Infantary against tanks

[antaresqc]

Hello everyone,

I've seen a Free French infantry platoon knock out a Panther near the "Jardins des Tuileries", in the Paris Liberation Scenario with nothing more than patriotism and grenades as weapons. Needless to say, I was damn proud of those gallant frenchmen

[Jeff Duquette]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>All told there were more than 25 million infantry AT "rounds" and as many more AT mines. That means 100 of each for every tank in the Allied arensals. Yet infantry AT got relatively few kills, compared to AFVs and towed guns. In periods for which there is data, you see figures like 100 per month by infantry AT for the whole Russian front, at a time when overall Russian tank losses were running 100 per day.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

H.G. Gee’s “The Comparative Performance of German Anti-Tank Weapons During WWII” gives break down on British Tank Casualties in NW Europe from Jun 1944 through May 1945. The study includes the review of causation for 1,305 British Tanks losses. Breakdowns are as follows:

Mines: 22.1%

Anti-Tank Guns: 22.7%

Tank Fire & Assault Gun Fire: 28.9%

Panzerfaust\PanzerSchreak: 14.2%

Other Causes: 2.1%

An interesting observation regarding the above statistics; it is often speculated by a few members of this forum that anti-tank guns killed a much larger proportion of Allied tanks than did Panzers & Assault guns. This "theory" is apparently based purely upon numbers of AT guns produced relative to numbers of Panzers & Assault guns produced. This is certainly not the case. In spite of the typically large ratio of towed anti-tank weapons present in the German Army of this period relative to Panzers and Assault guns, this limited number of Panzers\Assault guns still managed to out kill towed anti-tank guns. Statistics for the Italian campaign even further reinforce this conclusion with breakdowns of 38% of British Tanks being knocked out by Tank Fire & Assault Gun Fire, and only 16% being KO’d via Anti-Tank gunfire (sample size for the Italian Front Study: 671 tanks).

The “Other Causes” category represents primarily artillery fire. British armor seemingly suffered only minor casualties from this arm. Italy shows a slightly increased trend of 7% attributable to “other causes”.

One last bit regards British ORS forensics on captured German Panzers during the Normandy campaign…ORS No. 17 Analysis of German Tank Casualties in France 6 Jun to 31 August 1944.

6 Jun to 7 Aug 1944

AP Shot...48%

PIAT...7%

HE Artillery...8%

Mines...1%

Aircraft Delivered Ordnance (RP, cannon fire, bombs)...9%

[ 10-20-2001: Message edited by: Jeff Duquette ]

[JasonC]

Interesting figures Jeff, especially the June through May set. The figures for the last 2 months don't mean very much by comparison, as the Germans were out of tanks and Allied losses were low. The 14% figure for the good late war infantry AT weapons in the last year fits my own sense - the portion KOed by infantry AT was increasing in the last year. Of course, most of the dead tanks of the war were in the east, not the west, and most of them occurred before the period reflected in the British west front case, when the better weapons were out.

As for Italy, it is another interesting case, that shows the importance of terrain. The figures I've seen have 1/3rd of Brit tank losses in Italy being due to AT mines. That reflects the ease of mining chokepoints in mountainous terrain. The same terrain probably made it more difficult to get towed guns to the best firing positions; the trucks couldn't climb the hillsides.

Incidentally, the higher production of towed AT rather than AFV is pronounced down to the end of 1943, 2:1 to that date, but in 1944 TD production takes off and the portion of towed AT in the force falls relative to AFVs. I don't think anyone has ever maintained here that towed AT are as effective per item as AFVs - because they are easier to knock out - but for the period when there are twice as many of them (through the end of 1943, in the east) their numbers may well make up for the lower effectiveness per item.

[Iron Chef Sakai]

Jason, that was not due to italy's mountainous terrain, there were 0 tank battle in mountainous terrain, because tank simply could not move through mountains

[Tero]

Originally posted by JasonC:

The Japanese were hopelessly outmatched in every respect. They made up for it somewhat in the depth of their bunkers and caves, and the relative lack of cover for men above ground on many of the Pacific islands also helped. But they still suffered a colonial era loss ratio of 10:1 against. It wasn't tanks that did that, either, it was overwhelming fire support.

True. But they did try such expedients as AT bamboo poles. What if they had had proper stand off weapons ?

As for unknown cause kills, there is no reason to expect them to break out particularly different from the known ones. You can prorate them over the known causes, of course remembering there is some room for error in all such measures.

Lie, damned lie, statistic.

As for multiple kill awards, they are possible sure, but all kills are rare enough (for the number of weapons fielded, or men trying, etc) that the excess is probably quite small.

I have seen a picture of a German soldier with 4 kill emblems in his sleeve. The caption stating the they denoted 20 kills.

If one person in your platoon got one, in the whole war and including all its personnel turnover, that was par for the course.

Agreed. But how many kills went unrecorded and unrewarded ? From the Panzerfaust site figures we can extrapolate certain things, like the saturation of these weapons in the German front line units. From other source we can get the numbers of AFV's and AT guns in the region and we know roughly how many German AT guns and AFV's were lost during that period of time. With a 35% margin I would venture to say that statistically the chance of them being attributable to infantry stand off AT weapons would be greater than AT guns/AFV's. Given the type of operations being conducted in the region (ie huge Red Army break through attacks followed by exploitation and German retreat).

The rate seen in early 1944 is low enough it leaves plenty of room to jump in the last year of the war and still reflect only one KO per award.

What does your source state about the awards exactly ?

And it is just as likely that 2-3 people got an award together for killing (or overkilling and both claiming) a tank, as that many of the awardees ran up large scores.

I think not. I think it was nothing like the airforce kill claims where all the men in the area claimed a kill when they saw one buy it.