More American armor vs German's numbers?

[lcm1947]

Ok I just had a great idea. Since the American's built like 50,000 tanks and the German's only built 6,000 ( That number isn't correct but don't have a clue as to the correct one ) why doesn't the American force get like 4 or 5 to their 1 tank? Would that make the game unplayable do you suppose? Seems realistic to me if it's true and is probably what the odds actually were. At least it sounds like it in the books I'm currently reading. They keep mentioning how this one and the next one and the next Sherman keeps getting knocked out but yet they come and keep coming. You don't hear anything like that about the German tanks. Seems when one or the two they have get knocked out the German's retreat to their next position.

[Maj. Battaglia]

The US did build about 50,000 Shermans (with 75/76mm guns; another 4000+ 105mm), but according to Feldgrau (Feldgrau AFV stats), the Germans built almost 6000 Panthers alone, with a total of about 29,000 tanks (not counting StuGs, Marders, Jagdtigers, etc.).

But that is all really beside the point. In a tactical level simulation, what counts is local odds. The Germans usually employed their tanks in such a way as to avoid the overall odds present. That is not to say it was always the case, but hardly every tank vs. tank engagement on the Western Front saw German tanks facing such overwhelming odds.

[lcm1947]

Thanks for the figures Maj. Battaglia. Well quite a few more then 6000 I see. I was sure under the impression that we built a lot more then the German's and I guess 21,000 is more but certainly not what I was thinking. So not even 2 to 1 odds. I wonder what the numbers looked like in the different fronts? Any idea? Maybe that is where I got the idea that we out numbered them 4 or 5 to 1?

[Maj. Battaglia]

Regarding production figures, I only mentioned tanks, and with the US, only Shermans. The Germans also built about 7000 StuGs and thousands of other SP AT vehicles. The US also had its own TDs not included here. And of course, many of the Shermans produced by the US ended up in the UK/Commonwealth, USSR, and Free French forces. Some were sent to the Pacific and never faced the Germans. And in the total I have not factored in USSR and UK production.

Overall, I would not be surprised to see that total production by the Allies and deployed in Europe neared high odds versus the Germans at any one time (another key factor).

One thing you may be thinking of is the oft-told method of using about 5 Allied tanks to take on one German heavy tank, with one or two maneuvering to the flanks to make the kill while the others kept the German tied down.

But again, the main point in terms of CM is what units are facing off and what resources do they have? The overall theater odds mean little if a US infantry battalion that can possibly count on a US tank company for backup is being attacked by a German panzer regiment.

Militarily resources are rarely spread evenly across the front in question. Offensive assets are massed to make the biggest difference on a small front. Tanks are definitely offensive assets, and the Germans almost always took this approach in employing them.

[ April 23, 2003, 12:38 AM: Message edited by: Maj. Battaglia ]

[Dandelion]

Lee,

I'll give you such a report then

On June 9th, the 12th SS Panzer Division made her third assault on Norrey-en-Bessin.

They had already hurled an SS Panzergrenadier battalion (I./SSPD12) at this small town but been thrown back. They then hurled a whole SS Panzer battalion (12./SSPD12) supported by a recon company (15./25/SSPD12) and a Wespe company (2.12./SSPD12) at it. This they did at nighttime, since allied tankers refused to fight after dark (!) and the infantry would be left fending for themselves. Nonetheless, again they were beaten back, after a very bloody fight that took the Germans all the way to the Canadian CP, and the heart of the small town (which, as always in Normandie, was a church).

Defending the village was primarily D Company, Regina Rifles, supported by a handful of guns of the 3rd Antitank Rgt, RCA, firing the brand new discarding sabot munitions with great effect. But it was the PIATs that took most of the Panthers out, apparently about ten were lost that night.

But the Panzer fight that you lacked took place during the third attack.

The third charge was performed by a company of Panthers alone, namely 3./12./SSPD12 commanded by SS-Hstf Lüddemann, with a complete set of 12 Panthers. They advanced in line abreast at top speed over open plain against the village. It was noon and for some reason - as the Germans knew - there were no JaBos up at that time.

What the Germans didn't know whas that the Reginas had received their desperately awaited armoured support since that morning (the tankers arrived at first light, which was about 0500 hours). The Canadians are not overly enthusiastic about War Diaries, and sadly copy the stiff upper lip manners of the British in their reporting, leaving us with very laconic and bland notes. But it appears that the tanks arriving was a platoon of Shermans from the 1st Hussars.

In a very brief and very violent exchange of fire, seven Panthers were knocked out and the rest departed hurriedly. The Canadians lost no tanks at all. Antitank guns participated in the fight, and so it was not a purely armoured affaire.

Max Wünsche, commander of the 12th SS Panzer Regiment, was apparently white with rage and close to tears when he heard the news.

Now you can't say you've seen no reports of Shermans taking out Panthers frontally and without being in vastly superior numbers

Try playing the German side equipped with Panthers a few times. As long as you keep facing these cats, you will retain your awe of them. Using them, you will get to know them. They won't appear half as deadly once you do. I promise.

Regards

Dandelion

[CombinedArms]

One thing about German tank deployment is that medium tanks tended to be concentrated in the Panzer Divisions. There were also some seperate heavy tank battalions or brigades that might have Tigers or KTs. These tended to be used to support key assaults or defensively to counter breakthroughs. Infantry divisions tended to be supported by exclusively by assault guns--Stugs or StuH's, primarily.

On the other hand, in the US forces, there were armored divisions but also each infantry division tended to have an independent tank battalion and sometimes also a TD battalion on more or less permanent attachment. So the Germans tended to have their tanks concentrated. The Allies had enough tanks to they could concentrate some of their tanks in the armored divisions, but also disperse a large number through the independent TD battalions.

The CMBO battlefield may be a bit atypical it that it almost always features tanks on both sides, whereas for much of the war in the ETO the Allied infantry--supported when necessary by tanks from independent battalions, attacked German infantry that was unsupported by tanks, or at most by a few assault guns. But we all like playing with tanks, so the Germans almost always have theirs. And they're tough on vanilla Shermans--which are really at their best as an anti=infantry vehicle.

[lcm1947]

What a great story Dandelion. Tell me another one. Well so I guess maybe American armor isn't completely worthless then. Actually I am in 2 Pbem's where I am playing the German's just for the very reason you say I should try them but after these will be sticking with the poor American's . And yeah Maj. I think that's where I heard about 4 to 5 Sherman's against a Tiger Tank. Not ratio like I thought. Interesting info about how each side used or made up their tank Divisions. Thanks Combinedarms. So there goes my idea to get away with having 4 or 5 Shermans to 1 German tank in my battles.

[Dandelion]

Lee,

You did not misunderstand about odds versus loss ratio You two are merely speaking of two different things. The good Major speaks of tanker tactics, and you of statistics, and I recognise both statements.

The 4-1 loss ratio - in the meaning it costed 4 Shermans to knock out a Tiger - was first spread by a journalist accompanying US forces in Normandy. He wrote it was so in a contemporary article, and that anyone arguing against it would contradict every tanker in Normandy that he had met.

This was at a time when the allies had not yet broken out of Normandy and was suffering appalling casualties, and was therefore under general attack from the media in USA and UK.

It was also in a time when practically all sightings of German tanks were labelled "Tigers". The term "Tiger" was a major marketing success, as not only is this an admired and feared beast, the name is about the same in all European language families. No sane and sober Englishspeaker can pronounce "Panzerkampfwagen Ausführung IVH", but they can all say Tiger. It caught on.

His ratio has been widely qouoted ever since, but statistically the truth behind it is impossible to verify. Tank battles were violent and completely unpredictable. You have the example above, when 7 PzKpfw V were lost to no Canadian. During operation Totalise, the Poles lost 24 tanks in a few minutes, to German PzKpfw IV's and JgdPz IV's who suffered zero casualties. This was an all out assault situation. In a chance clash - the one that revealed the German counterattack against the Canadians advancing from the beaches - a platoon of Sherbrooke Shermans ran into a platoon of SS PzKpfw IV, with immediate mutual fire. The Germans (veterans) lost two vehicles, the Canadians (Green) none, as both sides withdrew in shock. In fact, it appears that tank quality did not influence battles very much during the Normandy fighting. Ranges were generally short and clashes generally either an ambush or a mutual surprise.

We suffer still from contemporary mythology, and thus hold especially the cats in unjustified awe. How many new players have been coming in here shocked at how their Tigers and Panthers have been knocked out by measly "Bronsons"?

While there were spectacular cases, like the hussar raid of Mr Wittman, the British testimony from that event stated that Cromwells fired at point blank (2 meters) into the side of his Tiger with no effect but a bounce, and repeatedly so, which simply is physically impossible. These statements - all published in contemporary media amazingly - also omit the fact that he was not alone at all, but had his platoon there with him. On all counts his achievement was legendary, he was the tanker ace of all time, but it was also the source for making the Tiger legendary in a way she did not really deserve. The image of allied tanks bouncing off the plates of an invincible Tiger is still alive in our minds 50 years later.

The power of this Wittman - that, just like Rommel, not only the Nazi media but indeed the allied media created - was such, that when he died, Canadians, British, Poles and the RAF all claim to have killed him. Just like the Red Baron. To this day, no one can tell for sure who it was.

In the Ardenne battles, we see the "real" Tiger situations. Here the Kingtigers did in fact parade in front of Shermans and, seemingly not even annoyed, had scores of hits just bouncing off them. The Jagdpanthers displayed similar capacity of taking punishment. But here the allied troops are hardened and more experienced, less prone to panic (very much less so, as I certainly would have panicked very much) and creating myths about their enemy. So the cat-scare is not even remotely as evident. In spite of the fact that they had better reason for it.

So. I agree with Combined Arms, on every point that he makes in fact, and wish to add that not only the CMBO QB battlefield situation is slightly abnormal, but also the situation where tankers are aware of eachother and fighting actual duel-type battles head to head, rather than ambushes, surprise clashes or running battles.

See now Lee, I gave you not only one but several more stories

But I do think you should try the 4-1 idea. Personally, I can enjoy playing miniature maps with just one tank facing three or four enemy tanks, forcing myself to use level 1 and 2 vision only. It's fun. And playing against the AI, I even win sometimes.

Regards

Dandelion

[JasonC]

The Germans were outscored in the west in tank kills by the Americans, head to head. I realize that is not conventional wisdom, but there are hard returns on TWOs in US armor units, and German armor strength reports on the other side, that show it was so. It was on the order of "even trade", any way you try to shade it.

They may have scored higher against the Brits in Normandy, on the order of 3:2 or 2:1 - that is the most that can possibly be said. Overall, they certainly did not score higher than 3:2. The number of US medium total write off losses in the ETO was middle 4 digits.

The Germans had significant amounts of armor in the west on only two occasions, Normandy and the winter counterattacks (Bulge plus Alsace). The total number of AFVs committed was around 2500 on each of those occasions. They threw smaller numbers west in September, trying to restore the collapsed front. Around 500 is more like it for that wave (in Lorraine in particular), certainly under 1000 (counting Aachen).

The Normandy fleet was 3/4 destroyed by the time of the breakout in late July. Most of the remainder were destroyed in the breakout fighting itself, in the failed Mortain counterattack, or at Falaise. Only 10% or so survived the campaign.

The September armored force sent to counterattack in Lorraine was basically wiped out within the month.

As for the Bulge force, perhaps half the AFVs committed survived, with some units transfered east after the offensive failed with a reasonable number of tanks left. But large formations were practically destroyed - Peiper's spearhead, 2nd Panzer at the tip of the Bulge, most of Lehr and 116. The other SS formations lost around half. Losses in Alsace were also considerable, as the attacks went in piecemeal instead of all at once.

During the first and last of those periods, the armor odds at the start were even, or within 2 to 1 once Allied reserves or reinforcements made it to the theater. But the Germans could not replace losses. Their AFV strength declined continuously from the moment they engaged. The Allies had as much to twice as much to fight with, and also replaced most of their losses, either actually during the battles or within about a month afterward.

US mediums total write offs in the Normandy fighting were just under 1000. More than that many German AFVs fought on the US sector and practically none got away. Losses in Lorraine were a few hundred. The US offensive was checked on that occasion, but primarily by German infantry forces after their armor had already failed. In the Bulge US medium losses were under 1500.

If you track US armor battalions through the war, you see half of their losses coming on just 2 occasions, Normandy and the Bulge. Those typically depleted them to half strength and sometimes reduced them to a single weak company, before taking replacements. For the rest of the war, they averaged about 1 lost tank per week. To fausts, PAK, or occasionally artillery, rarely to German armor.

Most of the rest of the time, there wasn't any German armor in the west. Panzer divisions had 20 to 30 running tanks. StuG "brigades" had a single digit number of runners. When the US encountered these small remaining armor formations in the periods outside the big German armor waves - it was typically a company or half company at the tactical level - they did not fight fair.

I've read AARs of a US mech column that had a dozen TDs and 30 odd Shermans encountering 7 StuGs defending some location, and their reaction was to stop, call down several battalions worth of artillery, and then call in an airstrike (they didn't care if it took 2 hours), in which 36 P-47s dive bombed the StuGs. They predictably scattered and hide in woods. The armor column then proceeded, getting into 3 seperate small engagements with 2-3 StuGs at a time, with 15-30 US mediums.

If you look at the occasions when the Germans *attacked* with large hunks of armor, they generally did quite badly.

17th SS threw about a battalion of StuGs at some US airborne early in the Normandy fighting. A full armored combat command responded. The Germans lost about half their attacking vehicles (some just into repair rather than TWOs, it is true) in about 4 hours.

Panzer Lehr counterattacked in Normandy in July. They lost half their armor in one day. They delayed one US infantry division for that day; the Americans continued to attack elsewhere on Lehr's own frontage.

Half a dozen new Panzer brigades counterattacked piecemeal against spread out, advanced US forces in Lorraine. The first few thought they'd check the leading guys for a day and then pull back into reserve, because they were planning a larger, coordinated effort. But several lost 1/2 to 3/4 of their tanks in their first engagements.

To what? To TDs, to point blank knife fighting against US armor in fog, to exchange "stalking" melees in town streets, to Priests firing HEAT, to Jabos in the afternoon. In the broad scheme of things, a few green KG sized armor formations were thrown 1-3 at a time into the open maw of Third Army, which burped and continued on.

It took a larger scale of armor commitment to make any impression on the scale of material force the Allies had on their side. It took something the size of the Bulge or the initial Normandy force - several thousand AFVs in a dozen mobile divisions all at once. And the Germans could only do that kind of thing every once in a while, and only on the eastern front or the western, and only if they didn't spend their armor production rebuilding depleted formations but instead on these grandious counterattacks.

Live German armor on defense was very effective. That includes tactical counterpunching as a matter of course, but not big operational counterattack or reckless attempts to "break through" whole corps with regiment sized units. When the Germans both (1) had armor and (2) were defending, they held their ground very effectively and the Allies took serious armor losses. That happened to the Brits in Normandy, for instance.

Thing is, the German doctrine on the use of armor wouldn't let them husband it for defensive use. When they didn't have any armor they defended as a matter of course. When they got a lot of it, they threw half of it away on reckless counterattacks. The other half then resisted for a while until reduced by attrition. Then the front broke open again.

The hardest thing tactically is to attack against an enemy that has superior armor. You can see this in CM. That was just the thing the Germans mostly managed to avoid, via their own offensive minded armor doctrine and the limits of their armor supply. About the only period when it happened was the British front in Normandy, from Villars Bocage to Goodwood.

Try attacking with Panthers and Pz IVs, and give the Allies plenty of arty. They aren't such terrors then, when the allies have all the hidden ATGs and infantry AT teams. Even 57mm ATGs and Sherman 75s are dangerous from the flanks, and it is hard to *advance* clear through the enemy without ever showing a flank.

As for infantry keeping zooks and PIATs at bay, it can't do that if it is under literally thousands of 105 and 155 rounds. This happened in periods like the Bulge, when the Germans really did have armor available. In cases like Lorraine, you just have to make the Germans green and give the US about twice as many AFVs, plus Jabos.

Defending with a German infantry force type is what mostly happened the rest of the time. The Allies have plenty of tanks but don't know where the Germans are. They lose a few to fausts, schrecks, and hidden PAK. They do not have to worry about Jagdpanzers and Tigers; there aren't any within a hundred miles.

That is the way the war really went, as opposed to the fantasy "even steven" fighting you see in CM.

[lcm1947]

Aye, Dandelion you are a good story teller. I enjoyed it very much. Thank you. Well, that all may very well be true and I don't dispute you for a minute but I sure can see where even if in a couple of incidents where a Tiger took on several Shermans and won or knocked out some before himself being killed would certainly make future fights with them extremely frightfull. As far as even just in the game my heart actually speeds up when I see one. I mean I get very uncomfortable. Can you believe that. Silly maybe but it's true. WOW! great read JasonC. That was very interesting. I even read it twice and plan a third time to fully digest it. Interesting stuff. Do you have a job by the way. Where in the world do you learn all this stuff. I'm always impressed with your knowledge and willingness to pass it on. Thanks.