Magpie_Oz

Is that going to make the Glacis 25 times better than the turret front though?

That begs the question " How well have we looked ? " Until we establish the bona fides of the research we have no way of knowing. I know the notion that the US records do not show any matching action on that day come from research done by a fellow at an archive and I think that was at the University of Illinois. How complete are those records? Reports from units that have been destroyed are for obvious reasons sketchy at best. There is no ships log for the sinking of the HMAS Sydney, nor report for the "Sandringham Company"

Gotta be a typo I reckon. This is the armour for an M4A2: Hull 51-108mm@34-90° Superstructure 64mm@43° Turret 76mm@60° Mantlet 89mm@90° The Hull armour is pretty thick but 108mm at 90° is not going to be 25 times better that 76mm @60° Did the M4 really have a Glacis as such, doesn't look like it in many pictures. How is the Glacis distinguished from the "nose" ?

Oh ok, I have not suggested any of those sites, looks like a spammer is into my hotmail account, might have to shut it down I think. I'll pull the addresses out ASAP .... sorry !

Ahhh good to see my old alumni has moved on from magic mushrooms.

arrrgh, double post

Yep ! (other stuff)

In terms of armour 4:1 is not crazy odds, particularly if your best tank is supposedly meant to be able to achieve a 6:1 kill ratio. 8:1 odds against the Israelis in 1973 is crazy and they won.

See it must be true, in fact Barkmann must have understated the damage he caused

I don't believe one way or the other, the German institutional record or the American one. Are you suggesting that if a given situation doesn't play out in CMBN then it couldn't have happened? Come on that is just silly, this entire forum is full to the brim of situations where sim departs from reality.

I am not missing that at all. Who wrote the US account and where is it ? What are it's bona fides? What does it actually say? Are you suggesting that at the end of every day all vehicles were lined up an counted? Getting an accurate fix on numbers at Battalion level is tricky, higher than that it is a black art particularly in combat. We know who wrote the German account and were it was written. The only question over the German account is whether Barkman was lying or mistaken or if the account was sexed up for propaganda. For there to have been a lost company of Shermans we have to accept the US reports at face value, why not too accept the German report? Maybe the recon THOUGHT it was on the road that Barkmann was on but a nearby tank company was actually on it. Maybe because they were pretty much wiped out it took awhile before the report of the action came in and the dates were confused maybe maybe maybe the possibilities are endless. That is the point, who is right who is wrong or more likely a mixture of the two. There is nothing to suggest the US information is any more or less valid than the German.

Many years you have wasted on a fool's errand General. If it is understand you seek, look elsewhere. Now GO AWAY Or I shall taunt you a second time !

Commonly held misconception but of course everyone knows that the heavy side of an object is always at the bottom else it would fall over, ergo we must be at the top given our lack of land and people as compared to the northern hemisphere.

Now who is babbling ? All tanks break down a lot, the nature of the beast. Even modern tanks have appalling mean time between failures. Point is that the Sherman was far more reliable and broke down substantially less than the Panther. Allowing the crews more confidence that their tank was not going to break down and be a sitting duck in the middle of a battle. Sure those that did break down were returned to service quickly by the generous support train which only heightened their advantage over the Panther, particularly when they were easier to repair as well.

In your opinion. Others hold a different view. A Mathematical value has an absolute value, records and recollections of events do not. The nonsense and misleading is when you suggest that the answer to the Barkmanns Corner is black and white. Who is to say that the German records of Barkmanns action are totally wrong or that the records for that day for the US army are 100% correct they are as equal as each other, given that they have the same source, reports from those on the field. There was only one person who truly knew the answer and he died in 2009

For sure we didn't have missiles on our door step but for us it was pretty much a given that is was going to happen one day I guess we were all resigned to it.

Cross country the Sherman and even more so the Cromwell left the Panther flagging due to their better power to weight ratios. In many instances, noted particularly in Italy the could cross ground the PzV could not. The Panther did have an advantage on boggy ground because of its wider tracks. The Sherman did not break down anywhere near as much as the Panther. I have seen the Panther gearbox quoted as lasting 150km at best. The M4 beyond all else was noted for its reliability far in excess of it opponents or allies.

Hence the truth lies somewhere in between which is all I have ever said or are you too busy throwing insults to have read that?

I reckon I'd go with that, the Iraqi Army was done for before the first tank rolled. No supplies, no communications, no coordination etc

That is not born out in evidence, as the German counter attacks in Normandy suffered losses equal to the Allied forces. Once the Panthers got moving their thinner sides became more exposed to the enemy. Of course this problem was compounded by the fact that moving at all in a Tiger or Panther raises the very real prospect of breaking the tank without any input from the Allies.

But what id the QM's account actually say? Effective strength 30 tanks? For example did it take into account the 12 that they lost through the day and 9 they received as replacements? Did it say 3 tanks KO, 4 immobilised 5 repaired and returned to service? I've not seen the report so I can't comment on it but we need to be careful what conclusions that can be drawn from it. No I would suggest, again, that the truth lies somewhere between the 2.

Or you can choose to be unable to say one way or the other. Occam's Razor " The razor is a principle that suggests we should tend towards simpler theories until we can trade some simplicity for increased explanatory power. Contrary to the popular summary, the simplest available theory is sometimes a less accurate explanation." This principle would seem to indicate that a detailed first hand account of 5 people could perhaps outweigh the dry austerity of a unit report that overviews a days activities.

We don't even know what unit history we should be looking at to see if there is verification so how can we say one account out weighs another ? Surely Barkmanns account ended up in an official transcript much the same as the record of losses for a given day ended up on an official list, all of which would have come from battlefield accounts of the people involved and not a forensic battlefield audit. There are plenty of other accounts of other actions that Barkmann was engaged in where he destroyed multiple enemy tanks, he is credited with 80+ in total and seemingly is a credible source. Point is we cannot definitely say one way or the other.

In any military staging a coup d'état is a serious thing that is not to be taken lightly. High ranking military leaders must maintain a level of pragmatism as they are the instruments for projection of political power, all have sworn an oath to carry out the direction of the executive. It is not for a soldier to question who is in power and how they got there. The oaths of soldiers make interesting reading, I swore to defend Queen Elizabeth II and her rightful heirs and successors Australia wasn't mentioned. The Americans swear to defend the constitution and follow the orders of the President. The WW2 german soldier : "I swear by God this sacred oath, that I will render unconditional obedience to Adolf Hitler, the Fuhrer of the German Reich and people, Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, and will be ready as a brave soldier to risk my life at any time for this oath." Might sound silly in the modern age where everything is questioned BUT if you swear an oath ...... well you shouldn't do so if you don't mean it. Deciding who is right or wrong to be in power and the people who put them there doesn't come into it. Besides why would you arrest someone who has placed you, the military, at the forefront of society and given you heaps of cool new stuff ?

It is not about who is better or worse it is about people and the way they are likely to react. Despite the trappings of politics we are essentially all the same. Is a German soldier more or less likely to lie, exaggerate or be mistaken than an Allied soldier? No of course not. Why ?