The Bouncing .50 cal - can it kill a tank?

[michael kenny]

Originally posted by Tero:

This would account for the fact the veterans stories and the official statistics speak a very different story about the loss rates of the Western Allied armoured units.

Much like the German Unit histories that say not many tanks were destroyed by the enemy in Normandy!

[McIvan]

Veteran's stories are of course self selecting. You don't get to read the myriads of (short) memoirs that would have gone something like this:

"I had three months of basic training, got shipped to France. Two days later on patrol I got shot through the head by an HMG firing on fixed lines".

Instead you get to read the ones who survived and more than likely managed to doa bit of counterbalancing.

They are also statistically more likely to be from units that suffered lighter casualties than average, simply because there are more survivors to write memoirs.

[Battlefront.com]

undead reindeer cavalry,

Email me when you get a chance. I have a question and your Forum linked email address is no good.

steve@battlefront.com

Steve

[JonS]

Originally posted by McIvan:

Veteran's stories are of course self selecting. You don't get to read the myriads of (short) memoirs that would have gone something like this:

"I had three months of basic training, got shipped to France. Two days later on patrol I got shot through the head by an HMG firing on fixed lines".

Well put.

They are also statistically more likely to be from units that suffered lighter casualties than average, simply because there are more survivors to write memoirs.

I know what you mean, but I'm not so sure about your conclusions. At the end of the war, a division that had been in the thick of things for years (like, say, 1st US Inf Div ) had roughly the same number of men as a division that had seen nearly no combat at all (like, say 97th US Inf Div). So from that point of view, both divisions had the same number of potential memoir authors.

Furthermore, in the case of 1st US Inf Div there are the literally thousands of former members who became POWs, or were injured and invalided out, or were injured and due to the vagaries of the US Repple Depple system ended up in some other unit. Adding those to the men actually in the division when the bullets stopped means that there are actually substantially more potential memoir authors in a division that had heavy cas compared to one that had few.

What a veteran division won't have, or have very very few of compared to a rookie division, is plank owners present at the end of hostilities, especially amongst the infantry units. As an anecdotal example; in George Wilson's memoirs as a company commander in 4th US Inf Div, he talks about a parade to be held in [?]early 1945[/?], to be composed of men who'd been involved in the UTAH assault waves on 6th June. Wilson's company had been one of those companies, although he hadn't joined it till mid-July. By the time of the parade there were no veterans of the assault left in the company, although there were presumably some left scattered about France, the UK, and the US.

Jon

[McIvan]

I concede your point, Jon...that last para of mine was a bit of an add-on.

[Tero]

Originally posted by michael kenny:

Much like the German Unit histories that say not many tanks were destroyed by the enemy in Normandy!

Infantry or Armoured unit histories ?

Depends how Normandy is defined. Since Hitler held back the armour back by definition the were not many tanks destroyed by the enemy in Normandy.

[ March 22, 2007, 09:07 PM: Message edited by: Tero ]

[Tero]

Originally posted by JonS:

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

Veteran's stories are of course self selecting. You don't get to read the myriads of (short) memoirs that would have gone something like this:

"I had three months of basic training, got shipped to France. Two days later on patrol I got shot through the head by an HMG firing on fixed lines".

Well put.

They are also statistically more likely to be from units that suffered lighter casualties than average, simply because there are more survivors to write memoirs.

I know what you mean, but I'm not so sure about your conclusions. At the end of the war, a division that had been in the thick of things for years (like, say, 1st US Inf Div ) had roughly the same number of men as a division that had seen nearly no combat at all (like, say 97th US Inf Div). So from that point of view, both divisions had the same number of potential memoir authors.

Furthermore, in the case of 1st US Inf Div there are the literally thousands of former members who became POWs, or were injured and invalided out, or were injured and due to the vagaries of the US Repple Depple system ended up in some other unit. Adding those to the men actually in the division when the bullets stopped means that there are actually substantially more potential memoir authors in a division that had heavy cas compared to one that had few.

What a veteran division won't have, or have very very few of compared to a rookie division, is plank owners present at the end of hostilities, especially amongst the infantry units. As an anecdotal example; in George Wilson's memoirs as a company commander in 4th US Inf Div, he talks about a parade to be held in [?]early 1945[/?], to be composed of men who'd been involved in the UTAH assault waves on 6th June. Wilson's company had been one of those companies, although he hadn't joined it till mid-July. By the time of the parade there were no veterans of the assault left in the company, although there were presumably some left scattered about France, the UK, and the US.

Jon </font>

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Tero:

Depends how Normandy is defined. Since Hitler held back the armour back by definition the were not many tanks destroyed by the enemy in Normandy.

All the best

Andreas

[undead reindeer cavalry]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

Email me when you get a chance. I have a question and your Forum linked email address is no good.

oops, that mail box had been shut down due to inactivity. that's what you get when you don't PBEM for a while.

[undead reindeer cavalry]

Originally posted by Tero:

The Red Army Winter War data shows 80% of the combat losses being repairable. Which seems reasonable given the more effective weapons the Germans had in their use.

yes, makes sense.

This would account for the fact the veterans stories and the official statistics speak a very different story about the loss rates of the Western Allied armoured units.

it's possible that official unit reports themselves don't show total losses, as units wouldn't know how many of the tanks sent for repair were unrepairable. if so, only army level totals would be accurate.

that would mean that when comparing German kill claims against a specific Allied unit you should not only count tanks the Allied unit itself has written-off but also include 40% of tanks it sent for repair.

for example 25th Tank Brigade reports for June 20th 1944:

fit - 194 tanks

temporarily unfit - 6 tanks

knocked out - 2 tanks

in workshops - 14 tanks

if 40% of tanks at workshops aren't repairable, then total write-offs would not be 2 tanks but 8 tanks.

(25th Tank Brigade numbers come from here)

[michael kenny]

Originally posted by Tero:

I was thinking along the lines where (surviving) Allied tankers state it took 5 Shermans to kill a Tiger.

You mean like the 20+ tanks Wittmann destroyed on 13/6/44?

In an engagement where the overall losses were in the ratio of 2:1 (slightly higher than the actual loss rate for all of Normandy)

Like when Will Fey destroyed 15 Shermans in one engagement?

15 Shermans that no one but he saw destroyed?

15 Shermans from a unit that saw no action that day?

Originally posted by Tero:

From their POV the truth is: if all 5 Shermans in the platoon were damaged and they were issued with replacement vehicles (along with replaments for the crewmembers lost in the action) instead of their original ones then it did take 5 Shermans to take down a Tiger (which of course could have been a PzKw-IV IRL).

Congratulations! You have been working up to this magic figure for some time and I was wondering how you were going to 'prove' it.

Originally posted by Tero:

I've read numerous accounts where they play up the fact that a vehicle in the platoon was an original from way back to the start of the units operational career.

By your method we can 'prove' SS 101 lost 30 Tigers by 16th June, 45 Tigers by 4th July(i.e was wiped out) 67 Tigers by July 17th (wiped out for the second time) and 22 more Tigers by mid August. Is that 99 'killed' Tigers and a Unit wiped out 3 times by September?

[ March 23, 2007, 10:27 AM: Message edited by: michael kenny ]

[michael kenny]

Originally posted by Tero:

I was thinking along the lines where (surviving) Allied tankers state it took 5 Shermans to kill a Tiger. From their POV the truth is: if all 5 Shermans in the platoon were damaged and they were issued with replacement vehicles (along with replaments for the crewmembers lost in the action) instead of their original ones then it did take 5 Shermans to take down a Tiger (which of course could have been a PzKw-IV IRL).

Apart from the fact you have no evidence that the Allied 'damaged' total came anywhere near 5000+ (did I not give you the US total of 700 damaged and repaired tanks to August?)it may have escaped your attention that the argument above completely vindicates my original premise.

Here it is again:

The only way you can get anywhere near a 5:1 kill ratio for the panzers in Normandy is to compare the German 'written off' loss to the Allied total of loss and damage to all causes.

I am glad to see you got there in the end.

[Tero]

Originally posted by michael kenny:

Apart from the fact you have no evidence that the Allied 'damaged' total came anywhere near 5000+

The written off total from the ETO monthly reports from Chris' chart add up to 6066 for the US armour alone (all types). The M5, M24, M4 and M26 written off for the three armies add up to 4126 accoding to the weekly reports chart. I do not have the British written off totals but I think it is safe to say the Allied damaged total went over the 5000+ even if we count only the written off figures.

(did I not give you the US total of 700 damaged and repaired tanks to August?) it may have escaped your attention that the argument above completely vindicates my original premise.

The written off totals number shot that latest premise of yours out of the water just now.

Here it is again:

The only way you can get anywhere near a 5:1 kill ratio for the panzers in Normandy is to compare the German 'written off' loss to the Allied total of loss and damage to all causes.

I am glad to see you got there in the end.

Your original premise that I was gunning for some sort of preconceived kill ratio for the German armour was faulty.

My goal is just to try to gauge the gap between the German estimation on Allied battle field armour losses (more commonly called kill claims) and how they correspond with the actual Allied combat losses. The respective kill ratios and pissing contest about whose armour, crews and doctrine was the hottest is irrelevant in this context.

Based on the Finnish army official estimate after the Winter War (2000 Red Army tank losses) and how well they corresponded with the actual Red Army combat losses (1900 combat losses in the Istmus part of the front alone) I think it would be neat to know how well other armies estimated the enemy combat losses.

[michael kenny]

Originally posted by Tero:

The written off total from the ETO monthly reports from Chris' chart add up to 6066 for the US armour alone (all types). The M5, M24, M4 and M26 written off for the three armies add up to 4126 accoding to the weekly reports chart. I do not have the British written off totals but I think it is safe to say the Allied damaged total went over the 5000+ even if we count only the written off figures.

I am talking about Normandy/Northern France/ to Sptember 1 1944 (did I cover all bases there?)

rather than 6/6/44 to wars end.

Originally posted by Tero:

The written off total from the ETO monthly reports from Chris' chart

Have I seen this chart?