Roksovkiy

The heavy Tiger battalions were over and over involved in the heaviest fighting in the east. They would have a disproportionate number of tank kills compared to other tanks and anti-tank guns on average. The small number of tigers manufactured directly affects its kill ratio. For the Ferdinands, as only 90 were manufactured this had a big significance as 10:1 would only denote 900 enemy tanks knocked. The figures are averages for the course of the war. Some tigers knocked out over 100 enemy tanks, some tigers were destroyed being deployed without any enemy kills, but on average the ratio was over 10:1. All of the confirmed kills were for the majority of cases validated by other friendly units. Without doubt, the Russians repaired many of the knocked out tanks when the Germans did not control the battle.

The heavy german tanks did have extremely high kill ratios. The official records of the schwere Tiger Abteilungs were made available in 1983. Total Confirmed kills were well above 12,000 tanks for Tiger IE. Tiger IE losses Lost in action - 706 Destroyed by crew/abandoned - 592 Total losses 1298 The Average kill ratio for the Tiger I was just above 12:1

Most Overrated: British 17lb using APDS and generally all US tungsten rounds, penetration. The game engine over-models the penetration and disregards the accuracy and shatter gap limitations that affected this type of ammo, as shown in Rexfords new book Most Underrated: Panthers armour. All given 85% armour quality. overmodelled.

The TDI has an informative thread about the The Panther losses, returns at Kusk. http://www.dupuyinstitute.org/ubb/Forum4/HTML/000003.html Was APCR available for the Russian 45mm guns during kursk.

Is the report shown at "http://history.vif2.ru/library/archives/weapons/weapons7.html", a valid source. There is a lot of contradictory statements in the report. Valera has written up a lot of the statements between the pictures. If someone could get a copy from the russian achives, they could compare it. I have also heard that the report was done post war, using improved ammo.

AchtungPanzer shows the king tiger with a 65mm mantle covering the entire front turret, in addition to its 180mm turret. The close-up picture above shows the turret with a cast armour mantle, that would give it a 245mm front turret. For some reason SPWAW uses 215mm thickness for front turret value.

Article specifically states that the number of KT tanks destroyed in those several days had been confirmed with both soviet and german archives. This is nonsense the same article even says: "Unfortunately, in their memoirs, neither commander mentioned the exact number of German tanks destroyed." And One week after the battle the 501st sPzAbt had 38 King tigers in total. These soviet claims are best shown with the ferdinand, similar reports as above claims of 9152 destroyed ferdinands throughout the war. Yet only 90 were ever build.

The report on the t-34/85 destroying King tigers from the front in the Russian military zone is classic soviet propaganda. It completely disagrees with the strength returns filed by the 501st sPzAbt after the battle. Soviet narratives were written to show the glory of Soviet arms. They not only leave out the embarrasing and put a spin on the truth, but they even just invent their "truths". They are a very dangerous source to use. Unlike the German writings, they cannot be checked back to the archives. The Soviet WWII military archives are still under control of the Chief of the Army General Staff, and getting access is both difficult, and laborious. I would like to check these soviet sources from a non biases source, not from the propaganda displayed on Valera's russian military zone.

The IS-2 sufered the same crude armour mixture as all previous soviet tanks. The poor metalurgy processes created brittle armour rated at 30% less effective than german,US and UK armour. The IS-2 120mm 'cast armour' glacis was considerably weaker than the 100mm front Tiger I armour. If CM2 is realistic all mass produced soviet armour should be rated as 70% effective. Germany was the world leader in metalurgy during the 1930's. German quality control increased as the war progressed. Less resources resulted in less tanks produced, not weaker armour. German tests of the IS-2 v Panther G glacis in 10/44 state it as impervious to the 122mm gun at all ranges. I trust these more than post war soviet claims. The Panther 75L70 is recored in many reports as knocking out IS-2 from the front over 1km ranges. And the IS-2 would be extremely lucky to hit a house at a range beyond 1.2km in combat conditions. It had extremely poor accuracy at any range over 1.2km, according to soviet reports.

The issue of the Panthers armour quality only affected the early Panther ausf D. This model had a higher incidence of flaw's in the 80mm front galcis armour due the Face Hardening process and new techniques being used. These flaw's resulted in the Russians believing that the 122mm gun could penetrate the Panther's glacis armour at ranges in excess of 1500m. The imperfections in the glacis armour were corrected from the G models which resulted in the glacis armour being impevious to the IS2's 122mm gun from point blank range. Soviet quality controll methods on tank production in WW2 were almost non-existant. This led to many flaws and 'weak spots' in soviet armour. UK and US used average quality control during mass production and the germans was stupidly high. US and UK test reports on the IS-2m tank captured afer Berlin consistently rate the crude mixture of RHA and cast armour used on this tank as 30% less effective than german, UK and US armour.

The 17lb firing its special APDS ammo(from August 1944) was only marginally better than the 88L71 firing its normal APBC ammo. This however was in theory as a report from the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Forces notes: WO 219/2801, SHAEF documents on tanks. AGp/1420/12/G(SD), dated 11 Mar 1946, " on the vulnerability of the King Tiger, the King Tiger's glacis is invulnerable to 17-pdr APDS. The front plate cannot be penetrated up to 0 yards, and the turret front at only 100 yards." Also a number called the "critical azimuth at 1,000x" is mentioned in the SHAEF report, but not explained. So a 17lb firing APDS, knocking out a King Tiger from the front just didn't happen in real life, even though in theory the gun had the AP performance.

At the end of the war the mean soviet combat loss ratio was 4:1 in favour of the Germans. This rounds off into the 12 million soviet military casualties to the 3 million Germans. Also an immense number of soviet casualties incurred against the Mongolians, Georgians etc, were not even recorded. During the assault on Berlin the 2nd Guards Tank Army actually ran out of infantry. Given this stark reality that if a soviet soldier was not a member of the communist party his death was not recorded and even his family would not be informed.

>the 'joachim scholl in russia' looks like b.s. for starters, the dates for citadel appear to be wrong. The II SS corps Das were fighting around Prochorovka right up until 18,19 and 20th July, with only a slight general withdrawal from General Otto von Knobelsdorff's XLVIII Panzer Corps and General Ott's LII Army Corps.

That picture of an Elephant has been blown by its crew, from an internal explosion outwards. Many Elephant were immobilised at Kursk and subsequently blown by the crew. The same pictures exist of a Tiger II with the turret of blown by its crew during budapest, and even the Maus with its turret blown by its crew after it broke down from Kummersdorf on its way to fight the Russians. A 155mm Artillery was pictured only slightly denting the front of an Elephant. 203mm Artillery would not have this catastrophic result.

> Don't think the mispelling of Roksovkiy > devalues one's opinion. When it's a nick, it does! As well as when it is in a printed article. The marshall's name was ROKOSSOVSKIY. I used Roksovkiy, the name of a tanker ,not related to the marshall's name that was ROKOSSOVSKIY.

For a complete neutral, Valera's web-site, sadly reads of a biase to the russian side. If you don't care about nationality and seriously want to find out the true performnace of german/russian tanks you cannot take his work as truth. If he is part of the CM2 team then I fear the game will not be historically accurate. The Steel Panthers World tA War game testers had a lot of complaints because they used the true armor values of soviet vehicles and the low ammo capacity/rate of fire of soviet 122+ guns. His web-site is almost a complete contradiction of Achtung Panzer and vice versa. If Russian tanks were this good, with the germans largely outnumbered in tanks as they were, the germans would have no tanks left by late 1943. -I personally don't know enough about armor manufacturing/physics to say one way or another. Concerning German quality control, are you also taking into account the assertion that German armor quality decreased from lack of necessary materials to make the armor up to high quality standards? Supposedly the lack of maganese sources prevented forced the Germans into producing armor that was less than optimal. Germany armour for medium+ tanks used rolled homogeneous nickel-steel plate, with electro-welded interlocking-plate. British and US sources agree that this was the best armour produced during WW2. And rigorous quality control procedures ensured it stayed that way, even up to 1945. When reserves of nicked and maganese were exhausted tank production slowed and then ceased in early april 1945. Soviet armour, RHA and cast armour was rated at 30% less effective than german armour by the U.S and noted it tended to be very brittle. -What exactly is it about Valera's sources that makes them suspect other than they are Soviet? I'm not trying to be sarcastic or anything, but I want to know what the real facts are (if such a thing can really be known). The main problem is the lack of other soviet sources available to compare to Valera's sources. German combat reports documents are ignored. Unfortunately his writings go into a 'my tank is better than yours' mentality. An writings such as the soviets saying they destroyed 11 king tigers and the german combat records show that 2 were lost, then valera argues the germans modified there reports. Can you tell me where exactly you are quoting from "When Titans Clash"? I have the book but I don't recall the passage you cite. The kills are credited to SS-Hauptscharführer Karl Korner and SS-Untersturmführer Karl Bromman, who both received the Knights cross. -Valera claims that the Germans purposely avoided areas with IS-2s, not the other way around. Again, this is a opinion and a contradiction to the russian order of Nov 1944 in budapest of "forbiding all tank units from conducting any major combat where Tigers were located."

-I think you may want to head over to the Russian BAttlefield. I have nothing against the russian battlefield but a lot of the information contained is at the very least questionable, such as the sources. -There are various AAR by Soviets units that have taken out Ferdinands (although they may have mistaken StuGs for Ferdinands) and Tiger 2s as well. Ferdinands were only knocked out with rear and side shots. There is no evidence that a Tiger II was knocked out by a frontal hit. Ofcourse some were knocked out from side and rear hits. Tigers were so rare that the soviets often claimed tigers and ferdinands killed when PZIV were the tank in question. -Anyway, engagements between IS-2's and King Tigers were rare because the Germans seldom used them on the Eastern Front. On 12 November 1944, not far from Budapest, a skirmish occurred between IS-2's and King Tigers of the 503rd PzAbt. Both sides lost several tanks. The combat losses filled by the 503rd PzAbt show a loss of 2 Tigers, 1 destroyed by the crew. The offical Russian report of this incident show 24 IS-2 losses filled and caused the Russians to forbid their units from conducting any major combat where Tigers were located, until air and artillery could be brought up. Souce Glantz When titans clash. -It had thicker armor and its 88 KwK gun was slightly superior in AP ability, though inferior in HE ability. The 88L71 was a far superior anti tank gun the the russian 122L43. The 122L43 is comparable to the panthers 75L70 upto 1000m, then it is marginally better. Visit http://www.wargamer.org/GvA/ for good gun value figures gained from many sources. The russian bettlefiled web-site, info about about the Tiger II has no reliable sources other than a few russian reports dated during the war(could be propaganda), and contradict all german engineer document data, like the russians showing a tiger II front being penetred, when no russsian gun feilded during WW2 could. -German armor quality also deterioated as the war lengthened so Russian penetration ability improved without them having to do anything. Hmm, the early Panther ausf D had a higher incidence of flaw's in the 8 cm galcis armour due the Face Hardening process. These flaw's resulted in the Russians believing that the 122 mm gun could penetrate the Panther's galcis armour at ranges in excess of 1500m when in reality it had problems penetrating the galcis of the later ausf G's at 600m. The german quality control went up as the War progress.

The true performance of the russian guns were quite poor compared to UK,US and German guns of comparable diameter. Values at 0@ armour plate using APBC & APCBC 500M 1000M 1500M 2000M ISU- 152mm 106mm 102mm 98mm 95mm IS-2 122D-25 128mm 120mm 109mm 105mm SU- 100mm D-10 135mm 129mm 120mm 100mm German 88L71 185mm 165mm 148mm 132mm 75L70 124mm 111mm 99mm 89mm US 90L53 M3 129mm 122mm 114mm 106mm UK 17lb 140mm 130mm 120mm 111mm The 152mm and 122mm russian guns were modified artillery and designed as valera shows against anti-infantry targets due to the rarity of german tanks from 1944. The 152mm, 122mm and 100mm guns could not penetrate the front of the Elephant or Tiger II from any range. Many photos taken show dents on the front plates from these projectiles, other than that no damage was caused. The only gun that could theoretically penetrate a Tiger II was the british 17lb using special APDS ammo. US reports of captured russian armour state that its cast and RHA armour was upto 50% less effective than german armour. The soviet quality controll methods were far less than wersertn standards, but they compenstated for this by the sheer number of tanks produced.