German tank vulnerability

[Elmar Bijlsma]

It's also somewhat unfair to the Sherman to judge it mainly on it's tank versus tank performance.

As unsound as US tank doctrine was, nonetheless an overwhelmingly large part of its time in action was spend doing what it was designed to do, unloading whoopass on enemy troops and positions. And it did alright on that.

Sleestak,

as I recall the US actual had a numbers Fireflies but balked at deploying them on account of the extra ammo type being seen as logistic PITA.

[MikeyD]

Steve wrote:

2. The first gun wasn't designed for engaging tanks at long distances. The entire philosophy behind the Sherman was flawed, in fact.

People tend to forget that the Panther gun, the Sherman 76 and the 17 pounder were all criticized at the time for having a less-than-optimal HE round. In those instances where tasks besides knocking out other tanks was involved (most tasks) the Sherman 75's excellent HE was much preferred. You can see that in the game - I won't be facing Panthers? In that case give me all 75mm Shermans! We also hear of the 'much discredited' U.S. tank destroyer doctrine. I was given to understand that TD units were achieving kill ratios on the order of 10 to 1. Not to shabby for being 'discredited'.

I think the trauma high wartime tank casualty rates lead to a kind-of postwar 'tunnel vision' where all that could be seen is tank-on-tank actions. That lead to modern designs (pre-2003) that are pretty much good for one thing. Killing other tanks and survivng KE hits to the front. As a result the U.S. Army has been struggling for decades to field a dedicated infantry support weapons system to take up the slack wher the übertank fails. Admittedly they didn't do a particularly good job at it in fielding the problem-plagued Stryker MGS (rolls eyes)

[SleeStak]

It's also somewhat unfair to the Sherman to judge it mainly on it's tank versus tank performance.

As unsound as US tank doctrine was, nonetheless an overwhelmingly large part of its time in action was spend doing what it was designed to do, unloading whoopass on enemy troops and positions. And it did alright on that.

Sleestak,

as I recall the US actual had a numbers Fireflies but balked at deploying them on account of the extra ammo type being seen as logistic PITA.

I'll bet you're right. I read about the US fireflys online and didn't keep track of where I saw it so I can't go back and verify it but I remember that the logistics issue was the bone of contention. Based on what I saw online and have read a little about elsewhere, McNair, Devers and the ETO Generals were all in a big battle royale about the composition of the American forces. I don't envy them making decision about equipment that will ultimately have an impact on the survivability of the soldiers but the beaurocratic battles did seem to occasionally devolve into petty bickering.

You're and MikeyD's point that the 75 mm Sherman did the main job of tanks (shooting infantry) remarkibly well is absolutely true. Lots of ammo, high rate of fire, reliable, cheap and mobile make it the best tank hands down for anything other than killing tanks. Unfortunately, everyone cares about the tank killing almost to the exclusion of the other points.

[YankeeDog]

It seems to me that the most credible criticism I've seen of so-called "TD Doctrine" is that, in practicum, the so-called "cruiser tank" formations composed mostly of Shermans often found themselves engaged by enemy armor, and similarly, the TDs often found themselves engaged with enemy infantry and AT guns. As the old saying goes, no plan survives contact with the enemy, and the Germans often failed to oblige by sending their armor against Allied TDs, or only opposing U.S. armored thrusts with infantry and AT guns.

U.S. commanders also apparently often pressed TDs into an infantry support role, partially because sometimes lower-level commanders didn't really understand the TD doctrine, and also perhaps simply because the TDs were what was nearby and available.

Overall, I guess the hindsight argument is that while the TDs were better vs. armor, they weren't better enough to justify the splitting of design, production and training resources; focusing on improving the Sherman as a general-purpose MBT (and/or getting the Pershing finished and into the front lines sooner) would have been a better call.

[Michael Emrys]

They got it wrong with the tank destroyer tactics though, it has to be said...

It's not so much that they got it wrong as that the nature of the fighting changed and made the doctrine and the weapon system designed to exercise it obsolete. The doctrine and the weapon were designed to combat large scale penetrations by German armored forces as they had occurred in 1940-42. But by 1943 when the M10 began appearing in numbers, such penetrations were no longer likely to happen. Harry Yeide in his book The Tank Killers makes the point that in almost the only situation where they were allowed by circumstance to perform as designed—in battalion strength using ambush tactics, then rapidly displacing to the next position—they were entirely successful. The problem was that they were a solution to a problem that had ceased to exist. But since the M10s were around in large numbers, they were pressed into service as "substitute tanks", a role for which they were ill suited.

Michael

[Michael Emrys]

as I recall the US actual had a numbers Fireflies but balked at deploying them on account of the extra ammo type being seen as logistic PITA.

I haven't read that but it may indeed be so; it sounds like the kind of issue that might have arisen. What I have read is that at the time of D-Day the British withdrew their offer to provide Fireflies to the US because they were having difficulty producing enough for their own needs. By the time that production had ramped up enough to renew the offer, the US had the 76 and preferred to go with that, even though the 17 pdr. offered some significant advantages of performance.

Michael

[JasonC]

Except for the part about the Allies not having a "top end"...

First, obviously the Russians had a top end even taking in the narrow sense of heavily *armored* AFVs, rather than upgunned ones. But taking Allies in the narrower sense (presumably intended) of "western Allies", they still had a top end, and it was large, larger than the German top end in fact, both numerically and as a portion of the AFV fleet. It was just an upgunned top end rather than an uparmored one.

1400 Jacksons with 90mm guns

2000 Sherman Fireflies with 17 pdr

1100 Achilles TDs with 17 pdr

4700 Sherman 105s

8000 Sherman 76s (not counting 3000 more sent to the Russians)

2500 M18 TDs with 76mm

6700 M10 TDs with 76mm

That is 4500 strongest AT hitters, 4700 more dual purpose (105mm HEAT is sufficient to kill Tiger Is and Panther turret fronts), and 17200 76mm gun armed. The Germans didn't have that many uparmored tanks on all fronts. The Germans didn't have even the smallest of those totals available against the western Allies, counting every AFV. For every uparmored critter actually sent against them, the western Allies had at least 10 upgunned answers. The answers also appeared sooner (M10s predate Panthers by 6 months and outnumber them, alone).

The perception stems entirely from comparing the lower half of the western allied tank fleet to the upper sixth of the German tank fleet...

And also except for the part about western Allied tank losses being "high". The US lost less than 4000 mediums of all chassis types in the ETO, entire war (specifically 3260 Shermans, 439 M10s, 120 M18s, and 72 Jacksons), and 1070 light tanks (M3, M5, and M24 combined). These are extremely light armor losses by any standard, compared to any combatant for any comparable period.

[SleeStak]

It's not so much that they got it wrong as that the nature of the fighting changed and made the doctrine and the weapon system designed to exercise it obsolete. The doctrine and the weapon were designed to combat large scale penetrations by German armored forces as they had occurred in 1940-42. But by 1943 when the M10 began appearing in numbers, such penetrations were no longer likely to happen. Harry Yeide in his book The Tank Killers makes the point that in almost the only situation where they were allowed by circumstance to perform as designed—in battalion strength using ambush tactics, then rapidly displacing to the next position—they were entirely successful. The problem was that they were a solution to a problem that had ceased to exist. But since the M10s were around in large numbers, they were pressed into service as "substitute tanks", a role for which they were ill suited.

Michael

But it seems to me that they did get it wrong. Not that the tank destroyers weren't very capable at destroying tanks, because they were. They just weren't all that useful at the other tasks the commanders in the field needed armored vehicles to accomplish. It's been awahile since I've read Yeide's book (and its still packed away from my last move) but I seem to remember tank destroyers getting indirect fire missions. Its hard to imagine they had the correct equipment to do this but, if its true, what a waste to use a high velocity gun to do the task a M8 could do with equal skill.

It seems that among the major combatants, tank doctrine began to get away from a focus on specialized units fulfilling specialized functions at the begining of the war to smaller numbers of more flexible designs fulfilling a broader array of functions later on. The American experience demonstrates this in the up-gunning of the Sherman to make it both an effective anti tank platform as well as an anti infantry platform. The Soviets upgraded the T-34 in part to achieve the same goals. Not that they or other armies didn't continue to use specialized armored vehicles for specialized purposes (the US ended the war with tank destroyer units and all of the other major combatants had specialized tank destroyer units), but that the nations tended to adopt a single main battle tank that could effective fill the armored, infantry support and anti tank roles reasonbably effectively and build a whole lot of them. Certainly this has been the post war approach and seems to make the most sense to me

[Wrath of Dagon]

Except for the part about the Allies not having a "top end"...

(M10s predate Panthers by 6 months and outnumber them, alone).

I don't think M10 is an answer to the Panther unless using tungsten.

[Battlefront.com]

Except for the part about the Allies not having a "top end"...

Well, obviously I was speaking only about Western Allies. And I was making an apples to apples comparison, not an apples to oranges comparison as you did. I was speaking about tanks and only tanks. The Western Allies did not have anything to compare against either the Panther or the Tigers in its tank fleet. And since a tank destroyer is not the same thing as a tank, I don't see it being relevant to talk about the Jackson as you would then have to talk about the Jagdpanther.

As for your argument about relative numbers, well... that's the point I made in my previous post. The Allies (including the Soviets this time) subscribed to the philosophy of designing something "pretty good" and then producing the HELL out of it. The Germans became increasingly obsessed with designing "magic weapons" and then struggling to produce a meaningful number. Worse, they didn't just pick one of these things and go with it, rather they kept trying to find a better "magic weapon".

Of the two approaches it's pretty clear to most students of WW2 that the German approach, coupled with related goofs (like not going to full wartime production until after the war was arguably lost), was a major contributing factor to the defeat of the Third Reich.

Anybody who plays CM, old or new, can see how this plays out at a tactical level. I just played a battle where I lost quite a few Shermans, but in the process I managed to knock out the German's only two AFVs and two AT Guns. Moving my remaining Shermans around I was able to decimate the German defenders. I for one love the short 75s when going after crunchies

And also except for the part about western Allied tank losses being "high". The US lost less than 4000 mediums of all chassis types in the ETO, entire war (specifically 3260 Shermans, 439 M10s, 120 M18s, and 72 Jacksons), and 1070 light tanks (M3, M5, and M24 combined). These are extremely light armor losses by any standard, compared to any combatant for any comparable period.

Whoa... I don't think you can say that. Compared to what the Soviets lost during the same time frame, perhaps. But "light" compared to the numbers employed and the fact that the Germans were completely shattered three times during the course of the Western Front and had no air support worth speaking of? No, I don't think the Allies' losses were "light".

Steve

[MikeyD]

as I recall the US actual had a numbers Fireflies

I've seen a photo of them. Late hybrid hull Shermans with the late Sherman commander's cupola and the rear radio box cast-in instead of welded-on. I've only seen that photo published once, years and years ago.

[ZPB II]

And also except for the part about western Allied tank losses being "high". The US lost less than 4000 mediums of all chassis types in the ETO, entire war (specifically 3260 Shermans, 439 M10s, 120 M18s, and 72 Jacksons), and 1070 light tanks (M3, M5, and M24 combined). These are extremely light armor losses by any standard, compared to any combatant for any comparable period.

I'm curious, does this number refer to write-offs, or knocked out tanks? Since the Allies were most of the time advancing, wrecks that didn't burn were on their territory after the battle and thus repaired often. I remember reading about Shermans that had been knocked out 3 times but didn't burn, so they were brought back to action.

[MikeyD]

Lets also recall the 'ETO' lasted only for about ten months. Five thousand tanks knocked out in ten months works out to sixteen tank a day, more-or-less. I hear by September the U.S. was running low on tank crews as they hadn't expected to need replacements in such numbers. Four and three man crews weren't uncommon, infantrymen were 'volunteered' and placed into the tanks a warm bodies with literally no traiing. Lucky for us Hitler was holding back his armor for the big bulge battles so we had a couple months to recover.

[Battlefront.com]

Good point about the troubles of loss numbers. Usually "loss" tallies at a higher level (like for several months) are the same as "write offs". And therefore the number of US tanks that were seriously damaged or had crew casualties would have been MUCH higher than the "loss" tally JasonC used. The German "loss" number, on the other hand, would be closer to the truth because being on the defensive meant a lower capacity to recover and redeploy seriously damaged vehicles.

The Western Allies had far better chances and capabilities for putting damaged tanks back into service than the Germans did. In fact, the Germans had to abandon significant numbers of AFVs a couple of times simply because they ran out of options. IIRC there was a train load of PzIVs that fell into US hands after the breakout. And of course the famous abandonment of pretty much all the tanks that got out of Falaise, KG Peiper running out of fuel in the Ardennes, etc. Abandoning a dozen Shermans doesn't compare to leaving a dozen King Tigers behind.

Steve

[JasonC]

"the Germans often failed to oblige by sending their armor against Allied TDs"

Actually the Germans failed to oblige by having any armor to speak of.

The few times the Germans did have meaningful amounts of armor to send against the western allies, they used it up rapidly, frequently in over aggressive offensive tactical roles. In Normandy that took at most 6 weeks; in the Lorraine more like 3 weeks, and in the Bulge and Nordwind they had an edge for 2 weeks and meaningful amounts of armor still in the field for about 5 weeks. And only in the middle of the Normandy period did this cover most of the frontage. In all the Germans only sent about 5000 AFVs against the west, whole war, and never more than 2000 (that was Normandy).

TDs were underemployed for TD roles for the same reason allied ground AA was - most of their intended opponents never showed up. When they did, the TDs handled them just fine, racking up a superior kill record to either turreted Shermans or their German opponents, even heavier German opponents.

Yes in Italy specifically, some TDs were used in an indirect fire role. The reason is there was nothing much else for them to do. In hill fighting armor of any kind was of only marginal utility; the terrain made it an infantryman's and artillery battle. Yes that was a suboptimum use of the weapon system - but it arose because the more critical AT defense use of the weapon system was simply not required. When it actually was (e.g. the Salerno counterattack early on), TDs performed just fine and were instrumental in smashing the attack, racking up 5 and occasionally even 7 to 1 kill ratios. This wasn't an outlier - the same was seen by TDs vs. Lehr in its counterattack in Normandy, and again by TDs in the Arracourt fighting. In the Bulge they also outperformed both Shermans and their German opponents but by a smaller margin.

The reason for the outperformance was a superior gun to most of the Sherman fleet and the advantages of a defensive tactical role, which prewar ideas about the importance of "initiative" in armor combat notwithstanding, was in fact a huge edge in tank vs tank battles themselves (however useful initiative might be on a larger operational scale).

Early in the war, when fears of the "blitzkrieg" were strongest, right after the fall of France, the US planned an eventual force of 220 TD battalions (!). In the event it formed half that number stateside and then disbanded a third of those before deploying them, releasing their personnel to the replacement pools. Because there simply weren't great fleets of German tanks to fight.

As for loss figures, yes it is TWOs, but no German "operational" rather than combat losses do not greatly exceed American ones. On both sides, mechanical losses or front shifting escalation of damaged to TWO were important. Driving clear across France automatically left a lot of AFVs broken down en route.

The Americans were always crew limited not tank limited anyway. US industry produced far more tanks than could be used in theater, let alone lost. Huge parks of replacement vehicles existed and were moved up as transport links and time allowed. Tanks were physically scarce for the Germans, yes. But the US produced 86,000 AFVs (many sent to the Brits or Russians to be sure) and lost only about 5000 in combat in the ETO (earlier losses were small because the forces engaged were small). They certainly were not manning 80,000 at the front. The US put 16 ADs into the field by the end of the war plus numerous independent armor battalions for a total of 118 tank battalions, plus around 50 SP TDs battalions (more like 60 by end of the war, but some converted from towed quite late). That is about 10000 AFVs at full TOE. There were gobs of tanks in the supply chain clear back to stateside, several for every vehicle up at the pointy end.

The US didn't keep beat up tanks around for years like luggage as a result, not nearly as much as the Germans for example. Naturally they still recovered and reused some, especially when the front was static and the tank was therefore one that had already been moved as far as it needed to be move to fight - but large moves forward left damaged vehicles so far from the front they were irrelevant in the general rear area abundance, just as such moves led to abandonment of large numbers of damage vehicles by the retreating Germans.

Crews were not scarce because they were taking high casualties. Personnel losses in the armor formations ran a third of those suffered by even the armored infantry, let alone the infantry of the infantry divisions, and were on a par with losses in the artillery and engineer formations. The reason is obvious - the cause of 70% of losses was artillery shell splinters and armor of any kind stopped nearly all of that cause of loss. Being under armor in a forward area was about as safe as not being under armor, not usually in a forward area, but still within enemy artillery range; it was vastly safer than both being on the front line and not under armor.

Total personnel turnover in the ADs ran around 100% of TOE for those longest in combat - around 240 days in actions - but the vast majority of that turnover was concentrated in the armored infantry battalions. The US AD was too light on infantry manpower to start with and that loss concentration made them even more tank heavy, prompting field expedients like cross attached infantry regiments. The fighting power of ADs in heavy action was occasionally limited by running tanks, but only for brief periods in the heaviest action (Bulge units at the front e.g.); for the rest, infantry not tank (or tank crew) causalties were the determiner of how long the formation could remain in the line before needing relief to refit and to take replacements.

The bottlenecks on tanks that could be profitably used were thus (1) transoceanic shipping space restricting total ADs formed and sent then (2) losses to the infantry component of those ADs restricting their time committed to heavy combat. Tanks available overall, waas never the bottleneck, and trained tank crew was only so occasionally at the front and compared to the abundant supply of vehicles. What the formations always needed was more armored infantry, both ordinary riflemen and weapons specialists.

Those are the real logistic realities of the war for the US armored force, and none of them have anything to do with any supposedly high rate of tank losses...

[Rayak47]

Speaking of survivability, I am wondering how the presence of side skirts/spaced armor effects HEAT rounds in the game? The standoff should effect the effectivness somewhat.

[Soddball]

Maybe I'm remembering things incorrectly but didn't the Sherman become much more likely to survive 7,5cm rounds back during CMAK? I'm pretty sure that CMBO PIV were simulated as equivalent muzzle velocity as the towed PAK40 about 792m/s. The KWK 7,5cm gun in the PIV and the StuG variation fired a smaller cartridge at 750m/s so CMBO PIV and StuG's were over modelled. CMBB StuG's if I remember correctly had a 770m/s figure for some reason.

The issue is going to be further confused as most literature will treat all Sherman's as the same when here are different models with crappy cast armour (M4A1) verses "good" quality armour in M4A3's

You do remember correctly but I think you might be remembering the reason incorrectly, if that makes sense.

CM:AK introduced the 'curved' function for armour, which allowed, for the first time, Shermans to bounce rounds from their turrets. Before that, the quite clearly sloped armour of the Sherman had been rated for game purposes as 89/0, that is, 89mm thick at 0 degrees slope.

[Redwolf]

I think they all had the same absolute calculated thickness (depth plus angle),

In WW2 kinetic rounds against armour combat the effective armour thickness from angle does up much more than simple math on the angle suggests. Line-of-sight thickness assumptions are utterly useless. You can quickly check that with all existing firing test data and any decent game such as CMx1.

With hollow charge rounds' penetration, once they start, you can calculate like line of sight thinkness. But a higher angle makes it pretty likely that penetration never starts because the round bounces off (the bazooka is famous for this) or never ignites.

The reason why the Germans got away with that thin plate isn't just the angle. It is that WW2 ammo at those angles is pretty much useless.

[Redwolf]

The upper hull plate of the M4A3 is 64mm of armor at 47 degrees (again from CMAK) which should give it the protective equivalent to roughly 94 mm of armor. That seems penetrable at 500m for the 75L48.

No, you can't do high school math on the angles when it comes to WW2 kinetic rounds armour penetration.

The high angle increases the resistance much more than you just gave it credit for. Unless you are willing to use a formula that allows you to actually compute penetration at any angle you are closer to the truth using the 60 degrees number than the 30 degrees number when looking at a 47 degrees plate.

The penetration CMAK gives the 75mm L/48 in a Pz IV at 60 degrees and 500m is 48mm and that is less than the 64mm of that plate.

Plus, if the target did not face the shooter directly, any resulting horizontal angle from that will add (not be added directly) to the armour plate angle.

I could dig out some old programs to get an actual 47 degree number for L/48 penetration (not sure I ever put that gun in) but I'm sure it will be right around the thickness of this plate at 500mm. If there's any positional angle you are right out, statistically.

[Redwolf]

Is that modelled??

In CMx1, positional angle was used horizontally directly, and vertically only for the relative height of the units, but not tilting of the target.

Unless I hear otherwise I'll assume it's unchanged.

[Redwolf]

You are correct, in a recent example I found a high ground 76mm Sherman was MUCH more effective at killing Tigers than on ground level with the Tiger.

Actually in the case of the Tiger 1 you get a *disadvantage* out of being higher since it has mostly vertical plates in the first place.

You get an advantage out of higher elevation when shooting at the 47 degrees front glacis of the Sherman.

[Redwolf]

Maybe I'm remembering things incorrectly but didn't the Sherman become much more likely to survive 7,5cm rounds back during CMAK? I'm pretty sure that CMBO PIV were simulated as equivalent muzzle velocity as the towed PAK40 about 792m/s. The KWK 7,5cm gun in the PIV and the StuG variation fired a smaller cartridge at 750m/s so CMBO PIV and StuG's were over modelled. CMBB StuG's if I remember correctly had a 770m/s figure for some reason.

The issue is going to be further confused as most literature will treat all Sherman's as the same when here are different models with crappy cast armour (M4A1) verses "good" quality armour in M4A3's

The Pz IV, early StuGs and Marder with the long 75mm are never the same gun.

The early long StuG and the Marder use the same gun that you use towed, the L/46. The L/46 round has a straight design with no thickness difference between projectile and propellant charge.

Due to limited turret space this round was deemed too long in the Pz IV and replaced with a round that has the same projectile but a shorter and thicker propellant charge casing, for about the same amount of propellant. This was the L/43 at first. But even the L/48 in later Pz IVs and later StuGs is still a gun that uses the thicker and shorter charge which is simply less effective even at the same barrel length and at the same amount of propellant chemicals.

(insert disclaimer about random guns ending up in random vehicles in some cases here)

[Bil Hardenberger]

Actually in the case of the Tiger 1 you get a *disadvantage* out of being higher since it has mostly vertical plates in the first place.

Unless you hit the top armor of the Tiger. You can't do that from firing at them on the same level.

[Redwolf]

Unless you hit the top armor of the Tiger. You can't do that from firing at them on the same level.

Top hits gun/vehicle to vehicle were not modeled in CMx1 regardless of what elevation was involved.

Not sure whether that changed now. Did the new armour penetration message say?

[Bil Hardenberger]

This is not CMx1 Redwolf.