Guns vs Armour

[michael kenny]

Originally posted by Corvidae:

The chihuahua not only has ADD, but a serious ego problem as well.

Sticks and stones my man.

At least I don't have an ego problem AND tell lies!

Jon, Jason, and Dorosh are all well versed and informed uber-grogs.

In one case I agree. In another I see bluff. The third I don't know enough about.

[JasonC]

The silly person's problem is that he stopped caring about the facts and substituted caring about personalities about 3 exits back. So there is no wonder he can't keep an argument straight.

The claim that SP TDs *were ineffective at stopping tanks because* they were too lightly armored, is false. They could be armored like tissue paper and that claim could hold. In order for SP TDs to be ineffective at stopping tanks because they were too lightly armored, a whole bunch of things have to be true. (1) they had to actually be ineffective stopping tanks. Oops, they weren't, they were instead perfectly effective stopping tanks. (2) they have to be thinly armored in some sense that actually matters for the tanks they are supposedly failing against, otherwise you might as well say they failed because the crew's hat sizes were too small. And (3), (2) has to actually cause (1) as shown e.g. by "sensitivity analysis" (e.g. thicker Sherman 75s were vastly more effective than thin TDs at stopping tanks - except, oops, no they weren't).

Now none of those things are true, and all of them have been propounded by writers past. It is therefore of some importance to notice they are not true and give it up as hopeless.

Notice, saying TDs were ineffective at making tossed salad with ranch dressing would not be on point. Notice, saying that TDs had red bumpers instead of the magically superior blue ones would not be on point.

If you can name the German tank weapon that is supposedly bouncing from the Shermans and penetrating the TDs, and find the evidence for it in the actual dispatches, in the form of smoking hulks of failed TDs piled up like so many speed bumps in the way of successful German armor attacks, until the glorious fully armored short 75mm Shermans ride up to save the day - then you can try to argue (1) (2) and (3).

But none of those are true, so you can't. Nobody can name the weapon the Sherman is supposedly so superior against, nobody can find the successful overruns of the poor benighted tissue paper TDs, nobody can find the glorious short 75 Shermans outperforming them and saving the day. Nobody can even coherently allege it in a connected argument as opposed to a soundbite, because it just can't withstand scrutiny, because it just isn't true.

Which would you rather have in the path of a German 1944 and later armored attack (with Panthers included etc), Jacksons or short 75 Shermans? Does the side armor thickness measured with a tape measure have anything to do with the question, any more than an imaginary magical blue bumper?

As for cavanagh and the upmteeneth time. Cavanagh covers the 1st infantry vs. 12 SS fight on 22 December in half of one paragraph. Nothing in that paragraph differs from, or is not included in, Cole's much earlier volume. Some things in Cole are dropped from it. This is not remotely the case for the 21st, which spans 3 pages and has proper names of individual sergeants and their experiences.

Now in case anybody doesn't know what Cavanagh is, he was McDonald's assistant. What he did was go talk to everyone he could find that was there and ask them what they experienced. He clearly got new stuff for the 1st ID on the fight of the 21st. He apparently got nothing on the fight on the 22nd; he says nothing about it that hadn't already been said (better, with more detail like German strength and types) in Cole.

I cited Cavanagh on the first mention of the 613ths TDs, the part about 4 TDs destroying 2 German tanks and the third getting away in their smoke etc. In case nobody noticed, I was running up incidents of successful AT action by whatever cause (context - to show that no, most kills in front of Elsenborn did not come from zooks though some certainly did, and yes we know that for a fact). Now for the 22nd, he does not say anything about kills or enemy numbers. I said another report says there were 20 tanks in that attack - the other report being Cole. There were 20 tanks in that attack.

The silly person disputed it presumably because he didn't see it in front of his nose reading Cavanagh, and to him a fact is something in front of his nose in a book, not something that actually occurred out on a Belgian hillside in late 1944. "Wait! My archnemisis the fiend says there were 20 tanks. Cavanagh doesn't say 20 tanks!!! Gotcha!!! The arch fiend must be making it all up!!! It is a lie! I've caught him! He says something that isn't in my book! Crucify him! Crucify him!" (I exaggerate ever so slightly for humor and clarity).

Of course, historically and factually speaking, there were 20 tanks. Point. (Lick index finger, record moist tally).

Cavanagh simply ran out of material or witnesses or writing time, whatever. He isn't disputing Cole, he could care less. He just wants to sum up what the fight was like for the 1st ID at Dom Butgenbach. I said 613th TD battalion in addition to the kills recorded in Cavanagh and cited previously by me, also stopped 20 more tanks later with losses unspecified.

They did. (Lick finger, make moist tally).

I mentioned it because it was on point, the point being - a TD formation with horribly criminally inadequate armor met 20 attacking German tanks including types with front plates thick enough to stop 57mm and 75mm and bazooka rounds - and stopped said attack easily.

Because, gee, TDs *with 90mm guns* are kinda useful in such situations. (Lick finger, make moist tally).

Now to the silly person's incomprehension of my admonition to get his head out of his books and his ipse dixit theology, and instead discuss reality. He doesn't get it, and finds it rich, and insane, and hypocritical, and thinks anyone saying it must be claiming not to learn things from books. Actually he probably simply doesn't get it, and adds all the other things because he left looking for truth about 3 exits back and is spewing at his monitor etc, but we will pretend we don't know that (lol).

My admonition is to put the tiniest toe in the shallowest water of actual fact.

Make a claim.

An ipse dixit is not a claim. It isn't history, it is reading. Historian so and so wrote X in book Y is not history, it is reading.

History begins when we pass from authorities to realities and *claim* that something or other actually happened.

When we stick our neck out.

Of course, we claim things based on sources. We also claim them based on reasoning, our technical knowledge, our military assessment of things, our common sense, etc.

Our claims are our own and we can't hide behind an authority when we make them. Even if the only thing you are claiming is "event so and so really happened as described in source whosits on page wherever", a claim makes contact with historical reality and not reportage about it. A claim may be false. A claim may be incoherent. But people making claims are actually looking at the historical truth as they have light to see it - through the books, among other things but first and foremost, to be sure - not *at* the books. It is like the difference between looking at the inside of your binoculars and using them to see the other side of a field.

The particular subject on which I invited the silly person to -

(flashing neon sign)

m-a-k-e a c-l-a-i-m

(flashing neon sign)

- was and is, the bulge. It would be even better if he addressed an earlier poster's request for comment and the actual original subject, were TDs effective at stopping armor attacks - but I'll settle for him talking about anything real back in 1944 instead of himself, personalities, books, how much his mother loves him, etc.

Here is my claim about the bulge. The Germans lost and knew they lost. The German lost more men. The Germans only outperformed the Americans in the first few days in some sectors, and by the end of the first week they were done outperforming them anywhere. From that point on, the US was outperforming the Germans, by as much as the Germans had outperformed them in the first few days or the first week.

My own estimate of those ratios is around 4 to 3 either way, meaning at all times the performance of the two sides was close and the battle was basically an attrition slugfest, with precious little "net art" to it. (Meaning, there was some well applied skill but each side "got some", and each side had its stuff ups, and the net wasn't much).

I'll go further. The outperformance "swing" component was concentrated in PWs, both ways. (For the Germans early, for the Americans thereafter). It may seem hard to fully distinguish PWs proper from other varieties of "missing", but I think the claim will stand any caveats that adds.

This is making a claim about 1944, not a claim about a book. Whether the silly person realizes it or not, that does not make it a religious sin suitable for crucification, it makes it a more useful (and braver) act than citing one source.

Why do I think it is so? Lots of reasons and lots of things it fits, but bare bones casualty figures are the starting point. (Note that the "official" German losses are higher than US - notice how he says official like it is a synonym for "true"? That's ipse dixit for ya - they are 85,000. But the absolute loss scale turns on definitions of the campaign in space and time scale, really. E.g. the official US campaign involved includes Alsace and runs to January 30, the German one doesn't, etc).

Unit by unit loss accounting in Dupuy gives 40k US vs. 45k German by 2 January, rising to 62.5k and 75k by January 15. Dupuy counts as a pro German source given the propositions he is committed to, and used German official reports etc. He also however notes the German returns are spotty. Not to be wondered at - anybody who thinks ~100,000 men on a side go through the meatgrinder in a month and a half and every i is dotted and t crossed out the other side isn't using his common sense.

Next thing to notice is, the Germans launched one of their biggest offensives of the war (though below the scale of the largest in the east, to be sure), threw 1500 new AFVs at the Americans, picked a thin section of the line, achieved complete operational surprise - and got out of it at best a week of slugfestee modest attrition-laden outperformance, which almost immediately reversed to as big going the other way, leaving them net losers on the exchange not just compared to fielded odds or something, but absolute losses. Metaphorically speaking, they exchanged their last rook for one US rook, leaving the Allies with half a dozen pieces etc.

And this was the most successful German armor attack against the Americans during the war, and the only one since Kasserine even that successful. German armor attacks on American forces in WW II were not conspicuously successful. (Moisten finger, notch tally).

TDs did their job stopping them on that occasion, as on the other occasions when the Germans had something to throw. (Moisten finger, notch tally).

Those attacks were not all that sensible, ever. The US wasn't particularly vulnerable to them. Neither the definite existing equipment discrepancy, nor the longer experience in armored warfare, nor the supposed special prowess of the Germans in armored warfare or particularly in armored attacks, nor any specific failing of US TDs in doctrine or technical specs, made any of them seriously work.

See, objectively speaking the TD claim is part of an intermural fight within the US army over force design after the war and things like that, as well as being part of the great blame game over Kasserine and the like. But that is all so parochial. From the perspective of Germans trying to get their offensive armor doctrine to work, the TDs were a perfectly adequate stumbling block. Helped to be sure by other advantages (HE firepower arms, overly aggressive German doctrine and unreality of strategic planning etc).

See, running into a fresh Jackson battalion on a reverse slope and off on one flank, behind and supporting the regiment of infantry you are expecting to mess up with your fresh Panzergrenadier regiment spearheaded by all of 20 Panthers and Jagds, is really quite sufficient to smash the whole thing to matchwood. There was simply no TD failure. There *was* a "Panther attack a l'outrance" failure, but it wasn't American.

[ December 27, 2006, 11:41 PM: Message edited by: JasonC ]

[coe]

My question is, could a german attack if done differently defeat the TDs... my guess is that the Germans were outperformed even if the U.S. tried the same style attacks as the Germans because the U.S. had more of various supporting arms etc.

People are right in saying the TDs did their job if used correctly - but that is probably true about most things... you wouldn't send a TD group by itself racing into a defensive line with HE all around it against the frontal aspects the enemy or exposing the flanks against an enemy. perhaps the failure is because the evaluators expected TDs to do other things too.

[JasonC]

1 a : omission of occurrence or performance; specifically : a failing to perform a duty or expected action b (1) : a state of inability to perform a normal function

There wasn't any TD failure. The word failure means something. Normal action, expected action, designed function, envisioned performance etc. TDs did what they were designed to do - stopped mass German armor attacks.

Would it have been great if they had also made salad and sliced bread? No doubt. It would have been great if the war had been unnecessary and all the nice men who died in it instead led happy fufilled lives and died quietly of old age in their beds surrounded by healthy grandchildren. But if they didn't, it doesn't mean SP TDs failed.

During the war, German armor attacks were less common than they had been expected to be when the force structure and doctrine were planned.

This was a good thing, because it meant instead of having to take everything 3-4 times with collosal losses between each try, as the Germans kept taking it all back in successful epic operationally brilliant massed armor attacks, we only had to take it all once, because there weren't any of those.

The Poles faced those, and the French, and the Russians. Even the Brits faced those a few times and had to take Libya 3 times to keep it, as a result. But all the US had to take twice was a modest area in northeast Belgium, which it is was able to do inflicting greater losses than it suffered.

Because the German armor attacks envisioned when the force was designed were weaker than men had feared, and met successfully by the countermeasures they had planned out and had ready for them.

Now, during the war, as a result of that unlooked-for boon that "the blitzkrieg" had been mastered (if you like, because the Russians killed the kriegers and smashed the tanks), US TD units were somewhat underemployed in their designed role. Same with all the US AA. Armies like having this sort of problem more than the sort of problem "ran out of tanks" or "ran out of gasoline" or "ran out of territory to defend on", but it does create an issue that might be improved.

That is what men noticed. Weapons that could not only fufill the designed defensive role, but could also perform other ones, might be preferable to ones that performed their designed defensive role perfectly, but were so so at best at other jobs they got after that was done. But this is not a failure to perform the primary job, which is what was alleged.

The armor also got a very aggressive doctrine and wanted to scarf up any resources being designated for defensive use and rebrand them, and train the men involved in their glorious adage that the offensive is the only decisive form of warfare yada yada. Which was errant nonsense and is still very much with us. Making it important again to emphasize that a defensive weapons system and doctrine can be entirely successful in its chosen role etc.

As for what the German might have been able to do to defending TDs "if they had attacked differently", um, if all the TDs started with their backs turned parked in the open and unmanned, Panthers could have plinked away at them one by one. Yay! See, the glorious German ubertank had a way of potentially winning against the wretched thin untermenschen's TD. But, of course, they didn't.

[MikeyD]

In recent reading about the bulge attacks it surprised me how calm sounding the Allied strategic planners sounded, even when the grunts facing the panzers were approaching panic mode. Basically, we'll harden along their flanks so the contagion can't spread laterally and let them run themselves out of gas pushing forward. Then we'll close the door behind them. The way it sounds, even if the Germans made it to Antwerp intact and held a victory parade down main street the offensive was still entirely doomed.

Funny thing about U.S.TD doctrine, it seems most of the time the rule book was entirely ignored! Individual TDs were portioned to other units (usually with incompatible radios), they were often tasked to perform tank-like close infantry support roles (despite no MGs and no turret roof!). Its a wonder they did so well and such a small proportion was lost. After the war the separate TD battalion concept was considered a 'successful failure' and was abandoned.

[JonS]

Originally posted by JasonC:

The armor also got a very aggressive doctrine and wanted to scarf up any resources being designated for defensive use and rebrand them, and train the men involved in their glorious adage that the offensive is the only decisive form of warfare yada yada. Which was errant nonsense and is still very much with us.

Interesting to ponder how that might have played out in the Fulda Gap in the 70s or 80s: A glorious charge to re-take a portion of the border, but burning up half or more of the pre-positioned forces in the process, then being swamped by the second wave of Soviet forces and pushed back to Paris before the Reforger units could arrive in strength?

Sounds very heroic, and very Germanic, which would undoubtedly appeal to some.

Perhaps - in the specific case of NATO and Warsaw Pact as the enemy - it would have been better had the TD arm absorbed the armour, rather than the other way round ...

[coe]

An interesting comparison would be to analyze the way the Germans employed their Tank Destroyers - here I don't mean the multipurpose tank - but the ones that were supposed to be dedicated in their role to stop tanks and see the differences in success...I would guess without any study at the moment there would be other factors heavily contributing to any differences, that are independent of the tank destroyer itself (Panzerjager whatever you call it)...that includes artillery support, air support, large quantities of supplies, and mobility of other key arms.

I do agree - yes the TDs did their job... I'd love to know could they have done it by themselves? (earlier post about the open ground, no artillery, medium to longer range)... arguably the Russians at Kursk with their 76.2 mm guns should have been trading off very well (though I suppose their 76.2 AT guns might not be as good as the 76mm L55 guns) simply because they, like the TDs would be hidden and choosing the ideal range/moment to fire at Pz IVs (mostly).

So perhaps I used the word failure incorrectly - I did mean perhaps the Tank gun armed TD was disbanded in the years following WWII because they saw that the canon armed vehicle truely had to be very multipurpose... to which a TD (in an HE environment might not have been)... otherwise, we might have open topped somewhat lighter armoured tank canon armed vehicles ready against the soviet tanks...instead of thin skinned, but closed top vehicles with wire guided or now fire and forget missles. something about todays environment discourages open topped vehicles that have an Abrams like cannon. something about today favors the tank instead of the TD like design. (could be politics!)

[JasonC]

JonS - precisely the context in which I came across the debate. It was the argument over "airland battle" doctrine and how defense oriented and attrition minded it was to be.

There were some, to my mind entirely sensible types, who stressed that operations were to be defensive, that maneuver would consist of sliding reserves in front of points of main efforts, that the goal would be to attrite the attackers particularly in armor by sustained fires under favorable conditions.

Even more specifically, attack helos nap of earth well in our own defended zone were conceived by these defensive minded types as key killers, along with ATGMs from hiding, tanks in concentrated pockets here and there, air strikes directly on the enemy main body, concentrated arty and MLRS likewise. The defenders were to give ground freely, paying no attention to ground control but only to choice of terrain to get favorable fighting conditions, and preserve the force as long as possible.

Armored cavalry unit commanders at the front line in Fulda were instrumental in creating this doctrinal picture, which envisioned a fighting withdrawal that gave ground without a thought. Fluid defense has a long tradition in the armored cav. Its closest analog in WW II was precisely the TD force. The new eggshells with hammers flocking to the scene to smash armor with direct fire were the Apaches first of all.

All of which was defeatist anathema to the aggressive maneuver theorists full of Wehrmacht envy. Who instead preached that only the offensive is decisive, preached maneuver over fire, preached avoiding the enemy's strength rather than positioning in front of him, wanted the air and arty to go deep at (spread everywhere) C3I targets to baffle 'em with static on the command net, wanted the helos pulling deep raids, wanted armor (the glorious arms of decision in this view of things) to schwerpunkt it along a chosen counterpunch axis somewhere while the lowly mech infantry let off their ATGMs as the defensive screen.

Over time, the latter got more and more of an upper hand through the academies, despite their arguments not making much sense. The mechanism was often an end run through the "snake-eaters". By which I mean, they got the light infantry and marine arms to embrace maneuver warfare theory for its supposed morale effects and its emphasis on deployability (which promised them funding as more air deployable than the heavy ground army), then only the people who went to all the elite light infantry schools to get their snake eater badges got promoted, then only the promoted made the doctrinal decisions.

By the time I was leaving, the manuals literally said things like, "the purpose of artillery deployable minefields is to facilitate counterattacks". They just could not bear to admit that anything had a primarily defensive purpose, the whole doctrine had became an ideology of victory through the power of positive thinking through always driving farther into the enemy. Since the end of cold war downsizing that has extended further to include Sun Tsu inspired semi pacifist fantasies of victory on the cheap without fighting etc.

We have been lucky we have faced only third-rates while this doctrine has run rampant. We have also been lucky that the airforce still believes in firepower and force-on-force targeting for an attrition goal. Some of the higher officers who came up before all of it came down the pike were also sensible enough to emphasize killing the enemy e.g. in gulf war I by driving a tank main body straight over his own. We have not been lucky enough to have commanders who understand that all long wars become matters of attrition and that any war can last as long as the enemy likes if he is still alive.

[ December 28, 2006, 12:58 PM: Message edited by: JasonC ]

[Hammer-n-Sickle]

Well now that was all very interesting

[michael kenny]

Originally posted by MikeyD:

Its a wonder they did so well and such a small proportion was lost

Well that presumes you know what the losses were. Can I ask an awkward question?

Who knows how many TD's were lost?

20 TD SP Battallions in action in The Bulge:

602 M18

603 M18

609 M18

610 M36

628 M36

629 M10

634 M10

638 M18

654 M10

702 M36

703 M36

704 M18

705 M10

773 M10

803 M10

811 M18

814 M10

823 M10

893 M10

899 M10

M10 = 360

M18 = 216

M36 = 144

Total = 720.

I get 122 lost or 17%

Originally posted by JasonC:

But all the US had to take twice was a modest area in northeast Belgium, which it is was able to do inflicting greater losses than it suffered.

Again if you knew the figures you should post them. Obviously you know the losses or you would not make a claim that could not be substantiated.

Could I have:

a) US Tank losses.

German tank losses.

c) German Stug/JgdPz losses.

[pamak1970]

there are many things i can comment on .I will give some thoughts.

If i understood it right ,the core beleif of one side (Jason) in this thread ,is that it is dangerous to count on a German style aggressive doctrine and it is more preferable to count on attrition through a well executed more defensive oriented doctrine.

Of course i assume that nobody beleives in some pure form of attack or defence.Anyway here are some observations.

I do not beleive that the defence against the counterattack at Mortain or the defence against the counterattack in Ardennes or the defence against the attack at Kursk was the main reason for the German defeat or German high casualties.

The germans lost a high number of tanks and war machines in general when they were forced to retreat.

The retreat was not a consequence of seing Germans smashing their face against a well organized defence.

It was a consequence of indirect threats coming from other directions ,forcing them to redeploy before they were cut off.

It was the flanking manouver in Normandy that threatened them to be trapped inside the falaise pocket, or Third army attacking their flanks or the Soviet counterattacks far away from Kursk that forced them to redeploy .

In general it is a misconception to assume that even under the most favorable conditions , you can attrit dececively the attacker to the point where he will collapse against your subsequent attack.

The attacker that experiences a heavy casualty exchange ratio against him will simply stop pushing the attack before he is depleted to the point of collapse.

The only case that might be an exception is if the intial overall force ration is so heavily against the attacker ,that he simply can not afford to accept casualties but in this case nomatter the doctrine used ,the outcome will be the same .

Still for all cases where there are decent chances for both sides to win , a successful defence will not attrit decesively the attacker to the point of acheiving overall victory.

It will just make him stall until the next time he will decide to attack somewhere else.

That is especially true ina cold war scenario between Americans and Soviets.

It makes much sense to have an American doctrine emphasizing attack.

Surrendering all hopes for victory through attrition by "active" defence is like saying that West does not have any chance at all to win in such a scenario (which could be true by the way) and they just try to make the cost of victory for Soviets as high as possible.

On the other hand IF there was any chance of acheiving victory against Soviets, you could not expect to do that by attrition through a successful defence.

Recall the attrition rates of Americans Soviets and Germans in supposely succesful defensive actions in Normandy , battle of the bulge or Kursk.

You can not attrit decesively a huge Red army in such a way.

You need to "dislocate" this army somehow,you need to make its position invalid and force retreat, make Soviet rear echelons and support abandon positions and equipment and the only way to do that is by an operational level attack similar with what Patton did for example during the bulge ,or the Soviets at Orel during the battle of Kursk or even Bradley during the Falaise pocket (although for many critics he lost the opportunity for a complete victory).

To put it more general, in wwii and modern war it is much more probable that the attacker who has the inititative will acheive or be able to exploit surprise, rather than seeing the defender exploiting his "inherent" advantage as a defender to win through attrition against the vulnerable attacker.

The latter implies that the defender can anticipate the attackers plan and "wait for him" every time, while the most common situation will be that both sides will be blinded by the fog of war and the much quicker pace of operations.

Sure the defender will have a covering force initiating a withdrawing fighting fighting luring the attacker against "terrain of defenders choice".

On the other hand the attacker will also have a covering force protecting the main body and trying to "feel" the battlefield and the defensive positions.

Yes the defender will have ATG and Apaches but the attacker since he HAS THE INITIATIVE has already acheived a local air superioiry (or time oriented superiority) ,has massed artillery and weapons and so on.

In theory it is easy to say that the defender can "concentrate" fires in areas of engagements,in practice when there is enemy air superiority or artllery superioiry and counterbaterry fire,things are not so easy.

Not to mention other technical problems.

For example the fact that in order to have distant assets exchange target data ,you need to have them under common survey which is a very complicated procedure especially when we talk about a cold war scenario.

If i remember well it took about 12 hours to have artillerry at corps level be under common survey and be able to direct fire against targets pointed by other corps sensors or units.

If the defender is forced to occupy a position that is not prepared he will be able to concentrate a much smaller portion of fire available in lower echelons.

Division level common survey for example was acheived after 6 hours and similarily again if the defender did not have this time allowance he would have to count on fire support at smaller level ,perhaps regiment or just only battalion level.

All these together with the ability of the attacker to start an attack in a much quicker tempo , make defence less powerful than many think.

This is not ww1 where the attacker sended a message a week before about his "area of interest" by applying massive artillery bombing to soften the defence.

In such cases ,the defender had plenty of time to move reinforcemnts and "wait for him".

That was not the case in wwii or cold war and French learned this paying a high price.

Pointing cases where one side had a huge advantage in force ratios, air power and logistical support does not justify any type of doctrine.

I guess under similar conditions French would have beaten Germans in 1940.

There is a reson why American war academies developed almost a "fetish" about the German doctrine.

They showed them the way of how to fight effectively against a much larger enemy like the Soviets which was the American enemy during the cold war.

Since US did not have the disadvatage of Germany regarding strategic resourses nd production, the American concern was how to outperform the Soviets on the battlefield.

If they could show a german type of efficiency, they could successfully engage the Soviets.

[Wicky]

Looks like (from this solitary source) the Germans would have been hard-pressed to recycle anywhere approaching 75% of their knocked out / abandoned panzers, so presumably not many of the estimated 1,700 -1,800 employed in the Ardennes escaped to fight again.

Exact figures on German tank strength are not available, but it would appear that of the estimated 1,800 panzers in the Ardennes battle some 250 were Tigers and the balance was divided equally between the Mark IV and the Panther...

...German tank losses during the operation are unknown but appear to have been very high, probably as much from mechanical failure as from battle damage. For the 1,700 to 1,800 tanks and assault guns in Army Group B, there were only six tank repair companies. Even worse was the shortage of tank retrievers, and, after 23 December, the few available were extremely hard hit by air attack. The spare parts situation was so bad that new German tanks were cannibalized at a depot west of Koblenz. Three hundred and forty new tanks were assigned to the Western Front during the campaign, but only 125 can be traced as actually reaching the armored divisions.

The First and Third US Armies had a full complement of medium tanks when the Germans struck, that is, 1,882 between them. During the last half of December the two armies lost a total of 471 medium tanks. These losses were partially made up when 21 Army Group released 351 Shermans which had been allocated for British use.

http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/wwii/7-8/7-8_25.htm#p650

[ December 28, 2006, 04:36 PM: Message edited by: Wicky ]

[Corvidae]

If michael kenny is as sure as he says,

Perhaps he might back it in a PBEM match.

I'm sure at lease one grog here can draw up an historicly correct list of allied SP-AT units for me to deploy.

And michael kenny can cherry pick axis tanks to his hearts content.

Say about december '44,

45+ Turns on a large 1500 pt map,

I'm at raven_song73@yahoo.com

[JasonC]

My own figure for the net draw down in German AFV strength in the bulge is slightly over 700 full AFVs, plus about 350 light armor items. That is net of both replacements during the fighting and any repairs. Given the replacement figure given above, that would seem to indicate permanent AFV losses of about 800 AFVs.

Independently, from what units withdrawn from the front to face the Russian offensive in the east were able to do when they go there, AFV strength was around half, not zero. Units that remained in the bulge area may well have been ground down to near zero by the end of January, but that doesn't mean the Germans lost every AFV sent. They lost on the order of half, over 800, that ballpark. Which would still appear to be far more than the Americans lost.

[michael kenny]

Originally posted by Wicky:

so presumably not many of the estimated 1,700 -1,800 employed in the Ardennes escaped to fight again.

EXACT loss figures are not available but by working backwards from the numbers still in service in January it would seem the Germans lost a total of around 700 Stug/tanks in the fighting. It was probably under this figure but lets not quibble.

Total number of OB West tanks/Stug. peaked at 2700 in mid December and had sunk to 2500 by mid January. Obviously replacements arrived in this period and kept the numbers up This is the total of all machines including those in repair. Roughly 2/3rd runners, 1/3rd in repair

Exact figures on German tank strength are not available, but it would appear that of the estimated 1,800 panzers in the Ardennes battle some 250 were Tigers and the balance was divided equally between the Mark IV and the Panther.....German tank losses during the operation are unknown but appear to have been very high...........

There were never 250 Tigers in the West(leaving out the Italian totals) at any time. The number of Tigers was around 110 (depends on how many were in repair)

German losses were substantialy lower than the US losses.

The First and Third US Armies had a full complement of medium tanks when the Germans struck, that is, 1,882 between them. During the last half of December the two armies lost a total of 471 medium tanks. These losses were partially made up when 21 Army Group released 351 Shermans which had been allocated for British use.

In December The US lost:

523 Shermans (all types)

134 Stuarts

127 TD's

total = 784 ( 145 SP Art. losses not included).

The US January losses are even higher and the November losses were 400 tanks/TD's.

Cole's account is very dated in regard to the German losses.

All loss information supplied by Rich Anderson

Originally posted by Corvidae:

If michael kenny is as sure as he says,

Perhaps he might back it in a PBEM match.

Sorry but I haven't got a clue what you are talking about.

Originally posted by Corvidae:

And michael kenny can cherry pick axis tanks to his hearts content

Any attempt to portray me as a champion of the Panzer Arm is so far off the mark as to be laughable. Those who know me from other boards know just where I stand on that subject.

[ December 28, 2006, 09:33 PM: Message edited by: michael kenny ]

[z-warfare]

Well... we can't go basing reality on a game, can we?

Over the course of this thread i've been fooling around with US TD's in quick battles and it does strike me that they are entirely effective when used (extremely carefully) in CM. Sortof like brittle troops. But the temptation to set them on 'Hunt' and misuse them as (basically) MBTs is very, very strong. Although on that note it seems rare that they're ever KO'd by anything that couldn't have KO'd a Sherman, IMO. I try to treat them like ATGs that can either run to new positions or run away.

[z-warfare]

Like brittle troops, they need some finesse... that's the word... finesse...

[z-warfare]

whup, two posts behind. Dang.

[Corvidae]

Ah, not a chihuahua after all, nor a canid of any sort, nor even a mammal.

perhaps a therapod of some sort, a recent therapod.

Of the Order: Galliformes,

Genus: Gallus,

[JasonC]

"it is dangerous to count on a German style aggressive doctrine and it is more preferable to count on attrition through a well executed more defensive oriented doctrine."

Yes on the first part - it is dangerous to count on a German style aggressive doctrine because that doctrine is a proven failure in practice, it has been superceded by superior doctrine. It only worked when it worked when and because it hit unprepared enemies who did not know how to counter offensive maneuver by concentrated armor. Both the Russians by the time of Kursk and the Americans as early as El Guettar, did know how to counter such maneuver, and it no longer worked against either.

On the second, I do insist that attrition is essential to all decision in warfare. I also insist that the defensive is as important as offensive action in winning wars, that to defend is not an anomoly but an ordinary condition every maneuver unit must be fully prepared for in equipment doctrine and training - above all in doctrine. That defensive doctrine cannot be predicated on wishful thinking or mystical powers expected from initiative or the morale benefit of advancing or any belief that the enemy will be more baffled or stupider than one's own forces.

It must instead be predicated on clear and sober analysis of enemy strengths and an assumption of solid professional direction. It must be ready to win anyway, and take easier outcomes as gravy.

The second does not imply that offensive action is never useful or that occasion will never call for it - that would be a parallel stupidity to the overly aggressive doctrine I am lambasting.

Men walk on two legs and get farther that way than hopping on one. Predicating a military doctrine on avoiding attrition or avoiding defensive action is trying to hop along on one leg, and emphatically will not work.

Moreover, it remains true that tactically speaking, the defensive is the stronger form of combat. Operationally there is much to be said for offensive initiative in choosing when to fight and with what force match up, but tactically the ready shooter beats the mover.

And defenders who are fluid rather than static, shift their reserves actively, and choose their ground without regard to any imperative to hold terrain, are just as capable of picking their fights as attackers are. (By choosing when to deny battle and when to stand, etc).

"I do not beleive that the defence against the counterattack at Mortain or the defence against the counterattack in Ardennes or the defence against the attack at Kursk was the main reason for the German defeat or German high casualties."

If they had broken clean through and defeated the reserves they encountered, they would have won those fights, just as they did earlier ones in 1939 to 1942. They didn't because the offensive concentrated maneuver formula had stopped working.

You will find if you examine the matter carefully, that nobody seriously succeeded in such action from that point on, except after reducing the total enemy forces facing them (especially their theater armor strength) to low enough levels that the enemy could not longer maintain their lines or backstop new penetrations. The later war therefore develops the sequence, attrition brawling (on week to month timescales) leading one side to low total strength, followed by operational breakthrough for the stronger side.

Very occasionally the strength difference starts out so high and reserves are so unavailable, that a clean breakthrough is made in a short period by essentially the same process. On micro-examination, reserves stop penetrations until overwhelmed in attrition fighting, and if the overall strength available for them is completely insufficient, operational breakthrough is possible for the same reasons it is possible after long bouts of attrition.

Otherwise put, sufficient armor in defensive roles by anyone who knows what they are doing, trumps offensive maneuver by concentrated armor. And reduces breakthrough dreams to attrition brawl realities. The war then turns on the outcome of that attrition fighting and not on anything else. Including, it does not turn on which way the front is moving or who possesses the initiative. It depends on who is running out of tanks faster, which is determined by exchange efficiency, initial strength, and replacement streams.

Exchange efficiency can generally be boosted and sometimes seriously boosted by a tactically defensive stance, especially a fluid rather than rigid one.

The Germans did not lose such attacks because they were forced to retreat. Retreat is not defeat but frequently a prudent measure to improve the future fighting conditions. Defeat consists in throwing away tons of materiel at rates of exchange that one cannot sustain, without decisive result.

The Germans lost those attacks because they were stopped in portion after portion of the front, narrowing the attack and finally halting it altogether. Which they were because the initial odds ratio they created by concentrating on chosen sectors evaporated as their own losses mounted and greater numbers of defenders slid in front of them. Once that odds ratio was gone, they had no business attacking, and persisting in doing so simply led to pointless loss. So they didn't.

As for counterattacks elsewhere or threats adjacent to the points the initial attacker attacked, sure those mattered too. They are another way the defender uses unengaged reserves to dissipate the attacker's concentration of force at his chosen points. They do so successfully even if they achieve no breakthrough or threaten no envelopment. Simply because the overall attacker must match the reserve expenditure on more parts of the front, facing more defenders and dissipating his reserves.

By choosing the points at which this happens, the counterpunching defender can sometimes achieve marginally better battle conditions (and with it, exchange ratios) than he might get by just positioning the same force in front of the attacker's points of main effort. But not because of any magical effect of initiative or advancing, or any supposed extra decisiveness of offensive over defensive action. And such redirections face a headwind, that the switch from defensive to offensive tactical stance entails an attritionee, exchange rate "cost".

Maneuver or ground-choice effects have to overbalance that for it to be helpful.

Notably, counterattacking straight into the enemy main effort while it is still strong and underway is stupid and instantly leads to unnecessary losses. Consider Vatutin's superior performance with his armor e.g.

In the case of Falaise, they were flanked and in danger of being cut off when the operation started. It never made any sense on the map, it was a head in the noose affair. Its rational was desparation and the mere wish that they could cut all the way to the sea inside 48 hours and isolate the penetrating Americans instead of the other way around.

As for Kutuzov, yes it helped stop Kursk, but the northern drive had already been stalled and turned into exchange brawling. The southern drive had been narrowed by a third or so, soon by a half or so. Kutuzov also succeeded whereas Kursk failed, and it is instructive to look at how or why.

The Russian eastern face drive was as brawling an affair as either prong of Kursk, and the exchange ratios were poor. German armor sent north from the north face of the Kursk salient was conspicuously successful in inflicting very high losses on the Russians and pretty much beating the eastern drive. But they never had enough to stop the northern infantry-heavy one through the forested corridor NW of Orel. They did stall the eastern pushing Russian armor hooking off that drive, but never stopped 11th Guards coming straight south through the woods. They would have had enough to do so had they not just before thrown half of AG center's armor away in the Kursk offensive period.

Overall, the Russian post Kursk offensives only worked in cumulative effect by first running the Germans out of operational armor. Battle attrition was decisive, and maneuver effects in territorial gains etc followed them rather than causing them.

"it is a misconception to assume that even under the most favorable conditions , you can attrit dececively the attacker to the point where he will collapse against your subsequent attack."

False, happens all the time. His excess of strength is bled out of him and he gives up the attack. Sometimes it is also "shifted" out of him by counterpunching elsewhere, but that only works when both combined dissipate his operational concentration. Then further attrition fighting typically occurs in the early part of one's own attacks, but that doesn't make them decisive because they are attacks. It just means fighting against anyone with sufficient reserves and sense is attrition fighting. And breakthrough follows from success at it.

"It will just make him stall until the next time he will decide to attack somewhere else."

With what, his bare hands? If you remove his force superiority with a superior inflicted loss ratio, you will remove much of his ability to attack in the first place. And if you can do this at will every time he tries it, then he will bleed as much as his doctrine is offensive-minded.

If you doubt it, consider what happened after US 3rd army took Nancy. The Germans counterattacks with several fresh panzer brigades, 3rd and 15th Pz Gdr, 21st Panzer (cadre only), and 11th Panzer (KG strength). They continued to punch away at a US AD until they were reduced to about 2 companies of tanks. It was then left to German infantry (in woods fighting) to continue the battle, because the tanks were gone. This left the Germans with essentially no armor in theater.

The last of those attacks were being made at something like 1 to 6 or 7 remaining armor odds in the area. Which was stone cold folly, and is what an overly offensive minded doctrine regularly produces. It wasn't the only case - in Normandy in early July, Panzer Lehr attacked a full US corps using about one regiment and 50 tanks. With predictable results. Various panzer brigades charged practically alone into the gaping maw of 3rd Army earlier in September; 3rd Army burped and continued straight on.

"It makes much sense to have an American doctrine emphasizing attack."

No, it really doesn't, it was really pointless unrealistic and stupid, and wishes are not horses.

"Surrendering all hopes for victory through attrition by "active" defence is like saying that West does not have any chance at all to win"

Patent nonsense, of the sort beloved of the boys in blue pants of 1914. Equating attrition with mindless or defense with defeat will not make them so, it is pure slander.

The plan was quite simple - each ACR channels and spots for 12 AH-64s each 16 hellfires equals one dead tank division. Lather, rinse, repeat - once every 48 hours. As shooting gallery as WW I machineguns against riflemen. Try telling me that couldn't possibly work after Iraq I. Of course it could work.

Relearn Petain's maxim - *firepower kills*.

"You need to "dislocate" this army somehow"

I have a somehow, firepower. I make smoking wrecks hand over fist. I don't give a tuppenny damn about the initiative or ground control. Smart weapons. Steel on target. Annihilation.

Trying forming your counterpunching schwerpunk under a DP-ICM MLRS strike, corps level shoot. Try avoiding such fire by positioning your 14 humvees ever so cleverly, as entire grid squares go skyward.

The ACRs knew *exactly* how to do this. Dismount eyes for over the horizon firepower, instant obstacles that likewise multiply their effect against excessive concentration, no fires wasted on rear area stuff, all of it right on the main body, lased 155 shells, give way into the desired sack, L shaped there with M-1s on the stopper end, AH-64s pop up when full target is present, etc.

You can concentrate your supporting fires all you want, an ACR isn't massed on the ground, isn't standing, isn't trying to hold anything, it is a thin fluid. Yes there is a forward recon element, that is why the ACR has its own tanks and ATGM APCs to make them fight for space and bring the main body forward somewhere. The attacker's desire to penetrate to depth by following the lines of weakness is exactly what puts him in the defender's chosen kill sack, because the defender chooses where to show weakness.

They might lose a few vehicles per attacking *division* slaughtered.

That's kinda dislocating.

Think that impossible? Look at Gulf War I again and tell me it is even improbable. Modern firepower kills.

"In theory it is easy to say that the defender can "concentrate" fires in areas of engagements,in practice when there is enemy air superiority or artllery superioiry and counterbaterry fire,things are not so easy."

Not hard, shoot and scoot, etc. The one way to ensure you aren't going to concentrate fires is to instead give your air arty and helos the mission of hitting every redundant rear area target - with target density nearly zero - to supposedly "dislocate" the enemy command chain.

If you tell them - as our existing printed doctrine actually does - that their purpose is in their reach, to hit things the maneuver arms can't get at, then you won't concentrate squat. If instead you think in attrition terms, the only relevant question is "where can I kill the most stuff?", and the answer is where the enemy is densest, which is his main fielded force right at the main effort.

We know this when our attacking hat is on. Ask any gulf war I planner what they worried about the most, they will say "massed arty hitting us at we went through narrow obstacle breeches".

Defenders develop the habit of thinking that way ("what is the worst thing that could happened to me if I were trying to do this"). If you strip doctrine of all defensive elements as supposedly "defeatist" you make stupid officers who don't think that way.

No it did not take 12 hours to target corps level arty. I served on 8 inch self propelled at one point. We are as flexible as you please, all the armor branch slander in the world is just that. When I read we existed among other things to remote-deploy minefields to allow more tanks to ride off on deathride fantasy counterattacks (by stripping the sectors so blocked), I wondered what all the 2 minute hip shoot drills were really for, but that is a different story.

As for warning time for where the heavy point is, that is what the ACR is for. Once it is noted and channeled, the chain is pulled and the heavens fall.

Pretending it is going to be 1940 all over again is pure fantasy, nobody is that stupid anymore. Making a fetish of a trumped and beaten doctrine is stupid. In 1950 the US might have had an excuse - although in reality at that time we had a thoroughly firepower oriented attrition doctrine. By the 70s there wasn't an excuse, and we had a perfectly sensible flexible defensive doctrine with an attrition focus. But in the 1980s that went away - thankfully, so did the threat.

Modern maneuver doctrine remains a weakness of our present armed forces, not a strength. Half of what it teaches is sheer poppycock, incoherent ideological drivel (offensive only decisive, attrition equals stupid, yada yada). The other half is one sided but useful, and would be helpful enough if our officers were also allowed to use their other leg - because maneuver can create valuable force multipliers in an overall context of annihilitation battle, odds-focused, attritionist thought. As instead a substitute for that entirely sound military tradition, which the US has excelled at throughout its history, it is folly, and also a recipe for pretending wars will be cheap that are not cheap, short that are not short, etc.

"If they could show a german type of efficiency, they could successfully engage the Soviets."

Actually, if they could show a German type of efficiency - which included cancelling army production in the fall of 1941 and not fully mobilizing the economy until after Stalingrad, out of ridiculous overconfidence and the conviction that odds did not really matter - then they'd get their heads handed to them just like the oh so efficient Germans did.

If on the other hand they first mobilized the economy for total war and focused on fighting in the best possible conditions to kill lots of enemy for minimum own-side loss, they'd reduce their antiquated tank-centric army to so much scrap metal. Ask the Iraqis. Firepower kills.

[ December 28, 2006, 07:16 PM: Message edited by: JasonC ]

[michael kenny]

Originally posted by Corvidae:

Ah, not a chihuahua after all, nor a canid of any sort, nor even a mammal.

perhaps a therapod of some sort, a recent therapod.

Of the Order: Galliformes,

Genus: Gallus,

Careful. The target audience may not be able to decipher your cleverly constructed insult........

I am sorry that you feel slighted because I wont play battleships with you.

[JasonC]

The silly person now wants to include all of France (heck, why not throw in Italy?) for all of December, trying to reach a loss figure higher than the German one.

But it is not very promising, the battle of the bulge is Dec 16 to Jan 15 on only a limited part of the front, and US losses are under 500 Shermans (first half) and under 125 TDs (full period) - gee, why didn't the poorly armored TDs lose so much more than the Shermans? - while German losses were order 700-800 full AFVs and 350 light armor items.

That isn't a full Sherman accounting, though - the full losses may be equality. But only if the Shermans lost 5 times what the TDs did or more, which is hardly a sign of their extra armor being decisively superior, is it?

Wait I was being charitable it gets even better. He wants to include US losses in November, whole front (lol).

Will the silly person now tell us whether and how US SP TDs failed against German armor attacks? Or will be keep looking for something new to quibble over and ipse dixit about? Or, miracle to state, will he (gasp!) "admit" that (shudder) maybe just maybe SP TDs did OK at that, their doctrinal role? Or will be evade the question and post about something else already discussed? Silliness watchers everywhere wait with, well, unheld breath...

[ December 28, 2006, 08:03 PM: Message edited by: JasonC ]

[Corvidae]

Jason,

enough about the poultry section already,

How was your xmass?

[JasonC]

Good, thanks for asking. Full of family visiting mostly. Still have a few days off (through new years).

One more set of relevant facts about the success of defensive doctrine and armor flocking to the scene of an attack. Here is a rough outline of the progression of armor strength in the Bulge.

At the outset the Germans had about 2 to 1 overall odds in heavy AFVs, order 1250 vs. 625. The US portion were half in 2 ADs and the other half split between non-divisional tank battalions and TD formations, often broken out into companies. So roughly 150 of the US AFVs on the front line were TDs.

By the end of the first week, just before Christmas, the armor ratio had already reversed to 2 to 1 favor the Americans. Assuming one counts Patton's reoriented 3rd Army already, that is.

US ADs in the sector went from 2 to 6, almost tripling the AD armor component. Non divisional tanks more than tripled and TDs went up about 4-fold (about 18 battalions worth).

Meanwhile the German armor strength remaining declined by over 200 AFVs, making the overall ratio roughly 2000 US vs. 1000 German. So instead of there being 8 German AFVs for every US TD, there were about 1.5.

Go another weel to January 2 and US armor continues to climb modestly, replacements keeping ADs topped up and a few more formations arriving. Total armor strength is more like 2400, not counting Brit formations (XXX corps) in the area if needed, which would bump that to 3000. Meanwhile German AFV strength has declined to 750. 3 to 1 odds without the Brits or 4 to 1 with them, and US upgunned types have probably passed German AFVs remaining, all types.

Grind out 2 more weeks of attrition-ee fighting erasing the bulge, and the Germans are done to about 600 AFVs while the US alone is about flat at 2500, odds are now 4 to 1 without the Brits and 5 to 1 with them.

What causes the big reversal? Strategic odds and sheer mobility. The Germans achieve local odds by concentration on a chosen sector only because it is so thin. As the main forces of 2 armies converge on the battle zone, which they manage in about a week, US losses are swamped by US reinforcements reaching the theater.

German replacements are insufficient to replace losses and their total strength fails from the word "go". In particular, the whole right wing, 6th Panzer army, is basically "stuffed" before the end of the first week, with 12th SS failing in front of Elsenborn and Peiper cut off and reduced already. They ground through the St Vith position, most that can be said for them.

The German left is more successful, but that just means they race into space where they meet the converging US forces who vastly outnumber them in every material respect. The turn of the tide at the tip, Celles, is a done deal before they even clash - the Germans are simply vastly thinner on the ground than the arriving Americans. Reserves either in depth or mobile unit types fully meets offensive concentration and levels the local odds, replacing them with a figure more like global odds.

The rest is gradual German evaporation due to combat losses, which they cannot replace, while the Americans readily can and do replace theirs or cycle out the fought-out formations replacing them with others that aren't, etc. The odds ratio high already and rising continually as the Germans lose tanks.

A concentrated one-shot "stock" has been pitted against a larger but more distributed force, backed by a flow fully equal to the rate of loss the former can inflict. It hasn't got a chance in a warm place, as a result.

The time scale on which they would need to achieve something "decisive" is like 5 days, because in 8 there is nothing left in the way of odds. And there is no realistic prospect of anything achievable in 5 days that is going to meet 3rd Army coming north and a total of 1500 AFVs flocking to the location of the wound.

If the Germans were achieving 5 to 1 kill ratios then maybe 1250 tanks would achieve something. They weren't, they were getting something much more like unity. An army that outnumbers you in total AFVs, possesses a large replacement stream, and can get exchange ratios around unity when standing on the defensive, that can also shift thousands of them in front of the best-picked sector in a week, is simply not vulnerable to offensive maneuver by concentrated armor.

There was nothing wrong with the doctrine that SP TDs would flock to any wound site and shut down any breakthrough.

In practice, because independent tank battalions were as numerous as TD battalions and ADs had as many AFVs as both combined, all of the above were used. The TDs and independent tanks stiffened the defending IDs and the ADs led counterattacks.

If the TDs had been twice as numerous as the expense of the non-divisional plain Sherman battalions, it would have been even easier and more in keeping with early war doctrinal planning. The independent tanks were around because they were needed for the common offensive roles supporting ID attacks, and if any of the items involved were ill adapted to this specific use, it was them, since most had only short 75s and lacked the concentration and special support elements of the ADs.

[michael kenny]

Originally posted by Corvidae:

Jason,

enough about the poultry section already,

How was your xmass?

To which any UK resident would reply 'get stuffed'.

like Jason will be in my following reply

Oh and its Xmas not Xmass. Now get back to playing battleships.

Originally posted by JasonC:

The silly person now wants to include all of France (heck, why not throw in Italy?) for all of December, trying to reach a loss figure higher than the German one. But it is not very promising, the battle of the bulge is Dec 16 to Jan 15..................

The thing to do when you don't actualy have any hard data is keep your mouth shut. Spouting off just puts you deeper in the mire.

The dates I used were for 20th November to 20th December.The figures are compiled with those dates and so we are stuck with them. I thought that by clearly stating 'December' you might have allowed for the skewing. But dont let me stop you making a fool of yourself because the figures for 20th December to 20th January are even higher. you asked so here they are:

M4 = 614

M5 = 208

TD = 122

We now have a total of 944 instead of 779!

Way to go Jason. It even tops your artificial 800 losses for the germans. Add the 2 months together and you get

M4 = 1137

M5 = 342

TD = 249

Total = 1,728 for 20 November to 20th January

heck add these in as well:

M8 Armoured Cars = 287

Want me to continue?

US losses are under 500 Shermans (first half) and under 125 TDs (full period) - gee, why didn't the poorly armored TDs lose so much more than the Shermans? - while German losses were order 700-800 full AFVs and 350 light armor items.

You must be terminaly stupid. Not content with using German figures at the very top end of the scale(600 would be closer than 800) and for the whole of the fighting on all the fronts you then procede to leave out all US light tanks and SP casualties, some 279 units. Then out of thin air you pull a figure of '300 light armour'(where did you get it from?) to boost the German losses!

Will the silly person now tell us whether and how US SP TDs failed against German armor attacks? Or will be keep looking for something new to quibble over and ipse dixit about? Or, miracle to state, will he (gasp!) "admit" that (shudder) maybe just maybe SP TDs did OK at that, their doctrinal role? Or will be evade the question and post about something else already discussed? Silliness watchers everywhere wait with, well, unheld breath...

Gee you really are funny.[gasp!]

Pardon me while I pause for laughter!(convulsive shudders and tear lined cheeks!!!!!)

How about this for an encore.

Sorry I could not exactly match the artificial parameters you set but hey you can't win all the time.

1st Army Tank losses for 13th December to 19th January.

Medium tanks = 433

Light tanks = 108

Ignoring 3rd and 9th Army Units engaged who also had tanks and TD's knocked out we get a total of 541 tank losses.

Care to quibble over them there facts boy?

[ December 28, 2006, 10:03 PM: Message edited by: michael kenny ]