Panzer V against any US tank

[JonS]

And him wondering why other posters thought he was not up on armour and giving him some references to read - you can understand why it happens.

Pish. Don't you have yet another tinfoil conspiracy to peddle on the GF? Go on, scram. I'm sure there's some credulous loon just dying to hear your latest.

[Magpie_Oz]

Yes, quite. Did they do well in Africa? No, they did not. They did 'not very well'.

They did neither well nor poor as they didn't exist.

Bit like being west of Venus isn't it? Only true from a peculiar stand point?

[Destraex1]

- IF you can field it (that is, it can be transferred all the way from the USA and supply lines are not cut by the German Navy, air force or army)

Which is what happened

- IF you are on the enemy flank

Which is what happened

- IF you are confident that your flanks aren't exposed, even if you have to reposition

Same as any tank

- IF the battle is short enough as to be sure to not run out of gas, or to lose a track

Same as any tank

- IF the terrain and infrastructure is capable to handle a 30 ton vehicle constantly getting bogged

Only if it is wet and is more of a concern in a 45 tonne tank

- IF you have an almost any version, the armour will still be poor.

Adequate not poor

- IF you have over poor LOS and no enemy air activity

Which was the case

- IF the enemy doesn't have, almost any german tank or tank hunter being fielded.

They did field them and still lost.

- IF you have maximum artillery cover and almost unlimited supply of shells

Which they did

- IF you have maximum air cover and almost unlimited supply of aircraft

Which they did

- IF you have unlimited access to spare parts, logistics and money

Which they did

- IF you have no other major powers fighting against you

Remember Japan ? and that was a hemisphere away.

- IF the enemy has run out of raw materials and petrol, can hardly move due to fuel and is forced to make do with sub standard replacement materials

Which they did but still managed to get around quite nicely any way

- IF you outnumber the enemy at least 4 to one and often much more than that

Which they did

- IF the enemy has green crews and has been ground up on the eastern front first

Which they did

THEN, 1 on 1, the Sherman is better than the Panther.

I think that encapsulates the debate quite nicely, in the situation that actually existed the Sherman was superior. In fantasy land the Panther was better.

Like I said before it is not enough to goose step about telling everyone how Uber you think you are, eventually you have to ante up, when that came Adolph's lads were found wanting.

lol... I think you know damn well what this means.

It means the panther was better than the sherman. But that the Sherman was cheating in every way possible !!!

[Magpie_Oz]

lol... I think you know damn well what this means.

It means the panther was better than the sherman. But that the Sherman was cheating in every way possible !!!

No what it means is if you turn up to a the World Rally Championship in a Formula 1 car you are going to get your arse kicked good an proper.

[Charlie Marlow]

Sympathy mate. : )

The reason for mentioning North Africa really was to point out that in the wrong circumstances the Sherman had trouble with mere MkIII's and MkIV's let alone Tigers.

I don't recall Shermans having trouble with PzIIIs. Which battles?

[Magpie_Oz]

I don't recall Shermans having trouble with PzIIIs. Which battles?

He's dreamin'

[Destraex1]

No what it means is if you turn up to a the World Rally Championship in a Formula 1 car you are going to get your arse kicked good an proper.

if i show up to a formula1 race and have an f1 car that can beat yours (read sherman) but then find it impossible to race because your pit crew has;

tyre spikes

caltrops

sabotaged my spare parts factories

has a sniper in a helciopter gunning for my driver

has all the other cars on the circuit blocking for him

then its not really an indication of how grand poo bah your car is.

But if you still think you won the race.... I cannot think what that may be called.

[Magpie_Oz]

if i show up to a formula1 race

Point is dude, it ain't a Formula 1 race.

The Panther was brill for a situation that did not exist !

No amount of jack-booting, Heiling, stomping and tantrums is going to change that fact and ol' Adolph didn't get that.

[Vark]

Given the fact it was designed (copied) to counter the T-34 did the Panther excell in that theatre? I was brought up reading tales of uber crews destroying whole Guards tank armies before breakfast with the super-duper Panther, was the Soviet experience totally different or were the Germans doing the usual, losing the battles but winning the memoirs!

[Destraex1]

Your accusing me of being a nazi like were called a pro american because I think the Panther was superior to the Sherman?

[Magpie_Oz]

Your accusing me of being a nazi like were called a pro american because I think the Panther was superior to the Sherman?

That is quite a leap mate.

I was alluding to the fact that the German supreme commander missed the point when he laid down the required specs for his new tanks, Panther, Tiger etc and I think he was kinda upset by all that.

[Bastables]

Which will double the apparent armour thickness.

It seems a little odd to take the round striking the front at an angle of 30degrees, why not shoot the side which would be a much larger apparent target at that angle and only at 60degrees and generally thinner too ?

I think you'll find that oblique impact angles have more effects than just increasing the amount of armor to be penetrated.

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

The point of the 30 deg testing/theoretical tables was to give gunners an idea at combat condition penetration. They did it because they did not believe one would encounter perfect 0 deg striking angles in combat so they chose a fig of 30deg and applied it to their tables and their troop instructions.

[dieseltaylor]

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

is one area. I would find more but it is tricky for me to spend the time to find how many of each Mark were involved in the separate phases. However I will risk my neck and say that I think you will find there are more MkIII's involved than Tigers. So that was why I said III's and IV's - note not III's by themselves

Happy Hunting.

[dieseltaylor]

It was a taught tactic for the Germans to go to the mealtime position .... or lunchtime in more logical English. There has been a thread here recently on the very subject.

[LemuelG]

if i show up to a formula1 race and have an f1 car that can beat yours (read sherman) but then find it impossible to race because your pit crew has;

tyre spikes

caltrops

sabotaged my spare parts factories

has a sniper in a helciopter gunning for my driver

has all the other cars on the circuit blocking for him

then its not really an indication of how grand poo bah your car is.

But if you still think you won the race.... I cannot think what that may be called.

Enough with the pitiful excuses for a fatally flawed vehicle, do you know why Shermans were run by everything from aircraft to bus engines? Because the W.allies prioritized production of other war material over tanks, like aircraft and trucks - the very things the Germans neglected when so much of their production was geared towards the manufacture of amateurishly-designed boutique Panzers. Oh, so now there's a nasty plane wrecking your supposed tactical superiority? Enemy troops driving circles around ya with their fancy motor-vehicles (as opposed to horse-drawn carts or foot-slogging)? Wonder why?

W.allied armour was quite capable of taking on the vaunted Panther, on those extremely rare occasions it even made it to the battle. The 75mm Sherman is more appropriately compared to the short-barrel Panzer IVs in terms of weight and designed-purpose, a shame the Germans folded before the Centurion ever hit the field - could have spared the world decades of smug Nazi-botherers hyping German uber-Panzer-tech beyond all connection with reality.

[Bastables]

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

is one area. I would find more but it is tricky for me to spend the time to find how many of each Mark were involved in the separate phases. However I will risk my neck and say that I think you will find there are more MkIII's involved than Tigers. So that was why I said III's and IV's - note not III's by themselves

Happy Hunting.

This and Kassrine pass battles had most US units equipped with M3's not M4's. The losses of both M4's and M3's tended to be from well executed side or rear ambushes from Panzers and Pak's. Similar to Panther losses (sides/rear)

[dieseltaylor]

I was thinking of H Company , Ist Armoured Regiment, 1st Armoured Division which if not all Shermans was certainly a company full worth.

The 3rd Battalion which I know had some Shermans got toughed up and pincered 14/15 February by two German Tank Regiments. The German official report cliams 34 Sherman destroyed and 3 officers and 74 crewmen captured - which sounds about the right number.

[JasonC]

The first US armored units to engaged in the Kasserine fight indeed had a full battalion of Shermans. And they got clobbered. But it wasn't because Panzer IIIs were superior to Shermans. It is yet another case showing that the operational situation and tactical handling trump gun and armor specs.

The American handling was on this occasion atrocious. 2 US infantry battalions were encircled on high ground ahead of the reserve armor, which drove straight toward them over flat, open desert devoid of any kind of cover or concealment. The Germans were waiting for them on the foothills of the aforementioned high ground, and shot them to rags in the open, essentially without loss.

The shooters included a tiny number of Tigers - like 4 - and a significant number of Panzer IV longs (less than the Shermans opposite but similar numbers), which undoubtedly did almost all of the work. The ranges were too long for the accompanying Panzer IIIs to matter at all. The Americans also brought the armored infantry of the combat command involved, in thin sided halftracks, and got them shot to ribbons in the open, as well.

[Magpie_Oz]

Given the fact it was designed (copied) to counter the T-34 did the Panther excell in that theatre? I was brought up reading tales of uber crews destroying whole Guards tank armies before breakfast with the super-duper Panther, was the Soviet experience totally different or were the Germans doing the usual, losing the battles but winning the memoirs!

The only thing about the Panther and T34 in common was sloped armour and a crap gearbox, not really a copy. The Lee and Sherman had sloped armour before both of them, depending on how you look at it.

Operation Bagration:

Soviet Armour: 4070 German Armour: 118 Tanks 377 TD

Soviet Losses: 2957 German Losses : Unknown.

Despite the Barkmann thread that suggests that the absence of records of losses is an indication that the battle did not happen, even if the German armour was totally wiped out it is still a 6:1 loss ratio.

Even if you consider all German armour performed about the same it is still an OK ratio against an enemy on the attack but it wasn't good enough. The Germans may well have been better off building a tank en mass with an excellent gun, good mobility and adequate armour rather than the over complicated rubbish they did produce.

Like a T34-76 / 85 or Sherman (75/76/17lbr) or Cromwell/Comet...........

[Vanir Ausf B]

Or a Pz Kpfw IV?

[Magpie_Oz]

Or a Pz Kpfw IV?

True enough.

It seemed much harder to build than the others tho', even the British produced more tanks than the Germans.

[Bastables]

Or a Pz Kpfw IV?

The problem was that the PIV, Hetzer, all had failure to their final drive as the main cause of mechanical failure. Remember the PIV was now a overloaded chassis with the same issues that Germany did not have the metal supplies necessaries for constructing final drives that would put up robustly with driving a armoured box around. Spielburger in his panther book has translated mins from the last Wa Pruf6 meeting that bring up final drive issues in PIV, Hetzer and Panther.

Building more PIV would have resulted in the same dislocation and drop off of manufacturing as the Panther. The Panther was cannibalising factories that manufactured PIII's for it's eventual 200-400 per month. The three factories that were allocated to Panther production would still have had the same issues switching to PIV. The difference would have been at Zittidel where 200 to 400 more PIV would have been available as opposed to 200 Panthers. Of course DB, MAN, and MNH could have just continued producing PIII's or converted to StuG production. By late 1943 the advent of T-34's with 7cm turret armour and M4's flooding commonwealth and american divisions the PIII was marginal at killing even if it was better protected than the PIV

by '44 PIV and Panther battalions reported around 50%-60% of unit readiness when employed in combat. In 1943 t-34 battalions reported around 50-70% operational readiness when in contact. Panther readiness was worthless in 43 as was T-34 in 41. Remember the Germans were having to allocate their tanks to three theatres, the majority of Armoured divs eventually fighting in Normandy were only in France for re training with elements in Germany undergoing tank gunnery and driver training. All that armour lost fighting US and Commonwealth troops was not seen defending against Bagration, Prussia, Baltic. Of course Hitler also pissed the final pz units away in attacks in Hungary as opposed to defending the actual german borders.

[Destraex1]

The only thing about the Panther and T34 in common was sloped armour and a crap gearbox, not really a copy.

Agree. The real t34 copy (the panthers competitor) was rejected because of a political scare campaign claiming it did not look german enough.

[MikeyD]

the Sherman had trouble with mere MkIII's and MkIV's let alone Tigers.

I understand trouble with MkIIIs was entirely due to firing AP with a burster charge against spaced armor plate. The rounds would easily pierce the first layer then self-destruct. Excepting that small annoyance, PzIIIs were entirely outclassed by Sherman.

[Destraex1]

Enough with the pitiful excuses for a fatally flawed vehicle, do you know why Shermans were run by everything from aircraft to bus engines? Because the W.allies prioritized production of other war material over tanks, like aircraft and trucks - the very things the Germans neglected when so much of their production was geared towards the manufacture of amateurishly-designed boutique Panzers. Oh, so now there's a nasty plane wrecking your supposed tactical superiority? Enemy troops driving circles around ya with their fancy motor-vehicles (as opposed to horse-drawn carts or foot-slogging)? Wonder why?

W.allied armour was quite capable of taking on the vaunted Panther, on those extremely rare occasions it even made it to the battle. The 75mm Sherman is more appropriately compared to the short-barrel Panzer IVs in terms of weight and designed-purpose, a shame the Germans folded before the Centurion ever hit the field - could have spared the world decades of smug Nazi-botherers hyping German uber-Panzer-tech beyond all connection with reality.

I just cannot argue, when its put like this. The Sherman was a good tank because priority was elsewhere. The panther was a crap tank because the germans prioritised it. I must be a nazi.