german tank losses

[coe]

Ok, maybe this is an old topic (but I couldn't find the answer)...so the Russians did field the 45mm, and 76mm both of which could defeat a Panzer III or Panzer IV. So if you have a place like Kursk with large amounts of prepared AT guns and Russian Pakfronts of which from what I was reading a while ago, the first warning you get is when the first tank explodes.

Excluding vehicles that would be recovered and brought into action again, I would have expected massive German tank losses due to the masses of AT guns and lack of German Artillery to be constantly blasting everything to smithereens.

In CMBB where a russian AT gun can seem to kill a whole bunch of german tanks at a time.

(I am guessing that at Kursk, in the Tank vs. AT gun battle the German tanks still had a greater than 1 tank per 1 gun loss ratio?)

So how did the Germans manage to take lesser losses in tanks (tank recovery aside, and ignoring losses when repair depots were overrun)?

[dieseltaylor]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kursk

Is a good start:

"The density of artillery in the salient was unusual; there were more artillery regiments in the salient than infantry regiments. The Red Army was determined to grind down attacking German units with a combination of mines and artillery fire. Indirect fire from howitzers would stop the German infantry, while direct fire from 45mm, 57mm, and 85 mm towed anti-tank guns and 76.2mm divisional field guns would destroy the tanks. In the 13th Army sector (facing the German 9th Army on the northern face of the salient) the density of anti-tank guns was 23.7 guns per kilometre of defended front. In the 6th and 7th Guards Army sectors in the south the density was lower, with about 10 guns per kilometre.

The preparation of the battlefield by Red Army military engineers was thorough. Reports indicate 503,993 anti-tank mines and 439,348 anti-personnel mines were laid in the defended area. On average, 1,500 anti-tank and 1,700 anti-personnel mines were laid per kilometre of front. In the sectors eventually attacked, densities were never lower than 1,400 per kilometre and sometimes reached as high as 2,000 per kilometre. Red Army engineers also constructed miles of trenches, laid barbed wire, built anti-tank obstacles, and constructed thousands of gun and mortar positions."

The density has to put against the depth of the defences also. The tankers knew who the real danger were and I imagine and artillery and DF would have been used on likely positions so accounting for some before they fired. Also recovering tanks was a German strength so they may have been hit, track damaged etc but ATG's were hit and dead.

[Joachim]

23.7 guns per km. How many tanks were on the same frontline? Massing tanks is easier as the attacking tanks choose the place.

How many guns were not able to penetrate the front but never got side shots?

How many gunners lost their nerves and fired on the front of the tanks advancing towards their gun plt position, not on the flank of the tanks they could kill with a side shot but threatened the next ATG plt 500m away?

Plus:

a) Whoever holds the battlefield can recover some of the lost tanks or guns.

If the ATGs lost, the guns were gone.

c) If the tanks lost, the attack was often stopped well ahead of the guns. Recovery at night or under cover of smoke.

The guns can't counterattack to claim the field. Theoretically there were tanks for that, but if those move forward 500m, the ATGs can't cover them as effective range of Soviet ATGs vs tanks is lower than effective range of German tank guns vs tanks and ATGs.

[undead reindeer cavalry]

(tank recovery aside, and ignoring losses when repair depots were overrun)?

most of the losses to the AT guns would be temporary mission kills that get recovered.

as for armor-AT tactics, Germans tried massing their armor in large wedges, with heavily armored variants leading the wedge where available. so in theory, even if 80% of your forces consists of armor killable by enemy AT guns, it would be the other 20% that would be taking the majority of enemy fire, making the majority of enemy AT fire ineffective. in theory.

[JasonC]

Except the figure of 24 guns per kilometer is a statistical fiction, created by adding up every gun and mortar in an army sector 30 kilometers deep and dividing by the length of the initial frontage.

The first line of 4 divisions in 13th army, thickest northern sector, has 44 antitank strongpoints with 204 total guns, for 32 kilometers of front. And that "line" had a depth of 5 to 6 kilometers. The second echelon had 3 more divisions with 34 AT positions containing 160 guns total. A third line had 5 divisions, 60 AT positions totally 342 guns, but extended as mentioned back to 30 km deep behind the front.

Each of these "lines" is actually a soap film of battalion defense areas and AT strongpoints and obstacle zones, with each component division layered in its regiments and again in its battalions, thus up to 4 tactical deployments deep - thus the 5-6 kilometer depth of the first line of divisions. It was typical for the measured trench length dug in a given division to exceed its front line trace by a factor of 8, as an indicator of the depth. Up at the pointy end there are AT strongpoints of about 4 guns only about every 1.5 kilometers left to right along the front line. With about a battalion of infantry every 2 kilometers, itself deployed some up and some back.

And that is thicker than in the south, largely because the Russians had a better idea where the Germans would attack in that sector, and put a full artillery army in support of 13th army. In the south, 6th Guards Army sector, the gun complement of the 2 front line divisions in 23rd Guards rifle corps (375th and 52nd Guards) had, between them, 123 45mm ATGs and another 123 76mm guns - for about 30 km of frontage. Again layered in depth, with the result that a 2 kilometer sector might have a company or two of infantry, a pair or single battery of 45mm guns up front, and a single 76mm battery supporting in second line. Or more likely, some flanking fire coming in from battery positions 2-3 kilometers apart, firing a pair of guns off right front and left front to cross their fires.

Either way, it means at the CMBB tactical scale, the number of guns a spearhead confronted was on the order of 4 - sometimes 8, sometimes flanking fire getting you up to 8.

Meanwhile a German heavy point might use a company of Tigers plus an entire StuG battalion, or a full panzer regiment, to hit a sector 2 km wide - with up to 2 battalions of panzergrenadiers, perhaps in column (one battalion behind the other I mean). A "full panzer regiment" might mean 80 Panzer IVs in a rich SS division or it might mean around 40 mixed Panzer IVs and IIIs in a poorer Heer panzer division. We are still talking local odds for the armor vs. the guns of 5 to 10 to 1, at the point of contact.

Then you just get to drive through that 5 or 10 times, trying to chew through to the Russian operational rear. With occasional penny packet Russian counterattacks by 5 or 10 T-34s, or occasional larger ones by 40 or so.

The attacking weapons aren't just the heavy AFVs though overloading with them does most of the heavy lifting. There are also artillery systems firing prep, about half as many as the AFV figures above. (In CMBB terms, think 6 to 10 FOs firing for 15 to 50 minutes on the attack sector, 105s and 150s mostly). Various forms of light armor equal in number to the heavy AFVs (Grilles and Marders and gun armed halftracks and armored cars etc). Occasionally SPW mounted grenadiers or recon trailing a full tank fist, again as many armored vehicles as the main AFV force. And if wanted, as many towed guns for direct support (or more often, defense of bits taken) as the indirect artillery, again - FLAK and PAK etc. And oh yeah, as many 81mm mortars in the attacking infantry formations as defending ATGs on the frontages.

And the occasional Stuka. It isn't about fighting fair...

The anti infantry firepower component of the defense was vastly stronger than the AT component. It had 82mm and 120mm mortars, 122mm howitzers and the odd heavier pieces or rockets, all as numerous as the ATGs (82s alone, heavier stuff equal again), and much more able to concentrate the fire of weapons from the whole depth of the defense on the front line wherever it was. (Admittedly the 82s are pretty much in the same boat as the ATGs there, only useful locally etc).

The German armor was never held up by the ATGs alone. It was checked by obstacles - both minefields (the most effective on the first day or so) and AT ditches (mostly just delay and marking fire sacks) and by large scale commitment of defending armor reserves, only. It was attrited by all of the above - the ATGs, the occasional armor clash, losses to mines, etc.

As for the idea that repair accounts for the longevity of the German armor force under those tactical conditions, it is overstated. In 1SS at Kursk, for example, the repairs returned in the first 5 days came to 25 vehicles. With more of the park in the repair shops later in the battle, that rose to about 50 over the remainder of the fighting. Another 18 AFVs reached the division as replacements. Repairs and replacements had the division back to 80 heavy AFVs on 17 July, from a low around 50, and a start around 135. And without replacements, the repairs would only have kept them ticking along around 50-60 runners, with a churn of about 10 per day. Most of the draw-down in runners (to around 60) happened by July 10, and over that period only 25 had made it back from the shops, so about 100 heavy AFVs were knocked out of running status in that period. Thus around 20 a day went into the shops and only about 5 a day came out, until over half the park was out of action just being repaired all the time. The loss rate falls with fewer tanks in action, the division accomplishes less, companies are left out of battle deliberately to have something available the next day. This naturally tends to stabilize the runner fleet at about a third of the initial strength, followed by a slow decline to nothing as TWOs accumulate more gradually. Replacements or periods out of the line to refit modify that natural tendency (or in the case of incidental trickling replacements, just delay it really).

[JasonC]

As for URDs comments about gun losses being temporary, that is not seen in practice. Instead most battlefield losses of towed guns are total and permanent and recoveries are neglible. Even in the case of the div arty that takes very low losses in active combat, large scale losses occur in all large operational moves, particularly in all of the horse drawn armies (which is 80% or more of the German and Russian formations). The guns routinely fail to make the operational movement under scramble conditions.

The Russians meet this by simply churning out epic numbers of towed guns. The Germans meet it in the first half of the war by not losing or retreating much, and then whenever they do they flat don't meet it and their gun park suffers. If the front stabilizes (for allied logistical overreach reasons e.g.) then new formations forming the new line come with their own guns. The Germans were notoriously bad about actually getting the existing cadres enough replacements to keep them up to strength. Occasional units sent to France or Germany for full scale refit worked, and the mech formations were better off obviously, but all too often KGs were left in the line as burnt out cinders until ground to powder.

[undead reindeer cavalry]

As for URDs comments about gun losses being temporary, that is not seen in practice.

sorry for my failing english & minimal quoting in the post. i was talking about panzer losses. panzer losses to AT gun fire. not AT gun losses.

[JasonC]

Ah, that makes more sense...

I agree mostly. Immediate TWOs from such fights probably only resulted if the tank burned (from ammo or fuel ignited by hits, with ammo fires more "final" than fuel-engine ones). But vehicles sent to the shops upgraded to TWOs, often much later, if the front line moved significantly, up to a month or so later. AFVs were kept on the books as "under repair" indefinitely when the front line was static, but it was often not possible - or worth it - to move them if the front line shifted 100-200 miles. They'd instead be cannabilized for spares to get the better vehicles on the road, or just left ("destroyed by crew" in the final TWO reports, but really KOed by whatever put them in the shop in the first place, and the operational shift of the front...)

[coe]

Hmmm even so, if the guns are well sited and hidden (and theoretically might get the first shot off), it'd seem at least they might have scored higher (especially with tanks being hung up in minefields and obstacles and not maneuvering). Or do you you think that arty and other prep seemed to neutralize them first (sigh in CMBB there's always that single or two ATGs which seem to knock out my tanks!

[Michael Emrys]

Artillery in general is seriously under-modeled in CMx1. Not its effectiveness so much as its quantity and availability, especially for prep fires. One way around this is to start defending units off in stunned condition.

Michael

[undead reindeer cavalry]

They'd instead be cannabilized for spares to get the better vehicles on the road, or just left ("destroyed by crew" in the final TWO reports, but really KOed by whatever put them in the shop in the first place, and the operational shift of the front...)

they also sent some heavily damaged precious models (like Panthers at Kursk) back to Germany for repairs. sometimes these tanks would turn out to be nothing but empty hulls. the rest having been cannibalized, like you wrote.

the great majority of losses would still be those listed in short term repair (4-14 days).

[Joachim]

Hmmm even so, if the guns are well sited and hidden (and theoretically might get the first shot off), it'd seem at least they might have scored higher (especially with tanks being hung up in minefields and obstacles and not maneuvering). Or do you you think that arty and other prep seemed to neutralize them first (sigh in CMBB there's always that single or two ATGs which seem to knock out my tanks!

"Hits" and "kills" are different numbers. Even a pen by a 45mm round might not take out a PzIV.

Try to put 4 ATGs on a CM map and 16 tanks. The guns open up from hidden, but at some distance. They hit every 4th round, pen each 6th and "kill" each 10th. If lucky they score 2 tanks within 30 seconds, then the guns are gone. The result should be pretty close to RL. Now take 8 guns and 8 tanks. I'd bet my money on the guns if they are entrenched and have a chance to penetrate. There's a reason for "The smallest armor unit on the attack is the company" (some German army handbook). And a reason for many CM players bunching up their tanks.

Many "kills" in CM are just "abandoned" because of 2 missing crewmen. In RL you might either combine 2 crews and re-man the abandoned tank, take the full crew from mechanical breakdowns - or bring in a fresh crew in the second echelon thus reducing CM tank kills.

[coe]

This is true but then again, german tank numbers weren't that massive (I also guess on the western front there were vast quantitites of ATGs facing them ?)... hmmm if you were a crew would you man a tank with a hole in it? I'd be a bit sketched out...even though I'm a senior member here.

I actually wonder how hits are repaired...they do leave some scrape marks and perhaps take a little bit off the top...thus I would presume after several deflected hits you'd need to replace the plating that took the hits?