Tiger Bn kill/loss ratios

[Guest Mike]

Kill-loss ratios ranging from 1.28:1 to 16.67:1.

now a couple of things occur to me about this - I suspect it is based upon German data, so the Tigers that are lost are actual losses, and that hte kills that are killed are claims, not actual losses.

similarly with the figures in the 2nd table - loss ratios on hte Russian front - how many of those Russian tanks were destroyed, and how many were temporary kills?

Hence the "real" ratios would be something less?

[JonS]

Sledgehammers dissertation by Wilbeck (fore-runner to the book), which contains the same info.

[ October 02, 2006, 05:38 PM: Message edited by: JonS ]

[Guest Mike]

Thanks for that.

The author does acknowledge that many "kills" by Tigers must have been repaired and returned to service just as Tigers were often immobilised and recovered and repaired themselves - right at the end under "statistical perspective".

the "direct kill" ratio is about 10:1, but he believes the overall kill ratio of 5.4:1 is more likely because of this.

[JonS]

Wilbeck's book is also searchable online at Amazon.

I think Wilbeck doesn't make due allowance for the difference between claims and reality. If we apply the "50% haircut" (and ignoring s.SS-Pz.Abt.503 which is noted as being unreliable) the total figures come down to 1:5.8 in action and 1:2.8 overall (1:2.6 excl the seperate companies).

1:12.1 can be taken as the upper bound for combat kills (with 1:5.8 being more likely).

1:5.7 can be taken as the upper bound for overall kills (with 1:2.8 being more likely).

Oddly enough ( ) that isn't too far away from JasonC's estimate from first principles:

<font size=1>(posted 18 September, 2006 03:22)</font size>

The Tigers can only average 10 if the Panthers average only 1, which is wildly implausible. If the Panthers average 2 the Tigers can average 7 [...], if the Panthers are as good as the Tigers they can all average only 3. Tigers significantly better but the Panthers about as much better than the IVs as the Tigers are better than them, you get 1 for the vanilla types, 2.5 for Panthers, and 5 for Tigers.

[ October 02, 2006, 08:57 PM: Message edited by: JonS ]

[Andreas]

It is based on claims, with no comparison even where this would have been possible (but probably outside the reasonable amount of research for an MSc). Which means the whole thing is not particularly helpful, unless you are a US tanker trying to prove the efficacy of your arm.

Let's have a guess which branch Wilbeck belongs to.

All the best

Andreas

[Andreas]

If we substract 850 from the Tiger claims list for kills in Tunisia, Italy, and the west, we are left with 9,000. Assuming no kills before 1943, that would mean that Tigers killed (taking claims at face value) 19% of all AFV losses (ca. 48,000) incurred by the Red Army from 1/1/43 to 9/5/45.

I think that is highly unlikely, considering that the remaining 80% have to be split between thousands of vanilla Panzer III, IV, Panther, Stugs, Hetzer, Panzer IV/70, Jagdpanther, Marders, Hornisse, Elefant (whose claims at Kursk account for another 1+% alone), 50mm AT, 75mm AT, 88mm AA and AT, Panzerschreck, Panzerfaust, Mines, artillery, infantry close assault, Ju 87 and Hs 129 ground assault planes (Rudel's claims are good for another 1+% of all Soviet tank losses post 1/1/1943) and technical breakdowns.

Just to give an example, 9. Flakdivision claimed 128 tanks in the battle of the Crimea 1944 alone, over the time of less than one month.

Zaloga has an interesting statistic about causes of combat losses for selected time periods and operations in 'The Red Army Handbook', and it is clear from that that the 88 was a major killer. But it does not follow that these 88s were all mounted on Tigers, since a large number were around in towed variations or mounted on Elefant/Ferdinand, Hornisse/Nashorn (over 500 vehicles) and Jagdpanther.

All the best

Andreas

[ October 04, 2006, 03:15 AM: Message edited by: Andreas ]

[undead reindeer cavalry]

the 5:1 kill-ratio has nothing to do with how many enemy tanks a Tiger killed for every Tiger that was killed by an enemy tank.

if you wonder why i point out something that obvious, it's because that's what was implied in the closed thread.

the tank-for-tank kill-ratio was likely to be up to 20:1. for early period likely well above 50:1.

[Andreas]

Wilbeck calculates loss ratios only counting Tigers lost in combat as 12.2:1. The 5.4:1 is including all Tigers.

And that is again based on German claims. So unless you want to exclude Tigers killed by mines and other weapons, I think you'll have a hard time making it to 20:1.

All the best

Andreas

[JasonC]

Tigers KOed in combat is significantly higher than Tigers written off. The Germans were much more reluctant to part with the things than most were with a typical tank, so they were reused far more. If other causes of loss were higher than with other tanks, which is debatable but possible, to a factor of 2 perhaps (but not remotely 4-10), greater likelihood of recover and repair after a battlefield KO has to also be in the ledger.

No one entry accounting, where all the own side claims of a Tiger through 5 trips through the workships are divided by 1.

Also, when a tank is hit 7 times by enemy AP and abandoned on the battlefield with a grenade left in the ammo supply to prevent capture repair or study, it is a battlefield KO. It doesn't cease to be one because German accountants had a category "blown up by crew".

[undead reindeer cavalry]

Originally posted by Andreas:

So unless you want to exclude Tigers killed by mines and other weapons, I think you'll have a hard time making it to 20:1.

why on earth would anyone want to include Tigers killed by mines etc when one is talking about Tigers killed by enemy tanks? :confused:

[Andreas]

Why on earth would anyone want to count Tigers killed directly by enemy tanks? That has to rank high up with the most pointless stats that I can think of.

All the best

Andreas

[undead reindeer cavalry]

ok, i just downloaded Wilbeck's thesis. i skipped the first two chapters because they don't talk about actual use of Tigers.

the first tank kill number is those of 502nd battalion near Leningrad from 12th Jan to 31 March 1943. according to Wilbeck they destroyed 160 Soviet tanks while three Tigers were lost to enemy action and three others were destroyed by Tiger crews (two got stuck, one had a mechanical failure). it doesn't tell how many of those three were destroyed by enemy tanks, but if all three were it would give 53:1 killed enemy tanks for every Tiger lost to enemy tanks.

next Wilbeck talks about 501st battalion in North Africa. according to him the Tigers killed more than 150 Allied tanks. at maximum three Tigers were lost to enemy tanks (one more to artillery, and seven were lost to minefields). so at least 50:1 ratio.

next Wilbeck talks about 504th in North Africa. according to him Tigers killed more than 150 Allied tanks. at maximum two Tigers were lost to enemy tanks. at least 75:1 ratio.

i won't continue reading the thesis further, but i expect the ratio to fall down as the war progresses. still, i would be surprised if average ratio ever falls below 20:1.

[undead reindeer cavalry]

Originally posted by Andreas:

Why on earth would anyone want to count Tigers killed directly by enemy tanks? That has to rank high up with the most pointless stats that I can think of.

it's extemely essential for any discussion about how Tigers did in battles with enemy tanks. and that's what the discussion was about (earlier, not this thread).

[Andreas]

Originally posted by undead reindeer cavalry:

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

Why on earth would anyone want to count Tigers killed directly by enemy tanks? That has to rank high up with the most pointless stats that I can think of.

it's extemely essential for any discussion about how Tigers did in battles with enemy tanks. and that's what the discussion was about (earlier, not this thread). </font>

[undead reindeer cavalry]

Originally posted by Andreas:

No it is not.

ofcourse it is. you are being silly.

These were combined arms battles, not 'Shoot-out at the O.K. Corral' duels.

the subject is not how combined arms force A did against combined arms force B. it certainly is not things like how logistics of nation X worked at front Y.

Also, note what Jason points out about German stats.

So the 1:75 count for Tunisia is just a pointless number, even if you recalculated it for actual losses, as opposed to claims.

what part about those points raised by Jason has something to do with that 75:1 count for Tunisia?

But hey, if it makes you happy.

it doesn't make me happy. i am not personally interested in this subject, i am just annoyed by the antilogic used in these threads.

[Andreas]

the subject is not how combined arms force A did against combined arms force B. [/QB]

That may not be the subject you are interested in, but it is the one I am interested in, and it is the one I discuss. I do not think that using individual tanks as units of analysis is profitable. YMMV and you are welcome to discuss whatever you like, up to and including how many Tigers can dance on the pin of a needle. Just don't expect me to humour you by discussing with you what I see as silly statistics in the context of this discussion. To me the ratio you are trying to calculate is irrelevant, and has nothing to do with reality. End of story, as far as I am concerned.

As for which part of Jason's post is relevant:

Originally posted by JasonC:

Also, when a tank is hit 7 times by enemy AP and abandoned on the battlefield with a grenade left in the ammo supply to prevent capture repair or study, it is a battlefield KO. It doesn't cease to be one because German accountants had a category "blown up by crew".

It is this one.

All the best

Andreas

[JasonC]

All those poor Tigers abandoned by their crews must be so lonely. And what awful parents to leave their lovely poor perfectly servicable Tiger just lying there, without a single additional T-34 to chew on. And all those Tigers blown up for birthday celebrations and as the world's largest car bombs, such a shame. I mean, if only they had pointed the gun at enemy tanks they'd have killed 75 of them apiece. Instead the dastardly crews just blew them up for no reason. Arrant sabotage, I tell you. Because nobody ever abandoned a Tiger because an enemy tank shot it to pieces, or blew one up because it was getting a little too warm to hang around and fighting back wasn't a realistic option, no sir. And none of them were ever abandoned in the workshops when the front moved, after going into those workshops because of a dozen AP hits. No, see, they just sometimes needed and oil change, and then the front blew 200 miles in the wrong direction like the weather, and the poor Tiger was left by the service teams because they were late for the train. But after all, only about one Tiger in ten was lost TWO anyway. Everyone knows the other nine in ten are still out there, merrily winning the war by blowing up T-34s and Shermans by the bushel.

[undead reindeer cavalry]

first of all i am not personally interested in tank duels and in my opinion Tiger was a failure. personally i am interested in the operational level of actions and what comes to tanks i am a fan of economical and functional designs like T-34. but that is irrelevant for this discussion.

as usual i do not disagree with what JasonC posts. my disagreement comes from what he does not post and what he thus implies with his posts that contain only a part of the picture.

Tigers lost to AT-guns, mines, bombers, lack of logistics etc have zero relevance to how Tigers did against enemy tanks in actual combat engagements. implying a 5:1 kill-ratio for those engagements is counterfactual, likely consciously dishonest and at best mistaken, nonsense.

of course not all enemy tanks lost in action were total write-offs and kill claims are higher than actual kills. i am not suggesting that the ratio should be 50:1, 75:1 or 200:0. it was just a ratio i got for a period of war from the source Andreas was using as a reference.

what i am suggesting is that the original claim, which got the shock-horror-hysteria response from you two in the original thread, of 10:1 is not unrealistic. in my opinion the ratio is likely to be around 20:1. whatever it is, the point is that the way you two come at a 5:1 ratio is illogical. it is OK as a total kill-loss figure, but it is nonsense what comes to tank engagements.

if you want to say that talk about kill-loss ratio for tank engagements is pointless then just say so (yeah, i know Andreas did it now) instead of implying the ratio would be 5:1 (like done previously).

if you are going for some sort of all arms ratio, please have some basic consistency. if you don't count other than total write-offs as kills, why should you count others than total write-offs as losses either? if you include other arms aspects like minefields or lack of fuel against Tigers, why don't you include other arms aspects like recovery and repair for Tigers? it doesn't make sense to outclude salvaged allied tanks from kills and include salvaged Tigers in losses. it doesn't make sense to include Tigers lost for combat service failures and outclude Tigers salvaged by combat service successes.

[Andreas]

Originally posted by undead reindeer cavalry:

what i am suggesting is that the original claim, which got the shock-horror-hysteria response from you two in the original thread, of 10:1 is not unrealistic. in my opinion the ratio is likely to be around 20:1. whatever it is, the point is that the way you two come at a 5:1 ratio is illogical. it is OK as a total kill-loss figure, but it is nonsense what comes to tank engagements.

The whole idea of only counting direct tank losses is pointless because all it does show is that the Tiger was a better tank (when all sorts of things like logistics, mobility etc. are ignored) once it got to the battlefield than the Allied tanks. It had better armour, and a better gun. Ergo, once it got there it had a higher kill ratio. Well, knock me over with a feather.

I look forward to the astonishment the world will react with when I prove mathematically on the basis of a wide-spread sample that babies are smaller than adults. It is an exercise that clearly needs doing, just as your exercise about that tank engagement kill ratios is one that desperately needs doing.

Sorry, your point does not get more interesting the more you repeat it. That you don't agree with my point does not make it 'illogical', by the way. I can assure you that it is perfectly logical that if you want to look at the performance of heavy tank battalions, analysing their combat record is the right way to go. Damage inflicted is one aspect of this, and within that, tank kills are a sub-aspect. This you put into relation to the assets you lost while doing the killing, for whatever reason.

I also have no idea why you insist that in the original thread tank-on-tank engagements were the matter of dispute. It appears to me you need to re-read it, since you have obviously no idea of what the thread was about. The below is the issue of contention, so please stop making stuff up about the locked thread. It is not interesting, funny, or sensible to do so:

I believe approx 1200 Tigers were deployed on the Eastern Front. A 10-1 ratio would give a figure of 12,000 T-34s destroyed by Tigers in total. Considering there were approx 60,000 T34s deployed by the Soviets during WW2 I do not consider 12,000 to be even remotely unreasonable. Indeed, as I said earlier, that would be conservative.

12,000 T34s destroyed, BTW, is over 20% above actual Tiger claims for all types of tanks on all fronts according to Alan Hamby.

So, you were saying?

All the best

Andreas

[Tero]

Statistically speaking the combat losses are in general greater than total losses.

If you care to take a look at the figures at

http://www.winterwar.com/Tactics/FINatTactics.htm#losses

it can be seen that in this case the total losses (includes mechanical breakdowns)/write off ratio was in the order of 9/1 and combat losses/write off ratio in the order of 4/1.

From sources I counted the total number of Tiger I's and II's produced was 1 844 and the total in the stat is given as 1 715.

From what I gather the stat shows sPzAbt 501 for example wrote down Tigers in its inventory as KO'd or written off 120 times during its entire existence. Is that consistent with the actual orbat of 501 during its existence ?

[Andreas]

Not sure what you mean, but it is close to three times its OOB strength. That probably includes the numbers lost in surrender in Tunisia and 1945.

http://www.alanhamby.com/unithist.html#501

All the best

Andreas

[undead reindeer cavalry]

Originally posted by Andreas:

The whole idea of only counting direct tank losses is pointless because all it does show is that the Tiger was a better tank (when all sorts of things like logistics, mobility etc. are ignored) once it got to the battlefield than the Allied tanks. It had better armour, and a better gun. Ergo, once it got there it had a higher kill ratio. Well, knock me over with a feather.

if people are discussing wether Tigers scored 5:1 or 10:1 against enemy tanks, then counting direct tank losses is damn spot on the point. counting tanks lost during road marches etc is what is totally pointless.

That you don't agree with my point does not make it 'illogical', by the way. I can assure you that it is perfectly logical that if you want to look at the performance of heavy tank battalions, analysing their combat record is the right way to go. Damage inflicted is one aspect of this, and within that, tank kills are a sub-aspect. This you put into relation to the assets you lost while doing the killing, for whatever reason.

i totally agree. it becomes illogical only when results of such analysis are implied to show how Tigers scored against enemy tanks.

I also have no idea why you insist that in the original thread tank-on-tank engagements were the matter of dispute. It appears to me you need to re-read it, since you have obviously no idea of what the thread was about.

it starts with Sigrun saying that Tigers scored more like 10:1, instead of 5:1, against T-34. in his reply JasonC repeats that 10:1 or 5:1 debate refers to how Tigers scored against tanks. then JasonC goes to statistic to prove that 10:1 is impossible. we can see the same use of statistics on this thread.

12,000 T34s destroyed, BTW, is over 20% above actual Tiger claims for all types of tanks on all fronts according to Alan Hamby.

So, you were saying?

of course Sigrun is wrong with that 12,000 figure. he doesn't see a typical Tiger's lifespan and only thinks about tank battles.

him being wrong doesn't make the 5:1 right.

[Andreas]

You can go and infer whatever you like into what other people wrote, I stick to what I read.

Sigrun stated that in his view each Tiger in the east (conservatively) killed ten T34. He may have been ambivalent at first, which leads to your wild goose chase about tank-on-tank engagements, but he then is very clear about what he says, and you prefer to ignore it.

As I told you before, that is what I am debating. It has to do with an interest in combat effectiveness of a weapons system and type of formation, and in stupid legends cropping up time and again. If you want to debate something else, no matter how irrelevant it is, feel free to do so. But you are not free to tell me that I said things I did not say, or that things I read in the clear mean something completely different from what they say.

So, with that out of the way it is 12.2:1 for all Tigers lost in combat and 5.4:1 for all Tigers, based on German claims. Which means in reality it is going to be far less, which means that in reality each Tiger did not kill 10, or 20, or 75 enemy tanks. I really don't give a flying monkey's about tank-on-tank engagements, and I honestly don't understand why you do. I am interested in the rate of over-claiming, and in the comparison with other formations, e.g. independent Stug units, or Nashorn Panzerjägerabteilungen. I am also interested in the operational impact of these formations. I am decidedly not interested in the tank-on-tank performance, or in how many Tigers can dance on a pin, or silly legends such as 'every Tiger killed >10 T34s.'

Is that clearer now?

All the best

Andreas

[undead reindeer cavalry]

Originally posted by Andreas:

Sigrun stated that in his view each Tiger in the east (conservatively) killed ten T34. He may have been ambivalent at first, which leads to your wild goose chase about tank-on-tank engagements, but he then is very clear about what he says, and you prefer to ignore it.

Sigrun makes it clear he is talking about averages. he also says that Tigers killed lot's of T-34s while had very few losses to T-34s as majority of Tiger losses were arty, assault guns, mines and break-downs. he says this in his second last post so i am not confused by some ambivalent first posts.

to me it looks like he is talking about averages and specifically about tank vs tank battles.

no offence intended, but perhaps you yourself haven't read the last posts very well?

As I told you before, that is what I am debating. It has to do with an interest in combat effectiveness of a weapons system and type of formation, and in stupid legends cropping up time and again. If you want to debate something else, no matter how irrelevant it is, feel free to do so. But you are not free to tell me that I said things I did not say, or that things I read in the clear mean something completely different from what they say.

i think i have made myself clear that my only objection to "5:1" is that it should not made to imply tank-to-tank ratios. i talk about claims and usage of statistics, not about persons.

perhaps the implication of responding to "10:1 tank vs tank ratio" with "5:1 overall kill-loss ratio" was not a conscious one and i regret i haven't made it clearer that i am not addressing you specificially but the "5:1" claim itself. i have also consciously tried to be clear that i am not putting words into other people's mouths and only talk about what is implied by the "5:1" response.

I am interested in the rate of over-claiming, and in the comparison with other formations, e.g. independent Stug units, or Nashorn Panzerjägerabteilungen. I am also interested in the operational impact of these formations. I am decidedly not interested in the tank-on-tank performance, or in how many Tigers can dance on a pin, or silly legends such as 'every Tiger killed >10 T34s.'

Is that clearer now?

certainly and i applaud your interests, for they by coincidence are very similar to mine. for what it's worth, and perhaps it's not worth too damn much, but i highly value your posts and attitude.

[Guest Mike]

Sooo....I think...after all that.....that the answer to my question is...er....aww hell I dunno - but it makes interesting rading none-the-less!!