Is the Sherman a tank?

[Guest Michael emrys]

Originally posted by jshandorf:

The Sherman was design in 1940 and deployed in the early months of 1941 in N. Africa.

Off by a year and a half. Try the closing months of 1942.

Michael

[Guest Michael emrys]

Originally posted by Jeff Heidman:

The differnece being that they still have the Abrams to back this new, lighter system up.

It may be a little bit more complicated than that, if I understand matters correctly. The LAV and LAV gun are being sought because of their strategic mobility, that is, their ability to deploy quickly to places that it would take months to move Abrams or Bradleys. Therefore, for some period of time (at least) they won't be having M1s to back them up.

Hope it all works out.

Michael

[Guest Michael emrys]

Originally posted by Lacky:

Did Popular Mechanics explain why they're using a 105mm?

Might be the most powerful gun they could mount on the chasis. Especially if they intend to carry a useful amount of ammunition.

Michael

[Guest Big Time Software]

Michael is correct. The concept is very simple:

PROBLEM - our current force structure is designed to fight from a long established staging area (i.e. Western Europe and Korea). It has been shown, especially since Desert Shield, that this force is incapable of rapid deployment in significant quantities. Furthermore, the logistics needed to move such a force and then support it are also not readily adaptable to rapid operations. In short, if the US military needs to be someplace it isn't already, in a hurry, and packing a huge punch... it can't.

SOLUTION - to develop a highly mobile and lethal force that can be picked up and dropped off anywhere in the world in a very short period of time. The size of this force is initially small (2 Brigades right now?) but it is expected to become larger I think. At some point, from what I hear, it will constitute a large portion of our force structure.

BENEFITS - smaller, lighter vehicles mean they cost less to make, maintain, crew, deploy, and return. This saves the taxpayers money and allows the Pentagon to better utilize the resources it is allocated to have a better military force overall. In short... reduce the overhead, increase the effectiveness. In theory it will mean we can get in and out faster and with better military results.

DOWNSIDES - obviously, this force would have a hard time against a large, modern conventional force. It might also allow politicians to "bully" our neighbors more easily, both in terms of logistics and public opinion.

MY OPINION - after watching the slow and costly Desert Shield, the problems with previous military ops in Panama and Grenada, and other ops since then, as well as the ops that we rulled out as impractical... I say this is a good call. The average enemy we are likely to meet can be as easily defeated by this force as by any that we have standing right now. The importance is speed and overwhelming force, and right now we have a problem with speed. And if you look at something like the Apache in Kosovo, we also have a problem with overly complex and logistically expensive systems. This might not be the total answer, but I think the Army is headed in the right direction.

Only time will tell.

Steve

[Slapdragon]

It should also be recognized that the next generation purchase, either the LAV, or the already tested and standardized M9 Assault Gun, are both considered interim solutions prior to a new all arms light warfare solution. This whole concept was tried before twice, and was killed once by the Reagan administration (to pay off a political debt to the people holding the Abrams contract) and once by the Bush administration (who cancelled the XM9 after desert storm at the behest of Army command people who worried that it might signal a move toward Air Force and Navy solutions). The 8th ID had converted to and fro from a High Mobility division and back again numerous times.

Does the light forces concept work? France used 105 armed ACs to defend Chad against Lybia, and was successful. Panama, Haiti, and Grenada eac could have used light forces. The Sudan needed light forces very badly -- in fact it could be said that if the 8th ID had actually converted to light forces in 1987 as planned, Mogadishu would never have happened.

Europe is forming its own light forces command because it believes it sees an isolationist trend in the US expressed by the election of President Bush.

[Guest Michael emrys]

Originally posted by Jeff Heidman:

This meant a 75mm armed Pz IV for infantry support, and a 37mm/50mm armed Pz III for AT work.

This has been repeated several times here and is misleading, though unintentionally so I'm sure.

The Mk. IV was not intended for infantry support, at least as the term was used in the British and French armies. It was intended as support for the Mk. IIIs. As such, it's role was more or less identical to that played by the howitzer-armed tanks in Cruiser squadrons of British armoured divisions. The Mk. III was the Germans MBT of its era, and was intended to fight infantry as well as tanks, which is why it was given HE rounds for its gun.

To recapitulate, the Mk. IIIs and IVs were combined in the same Panzer companies. The Mk. IVs were not specifically assigned to infantry formations, though of course it was normal German doctrine to form all-arms Kampfgruppen.

Michael

[:USERNAME:]

Another great debate I missed (I can hear all the cheers).

The sherman had its 15 minutes of fame. It was not improved upon like alot of the other contenders. It languished with its "uber-gun".

The fact is it found itself stuffed full of gunpowder (as great a danger as gasoline) and always facing a high velocity threat situation. It was tall. This is a real defect.

A good infantry support tank trys to stay low and back. As a breakthrough tank (whatever that means) it was a very good target for AT (whether they had the range or not because excess height aids them) or panzerfaust candidates (how could you miss at 50 yards?).

The US should have had a multi-tank army like the germans and soviets. The 76mm sherman wasnt quite that. The Pershing tank was paid for as far as R&D and should have been storming ashore. Retrospect confirms this.

The US forces lost at very close ranges and very long ranges. Terrain is not that accomadating. Tank designs should be.

Lewis

[Spook]

Originally posted by Big Time Software:

MY OPINION - after watching the slow and costly Desert Shield, the problems with previous military ops in Panama and Grenada, and other ops since then, as well as the ops that we rulled out as impractical... I say this is a good call. The average enemy we are likely to meet can be as easily defeated by this force as by any that we have standing right now. The importance is speed and overwhelming force, and right now we have a problem with speed. And if you look at something like the Apache in Kosovo, we also have a problem with overly complex and logistically expensive systems. This might not be the total answer, but I think the Army is headed in the right direction.

Only time will tell.

Steve

Hmmmmmmm........gotta counter some of the comments here, Steve.

First off, I do agree that a heavily mechanized ground force is difficult to support in terms of logistics & maintenance. For example, the present M1A1 & M1A2 will eat gas quickly even in an idling, non-moving stance, due to speed limitations on the turbine engine. The "Under Armor Auxiliary Power Unit" or UAAPU was developed through the US Army TACOM office to provide alternate power while the engine is shut down, but this isn't field-ready yet.

And furthermore, the premise of Desert Shield/Storm was certainly a relative operational fluke. Had Saddam pushed on into Saudi Arabia in 1990, the world's response would've been very united to repel him, but the means to do so would've been significantly changed also. A greater burden to start a ground war would then had fallen onto the amphibious MEB's and airmobile units.

We can't presume to often get similar breaks in the future concerning the ability to deploy against such "crises" as the US was given for Desert Shield.

HOWEVER....taking the upgunned LAV by itself, I consider it a stretch to presume that this vehicle concept is a be-all solution to all possible combat environments with potential opponents. In an open-terrain setting against an infantry-heavy opponent with minimal heavy weapons, then a LAV-based force is viable. In an urban zone, probably much less so. The Russians re-learned this in Grozny recently. The M1 tank series aren't invincible to all shoulder-launched light AT missiles, but the LAV will make an opponent's light AT weapons much more threatening.

Further, if these LAV's run into an opponent that uses the latest Russian tanks with Kontakt-5 reactive armor, that 105mm gun is not gonna be of use at all. Even existing US 120mm APDSFS has trouble penetrating this armor.

And I think your statement on the Apache in the Kosovo "police action" is problematic. The Apache worked quite well in the Gulf War on the flip side of the coin. What proved more the problem in the Kosovo deployment is that the Apache crews needed training specific to the Balkans terrain first. And beyond that, there was the political concern of Apache crews being captured or killed that prevented actual combat usage. Helicopters will naturally face more AA threats than strike aircraft flying over 15,000 feet altitude.

Of course, we can recognize all along that the "heavy" US brigade force with M1's & M2's isn't being phased out altogether. These will still be part of the US force structure for a while. It just has to be recognized that "speed" comes only with an added penalty in "vulnerability" too.

The truth of the matter, however, is that the future US ground force structure is planned to go much deeper than the LAV. Expect the following to play an increasingly critical role in any US brigade deployment:

1) Expanded satellite network to transmit higher-resolution "information" more quickly to the warfighter.

2) Increased use of unmanned aircraft

3) Increasing the speed of orders transmission through the C3I chain

4) Kinetic-energy weapons like electromagnetic guns, and direct-energy weapons like lasers & high power microwaves. Be watchful of developments on these for the next ten years. Supporting DE weapons is keen interest now in the USAF research offices I work for.

Only with these added in will the new "light brigade" concept demonstrate the desired flexibility.

[This message has been edited by Spook (edited 01-24-2001).]

[Guest Michael emrys]

Originally posted by Jeff Heidman:

I have read all the books about what factories could cast the armor, or how the engines were not available, or shipping issues, but in the end I have way too much respect for what the US was capable of to ever conclude that the German or Soviet industrial system was just plain so superior to the American one that they could figure it out, but we could not.

The Soviets could move from the the T-34/M40 to the T-34/85 and T-44 between 1941 and 1945, the Germans form the PzIVd to the Panther, and the best the US could do was go from the M4(75) to the M4A3(76)E8? Nope, I don't buy it. We were capable of much more.

This misses the point that everything that America deployed in Europe had to be shipped across the Atlantic Ocean. In order to have a Pershing type tank available in numbers in time for Normandy, we would have had to make a commitment to production of them a year earlier.

But at that time, we were just beginning to win the Battle of the Atlantic. Before then, the Germans were sinking ships faster than we could build them. If it takes twice as much shipping space to move a battalion of Pershings (remember you have to count their POL, ammo, and spares in this calculation) as an equal number of Shermans, they had better provide twice as much service on the battlefield or you will be cheating yourself. This was not held to be the case.

Was this a regrettable decision? Probably to some extent. But it was not, IMO, a stupid one.

Michael

[Guest Michael emrys]

Originally posted by jshandorf:

The First Shermans in combat were the M4A1 in roughly Feb/Mar in North Africa.

Do you have any source for that? All mine state unequivocally that the first use of the Sherman in combat was Operation Supercharge October 23, 1942, which was part of Second Alamein. And the model was the M4, not the M4A1.

These Shermans were ordered to be sent to the British by Roosevelt over the objection of Marshall, as a result of the disastrous battles for Gazala and Tobruk in May and June that year and the subsequent withdrawal of the 8th. Army to the Alamein position. The tanks arrived in Egypt in, I think, late August, but had not been made desert-ready nor their crews trained in time for the battle of Alam Halfa in September.

Michael

[Guest Michael emrys]

Originally posted by Bastables:

Once the intial 'bugs' were worked out Panthers broke down as much as PIII, PIV, StuGs and T-34s.

The Panther was an excellent design. It did however have one flaw that it shared with the Tiger. The interleaved road wheels, which were designed to reduce ground pressure without unduly lengthening the vehicle, tended to acquire mud and snow which then froze solid in the subarctic Russian winters. Unless the crew went out and got handy with crowbars, hammers, etc. for a couple hours, they weren't going anywhere that day. That's a real bad spot to be in when a brigade of T-34/85s pops up over the ridgeline.

Michael

[Guest Michael emrys]

Originally posted by Big Time Software:

Michael is correct.

Thanks, Steve. 'Bout time I got some recognition around here.

PROBLEM - our current force structure is designed to fight from a long established staging area (i.e. Western Europe and Korea). It has been shown, especially since Desert Shield, that this force is incapable of rapid deployment in significant quantities. Furthermore, the logistics needed to move such a force and then support it are also not readily adaptable to rapid operations. In short, if the US military needs to be someplace it isn't already, in a hurry, and packing a huge punch... it can't.

MY OPINION - after watching the slow and costly Desert Shield, the problems with previous military ops in Panama and Grenada, and other ops since then, as well as the ops that we rulled out as impractical... I say this is a good call. The average enemy we are likely to meet can be as easily defeated by this force as by any that we have standing right now. The importance is speed and overwhelming force, and right now we have a problem with speed. And if you look at something like the Apache in Kosovo, we also have a problem with overly complex and logistically expensive systems. This might not be the total answer, but I think the Army is headed in the right direction.

I think it is a bit more complicated than that although I agree that the Medium Divisions are a useful and necessary stopgap.

The real problem is that we will not be able to fight a heavily armed opponent successfully unless we can field a similarly armed force ourselves. Fortunately for the time being, there aren't many enemies that we are likely to have to face in the near term that are armed to that level, and so the Medium Divisions are likely to prove useful. However, against anybody really serious they are likely to prove just an expensive way to die.

Strategically, the way we have gotten around the problem of getting a heavy force where it was needed in time to be useful, was to have one already based in the area, as you point out, Steve. Also, the use of prepositioned stockpiles near to a potential trouble spot permitted us to react with some dispatch.

Trouble is, with the end of the Cold War and a bipolar world, there are fewer and fewer places where we are welcome to station our armed forces, and I suspect the American public is growing less willing to meet the expense of doing so as well.

Ergo, I think the inevitable result is a contraction of America's role as World Cop. It's simply going to become economically and politically more difficult to project overwhelming force in a meaningful way at a distance from our shores. So what will take the place of American hegemony? Clearly since there is no obvious single power ready to step into that role in the near future, international bodies of one sort or another will. We can see nascent stirrings of this now in attempts to form regional coalitions in various parts of the world. The EU is well on its way to doing this and has considerable resources and experience to draw on, but they are not without difficulties either. It's not entirely for nothing that Europe has spent most of its history at war with itself. A true union will not be achieved without growing pains.

Similarly, the nations of Africa are making a valiant effort to work together on many issues. But they have even greater obstacles than Europe and are effectively starting several centuries later. One wishes them success, but one does not hold one's breath in anticipation.

I doubt that Asia will achieve any remarkable degree of unity in the coming century unless one of two things can happen: 1) Somehow they are able to avoid a major war, or 2) A clear victor emerges from such a war and is able to unite the rest under its "guidance". Frankly, I don't give either possibility very good odds, especially the second.

I don't see much drive toward unification in Latin America at the moment, although the second half of the century could very well see it.

But however all these things work out, I think we Americans had better start getting used to the notion that we can no longer call the tune. Unless we really and truly blow it, or some inescapable disaster strikes us, we will continue to be a major player on the world stage and no-one should discount us. But we are more and more going to have to realize that we cannot discount the other players either. The trick will be conveying that message to our leaders. Would anybody like to have a little heart-to-heart with Jesse Helms?

Have I wandered far enough from Is the Sherman a tank? yet?

Michael

[This message has been edited by Michael emrys (edited 01-25-2001).]

[This message has been edited by Michael emrys (edited 01-25-2001).]

[Guest Big Time Software]

Spook,

Gotta disagree with your disagreements At least some:

And furthermore, the premise of Desert Shield/Storm was certainly a relative operational fluke. Had Saddam pushed on into Saudi Arabia in 1990, the world's response would've been very united to repel him, but the means to do so would've been significantly changed also. A greater burden to start a ground war would then had fallen onto the amphibious MEB's and airmobile units.

Which are not up to that big of a task even today. The problem with Desert Shield was that it took too long to assemble significant force in the theater. There was a lot of worry at senior levels that if Iraq decided to expand the war, right away, that our intial forces would be neutralized and we would lose the critical airbases that we used for staging the buildup. It can be argued that a much stronger, and quicker, deployment of troops would have reduced this risk and at the very least bought more time if Iraq decided it could handle the forces before it.

We can't presume to often get similar breaks in the future concerning the ability to deploy against such "crises" as the US was given for Desert Shield.

Exactly. Iraq gave us MONTHS to build up a significant force to just defend Saudi Arabia, not to mention get ready to take back Kuwait.

HOWEVER....taking the upgunned LAV by itself, I consider it a stretch to presume that this vehicle concept is a be-all solution to all possible combat environments with potential opponents.

Certainly, I don't think it is meant to be. Combined arms, including better attack copters (aw... whatever they are called ), better armed/trained infantry, AT missle capabilities, artillery, off shore naval power, and above all fixed wing airpower are designed to work together.

The Russians re-learned this in Grozny recently. The M1 tank series aren't invincible to all shoulder-launched light AT missiles, but the LAV will make an opponent's light AT weapons much more threatening.

What the Russians learned is that urban warfare sucks. It doesn't matter WHAT you go in with, you are going to take massive losses. As far as I know the Russians didn't even engage their tanks in much street fighting for fear of losing them. So I would argue that if you don't think you can survive with a LAV that going in with an M1A1 is an even worse idea.

Further, if these LAV's run into an opponent that uses the latest Russian tanks with Kontakt-5 reactive armor, that 105mm gun is not gonna be of use at all. Even existing US 120mm APDSFS has trouble penetrating this armor.

The risk of this is very low, IMHO. And for those threats we have various NASTY missles, including new kenetic energy missles that can probably go through both sides of such a tank. The one I have a demo tape of here shows the thing going something like 4 miles in a couple of seconds with pinpoint accuracy. And the launcer is highly mobile.

And I think your statement on the Apache in the Kosovo "police action" is problematic. The Apache worked quite well in the Gulf War on the flip side of the coin.

Not by all standards. The first Apaches were grounded because they did not have the correct tollernece for sand, and therefore were useless. After they were still highly troublesome from a readiness standpoint. Yes, they were VERY effective once they were in combat, but it took a HUGE effort to get them there. This was, once again, the primary problem with their use in Kosovo from what I read. It took too long to get them deployed and ready for combat. Losing one in pre-mission training certainly did nothing to help their cause. And with the action widning down, you are correct, they weren't risked. This further proves my point. What is the purpose of weapons system that takes too long to get into place, keep in service, and then can't be used for fear of losing it?

Interesting topic, no?

Steve

[Guest Big Time Software]

Michael,

In general, I agree. The transition is going to be the tough part. And if a BIG enemy force comes up to face us again, we had better be able to meet that threat too. Of course, we do still have our nukes for such cases (yes, scary but true).

Ergo, I think the inevitable result is a contraction of America's role as World Cop.

I don't know. I think this is more of a political thing than a military one. The military is trying to reinvent itself (or part of itself) because it figures there will be more smaller actions in the future. And if you aren't ready for one, you aren't ready for any (in theory of course). We have shown ourselves to have trouble with the few missions we have attempted, so change is not only wise it would be criminal to ignore.

So if we feel that we need a force to combat a once in a while conflict, but in order to do that it has to be standing in wait, there is the chance that it will be used MORE frequently, not less. At least all political things being equal. So instead of painstakingly figuring if we can actually get something in theater in time with enough force (like Ruwanda for example) BEFORE we even can decide if it is a mission we should take on, the capability will be there FIRST and the leaders can move right into "is it a good idea" phase of the decision making process.

And I see that as a good thing. Being ill prepared to meet these new challenges would be a grave mistake. If we opted out of a valuable task because we couldn't hack it, that would be bad. If we went in anyway and spent millions and millions of dollars to do nothing, that is bad. If we went in anyway, spent all the money, lost a lot of good people, and then had to run away... that would be criminal. Best to embrace change instead of being screwed by it.

My two bits worth

Steve

[jasoncawley@ameritech.net]

Several points. One, Michael is right about the first use of the Shermans. The other fellow's figure was probably first *U.S.* use of them, but the Brits had them first. Churchill was at a conference with Roosevelt the day Tobruk (which had held out behind enemy lines the previous year, for months) fell to the Germans after the Gazala battles. It was a disaster, and Roosevelt then and there overruled all his generals who wanted the tanks for the U.S. forces and ordered a convoy of them sent to the Brits in Egypt. Which was a smart decision as it turned out, since they did good service and several months before the U.S. was really engaged.

Next, Michael is also right that Pz IVs were used in mixed battalions or companies with the Pz IIIs. Early in the war, so where the PZ IIs, with a typical early-war tank battalion equipped with two companies of mixed Pz IIs and Pz IIIs and one battalion of Pz IIs and Pz IVs. Later, if was IIIs and IVs with a few IIs for scout work in the tank companies themselves. The IVs all had short-barrelled 75mm, the same weapon as the infantry howitzer in CM, or the gun on the 75mm German halftracks.

The IV evolved to a main battle tank role when the limits of the Pz III were hit, with the Pz III J through L models (long 50mm gun, and uparmored somewhat too later in the letter series). That is about 8 models of Pz IIIs before they gave up on the turret as too small to hold a big enough gun. Those models carried a 37mm at first, then a short 50mm, then a long 50mm. And they were the main battle tanks the Germans used in essentially all of their victories.

Next, I have extended comments for the BTS moderator and his capsule story of the history of WW II and the role of tech and tank tank and German tank tech in that history, in particular. I know the standard historical spiel, which is reasonably close to the version you gave. I just happen to think, from long and close study of the histories available, that the somewhat cartoon version of events involved in that usually story, is quite wrong and misleading.

Yes, the Germans had great advantages in the early war years. Yes, better designed tanks were one of those advantages. *But better designed tanks does not mean thicker armor and bigger guns*. You acknowledge this is passing, but it seems to me you still underrate its importance. The early war German tanks were indeed better than many of the Allied ones, despite smaller main armament and thinner armor. The best tanks anybody had in the early war years, and in numbers, were however the better Russian ones, hands down. The Germans acknowledge as much every which way.

But the advantages the Germans actually had in tanks was more crewmen in them, and more radios, and bigger, roomier turrets laid out more sensibly. As well as lightness itself, tracks that lasted longer as a result, greater mobility off road and better road speeds than many heavier Allied types. The had better optics and better crew training, and soon enough more experience too.

Why can't people manage to wrap their heads around the notion, obvious enough to me, that the desirable features for a tank in WW II were well understood and acted upon in those designs?

I will put it baldly so that the point can be understood. The Pz III was a better tank design than the Tiger I. Yes, if you put a few Tiger Is in the middle of a flock of Pz IIIs, there would soon be a number of dead Pz IIIs. But you could not possible conquer Europe, or even hold the Ukraine, in Tiger Is. While you could with Pz IIIs, and somebody did. Obviously, I am exaggerating somewhat to make a point, but the point is a real one.

I lay far more emphasis, however, on doctrine. Your version has it that doctrine was easily learned and copied, particularly by the Russians, and thus the German advantage there went away. Then the Russians made perhaps 10-20 T-34s for every Pz IV that industrial idiot Speer was still building, so naturally Das Ubertanker could no longer hold up his end. This cartoon I consider false. I also notice that it is suprisingly close to the famously deluded understanding of what was happening believed by a certain WW I infantry corporal.

First, the Russians did not quickly learn German armor doctrine. I expect that doctrine is not even very well known by at least half the members of this board. More, I'd venture to guess that if you asked those who felt confident that they knew the answer, in just what the superior German armor doctrine of 1939-1942 consisted, compared to the armor doctrines of their enemies, you'd get at least four different answers only one of which would be right. And if you further asked them to describe the errors of doctrine of the Allies, you'd get at least three different answers, and one of them would be a pretty good description of actual successful German doctrine, at least in essential particulars.

It is so much easier to just blame it on the boys in the lab.

The Russians learned by the first months of 1943 to mass their armor. Some think this means they had learned German armor doctrine, but that is patently not the case. The Russians put much of their available main battle tanks into independent armored brigades, expected to make mass penetrations and keep going independently. As late as mid 43, the infantry and artillery and towed weapon components of a Russian tank brigade would do a pre-war Britisher proud. The Brits use their cruiser or medium tanks the same way in the desert, in giant brigade formations operating essentially independently of all other arms. But they were very much "massed". The Germans handed them their heads.

Oh, the mistake was to parcel out the tanks in support of the infantry, right? That was the WW I model and the mistake the French made. Obviously if the tanks should not be spread out in support of infantry, they should concentrate and operated at their own speed, right? Oops. Out of French frying pan, into British fire.

But had the Russians learned any more than this by the time of Stalingrad or even Kursk? Little. They had learned the Pak front trick before Kursk, in the course of the previous breakout fighting when they saw the Germans try to stop armor. So they didn't put the tanks ahead anymore, like they had before in trying to meet enemy armor attacks. They held it back and waited, then launched at formations in their Pak front. But they launched them in solid huge bodies of independent tanks, still.

It was not until late 43 or early 44 that the Russians had a working sense of combined arms for armor, via their Tank Corps, which was still a tank-heavy formation.

And coordination with artillery was still extremely primitive. Russian artillery doctrine went the wrong way, toward larger and larger independent artillery formations firing massive barrages on pre-planned fire schedules dictated by massive logistical plans. The entire idea of integrating on-call firepower into the combined-arms armored task force was beyond their doctrinal and organizational capabilities essentially through to the end of the war. They partially made up for it by pushing forward more assault guns, but the confused substitute of one for the other shows how little they understood the role of artillery in combined arms operations.

The U.S. got a solid model armored division in 1943. It was the first. The Brits labored under tank-heavy organizations even on D-Day, and learned only from watching the Americans and bitter experience in Normandy. Indeed, it is not entirely clear they ever learned, rather than keeping big tank brigades or swinging back to the French model of tanks parcelled out to support infantry, just with more tanks to do it with - or making both mistakes at once and thinking the mix was "combined arms" rather than combined error. The British armored formation organization charts and TOEs are a mess even in the last year of the war.

There was indeed "tech" involved, in the form of know-how. But the tech did not consist in welded steel plates or high velocity cannons. It consisted in those bizarre organization charts that seem to have everything all mixed, and that they then scrambled even further with kampgruppen. And I submit that the only organizational equivalents in the course of the war that match the German 1940-1942 doctrines and practices, was the American combat team, combat command, and task force concepts - and even then, only once the U.S. had the 1943 armored division structure to work from.

The Russian tank corps is the only other one even close, but as mentioned they never really got the guns folding into the mix correctly. The German doctrinal edge therefore *should* have remained until the end of the war, against everyone but the Americans. Yes, a lessened advantage as the experience of the enemies went up, helped by the old crew of Germans disappearing through attrition.

But there was more going on in doctrine and usage than the Americans figuring out what the Germans had invented with the panzer divsion and the kampgruppe, while others made floundering half-stabs at it. The Germans were changing their doctrine too, and *not* for the better.

In case anybody forgot, the moment the Germans lost their first really big battle in Russia, a certain corporal decided that his generals didn't know anything and he had it all figured out instead. After the Moscow fighting in the winter of 1941-1942, Hitler decided that will was the essence of the defense, a WW I notion if ever there was one. He had long thought that all of the success of German arms compared to then could be traced either to will or to the wonders of technology, which fascinated him as though it was magic. Both did, in fact. He didn't know modern combined arms from his anatomy and cared less, and despised the military geniuses who had invented it.

There are only two kinds of occasions after that where the German army was allowed to practice the doctrine it has invented. One, when everything was going swimmingly and irresistable advance was the entire menu - then the generals could do it there way. Two, when the entire front was gone and nothing stood between himself and a T-34 but wavering grain and a couple rivers. Then a few select and trusted generals could do it their way.

Thus, in the summer of '42 the advance in the south was at first pressed by modern doctrine. As soon as they were checked, that doctrine was abandoned and strength was pitted against strength to reduce a fortress for prestige reasons, for all the world like it was still 1916 and Stalingrad was Verdun on the Volga. And this idiocy was continued and compounded after the encirclement.

Will being the essence of the defense, no retreating, yadda yadda yadda. All of it based on his own scattered notions of how the German army had come apart in the field in 1918, and how it hadn't come apart in the field in the first winter in front of Moscow. Not a scrap of the military revolution understood, and technological fantasies substituted as the supposed explanation for all the changes from his own war.

Then, as soon as the Russian counterattack annihilated 6th Army and all the Hungarian, Rumanian, and Italian allied formations, and the whole of Army Group South was reduced to a scattered set of blocking formations in pell-mell retreat, Manstein was allowed to formulate and execute the mobile defense that ended with the Kharkov counterattack and stopped the breakthrough. But as soon as this was completed and the front was stabilized, and Manstein expressed his desire to repeat the operation by taking the Russian summer offensive "on the backhand", this was thrust aside as defeatism, and instead another fortress was set for assault at Kursk.

Oops, lost Army Group South *again*. No retreating, so lose all of it, don't save any. Manstein was not even allowed to run the show this time, but was instead removed for insistence on breakout attempts from the Korsun pocket. The Russians made it to the pre-war Hungarian and Rumanian borders then ran out of gas.

By then the Russians actually had a combined arms doctrine of sorts, at least as far as infantry-armor cooperation went. And they understood the operational role of armor much better than in early 1943. They had seen a mobile defense stop them when they used mass tank formations, and a rigid one fall apart whatever they used. They planned Bagration well enough that even a mobile defense would not have stopped them, short of Poland anyway.

So they attack again, and the front is rigid again, and this time Army Group Center ceases to exist. Oh no, nothing between the corporal and the T-34s again, so the Generals have to be allowed to have their way once again. Model fixes the front. But in the meantime, a similar idiocy have played out in Tunisia and in Normandy, and those are gone too, and there is another front for the generals. They are allowed to create the stand at the west-wall.

Then they are off the case again, and madness is back in the saddle, and off on your death-ride at the Ardennes, boys.

The Germans were not *permitted* to exercise their new doctrines in the second half of the war. Those doctrines did not fit the technological and will based fantasies of the idiot running their country. And all through the second half of the war, where is the armor going? Stiffen the infantry divisions. More assault guns. Bigger tanks with more armor and larger guns, by all means, that is just technology! An armored corps in reserve without any sector of line assigned to it, but not expected to be available elsewhere, expected to be an operational reserve plugging the holes in the front - a newly organized single panzer division with Panzer IVs is all that is asked? Sheer defeatism. Send the new tanks to the SS, put them right in the line, and fight them every day until they are uselessly ground to powder, instead.

Germany fought the second half of WW II with its brains tied behind its back. Specifically on the matter of the doctrinal use of armor. In practice, German actions actually taken stem from a "doctrine", from about the winter of 43-44 on and in some important battles well before that, that was hardly better than French doctrine had been in 1940. Tactically it was better; operationally it was actually worse, which is saying something.

The Russians did indeed face the Germans with 5:1 odds in places by mid 44. But that does not mean the Russians defeated the Germans with just numbers. The Russians did not outproduce the Germans anything remotely near 5:1. They outproduced them more like 3:2 or 2:1, at best, and in only certain categories of weapons. In the winter of 1942-43, the overall forces were about even when the Russians took the initiative, and they never really gave it back. Why were the odds so much steeper 2 years later? Because Army Group South and Army Group Center were both dead, that is why.

If I make 200 of something and you make 100 of something, the odds are 2:1. But if I then trade 80 of yours for 100 of mine, the odds rise to 5:1, because you've only got 20 left. The German army was killed in the field, not in the factory. Yes, later in the war by the time the U.S. and Britain were in France, they were being killed in the factory too and every which way from Sunday, so the eventual outcome was "overdetermined" - an event with more causes than it needs to come about. But the Germans lost the war before then.

They started losing it in the fall fighting at Stalingrad before the Russian counteroffensive. They managed to restore the front because of Manstein's free hand after the disaster that followed, but only after it was already a disaster. They lost any chance to hold the Russian in the Kursk debacle and its aftermath, which was a repeat of the same idiocy on different terrain and with slightly different tactics, vehicles, techniques etc, but with no real difference in the operational stupidity, the doctrinal errors, involved. The third time was a charm and destroyed an army already beaten (I mean Bagration, aka "the destruction of army group center"), and incidentally completed the Russian "manual of arms". By then the Russian had pretty good doctrine.

In addition to all of the above, it is not true that the Germans even had a technological edge over the Russians, period, or in main battle tanks. The Panther and the T-34/85 are both excellent medium tanks and there is little to choose between them. Before the Panther, the Russians had the better tanks, the T-34/C and the KV-1. Later, the Russian IS-2s were much better than any heavy the Germans built, in operational terms. Pure tank duel, they are an even match for the King Tiger and like types, but they were made in numbers with an extra "0" on them and they ran much better, and longer, in actual service. The Russian TDs are also in every respect the equals of the German counterparts.

The Germans retained a slight edge from better optics and better crew training throughout the war (although the crew difference was vanishing by 44-45, the life expectency of a German tank crew on the Russian front being what it was). At its best, German armor doctrine was better than Russian doctrine even late in the war, but by late in the war the Germans were not following their own doctrine, so what the Russians were actually doing was miles better than what the Germans were actually doing. The Russians were missing items like real-time artillery-armor integration; the Germans were sending 3 TDs to each infantry company and saying "hold at all costs", which would have done a 1940 Frenchman proud.

The Germans invested in wonder-tanks because their leader believed in technological miracles. He got the Panther out of that belief, in large part because he let Guderian tell him a tank should be able to do as inspector of armored forces. He also got the Me-262 jet fighter out of that belief, and the V-1 and V-2 rockets. He only lost the war, by getting his army killed by the Russians, in return.

Why do I say "in return"? Because anyone who bothered to find out how and why the armor doctrine had worked in the first half of the war, would not have ascribed it to differences in technology. But anyone who simply ascribed it to technology, didn't see any need to find out how it actually worked, as doctrine, or to listen to the people who knew.

Incidentally, the beginings of that doctrine were developed during WW I as "infiltration tactics" by the Germans, using only infantry. One of the best books on the subject remains a book entitled "Infantry Attacks" by Rommel, about his experiences in Italy in WW I and what he learned from them. Yes, Virginia, one of the most important books on the history and development of modern armored combined arms tactics has "infantry" right there in the title - so little was it merely a matter of new machines.

Part of the issue, I am sure, is an inability of outsiders to any discipline or school of thought, to imagine there really is intellectual content to that school of thought. Non-trivial content, as in things that are not obvious to every school child, that you did not always understand, that aren't contained in essence in three old saws you once read, and that are not a matter of tools or magic. Nor of opinion, about which everyone has their own idea and "all are just as valid" or "whatever works for you".

There is such a thing as a military *truth*, in other words. And ignoring one (or several), or the other guy learning them, has rather more to do with winning or losing wars, than armchair grognards or engineers reviewing tank specs or most civilians think. Or even veteran corporals...

[Shandorf]

Originally posted by Michael emrys:

Off by a year and a half. Try the closing months of 1942.

Michael

Micheal,

Already corrected myself a couple pages back but thanks anyways.

Jeff

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[Jeff Heidman]

Originally posted by Michael emrys:

This misses the point that everything that America deployed in Europe had to be shipped across the Atlantic Ocean. In order to have a Pershing type tank available in numbers in time for Normandy, we would have had to make a commitment to production of them a year earlier.

But at that time, we were just beginning to win the Battle of the Atlantic. Before then, the Germans were sinking ships faster than we could build them. If it takes twice as much shipping space to move a battalion of Pershings (remember you have to count their POL, ammo, and spares in this calculation) as an equal number of Shermans, they had better provide twice as much service on the battlefield or you will be cheating yourself. This was not held to be the case.

For one, it would not require anywhere close to twice the tonnage. The Pershing was something like 35% heavier than the Sherman. Weight being the deciding factor, you could have ten Shermans or 7 Pershings. A Pershing can take on a Panther at even odds, so that would very much be a beneficial trade off.

If you assume that you need 5 Shermans to guarantee victory against one Panther (and you are going to lose at least 2), you could get the same effect out of 2 Pershings, and probably not even lose one. When you then figure in the cost in resources of replacement vehicle crews for the "throw-away" Shermans, the Pershing looks even better.

Remember, shortly after Normandy the limiting factor on Sherman availablity was not the vehicles themselves, but the lack of trained crews. Survivability is grossly under-rated when it comes to thinking about logistics.

And remember, you do not have to replace every Sherman, just a decent fraction of them. Even the Germans never got better than a 30% ratio of Panthers to lighter vehicles.

Was this a regrettable decision? Probably to some extent. But it was not, IMO, a stupid one.

Michael

I disagree. It was certainly a stupid decision motivated by politics and personal egos more than military reality.

Jeff Heidman

[PzKpfw 1]

Originally posted by Big Time Software:

What the Russians learned is that urban warfare sucks. It doesn't matter WHAT you go in with, you are going to take massive losses.

Steve

Something the Russian's should have already known as they had more experience in Urban warfare in WW2 then any other country.

Regards, John Waters

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"We've got the finest tanks in the world. We just love to see the

German Royal Tiger come up on the field".

Lt.Gen. George S. Patton, Jr. February 1945.

[Jeff Heidman]

Jason, very nice post.

Just a couple of things. I agree with much of what you said, but I think it is unfair of you to dismiss the knowledge that some people have on this forum. I thought your post interesting, but I would not say that you had anything in there that I did not already know, or had not seen before. Others on this forum are similarly well-versed in the topic, if not nearly as prolific in their posting.

But the subject matter that has been discussed in this thread has been the technical merits of the Sherman tanks as compared to its contemporaries. Your post dealt with an issue that while related, was not the same issue.

Granted, you were largely correct (although I would claim that the field of study is not quite as absolutely certain of their conclusions as you might think; for example there are many knowledgeable scholars who credit that corporal with saving the German Army in the winter of 41-42), but your points that bigger armor/bigger gun != better tank is already acknowledged and well known by many involved in this discussion.

The issue is whether, all other things being equal, bigger armor/better gun == better tank, and what you would be willing to give up in resource cost to achieve that. Sure, these issues are not really decisive by any means, but I am not aware that anyone was claiming that they were decisive in an operational or strategic sense to begin with. That does not mean they aren't important.

Jeff Heidman

[Tankgirl]

Who manufacturd the Sherman tank?

---

"Snowpants are sexy!"

http://www.geocities.com/wildhippychik/whp.htm

[Jeff Heidman]

Originally posted by Tankgirl:

Who manufacturd the Sherman tank?

---

"Snowpants are sexy!"

http://www.geocities.com/wildhippychik/whp.htm

Everyone and their brother.

Manufacture was not limited to one supplier. The design was settled on and then farmed out to various manufacturers, which is why you see so many different versions. Some of them did things slightly differently, some of them used different engines, etc., etc.

Jeff Heidman

[Mark IV]

Anyway, we already had LAVs, or at least the Marines did:

These suckers actually won an armor battle in the Dominican Republic, against Swedish Landsverk L-60 light tanks and French AMX-13 light tanks... but they had their issues. They sure did well in infantry support in Vietnam.

Then there was the Sheridan, but the main gun kind of threw it around...

[jhtrickey]

Originally posted by Lacky:

Jhtrickey, I'm a little stumped on whether you're agreeing with me, not agreeing, or somewhere in-between!

I only was pointing out that the M60A1?A3 series used the 105 while the later M1A1 used the 120. I remember when the army was looking for a light gunplatform for the 105, that could be quickly transportable. I believe what I heard from the community at the time was that you had to use a different type of barrel and ammunition so that that the gun could fire in all aspects without disrupting the vehicle. So, they were considering the size/weight of the gun/gun tube/mechanism/turret. And using not a standard ammo type but a hyper-velocity type similar to some French efforts on light tank/armored car design.

I am not sure that the LAV could support and effectly fire the current 105mm L48 gun tube. I will admit that I was Army and not Marines, so I am not 100% sure of the LAV capabilities.

It does make sense to use those gun tubes that are in the inventory, but I think you will find that the army will use those to refurbish and sell those older tanks to our strategic allies, or simply scrap them.

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[Olle Petersson]

Originally posted by Mark IV:

Anyway, we already had LAVs, or at least the Marines did: Nice pic of Ontos...

Now that's the near ultimate TD!

Six shots rapid, and then scoot for the next ambush. No incentive to hang around and slug it out with the opposition...

Cheers

Olle

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Strategy is the art of avoiding a fair fight...

[Terence]

Originally posted by Jeff Heidman:

Everyone and their brother.

Manufacture was not limited to one supplier. The design was settled on and then farmed out to various manufacturers, which is why you see so many different versions. Some of them did things slightly differently, some of them used different engines, etc., etc.

Jeff Heidman

I seem to recall that ford and other car companies built many Shermans.