Pz IV Mark H-J model vs Sherman T-34

[undead reindeer cavalry]

Originally posted by michael kenny:

Then the absurdity of sweeping statements (asserting that US tank Units destroyed more Panzers than they lost Shermans) is exposed for all to see.

good luck to you, but spinning the stats is the name of the game on this board. once you have proven the absurdity you will just get silence. then after a week or two you will see the same nonsense repeated again.

[pamak1970]

Originally posted by michael kenny:

A quote from Zetterling's book that should give some people pause for thought:

"Even though many (German)tank Units had perhaps less than 10% of their original tanks still operational at the end of the battle of Falaise, this does not mean that the rest had been lost"

As I said Jason get the book and read it. Perhaps it would increase your understanding of the subject.

German tanks/Stugs found at Mortain = 46.

German tanks/Stugs found in Falaise pocket = 320.

German tanks/stugs found west of the Seine = 150

total 516

I am with you on this subject and i have also expressed issues in other threads regarding Jason's BATTLEFIELD interpretations of "the average equipment destroying a single enemy one during its operation life" which by the way ,i have never heard that it is the first theorem of operations research.

Still regarding this specific issue here You are arguing about i am cautious cause i am not familiar with the subject and I try to form an opinion reading a huge amount of numbers.

I think up until now if your numbers are right (and i have not seen anyone refuting the allied tank losses),do give a better tank exchange in favor of Germans.

It also does not make sense to compare German losses counting both TWO and under repair to losses of TWO of the allies.Reading your link i noticed that the number of tank losses on American side imply TWOs by the armies.Can you confirm that?

Also, is it the same for the British losses?

Regarless of the above i Still have few remarks

First according to your latest post

total number of tanks and stug found in Mortain ,falaise and west of Seine is 516.

Now,from what i read this area is the battlefield for the August month.

So, it IS possible to have four hundred something Panzers destroyed (or captured) during a period of two weeks .

counting from Mortain counterattack 7 August to around 20th of month.

I also noticed that the figures of German tank losses for August provided in your link list only 105

August – 49 Pz-IV(l), 41 Pz-V, 15 Pz-VI (L56) = 105

I think this is relevant with the argument that during retreat a lot of accounting was simply lost during confusion up until September when things stabilized.

So i guess a portion of the high German casualties during September,(1228 according to your numbers), does include the number of tanks lost in Falaise-west of Seine (400 more than the figure you gave which i guess came from German documents during August).

Still there are 800 more tank losses for this month -September and always assuming that the numbers You provide are accurate, it is still interesting to see thoughts about this number.

Is it cause of sometype of major armor operations north of Seine during September?

Is it cause of German retreat during September and the inability to support techinically and logistically the vehicles that have to march long distances back ?

Is it a combination of both of the above?

Is it a matter of not accurate numbers about German losses during June -July and August,or perhaps additional tank reinforcements during September?

And finally is it a matter of some type of misunderstanding from my part regarding what i read?

[realest]

I've always been under the impression that a decent percentage of the German tank losses were likely due to air attacks. Many accounts i've read and shows i've watched on History Channel, etc. have all had the same outlook.

The German crews said they were not allowed to move during the day due to the near complete air superiority that the allies had. It was something Rommel worried about quite a bit, and was one of his chief complaints about the African Campaign as i understand things.

I'm betting that letting a dive bomber get the ememy was the tank crews preferred way of tank busting especially since it kept themselves out of harms way. The german Stukas were quite good at it at least early in the war.

I've seen many pictures where it looked as though small colums of tanks or vehicles had been caught by air strike. So in this context, and thoughts about pure German tank superiority i'd say that higher sherman losses on a tank to tank duke out would be expected.

This is just another thought that crossed my mind. Only an opionion.

[DavidFields]

If I am not mistaken, I believe there have been some very good threads which demonstrate that the tank losses from aircraft where....not nearly as impressive as is generally believed.

[realest]

I'll have to look Rank... so many threads here!

[Sergei]

Based on those discussions, for instance in Normandy the greatest effect from aircraft was on the supply. A tank needs a very close hit from a large bomb to be knocked out, but even machinegun strafe suffices to take out trucks. It also hampered operational movement.

Here is one long thread.

[ November 02, 2006, 12:27 PM: Message edited by: Sergei ]

[michael kenny]

The US loss figures are pretty accurate. The UK ones are incomplete as total loss and damaged are sometimes counted together. The German June and July figures should be considered correct but the August figure is only a partial count. The German September losses include the majority of those Panzers lost in August.

If it were not this confusing then we would have had the loss figures revealed a long time ago. The prevailing opinion used to be the '10 Shermans for 1 Tiger' myth, death ride of the UK Armour AT Goodwood ect. By struggling with the (conflicting) data we can get the upper and lower limit for the actual losses. For the period to September the ratio was just under 2:1 in the German favour.

The life-line for the Uber-Panzer faithful is trying to find how many German tanks simply ran out of fuel and were abandonned undamaged. They seem to have been a substantial portion of the total and by subtracting them from the equation we get .... "but most German tanks were not knocked out and so are not really destroyed"...........

The myth of the high scoring Tigers and Panthers marches on untroubled by reality!

It is plain that though the Panzers did not rack up multiple scores they did outperform the Allied Units. You can find examples where they came unstuck and were destroyed in numbers but OVERALL they got more bang for the mark than the Allies managed.

[michael kenny]

strange that Jason has changed his views recently.

Originally posted by JasonC:

The average German AFV with superior armament took out 1 to 1.5 enemy AFVs over its operational life. Panthers might have scored as high as 3. Tigers might have scored as high as 5, making them far above average weapon system.

posted August 16, 2005 10:24 AM

from this page:

http://www.battlefront.com/cgi-bin/bbs/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=30;t=004196;p=4

[zmoney]

Originally posted by michael kenny:

strange that Jason has changed his views recently.

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

The average German AFV with superior armament took out 1 to 1.5 enemy AFVs over its operational life. Panthers might have scored as high as 3. Tigers might have scored as high as 5, making them far above average weapon system.

posted August 16, 2005 10:24 AM

from this page:

http://www.battlefront.com/cgi-bin/bbs/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=30;t=004196;p=4 </font>

[michael kenny]

Originally posted by zmoney:

[QB] like a lot of folks here have read many of Jason’s posts. I don’t think that what you quoted really contradicts what he has always said. My take on what he has said is this; he says that most German armor on average takes out one piece of allied armor during its life span

To me he said that US armour always knocked out more Panzers than their Sherman losses. He also said US tactics were superior to UK practise and that the US always triumphed. I also remember his quote that the UK was always 'stuffed' by the Germans.

Heavier German armor averages a bit better with one Tiger scoring 5 kills through out his life and Panthers scoring 3 kills.

I doubt you will find anything that backs that assumption.

My question regarding this debate is, are you arguing that PZIV’s faired better in tank vs tank duels than they’re Sherman counterparts or are you just saying that the Allies lost more tanks in Normandy? If you are saying the Allies lost more tanks I would agree but I doubt it was due to the PZIV.

The Allies lost more tanks than the Germans, no question. To my ears Jason says that the German losses to August 11th were higher and he did some conjuring tricks with the German strength reports to reach this conclusion.

[Melnibone]

Originally posted by undead reindeer cavalry:

good luck to you, but spinning the stats is the name of the game on this board. once you have proven the absurdity you will just get silence. then after a week or two you will see the same nonsense repeated again.

lol..very true

[pamak1970]

My question regarding this debate is, are you arguing that PZIV’s faired better in tank vs tank duels than they’re Sherman counterparts

The way i see it, even if someone manages to find reliable information regarding the outcome of tank ratio losses between PZivs and Sherman, it is still not adequate to compare effectivess in general .

Take for example one of the many factors that influence effectiveness in a specific battle but does not really show true effectiveness under equal terms.

That is combat ratio.

The bigger side in the engagement (not nessesesary in theater or area of operations) ,has an advantage in inflicting more causalties to the smaller one .

That is accepted both in military operations theory and it is backed up by historical experience.

The most easy to way to see this is by considering the following example.

Two divisions of the same army and same equipment fight against each other in a meeting engagement.

Most people by intuition will accept the claim that it will be bad for one divisional commander to see his division engage the opposite one in piecemeal.

Say for example seeing each regiment in succession fights alone,even if it assumes defence, against the whole "enemy division" .

Although theoritically each regiment for both divisions has the same effectiveness like the other ones, still in real world ,the perfomance is going to be very different if the regiments engage the enemy piecemeal in three different battles with a ratio of one to three than if they engage as part of the whole in a single battle with a ratio of one to one.

Rommel loved to concentrate attacks (more demanding than defence)against British brigades scattered through out the desert.

[ November 03, 2006, 09:09 AM: Message edited by: pamak1970 ]

[pamak1970]

sorry double post

[Corvidae]

Ugh, its become a total blizzard of kaka in here ,

[GhostRider3/3]

no doubt.... Corvidae.

As to the post by Pamak1970

"The bigger side in the engagement (not nessesesary in theater or area of operations) ,has an advantage in inflicting more causalties to the smaller one .

That is accepted both in military operations theory and it is backed up by historical experience."

Yes theoritcialy, however look at the many engagements were tactical training superceeded numbers.

300 Spartans totaly outnumbered vs Persians 480 BC.

The many times the Romans were outnumbered by their enemies..and still won the field.

Germans in the East Front, Africa, West Front.

US and Coalition in Iraq

Numbers do not mean that you will win, especialy in todays Military theories. Numbers helps but History proves that with a skilled stratagist, you can bleed their numbers.

[Grumbling Grognard]

The Panzer can not hold a candle to either the Sherman or the T34 'in reality'. The tank was just not as servicable in the field. ONE tank of any type WHERE IT NEEDS TO BE is worth more than any number of Panzers many klicks away because of fuel/parts/road conditions, etc

Then, consider that when the Sherman faced T34s in Korea, the Shermans gave better than they got 'every single time'.

My two cents,

GG

[Sergei]

Originally posted by GhostRider3/3:

300 Spartans totaly outnumbered vs Persians 480 BC.

The many times the Romans were outnumbered by their enemies..and still won the field.

Germans in the East Front, Africa, West Front.

US and Coalition in Iraq

Numbers do not mean that you will win, especialy in todays Military theories. Numbers helps but History proves that with a skilled stratagist, you can bleed their numbers.

Eh... Spartans, Romans and Germans lost, and US troops aren't outnumbered in Iraq, so I don't see how that supports your point.

[Bigduke6]

Originally posted by GhostRider3/3:

no doubt.... Corvidae.

As to the post by Pamak1970

"The bigger side in the engagement (not nessesesary in theater or area of operations) ,has an advantage in inflicting more causalties to the smaller one .

That is accepted both in military operations theory and it is backed up by historical experience."

Yes theoritcialy, however look at the many engagements were tactical training superceeded numbers.

300 Spartans totaly outnumbered vs Persians 480 BC.

The many times the Romans were outnumbered by their enemies..and still won the field.

Germans in the East Front, Africa, West Front.

US and Coalition in Iraq

Numbers do not mean that you will win, especialy in todays Military theories. Numbers helps but History proves that with a skilled stratagist, you can bleed their numbers.

The political motives of Caesar's Gallic Wars aside, Hans Delbrueck's classic "War in Antiquity" showed pretty much conclusively that the Roman advantage in most battles was precisely superior numbers, due to superior logistics which in turn came from a superior road net, superior communications, and being able to draw manpower from settled agricultural society.

However, since they got to write the histories, the Roman propaganda that has come down to the superficial reader is "Rome was Rome because of discipline in the face of superior numbers." Like most empires, they liked to tell themselves that man-for-man they were much better fighters than the people they ruled, while closing their eyes to the technological advances that really gave them their military superiority.

There was a bit of doggeral from the British Empire that summed this up quite well:

"We fear neither Zulu, nor Bantu, nor Hottentot,

For we have the Maxim gun - and they have not."

For most every ancient battle where there is clear evidence the smaller side won - Cannae, Guagamela, maybe Pharsalus, and certainly Thermopolaye (spelling?) being the classics - there are dozens of battles where the side with superior force commanded intelligently left their opponents little chance, or the opposition just was stupid. For instance Carrhae, Issus, Ramphia, Magnesia, etc.

The WW2 North Africa campaign is another case in point. Rommel did what he did, but at the end it was the Germans decisively defeated in Tunisia. Not the Allies. Attrition trumped tactical razzle dazzle, as it almost always does.

Citing the U.S. invasion of Iraq as alleged proof numbers mean little in modern war, is little more than U.S. Defence Department propaganda and sloppy reasoning.

The Iraq war is in progress. When it is over, then we can decide if the force levels the U.S. brought to the table did any good or not. Making conclusions about the efficiency of U.S. arms in Iraq today is exactly as absurd, and logical, as deciding Germany had a conclusive and irrevocable edge over the Soviet Union after looking at East Front combat operations June 1941 - June 1942.

[pamak1970]

Originally posted by GhostRider3/3:

no doubt.... Corvidae.

As to the post by Pamak1970

"The bigger side in the engagement (not nessesesary in theater or area of operations) ,has an advantage in inflicting more causalties to the smaller one .

That is accepted both in military operations theory and it is backed up by historical experience."

Yes theoritcialy, however look at the many engagements were tactical training superceeded numbers.

300 Spartans totaly outnumbered vs Persians 480 BC.

The many times the Romans were outnumbered by their enemies..and still won the field.

Germans in the East Front, Africa, West Front.

US and Coalition in Iraq

Numbers do not mean that you will win, especialy in todays Military theories. Numbers helps but History proves that with a skilled stratagist, you can bleed their numbers.

I will put it more clear cause i think there is a misunderstanding.

Of course there are cases where the lower in number side wins.

Of course in most cases it is the superior maneuver that manages the weaker side to be stronger at the decisive point at the right time.

Napoleon who was many times outnumbered used to say that the biggest battalion always wins.

Theoritically though, i will put it somewhat different.

A weaker force is able to win against a larger one for various reasons and force multipliers it might have sustaining x casualties.

Still if the same battle was "replayed" with the weaker force having more numbers than before, the causalties for the winner would most probably be even lower .

P.S a remark here is that there are many cases where the weak in numbers side is still stronger cause of some force multipliers .Nevertheless the theoritical approach expressed before applies in the same way.

That is if the same side possesed more numbers , it would most probably sustain less casualties against the same enemy in the same enviroment.

[ November 06, 2006, 01:57 PM: Message edited by: pamak1970 ]

[Guest Mike]

Romans were hardly ever outnumbered by their enemies, with a very few famous examples such as Sulla vs the Pontic armies in Greece. Caesar was a master of propaganda and invariably inflated enemy numbers to make himself look better!

for example the Roman army of 30,000 was defeated by 11,000 Parthians at Carrhae in 53BC - but yuo usually don't see the numbers quoted - it's usually jsut that hte romans weer surrounded by horse archers and were shot down from all angles ...

the 300 Spartans also had 1100 Thespians with them - indeed it was Thespians who regularly were the bravest of the Greeks - geting themselves wiped out on 2 or 3 occasions through voluntarily staying in suicidal positions - Spartans never did so in significant numbers but Thespe was a much smaller city, and its contingents were always a massive proportion of the population!

And of course the Spartans didn't win at Thermopylae....

[GhostRider3/3]

I never said they had to win... however they iflicted more casualties then they recieved.. even if they were wiped out.

[Guest Mike]

You said exactly that:

The many times the Romans were outnumbered by their enemies..and still won the field.

Romans were often wiped out by smaller numbers (eg Cannae, Carrhae), and often wrote nothing at all about such defeats (eg the defeats they suffered at the hands of the Teutones and Combri in 110-105BC before Marius defeated them).

[Andreas]

Originally posted by GhostRider3/3:

I never said they had to win... however they iflicted more casualties then they recieved.. even if they were wiped out.

Some question:

1) What were the Parthian/Germanic casualty numbers when Crassus'/Varus' legions were destroyed, i.e. what was the Roman casualty exchange ratio, and what do you base it on?

2) How do you manage to just come up with more nonsensical stuff in order to hide the fact that your original claim was nonsensical stuff, and do you think readers who took the time to respond to your nonsensical claim are stupid enough to not see through the fact that you simply have trouble admitting you are wrong?

Inquiring minds want to know.

All the best

Andreas

[GhostRider3/3]

We can talk about stats all day untill were all blue in the face.... wether you get your intell from Allied or Post Axis reports.

In the end unless you were there it dont mean a damn thing.. you can crunch numbers all you want.. all were edited for propaganda.

and as far as the 300 spartans with the 1000+ force of Thespians.. they were still outnumbered and I was abreiviating for those that have not researched that particular battle with the Persians.

Even though the Thespians and Spartans lost that battle, man for man they had a better kill ratio, due to training and tactics.

[John Kettler]

GhostRider3/3,

Don't forget the huge advantage in protection. Heavy brass faced hoplite shield, bronze helmet, laminated linen corselet w/wo metal plates and greaves against a force with at best (Immortals) wicker shield, no helmet, corselet equivalent and no greaves. Believe the hoplite spear was also longer and could thrust right through the wicker shield, but the Persian spear couldn't do the same. Rough comparison would be M1A1 HAs vs T-55s

.

Regards,

John Kettler