Der Alte Fritz
-
Posts
1,024 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Posts posted by Der Alte Fritz
-
-
A further look around gives some figures for Panther of 55,000 man hours and likewise the 3,000 for a T34 is open to question
-
The usual figure given is:
PzIV is 89,700 man hours and cost 115 962 RM
Panther is 156,000 man hours and cost 129 300 RM
Tiger is 300,000 man hours and cost 299800 RM
compared to:
Sherman at around 20-25,000 hours
T34 between 3,000 in 1945 and 17,600 in 1943 and a cost of around 140,000 roubles which is roughly equivalent to a PzIV.
For comparison a Hetzer took about 15,000 man hours to produce, a 37mm flak Flak37 4,320 and a Flak 43 1,000.
So you get 10 TD and 30 AT guns for each Panther.
Note that you only get one Shermans or T34s for each Panther in terms of cost but 6 in terms of manhours.
I have no problems with the Germans using a superior tank to fend off the enemy, it is the right way to go. But in order to gain strategic mobility that tank must have
1) high mobility
2) low maintenance burden (for instance the Tiger needed its turret removing if you wanted to work on the engine!!!! And repair crews carried a portable gantry to enable them to do this in the field!!!!)
3) Fuel economy
4) and to gain industrial advantage you need long production runs of a simple design to get the costs down so that you can build more of them.
So I would argue for a PzIVJ, which meets most of the criteria above or a Panther 'light' which being lighter and simpler would also meet the requirements but maybe not the fuel one.
Remember it would have taken the entire wartime production of the Panther just to equip each Panzer Division and SS Panzer Division with a full complement of the beasts, with none for spares. For the same effort you can equip them six times over with Shermans.
-
There is a mod for Poland using CMBB called Fall Weiss
There is a Sealion mod for CMBB and there is CMETO and CMNormandy which you have just found.
Also Pacific, Spanish Civil War, CM West - Fall of France up to Normandy and others.
Mainly available at www.cmmods.com
-
"Take a look on Operation Bagration in 1944 - 2,33 million Soldiers on Soviet side against 800,000 on German."
Connor - Operation Bagration (CSI):
ANNEX A Correlation of Forces (strategic) June 1944
Soviet.
Ground Forces 6,077,000
Air Forces 447,000
Airborne Forces 58,000
Navy 357,000
Total Active Armies 6,425,000
Total Reserve 514,000
Overall Total 6,939,000
Axis.
Ground Forces Eastern Front 3,130,000
Ground Forces Other Fronts 1,420,000
Allies 800,000
total 4,550,000 + 800,000
Luftwaffe 1,800,000 (800,000 on Flak duty the rest running 5,400 aircraft)
Navy 80,000
Replacement Army 2,000,000
Total 8,430,000
It was the same in 1941-1943. The German field army in the East bounces around the 2-3 million mark while the Wehrmacht has around 6,000,000 men. During Operation Barbarossa, the Army only had reserves to last them up to September, during the summer offensive in 1942, the Ostheer was actually smaller than it was in June 1941 and for the summer offensive of 1943 despite the fact that the Wehrmacht had added almost a million men since the previous year, the Ostheer was still under 3 million men. And this at a time when the Allied bombing campaign had failed to really get going and the maximum number of German divisions that the Westerners managed to tie down was 15.
Germany lost in the East because she failed to concentrate her larger armed forces against the Soviet Union for a decisive campaign and only sent what she thought she could get away with for best part of three years. In part this was a result of lack of strategic resources on Germanys part such as low fuel stocks and partly because the transport links into Russia were so poor. But a sustained effort could have doubled the Ostheer even in 1944.
-
"I fully believe that Panther and Tiger have been the most suitable tank for a situation that never could have been won, no matter by whom. If you're facing an superiority of so many enemies, not only in tank but also in airplane production, you can't win."
I am afraid that we will have to disagree there. I think Germany had ample opportunity to win on the Eastern Front in 1942 and in 1943 and then have a sporting chance of a negociated peace with the West. Even in 1944 they have 8 million men in the Wehrmacht facing 6 million Russians and about 1 million effective Westerners, they out product the Russians and do not yet have the fuel shortages.
-
The question posed was "what was the most suitable tank for Germany's situation in 1944-5".
I think everyone agrees that the Panther was the best tank for tank vs tank battles.
But with Germany on the tactical and strategic defensive, that offensive tank vs tank mission was rare and on the defensive done far more efficiently and cheaper by tank destroyers such as the Jadgpanzer IV/70.
The mission for tanks was to stop Soviet penetrations by their armoured forces. For that you need a good gun (Panther -yes), good tactical mobility (Panther - yes) excellent strategic mobility (Panther - no) good fuel economy (Panther - no no no) and sufficient numbers because you may have to abandon damaged or broken down tanks (Panther - no).
Perhaps what Germany needed was a Panther 'light'. Or perhaps the answer was the PzIVJ - same characteristics of the PzIVH but simpler to built, less complex to maintain, bigger fuel tanks, able to run 300km - but lesser tactical mobility than the Panther.
As for the Russians and Americans, both had doctrines that emphesised tank vs infantry and not tank vs tank battles. They fitted the appropriate guns to fit their doctrines.The Russians built specific vehicles such as T34-57 and SU80 and SU100 as tank killers and the Americans their tank destroyers such as the M10. The British doctrine was based on tank vs tank combat and specific infantry support tanks and the Comet and Churchill met both those requirements quite nicely.
It is ironic that on the Eastern Front, it was always the side with the 'weaker' tank that seemed to win strategically. In 1941 German Pz38t and PzII and PzIII fought KV1s. The Russians lost because their tactics and training were not up to the job and the German tactic of killing tanks with AT guns and killing infantry with tanks worked very well.
In 1943 the Germans lost despite fighting Panthers, Tigers and PzIVHs against T34-76s and again in 1944 they lost fighting King Tigers...etc..etc against T34-85 and IS-2.
-
Yes you are right the StuG and PzIV both has around the same mobility. I only mentioned the StuG because many of the jobs of a defender do not need a tank but can get away with a SP gun.
The point I am making is that the PzIV mobility was poor both cross country (thin tracks, higher ground pressure) and moving from point to point (needing railway tracks) compared to either the Panther or the T-34. A ficticious 'ideal' tank for late war Germany needed both these things.
Good point about fuel economy, in fact Germany should have produced the worlds first coal burning tank!
So a new tank with most of the characteristics of the PzIV but with improved suspension, drive train etc would have been the best approach. But I suppose that was just not the way the German designers were heading. They were more Porsche 911 people than Ford Pick up truck ones.
-
yes - the file is even called Paradox patch version 111 - so it must be for vanila
-
The problem with the PzIV is simply that it lacks mobility, either tactically or strategically. And that is what you need if you are to counter Soviet armoured breakthroughs before they get into the strategic hinterland. Doubly so in winter.
-
Hi
I downloaded the Paradox patch from a mirror on the Battlefront website. Installed it into the CMSF folder. Started it up but all I get is a black screen and nothing happens.
How do I fix this please?
-
I agree it is a great tank and my personal favourite to go to war in.
But was it the tank that Germany needed at that stage of the war?
Hi tech = using lots of scarce resources
Expensive = especially if you end up losing them because you lose the battlefield after the battle and cannot recover them.
Able to kill enemy tanks at 2000m+ = great but the enemy has lots of tanks and infantry and you cannot be everywhere.
In 1944 the Panther production was 3,700 compared with almost 5,000 StuG, 3,000 PzIVs and 1,700 Hetzer. Germany was really short of infantry, finding it hard to hold the Eastern Front even in Belarus.
What German needed was a good medium tank able to be built in substantial numbers that had good strategic mobility. The Panther had good tactical mobility but being heavy (about the same weight as the KV-1) it found it hard to move long distances, due to inadequate bridges, roads and maintenance. So perhaps Germany needed a lighter tank,around 35 tonnes with good cross country ability, a good gun, simply designed and easy to be built in real numbers. So the inevitable weaker armour would have been offset by their numbers. Able to be in more places, able to get to trouble spots quicker, it might have been close enough to choke off Soviet offensives before they got up a head of steam.
Maybe the nearest thing the Germans got to this was the StuG?
-
Discuss whatever date you like, whatever variant you like. After all a late war tank is going to be 'better' than an early war one. But a good design, like all these are, is going to be able to adapt to its changing environment. For instance the T34 was outclassed by mid '43 which was a strategic decision to freeze the design in order to increase production. But then in '44 the T34-85 came along and they caught up.
-
What are the arguments to be made in favour or against each of these tanks?
Panther
- superb tank killing gun
- impenetrable front armour
- expensive to build, 45,000 man hours
- not good cross country - better than other German tanks
- weighs 45 tonnes so really a heavy tank by Allied standards
-produced late in war really 1944 before design got kinks ironed out
T-34
- superb cross country
- produced early - 1940
- innovative design
- good armour and upgraded
- good GP gun
- plus 57mm tank killer version
- plus 85mm late war upgrade
- poor build quality
-vision poor for crew
- two man turret in early models
-optimised for mass production
- cheap to build 20,000 man hours (some say 3000)
Sherman
-cheap to build
- poor cross country
- good selection of guns
- better guns as war progressed
-excellent build quality
- well designed but rather late
-outclassed almost as soon as it apeared but a good GP tank
-
I have seen a CMAK one for all British vehicles but have never seen one for CMBB although I have made on myself several times to check that I have all vehicles with a snow mod. You can try www.cmmods but it is just as quick to make it yourself.
It is very easy to do, if you do not know how.
1) Open a new battle dated June 1941
2) Select one of each vehicle and infantry unit.
3) Go to parameters and change date on 3 months
4) Select any new vehicles or infantry that appear.
5) After July 1943 (I think this is the date) re-select all your vehicles again as they will now appear in Gelb camouflage rather than Grau plain schemes.
6) Post your results on www.cmmods.com
-
you need to adjust the anti-alising settings on your graphics card and turn them off
-
Hi John and Joachim
My computer is back at the factory at present after a power supply failure so I cannot test your ideas but I will do so as soon as it comes back ..... hopefully tomorrow
cheers
-
If you want a good partizan game then you need to put in place some of the dilemas of that kind of warfare rather than just a straight fight. For instance having to ambush a lightly armed convoy but not getting caught by a security team. Crossing the board to capture flags, some of which are heavily defended and others not. Having to move across terrain like rivers without being spotted. Crossing a map and exiting for points.
cheers
-
A great film and really well worth seeing.
Based on various books including "Surviving the Holocaust with the Russian Jewish Partisans" by Jack Kagan.
-
No - these are the Ais spotters. I was just wondering if there were any tricks to make the ai fire where you want him to.
-
I am writing a scenario which features some Soviet Spotter with LOS to some German trenchs at start of scenario. All went well and they used to bombard the trenches quite happily.
But having made some changes to the scenario, now all the guns fire on one flag about 2000m behind the front line which blows up some trees and not much else. Have tried parking lorries beside the trenches and other tricks but I cannot seem to get them to fire on the trenches I want.
Any ideas?
-
Provided and translated by Denis1973:
This is my brief and poor translation of article from the book about combat examples during war 1941-45.
Example of meeting engagement executed by 280 RR at second half of 7th July 1943.
At 1620 (Moscow time) advance guard from 1st Battalion reached Melikhovo (Мелихово). At the same time enemy was spotted by regimental recon detachment (circles with "K" letter on scheme).
The first combat took place on southern outskirts of Melikhovo between 1st rifle Co/1RBn and leading elements of 6th Panzer. 3 km south of village germans start to deploy their main force - (estimated strength – strengthened battalion with tanks). Soviet battalion commander decided to hold southern slopes of hills just south of Melikhovo.
Added artillery (1/197 AR) was fast deployed north of Shlahovo (Шляхово) and opened fire. Two batteries moved to Melichovo for direct fire support [it seems that only one – probably 122mm battery was at Shlahovo, while both 76mm batteries was used for direct support]. By the order of 280RR commander, 1st battalion was strengthened by 2nd Co/148 TR (T34 tanks). It moved fast to small woods west of Melikhovo.
At 1700 after 10-minutes arty preparation enemy started an attack on the vanguard. 18 tanks with inf. Co attacked east of village, while 15 tanks with two Co's – west. Another column of tanks with infantry moved via Sheino (Шеино) to Mazikino (Мазикино). The same time more soviet forces arrived on battlefield:
- Regimental ATGun Reserve (~6 45mm guns+AT-rifles) deployed between Shlahovo and Mazikino;
- 2/197 AR deploy 122mm battery north of Komintern (Коминтерн), two 76mm batteries – south of Komintern (for direct firing);
- Divisional ATGRes deployed between hill 222 and Gremjache (Гремяче);
- 2nd and 3rd rifle battalions advanced to deploying along the line Dalnaja Igumenka (Дальняя Игуменка) - Melikhovo.
After fierce fighting enemy lost 16 tanks east of Melikhovo and shifted main efoorts to the west of village. Reinforced with 30 tanks, at 1830 enemy broke throughout soviet lines and advanced to Shlahovo, while nearly 20 tanks continued attack south of Melikhovo.
With the night fall german forces stopped and start to secure their positions around Shlahovo and Mazikino. Soviet forces prepared themselves to night battle. The first move made by two rifle Co's, that managed to reach Mjasoedovo (Мясоедово) and destroy enemy HQ in that village. Later in the night combined forces of 280, 276, 282 GRR's and 94 GRD managed to pull germans back to Andreevski (Андреевский) – Bliznaja Igumenka (Ближняя Игуменка) line.
That's all. Hope that helps.
-
From map study it is clear that the 94th positions were about 4km away across the other side of the river valley and really too far for direct shooting but ideal for artillery bombardment of the exposed heights containing the German panzers.
-
Found a reference in Raus "Panzers in the East" - talks of beating off a tank counter attack near to the village of Melekhovo (presumably the Tank Regt accompanying the 92nd) and of destroying two divisions there after hard fighting (92nd and 94th though this probably relates to the 12th rather than the 8th as he goes on to talk about Baakes seizure of the bridge over the North Donetz).
-
Hi
Very similar rig to mine except I have a 8800GT Nvidia GPU. Mine works fine, so it is either a case of adjusting your settings or the monitor or GPU is faulty.
Sorry
Paradox CMSF 1.11 patch
in Combat Mission: Shock Force Tech Support
Posted
Hi
No mods installed
Previous version was 1.10
Any other ideas?