.2" HE in the Italian campaign. The rounds were standard by the time period covered in CMBO.

The correction is only to the notion that HE rounds existed for the weapon before the war. They did not, and the army hadn't really planned for it. A little initiative in the field made up for that oversight...

[The costs of 88mmPAK vs Elephant]

The towed versions cost more, which does seem off to me. I'd certainly prefer the mobile gun. The towed ones had ~10 extra AP rounds but the same HE load, and the Nashorn has over 20 AP which is usually plenty. The also hide better and have a lower sillouette, but compared to armor proof against small arms and above all mobility, those seem tiny.

It is also noteworthy that the 88 pillbox costs almost twice as much as either. It is just as easy to spot as the Nashorn, and just as immobile as the towed guns. If does have a larger ammo load, with 30 odd HE shell rather than a dozen. And of course much thicker armor protection than the Nashorn - but still vunerable to direct hits by tanks.

Personally, I think the better towed AT guns are overpriced. The German 50mm is too cheap, the PAK 40 is about right. I can see paying 85 for a regular 88 Flak sometimes, if the map is huge. But the 88 Pak cost too much for their added effectiveness.

I also think all the turretless German AFVs are underpriced, relative bargains. Especially the Hetzer and StuH, but also the Marders, StuG, Nashorn, and Jadgpanzer. Compared to plain jane 75mm, turreted Allied tanks, all have much greater effectiveness in armor to armor fights, for the points.

[116th Panzer Division]

"assigned as the Operations Officer for the 116th Panzer Division in May 1942"

So, was he assigned as head of ops 22 months before the division was formed, or to the 16th motorized, or is that a typo in the blurb?

If we are going to worry about technically correct...

[In the search for facts and numbers]

There is an excellent chart on mobile division deployments throughout the war at Panzerdiesel, at this URL -

http://www.panzerdiesel.com/eng/e210z.php

Of course, that won't tell you how strong a given formation was at a given date - only detailed campaign histories will tell you that. But you can track the number of mobile divisions and where they were, by date, which is useful.

There is less detail readily available on infantry formations. The problem is that it is something of an organizational furball. It is easy enough to find out that the Germans fielded slightly over 300 Heer infantry divisions all told (all fronts, not just Russia), and a little over 50 infantry type divisions of other types (Luftwaffe field divisions, paratroop, mountain, and SS infantry divisions). The thing is, some of these were rebuilt several times, others were disbanded after being wrecked once, some "graduated" to mobile division types, sometimes without further use of the division number, sometimes with a new infantry division retaining the number, etc. It is all over the map.

The number of divisions fielded increased over time, while their average size declined. There were two causes of that, one by TOE changes and one by understrength formations left in the field. The TOE changed the division structure from 9 line infantry battalions to 6 late in the war. In practice, many formations were fighting as kamfgruppen with only ~1/3rd of TOE strength remaining, particularly in periods well into a major Russian offensive. Nominally, the division strength on the eastern front started at 120 at the time of the invasion, and typically ran around 200 divisions later on. It would be much harder to say how many were "destroyed" (a nebulous concept anyway, blurred by varying levels of destruction, rebuild, reorganization, etc).

[116th Panzer Division]

Actually its lineage was longer than that, though more twisted, too. The 16th Infantry division fought in Poland and France, distinguishing itself in the breakthrough fight at Sedan. After the French campaign, two new formations were formed from it - the 16th motorized infantry and the 16th Panzer divisions. The 16th Motorized was the one that eventually became the 116th Pz.

But first it fought in the Balkans, and then in Army Group South in Russia. It fought in the Crimea and pushed in the Caucasus, and held part of the right flank of the Stalingrad position. It avoided encirclement in the retreat and again fought well. It was upgraded to the 16th Panzergrenadier division in the summer of 1943, before the Kursk campaign. It was not involved in the Kursk attack, but was heavily engaged in the subsequent Russian offensive. It fought heavily in the Dnepr bend battles and by early 1944 was basically destroyed.

It was then pulled out of the line and sent back to western Germany to rebuild. It joined with - or perhaps more accurately, provided a cadre to - the 179th reserve Panzer division. That made the 116th Panzer.

It was then stationed in Pas De Calais, and went to Normandy after the invasion as a reserve behind Caen, but without being engaged at first. (It was also still missing its Panther battalion, which was still training). It was committed after the breakout to try and stop it, and largely destroyed in the process. It has 12 tanks and 600 men left in early October, but fought anyway in Aachen. It then absorbed the 108th Panzer brigade and took replacements, and fought rather successfully in the Hurtgen forest (the Schmitt counterattack). It was brought up to strength for the Bulge, where it had a leading role. But it was largely destroyed yet again in that battle. It still fought more, in the Ruhr pocket in early 45, before surrendering when the pocket fell.

It was thus largely destroyed three times over, once as the 16th Panzergrenadier by the Russians in the Dnepr bend, and twice as the 116th Panzer by the Americans, in Cobra and the Bulge - and a fourth time if you count its final surrender. It also incorporated two other large units during its history, the 179 reserve Panzer division and the 108 Panzer brigade. And it served under 4 different names, 16 Infantry, 16 Motorized, 16 Pz Gdr, and 116 Panzer. In one manifestation or another, it fought the entire war from the invasion of Poland to the collapse of the Ruhr pocket.

Hardly "served only in the west..."

[In the search for facts and numbers]

"mechanics and statistics for losses on the Ostfront, did you get this knowledge from simple logic, written material, or combination of both?"

The quick answer is mostly my own reasoning, with input information from a wide variety of sources. More detail below.

"You said (not a direct quote) "...the Germans already lost over a million by the early stage of the war..."

Well, the figure is 1m total causalties in the east, including WIA. That landmark was passed during the Battle of Moscow, by January 42, and is commonly cited by historians. We can use the ratio of KIAs to WIAs in the data available on the web, to cross-check this commonly cited factoid.

If you look at the Feldgrau figures for the first 6 months, you will find 360K KIA and MIA in that period, 323K for the KIA alone (virtually all of them in the east, for this period). For the much longer period to November '44, they have the WIA running at 1.45x the KIA+WIA, in the east, which would suggest 520K WIA by the same time. The ratio of WIA to KIA+MIA must have been higher in the successful, offensive portion of the war - with MIAs in particular, lower. The overall rate of WIA to KIA was 2.46x, which would suggest up to 800K WIA for the first six months.

The true figure for WIA is probably somewhere in between, around 650,000 (averaging the two figures, or about 2 WIA per KIA). That agrees with the commonly cited historical factoid, of the Germans hitting the 1m casualty mark in the Battle for Moscow. About 1/3rd of them KIA, the rest WIA, with only around 35K MIA by then, most of them in the last two months, after the first winter counterattacks in front of Moscow.

"The Feldgrau site has a figure of about 3,500,000 not including '45"

Well, not quite. They give 3.5m WIA in the east through the end of November, 1944. They give 1.42m KIA and another 1m MIA, many of whom were undoubtedly KIA without it being confirmed. The total KIA+MIA is thus 2.42m - but that leaves out the last six months. So, how much was suffered in the east in the last six months? We can make a decent guess from the figures they do have, extrapolating.

In 1943 and early 1944, before the second front opens in France, the Germans are losing around 60-65K per month in KIA+MIA. The losses then spike upward in July and August, including huge numbers of MIA. That is Bagration and Cobra. In the remaining months of the year listed (not counted December), the KIA rate more or less stabilizes at around 45K per month, while the MIA figure remains substantially higher, around 70K per month compared to ~25K before the second front in France. We can estimate the east front losses by speculating about the causes of these changes in loss rates.

If you assume the eastern losses remained the same as before, and the western ones were just added on top, you'd be led to conclude the losses in the west were on the order of ~8K KIA per month, but a much higher 45K MIA/PWs. If, on the other hand, you assume the higher MIA rate after August was due to lower quality manpower being shoved to the fronts, because of the rear area comb-outs used to replace the losses of Bagration and Cobra, then you might conclude the MIA rate rose on both fronts. A low-ball figure for the eastern losses in the latter case would be about half the total losses. The first assumption points to a continued loss rate in the east - KIA+MIA - of around 65K, while the second would suggest more like 55K.

They aren't far apart anyway; split the difference at 60K per month, and the error involved will be small. That loss rate then continues for 5 more months, plus a little change at the end for a few days in May. That will give you a KIA+MIA figure for the east of 2.75m, up from the 2.42m Feldgrau gives for the period ending in November. The WIAs will also go up. There is no reason to assume any large change in the ratio of WIAs to KIA+MIAs in that period, so you'd expect 2.75/2.42 times 3.5m equals about 4m WIA. Thus, my estimate of overall German losses in the east for the whole war, would be 2.75m KIA+MIA, 4m WIA. Will that be exact, with such rough extrapolation? No, but it will not be seriously misleading. There are probably some large surrenders tacked on at the end, but they hardly count.

The overall manpower loss ratios for the east front campaign will then probably come to between 2 and 4 to 1, depending on the Russian loss figures accepted. I would then divide this between the German offensive, and the Russian offensive, portions of the war, counting the first as lasting through October 1942, with the latter starting in November 1942 with the Uranus and Mars counterattacks. The Russians took half their losses in the defensive portion of the war. Taking a range of 6-10m for their KIA and 10-14m for their WIA, that would then mean they lost 3-5m/5-7m in each of the two periods (with the second twice the length, time-wise). The Germans lost roughly 360K+650K through January 42, as we already went through above. German losses in 42, in their offensive period, are about the same again - Feldgrau gives 368K KIA+MIA for that period (Feb-Oct '42). So the Germans presumably lost around 750K KIA+WIA, and 1.3m WIA, in the period of their offensive. Leaving losses of 2m and 2.7m respectively, for the remaining, defensive period.

The loss ratio for the German attack period in KIA+MIA would then be 4-6.7 times, WIA 3.8-5.4 times, or total casualties 4-6 times. The variation comes from uncertainty in total Russian losses. If you split the difference to try to minimize the inevitable error, you'd assume around 5 times the Russian losses as Germans, in the period of the German attack. In 1941 the ratio would be even higher, in 1942 somewhat lower, than that average. Moving to the second portion, though, the Russian losses are the same in the longer period of their offensive, but the German losses are considerable higher, by a bit more than the length difference. 8-12m total Russian losses against 4.7m total German ones, thus about a 2:1 ratio of total casualties (with 1.7-2.6 as a range).

As for my analysis of attrition on the eastern front, it is not based on one text or someone else's published analysis. I've studied the subject for decades and read many histories, and modeled many aspects of the campaign in this or that wargame of course. The reasoning is my own. War economy and production figures come from Milward (already cited), and front stats off the web, often for particular weapon systems, that have to be put together.

The rough picture that emerges is thus a continually falling Russian loss ratio, as high as 10 times in the initial offensive, falling to 5 times and then below in the first winter and the '42 campaign, and eventually reaching the rate of their production and mobilization edge. Then they have the initiative, and the loss rate for the whole period of their initiative was around 2:1. In the early period of their initiative, it was probably still higher than that, while in later periods it probably fell below it. Say, 2.5-3 times in the winter of 42, near 2 times at Kursk, below 2 times thereafter. Whether their loss rate ever got below the German one is doubtful, but they probably got it under 2 times, and that would prove quite sufficient. The ratio-boosting effects of attrition ("subtraction") could do the rest.

As to the mystery of how they ever got to parity with such a high early loss ratio, that is simple enough to understand. They needed to get the overall loss *rate* down, compared to the rate of production/mobilization. The loss *ratio* can be 20:1, if the absolute losses (the *rate*) are only 40 guys vs 2, in the time 4000 more mobilize - then the ratio / subtraction won't make any serious difference. When the ratio was against them, the trick was to lower the loss rate. If the loss rate were zero, the front line strength would tend toward the production ratio. When the loss rate is low but non-zero, this tendency is retarded by a sort of "drag", to be sure - but it still moves in that direction.

They did not accomplish this is 1941, and their relative power declined as a result. They replaced their enourmous losses, but their army did not grow, nor the German one weaken. But in 1942, they *did* manage to lower their loss rate, and keep the mobilization and production rate high. There were no giant pockets in the 1942 campaign, as defenders wisely retreated out of them. The Russian high command kept reserves out of the battle until they had a chance to build up. With the loss rate lower in absolute terms, the loss ratio effect was dominated by the production ratio effect, and the strength of the two sides tended toward the ratio of their production and mobilization. Held back to some degree, certainly, by a loss ratio above 2:1 against the Russians. As an example of this process, the Russian tank fleet rebounded in 1942 to around the pre-war size (~20,000, most of which needed minor repairs at the time of the invasion, incidentally), from a low only ~1/3rd as large at the begining of the year (~7000).

In short, the Russian *defensive* success was based on production and mobilization, while the Russian *offensive* success was based on attrition. The former required not only total war economy measures, but also a reduction in the overall loss *rate* (while comparatively indifferent to the loss *ratio*), to avoid the Germans winning through attrition via their initially higher kill rates. The production was there early, by early 1942. The lower loss rate was only achieved in the fall of 1942. Together, the two produced the build up that allowed the counterattacks in the winter of 1942.

For the offensive, attrition success in the second half of the war, another factor was also necessary. The Russians had to get the relative loss rate down below around 2:1. This required learning the methods of armored warfare and combined arms. They didn't have to be better at those things, but they did need to be "good enough", or they never could have won through attrition processes. They did not outproduce the Germans 5 or 10 to 1, and thus could not afford to lose men and tanks at the rate they did in 1941 and 1942, and still expect to win through numbers.

There is evidence they succeeded in this by 1943. For instance, if you look at tank wastage rates (% loss of AFVs per existing AFV in the fleet), the lifetime of a Russian AFV in combat was within .8 of the German figure in 1943, and reached parity in 1944. The Russians still lost more tanks, but they had more tanks. They lost them only in the same ratio as the size of their fleet, while practically destroying AG South twice and AG Center once in return.

This illustrates the next point. Once the Russians got the loss ratio low enough, they then had to drive the absolute loss *rate* for both sides as high as possible. They did this by favoring "fighting" generals, by aggressive doctrine, etc. When they failed temporarily or locally in ratio terms, they had to pause (lower the loss *rate*) to let greater production "catch them up". When they succeeded in ratio terms, the relative power of the Germans declined through attrition, without any realistic means of recovery. And the higher the loss rate in such fighting, the bigger that effect. At the Dnepr bend and in Bagration, they did so on a scale sufficient to destroy half the German army.

In my opinion, this whole dynamic was critically related to the single biggest mistake the Germans made, which was not going to full economic mobilization until 18 months after the invasion began, after the defeat at Stalingrad. It was a mistake fundamentally caused by hubris. A higher loss ratio inflicted could prove decisive in a war of attrition, if and only if the production-mobilization rate was driven close to unity, and then the loss rate were driven as high as possible. The Germans did not even try to drive the production ratio to unity until after Stalingrad. And they did not succeed in keeping the loss rate high enough throughout 1942 to prevent a Russian buildup out of their superior, mobilized production. Without those additional requirements, a higher loss ratio itself could not prove decisive in a war of attrition.

That the Germans were technically capable of matching the Russians in these respects, had they seriously tried and had political motivations not dictated otherwise, I consider proven by the production they did eventually achieve by mid 1944, despite serious interference by Allied bombing. And by the mobilization of manpower they achieved late in the war, as well as the evidence of unused and misused manpower potential. E.g. the foolishness of not using women in the labor force, by the idle myriads of Italians and Axis minors not recruited or not used in the decisive theater, and poorly equipped and led when they were, by political motivated and crazy alienation of the population of captured areas, diversion of effort to senseless crimes, hording of manpower and material by minor princelings, etc. Since those considerations involve a certain level of political realism, pragmatism, not to mention decency, they probably reduce to "any German government sane enough to win the war would not have launched it."

In addition, though, I believe the level of thinking about large scale attrition processes and their relation to war economy strategies, was not impressive on the German side. The German high command thought in terms of battlefield superiority, gains of territory and higher losses inflicted than received, above all on operational "virtuosity". They mistakenly believed those things would be sufficient to win against an opponent following a total mobilization and attrition strategy. They did not think in terms of achieveable production ratios compared to achievable battlefield loss ratios, or deliberately manipulating the loss rate by standing on the defensive for certain periods, etc. They tended to think of war as an attempted coup de main on a grand scale, if not as a proof of manhood - not as a numerically governed, industrial process. They were wrong about that, and it showed.