"History, I'm talking about history"

[Marlow]

Originally posted by Compassion:

Well, that's hardly fair is it? You are talking the difference between a tank that saw lmited action (except on the CM battlefield where seemingly every sherman was an Easy 8 or a Jumbo)

Also not quite fair to limit it to only the easy eight. Starting in July 1944, an ever increasing percentage of the Shermans in Western Europe were equiped with the 76mm gun. even without the easy eight suspension, the 76mm equiped Shermans were better than the Mark IV, even late war varients. They also posed a credible threat to German Tigers and Panthers. The Russians also got quite a few 76mm equiped Shermans. (BTW, ask any CMBB player if he would rather have a plain jane M4, or any of the 76mm equiped T34s) If we are talking earlier in the war, Shermans used by the British in North Africa were far superior to contemporary German tanks.

Can you cite your source on this? AFAIK, even with the brits making as many Firefly's as they could, they never came close the 30% of their Sherman force... Between the material constraints of casting new turrets and the demands for the 17 pounder for other applications, and brit doctrine, only about 600 were produced... OUt of over 10,000 supplied to England.

Don't have any solid numbers at hand, but a Google search shows production of Fireflys from a low of 600 to a high 2100. But I should have been more clear. The 1 to 3 was British doctrine as of 1944 IIRC. In practice, a Fireflys were didn't make up 1 to 3 at the begining of the invasion of Western Europe, but by the end of the war, they were more common than 1 to 3. Also, 1 to 3 is 25%.

[ November 22, 2002, 01:26 PM: Message edited by: Marlow ]

[Compassion]

Originally posted by Marlow:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Compassion:

Well, that's hardly fair is it? You are talking the difference between a tank that saw lmited action (except on the CM battlefield where seemingly every sherman was an Easy 8 or a Jumbo)

Also not quite fair to limit it to only the easy eight. Starting in July 1944, an ever increasing percentage of the Shermans in Western Europe were equiped with the 76mm gun. </font>

[I/O Error]

Just to quote from the link about Dmitriy Loza:

There was yet another minus of rubber track. Even on a slightly icy surface the tank slid around like a fat cow. When this happened we had to tie barbed wire around the track or make grousers out of chains or bolts, anything to give us traction. But this was with the first shipment of tanks. Having seen this, the American representative reported to his company and the next shipment of tanks was accompanied by additional track blocks with grousers and spikes. If I recall, there were up to seven blocks for each track, for a total of fourteen per tank. We carried them in our parts bin. In general the American representative worked efficiently. Any deficiency that he observed and reported was quickly and effectively corrected.

--------------

In the end it was because the American ammunition had more refined explosives. Ours was some kind of component that increased the force of the explosion one and one-half times, at the same time increasing the risk of detonation of the ammunition.

--------------

In the first place, [the inside of a Sherman] was painted beautifully. Secondly, the seats were comfortable, covered with some kind of remarkable special artificial leather. If a tank was knocked out or damaged, then if it was left unguarded literally for just several minutes the infantry would strip out all this upholstery. It made excellent boots! Simply beautiful!

Stuff like that actually kind of makes me feel proud.

Story about Russian troops caring for civilian gardens in Romania:

The brigade commander summoned me and said, "Loza, are you from peasant stock?" I replied in the affirmative. "Well, I thought so. I'm appointing you as team chief! You will be responsible for weeding these gardens and ensuring that everything grows and so on. And God forbid that even one cucumber is spoiled! Don't touch anything! If necessary, plant your own crops." Teams were organized; in my brigade we had 25 men. All spring and summer long we fussed over these field gardens.

That's pretty danged cool. Were I wearing my skeptic hat I might think the story more than slightly apocryphal, but either way that's a good story.

We had a trophy German "letuchka" (light maintenance truck). We had penetrated into the German rear in column. We were going along a road and our light truck had fallen back. Then another light German truck, just like our own, attached itself to the back of our column. A while later our column halted. I was walking down the column, checking vehicles. "Is everything in order?" Everything was fine. I approached the last vehicle in the column and asked, "Sasha, is everything OK?" In response I heard "Vas?" What was this? Germans! I immediately jumped to the side and cried out "Germans!" We surrounded them, a driver and two others. We disarmed them and only then did our own light truck come up the road. I said, "Sasha, where were you?" He responded, "We got lost." "Well, look," I said to him, "Here is another light truck for you!"

Wow. Darwin Award, almost.

When some German POWs fell into our hands, their pockets were full of prophylactics, as many as 5-10. Our political officers made a big deal out of this "Look at this! They have these so they can rape our women!" But the Germans were smarter than we were and understood what venereal disease could do to an army. If only our own medics had warned us about these diseases! Even though we passed through Romania quickly, we had a terrible outbreak of venereal disease in our units. Our army had two hospitals: one for surgical cases and the other for light wounds. They were forced to open a venereal section, even though it was not provided for in the table of organization and equipment.

Can't blame them there!

What a cracking good link, thank you!

[ November 22, 2002, 05:46 PM: Message edited by: I/O Error ]

[JayJay_H]

Originally posted by Compassion:

If we are talking earlier in the war, Shermans used by the British in North Africa were far superior to contemporary German tanks.

Sure. But then it was facing PzIV d & E's and Pz III's with 50mm or 75L24's right? IT wasn't until 43 that they started to see f2's and Tigers in the med.

[Rouge]

with regards to calvary there was a major russian and italian battle on the russian front. i researched the german useage of horses- 750 000 on the russian front alone, 140 000 in the balkans.

[Compassion]

Originally posted by Rouge:

with regards to calvary there was a major russian and italian battle on the russian front. i researched the german useage of horses- 750 000 on the russian front alone, 140 000 in the balkans.

Was that as cavalry or as transport drafts? I recall reading that the Germans never got to full mechanization of their supply trains and that the Russians kept quite a few horse units around. Wasn't sure if that was for partsans and garritroopers or real cav units.

[ November 22, 2002, 10:51 PM: Message edited by: Compassion ]

[JerseyJohn]

-- Compassion, Rouge, JayJay_H, I/O Error, Marlow, Waltero, BrianTheWise, FlashGordon, Jestre and the Usual Suspects.

Great Forum for info -- turning into a multi-volume history. I think we're starting to repeat ourselves on numerous items.

For example, it was pretty much established earlier, I forget by whom that the bulk of German horses were used for transport and not as cavalry -- the Werhmacht only had one cavalry division and to the best of my knowledge it was never employed in battle -- I'd be indebted to anyone who knows anything more about that unit and cares to share that knowledge; it wouldn't have been inconceivable that it was employed against partisans, but I don't think it was.

Another area is who had the better tanks in North Africa. As mentioned earlier by several of us, Rommel's trump card was being able to lure British armored units into his killing zones where they were done in by anti-tank guns, including 88mm anti-aircraft guns adapted for the purpose, and not generally destroyed by Rommel's own tanks which were, as correctly mentioned, very heavily PzIII & early Pz IV varieties. By the time he received Tigers he was in Tunesia with his back to the wall and von Arnim screwing things up in the north.

None of this is meant to ruffle anyone's feathers, but as I was going back reading the early entries it seemed to me that we were starting to go into a loop.

Really enjoyed I/O--s Soviet Garden entries. It's too bad EB & dgaad aren't posting, by now we'd be in the middle of a collossal pro and anti Stalin confrontation

[ November 23, 2002, 07:25 AM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]

[I/O Error]

Originally posted by JerseyJohn:

None of this is meant to ruffle anyone's feathers, but as I was going back reading the early entries it seemed to me that we were starting to go into a loop.

To be honest it's really kind of unavoidable, even when people are careful, once you start talking about multiple pages of densely packed information.

Really enjoyed I/O--s Soviet Garden entries. It's too bad EB & dgaad aren't posting, by now we'd be in the middle of a collossal pro and anti Stalin confrontation

Heh heh... can't say I miss EB that much, except in his role as the "lunatic fringe".

You might want to check out this link about German cavalry. http://www.feldgrau.com/heerkav.html

It's not much, but at least it will tell you about the units involved and I believe you could do a unit history search of those units from the main site. A really great site, introduced to me from this very forum.

[jon_j_rambo]

Dude, this has become a "Legendary Thread"

[Rouge]

they were mainly employed for supply and artillary- i doubt a army so proud of its tank forces would keep the Ulahans as a combat force. I have a picture of Ulahans how ever parading in front of Hitler in '39 but it was probably only for show.

[JerseyJohn]

That's my impression. I only remember one reference to a German Cavalry Division in the Second World War and also that it was used for ceremonial occasions. Eventually the soldiers in it must have fought somewhere, but I don't know the details -- probably they were used as infantry.

Also, there were German auxilliaries who were organized as mounted infantry in both Yugoslavia and the Ukraine to fight partisans. Again, I haven't found much on them and this is largely based on photos and captions.

[ November 25, 2002, 06:49 AM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]