Breakdown of Allied ETO Tank Losses

[John Kettler]

One of my brothers sent me a most interesting link today to a post called On Allied Tank Casualties. It appears on a WoT blog called For The Record. This is a grog info rich post, which among other things tells us the typical range for gun kills vs the tanks (800 yards), the percentages of sources of kills, engagement geometry, German targeting doctrine and more.

http://ftr.wot-news.  (usual) /2013/12/26/on-allied-tank-casualties-in-the-eto/

 

Regards,

John Kettler

Edited June 24, 2016 by John Kettler

[Neep]

This was interesting.  Thanks for posting!

[Erwin]

One of the most interesting points was that it wasn't "wet" storage that reduced burning, but at the same time ammo storage was put at the bottom of the tank - and that was the effective aspect.

[JasonC]

First, the varied causes of loss point is perfectly sound.  But the notion that the data imply that StuGs were the best isn't actually supported by that data.

Notice that it is British loss reporting that is behind that conclusion, as to the division of gun losses between ATGs, SP guns, and turreted tanks.  Notice that the SP guns accounting for 25% of losses doesn't mean just StuGs, but also Marders, Jagdpanzer IVs, Hetzers, Nashorns, Jagdpanthers etc.  A whole zoo, in other words. Yes the StuG was the most common item in that zoo, but it wasn't by any means all of it.

Along with the ATG portion, what this is really saying is that combat stance has a large effect on losses.  The attacker loses more tanks than the defender does, and loses them to diverse causes of loss.  Because tanks attack where they think the enemy is weaker, and that will be the place the defender's AT assets are scarcer on the ground, not right on the nose of a large concentration of heavy armor.  The AT weapons that are present in those locations will be the ones allocated to defensive combat roles - the Panzerjaeger's towed guns and SP guns.

Meanwhile, why aren't the turreted Panzers killing more tanks?  Because the same thing is happening to them in reverse, but even more so for the Germans because they committed their turret tanks to action in quite unfavorable operational circumstances, throughout the ETO.  German armor doctrine was crazily offensive minded - they thought attack was the whole point of armor.  They launched repeated armor led counterattacks in unfavorable odds circumstances - Gela, Salerno, Anzio, Epsom, Lehr vs US in the Cotentin, Mortain, the Panzer brigades in the Lorraine, the Ardennes, Alsace.  When they had lots of armor they always used it in grandious counterattacks into numerically superior allied defenses, and against allied forces vastly superior in the other arms (HE firepower arms especially, but tactically also in infantry odds).  Naturally, they lost lots of tanks doing this, without a lot of allied tanks being at their chosen points of attack to get killed by them.

The other interesting item about the accounting is that the Germans probably lost at least as many AFVs vs the western allies as he reports.  This is a process of elimination, with about 50,000 German AFVs produced and 40,000 lost on the eastern front.  The trade ratio was around unity, in other words.  They weren't trading just for each other - the allies are losing 20% to mines and 13% to non-battle and 7% to infantry AT etc.  The Germans likewise report "destroyed by crew" as a leading cause of loss, though some of that reflect prior gun inflicted damage and inability to move a tank in a repair shop when the front line shifted.

The author's belief that the Panzer IV likely accounted for most of the turreted tank KOs is probably not correct.  It was only about a third of the AFV fleet in the late war period.  It might have matched the other turreted tanks, but not appreciably more than them - the other big group was of course the SP guns.  Panzer IVs thus probably only accounted for about 7% of western tank losses, and it could run as low as 5%.  Compare that to the StuGs as the largest component of the SP guns and the disparity caused by stance becomes quite clear.

[John Kettler]

Was trying to find some information on how common it was for Sherman crews to move their .50s to the front, when I came across a most impressive Sherman tank site, The M4 Sherman Tank Epic Information Thread. That's where I found more information from the tank loss report. What I find bizarrely noteworthy is Figure 5, which shows 50% of the critical hits were from the 88. This is an Operations Research report, from which we may reasonably conclude the findings derived from physical inspection of the damaged/destroyed tanks. Another item I find of interest is the significant percentage of critical hits inflicted by artillery and mortars, which presumably also include the various Nebelwerfer type weapons. Further, it is the fire support which caused 52% of the tank disablements, almost twice that of DF weapons. The mine effectiveness chart is gold. Am going to leave off my usual closing, since I'm concerned I might accidentally wipe out all the goodies.

Average Range of Gunfire/Panzerfausts:

 

Placement of Gunfire Hits:

Caliber of Enemy Gunfire:

 

Mine/Tank Exchange Rate:

 

Crew Casualties by Position:

 

Sampling of Tank Losses:

 

Causes of Vehicles Destroyed V Vehicles Disabled:

 

 

Distribution of Gunfire Hits (aspect):

Edited July 9, 2016 by John Kettler

[Erwin]

Also, interesting that average gunfire range in Western Europe was 800 yards - larger than most CM2 maps.

[Pete Wenman]

 

Because I have too much time on my hands today.

I have 27 scenarios within CMBN with the prefix CW and I'm pretty sure all but one or two of them came with the Commonwealth module.

The average map size is 1670m x 1291m

Of the 27 maps only 3 are less than 800m on their longest side, a further 3 are exactly 800m on their longest side, with another scenario at 816m. Thereafter all the remaining 20 scenario maps are at least 1k long with 12 of them being 2k long or greater.

P