T-34/76 to T-34/85 ratio

[Melchior]

Sorry then. The infamous "Germans fought better than everyone else" shtick is usually influenced and supported by archaic Nazi master race rhetoric surviving through people's unwitting repetition of Goebbels myths and propaganda. There is much minutiae that people get involved over in relation to battles and fighting and much of it is moot or irrelevant. Repeating Nazi race myths is not and I tend to jump on that at slightest provocation. 

[JasonC]

GhostRider - the Germans were outscored in the west by the Americans, despite having a better tank mix. They made up for it with lousy doctrine, a bad operational situation, and recklessly over aggressive handling of what armor they had. The Panther should have been a terror vs Shermans in the west, but in practice the Germans attacked with them, and that was quite sufficient to neutralize all their advantages and get them all killed, with little to show for it.

As for the KT, it wasn't remotely effective as a full weapon system at the operational level. Tactically a terror when actually running, certainly. There is nothing to show for that, though, in the whole operational history of the war. It is useful to ask why. Doing so will reveal its lack of numbers, low readiness, pathetic mobility in practice, etc. You will find plenty of own-side unit claims to contradict this, but not confirmation from the opponents who faced them. The own side accounts will depict never losing, always being effective, then mysteriously being blown up by their own crews for never explained reasons. Meanwhile the enemy will occasional register their presence in one or two short passages, handfuls at a time, with results never beyond a tactical scale lasting half a day at most. Not signs of an effective weapon system...

[MikeyD]

The in-game difference between early and late T34-85 is BIG. From slow hand-cranked turret to a turret motor so blazingly fast that Beta testers initially thought the numbers must be off. The late war T34-85 seems to be a perfectly capable combat tank. Gamer's often make the error of thinking of tanks as knights of the battlefield engaging in individual combat. Especially on the Eastern front it was less a duel than a gang rumble. It wasn't so much T34 vs Panther as T34 battalion vs Panther company.

[poesel]

MikeyD - IIRC tank turning speed was intentionally nerfed to account for the (not modeled) internal communication timeloss (ok with me). But if the turret speed is not - wouldn't that put turretless tanks into a comparative disadvantage?

[Vanir Ausf B]

But if the turret speed is not - wouldn't that put turretless tanks into a comparative disadvantage?

Would that be a bad thing?

[JasonC]

MikeyD - right direction, but more magnitude required. A realistic use mix to show what the T-34 did would be a battalion of them with riders against an infantry company with 2 heavy PAK in prepared positions. Then that one again. Then two more, but the Germans have neither PAK nor prepared positions. Then another like that but the Germans get 3 StuGs. Then a sixth in which the Germans get a company of Pz IVs plus panzergrenadiers - and the Russians get the rest of their tank *brigade* as reinforcements because they are up against so much. The seventh fight can finally feature Panthers and be otherwise like the previous.

T-34 battalion vs. Panther company is a cherry picked best case for the Germans, happening 15% of the time or less. Heavies were only a third of the German AFV fleets and mobile formations that had any armor at all were a third or less of theiir army.

[Sgt Joch]

By 1944, pretty much every Russian, U.S. or CW infantry division had an attached Tank, TD and /or SPG unit. Most German infantry divisions had to make do with only AT guns at best, although some of the better equipped ones would have had an attached SPG unit.

 

Even dealing with the "Big Cats", the standard Russian response was to pull back and go around them forcing the Germans to either retreat or be surrounded. From my readings, it seems the Germans lost more Panthers/Tigers through destruction by their own crews when they ran out of gas, broke down, were surrounded, etc. and unable to retreat than through enemy action.

 

So yes, balanced armour vs armour clash like we tend to see in CM are the exception rather than the rule, but a "typical" scenario were a German infantry battalion with a few AT guns/Panzerschreks/Fausts is overwhelmed by 2-3x infantry regiments and a Tank Battalion with artillery/air support does not make for a fun H2H game.

[JasonC]

Sgt Joch - sure it does.  Way more fun than clay pigeon shoots of 10 T-34/76s banzai charging 4 elite Tiger Is.  More challenging, too - on both sides.

[poesel]

Would that be a bad thing?

 

Depends on in which tank you sit.

 

Seriously: yes. If hull turning speed is artificially slower than in reality while turret speed stays the same then the result is an artificial advantage of turreted tanks over non-turrets. Of course turrets have an advantage but it would be bigger than in reality.

I don't believe (and hope) that it is not the case. I just understood MikeyDs remark this way.

[GhostRider3/3]

GhostRider - the Germans were outscored in the west by the Americans, despite having a better tank mix. They made up for it with lousy doctrine, a bad operational situation, and recklessly over aggressive handling of what armor they had. The Panther should have been a terror vs Shermans in the west, but in practice the Germans attacked with them, and that was quite sufficient to neutralize all their advantages and get them all killed, with little to show for it.

As for the KT, it wasn't remotely effective as a full weapon system at the operational level. Tactically a terror when actually running, certainly. There is nothing to show for that, though, in the whole operational history of the war. It is useful to ask why. Doing so will reveal its lack of numbers, low readiness, pathetic mobility in practice, etc. You will find plenty of own-side unit claims to contradict this, but not confirmation from the opponents who faced them. The own side accounts will depict never losing, always being effective, then mysteriously being blown up by their own crews for never explained reasons. Meanwhile the enemy will occasional register their presence in one or two short passages, handfuls at a time, with results never beyond a tactical scale lasting half a day at most. Not signs of an effective weapon system...

Indeed I have read much, and in short the KT was used in the most illogical ways as in the bulge battle for example.  I have read Jentz books, and others and in capable hands and well maintained.. and operating in tank country the KT I am sure would have faired well.  But such is war, and some things do not happen as you would think they should.  I honestly think by 1944 the creme of the crop of German experienced in mass as far as tank training and skill were few and far between.. not to mention, if you dont control the skies.. you probably will not control the battlefield.  This can be said for even modern armies today, if training, logistics waiver, and you do not control the air, you will be at a disadvantage, not to mention trying to win on multiple fronts.. just multiplies problems.

 

JasonC... not to get any blood boiling here.. but I would think the US would outscore the Germans on the western front, as most of the tanks were fighting the Canadians and UK. Anyways if you have more reading material for me that would be great, always looking for more source material.

Edited August 11, 2015 by GhostRider3/3

[Sgt Joch]

GhostRider - This deals with the western front, but summarizes well why U.S./CW tankers were content with the Sherman in 44-45:

 

 

Almost every US infantry division in ETO had an independent tank battalion and a tank destroyer battalion assigned to co-operate with it. This gave them effectively about as much armour as an average Panzer division, providing both firepower and mobility. In the German army the only independent tank battalions were the Heavy Panzer Detachment (ie: Tiger) units. Only three of these were available during the Normandy campaign. The best that most German infantry divisions could hope for was the occasional support of assault gun (Sturmgeschutz) batteries.

 

There is a common belief that the allies needed a 5-to-1 advantage to fight the Panzers. If this had been true the allies would have been thrown back into the sea, as there was no time during the campaign when they had so great of an overall advantage, and the restrictions of the terrain made it very difficult for them to use their superior mobility to concentrate forces at that level on individual battlefields. But fortunately this old saw is nothing but a myth. The British Army Operations Research surveyed the tank battles of Normandy and came to some interesting conclusions on this issue. Their Memorandum C6 (W/O 291/1218) examined all of the tank engagements from D-Day to 12 August, 1944, and observed that, in a tank vs. tank engagement, the allies always achieved victory when they held a 2.2-to-1 numerical advantage or better.

 

But that did not mean less than a 2.2-to-1 ratio resulted in a loss. The Germans, despite being on the defensive and having heavier tanks, needed a 1.5-to-1 numerical advantage to ensure their own success. In between those ranges it was a mixed bag dependant on many tactical considerations

 

This is the bigger picture. The tank was the single best weapon for bringing firepower, protection and mobility to the battlefield. The allies’ superior mobility allowed more tanks to reach the decisive point, often a place and time of their choosing, again and again. The allies’ superior number of tanks allowed not only armoured divisions, but even infantry divisions, to apply the tank’s firepower where and when it was needed. So long as the allies could bring more tanks to the battle, and even more importantly could bring tanks to more battles, the question of who had better tanks had little impact on the conduct of the campaign.

 

 

 

http://worldoftanks.com/en/news/21/us-guns-german-armor-part-2/

Edited August 11, 2015 by Sgt Joch

[JasonC]

GhostRider - I mostly agree with all of that. Air helps, but can be overrated in WWII conditions. (In modern times with smart weapons and godlike shaped charge tech, it is a different story, and air control dominates more absolutely). The big thing is less air than overall operational scale stuff, inlcluding logistics, numbers, yes air, also initiative and better moves on the map in a "big chess" sense, etc. i'd add that doctrine also mattered, and the German doctrine on armor was too one side, offensive oriented, and as a result used armor rather wastefully on defense.

Should those factors ensure that the US would outscore the Germans in the west? Yes, and they do, against headwinds of stance and tank quality at the high end. Is this just because all the armor was facing the British, not the Americans? No. Yes, early in Normandy there was a concentration that way, as high as 2 to 1 but not everything to nothing. But even over the Normandy to Falaise fight as a whole, that evens out. The US faces as much armor as the Brits did by the time it is over, with some benefit from facing it later or puecemeal, perhaps. The Germans shift Lehr to the US front in early July, 2SS and 17SS are there throughout, the IDs and FJ add several StuG formations. Then the Germans try to stop the Cobra breakout with 116th Panzer, 2nd Panzer (long on the quieter part of the US front and the US UK seam), and the whole Mortain force. If you add it up, you get maybe 1250 AFVs on the British front and 1000 on the US front, with some "switch hitting", shifted to the US part and getting killed there.

US tank losses in Normandy are way below British ones etc.

Then after that period, the weight of armor in the west is heavily against the US for most of the rest of the war. The Lorraine fighting consumes about 500 German AFVs - from the Panzer brigades mostly, some from south of France and Italy forces transferred to the west wall, etc. The two other German armor concentrations in the west in that period are vs Market Garden, which can be counted as anti British,mand around Aachen, mostly anti US. Byt both are smaller than the force sent to and rapidly lost in Lorraine.

The next really big German armor wave is the bulge, which gets out of the hundreds into the thousand plus range, all anti US. Then in January, Alsace follows that up with another high hundreds wave, also anti US. (With some French help, actually, also true of a bit of the southern Lorraine fighting. The French destroy one of the Panzer brigades themselves in a day and a half, fir example). Another late last gasp concentration in the low hundreds tries to seal off the Remagen bridgehead ans fails - against the US. That one does have parallels in the UK sector, but the big Bulge and Alsace attempts do not.

Full campaign, the Germans throw a lot more of their western armor against US forces than against UK forces. And the US loses only around 3000 mediums in the entire campaign. If you include light tanks and such, you can run up the lost US AFV count, but German tanks aren't causing most those. In cause of loss terms, in fact, they get around but probably a bit less than half US tank losses, with infantry AT getting an increasing portion in the late war (German armor gone, war entering Germany, AT weapons flooding to the front faster than they can be used etc). The lowly German teller mine was a serious cause of loss, too - they planted millions of the things. The usual non battle losses are there in the US fleet as in the German, etc. US TDs probably outscore the most - less than 1000 of them lost, and they are the leading cause of German tank losses in their big and little offensives, from Lehr in Normandy in July, to the bulge and Alsace.

As for sources, mostly the US army green books for campagns and times the US faced German armor. Can't trust then fir German loss claims, but those have a certain simplicity to them, taken in the large. In the sense that very little survives, in terms of German armor, in any of these fights. Half the armor committed to the bulge lives through it, maybe. Otherwise, committed equal lost for the Germans, for 90% plus, on the time scale of the full battles. In Lorraine, when a German general goes over to the defensive with only 30 runners left out of around 500 committed to date in the sector, he gets a reprimand for lack of offensive spirit!

[LukeFF]

Sgt Joch - sure it does.  Way more fun than clay pigeon shoots of 10 T-34/76s banzai charging 4 elite Tiger Is.  More challenging, too - on both sides.

 

Then why not put together some missions and let us see how your ideas play out?

[DougPhresh]

I'm not sure if this is the place to ask, but I have a very similar question.

 

At what level were lend-lease Shermans distributed? Were they in mixed units or M4-Only battalions/regiments?

[JasonC]

Doug Phresh - Shermans equipped full tank brigades.  In some cases whole tank corps, but never below the level of a brigade.

Valentines replaced light tanks - T-70s - but normally were fielded as full tank regiments.  

Occasional mixes with leftover T-70s (when a unit was rebuilt to TOE strength e.g., using LL Valentines), and could appear alongside T-34s with a TOE called for a mix of light and medium tanks.

[DougPhresh]

Wow. That's a lot more Shermans than I expected!

 

I guess M4 units will be added to the OOB with the RT expansion.

 

Thanks for the info, I had no idea they were used in such large numbers.

[JasonC]

They got a little over 4000 Shermans all told. That's comparable to the number of Panthers used on the eastern front. Not as common as T-34s, but not a rare item. By late war several entire Guards Mechanized Corps were equipped with them.

[DougPhresh]

Did they have all the ammo the Western allies did?

 

I know P-39s (and allegedly P-63s,  despite not being supposed to be used in against the Germans) were not "tank busters" in Russian service as the Russians never received AP rounds for their 37mm cannons.

 

I'd love to see more lend-lease in the next module.

[JasonC]

Doug - P-39s weren't particular tank busters in anyone's service.  The Russian models often replaced the centerline cannon with a 20mm, as better in air combat.  There was no particular shortage of ammo for Shermans.  I doubt they got the APCR for 76mm Shermans that the US had, that would be about it.