John Kettler Posted September 24, 2006 Author Share Posted September 24, 2006 Regarding this discussion of Russian AP vs German tank armor, there is a remarkable picture, which I think is from Kursk, of a dead Tiger I being examined by Russian tankers in TANKS & WEAPONS OF WORLD WAR II, Beekman House, page 89. The picture is very close in, showing part of the side armor, with several nonpenetrating hits visible, and the brutalized turret, which shows some six hits, at least one of which penetrated the turret side completely. Clearly visible are impact fractures from two of the hits, together with what looks like at least one partial penetration by arrowhead shot and what appears to be a substantial mark left by an HE round's detonating. This picture is one of the most remarkable pictures of tank damage I've ever seen. Also, the breakdown of Das Reich's Panzer & SP inventory at Kursk has some real surprises, not least the fact that of the Panzer IVs in this elite unit, 25% were still short barreled models. Unfortunately, no such breakdown is given for the Panzer IIIs. Captured T-34s amounted to nearly 2/3 of Panzer IV strength, and StuGs outnumbered Panzer IVs by 10%. http://www.dasreich.ca/kursk.html This excerpt from SLEDGEHAMMERS describes where the Tigers were used at Kursk, how, and notes the rapid drawdown of Tiger strength. There's also a new tidbit about Tiger mounted mine detection rollers and an account of a verified action between a ZIS-3 battery and Tigers. No open fire range given, though. http://www.aberjonapress.com/catalog/sh/excerpt.html From a review of the same book, we learn that 41% of all Tigers were destroyed by their own crews and 45% by enemy action. http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/AH2FXOA20ZFP7?ie=UTF8 Deconstructing Prokhorovka essay (loads of data) http://www.uni.edu/~licari/citadel.htm This isn't Kursk, but it beautifully depicts the myriad bad things which could happen to Tigers. Must've been loads of fun to be in the tank hit 8 times by SU-122 fire! The list of mechanical failures is amazing, and there's even a gun hit. http://members.shaw.ca/grossdeutschland/tigers.htm In closing, I wanted to note that a search under "kursk, pictures" brought up all kinds of wonderful stuff, including separate shots of a zveroboi lying wait and a Panther with a 152?mm hole clear through its flank. Was blown away by seeing Russian soldiers apparently crewing Nebelwerfers. Regards, John Kettler [ September 24, 2006, 09:01 AM: Message edited by: John Kettler ] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JasonC Posted September 24, 2006 Share Posted September 24, 2006 JK - any chance you can scan and post via imageshack? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JasonC Posted September 24, 2006 Share Posted September 24, 2006 Andreas - agreed on what happens to layered plate hit more than once. I've read a couple accounts of it that have the overlay plate shattered by an impact and hanging off, protecting only one corner etc, the rest of the underlying plate laid bare. Seen it mentioned as a reason for withdrawing from further action. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Der Alte Fritz Posted September 24, 2006 Share Posted September 24, 2006 Good we seem to have reached a sensible arrangement on the 76mm gun. What about the 85mm gun and its inferior ammunition in 1943? This affects the 85mm AT regts at Kursk and the SU-85 from Sept till 1944. Principal use of this weapon was as a Tiger killer as detailed on Russian Battlefield site. "In September 1943, during the Dnieper crossing, there was the very first usage of SU-85's. This TD become a very popular in the Red Army due to its powerful gun that was able to penetrate German Tigers and Panthers from a quite long distances." Since you cannot change the Tiger PzIVE, in a manner similar to JasonCs suggestion above, can you set the scenario designer to 1944, buy an SU-85 and then reset it to July 1943 and hence avoid the ammo penalty? The scale of this effect is well known but to give an example, on a firing range against 3 stationary and empty Tigers and firng 3 SU-85s at 500m. On average in 1943 it takes two moves to get the first KO and four moves for all the Tigers to be KOed. Many hits but most have the shell break up. In 1944 all are killed in the first move and many with the first hit. cheers 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Kettler Posted September 24, 2006 Author Share Posted September 24, 2006 JasonC, Unfortunately, no, since I have no usable scanner at present. Have tried to track down the picture on the Net, but so far, no joy. If it helps any, though, the photo credit is to Novosti Press Agency. Regards, John Kettler 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Der Alte Fritz Posted September 24, 2006 Share Posted September 24, 2006 There is a picture in Purnells History of the Second World War of two Russian tankers beside the turret of a Tiger examining 6 shell hits. One os sitting on the Tiger and the other is standing on the ground with his finger in one of the holes. Is this the one John? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JasonC Posted September 24, 2006 Share Posted September 24, 2006 DAF - changing the date only at the time you put in the SUs doesn't work. But you can do it last, and leave the scenario date 1944, with all the other forces put in being 1943 types etc. So at the time the SU-85s or 85mm AA are added, the scenario date reads 1944, and when it is actually played, it also reads 1944. The ammo will be 1944 ammo. Just make a "1944 scenario" but put in 1943 weapons mixes and infantry types, in other words. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Der Alte Fritz Posted September 24, 2006 Share Posted September 24, 2006 John Further to your breakdown of Das Reich, Zetterling has the complete unit breakdown day by day. This shows on 4th July: PzIII 5cm/L42 1 PzIII 5cm/L60 47 PzIV 75cm/L45/48 30 PzVI 12 Marders 8 StuG 33 T34 18 so quite a mixture really. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Kettler Posted September 24, 2006 Author Share Posted September 24, 2006 Der Alte Fritz, Yes, that's the one. I simply have the U.S. version. Can you scan it on your end and post it to ImageShack or similar under Fair Use? Appreciate the Das Reich clarification! Apparently, stubby IIIs were rare compared to stubby IVs. Sure wouldn't have wanted to fight T-34s and Pakfronts in a stubby IV! Regards, John Kettler 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Der Alte Fritz Posted September 24, 2006 Share Posted September 24, 2006 John Kettlers Tiger Damage Photo: According to Zetterling there were only 34 75mm Pz III spread across 3rd 6th 7th and 19th Pz Div. Short 50mm Pz III appears in only one unit: 3rd SS Pz-Grn Totenkopf who have a staggering 59! Everyone else had the L60. Obviously the tank resupply officer had met some dodgy used car salesman in the remount department who off loaded his whole stock of our of date Pz IIIs! cheers 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JasonC Posted September 25, 2006 Share Posted September 25, 2006 There were a smattering of short 50s in other units, mostly being used as command tanks. 2 here and 3 there, etc. There were around 60 short 75 split between newer IIIs and older IVs. Even the long 50 IIIs were rare. With Marders, those combined made the bottom 1/6th of the fleet, which was 1942 vintage, basically. The top 1/6th of the fleet were the heavies - Tigers, Elephants, Panthers, Brummbars, Nashorns if you want to count them as heavies. The middle 2/3rds were all long 75 vehicles with 80mm fronts, split between Panzer IVs (the majority) and StuGs. That was the 1943 vintage and dominated the force mix. By 1944 the older types were gone and the weight shifted to 33-67 improved vs. average types, mostly because of more numerous Panthers. It was never the case that the average vehicle in the field was appreciably superior to the Pz IV long and StuG standard already seen at Kursk. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Kettler Posted September 25, 2006 Author Share Posted September 25, 2006 Der Alte Fritz, Thanks for posting the picture. Much better than my description! How did we go from short 50mm armed threes to III/Ns with the short 75s. I believe these were originally at least in those hybrid Tiger initial formations, in which the concept was that the III/Ns would keep local threats away, allowing the Tigers to focus on serious longer range killing. JasonC, Your data base and knowledge continue to blow my mind. Regards, John Kettler 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andreas Posted September 25, 2006 Share Posted September 25, 2006 There were still 30-40 50L42 armed IIIs in 12. PD which was scheduled to go in on the northern shoulder, but then sent to deal with the Orel offensive (Kutuzov). Outdated models present in Zitadelle: P II: 73 P 38(t): 10 P III (kurz): 83 P IV (kurz): 50 StuG III (kurz): 11 P III (7,5cm): 132 Also 41 Flammenwerferpanzer III 101 Panzerbefehlswagen III Numbers are from Töppel, he quotes OKH, Panzerlage, BA-MA RH 10/60 as source. All the best Andreas 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Battlefront.com Posted September 26, 2006 Share Posted September 26, 2006 JasonC, The guys who made the game are perfectly willing to learn some things and the fix some mistakes. Others they are not. CMBB is a great game, that is why I am still playing it years after it came out, and providing players with scenarios etc. But it has its flaws and players need to know about them. Trying to get them to believe they aren't there is beyond the competence of the designers. They merely made the game - we play it - and we play it how we jolly well please in full awareness of all its weaknesses.Uhm... yeah, but you also directly accused us of fudging the game to benefit "German fanboys" and that said fanboys were the ones that were responsible for testing, data, etc. Since you couldn't be more wrong, I called you on it. Now we get the backpeddling where it appears now you are just accusing us of occasionally being wrong and not listening sometimes. I don't have a problem with that since we can be wrong (and openly admit when we are) and at this point we really don't care what the deal is with captured T-34s in a game that we released nearly 4 years ago. We aren't stopping what we are doing now to go back and reexamine some obscure little part of a huge game. If things are broken in the game now, they will be broken forever. To clarify a few things... Exeprience = Experience. There is no difference for any nation at any time in the war for any of the three CM games we made. If something says Regular it is equal to Regular of some other nation. There are no national modifiers. The Command Delays are another matter. These simulate the degree of tactical flexibility a unit had for a given nation based on a given timeframe. The more experienced a unit is the less of a negative effect this has in terms of delays. It has no effect on combat performance. We purposefully erred on the side of too much tactical flexibility, both for game reasons and to not be overly harsh with something that is a force wide abstraction. For example, in the real war a 1941 German Rifle Squad with Regular experience might actually have an indecisive Squad Leader and therefore experience far more delays than a Green Soviet Rifle Squad who has a very strong Squad Leader. This would have been extremely problematic for us and gamers so we went with a general modifier force wide. Steve 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andreas Posted September 26, 2006 Share Posted September 26, 2006 Thanks for the correction on experience Steve. All the best Andreas 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Der Alte Fritz Posted September 27, 2006 Share Posted September 27, 2006 John INcluded info on short 75 Pz III so that you had an overall picture of the fleet, short/long 50 and short 75. It is interesting that the SS had many more tanks than their Panzer Division counterparts. But although they had more standard tanks, a lot of the extra numbers are older models, captured tanks or assault guns. So you could have scenarios involving the ss where they have to fight in obselete vehicles rather then the usual uber ones. cheers 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cuirassier Posted September 27, 2006 Share Posted September 27, 2006 "It is interesting that the SS had many more tanks than their Panzer Division counterparts." The SS was obviously favored, being an organization created by Hitler. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andreas Posted September 27, 2006 Share Posted September 27, 2006 It is not quite as simple and straightforward as that. All the best Andreas 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Dorosh Posted September 27, 2006 Share Posted September 27, 2006 Originally posted by Cuirassier: "It is interesting that the SS had many more tanks than their Panzer Division counterparts." The SS was obviously favored, being an organization created by Hitler. The Wehrmacht was also an organization created by Hitler. Ditto the Luftwaffe... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hammer-n-Sickle Posted September 27, 2006 Share Posted September 27, 2006 The Wehrmacht was also an organization created by Hitler I believe that German Armed forces were around before Hitler or the rize of the nazi party. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sergei Posted September 27, 2006 Share Posted September 27, 2006 Originally posted by Hammer-n-Sickle: </font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> The Wehrmacht was also an organization created by Hitler I believe that German Armed forces were around before Hitler or the rize of the nazi party. </font> 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hammer-n-Sickle Posted September 27, 2006 Share Posted September 27, 2006 Perhaps I should have said something along the lines of the Reichswehr being renamed to the Wehrmacht. Not created by ol Papa Adolph 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cuirassier Posted September 28, 2006 Share Posted September 28, 2006 Though, I don't think it can be argued, especially late war, that Hitler did not favor the SS more than the Heer. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andreas Posted September 28, 2006 Share Posted September 28, 2006 Originally posted by Hammer-n-Sickle: Perhaps I should have said something along the lines of the Reichswehr being renamed to the Wehrmacht. Not created by ol Papa Adolph The Reichswehr did not have a Luftwaffe and it was a professional army. The Wehrmacht as a full armed force based on conscription, and incorporating Army, Navy, and Air Force, was a creation of Hitler. What he did went far beyond renaming. Michael is right. All the best Andreas 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andreas Posted September 28, 2006 Share Posted September 28, 2006 Originally posted by Cuirassier: Though, I don't think it can be argued, especially late war, that Hitler did not favor the SS more than the Heer. Correct, but by 1943 this was much less the case. All the best Andreas 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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