Real tank duel

[Michael Emrys]

40 minutes ago, Sublime said:

Terrible.

Yes. And for any guy who doesn't make out the hatch before the ammo blows, it is even worse. War very often consists of horrible ways to die, lots of them.

BTW, the current issue of the Smithsonian has a fairly long article about the fighting in the Dolomite Alps during the First Big One, and that was horribly grim too.

Michael

[Sublime]

Btw outta laziness (idk if someone else explained) the story here is fighting in city center end of war march 45. (I actually dated and am still friends with a girl from Cologne and it still gets me going how she says it in her Germanic accent "Koln")

So you see a Panther thats KO.d a Sherman taken out by a Pershing. Thats the backround as I understand it. The ordinance officer someone referencwd was Belton Cooper. Who someone else told me and I found to be spot on - if he was literally there  its probably true. Otherwise good chance it isnt. Emrys IIRC that was you.

See his blaming Patton for the m26 not going to Europe on DDay and him claiming northern generals named the tank the Sherman. Even though that was a British label.

Edited May 29, 2016 by Sublime

[shift8]

9 hours ago, Michael Emrys said:

Actually it is worse than this. A tank that never existed didn't represent any loss, but a tank that was designed, produced, and transported to the theater, but couldn't make it to the battle represents a huge investment down the tubes.

Michael

+1

[markus544]

In Steven Zaloga's wonderful book "Armored Thunderbolt"...he wrote in part, "Warfare in the industrial age requires a careful balance of mass and quality.  A single perfect tank cannot offer the same combat power as ten adequate but imperfect tanks....The Chrysler Corporation history of their tank building effort in WW II concluded "our tanks were better because the Germans never learned to think in terms of reliability as we use the word, that is, maximum performance with minimum care and replacement.  The Sherman was ultimately a better weapon than the heavier  German tanks since it could be fielded in adequate numbers to carry out it's many missions.  The Sherman was the backbone of the not only the US army and Marines, but the British, Canadian, French and Polish armored divisions in 43' thru 45'...The combat power of the US infantry units and substantially enhanced by routine tank support from Sherman battalions... The Sherman was not the best tank of World War II, but it was good enough.

Edited June 9, 2016 by markus544

[DasMorbo]

5 hours ago, markus544 said:

 A single perfect tank cannot offer the same combat power as ten adequate but imperfect tanks....The Chrysler Corporation history of their tank building effort in WW II concluded "our tanks were better because the Germans never learned to think in terms of reliability as we use the word, that is, maximum performance with minimum care and replacement.  ... The Sherman was not the best tank of World War II, but it was good enough.

Perfectly true. One or two conceptual flaws but solid engineering.

In the Big Cats, we produced the best tactical tanks, but at the same tank the worst operational tanks of WWII. We tend to over-engineer stuff, which becomes less durable in the process. Was like that back then, is better but not all gone today.

BTW Belton Coopers book "Death Traps" has been ripped apart on historical inaccuracies in forums all over the web. Just typical for "History-FUBAR Channel" to use such a man as main protagonist in a "Documentary". Man I wish back the times, were journalists actually tried to give valid information to the public, instead of slobbering for nothing but viewing levels, no matter he cost.

 

[shift8]

Just to add a few things on a different note for the Sherman:

One of the biggest myths of the Sherman was that it was poorly armored. This is absolutely untrue. The Sherman's armor was more than adequate against the most common threats all the way until the end of the war more or less. When the tank was first introduced, it had exemplary protection. The cast armor models gradually became less adequate as the Germans improved the guns, but with the M4A3 and beyond the protection of the M4's glacis was good enough to defeat the long 75 of the Pz4 at ranges exceeding 750m. In particular the M4A3W. It was not for pure jollies that the M4A3 and variants of the M4A3 had their armor changed from cast to RHA, and later from 51mm to 64mm. Most people simply figure the LOS thickness of the armor as 90~mm but this is not an accurate estimate of the tanks protection. 

               The M4A1 models had very varying protection ranging from about 122mm to only 90mm due to the inconsistency of cast armor effectivness. The M4A3W had a consistent effective thickness on the glacis of 118mm. This is substantially better protections than that of the Shermans contemporary mediums, the Pz4 and T-34. Combat mission models all of these things more or less to the T. 

 

Edited June 14, 2016 by shift8

[Bulletpoint]

On 6/9/2016 at 10:17 PM, DasMorbo said:

Man I wish back the times, were journalists actually tried to give valid information to the public, instead of slobbering for nothing but viewing levels, no matter he cost.

There are also good journalists around. If you find History Channel lacks credibility, I would say vote with your eyes - use them to read or watch a serious news outlet instead. Support quality journalism.

I mean... you probably wouldn't say "This half-baked pizza sucks. I wish we still had cooks who made delicious and healthy food"

 

Edited June 14, 2016 by Bulletpoint

[JonS]

It warms my heart to see Cooper's "analysis" and opinions given the respect they deserve.

All credit to the man for his service in NWE. Seriously.

No credit whatsoever for his book and windbagging.

 

Edit: that's not fair. Writing any book is hard work, and I expect that one was an uncomfortable emotional journey for him. I just wish he'd have stuck to what he personally had seen and done and experienced. A book that long about the ins-and-outs of the role, functions, and organisation of the ordnance units within an armoured division could have been, would have been, fascinating. The bits of that which are in his book are great. Sadly they're few and far between.

Edited June 14, 2016 by JonS

[Abbasid111]

2 hours ago, JonS said:

It warms my heart to see Cooper's "analysis" and opinions given the respect they deserve.

All credit to the man for his service in NWE. Seriously.

No credit whatsoever for his book and windbagging.

 

Edit: that's not fair. Writing any book is hard work, and I expect that one was an uncomfortable emotional journey for him. I just wish he'd have stuck to what he personally had seen and done and experienced. A book that long about the ins-and-outs of the role, functions, and organisation of the ordnance units within an armoured division could have been, would have been, fascinating. The bits of that which are in his book are great. Sadly they're few and far between.

+1

If Cooper had just stuck with what he had seen and experienced and the actual wartime functioning of armor maintenance units instead of editorializing about things above his pay grade he would have come up with a much better book. 

[shift8]

Cooper is but one example of a logical plague that infests any dialogue. Cooper was taken seriously because there is a general assumption by the public at large, even among many grogs, that because a person was involved in something they are an "expert"

Examples:

He is a general, ergo must know how to win battles. 

or

He was a soldier, therefore what he says about a war must be true. 

Etc Etc. And this logical fallacy applies to much more than military science. 

 

The experiences of people have a certain value and application, but it is much narrower than people assume. Anecdotal evidence must always be weighed against certain data. Personnel experiences never trump the laws of physics or the combined knowledge yielded from comparison of other data points. Almost every WWII myth derives from this nonsense. 

[Sublime]

Well Id say a healthy amount of WW2 myths originate with the professional German officer corps. Who blamed it all on Hitler and adjusted the facts so they lost battles to faceless hordes of Russians and thousands of tanks. They werent out maneuevered or outfought etc etc etc. And it turns out that this became gospel especially for guys like DuPuy whose the penultimate waffen ss fanboi until the 80s and 90s. Then we started getting some revision and truth  and i suspect some years down the line we.ll find out that we.re still wrong on some issues. The vastness of the front. Ulterior motives for guys on one side post war and the other side propaganda and Stalinism meant the truth was distorted by both sides. Really a shame.

Still Im readin Kiev 41 by Stahel again and the Germans did such idiotic stuff. Hitler had already decided to ivade Russia yet start demobilizing the army and put the Heer under the Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine in priority terms.

Then in october 1940 the russians stopped sending their shipments to the germans because the germans were sending the macjine tools. AH gives priority over everything to tthe shipments to Russia. So as Stahel points out the German economy was funding both sides of a war it was about to fight. Those same machine tools made weapons that killed Landsers. Utterly idiotic.

It still is astounding when I read about the Heer casualties for the first 6 months of combat in the East or 1941 in the East. A million casualties or somewhwre close around there. God.

[Abbasid111]

It's amazing how many myths are still out there regarded as gospel. Almost to a man German generals writing their post-war memoirs blamed their defeat on Uncle Adolf. Not one that I have read have ever admitted that the Russians learned from their mistakes and simply got better and better at warfare. 

Even Napoleon at Leipzig said of the allies arrayed against him 'these dogs have learned something'

[Michael Emrys]

12 hours ago, Sublime said:

Then in october 1940 the russians stopped sending their shipments to the germans because the germans were sending the macjine tools.

Huh? Trains with Soviet shipments of resources were still crossing the border just hours before the guns started firing. Meanwhile, for at least weeks previously the Germans had delayed sending goods to the USSR. I think Gorodetsky mentions that in The Grand Delusion.

Michael

[Sublime]

Yes but not in the fall of 1940. The Germans tried stopping sending them the Soviets responded in kind. Ill dig out cites later.

Yes the German invasion even was timed to let one last shipment pass from the SU into the Reich before 0300.

Im talking about waaay before June21 22. In talking this incident was oct 1940.

 

 

 

Ah Emrys it should have read the Sovs stoppped shipments bc the Germans tried to stop sending stuff. When the shipments stopped Hitler prioritised that over everything else at the time according to Stahel kiev 1941 standby for pg #s.

 

Ok Chapter 2 Going into the Red -German War Economy pgs 50, 52,  but most important 61 and here i quote

"Perhaps most absurdly of all, trade negotions with the SU had become so important in sustaining the German war economy that when talks between Moscow and Berlin threatened to break down, Goering ordered fulfilment of Aoviet orders was to be accorded equal priority with orders for the Wehrmacht. Hence from early October 1940 to 11 May 41, German machine tools, vital in the manafacture of high grade weapons, were being shipped to the country the Werhmacht was being armed to destroy.  The German war economy was paradoxically, therefore, arming both sides for the conflict because it couldnt do without grain, oil, and alloy metals."

So i was a little off but my assertion still stands in essence. If you want more quotes ill provide em later its hard doing this on a subway.

Edited June 16, 2016 by Sublime

[Michael Emrys]

1 hour ago, Sublime said:

its hard doing this on a subway.

You need to move into the country and take up something more relaxing, like the making of artisan goat cheese.

Michael

[panzersaurkrautwerfer]

22 hours ago, Abbasid111 said:

It's amazing how many myths are still out there regarded as gospel. Almost to a man German generals writing their post-war memoirs blamed their defeat on Uncle Adolf. Not one that I have read have ever admitted that the Russians learned from their mistakes and simply got better and better at warfare. 

Even Napoleon at Leipzig said of the allies arrayed against him 'these dogs have learned something'

In reading German accounts, each and every one of the authors was the only remaining voice of reason in the Third Reich.  Japanese accounts are as bad in that each author was the only one with a solution to win the war, IF ONLY SOMEONE WHO IS DEAD NOW THAT CAN'T DEFEND THEMSELVES LISTENED!!!!.  Soviet ones universally give the impression that the Soviets enjoyed a 1:120 Fascist Pigs kill ratio.  

Allied ones vary between being a boy scout outing with occasional dead Germans, or an unrelenting trip into a few layers of hell. 

[Abbasid111]

+1

[Sublime]

Yeah. Pretty much. Nailed it.