pamak1970

I will put it more clear cause i think there is a misunderstanding. Of course there are cases where the lower in number side wins. Of course in most cases it is the superior maneuver that manages the weaker side to be stronger at the decisive point at the right time. Napoleon who was many times outnumbered used to say that the biggest battalion always wins. Theoritically though, i will put it somewhat different. A weaker force is able to win against a larger one for various reasons and force multipliers it might have sustaining x casualties. Still if the same battle was "replayed" with the weaker force having more numbers than before, the causalties for the winner would most probably be even lower . P.S a remark here is that there are many cases where the weak in numbers side is still stronger cause of some force multipliers .Nevertheless the theoritical approach expressed before applies in the same way. That is if the same side possesed more numbers , it would most probably sustain less casualties against the same enemy in the same enviroment. [ November 06, 2006, 01:57 PM: Message edited by: pamak1970 ]

Considering the difference in quality of steel , the passage of time and oxidation would have different effects on mechanical properties of steel. Accordingly , the resistance to penetration would be degraded unequally among the different materials. Therefore any test conducted today,would not reflect the effects on the same models 60 years ago and the results will be skewed in favor of the tank with the best quallity of steel.

Another poster put it somewhat different. If i recall right ,he said something like five Shermans were used to KO a Tiger ,but it does not mean that all these Shermans were KO. Maybe in this case the ratio was much lower like for example 2 to 1. That might be true, but the question is if 3 or two Shermans inittially for example ,would even dare to try to KO a Tiger opposing them.

Equally if you want to show how the Germans were totaly oufought you carefully select their own data to use against them Actually i do not beleive that these types of data can show the above, even if jasons numbers are correct and US had about equal losses with the portion of Germans against them . Someone can claim different arguments to show who outfought whom but there is not really proof. For example let's take the argument that Germans did outfought US and try to support it based on Jason's data. One type of argument. Assume you are familiar with a certain wargame scenario which you usually finish winning with an average of X casualties . If you decide to edit the scenario and play it possesing a bigger force, do not you think that it is reasonable to finish it with less than X casualties? Or the opposite, assume that You get a smaller force. Is it reasonable to expect to have more casualties? Someone can argue that if US did not have the enormous combat power advantage (the first day allies landed 1500 tanks from what i read!!!) , they would sustain much more casualties. I point here that the operational posture of German army as defender does not really mean that the armor force is entrenched and fights with the advantage of occupying a hull down position. The tanks are kept back trying to outmaneuver the "attacker" and counterattack!. In such cases the advantage goes to the force that outmaneuvers the opponent. You might be a defender but being forced to counterattack against the attacker who at least temporarily has a defensive posture, or you might be able to outthink and place your tanks in perfect position waiting for the attacker to come to you ,or you might maneuver and attack his flanks rather than waiting passively as "defender" letting him the initiative We have numerous examples of all of the above cases. The British at Gazala as defenders were attacking Afrika corps inside Cauldron, The Afrika corps as defender was attacking trying to eliminate the bridgheads and gaps in Alamein and so on..... In other words being in defence does not mean that Your armor has some type of "inherent advantage" as defender. [ November 06, 2006, 09:02 AM: Message edited by: pamak1970 ]

Now in the that battle, El Alamein, Germans lost as TWOs much more tanks since they had to retreat also. I think overall is about 450 and if we count only the worthy ones for a tank engagements ,it is about 200. Still these ratios do not really say anything about the perfomance of machines or armies in general.

i found the study. From http://www.dupuyinstitute.org/pdf/m-8mixedminesys.pdf

I think the biggest portion of the unaccounted German AFV were actually somewhere in Normandy waiting for evacuation or evaluation regarding their status as able to be repaired or TWOs. At least for June and July ,i do not see a reason for German confusion and lag to report the number of TWOs. It makes more sense to me to see the Germans unable to cope with all this massive effort to evaluate and evacuate out of action tanks ,either cause of enemy action or even cause of various breakdowns. So these AFV were neither with units (therefore do not appear as combat ready), neither in repair workshops (therefore do not appear as under repair). On the other hand it would be logical in this case for the Germans not to rush in writting them off. If they had the opportunity ,time a lot of them could be evacuated and repaired. Still with little time to have the Panzer divisions rest and reorganize, with few transports and a total allied superiority that makes evacuation even more difficult at least during day and a gradual loss of ground by the allied offensive ,they did not have the chance they were looking for. I recall a study by duppuy institute about the battle of Alamein and tank losses cause of mines. It is interesting that at some point it is mentioned that a large amount of tanks (i think over 400!!) were unaccounted at first for the British. We are talking here about a smaller area and a force which is winning the battle. Still at the end,actually 2 weeks after the end of battle , according to Royal engineers who were responsible for tank repairs, it is reported that only around 120-130 were total write offs and among them there were only about 40 Grants and Shermans. If i have the time ,i will find the study to confirm the numbers.

Now, just for a sense of how useless the TWO figures are in comparison, the least destroyed division above is 9SS, with 40 runners after Mortain. It used 163 AFVs and still had 40 running at the end, and 58 before the breakout, so delta operational - permanently - is over 100 by the end of July and over 120 overall. But it only recorded 47 TWOs through the end of July - not because they weren't lost, but because TWO reporting inherently lagged actual effective loss. And that is the formation in the best shape of all of them. Actually reading the numbers in this particular case , i do not see any problem with the 9ss reporting only 47 TWO till end of July. Actually this seems beleivable and it does not give an indication that many of the rest are actually lost but not counted cause " TWO reporting inherently lagged actual effective loss" I will be more specific. According to what i read on 1 of june the division has a total of 120 tanks and stugs (ready and in repair). i also see a farhter delivery of 39 Panthers in june so i see a total of 159 AFV. I miss why you claim it is initialy 164 AFV but it is not a big deal . Anyway according to the numbers you give the division has 58 runners before breakout. Seeing the numbers i guess you talk about the numbers on 25 of July. You seem to be surprised that the division gives a total of 47 TWO till end of July. Why? Actually i find the ratio logical. I am not surprised to see a force claiming that from a total number of 150 AFV out of action ,one third is TWOs and 2 thirds are repairable (the last includes both AFV KO cause of enemy action and AFV with mech failures) . But i am going to see it here more specifically. So i am looking at the numbers for 30th of July. There i see a total of 78 operational AFVs (20 more than 25th of July) and all these must came from repair shops since there is no reinforcement of any type between these days. So, 78 operational + 47 TWOs = 125 From the initial force of 159 AFVs we miss the situation of the rest 34 AFV (or 38 according to your initial 163 figure). It is very beleivable to have these missing numbers "under repair". Seeing some examples from the division when actual numbers of vehicles under repair are provided ,we see for eexample that on June 1 before even the start of any battle it has 11 AFV under repair,while on 8 of July ,the only date where actual data are provided for repairs during the Normandy fight , 25 AFV are under repair ,actually short term repair. In other words i do not see anything strange with the TWOs provided by the division for the period till the end of July. [ November 04, 2006, 01:07 PM: Message edited by: pamak1970 ]

I've now got 850 as an upper bound on US medium losses in Normandy through Mortain, including delta operational landing to running and very generous boundaries as to time units and space. The actual figure might be as low as 500. Watch his magic version of this summary, done purely by time and extended to the westwall - "Thus roughly: ‘June’ 231 ‘July’ 291 ‘August’ 665 ‘September’ 350 Total = 1,537" 522 for June and July, perfectly believable. 665 for August, not remotely all Normandy. Very generous to award even half to that, giving 850. The number provided above are actually first appear in one of Andreas link. Here is your remark regarding these numbers. This took place in the same link we are now! Notice in the loss figures by nation and date at the link Andreas provided, that half of all Allied losses in the June to September period occur in August. Gee what happened in August? Were German Tigers at their peak? Epic tank battles that were fiascos? Um, no. Every tank in the allied fleet drove clear across France, that is what happened in August. and later you add............ But most simply failed to drive 400-500 miles across France - out of thousands that had to do so, 10-15% didn't stand it. So regardless if these American August losses were in Normandy or rest of France, you do not seem to dispute there the actual numbers for August. Are You disputing it now,or are you saying that the number is correct but it does not express American tank losses in Normandy? The other thing is that assuming you claim the latter, if Americans as winners of the battlefield and with much better technical-logistical support see "10 to 15% of the vehicles failing to drive this distance" " ,woild not be possible for someone to argue that for Germans the actual percentage can be much higher? Let me put it in a different way. How many German tanks according Your data DID make it to drive the distance retreating from Normandy? This will give (again according to your calculations) a rough idea about the number of tanks that similar to American ones could not make it. Of course there is going to be again some judgment call. If 10-15% of American tanks could not make it , how much you will accept as a decent percentage for German side? For example, if you judge that a reasonable percentage for Germans is 30% and you beleive that 300 German tanks DID manage to complete the retreat ,then the above gives about 128 tanks unable to complete the march.

sorry double post

My question regarding this debate is, are you arguing that PZIV’s faired better in tank vs tank duels than they’re Sherman counterparts The way i see it, even if someone manages to find reliable information regarding the outcome of tank ratio losses between PZivs and Sherman, it is still not adequate to compare effectivess in general . Take for example one of the many factors that influence effectiveness in a specific battle but does not really show true effectiveness under equal terms. That is combat ratio. The bigger side in the engagement (not nessesesary in theater or area of operations) ,has an advantage in inflicting more causalties to the smaller one . That is accepted both in military operations theory and it is backed up by historical experience. The most easy to way to see this is by considering the following example. Two divisions of the same army and same equipment fight against each other in a meeting engagement. Most people by intuition will accept the claim that it will be bad for one divisional commander to see his division engage the opposite one in piecemeal. Say for example seeing each regiment in succession fights alone,even if it assumes defence, against the whole "enemy division" . Although theoritically each regiment for both divisions has the same effectiveness like the other ones, still in real world ,the perfomance is going to be very different if the regiments engage the enemy piecemeal in three different battles with a ratio of one to three than if they engage as part of the whole in a single battle with a ratio of one to one. Rommel loved to concentrate attacks (more demanding than defence)against British brigades scattered through out the desert. [ November 03, 2006, 09:09 AM: Message edited by: pamak1970 ]

Another thing i find surprising in this thread is the lack of information from Allied archives regarding the number of German tanks left inside Normandy ,Falaise and west of Seine. In another thread one of the posters here gave information about number of German tanks found in Mortain-Falaise pocket and west of Seine. This came from Zetterling but it does not really specify the original sourse.

Speaking about recovery repair time , i am sure i have somewhere data about it. For the time being , the only relative information i have is from Dupuy's book "Numbers prediction and war". There is an annex at the end talking about tank recovery repair issues. The data is used by the author to estimate tank returns in cold war .Also unfortnately there is not any type of footnote to direct the reader to an original sourse or to explain how he arrived to these figures . Anyway , according to this annex, Dupuy claims that in a 1970's tank engagement,50% of tank losses are recovered in a period of 5 days .The number of returns per day is about equal to one fifth of the total amount of returns.

I am with you on this subject and i have also expressed issues in other threads regarding Jason's BATTLEFIELD interpretations of "the average equipment destroying a single enemy one during its operation life" which by the way ,i have never heard that it is the first theorem of operations research. Still regarding this specific issue here You are arguing about i am cautious cause i am not familiar with the subject and I try to form an opinion reading a huge amount of numbers. I think up until now if your numbers are right (and i have not seen anyone refuting the allied tank losses),do give a better tank exchange in favor of Germans. It also does not make sense to compare German losses counting both TWO and under repair to losses of TWO of the allies.Reading your link i noticed that the number of tank losses on American side imply TWOs by the armies.Can you confirm that? Also, is it the same for the British losses? Regarless of the above i Still have few remarks First according to your latest post total number of tanks and stug found in Mortain ,falaise and west of Seine is 516. Now,from what i read this area is the battlefield for the August month. So, it IS possible to have four hundred something Panzers destroyed (or captured) during a period of two weeks . counting from Mortain counterattack 7 August to around 20th of month. I also noticed that the figures of German tank losses for August provided in your link list only 105 August – 49 Pz-IV(l), 41 Pz-V, 15 Pz-VI (L56) = 105 I think this is relevant with the argument that during retreat a lot of accounting was simply lost during confusion up until September when things stabilized. So i guess a portion of the high German casualties during September,(1228 according to your numbers), does include the number of tanks lost in Falaise-west of Seine (400 more than the figure you gave which i guess came from German documents during August). Still there are 800 more tank losses for this month -September and always assuming that the numbers You provide are accurate, it is still interesting to see thoughts about this number. Is it cause of sometype of major armor operations north of Seine during September? Is it cause of German retreat during September and the inability to support techinically and logistically the vehicles that have to march long distances back ? Is it a combination of both of the above? Is it a matter of not accurate numbers about German losses during June -July and August,or perhaps additional tank reinforcements during September? And finally is it a matter of some type of misunderstanding from my part regarding what i read?

exaggeration may be present anyway but it is different to just hear about a guy that destroyed 500 tanks (i guess a large portion of them were repair to put back on action soon), and hear the whole story. For example, a very quick look at one site (possibly biased) about his biography , reveals that he had more than 2500 missions under his belt and was shot down or forced to landing 32 times. This makes things look more realistic. For example this gives an average of 78 missions before his plane was either shot down or heavily damaged. It is true that not all mission were tank hunting ones , but the vast majority of them were indeed that (about 2000?) Now it makes more sense to claim that an exceptionally good pilot had about 15 tank kills for every 78 missions (or 60 based on a 2000 missions figure), before he was shot down . It makes much more sense if we accept that this 500 figure of destroyed tanks does not imply total write offs but tanks put out of action in general ,some destroyed while others were simply repaired. (A russian link i saw in the past claimed that on average each tank had about 4 major repairs during its service) I am not saying that there is no room for exaggeration from his part, but this is true to other pilots also who still did not even come to close to his claims . By the way ,the same site about his biography claimed a total number of destroyed enemy equipment of any kind-tanks,trucks, artillery and so on ,of about 2000 which i do find difficult to beleive. 2500 missions resulting in 2000 kills is a very high effectiveness , even if the tergets were not just tanks .

Someone mentioned Rudell which reminded me of something i read pretty recently and ask for confirmation. I have read that this guy was shot down-forced landing more than 30 times!! If this is true , then it is not unbeleivable to accept his claims. His claims are way above statistics calculations but then again it seems that this is true in general about his whole life and we can agreee that he could not lie about the number of times he was shot down!

The thread is really interesting at least to me. I have an additional question.I noticed that TWOs for British are also very high during August. I understand the remark about the American procedures based on their overwhelming production. Did British have also similar attitude in respect of writting off their tanks? Did they count on replacing them with American tanks? Are there any numbers regarding the American tanks given to British?

A relative question is the meaning of the phrase for example "third army total write offs". If the vehicle is beyond any type of repair ,it is a TWO. Is there another way a vehicle can be TWO? For example, does an army rear echelon area provide every available repair activity? I guess for example overhaul is beyond army's capacity. Anyway, what happens when a vehicle's repair requirements exceed the capacity of a formation's rear echelon area? Say for example that a tank needs to be moved to repair facilities outside of an army's area of responsibility in which case it may be under the authority of an Army group formation for example. If there is such a case, does the army declare the vehicle as TWO ? In such a case the meaning of TWO is that the formation is not more responsible for the repair of this vehicle , which is different than the usual meaning of TWO. P.s The question remains the same for "divisional TWOs" which i read about in one of the links provided earlier. [ October 07, 2006, 02:00 PM: Message edited by: pamak1970 ]

The balance of the outsized August losses, twice the rate from the heavy combat periods, came from the movement of the front. Some of that was undoubtedly tanks hit in July but still thought repairable before the front moved - the flip side of the German case. But most simply failed to drive 400-500 miles across France - out of thousands that had to do so, 10-15% didn't stand it. I have a question. From what it was said if i am not mistaken , these losses for the Allies are Total write offs. I can understand mechanical breakdowns during the Allied advance , but i do not see how this advance results to total write offs for the allies.

I think SteveP implies a limited elevation capability which still restricts the effective employment of the weapon in indirect support adding among other ristrictions engaging enemy positions in defilated positions ,reverse slope and so on.

That is my opinion also . This seems to be more about combined arms warfare than ballistics and probabilitites of kill. It is essential especially in offensive operations to have means for indirect fire to counter AT defence and a great mobility to keep up with the pace of operations. As the combined arms force gets close enough to the enemy making indirect fire support impossible,it will be the infantry's job to assist armour against AT guns while armor "returns the favor" assisting infantry against MGs. [ August 12, 2006, 04:24 AM: Message edited by: pamak1970 ]

I will agree on that. My objection was about the way the statistical figure was used initially to back up this statement. Why you say that CM is otherwise reasonable accurate tactical wargame? Although i agree again,i do not understand why you do not have similar strong objections about tank engagements. The statistical figure is similar here with the one on ground attacks. An average tank kills about one enemy tank during its operational life. For Soviets the figure is less ,for Germans is more. [ July 14, 2006, 07:15 AM: Message edited by: pamak1970 ]

It seems i have been away from this forum for a long time........

Notice that "probability of kill" evaluation demands information in addition of the statistical figure you presented at first and that was my objection with your initial quote. So now you give the "average number of sorties" which is a good start. Still it is not enough for a proper evaluation. How many sorties of the average total amount actually led to an attack against AFVs? In other words,what was the percentage of sorties aborted cause of enemy interceptors , heavy flak above the target, bad weather,mechanical failure and so on ? What was the percentage of sorties where a pilot actually spotted an AFV ,identified as an enemy and went on for an attack? You have different results if the actual number of sorties leading to a ground attack against an AFV are different portions of the average number of sorties you provide. If you know in detail the above facts and some more that i miss then i will agree that you may do a calculation of probability of kill using among others statistical figures. Another question for investigation is the following: How many of the AFV hit succesfully by ground attacks were recovered , repaired and put back on action again surviving the war,or becoming a permamnet casualty at a later stage ? The statistical figure counts just the number of survivors and permanent losses of AFVs. So it misses the many cases of vehicles put out of action temporary due to ground attacks. Tactically ,these attacks may be considered as succesful ,since the AFV was not available until recovery and/or repair took place,after the battle. As a last point i will give an example of why we should not use just a statistical figure to evaluate probabilities of kill. If we focus on tanks ,i will guess that statistics show that the average tank killed about a single enemy one during its entire operational life. For Soviets the number will be less . Does this mean that probability of kill during tank battles is low? Not at all. P.S what is the sourse of information regarding the average number of sorties? I will be interested to see some numbers about tank battles. Thank you [ July 13, 2006, 09:18 AM: Message edited by: pamak1970 ]

What happens in cmbb is irrelevant with my comments. The connection you mention about individual engagement probabilities and statistics can not reveal anything.By knowing the statistical value we can not find probabilities during individual engagements. If for example i triple the probability of kill of an airplane attacking an AFV and at the same time i triple the attrition rate of airplanes cause of enemy fighters and anti-aircraft fire, i will still have the same statistical figure as before (let say one plane lost for every enemy AFV kill) or " the average airplane kills a single armored vehicle, over its entire service life" [ July 11, 2006, 07:42 AM: Message edited by: pamak1970 ]