What was the ratio of tank losses on the western front ?

[Hannibal]

From what I have read the ratio of Soviet tanks lost to German tanks lost was between 4 or 5 to one .Does anybody know what the ratio was on the western front ?

[ May 05, 2003, 11:43 PM: Message edited by: Hannibal ]

[Bruceov]

Don't know. What I want to know was getting knocked out a common situation. I mean were there tankers on their 3 or 4th tank. I hate to think if the loss rate was anything like that in combat mission

[SgtMuhammed]

It was pretty close to that in the West as well.

One thing to consider when reading about crews having multiple tanks is that because of the Allied superiority in material it was often easier to replace tanks while the original was taken to depot for repair. These repairs could be from mechanical or combat damage. Abrams went through four tanks during the war because he just ran them ragged.

[Jarmo]

Was it really that high in the west?

The couple of summaries I've seen of larger battles seemed more like 1:1.

[SgtMuhammed]

One can get differing figures and impressions depending on whether the author uses losses to all causes or takes time to sift through the figures for strictly tank on tank losses.

A big thing to remember is that both the Soviets and the Western Allies were attacking which tends to drive casualty figures up.

[Sergei]

Besides, they simply had more tanks, meaning they could utilize them more aggressively in many more situations. Meaning more losses to ATG's, Schrecks & Fausts and mines. Then there's the crew experience factor and, from time to time, equipment quality.

In the Winter War, the loss ratio of Finnish to Soviet tanks was something like 1 to 550. Not all of those were destroyed in tank duels, however.

[CombinedArms]

Originally posted by Sergei:

Besides, they simply had more tanks, meaning they could utilize them more aggressively in many more situations. Meaning more losses to ATG's, Schrecks & Fausts and mines.

The flip side when looking at the ETO post D-Day is that the Germans, when retreating in Normandy and elsewhere, lost a lot of tanks due to encirclement, lack of fuel, air attack, etc. Teasing out the tank vs. tank loss ratios has got to be difficult.

I read somewhere on this board in CMBO days the claim that Hellcats had something like a 8-1 kill ratio, but that might be against all vehicles (HTs, trucks, etc.), not just tanks. It's hard to imagine an 8-1 kill ratio for Hellcats vs. real tanks, given their vulnerabilites. The data or figures quoted in general seem so rife with these kinds of ambiguities that it's hard to know what they mean.

[Marlow]

Originally posted by CombinedArms:

I read somewhere on this board in CMBO days the claim that Hellcats had something like a 8-1 kill ratio, but that might be against all vehicles (HTs, trucks, etc.), not just tanks. It's hard to imagine an 8-1 kill ratio for Hellcats vs. real tanks, given their vulnerabilites. The data or figures quoted in general seem so rife with these kinds of ambiguities that it's hard to know what they mean.

American TDs seemed to have a fairly good record against German tanks. The following quote is from "Seek, Strike, and Destroy: U.S. Army Tank Destroyer Doctrine in World War II," Dr. Christopher R. Gabel found at http://www-cgsc.army.mil/carl/resources/csi/csi.asp

"Tank destroyers emerged from the Ardennes campaign with a mixed reputation, On the positive side of the ledger, statisticians credited the tank destroyer battalions with the destruction of 306 enemy tanks.71 Many of these kills came during the decisive engagements of the campaign. On the negative side, the towed tank destroyer had proved to be a failure. Whereas self-propelled tank destroyers scored the most kills, towed battalions suffered the heavier losses: in the first critical week of the campaign, First Army lost seventy-seven tank destroyers, sixty-five of which were towed."

So, 300 German tanks to the loss of 10 SP TDs. Even factoring in normal kill inflation, and subtracting out the few kills that the towed TDs (AT guns) made, this is impressive.

[Tero]

Originally posted by Sergei:

In the Winter War, the loss ratio of Finnish to Soviet tanks was something like 1 to 550. Not all of those were destroyed in tank duels, however.

IIRC the Finnish tanks did not manage to take out ANY of their counterparts during that ONE tank-vs-tank engagement.

Of the total of 3000+ tanks the Red Army reported lost "only" ~1200 were combat casualties. And of those they reported ~300 being write offs. Those figures do not however include for example the ~200 - 300 AFV's captured by the Finnish troops as it seems only the Isthmus front casualties are on record.

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Marlow:

So, 300 German tanks to the loss of 10 SP TDs. Even factoring in normal kill inflation, and subtracting out the few kills that the towed TDs (AT guns) made, this is impressive.

Correct me if I am wrong, but aren't you comparing total German losses caused by all TDs (SP and towed) throughout the campaign against US SP TD losses in the first week? Or am I missing something very obvious?

[Marlow]

Originally posted by Andreas:

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

So, 300 German tanks to the loss of 10 SP TDs. Even factoring in normal kill inflation, and subtracting out the few kills that the towed TDs (AT guns) made, this is impressive.

Correct me if I am wrong, but aren't you comparing total German losses caused by all TDs (SP and towed) throughout the campaign against US SP TD losses in the first week? Or am I missing something very obvious? </font>

[William amos]

Found thie website

Tanks

Theatre Tanks lost/Mines /ATG /Tanks /SPG/ATHH

NW Europe (1305) /22.1/22.7%/14.5%/24.4%/14.2%

Italy (671) /30% /16% /12% /26% /9%

N Africa (1734) /19.5%/ 40.3%/38.2%/ nil/ nil

Tank type Mines AT guns Tanks SP guns Bazooka

Sherman 24.6% 41.4% 60.5% 54.3% 44.7%

Churchill 14.7% 45% 46.7% 30% 14.7%

Stuart 34.6% 29.8% 51.7% * *

Crusader * 38.5% 41.7%

Cromwell, Valentine,

Matilda, Grant 17.4% 34.4% 28.6% * *

d 4.8% 18% 21.8% 20.4% 18%

oddly enough is written by member of this BBS

"I have no idea why Shermans should apparently find tanks more

productive of crew casualties than AT guns or SPs, nor why it

should be apparently so (relatively) safe to be knocked-out by

an AT gun if riding in a Stuart. Overall, though, being in a

brewed-up Sherman appears to be not much more dangerous than

being in an average brewed-up tank.

All the best,

John D Salt."

[ May 06, 2003, 07:01 PM: Message edited by: William amos ]

[Tero]

Originally posted by Marlow:

Nope. You are correct however, the passage does state that SP TDs had most of the kills.

The passage credits the kills to the BATTALIONS, not SP TD's in particular. The SP vs towed gun losses were 1:6 in favour of the SP's.

On the tank losses in ETO some average on-hand and loss figures (total):

M4's, average monthly (June 6 44 - Jan 20th 45) on-hand figure 2900, reported lost 2855 (Nov 20 44 - Jan 20 45 on-hand 4318, reported lost 1080.)

NOTE no figure for February available.

M3, M5, M24's average monthly (June 6 44 - Feb 20th 45) on-hand figure 2050, reported lost 1069 (Nov 20 44 - Feb 20 45 on-hand 2885, reported lost 435)

M10TD average monthly (June 6 44 - Feb 20th 45) on-hand figure 695, reported lost 439 (Nov 20 44 - Feb 20 45 on-hand 748, reported lost 237)

M18TD average monthly (June 6 44 - Feb 20th 45) on hand figure 237, reported lost 120 (Nov 20 44 - Feb 20 45 on-hand 355, reported lost 87)

EDIT: source: data kindly given by Mr Anderson at the Dupuy Institute.

[ May 07, 2003, 03:56 AM: Message edited by: Tero ]

[Sergei]

Originally posted by Tero:

IIRC the Finnish tanks did not manage to take out ANY of their counterparts during that ONE tank-vs-tank engagement.

Well, it is a slight deficiency. But surely the loss ratio speaks for itself and a serious-minded historian neglects everything else!

Of the total of 3000+ tanks the Red Army reported lost "only" ~1200 were combat casualties. And of those they reported ~300 being write offs. Those figures do not however include for example the ~200 - 300 AFV's captured by the Finnish troops as it seems only the Isthmus front casualties are on record.

Yes, this is the statistics published in 1997 by Maksim Kolomiets (except that he says technical defects counted 1275, battle losses 1904). But it really only includes the losses in the Isthmus. There is another report by professor M. Semirjaga from 1990, according to which out of the 6541 Soviet tanks in the theater Finns destroyed 2268. This according to Käkelä's book.

As an aside, Kolomiets' figures tell that 110 tanks were lost in the Isthmus by sinking to water.

[Tero]

Originally posted by Sergei:

Well, it is a slight deficiency.

With only one tank-vs-tank engagement fought during the three months I felt it needed to be mentioned.

But surely the loss ratio speaks for itself and a serious-minded historian neglects everything else!

The wonderful world of statistics.

Yes, this is the statistics published in 1997 by Maksim Kolomiets (except that he says technical defects counted 1275, battle losses 1904).

winterwar.com is offline so I had to go by memory.

But it really only includes the losses in the Isthmus. There is another report by professor M. Semirjaga from 1990, according to which out of the 6541 Soviet tanks in the theater Finns destroyed 2268. This according to Käkelä's book.

I'll have to dig that up.

As an aside, Kolomiets' figures tell that 110 tanks were lost in the Isthmus by sinking to water.

That would be consistent with the nature of the later operations when they were attacking over the ice in the Gulf of Finland.

[Marlow]

Originally posted by Tero:

The passage credits the kills to the BATTALIONS, not SP TD's in particular. The SP vs towed gun losses were 1:6 in favour of the SP's.

" Whereas self-propelled tank destroyers scored the most kills, towed battalions suffered the heavier losses ..."

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Marlow:

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

The passage credits the kills to the BATTALIONS, not SP TD's in particular. The SP vs towed gun losses were 1:6 in favour of the SP's.

" Whereas self-propelled tank destroyers scored the most kills, towed battalions suffered the heavier losses ..." </font>

[Marlow]

Originally posted by Andreas:

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

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

The passage credits the kills to the BATTALIONS, not SP TD's in particular. The SP vs towed gun losses were 1:6 in favour of the SP's.

" Whereas self-propelled tank destroyers scored the most kills, towed battalions suffered the heavier losses ..." </font>

[Tero]

Originally posted by Marlow:

Wasn't commenting on that, I was pointing out to Tero that he was mistaken regarding what the passage did say.

And I stand corrected. I focused on the

statisticians credited the tank destroyer battalions with the destruction of 306 enemy tanks bit while going through the data I have on the US armoured losses. Compared to the data I have the claim about the SP TD performance during the Ardennes campaign seemed a bit overstated.

[JasonC]

The armor loss ratio in the west was under 2:1 in favor of the Germans, and may have been more like 1:1.

US losses of mediums to all causes only come to around 3500. Hard numbers on Brit TWOs are harder to come by.

The Brits were about half the force, or roughly the same size as the US force, at the begining of the campaign in France, but were more like a fourth of the force by the end. It is unlikely their TWOs of mediums came to more than the Americans in absolute terms, given the smaller portion of the force they represented over the period take as a whole.

Brit losses may have been higher than those of the US in Normandy, but the US took the brunt of the winter counterattacks, which was the only other time the western Allies face serious masses of German armor (meaning 4 digits rather than 3).

Overall western allied armor losses are probably bounded above by 10k, even counting lights, and 5-7k is a more likely range for mediums and up.

The Germans sent 2500 medium and heavier AFVs to Normandy and only about 250 survived the breakout period. They sent around 500 more west in the early fall, for the Lorraine counterattacks and the like, in the Panzer brigades, to the Aachen battle, etc. Few of these were left by the end of September and essentially none by the end of the attrition period of "westwall" fighting.

The Bulge and Alsace counterattacks involved about as much armor as the Normandy period, with at best perhaps 1000 AFVs surviving. Some were sent east after Bulge failed, others left in the west and gradually lost, along with limited amounts of late war stuff. So German TWOs in the west (mediums and up) are on the order of 5k.

To spell out the reasoning there, of the AFVs that fought in the west, the survivors of the Bulge and Alsace period sent east are the only significant "debit" entry (since nothing remains at the end). The panzer brigade losses in the fall, and late war armor sent west after the winter counterattacks, equal or exceed the total of winter survivor AFVs sent east. Therefore, Normandy plus winter counterattack force is equal to, or less than, TWOs in the west.

If you stick to just the US, it is pretty clear the score was about even. About 1000 of the German AFV losses in the Normandy period are identifiably suffered on the US portion of the front. Those German AFV losses to the Americans were divided between the attrition period (17SS and Lehr especially), the breakout (116 Panzer especially), and the Mortain counterattack (2 Panzer, SS).

Several hundred are lost in the September Lorraine campaign - at least 250, perhaps 500. (The panzer brigades plus smaller numbers from 11 Panzer, 3 and 15 Pz Gdr). The Bulge and Alsace losses are virtually all due to the US (there was a tiny Brit contribution to the late Bulge fighting, but it was basically out of their sector).

Naturally, losses to armor come from a variety of sources, not simply from enemy armor. Brit to German losses can show a higher ratio simply because less armor was used on the Brit part of the front after Normandy, making it harder to "score", while the Brits continued to lose tanks to guns, fausts, mines, etc. But the Germans did not outscore the Americans in absolute number of tanks killed, and if they outscored the combined allies it was by a modest margin (under 2:1, probably no better than 3:2).

I realize that is not conventional wisdom to a lot of people, who seem to think Shermans were death traps etc, and therefore assume the western allies took much higher losses but won through by sheer numbers. But the total loss data is available for the US and it is very clear - armor losses were quite low.

They were concentrated in the two periods when large amounts of German armor were faced - Normandy and the Bulge. If armor losses had run at those rates the whole time, then Allied armor losses might have been as high as some seem to think. But those were month long exceptional periods, not the normal state of things in the west. A typical armor battalion outside of those periods was losing only about a tank a week. It was three times safer to be in a tank than in the infantry, over the war as a whole.

Meanwhile on the German side, large scale operational defeats led to the total loss of huge portions of the engaged armor. On the order of 90% in Normandy and Lorraine, not that high but still very large in the Bulge and Alsace. To get away from such defeats, a tank needs to survive battle without serious damage, still be in running order, and not run out of gas. On a time scale of a day or a week that is not too tall an order. On a time scale of a month or two during a losing campaign, it was a very tall order.

[ May 07, 2003, 04:09 PM: Message edited by: JasonC ]

[Hannibal]

It would be interesting to see soviet tank losses from d-day on . The russians did fight the german armoured forces when they were at their peak .I assume german armour from a numbers standpoint not qualiy of tanks was much diminished from 41-43 .

[Tero]

Originally posted by Hannibal:

It would be interesting to see soviet tank losses from d-day on . The russians did fight the german armoured forces when they were at their peak .I assume german armour from a numbers standpoint not qualiy of tanks was much diminished from 41-43 .

IIRC in When Titans Clashed there is an appendix which gives the official Soviet loss figures per operation.

The figures are most likely for write offs only. For example the tank losses for Vyborg-Petrozavodsk operation are listed as heving been ~300. The Finnish claim is 600-1000 depending on the source so that would make 1 write off per 2-3 KO'd.

[Jarmo]

I wonder how many of the destroyed german tanks had previously ran out of gas and abandoned.

Here's a theory how a fictional engagement might have been:

A german counterattack with 20 tanks meets a bunch of AT guns. 2 PzIV's are knocked out, as are 5x US 57mm guns.

Germans pull back a few kilometers, try to flank by northside.

12x US planes strafe the tank column. One tank suffers track damage and is abandoned. Planes report 16 tanks destroyed.

The abandoned tank is later strafed by two separate planes. Both report it destroyed, US tank destroyers set it burning and report a kill.

Germans decide to call it a day and withdraw.

The fuel resupply is not availlable, truck had been strafed by US planes.

Germans decide to wait for resupply.

Tanks are again strafed by US planes. No damage, planes report 8 tanks destroyed.

Germans decide to withdraw, 10 of the tanks run out of fuel and are abandoned.

US tank destroyers destroy the abandoned tanks. 10 kills, no losses for the destroyers.

[SgtMuhammed]

You could also throw in:

Two Shermans enter what they think is a friendly town at night and are destroyed by infantry. Crews escape on foot.

At same time platoon in forward outpost report destroying two Panzers that pushed into the town at night. The platoon withdraws.

[88mm]

At the Battlefront-series at discovery they tell a whole different story. They calculated that the allies needed at least 4/5 shermans to make a good chance againts a panther/tiger. 1 a 2 to meet head-on, and the rest to outflank it. This was even more the case in the early days/weeks/months after D-day. They didn't have the "jumbo's" and "Fireflies" availible then. Even worse, most Shermans were equiped with the obsulete 75mm. Later on the 76mm became more and more availible to give the Sherman's the much needed punch to have a better change against those "cats". Also the Jumbo's and Fireflies came, but only in small numbers compared to the bulk of the standard, Shermans 75mm/76mm.

Air-supremacy gave the Allies the edge. Without it, the allies would have seen a whole different D-day and/or Normandy for that metter. Remember how they broke the lines with Operation "torch".

1000+ bombers lay down a carpet, nearly completely wiping out the Lebenstandard "div".