Nomenclature+ for MGs on Tanks

[Bastables]

In the desert then in 1941:

PzIII Ausf H : short 50mm gun 47mm at 500m, 30mm armour, 40km/h

Pz IV Ausf E : Short 75mm Gun 39mm @ 500m, 50mm armour, 40km/h

Crusader II : 2lbr Gun 54mm @ 500m , 49mm Armour, 42Km/h

Matlida II : 2lbr Gun 54mm @ 500m, 78mm Armour, 26km/h

Still no joy in 1941.

End of '41 - things change dramatically.

I think you'll find that PIII H were part of the transition from october 1940 of doubling of frontal armour by bolting on an additional 3cm plate so 6cm of armour. All prior models (F/G) to the ausf H would have been also upgraded to 6cm of front hull armour when they were remanufactured back at the factories to accept the 5cm L/42 gun and new suspension for the armour. The ausf H were manufactured at the factories with the additional 3cm armour.

Jentz shows all ( I am wrong only half) of the afrika korp PIII had the thicker armour which made them proof against 2pdr and Russian 4,5cm guns. This was in direct reaction to experiences in the 1940 french campaign. (1998 Jentz p 24-37) 2pdr at 100yds pentrates 57mm at 30deg, the problem was that it would shatter when meeting 3+3cm face hardened armour leading to the development and issuing of APC shot in september 1942. British after action reports/lessons lernt cited poor shooting by gunners until it was discovered that British tank gunners where hitting german tanks, the problem was the ap shot would just shatter to no effect.

Crusader II only had 5cm of armour on the mantlet. Hull was 32 or 20mm. Glacis was 12 and 9mm, nose was 32mm and turret front was 30mm. PIII had a better gun and was frontally proof against the crusader. The match up was no where near close. This showed in the utter lopsided losses as Sidi Rezegh where in 4 days of combat (ending Nov22 1941) with 21st Pz division resulting: 578 commonwealth thanks had been knocked out or abandoned versus 100 german tanks.

There is no way one can actually argue the Crusader was a competent design in 1941, never mind 42 when actually measured up to the PIII tech specs. And operation crusader succeeded in stoping rommals poorly thought out lightning attacks sans logistics but at horrific cost to the armoured div and bde's.

[Michael Emrys]

...German armour would draw the Brits into pursuit and lead them into an ATG trap, mainly because they couldn't go head to head with them.

Once again, you are claiming a bit too much. The Germans adopted that tactic not because they couldn't go head to head with British armor, but because it was a cheaper victory to let the ATGs do much of the killing. Once the PaKs had thinned the herd, the Panzers would move back into the attack, on a flank preferably, and finish off whatever was left. That was just good tactics. The bravado of going head to head would not have won them anything extra.

To emphasize the point, the Crusader was not better than the Pz. III, but it was good enough to put some hurt on them. So why put at risk a precious resource when you have an ace up your sleeve?

Michael

[Bastables]

Penetrations on British test firing in cairo prior to Operation battle axe.

PIII F-G 30 deg side angle (3cm FH armour)

Superstructure 900yds

Hull 700yds

PIII H (3+3cm FH armour)

Superstructure 0yds

Hull 0yds.

turret pentrations could occur up to 800yds mantlet at 200yds

The Crusader could only be considered equivalent to the earlier non up armoured PIII, unfortunately Panzer regt 8 was in North Africa with PIII H's and at the front by May 1941.

Things only got worse in '42 with 5cm front face hardened PIII ausf J and PIV ausf F1

[Charlie Marlow]

The Cromwell was as good if not better than the Sherman

Currious as to why? Compared to M4 about the same, but faster and with significantly weaker armor (vertical plates in 1944?)

Against more advanced M4 marks, including the firefly (much better AT gun) and Easy 8s (similar top speed (30mph v. 32mph)), there really isn't any basis for saying better, and at least some basis for arguing the Sherman is better(especially 76 equiped Easy 8s).

Comet, I'll buy as better.

[Charlie Marlow]

Well all I can say is that 1941 ended with Operation Crusader, the first victory for The British/Commonwealth forces against Germany, the battle taking its name from the tank.

Weren't you just staying a few posts ago that the Germans won in France despite having inferior tanks?

[Bastables]

Currious as to why? Compared to M4 about the same, but faster and with significantly weaker armor (vertical plates in 1944?)

Against more advanced M4 marks, including the firefly (much better AT gun) and Easy 8s (similar top speed (30mph v. 32mph)), there really isn't any basis for saying better, and at least some basis for arguing the Sherman is better(especially 76 equiped Easy 8s).

Comet, I'll buy as better.

German vulnerability tables think the Sherman had more effective armour as well

Penetration with the understanding that the veh is hit 30deg side on angle from the Panther KwK42 gun

Sherman A4

Front turret: 700m

Mantlet: 100

Glacis:0

Nose:0

Cromwell

Front turret: 2500m

Mantlet: 3400m

Glacis: 3400m

Nose: 2900m

(Jentz 1995 Pg 127)

[Magpie_Oz]

Currious as to why? Compared to M4 about the same, but faster and with significantly weaker armor (vertical plates in 1944?)

Against more advanced M4 marks, including the firefly (much better AT gun) and Easy 8s (similar top speed (30mph v. 32mph)), there really isn't any basis for saying better, and at least some basis for arguing the Sherman is better(especially 76 equiped Easy 8s).

Comet, I'll buy as better.

2 of the 3 components of tank design Sherman and Cromwell were equal Firepower and Protection but the Cromwell had a significant manoeuvrability advantage in the Bocage which was noted by both allied and German commanders.

"Fritz Bayerlein, GOC Panzer Lehr, was also impressed with the performance of the Cromwell in Normandy, while German intelligence reports praised the Cromwell's mobility in the bocage ahead of German models."

LHCMA, Liddell Hart, 15/15/150, Liddell Hart's interviews with Bayerlein, August 1950; IWM Bucknall Papers, XXX Corps Intelligence Report, no. 452, 19 July 1944, appendix A.

So swings and round-a-bouts the Cromwell was as good as, and maybe had an advantage over the Sherman.

While the Sherman may have had better armour it counted for little as both tanks could be destroyed by the Panther and Tiger guns out 2000m, there was a slight difference against the PzIv but only in the order of 200 metres or so. Given that most engagement ranges were around 1000m the difference is insignificant.

[Magpie_Oz]

The Crusader could only be considered equivalent to the earlier non up armoured PIII, unfortunately Panzer regt 8 was in North Africa with PIII H's and at the front by May 1941.

Things only got worse in '42 with 5cm front face hardened PIII ausf J and PIV ausf F1

Which is exactly what I was saying the time frame being 40/41, noting that the bolt on plates for the H were as a direct response to the inadequacy of their armour against the 2lbr.

[Magpie_Oz]

Weren't you just staying a few posts ago that the Germans won in France despite having inferior tanks?

Yes, what is your point?

The German Panzers won in France by avoiding the superior British and French Marques.

[Magpie_Oz]

Once again, you are claiming a bit too much. The Germans adopted that tactic not because they couldn't go head to head with British armor, but because it was a cheaper victory to let the ATGs do much of the killing.

It was because the tanks were more or less equal and Rommel would have been drawn into a one for one which he would lose as he did not have as many tanks, ergo they couldn't go head to head.

http://bevinalexander.com/excerpts/world-war-ii/rommel-recipe-success-africa.htm

[Bastables]

Which is exactly what I was saying the time frame being 40/41, noting that the bolt on plates for the H were as a direct response to the inadequacy of their armour against the 2lbr.

You're being disingenuous now. You proported that the PIII H has 30cm of frontal armour and that the Crusader II had 5cm choosing a absolutely worst and best case armour match up, and you contend that the Germans had worse armour until 42, when the British themselves testing and fighting the PIII ausf H in 1941 found it impervious to frontal fire during combat with the 2pdr, this was worsened with the discovery that 2pdr AP shot would shatter at certain angles and speeds on German FH armour that even the ausf F/G had.

the PIII ausf H was fully half of the PIII's in the African theatre as Pz Regt 8 was fully equipped with them when it was shipped over. the 2pdr shot was found to have negligible after armour effects by the Germans as tanks were almost never burnt out. The Pzgr 39 shell with explosive charge would often start fires in crusaders and Matilda even with partial penetrations and would break off bits of armour to add as additional lethal missiles. The Short 5cm gun on the PIII would kill crusaders beyond 1500m the 2pdr had issues killing even the thinner F/G at 1000m especially at any sort of oblique angle, the ausf H 3+3cm hull armour was found impervious to 2pdr shot in testing in Cairo. It's is a factious argument that the Crusader was better or even equal to the PIII they actually fought in North Africa. None of the loss ratios during actual battles or wartime testing bear out the crusader was a armour/gun match for 41 Panzer III's.

Don't forget the "victory" at arras which achieved none of it's objectives lost 40 British tanks 20 French tanks and lost the Germans a dozen tanks. Only 16 of the British tanks were Matilda II the rest Matilda I and they were being shot at by 3,7cm tank guns not the 5cm tank guns used in North Africa.

[Bastables]

It was because the tanks were more or less equal and Rommel would have been drawn into a one for one which he would lose as he did not have as many tanks, ergo they couldn't go head to head.

http://bevinalexander.com/excerpts/world-war-ii/rommel-recipe-success-africa.htm

He was drawn into 21st panzer 40 vurses 7th armoured 150 and only 4 of the British 150 tanks pulled back from Sidi Rezegh. Rommel problem was that he was always pulled into tank versus tank combat every engagement leading to a death by thousand cuts made worse by his cavalier attitude towards logistics.

The tanks and tactics were not even comparable.

[Charlie Marlow]

While the Sherman may have had better armour it counted for little as both tanks could be destroyed by the Panther and Tiger guns out 2000m, there was a slight difference against the PzIv but only in the order of 200 metres or so. Given that most engagement ranges were around 1000m the difference is insignificant.

Slight difference? Did you look at what Bastables posted?

Reality check time. Cromwell's armor layout is poorly designed for a late war tank. Someone didn't do their homework.

[Charlie Marlow]

Yes, what is your point?

The German Panzers won in France by avoiding the superior British and French Marques.

And Operation Crusader was a victory for the UK in spite of the crappy cruiser tanks. As mentioned, there was a reason that the UK tank crews were happy to get the M3 Light, even with its 37mm pop-gun and the less than optimal M3 medium. And it wasn't only HE availability.

[Bastables]

Slight difference? Did you look at what Bastables posted?

Reality check time. Cromwell's armor layout is poorly designed for a late war tank. Someone didn't do their homework.

Unlike the Sherman it was impossible to mount a 17pdr gun and did not have wet stowage. At the very best late in the war we managed to put up a tank that was barely comparable to the 1943 Sherman and did not have room to mount better weapons and armour as the sherman was able to expand to.

Look I'm as jingonistic as the next chap but the Sherman was the better Veh (and jingonistically) It's the one the Kiwi's prefered and used when we did get our own tank brigade. It was a good bit of Kit and better than the Commonwealth's own equivilent designs.

[JasonC]

First I'd like to point out for France that Pz IIIs and IVs were the upper part of the German tank distribution, and the median tank in 1940 was a Panzer II. Even Pz 38s were in the upper half of the distribution, though its close (the 50% line is right around where the Pz IIs give way to Pz 38s - but Panzer IIIs are way above average for German tanks in 1940). The Germans won handily in France because they used their tanks better, and they were superior in "soft factors", above all communications. If you look at tanks lost on each side in tank vs tank engagements, the Germans are even in small scale fights (platoon or less), ahead at company scale, and hugely ahead at battalion scale or larger. This is a sign that they were coordinating their actions better, acting as a team and a unit, not as individual weapons.

It is also noteworthy in France that the results against enemy infantry formations are completely asymmetric. When a German panzer regiment hits a French infantry division, it penetrates in an hour or two and the French division dissolves. When a French tank brigade hits a German infantry division, it is typically stopped cold with minimal losses to the defenders. This reflects superior combined arms on the German side of the field, even without armor, and abysmal combined arms on the French side - as in, tanks operating completely independently and with little idea where the enemy is even located.

Nor is this unsual for the war as a whole. The side with the superior vehicles in gun and armor terms almost always was losing, and the side with inferior vehicles was almost always winning, over the war as a whole. This doesn't mean having better tanks was a weakness, but it does mean it didn't matter a tuppeny darn compared to larger operational factors (including training and doctrine, experience, numbers, initiative, operational handling, supply and logistics, intelligence, etc).

On fighting Panzer III Hs in North Africa, the Brits in action rather than back on firing ranges report regularly KOing the things at 500 yards with 2 pdrs. That may well reflect turret hits and a hit rate high enough to get one, as well as the greater exposure of a tank's thinner sides at ranges that low. And it was certainly a serious drawback compared to being holed at 1000 yards. But dust let ranges get that low surprisingly often in the early desert fights.

As for Crusader the operation, it was won by the Kiwis slowly advancing up the coast road with their Valentines, after the flashy tank brigades out on the desert flank got their heads handed to them. The Germans didn't have good answers to the British I tanks (Matildas and Valentines) if the Brits (or New Zealanders in this case) practiced good combined arms, instead of just driving into PAK fronts without artillery support.

As for the Cromwell, it may have been fast but it was much less protected than the Sherman and has to be considered an inferior design. Shermans also had enough upgunned friends to deal with German armor when it was around. The Churchill was too narrow a type to count as important in any of it, and it was undergunned. The really good tanks the Brits fielded were the Firefly (thanks to the excellent 17 pdr) and postwar the Centurion, which set the standard for western armor for a generation.

[Fetchez la Vache]

And the Comet, which bridged the gap between the Cromwell and the Centurion.

I like the Cromwell. Partly because it's slightly crap compared to the Sherman (but British goddammit!) and mainly because it's a great tank to model. Love those bolts. Sherman models ain't half as fun (although I'm enjoying my latest Tasca NA Sherman II).