Shermans - too effective?

[Silvio Manuel]

Originally posted by illo:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />As have been suggested by several already, tactics are the key. Every single tank in CM has both strengths and limitations. Mostly, these are rather realistically modeled (the Tiger's turret dither being an exception.) Learning to get the most out of a tank's strengths while minimizing its limitations (with maybe a little luck thrown in) is the key to success.

Are you saying that optics are modeled in CMBO?

For me it really doesn't seem like that.

Test realistic tactics with Nashorn and youll see.

Take Nashorns against stuarts or greyhounds in long range duel and see who wins. </font>

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by Silvio Manuel:

Regarding Nashorns, some ppl recommend making them Crack or Elite to simulate both the better optics and of course the cream-of-the-crop crews that used them. Some also recommend the same trick with all of the 88's.

Well, that is a victory point catastrophy waiting to happen.

I recommend:

- lots of TRPs for defensive Nashorns

- defender may modify terrain to make hulldown-positions (walls)

- small mortars must be green quality

- no Bofors AAA on the attack (doh!)

[Priest]

Just to make sure I heard you right Jason, you are saying that the Panther and Tiger are as easily constructed as the Sherman? What do you have to back this up, I do not want to start a verbal war, I am just wondering?

[JasonC]

The Tiger certainly was an expensive tank, but the Panther wasn't, particularly. Marginally more expensive than the vanilla models, but not seriously so. Figures on the expense of the Tiger I run from 250,000 to 330,000 RM apiece. For the Panther, it was only 117,000 RM. Pz IVs ran 103,500 RM and StuGs 82,500 RM.

(Naturally, these figures can't be translated into dollars - the wartime monetary chaos makes cross currency accounting impossible, except for dollar-pound to some extent).

But moreover, tanks were a small portion of overall military production expense, certainly through the middle of the war. German tank output was less than 1/20th of overall armament output in 1942, before full mobilization. The expense total was dominated by ammunition and aircraft, the former because of the amount needed, the latter because of the expense of the relatively high tech components. In 1943, the share of tanks rose, but to still single digits of percent, and still dwarfed (like, by a factor of 4) by aircraft.

The Germans were quite slow to mobilize overall, and that certainly was felt in tank production. When the high command started asking for 1500-2000 AFVs a month, the industry guys thought they were crazy. But production of AFVs continued to rise steeply as additional resources were made available. AFV output did not peak until December 1944.

The Germans did not focus on ramping tank production until after Stalingrad. Up until then, the army was looking at the whole problem in terms of loss rates and maintaining the size of the fielded force. Since losses had been low - only serious in the battle of Moscow - the fleet size had continued to rise, and that was seen as "enough". Stalingrad was the eye opener - that is was possible to lose 1000 tanks a month, and that the Russians would field a fleet with an extra digit on it.

Would standardization of types have helped overall German AFV production? Sure, especially all the little variants and limited production runs. The Tigers were expensive, costing as much as 2-4 of the other types. There weren't that many of them made, though, so the excess available AFVs from making "all vanilla" would not have been that large. Maybe 5k-10k vehicles - but the production totals were 50k vs. 200k so that is a drop in the bucket.

The basic reasons the Germans were outproduced in tanks were (1) they had less overall industry than the combined allies, (2) they mobilized industry late.

The Russians outproduced them due to (2), with the peak rates of output comparable, for those two alone. The Russians just got to that plateau level by 1942, while the Germans didn't until 1944. The extra two years at the highest rate fully accounts for the Russians making twice as many tanks as the Germans. Industrial capacity of the two was about even, as the peak rates reflect.

The western Allies added as much again due to (1), with depth of US industry more than making up for a still lower percentage of the armaments going to tank production in the case of the US as in the case of Germany. Thus the US, with several times the industrial capacity as measured e.g. by steel production, produced only ~7/4 as many tanks as Germany.

[ July 17, 2002, 03:21 AM: Message edited by: JasonC ]

[TSword]

Some of the seemingly boosted TD performance of the vanilly M4 may stem from the strange fact that penetrations in CMBO are far to common at the border of theoretical penetration ranges.

What do i mean with that ?

Take a 76 mm M10 vs. a Panther without ammo. The 76 mm will always penetrate a given plate as soon it is within theoretical(CMBO) lethal range. For instance as soon you bring your M10 within 800 m of a Panther it will penetrate the lower front plate always when hit. In reality deviations in the whole system led to the phenomenon that some round penetrate others not, even in laboratory testing (Thus the procedure to define penetration range as function of probability to penetrate). Of course this effect applies to all sides and generates no real benefit for one side, but instead boosts the penetration ability of all tanks and AT-guns somewhat and lifts the weak US guns into penetration ranges (700 m instead of 500 for instance) they never had, while it extends the killrange for most germ guns from for instance 1500 to 1700 m which nobody cares about (Hit prob becomes the deciding factor then).

However the 76 mm guns (with normal ammo) on the M4 and TD's is way to effective vs. Panther frontal armor.

Tests with the 88mm KwK43 (The best AT gun in WWII) showed that Panther frontal armor couldn't be defeated consistently above 700-800 m (The russian 12.5 cm could defeat it at longer ranges because of primary scaling effects). This gun is much much more powerful than the 76 mm US gun which in CMBO has no problem at 700 m to penetrate the Panther front.

Cleverly managed by BTS to equalize somewhat the armor abilities....

Greets

Daniel

[JasonC]

TSword - I am not sure I get you at all. The only plate on the Panther that hard to penetrate (88 long defeating etc) is the upper front hull. Which nothing really gets through in CMBO anyway. The plate that fails is the turret front, in CMBO. With 110mm at a marginal slope but only 85% quality, it is weaker than the Tiger I front. The extreme reports of the "front armor" succeeding against high velocity 122 and 88 is talking about the glacis only. The turret front is not nearly so tough.

US 76mm need a range of more like 200-250 yards to get through that plate, because at longer ranges you correctly get "shell broke up" shatter-gap induced results. In reality and in CM. The CM numbers will say longer, around 750 or so, but the game itself gives the right "shell broke up" answer at those ranges. Even though theoretically the energy is enough to penetrate the turret front out to medium ranges, the round was not strong enough to hold together at the high energy of the engagement.

That 76mm with plain AP did punch through Panther turret fronts at close range is incidentally proven by detailed combat AARs. Both from Normandy (Lehr's July counterattack in hedgerow country, stopped mostly by M10s) and Lorraine (the Arracourt battles, with US TDs outshooting Panthers at close ranges caused by fog). The Germans themselves also report Panther penetrations by Russian 85mm (not to glacis, but penetrations nevertheless) out to several hundreds yards, with a gun that is no better than the US 76mm in most respects.

The lower hull is indeed vunerable in CMBO, and arguably more than it should be to things like bazookas, simply because the low armor quality rating applies to all plates on the tank but is only correct for the thickest ones. But lower front hull hits are rare. One can quibble about what portion deserve that low a quality rating, too, or whether all of it applies to the turret front. Which is much more relevant than the glacis, since nothing gets through that plate anyway, lower quality rating or not.

But the results are not seriously off. 76mm should be able to get through the turret front at close range but only with tungsten at medium range, and that is what you see in CMBO.

[ July 17, 2002, 01:36 PM: Message edited by: JasonC ]

[YankeeDog]

Jason -

The issue I had heard with the Panther (and, indeed, many german vehicle designs) is that, in addition to the rather higher cost of manufacturing (which you have pointed out was not so much the case with the Panther), the vehicles were also more difficult to maintain in the field. More complicated maintainence = less tanks available for combat at any given time. Alas, I live in a New York City apartment with no room for a book collection, so what I read eventually has to go back to the library, but I read something recently with figures for vehicles available for action in German Tank formations vs. Allies - the difference was pretty remarkable.

As I understand it, some of the reasons for this were as follows:

(1) Closer part tolerances on many moving parts - can result in higher performance, but also tends to make machines more prone to breakdown in field conditions. It can also lead to parts from one vehicle not fitting into another vehicle of the same type ("seating" problems).

(2) In General, German vehicle design tended to be more mechanically complex. In general, more moving parts means more things that can break.

(3) Very short part life on some important components of vehicles. Tiger I treads is the one I remember in particular - they had to be replaced quite often if the Tiger I had to cover any significant distance under it's own power.

(4) Especially late in the war, German tanks were often rushed into deployment without proper break-in time for the engine and other components, resulting in high mechanical break-down rates. This acutally relates to (1) above - closer part tolerances generally require longer break-in times.

Anyway, if there is an area where German tank design was truly inferior to the allies' in WWII, I had always thought that it was the generally high maintainence. If 1 out every 4 of your tanks is in the shop at any given time, this dramatically increases the cost of fielding said tank compared to a similar tank that only has 1 out of every 6 or 7 in the shop on average.

Curious to know if my assumptions are accurate in the opinion you and any other grogs who care to comment.

Cheers,

YD

[Andrew H.]

Originally posted by YankeeDog:

Anyway, if there is an area where German tank design was truly inferior to the allies' in WWII, I had always thought that it was the generally high maintainence. If 1 out every 4 of your tanks is in the shop at any given time, this dramatically increases the cost of fielding said tank compared to a similar tank that only has 1 out of every 6 or 7 in the shop on average.

Curious to know if my assumptions are accurate in the opinion you and any other grogs who care to comment.

Cheers,

YD

I'm not sure about the amount of time German tanks spent being repaired, but all accounts talk about the extreme reliability of the Sherman. This wasn't accidental,and there are a couple of reasons for this.

First, the US started mobilizing its industry for war in as early as 1940, although of course it cranked things up a notch once it was at war. Germany didn't start real industrial mobilization until 1942.

Second, the US was very focused on streamlining production of the tanks it decided to produce.

Third, although sort of related to the other issues, the US put already existing engines into its tanks. I've forgotten which tank had what, now, but I think one Sherm had 4 cadillac engines tied together; another had two bus engines (I think that was the m4a2 diesel), one had an airplane engine (M4 or M4A1?) and there may have been some other modification. I'm sure that connecting four engines together and then making them run a tank is pretty complicated, but you eliminate the vast majority of the teething problems that you get with a new engine, since the engines are already proven. The Panther had this problem, of course, but so did the Pershing.

[JasonC]

Tigers were much more complicated beasties and as the product of relatively short production runs had fewer spares and such available. They were also very heavy, which induces wear on the tracks, drive train, suspension, etc. The Panther had some similar issues due to weight and the complexity of the suspension system. Its engine had a rated life of 500 miles.

In terms of the number operational, you see overall results for whole frontages or the whole fleet in the 75% range. But units actually in action, you see the number drop to more like 50%, rising back to high levels only if taken out of combat for a week or so. The difference stems from not all units being put into the line. Units held out in reserve can have high readiness rates and be near TOE, while those in action soon are at 50-75% of TOE in remaining tanks, and 50-60% of those running. One formation in the first category will "weight" like several in the second, in an overall readiness figure for an entire front.

As for the Allies, yes the Sherman was famously reliable. But in addition, the Allies had far more tanks than they really needed for front line units, enough to keep the tank "channel" full. Losses were not terribly high, death trap myths to the contrary notwithstanding.

I mean, the US lost around 3000 tanks, TWO, through the Bulge. Even with a growing number of armor divisions and half the armor in independent battalions, the front line at 80%-90% of TOE (the actual figures seen in the front line at the begining of the Bulge) only needed around 4000 medium tanks. 6000 would be generous including TDs. But the US made an order of magnitude more than that - 53,000 Shermans alone.

So the real limit on employable numbers for the western Allies was trained tank crews, not working tanks. While a unit in action could certainly be "short", once pulled out to refit it could be issued as many tanks as its TOE called for, if crews could be found for all of them. The bottleneck being different, better recovery and maintenance work (easier when winning, with gas, etc) - certainly achieved - was mostly irrelevant. They did not make more tank crews appear out of the ground, and tanks themselves were not scarce.

[CombinedArms]

Originally posted by TSword:

Some of the seemingly boosted TD performance of the vanilly M4 may stem from the strange fact that penetrations in CMBO are far to common at the border of theoretical penetration ranges.

What do i mean with that ?

Take a 76 mm M10 vs. a Panther without ammo. The 76 mm will always penetrate a given plate as soon it is within theoretical(CMBO) lethal range. For instance as soon you bring your M10 within 800 m of a Panther it will penetrate the lower front plate always when hit.

Greets

Daniel

I'm not sure I'm following this. What about CM's vaunted variable penetration system.? That, and the fact that you might hit any of a number of frontal surfaces (lower front, upper front, or turret) leads to all sorts of different results with the US 76mm vs. the Panther. I've bounced many 76 rounds off Panther fronts even at 50 m and recently took careful note of an exchange in an AI battle between three of my M10s (all vets) and a green Panther at 250m. The three M10s began a turn facing the Panther and blasted away, getting off twelve shots at its frontal armor. I counted eight hits off all three armor surfaces (upper hull, lower hull and turret). Seven of these hits bounced or shattered. Though the M10s had plenty of tungsten rounds (4, 4, & 5 amongst the 3 of them), they only fired one--the last of the twelve rounds they fired. It killed the Panther through the upper hull. Panther got off two shots, reflecting that it was suprised, green and has an innately slower ROF. One missed and the other killed one M10.

I would say that the Panther held up pretty well to the M10 onslaught and certainly, despite the claimed fixed, the use of 't' rounds remains undermodeled. If I'd been a gunner in one of those M10, I would have started firing 't' rounds at a Panther facing me at 250m after bouncing the first hit (if I'd even waited that long. I might have fired a t round on the first shot.) "Better to waste a 't' round than lose a tank" is my motto. Anyway, I would humbly suggest that any possible overmodeling of Allied standard AP is more than made up for by the undermodelling in the use of tungsten.

Actually, this sort of encounter must have happened frequently in RL and probably often had a very similar outcome: i.e. one dead M10 and one dead Panther.

[ July 17, 2002, 04:41 PM: Message edited by: CombinedArms ]

[Redwolf]

The claim that CMBO's penetration model is precise is not correct. Charles said that near the penetration limit there is some chance that slightly "good" shots do not penetrate and vice versa. Apparently in this case CMBO has what is in the relevant table of Rexford's book, which means that things become fully predictable only outside the range from 90% to 110% of the penetration value.

[ July 17, 2002, 05:11 PM: Message edited by: redwolf ]

[Silvio Manuel]

Originally posted by CombinedArms:

Though the M10s had plenty of tungsten rounds (4, 4, & 5 amongst the 3 of them), they only fired one--the last of the twelve rounds they fired...

...the use of 't' rounds remains undermodeled. If I'd been a gunner in one of those M10, I would have started firing 't' rounds at a Panther facing me at 250m after bouncing the first hit (if I'd even waited that long. I might have fired a t round on the first shot.) "Better to waste a 't' round than lose a tank" is my motto...

[Priest]

Hmm i worded my question wrong it seems, I was going more along the lines of how many man/hours to build and so on and so forth. I really was not concentrating on the price, also I agree that maintaining them in the field would be part of that also. IIRC on the Russian Front the suspension of the Panther could freeze (as most anything can on the Russian Steppe!!!) but due to its configuration you had to take out the first set of wheels to fix the issue, I believe this would effect the Tiger too? I am at work so I may have some facts mucked up.

[Michael Emrys]

I have read that mud and snow would get between the interleaved wheels and freeze, preventing them from turning. This would require the removal of the outer wheels to knock the accumulation off with a sledge and maybe a chisel.

Michael

[John Kettler]

JasonC,

According to "Tiger Attack!" recently on the History Channel (U.S.), the Tiger I cost 800,000 RM, equal in price to 6 Me-109 fighter planes. The

comparison as to what the 800,000 RM would buy was

explicitly made in the voiceover.

I believe that Hitler's deliberate early war "guns and butter" economic policy certainly had a lot to do with relatively low German production rates until Speer took over war production, but what no one here seems to be discussing is the difference between how the Americans produced tanks and how the Germans did it. The American put tank production primarily in the hands of the automotive

manufacturers, companies used to high rate mass production, and tanks were built on production lines not that different from what turned out Chryslers, Chevys and Fords, whereas the German tanks were produced primarily by heavy equipment manufacturers, by outfits like MAN and Krupp used to the far more leisurely pace of, say, locomotive building. In many ways, Tiger tanks and such were practically handbuilt, using methods which would've given American factory managers apoplexy, and consuming staggering numbers of manhours and scarce resources.

The Germans were very late in systematizing much less rationalizing war production, and the endless proliferation of armor models which delights the treadheads also marks the ultimate failure of the Germans to efficiently and rapidly produce the tools of war. Of course, we need to also factor in that we did our war production in sanctuary while theirs was heavily bombed. Another factor is that much of the German war production was done by relatively unskilled, poorly motivated forced labor, the real specialists having been drafted. Ours was done by a highly motivated work force, and though many men went to war, many others had war production draft exemptions, and we had "Rosie the Riveter" and her sisters to take up the slack, in far greater numbers and in vastly more skill areas than did German women in war production. Ours had far better access to automated machinery and pneumatic tools, too.

Regards,

John Kettler

[TSword]

Combined Arms,

It's true what you say, but penetration of a given plate (eg. Lower frontal plate of a Hetzer for instance) is a kind of a OFF or ON-thing -> As soon you are within killing distance (for instance 750 m) the plate is penetrated always, whereas never outside that range (For instance 780 m in above case).

Of course this range alters with angle of attack. But still according to penetration definition there should be much more failed penetrations at that range (750 m). The only deviation from this are curved plates where there's much more chance for a shot not to penetrate (As JasonC mentioned correctly for the Panther mantlet).

Greets

Daniel

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by TSword:

It's true what you say, but penetration of a given plate (eg. Lower frontal plate of a Hetzer for instance) is a kind of a OFF or ON-thing -> As soon you are within killing distance (for instance 750 m) the plate is penetrated always, whereas never outside that range (For instance 780 m in above case).

This is wrong. Read my above message.

[JasonC]

To John Kettler - the problem with wonderful stories about marvelous US efficiency and crappy German industry conditions applied to tank production - which may be true enough overall, when you include ships and planes, etc - is that the US began the war with 2.5 times the industrial capacity of Germany, mobilized at least as soon, grew more during the war, and still only produced 1.75 times as many tanks as Germany, not even reaching the ratio of pre-war industrial capacity between the two countries.

Why? Because tank production was simply a smaller portion of the US effort than it was of the overall German effort. Which was still small, certainly until late in the war.

There were only about 100,000 employed in the whole tank industry in Germany. You don't encounter labor shortages when the overall demand for it is so low. And the Germans didn't. The US strategic bombing survey explicitly found there was no evidence of any reduction in tank production due to labor shortages. Moreover, the workers were not drafted - they were exempt. The industry did employ foreign workers, in about the same portion as the rest of the economy, alongside German ones, in the more skilled positions in particular.

As for the idea that it was much harder to produce tanks in Germany because they were being bombed, the problem is that until late in 1944, they weren't being bombed in the tank plants. The bombing survey found that reduction in tanks produced due to actions before the fall of 1944 amounted to only about 250 AFVs. The industry was hit more heavily in late 1944, and the survey found that probably reduced potential production by up to 2500 vehicles. But in fact, AFV production peaked in December of 1944, when the overall economy peaked 3-6 months earlier. The 2500 figure was based on projecting continued growth in AFV production at early 1944 rates, and counting as "gain" not reaching that line. And there was little prospect of that continuing, in a declining overall economy at that point.

As for the Tiger cost figure, I have seen the 330k RM figure repeatedly and one source at the 250k RM level. The difference between those two could be as simple as the year, because Germany was inflating ever currency. But I don't recognized the 800k figure at all. It sounds more like the cost of a King Tiger. As for the portion of the armaments program going to tanks, Speer's figure for 1942 is under 5%, and for 1943 is around 8% by year end. The figure for ammo is just over 30% in both years, and the figure for aircraft is around 35%.

Tank production in Germany and the US used 2-3 million tons of steel. It demanded large numbers of machine tools to engineer each part. It demanded special alloys for armor plate that were scarce in Germany, and had high value trade offs in other areas (e.g. for making more machine tools). These were more important limitations than either labor or bombing.

Labor was not the limiting factor on tank production. Even steel was not; although the amount of demand the tanks represented was reasonably high, it was dwarfed by some other demands. In the case of the US, shipping made enourmous demands on steel. Last I checked, 10,000 ton ocean going freighters are larger than 30 odd ton Sherman tanks.

For the US, the limit on fielded tanks was not set by tank production anyway. Tank production was well more than adequate. Losses in tanks in the whole western campaign ran to the low 4 figures. Production was high 5 figures. The US ran out of trained tank crews, not of tanks. They could not man the ones they had, so more would have been rather pointless.

The Germans could indeed have used more tanks. They didn't get more primarily because of managerial slowness. In the sense of late mobilization, and in terms of limited scale and pacing once mobilization was finally decided upon. It was not a raw material problem primarily (though substitutes did become necessary in some cases), certainly not a labor problem.

It was an organizational problem, and to some extent priorities and especially timing. They still pushed monthly tank production to 1500 a month by 1944, from an average of 150 a month in 1940. The single cause of not having twice as many AFVs produced over the war was not hitting that level in 1942 instead of 1944. The Russians did.

[Redwolf]

The King Tigers cost about the same as Tiger 1s. By the time they were designed they knew how to streamline production somewhat, which explains part of it, but otherwise it is more an indication that these price comparisions in any currencies cannot be subject to serious research.

[JasonC]

Redwolf - that is possible. If so, where the 800,000 RM figure is coming from remains a mystery. I suppose the whole price level might have jumped 3-4 fold, if enough printing was going on, but that seems a lot. Prices should have dates attached to them to be meaningful, if that is the story. Of course there is no question of comparing RM prices to dollar, pound, or ruble prices. But at the same date, RM to RM comparisons should be meaningful.

[TSword]

JasonC, superb article on tank production in germany !!!!

Redwolf, i was describing what happens in CMBO not in the real world, i think we both mean the same essentially.

Greets

Daniel

[ July 19, 2002, 11:56 AM: Message edited by: TSword ]

[Silvio Manuel]

Originally posted by redwolf:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Silvio Manuel:

Regarding Nashorns, some ppl recommend making them Crack or Elite to simulate both the better optics and of course the cream-of-the-crop crews that used them. Some also recommend the same trick with all of the 88's.

Well, that is a victory point catastrophy waiting to happen.

I recommend:

- lots of TRPs for defensive Nashorns

- defender may modify terrain to make hulldown-positions (walls)

- small mortars must be green quality

- no Bofors AAA on the attack (doh!)</font>

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by TSword:

Redwolf, i was describing what happens in CMBO not in the real world, i think we both mean the same essentially.

I got that, but it is wrong in both universes

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by Silvio Manuel:

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

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Silvio Manuel:

Regarding Nashorns, some ppl recommend making them Crack or Elite to simulate both the better optics and of course the cream-of-the-crop crews that used them. Some also recommend the same trick with all of the 88's.

Well, that is a victory point catastrophy waiting to happen.

I recommend:

- lots of TRPs for defensive Nashorns

- defender may modify terrain to make hulldown-positions (walls)

- small mortars must be green quality

- no Bofors AAA on the attack (doh!)</font>

[Redwolf]

Where does the inflation in Nazi Germany info come from?

I never looked into it, but so far I got away with assuming that prices where pretty comparable all through WW2 (not neccessarily 1933-1939), and that hence tank prices resemble roughly the same composition of labour and material.

The 800,000 Rm for a Tiger number appears to be a plain error.