# Best Tank of WW2



## carman1877 (Aug 13, 2009)

Which was the best tank of WW2: King Tiger, Panther, Sherman, or T-34
(All versions of thye tanks such as the firefly)


----------



## Doughboy (Aug 13, 2009)

I don't know how you can start a thread labeled 'Best tank of ww2' and only include four tanks in your poll?

Anyway, the T-34 is probably the best of the tanks in the poll because it had speed, sloped armor, and a good main Armament. IMHO.


----------



## carman1877 (Aug 13, 2009)

I was going on the four main tanks of World War two, I would have included the Pershing, and others but I felt that they did not have as big an impact on the war as the others that I listed.


----------



## Doughboy (Aug 13, 2009)

carman1877 said:


> I was going on the four main tanks of World War two, I would have included the Pershing, and others but I felt that they did not have as big an impact on the war as the others that I listed.


Okay. That makes sense.


----------



## Watanbe (Aug 14, 2009)

Panther is the best in my opinion, superb tank. Its a selection of the best bits from all the above tanks. Good main gun, strong armour, relatively mobile.


----------



## Juha (Aug 14, 2009)

For arguments sake, A34 Comet
Plusses
Excellent gun (almost as good in A/T work as the Panthers 7,5cm KwK 42)
Fast
Very good power weight ratio
Reliable
Reasonable good armour protection

Minusses
old-fasioned boxlike hull
narrow tracks

Juha


----------



## Graeme (Aug 14, 2009)

You guys obviously know a lot about tanks whereas I know jack. I love buying those coffee table style WW2 picture books but they tend to let themselves down in the captioning and text department. This is captioned as "Russian troops capture a German tank."

What's the tank?
And what are those Jet Turbine looking wheels(?) on top?


----------



## Juha (Aug 14, 2009)

Hello Graeme
the tank is PzKpfW IV and those mysterious rotors are for engine cooling.

Juha


----------



## timshatz (Aug 14, 2009)

Best tank would probably be the Panther. But in terms of serviceability, ease of use and bang for the buck I went with the T34. It's just a very good tank, especially the T34-85. Panther is a better design but a maintainence nightmare in comparison. 

IMHO, best tank would have to cover all the way from manufacture to logistics. Just considering battlefield use is too limiting.


----------



## Juha (Aug 14, 2009)

IMHO for Allied the best tanks for deep penetration attacks were T-34-85 or Comet. T-34-85 had a little better protection, better HE shell and broader tracks. Comet was probably more reliable, had gun with better penetration power and had better power/weight ratio.

Panther on the other hand was a good tank for Germans in late 44 onwards. In 43 Germans would have needed more reliable tank, even slightly less powerful would have been perfectly adequate. But during last 9 months of war Germans were fighting almost purely defensive war along much shortened frontlines so Panther in much more reliable form with excellent gun for A/T work and with very good frontal armour suited well for Germans.

On the other hand IMHO King Tigers didn’t help much Germans. They were simply too heavy, underpowered and expensive and still vulnerable for flanking fire.

Juha


----------



## Catch22 (Aug 14, 2009)

I can't remember which book it was in, but I think the author summed it up well:

"If you want to win the battle, choose the Panther. If you want to win the war, choose the T-34."

Having said that, I'd still probably choose the Panther just for quality, and I would focus production on that instead of the King Tiger, Tiger, Jagdtiger, Panzer IV etc as the list goes on and on. Keep the StuG IV and Jagdpanther and maybe the odd other specialized tank, but do away with the massive numbers of types that the Germans had. I think they would have been fine (armor-wise) if they kept with the Panther only and developed the Panther further.


----------



## carman1877 (Aug 14, 2009)

I picked the King Tiger becuase it has great armor and amarment. heres how I see it, OK it did not have ghreat mobility so then the germans could use the panther or Panzer but when you need a a heavy tank go with the Tiger, Plus Tigers were usually brought to the battle area by trains i think, could be wrong. The gun could destroy a target at over 3km that means that even if it could be flanked they would not get close enough. also the US would send 5 shermans against it, 4 decoys and one that would flank, three were almost always destroyed by the time the 5 tank had destroyed the Tiger if it did, the fouth and fifth would usually make it. The production totals were low becuase they could barely find materials to make it, if they had been doing better than there would have been more.


----------



## Messy1 (Aug 14, 2009)

I had to go with the T34. It had a good mix of the qualities needed for a tank. Speed, firepower, armor and most of all numbers.


----------



## Juha (Aug 14, 2009)

Hello Carman
77mm cannon of Comet could pierce the turret front of King Tiger from 500y with APDS and turret sides from over 2000y with normal APCBC shot. The latter was more than adequate in normal NW Europe environment.

The first 3 King Tigers lost at the Eastern Front were destroyed by a well camouflaged T-34-85, if we believe the Russian version on what happened. The few German tankers from those King Tigers who got back to their own troops by foot claimed that they had run into a Pak front and overwhelmed. Anyway the Russian version is fully possible, according to it the Russian crew observed three very big German tanks rolling past them, the commander ordered the use of the special APCR rounds and to aim to rear sides of turrets. Hits destroyed 2 of the King Tigers, as Germans later found out to their horror a penetrating hit onto the rear sides of the King Tiger turret usually resulted an ammo fire among the ready use ammo on the racks along the rear sides of the turret. Because of that those ready use ammo racks were removed by some King Tiger units. The crew of the third King Tiger panicked and got stuck when they tried to escape and run into a big ditch.

Sometimes Allied simply bypassed King Tigers, somewhere around Beauvais Germans lost 7-8 King Tigers. Germans at first kept US tanks at bay by long range gun fire but then noticed that US troops were bypassing them and when they tried to withdraw they lost their tanks, mostly because technical defects.

Of course sometimes KTs were very effective, 2 platoons from 3./sPzAbt 507 destroyed 17 Shermans and 17 M3 half-tracks from TF Welborn on evening 30 March 45 near Paderborn without own losses. But Panther was powerful enough against Allied tanks so MHO King Tiger was a bit superfluous, an overkill.

Juha


----------



## Graeme (Aug 14, 2009)

Juha said:


> Hello Graeme
> the tank is PzKpfW IV and those mysterious rotors are for engine cooling.
> 
> Juha



Thanks Juha! It just looks odd to me. I'll google and have a gander.


----------



## carman1877 (Aug 14, 2009)

Hello Juha,

I believe what you said, however I dont know about turret but I read in several articles that the front armor of a King Tiger has never been pierced by a Allied tank. I aslo believe that any tank woule be disabled by any turret shot ot the rear less armoed spots. I am nopt familiar with the Comet, I just looked it up, thanks for mentioning it. Also just want to point out that i just favor the Tiger for its technology and that it was the Germans most feared weapon, also my Grandfather told me how fierce it was he served in (I think) an m3 half-track, he was the .50 gunner.


----------



## Juha (Aug 15, 2009)

Hello Carman
Quote:"I read in several articles that the front armor of a King Tiger has never been pierced by a Allied tank..."

It is also my impression that the hull front armour was more or less invulnerable to Allied tank and A/T guns. But also glacis plate of Panther was very difficul to penetrate, 17pdr ABCBC shot had sone 1/4 chance to penetrate a good quality one from 400y, 17pdr APDS, if hit, had a good chance to penetrate it. Not all Panther glacis plates were that good but one could not know beforehand had the Panther he was fighting against a good, an average or a poor quality glacis plate.

Juha


----------



## Ivan1GFP (Aug 15, 2009)

I think we are missing some candidates:

How about the regular garden variety Tiger I, or a KV-1, KV-85, or a JS1, 2, or 3? The Pershing and Comet have already been mentioned.

- Ivan.


----------



## parsifal (Aug 15, 2009)

Dollar for Dollar, the T-34, unquestionably. It cost about 1/2 that of a Sherman to build, and about 1/4 to 1/5 that of a Panther. Crew costs aside, that means you could have 4 or 5 T-34s for every Panther, and about 9-12 for every Tiger.

However as an overall battle package, costs aside, its hard to go past the Panther. It was a good blend of armour, power/mobility and protection. It had some very good incidentals like optics and communications. Its only drwaback, early on at least, was reliability. It appears to have had some issues with its transmission, but these were eventually solved


----------



## Juha (Aug 16, 2009)

IMHO Panther's Achilles Heel was its final drive. According to Jentz from early 44 onwards most of its problems were solved but it could still not take the strain of turning in reserve on soft ground and that last try to solve the problems was made in Oct 44 but no word on how that succeeded. According to Spielberger the final drive problems originated from original design and were unsolvable without fundamental redesign of the system /change to other system than the original, which was never made.

Juha


----------



## tomo pauk (Aug 18, 2009)

Tiger E, or just Tiger, was the best. 

Not a competitor in this poll though.


----------



## Vincenzo (Aug 18, 2009)

tomo pauk said:


> Tiger E, or just Tiger, was the best.
> 
> Not a competitor in this poll though.



i'm agree. take in consideration the time the Tiger was the best heavy, and the best tank


----------



## Deanimator (Aug 18, 2009)

The T-34. Only the T-34 and Sherman were mechanically reliable, and the Sherman was woefully under-gunned.


----------



## FalkeEins (Aug 19, 2009)

Tiger ?

..big, slow, thirsty, underpowered, heavy, mechanically unreliable .....don't think so !


----------



## Condora (Aug 19, 2009)

I have a weak spot for the Tiger Pz VI (should be in the list!), but although both the Tiger and Panther were very good tanks, they had reliability problems, and some design flaws (the wheels were very subject to clogging, for instance), which started with the Panther and were never solved in the Tiger.

The Sherman was not the best tank in the war, far from it, but it was available in huge numbers, was upgraded several times - something that british tanks could not do, as they were designed around a gun, if a bigger one was needed... no dice! -, and it did the job reasonably well.

The Tiger II was a monster, very ambitious, but I think it's complexity, size, and weight, also contributed to it's little effect in the war. It's true that Germany was in deep trouble when it appeared, but even if it hadn't been (say that it had appeared in 1940, e.g.), germans would soon been looking for a cheaper, simpler, more reliable and affordable replacement, keeping it only for elite units (and a few at that). 

If I had to choose, I'd pick the T-34: balanced, well-armoured, with a lot of punch, and as far as you tell me (had no notion of that until now), quite cheap.
It's ugly, probably smelled awfully, I bet the noise it made was appalling... but it's aim was not to please.
Did I mention it didn't get stuck in the mud easily? It's resilience to bad weather can not be forgotten.


----------



## MrCreak (Aug 19, 2009)

Condora said:


> The Sherman was not the best tank in the war, far from it, but it was available in huge numbers, was upgraded several times


Not gun-wise particularly.
(Yes it had the 75, 17 pdr* and a 105**).



> something that british tanks could not do, as they were designed around a gun


Ah not quite.
Comet was the first British tank to be actually designed _around_ a gun - check David Fletcher's 3 volume history of British armour.



> if a bigger one was needed... no dice! -, and it did the job reasonably well.


Valentine - started with a 2 pdr, upgraded to 6 pdr then 75 mm.
Churchill the same.
It did help that the 75 was essentially a re-bored/ re-chambered 6 pdr though.

* Although the "official" view was that it couldn't be done originally.
** low-velocity howitzer - no different than making a CS (Close Support) version like we Brits did from A10 (pre-WWII) onwards.


----------



## Doughboy (Aug 19, 2009)

Nobody has voted for the Sherman? *I don't blame them!*


----------



## Vincenzo (Aug 19, 2009)

compare the Tiger with same time M-4, T-34, KV-1, Churchill, Cromwell (?), take out the hopeless others axis countries tanks

ADD
the gun was superior at all other
the armour has not same advantage of gun, Churchill and KV-1 have also large frontal armour but i have not checked side of Tiger was best.
the mobility (was manuvreability) it's pointless of Tiger but the other heavy armoured were not best


----------



## Condora (Aug 20, 2009)

MrCreak said:


> Ah not quite.
> Comet was the first British tank to be actually designed _around_ a gun - check David Fletcher's 3 volume history of British armour.
> 
> Valentine - started with a 2 pdr, upgraded to 6 pdr then 75 mm.
> ...



My fault: I was a bit radical on how I said things, but I think we can agree on the basic - it was harder to upgrade the british average tank, than making a brand new one.


----------



## barney (Aug 20, 2009)

I have to mention the IS-2 here. While maybe not having the impact of any of the tanks in the poll, it’s design comes the closest to being what a MBT is today – low profile and big gun (the gun was 122mm and 16 ft long). So, like the German Electric Boat, it had a large effect after the war.


----------



## Vincenzo (Aug 20, 2009)

Armour data

Tiger
Hull front: 100 
Hull sides: 60/80 
Hull back: 82 
Turret mantlet: 110 
Turret front: 100
Turret sides: 80 
Roof: 25 
Bottom: 25 

Churchill VI
Hull front: 89+13 
Hull sides: (64+12/51+12)+20 (fw) 
Hull back: 25/51 
Turret mantlet: np?
Turret front: 89
Turret sides: 76+20 
Roof: 19
Bottom: 16/19 

KV-1 model 1942 (the heaviest, unlucky i found info only in english source on this variant maybe some missinterpretation?)
Hull front: 110/ 75+31
Hull sides: 90/130
Hull back: 60/75
Turret mantlet: 120
Turret front: 100
Turret sides: 120
Roof: 30/40
Bottom: 30

from Tzaw1 post
Hull front: 40/ 75+25
Hull sides: 75/75+25
Hull back: 75
Turret mantlet: 90
Turret front: 75
Turret sides: 75 or 82
Roof: 30/40
Bottom: 30


----------



## Condora (Aug 20, 2009)

Sorry, Vincenzo.

You have... two tanks descriptions there, or more?
I'm not quite sure on how and where to separate them...


----------



## Vincenzo (Aug 20, 2009)

ok try to put in different format


----------



## proton45 (Aug 20, 2009)

I went with the T34 for most of the reasons listed here, but I also agree that the absence of the Tiger I is a bit of a mistake...it was far more important then the Panther....


----------



## Vincenzo (Aug 20, 2009)

too me within listed go to T-34, was so superior tank until Pz IV with 75/43


----------



## Condora (Aug 21, 2009)

Thanks Vincenzo, much clearer now... 
Age takes away one's faculties, these days I can't even see the last two figures of the last line of the "torture old men" thread.


----------



## Juha (Aug 21, 2009)

Hello Vincenzo, 
what is your source for the armour of Churchill VI. Otherwise it is as what I have seen but according to my sources turret sides were 76,2mm ie 3”.

Churchill Mks VII and VIII were even better protected, hull and turret fronts were 6”/152mm and turret sides 95mm. Hull sides upper 95mm, lower 83mm.


Hello Deanimator
now 76mm gun, which was common gun in Shermans in 1945, maybe the most common at that time in ETO, was more or less equal to the 85mm gun of T-34-85 in armour piercing but it had weaker HE round than either 85mm or US 75mm.


Generally speaking, I also like Tiger I. But it is also question on the job. For a dash from Rheine to Elbe I'd choose Comet.

Juha


----------



## Vincenzo (Aug 21, 2009)

Juha said:


> Hello Vincenzo,
> what is your source for the armour of Churchill VI. Otherwise it is as what I have seen but according to my sources turret sides were 76,2mm ie 3”.
> 
> Churchill Mks VII and VIII were even better protected, hull and turret fronts were 6”/152mm and turret sides 95mm. Hull sides upper 95mm, lower 83mm.
> ...



true i read wrong line, 
www.wwiiequipment.com/index.php?opt...ry-tank-a22&catid=38:infantry-tanks&Itemid=56 

yes but coming on batte late (d-day) when Tiger was near to be put out of production


----------



## Juha (Aug 21, 2009)

Hello Vincenzo
Yes, "heavy" Churchills (Mk VII and VIII) were late comers, combat debut in Normandy. They had very heavy armour but still had the 75mm gun. It had a good HE round but was inadequate for A/T work.

Juha


----------



## Vincenzo (Aug 21, 2009)

Somebody can check that KV-1 model 1942 was a true tank, and not a missinterpretation of KV-1e?


----------



## MrCreak (Aug 21, 2009)

Vincenzo said:


> Somebody can check that KV-1 model 1942 was a true tank, and not a missinterpretation of KV-1e?



Wiki


> Model 1942 (KV-1C) – Fully cast turret with thicker armour or welded turret with thicker armour, again up-armoured and used an improved engine and the 76 mm ZiS-5 tank gun.



Also:


> That on the left is a model 1941 with the up-armored cast turret (sometimes referred as the model 1942 and recognizable for the armor ring around the turret's rear MG);


And that's not even mentioning this or this.


----------



## Vincenzo (Aug 21, 2009)

MrCreak said:


> Wiki
> 
> 
> Also:
> ...



Thank for help but i indeed russian source, too me found some english source, unlucky i don't laod the pic for campare it with a pics of KV-1e


----------



## MrCreak (Aug 22, 2009)

KV-1C Model 1942 (KV-1S in English).
Not to be confused with the KV-1s (s = skorostny/ fast).


----------



## Vincenzo (Aug 23, 2009)

MrCreak said:


> KV-1C Model 1942 (KV-1S in English).
> Not to be confused with the KV-1s (s = skorostny/ fast).



the page that you linked it's for KB-1c called KV-1s in latin letters it's sure a model 1942 but was not a over armoured KV, do you do confusion?


----------



## PJay (Sep 3, 2009)

No mention of the German Mk4? Upgradeable, fought through most of the war.
On the subject of the Tiger, I seem to recall the Syrians still had some in '67 but memory is fickle.


----------



## Juha (Sep 3, 2009)

Hello PJay
IIRC Syrians used some engineless Pz IVs as pillboxes in '67

Juha


----------



## Tzaw1 (Sep 3, 2009)

Why KV-1 and why not IS-2?

Generally there is the bad question. IMHO you cannot say which from them was best, because was every from other tale.
Nobody tries to ask, whether is better: Porsche, Bentley or Mack.
Only two comaparable are Sherman and T-34. 
In general categories Sherman is better. In special conditions of the eastern front and the war economy USSR - T-34.

BTW Mechanical reliability of T-34, at least to 1943, was plaintive.


----------



## Vincenzo (Sep 3, 2009)

Tzaw1 said:


> Only two comaparable are Sherman and T-34.
> In general categories Sherman is better. In special conditions of the eastern front and the war economy USSR - T-34.
> 
> BTW Mechanical reliability of T-34, at least to 1943, was plaintive.



why the sherman is best of T-34?
T-34 had best manouvrability
T-34 was best protection
T-34 had best firepower, idk for optics
T-34 was cheap
T-34 came 2 years before of sherman


----------



## Vincenzo (Sep 3, 2009)

Tzaw1 said:


> Why KV-1 and why not IS-2?



if you talking in my comparison, was on tank in use when came the Tiger, the IS-2 was not in use in autumn '42


----------



## Tzaw1 (Sep 4, 2009)

Vincenzo said:


> the IS-2 was not in use in autumn '42


*King *Tiger (Tiger II) too


----------



## Vincenzo (Sep 4, 2009)

Tzaw1 said:


> *King *Tiger (Tiger II) too



i write "if you talking in my comparison", where is the Koenig in my comparison??


----------



## Tzaw1 (Sep 4, 2009)

Sorry, naturally not Your comparison, but original carman1877's.
The answer on your question from post #48 later.
Armour of KV-1S (1942)


----------



## Vincenzo (Sep 4, 2009)

i knew this pics there are also per not fast KV-1 but te trouble it's the uparmoured KV-1 of '42 if it's a real or a missunderstand


----------



## Soren (Sep 4, 2009)

Even the early KV-1 was very heavily armoured for its time, a complete shock to the Germans as it appeared in 1941. It was lucky for the Germans that it didn't have very good optics plus a poor crew comfort and organization, but these were the things the Soviets sacreficed in order to keep the weight low.


----------



## Vincenzo (Sep 4, 2009)

Soren said:


> Even the early KV-1 was very heavily armoured for its time, a complete shock to the Germans as it appeared in 1941. It was lucky for the Germans that it didn't have very good optics plus a poor crew comfort and organization, but these were the things the Soviets sacreficed in order to keep the weight low.



True, KV-1 was surely the best armoured tank almost until Tiger came


----------



## Tzaw1 (Sep 4, 2009)

Vincenzo said:


> but te trouble it's the uparmoured KV-1 of '42 if it's a real or a missunderstand


To the best of my belief, there were three versions uparmoured KV-1.
KV-1 mod 1939/1940 with screwed armour plates 25-35 mm. This modification probably went only from LTZ in Leningrad. Only known photos are from Leningrad and North-West Front.
KV-1 mod 1941 had the armour strenghtened with welded plates 25 mm. In hull only in the crew section.
Turret was in two completations: welded or casted. On drawings thickness of casted armour is appointed with russian letter л (latin l).
KV-1 mod 1942 from ChTZ factory. Here was a new cast turret with thickness around the turret ring up to 110-120 mm. There were small modicfications in turret structure too and small armoured collar around the rear-turret machine gun. Later were modifications of hull and road wheels.
Next version of KV was KV-1S.
English info you can find in "Tankograd - Soviet Special No 2003. KV-1. Soviet Heavy Tank of WWII - Late Variants". Its bi-lingual german-english.
Russian info in "KV-1. Mashiny pozdnih vypuskov" and "Otyechestvyennye broniyrovannye mashiny. XX wyek", vol 2: "1941-1945".


----------



## Vincenzo (Sep 4, 2009)

beautiful Tzaw1. a bit different form what i found in internet but it's. have you info on production time and/or first use in combat?


----------



## Tzaw1 (Sep 5, 2009)

> KV-1 mod 1939/1940 with screwed armour plates


Decision about production of additional plates at end July 1941. Production since 1st June. Information about factories are unclear. Probably armour screens for new tanks were assembled directly in LKZ (Leningradski Kirovski Zavod) and for repaired tanks in works No 371 (LMZ - Leningrad Metal Works). But in factories did not survive any documents. Probably this programme was finished in August 1941.
None data about quantity and use in combat.
The unofficial mark was KV-1E (russian "Э", from "ekran" = "screen").



> KV-1 mod 1941 had the armour strenghtened with welded plates 25 mm.


Production: July 1941 - August 1942, 2723 tanks from LKZ (444, production finished October 19, 1941) and ChTZ.



> KV-1 mod 1942 from ChTZ factory


Production: January-August 1942 in ChKZ (factory No 200 - ChZTM) and UZTM (factory No 501) works. Turret from UZTM was a bit wider.

Authors of "Otyechestvyennye broniyrovannye mashiny. XX wyek" do not differentiate the mod. 1941 and mod. 1942. For them this is the same version with different turrets.


----------



## Vincenzo (Sep 5, 2009)

Спасибо!
if i understand the mod. '42 have the hull of mod. '41 (that of drawing) and a new turret that have 110/120 mm of armour, you can confim?


----------



## Tzaw1 (Sep 5, 2009)

Vincenzo said:


> Спасибо!
> if i understand the mod. '42 have the hull of mod. '41 (that of drawing) and a new turret that have 110/120 mm of armour, you can confim?


Yes. No. 
It seems that actually hull was the same with some small modifications introduced gradually.


----------



## rgallant (Sep 9, 2009)

Kind of a flawed poll as the various powers built tanks for different purposes. For example the Sherman was used as an infantry support tank in keeping with US Doctrine at the time. 

The T34 for all it capability had a 2 man turret, did not generally have a radio, and had poor ammo management. 

The Panther was a better design but suffered from mechanical reliability as noted, the PZKW IV also by later in the war was having reliability problems due the the constant increase in weight.

The KV-1 was a decent design but had some transmission problems in the earlier versions, it was I believe (could be wrong here) considered a heavy tank.

Both the Comet and Pershing were good designs that saw limited service, in the last couple of months of the war.

At some point you have to put limits in there, for the entire war, for May 1945, was in service for at least 6 months.

So really is the question what was the best overall tank that saw significant service say at least 1 year. combining all the factors of a good design:

Armour
Gun 
Mobility
Optics
Communications
Crew layout
Reliability - this one is a little subjective but is still valid.

I would tend to go with the Panther. In spite of it's mechanical problems it was a good all round tank. Good gun, good turn of speed, good protection, proper crewing (Driver, gunner, loader, commander, co-driver). Good communication and optics. With a decent driver the mechanical issues could be minimized, although by wars end they were likely hard to find.

The KV-1 could be a contender but it had issues with the turret layout as did the T-34, which dogged the early Russian tanks The gun was improved to the 85, good turn of speed, good protection, poor crewing (Driver, gunner, loader/ commander, co-driver, rear gunner (dropped in later models) and poor vision when buttoned up compared to other tanks.

The T-34 had much the same problem as the KV-1 in that it had a poor turret layout. However keeping with my specification of 1 year of service the T-34/85 is most certainly a contender. With a 3 man turret and improved gun it meets all the criteria of the Panther with better reliability. 

However, and Russian tank experts please correct me if I am wrong, the optics were generally inferior to both the Germans and the West allies. Communication gear was also more limited, partly due to a lack of native manufacturing and the sheer volume of tanks made.

The Sherman deserves mention simply because it had a good turret layout, good comms, decent speed, a decent gun in the 76mm versions. Good reliability in general, but the armour lacked even in the 76 variants.


----------



## stuka1940 (Nov 18, 2009)

Best Tank T34/85, or sherman don't laugh the allieds had lots of them. And they did every thing that was needed of them. 

the Panther, tigers, took way to much time and material to build. So there was never enough of them


----------



## voldemort (Nov 18, 2009)

I vote for Panther because of the advantages given by its armour combined with powerful gun !


----------



## Amsel (Nov 18, 2009)

I would vote for the Tiger I if it was available to vote on. It made a noticable impact most places it fought and was highly feared. Excellent armor, turret, optics, and main gun.


----------



## parsifal (Nov 19, 2009)

and so expensive that it was always heavily outnumbered. Approximately 15 T-34s for every Tiger....which has the greater combat value, the 15 T-34s, or the 1 Tiger.....Tigers on average destroyed about 4-5 enemy tanks for every one they would lose, but this still could not compensate for the exorbitant unit costs per tank. And the Russians were spewing out tank crews at somewhere between 5 and 10 times the rate that the Germans were doing it, on an industrial base that was only 70% that of Germany.

Tigers were a marvel on the battlefield, that contributed materially to the defeat of Germany because of their inflated unit costs. Speer was absolutely right, copy or adapt something like the Sherman....standardised, easy to produce and cheap


----------



## A4K (Nov 19, 2009)

Not an expert on all aspects / capabilities of the types concerned here, but for all-round versatility, practical design, and strength in a fairly small package, I say GO THE T-34! She could even run on coal fumes!

Personally though, my favourite tank of all is the M3 Stuart.


----------



## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Nov 19, 2009)

I have to agree with parsifal. I believe that overall the Tiger was a much more advanced, more modern and better tank that anything else that was fielded in numbers during WW2. As he has said though, I would rather have 15 T-34s or 15 Shermans than 1 Tiger. The T-34/Sherman is going to win the war of attrition. Cost and numbers of Tigers actually hurt the Germans.


----------



## tomo pauk (Nov 19, 2009)

Germans had no way to build 15 medium tanks instead of 1 Tiger.
The price and man-hour relations were about 1 : 1.3 : 2.5 for Pz-IV : Panther : Tiger.
2 Tigers required 10 man to crew, 2 radios, 2 sets of sights, while 5 Pz-IVs required 25 man crew, 5 radios and 5 sets of sights. 

Further, Pz-IV could be defeated by 37-45mm AT guns, while Tiger rendered those obsolete. It was a trouble for the most produced gun (Zis-3 76,2mm, over 100 000 produced in 3 years), while those would lay waste on any lighter tank Germans could field. It was trouble for most prolific allied tanks - M4, T-34, Valentine, Churchill. The later took almost point blank shot from 7,5cm L43/48 to be defeated.

What Germans really needed was a 35 ton tank to make up the numbers and supersede the Pz-III/IV on the production lines. A low-shilouette Panther, or sorta Pz-III on steroids (with long 7,5cm or 8,8cm L56). Yet, they went for something both big and defeateable (=Panther).


----------



## Juha (Nov 19, 2009)

I agree with Tomo
in other words, Germans would have needed something like Comet with sloped armour and with broader tracks, and Brits would have rather desperately needed Comet already in Normandy. 

Juha


----------



## parsifal (Nov 20, 2009)

I admit that the unit costs for T-34s is disputed....it might not be 15 for every one....but the point is you can produce a lot of T-34s or Shermans for every one tiger......they were just too expensive to be sustainable a a weapon of war for a country in the position germany was in in 1943-5. 

I am a great fan of the lowly Stug III with its 75mm gun. I think these offered better AFV capability, dollar for dollar than the super tanks that were fielded.


----------



## tomo pauk (Nov 20, 2009)

I agree about StuG-III, it was a successful way of combining excellent chassis with an excellent gun at a humble cost.

While I agree Tiger was expensive, the whole German army need to be assessed before we discard it as a viable weapon:
-Crew numbers training are the main bottlenecks: the 10 people for 2 heavy tanks would be easier/cheaper to train then 25 to man 5 mediums. And putting the battle-hardened men (= the greatest asset of any military) into Pz-IV tincans is hardly a good thing if one has an altenative.
-Numbers of tank parts that were to be counted, not weighted (radios, sights, MGs).
-Was it more cheap to produce 5 mid-power powerpacks (engine + transmission) then 2 hi-power ones?
-Same analogy could be called upon 7,5cm (L 43/48 - not very good vs. any heavy AFV) vs. 8,8cm, or vs. 7,5cm L70. 
-Would 5 mediums consume less fuel then 2 heavies? I doubt that.


I repeat that Germans were lacking on the other part of their _high-low mix_, the medium tank. I.e. Pz-III/IV needed a replacement that would be both low-price and decent performing.


----------



## Soren (Nov 20, 2009)

IMHO the Germans should've phased out the Pz.IV and Tiger Ausf.E in late 43 and concentrated solely on the Panther as their main battletank. Furthermore the MAUS project should've been abandoned in favour of the further development of the Tiger Ausf.B. I believe this would've made sure that there were enough tanks available for the crews available and vice versa, the mix which the Germans were looking for by 1944.

That having been said the Germans were somewhat on the right track with their standardization efforts late in the war, with vehicles such as the E-25, E-50, E-75 E-100. (Although the E-100 was a monster of a tank and probably not worth the trouble)


----------



## parsifal (Nov 20, 2009)

I agree Soren, though the Panther was still a complicated machine to build. The Germans could have had twice as many Panthers as tigerIs


----------



## tomo pauk (Nov 21, 2009)

Phasing out the Pz-IV in favor of Panther only contradicts Speer's view from oct 1944 (although he spoke about Italy in this particular occasion):


> ...The Sherman tank climbs mountains that our Panzer crews consider impassable...
> ...All Panzer crews want to receive lighter Panzers, which are more maneuverable, possess increased ability to cross terrain, and guarantee the necessary combat power just with a superior gun....



From: Jentz, "Panzertruppen 1943-45"


----------



## Soren (Nov 21, 2009)

Speer said some odd stuff at times, he wasn't a military specialist.

The comment about the Sherman climbing mountains that their Panzers couldn't is but one example, as German panzers generally possessed better obstacle clearing abilities than the Sherman did. But I guess he was just trying his best to convince Hitler to opt for more lighter and inexpensive tanks than heavy expensive beasts such as the Tiger by this time in the war.


----------



## parsifal (Nov 21, 2009)

Its hard to argue the technological superiority of the Sherman against equivalent German tanks, except in just one area.....cost. A Sherman was about half as expensive to build as a MkIV, yet I would argue that the Sherman was more than 50% effective as a Mk IV.

Speer was no expert, but the forces were clamouring for numbers, at a time when the production choices being made were leading the German procurement machine south in that regard. 

The desire for bigger and heavier was partly a result of a reaction to the shock of the T-34 and Matilda and partly a simple pandering to Hitlers desire for the biggest and meanest tank on the block. Panther was a more considered and well thought out response to those challenges. Whilst it was still a large and complex design, it was a lot cheaper than the Tiger, and more capable than the Mk IV.

If the Germans wanted to concentrate solely on numbers they should have opted for the SG III. This tank was only slightly more expensive than a Sherman, would not disrupt current (1942) production lines, and was very capable, particulalry in defence. It was the way Rommel wanted to requip the shattered Panzer formations in a hurry. I think Rommel was spot on the money


----------



## Juha (Nov 21, 2009)

IMHO while StuG had its strong points tank is more flexible. Germans noted in Normandy taht StuGs suffered more from the close country than panzers and Swedes noticed after tests that after all turreted tank was better solution than their S-tank, which was like a super StuG. So IMHO something in size of Comet/T-34-85 was what Germany would have needed after Pz III/IV.

Juha


----------



## Vincenzo (Nov 21, 2009)

parsifal said:


> Its hard to argue the technological superiority of the Sherman against equivalent German tanks, except in just one area.....cost. A Sherman was about half as expensive to build as a MkIV, yet I would argue that the Sherman was more than 50% effective as a Mk IV.
> 
> Speer was no expert, but the forces were clamouring for numbers, at a time when the production choices being made were leading the German procurement machine south in that regard.
> 
> ...



i'm not so sure that sherman was so cheap, neither was os more effective of a panzer IV


----------



## Soren (Nov 22, 2009)

parsifal said:


> Its hard to argue the technological superiority of the Sherman against equivalent German tanks, except in just one area.....cost. A Sherman was about half as expensive to build as a MkIV, yet I would argue that the Sherman was more than 50% effective as a Mk IV.
> 
> Speer was no expert, but the forces were clamouring for numbers, at a time when the production choices being made were leading the German procurement machine south in that regard.
> 
> ...



I agree, but the Germans couldn't just opt for the numbers game, they had to strike a balance between quality quantity, either that or they were always gonna lose. The Panther was the solution, Hitler just had to understand that earlier than he did, plus forget all about monsters such as the MAUS. 

The Panther was more expensive than a Sherman to build for sure, but it made up for that in droves when it came to combat performance (atleast once the initial teething problems were over). It could neither in any way be built as fast or in as many numbers as the Sherman, but that would've also been useless to the Germans as they wouldn't have had enough personnel to man the vehicles anyhow.


----------



## tomo pauk (Nov 22, 2009)

Soren said:


> I agree, but the Germans couldn't just opt for the numbers game, they had to strike a balance between quality quantity, either that or they were always gonna lose. The Panther was the solution, Hitler just had to understand that earlier than he did, plus forget all about monsters such as the MAUS.
> 
> The Panther was more expensive than a Sherman to build for sure, but it made up for that in droves when it came to combat performance (atleast once the initial teething problems were over). It could neither in any way be built as fast or in as many numbers as the Sherman, but that would've also been useless to the Germans as they wouldn't have had enough personnel to man the vehicles anyhow.



Agree. 
We know what happened to Luftwaffe in 1944: many planes (and not better then allied of the time), but low-quality pilots made the situation above Germany a lost game for Germans.


----------



## dragonandhistail (Nov 23, 2009)

The panther beats the T-34 on gun and armor easily but loses on mobility and ease of maintenance. In a gun fight with the panther's optics and 75mm cannon it was easily decided especially at long range. The Panther was an overall better tank but produced in quantities far too small to be war winning. I'll take it over the other three any day. Remember though that the crew and its training is the decisive factor.


----------



## Vincenzo (Nov 23, 2009)

parsifal said:


> Its hard to argue the technological superiority of the Sherman against equivalent German tanks, except in just one area.....cost. A Sherman was about half as expensive to build as a MkIV, yet I would argue that the Sherman was more than 50% effective as a Mk IV.
> 
> Speer was no expert, but the forces were clamouring for numbers, at a time when the production choices being made were leading the German procurement machine south in that regard.
> 
> ...




i found the data already posted in other thread the Sheman cost around 50k $,PZ IV G around 115k RM
at war time change PZ IV G has a monetary cost only a fraction of Sherman, if you use the pre war change (2.5 RM for a $ and this is not the right way) Pz IV G cost a bit less of Sherman. The Panter was not so more expansive around 130k RM. But the monetary cost i not the just way for that comparison.

p.s. in late '41 the change RM vs $ was already up to ~20


----------



## tomo pauk (Nov 23, 2009)

dragonandhistail said:


> The panther beats the T-34 on gun and armor easily but loses on mobility and ease of maintenance. In a gun fight with the panther's optics and 75mm cannon it was easily decided especially at long range. The Panther was an overall better tank but produced in quantities far too small to be war winning. I'll take it over *the other three* any day. Remember though that the crew and its training is the decisive factor.


What are "the other three "?


----------



## Soren (Nov 25, 2009)

I'd say that on top of eerything else the Panther is also easily as mobile as the T-34. The Panther is probably the most mobile 30+ ton tank of the entire war.


----------



## Destroyer25 (Dec 19, 2009)

1.Panther tank, (frontal) 75mm sloped armor, 75mm, long barreled, high velocity gun, good speed. 

2. T-34/76, (frontal) 50-60mm sloped armor, 76.2mm, short barreled, medium velocity gun, good speed, crudely made, poor crew compartment. 

3.King Tiger, (frontal) 120-140mm sloped armor(although not properly developed), 88mm, long barreled, extreemly high velocity gun, poor speed, high mechanical unrealiablilty(due to lack of proper development).

4. Sherman, (fronal) 60-75mm somewhat sloped armor, 75mm, short barreled, medium velocity gun, good speed, runs on avgas, extreemly likely to catch on fire if hit in rear with AT riflles. 

Your missing some key tanks here, you forgot to include Tiger I, which was superior to the King Tiger because the King Tiger was not developed properly, nor was it made with the best quality metals. 
I'd also include the Panzer IV and the Sherman Firefly. Normal Shermans are garbage, I'd rather have a armored car. 

Of course its difficult to judge because there were multiple variants of each tank. 

Also I read some posts where people mentioned the Pershing, which IMHO is more of a TD than a tank. Tanks don't have open turrets, and the StuG is an SPG/TD.


----------



## tomo pauk (Dec 19, 2009)

So Pershing had open turret.... Care to back that with some facts?


----------



## Destroyer25 (Dec 19, 2009)

Oh silly me  I'm thinking of the M36 Jackson not the M26 Pershing.


----------



## Soren (Dec 19, 2009)

You've got a lot of stuff screwed up Destroyer, the Tiger Ausf.E was for one never a better tank than the Tiger Ausf.B, it was very much the other way round. 

Top speed of the Tiger Ausf.B was 38 km/h, which is decent for a tank from this time period. Its armament armour protection was unrivalled throughtout the war, as was its optics. Mobility was also great, the tank being capable of negotiating obstacles and steeper gradients than most Allied tanks, which includes the Sherman. Its main problems were its fuel consumption and weight, and a final drive not suited for a 70 ton tank.


----------



## vikingBerserker (Dec 19, 2009)

The Sherman is garbage? I can honestly say I have never heard anybody state that before. I think trading them for an armored car with weaker armour and a smaller gun would be a great way to loose a war.


----------



## Soren (Dec 19, 2009)

vikingBerserker said:


> I think trading them for an armored car with weaker armour and a smaller gun would be a great way to loose a war.



To say the least..


----------



## parsifal (Dec 19, 2009)

Vincenzo said:


> i found the data already posted in other thread the Sheman cost around 50k $,PZ IV G around 115k RM
> at war time change PZ IV G has a monetary cost only a fraction of Sherman, if you use the pre war change (2.5 RM for a $ and this is not the right way) Pz IV G cost a bit less of Sherman. The Panter was not so more expansive around 130k RM. But the monetary cost i not the just way for that comparison.
> 
> p.s. in late '41 the change RM vs $ was already up to ~20



The cost of a Sherman was in fact closer to $37500 according to a site about the Chrysler corporation. That was the cost delivered, and ready to go. The cost quoted for the MkIV I think you will find is the cost off the line, and with certain important items of equipment missing. The real cost of the Mk IV, completed to an equivalent state as the Sherman was nearer to RM150K 

With regard to exchange rates, one of the principal looting techniques adopted by the Germans during the war was to artificially and massively undervalue their currency. Wages and the like within Germany were tightly controlled thus keeping costs down, and imports were assured due to the occupation of nearly all of Europe. However, it also meant that economic activity in the occupied territories came to a virtual standstill, and in the context of this discussion, artificially lowered the unit costs of manufactured itmes.

This is why it is difficult to compare German costs to other countries operating on a freer market system. All countries exercised price an market controls, but none to the same extent as the Germans

A closer estimate of the true exchange rate of RM to USD is appoximately 2.5 to 3.0 to 1. That would make the Mk IV have a unit cost of at least $50K and probably closer to $75K, and that still does not include certain key items like delivery and radios (and possibly even main armament....I forget to be honest)


----------



## Soren (Dec 19, 2009)

Parsifal,

Not saying that your 2.5 to 3.0 exchange rate figure is wrong, but I'm curious as to how exactly you wound up at this number. 

That having been said it wouldn't surprise me if the PzIV was around 15,000 dollars more expensive to produce than a Sherman.


----------



## Destroyer25 (Dec 19, 2009)

Soren said:


> You've got a lot of stuff screwed up Destroyer, the Tiger Ausf.E was for one never a better tank than the Tiger Ausf.B, it was very much the other way round.
> 
> Top speed of the Tiger Ausf.B was 38 km/h, which is decent for a tank from this time period. Its armament armour protection was unrivalled throughtout the war, as was its optics. Mobility was also great, the tank being capable of negotiating obstacles and steeper gradients than most Allied tanks, which includes the Sherman. Its main problems were its fuel consumption and weight, and a final drive not suited for a 70 ton tank.



I think your giving the Tiger II a little too much credit, yes the armor was exellent but it could have been better had more time been devoted to the development. Its main problem was of course mechanical breakdown, those speed figures are also misleading. Yes I know it could go 38km/h but after driving at that speed for a while a lot of things could go wrong. The engine of course could overheat, all because of its weight. It might be able to go 38km/h but for how long before you damage the transmission, the treads etc.



Soren said:


> Parsifal,
> 
> Not saying that your 2.5 to 3.0 exchange rate figure is wrong, but I'm curious as to how exactly you wound up at this number.
> 
> That having been said it wouldn't surprise me if the PzIV was around 15,000 dollars more expensive to produce than a Sherman.



Dont forget that there are Panzer IV Ausf A-H. Each one costing different amounts.Ausf H obviously being the most expensive compared to the original, Ausf A


----------



## Soren (Dec 19, 2009)

Destroyer,

I really aint giving anymore credit other than what is due. The Tiger Ausf.B's top speed was 38 km/h, and it could drive at this speed without overheating. As for the armour, it wasn't of as good a quality as that put on the Tiger Ausf.E, but it was by no means as shoddy as some dubious Soviet tests might suggest. The layout was excellent, the sheer amount of armour on the tank completely offset any small issues there might have been with the composition of the armour itself.

The Tiger Ausf.B was simply put the most advanced tank produced during the entire war, sporting the best armament armour package available whilst offering good mobility.

The Tiger Ausf.B's main problem was a final drive not meant for a 70 ton tank, which although worked fine as long as an experienced driver was behind the wheel, could quickly be broken by a rookie. That and the high weight making bridge crossing problematic and fuel consumption high.


----------



## Destroyer25 (Dec 19, 2009)

Soren said:


> Destroyer,
> 
> I really aint giving anymore credit other than what is due. The Tiger Ausf.B's top speed was 38 km/h, and it could drive at this speed without overheating. As for the armour, it wasn't of as good a quality as that put on the Tiger Ausf.E, but it was by no means as shoddy as some dubious Soviet tests might suggest. The layout was excellent, the sheer amount of armour on the tank completely offset any small issues there might have been with the composition of the armour itself.
> 
> ...



You forgot the super slow turret traverse. Overall I just think the Panther is better all around. Panther is an excellent balance of firepower, armor, and mobility. Clearly you don't understand that by the time the Tiger II came into production the Germans were *facing severe fuel shortages*. Which is why the Panther is the best all around tank, Tiger IIs guzzeled too much fuel and do to allied airpower, the number of large bridges available was numbered. Panthers could get across makeshift bridges much easier than Tigers could.


----------



## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Dec 19, 2009)

Destroyer25 said:


> WW2Aircraft.net's Resident Tactician and Modern Mobile Warfare Expert



Really?


----------



## Destroyer25 (Dec 19, 2009)

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:


> Really?



Were talking about hardware right here. If you think your a better tactician than me then go solve the scenario in my Armchair General thread.


----------



## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Dec 19, 2009)

Destroyer25 said:


> Were talking about hardware right here. If you think your a better tactician than me then go solve the scenario in my Armchair General thread.





Please list your qualifications.


----------



## Destroyer25 (Dec 19, 2009)

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:


> Please list your qualifications.



You list yours. Or are you unable to solve the scenario? I asked you to prove your better than me.


----------



## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Dec 19, 2009)

Destroyer25 said:


> You list yours. Or are you unable to solve the scenario? I asked you to prove your better than me.



I am not trying to prove anything. 

You made a claim, now back it up!


----------



## Destroyer25 (Dec 19, 2009)

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:


> I am not trying to prove anything.
> 
> You made a claim, now back it up!



Well your implying I know nothing about tactics and modern mobile warfare. Now do you think you know more than me? Because I think I know a fair amount, I've been reading on the subject for 8 years.


----------



## vikingBerserker (Dec 19, 2009)

Reading is one thing, actually doing it is an entirely seperate issue.


----------



## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Dec 19, 2009)

Destroyer25 said:


> Well your implying I know nothing about tactics and modern mobile warfare. Now do you think you know more than me? Because I think I know a fair amount, I've been reading on the subject for 8 years.



No, I am not saying you do not know anything.

I am saying you are:

*NOT* the forum's technical expert on tactics and modern mobile warfare. That is what got you all of this attention...

8 years is quite a bit, I will admit that. Considering there are people that have more years than you have been alive reading on the subject though says even more.

Once you have as many years as some of the people here and the real world experience, then you might be able to be considered our forums expert. 

Until then, get off the high post, and you might be able to learn some stuff from people here, and just maybe might be able to teach others some stuff as well.


----------



## Destroyer25 (Dec 19, 2009)

vikingBerserker said:


> Reading is one thing, actually doing it is an entirely seperate issue.



I don't think any army is currently practicing German Panzer tactics from WW2, reading is about as far as anyone can get, unless you actually fought in WW2.


----------



## vikingBerserker (Dec 19, 2009)

Well if you had been studying as much as you claim, then you would know that a number of wars since WW2 have a basis in German Panzer tactics.


----------



## Destroyer25 (Dec 19, 2009)

vikingBerserker said:


> Well if you had been studying as much as you claim, then you would know that a number of wars since WW2 have a basis in German Panzer tactics.



The ones Israel fought yes, and Desert Storm too I suppose. But both weren't solely based on German Panzer Tactics.


----------



## Soren (Dec 19, 2009)

Destroyer25 said:


> You forgot the super slow turret traverse. Overall I just think the Panther is better all around. Panther is an excellent balance of firepower, armor, and mobility. Clearly you don't understand that by the time the Tiger II came into production the Germans were *facing severe fuel shortages*. Which is why the Panther is the best all around tank, Tiger IIs guzzeled too much fuel and do to allied airpower, the number of large bridges available was numbered. Panthers could get across makeshift bridges much easier than Tigers could.



Super slow turret traverse? Destroyer once again you blew it. The Tiger Ausf.E featured a slow turret traverse, the Tiger Ausf.B didn't, it featured a rather fast turret traverse infact.


----------



## tomo pauk (Dec 20, 2009)

Damn, after so many years looking for a 'mobile tank warfare expert', we've lost the opportunity to have one.


----------



## parsifal (Dec 20, 2009)

wonder why he got banned

Edit:

I read back through the posts and can see why. What a toady!!!!, resident expert indeed!!!

For the record Mr Destroyer, I spent nearly five years in officer training school including two years at staff college. And i consider myself to be mostly ignorant on the subject of military tactics.....

What a dweeb


----------



## parsifal (Dec 20, 2009)

Soren said:


> Parsifal,
> 
> Not saying that your 2.5 to 3.0 exchange rate figure is wrong, but I'm curious as to how exactly you wound up at this number.
> 
> That having been said it wouldn't surprise me if the PzIV was around 15,000 dollars more expensive to produce than a Sherman.




There are a number of tests you can apply to determine the true exchange rates. The most relaible is to compare the cost of living indices, based on the basic cost of purchase of essential items such as bread, milk fuel and the like. For example, if the cost of living in Germany equates to a certain level that is say 40% higher for essentials than say the US, then the currency, which is basically a measure of the nations wealth, is overinflated by a similar amount.

Im no economist, but a simple and fundamental error is to fall for the basic exchange rates that are listed, without trying to compensate for what are referred to as "externalities"

Im not going to BS you Soren, my estimate is just that.....but I have read a number authors dealing with precisely the issue of the finacial econmies of each of the belliegerents. i would recommend Overy as perhaps the best author on this issue and a good starting text is "Why the Allies Won" by the same author.

He soes not pull punches, is critical of the allies and their consistent botching of campaigns and resources

Another good read on this issue in a general sense, is Ellis and his book "Brute Force"


----------



## Vincenzo (Dec 20, 2009)

i'm a economist and can tell that monetary comparation for that time are useless, but if you want make a monetary comparation it's sure that Pz IV cost a fraction of Sherman, all in europe (continental) cost low comparate to US


----------



## vinnye (Jan 3, 2010)

Well I went for the Panther (because the Comet was not an option).
The T34 was a very competent tank and more than a match for the Pzkw 3 and 4. As such it caused the Wenrmacht significant problems with its combination of spped firepower and armour. So much so that the 88mm AA guns were used against it - as they were against the Matildas!
The King Tiger was too few, too heavy for its engine and transmission and bridges. This is a major reason for it being transported via rail - and this was no easy task for a Tiger let alone a KingTiger!
The Panther had a killer gun and very good protection and fair mobility.


----------



## dunmunro1 (Jan 3, 2010)

IMHO, the best tank was the 6pdr Cromwell equipped with APDS ammo. Fast, well armoured, and able to knock out a Tiger 1 at 2000 yds...


----------



## Vincenzo (Jan 3, 2010)

dunmunro1 said:


> IMHO, the best tank was the 6pdr Cromwell equipped with APDS ammo. Fast, well armoured, and able to knock out a Tiger 1 at 2000 yds...



can you give some reference for this?


----------



## Soren (Jan 3, 2010)

dunmunro1 said:


> IMHO, the best tank was the 6pdr Cromwell equipped with APDS ammo. Fast, well armoured, and able to knock out a Tiger 1 at 2000 yds...



2000 yards?? Try with 200y and from the side.


----------



## dunmunro1 (Jan 3, 2010)

Vincenzo said:


> can you give some reference for this?



6pdr info:
6 Pounder Anti-Tank Gun

and here is a penetration chart for the 6 pdr APS versus the Tiger 1 hull:
http://www.wwiiequipment.com/pencalc/1.jpg?16

0deg = frontal armour, 180deg = rear armour. Red = penetration.

The APDS round gave the 6pdr some real "giant killer" capability. Add the 6pdr and APDS to the Cromwell and you have the best all round tank of the war.


----------



## Soren (Jan 3, 2010)

You do realize that the armour of the Tiger was so tough that the APDS projectile would likely simply shatter once it hit it right? Plus the fact that the effectiveness of APDS rounds falls off very sharply as soon as any impact angle is added. Furthermore the accuracy of the APDS round was very bad, making hits at 2000 or even 1000 yards very unlikely.

As for the Cromwell tank, sorry but it was at most a match for the PzIV, and even then I'd prefer the Pz.IV for its better optics and internal ergonomics. And seeing that the heaviest armour on the Cromwell was just 76mm thick, the Pz.IV's 7.5cm L/48 gun would be dangerous to it from ranges of 2,500m and beyond with the std. APCBC round, punching through exactly 76mm of 240BHN RHA armour at 2,500m during armour penetration tests conducted in Aberdeen USA.


----------



## dunmunro1 (Jan 4, 2010)

Soren said:


> You do realize that the armour of the Tiger was so tough that the APDS projectile would likely simply shatter once it hit it right? Plus the fact that the effectiveness of APDS rounds falls off very sharply as soon as any impact angle is added. Furthermore the accuracy of the APDS round was very bad, making hits at 2000 or even 1000 yards very unlikely.



Ok, well I produced some data on the APDS penetration. Maybe you can produce something on the Tiger resisting APDS shot?


----------



## vinnye (Jan 4, 2010)

I dont think the Cromwell faired any better in head to head shoot out with the Tiger than a Sherman would have done.
I like the Cromwell - but it needed sloped armour and a 17 pounder to make it have any chance against a Tiger.
Soren is right - the Panzer IV with the long barrel 75mm would take out a Cromwell from outside the Cromwells reach. There is not much argument to be had on the accuracy of the 75mm - it was awesome!
If you had gone with a Comet with the 77mm - then that would have had a better chance in my opinion.


----------



## Soren (Jan 4, 2010)

dunmunro1 said:


> Ok, well I produced some data on the APDS penetration. Maybe you can produce something on the Tiger resisting APDS shot?



Question is where is your data from?

The Tiger Ausf.E's armour was the best put on any tank during WW2, being so tough that it shattered projectiles which in theory should've penetrated it. The armour used was Rolled Homogenous Armour carefully treated to reach a Brinell Hardness Number of 260 to 265, which offers the optimum range of toughness alasticity for RH armour. You can read all about it in Thomas L. Jentz's series of books on the tank.

The thickness of armour isn't everything, the composition of it is just as important.


----------



## vinnye (Jan 4, 2010)

The angle helps too!
This increases the effective thickness significantly!
I don't think there were many Allied tank crews that would square up to a Tiger if they had any choice. The Firefly had a gun that could hurt the Tiger at a reasonable range - that is why they had a premium put on their heads! Unfortunatley it did not have the armour to withstand a hit by a Tiger at long range.


----------



## fastmongrel (Jan 4, 2010)

Soren said:


> You do realize that the armour of the Tiger was so tough that the APDS projectile would likely simply shatter once it hit it right?



If the 6 pounder APDS struck at a normal angle shattering is not a particular problem and the 6 pounder was better in this respect than the 17 pounder. 




> Plus the fact that the effectiveness of APDS rounds falls off very sharply as soon as any impact angle is added.



True but that happens to any shot hitting angled armour its not a unique problem to APDS




> Furthermore the accuracy of the APDS round was very bad, making hits at 2000 or even 1000 yards very unlikely.



The 6 pounder firing APDS wasnt inacurate I think you might be mixing it up with the 17 pounder APDS which had problems with sabot petal seperation leading to some wild shots. I doubt a Cromwell gunner could consistently hit a Tiger I at any range over 1,000 yards but if he hit the 6 pounder APDS could penetrate particulary a hit on the side armour would penetrate at any visible range.

Consistently hitting a moving tank sized target at 2,000 yards is still a problem for a modern tank with stabilised sights and armament. With WWII technology shooting at a stationery tank is still a suck it and see shot at ranges over 1,000 yards. Certainly tanks made hits at these ranges but not consistently there are too many variables like barrel temp (a cold barrel can send your first round way off course) barometric pressure, how long since the sights were zeroed, have you done a lot of shooting recently every shot wears the rifling particulary the first foot or 2 affecting the accuracy. 

In 1985 when I finished my service in the Royal Tank Regiment as a crew on the ranges with our fully stabilised laser sighted 120mm armed Chieftain we would be pretty happy shooting at a stationery 2,000 yard target reckoning to hit first time probably 75% of the time with a 100% hit second time but a moving target and first shot would drop to 50% or there abouts and never hitting 100% of the time no matter how many times we fired. This is with equipment and accuracy undreamt of by any WWII tankie


----------



## Soren (Jan 4, 2010)

fastmongrel said:


> If the 6 pounder APDS struck at a normal angle shattering is not a particular problem and the 6 pounder was better in this respect than the 17 pounder.



It was a problem esp. at normal angles and at short ranges fastmongrel.



fastmongrel said:


> True but that happens to any shot hitting angled armour its not a unique problem to APDS



The rate at which the penetration performance decreases with increases in impact angle is unique to APDS APCR projectiles fastmongrel. APCBC projectile retain their penetration performance a lot better with increases in impact angle than either APCR or APDS projectiles.



fastmongrel said:


> The 6 pounder firing APDS wasnt inacurate I think you might be mixing it up with the 17 pounder APDS which had problems with sabot petal seperation leading to some wild shots. I doubt a Cromwell gunner could consistently hit a Tiger I at any range over 1,000 yards but if he hit the 6 pounder APDS could penetrate particulary a hit on the side armour would penetrate at any visible range.



The problem was the same with the 6pdr as it was a design flaw in the APDS projectile itself, and this made it wildly inaccurate compared to std. AP projectiles used at the time.



fastmongrel said:


> Consistently hitting a moving tank sized target at 2,000 yards is still a problem for a modern tank with stabilised sights and armament. With WWII technology shooting at a stationery tank is still a suck it and see shot at ranges over 1,000 yards. Certainly tanks made hits at these ranges but not consistently there are too many variables like barrel temp (a cold barrel can send your first round way off course) barometric pressure, how long since the sights were zeroed, have you done a lot of shooting recently every shot wears the rifling particulary the first foot or 2 affecting the accuracy.
> 
> In 1985 when I finished my service in the Royal Tank Regiment as a crew on the ranges with our fully stabilised laser sighted 120mm armed Chieftain we would be pretty happy shooting at a stationery 2,000 yard target reckoning to hit first time probably 75% of the time with a 100% hit second time but a moving target and first shot would drop to 50% or there abouts and never hitting 100% of the time no matter how many times we fired. This is with equipment and accuracy undreamt of by any WWII tankie



I've seen Leopard II tanks hit stationary targets first time 100% of time at 2,500 meters. I know what these tanks are capable of.

Also in regards to the accuracy of a WW2 tank gun, well it just so happens that the Germans kept careful track of the performance of their guns, below you'll see the percentage of hits obtained with the 8.8cm KwK36 L/56 gun during practice against 2x2.5m stationary targets as-well as the hit percentage during combat against stationary as-well as moving enemy AFV's:

_Field tested accuracy of the 8.8cm KwK36 L/56 tank gun against stationary 2x2.5m targets and in (combat):

*PanzerGranate 39*
500m = 100% (100%)
1,000m = 100% (93%)
1,500m = 98% (74%)
2,000m = 87% (50%)
2,500m = 71% (31%) 
3,000m = 53% (19%)

*PanzerGranate 40*
500m = 100% (100%)
1,000m = 99% (80%)
1,500m = 89% (52%)
2,000m = 71% (31%)
2,500m = 55% (19%) _

Source: _Germany's Tiger tanks_ by Thomas L. Jentz

Additionally in German field reports it is mentioned that the Tiger mostly hit its intended target with the first round 100% of the time if the range is within 1,250 meters.

I'm sorry but the Cromwell is deadmeat against tanks such as the Tiger Panther, both possessing much more powerful guns, armour and much better optics. And for the same reasons the Cromwell was even struggling to keep up with the Panzer IV.


----------



## m kenny (Jan 4, 2010)

Soren said:


> It Also in regards to the accuracy of a WW2 tank gun, well it just so happens that the Germans kept careful track of the performance of their guns, below you'll see the percentage of hits obtained with the 8.8cm KwK36 L/56 gun during practice against 2x2.5m stationary targets as-well as the hit percentage during combat against stationary as-well as moving enemy AFV's:
> 
> _Field tested accuracy of the 8.8cm KwK36 L/56 tank gun against stationary 2x2.5m targets and in (combat):
> 
> ...



That is NOT what it says in the book_ 'Germany's Tiger Tanks Tiger I&II: Combat Tactics'._

Page 10.

All figures refer to stationary targets.
The first figure is the % of hits for firing *during controlled test firing* 
The % in brackets is *the variation expected due to differences between 'guns, ammunition and gunners'*
There is also a warning:

_*"these accuracy tables do not reflect actual probability of hitting a target under battlefield conditions. The probability of a first round hit was much lower than shown in theses tables."*_

In the Panzer Tracts book_ 'Dreaded Threat, The 8.8cm Flak 18/36/37 In The Anti-Tank Role'_ Jentz gives detailed ammo usage for '88' A/T guns in Russia and North Afrika. At 'normal' ranges the average was 11 rounds per *claimed* kill. At long range this increased to over 20. Even then a claim was not a confirmed kill.
In 1943-45 the German produced over 3.5 million rounds of 8.8cm AP ammunition. A lot must have missed!


----------



## fastmongrel (Jan 4, 2010)

Soren said:


> I've seen Leopard II tanks hit stationary targets first time 100% of time at 2,500 meters. I know what these tanks are capable of.



Sorry but no tank in existence or ever likely to be built can guarantee a 100% hit ratio not even a guided missile can guarantee a 100% hit ratio. There are simply far too many variables to hitting a target, the only way to come even close to a 100% ratio first shot would be to shoot on a range were you have personally measured the exact distance, with the engine switched off and just running on batteries to stop any vibration, with down range spotters giving you met data and a barrel that had fired just the right number of rounds. Pretty much what a competition marksman does to win a medal. 

This is just not possible in any real life situation but it is sometimes done by arms manufacturers trying to sell some pork to a politician.

I knew several Bundeswehr tankies and they were very good very well trained and possibly the best tankies in the best tanks in the world. We were always jealous of the sheer quantity of shot they banged down range probably twice as much as the British taxpayer could afford but I never in 10 years saw a crew that could guarantee a 100% hit ratio and even with all the latest equipment it will still be an impossibility.

Any one with any military experience knows that what is printed in the manual is usually only good for one thing. 

Emergency toilet paper.


----------



## Soren (Jan 4, 2010)

m_kenny,

As it says in the book:

_"These accuracy tables are based on the assumptions that the actual range to the target has been correctly determined and that the distribution of hits is centered on the aiming point. The first column shows the accuracy obtained during controlled test firing to determine the pattern of dispersion. The figures in the second column include the variation expected during practice firing due to differences between guns, ammunition and gunners. These accuracy tables do not reflect the actual probability of hitting a target under battlefield conditions. *Due to errors in estimating the range and many other factors,* the probability of a first hit was much lower than shown in these tables. *However, the average, calm gunner, after sensing the tracer from the first round, could achieve the accuracy shown in the second column*"_

Why leave out the parts in bold?

The target used during testing was a 2 x 2.5m plate.

*And General der Panzertruppe Breith, commander of the III.Panzer Korps wrote the following: *
_"Based on experience in the recent battles, I issue the following instructions for the cooperation of Tigers with other weapons: As a result of its high performance weapon and strong armor, the Tiger should be used primarily against enemy tanks and anti-tank weapons and secondarily - and then only as a complete exception - against infantry units. As experience has shown, its weapons allow the Tiger to fight enemy tanks at ranges of 2,000 meters and longer, which has especially worked on the morale of the opponent. As a result of the strong armor, it is possible to close to short range with the enemy tanks without being seriously damaged by the hits. Still, the Tiger should attempt to start engaging enemy tanks at ranges over 1,000 meters"_

*The 13. Tiger Kompanie, of Panzer Regiment Großdeutschland reporting on the effectiveness of the 8.8cm KwK36 gun:*
_"First round hits were usually achieved at ranges between 800 to 1,000 meters. At these ranges, the Panzer Granate 39 absolutely penetrated through the frontal armor, and usually still destroyed the engine at the rear of the T-34 tank. In 80 percent of the cases, shots from the same range hitting the side of the hull toward the rear of the tank resulted in the fuel tanks exploding. Even at ranges of 1,500 meters and longer, during favorable weather, it is possible to succeed in penetrating the T-34 with minimal expenditure of ammunition"_

Oh and as for the 3.5 million 8.8cm AP rounds produced, well a lot of them were left at wars end. But that having been said ofcourse there would be many misses, there was for all rounds produced during WW2, and for many reasons: Moving target, unclear target, misjudged range, nervous gunner, blind fire, alternative use etc etc....

But as can be seen from the actual tests conducted, the actual accuracy of the KwK36 gun sight combination was so great that if the range was judged correctly (by use of range finder) then first round hits at 2,000m on 2x2.5m target (small AFV size) were quite easily made, just as reported from troops leaders at the front.


----------



## m kenny (Jan 4, 2010)

Can you confirm that it clearly states these are *controlled test firings* and not as you claimed earlier *combat* examples and that Jentz himself says
*"these accuracy tables do not reflect actual probability of hitting a target under battlefield conditions. The probability of a first round hit was much lower than shown in theses tables*


----------



## Soren (Jan 4, 2010)

Yes I can confirm that, they demonstrate the accuracy of the gun sight combination against a 2x2.5m target if the range to the target is known. The figures in paranthesis represents what could be expected in combat against stationary targets of the same size, taking differences between guns, gunners ammunition into account.


----------



## Soren (Jan 4, 2010)

fastmongrel said:


> Sorry but no tank in existence or ever likely to be built can guarantee a 100% hit ratio not even a guided missile can guarantee a 100% hit ratio. There are simply far too many variables to hitting a target, the only way to come even close to a 100% ratio first shot would be to shoot on a range were you have personally measured the exact distance, with the engine switched off and just running on batteries to stop any vibration, with down range spotters giving you met data and a barrel that had fired just the right number of rounds. Pretty much what a competition marksman does to win a medal.
> 
> This is just not possible in any real life situation but it is sometimes done by arms manufacturers trying to sell some pork to a politician.
> 
> ...



The Leopards, 6 to 8 of them, were stationary, engines running and firing at 2x2m targets 2.5km away. I reckon around 30 round were fired, there wasn't a single miss, they litterally hit with every round. It is when you and the target start moving that the situation becomes more difficult, but against stationary targets I can guarantee you that atleast the Leopard can achieve close to 100% hit rate at 2.5km range against a 2x2m target. If the target is clearly made out, then even WW2 tank guns are very accurate at extreme ranges, as the German tests demonstrate. Furthermore the British actually tested the gun on the Tiger themselves, and found the accuracy to be oustanding.


----------



## dunmunro1 (Jan 4, 2010)

6 Pdr APCBC ammo was quite capable of dealing with Pzk IV at almost any range, and the V and VI through its sides. APDS ammo gave the 6pdr the ability of killing tigers and Panthers through their frontal armour, and for the Tiger, theoretically, at 2000 yds.

6 pdr APDS ammo was tested extensively on captured German tanks including Tigers and Panthers and was proven to be able to penetrate the frontal armour of the Tiger at 600 yds and 30 degs obliquity:

_"Front at 30 degs to normal.

From 600 yds, 6-pdr DS shot will completely defeat the visor plate and nose plate."_

These results were from a committee formed to investigate AP performance and the results are dated 24 Nov 1944. The same committee estimated that a projectile with a 4000fps MV with typical ranging and laying errors would have about a 10% chance of a 1st round hit against a *tank turret* sized target (7.5 ft x 3.5ft) at 2000 yds.

Of course we have not considered the mobility of the Cromwell and it's low profile which would enable it to move quickly from cover to cover to gain a flanking position against a slower moving opponent.


----------



## m kenny (Jan 4, 2010)

Soren said:


> The figures in paranthesis represents what could be expected in combat against stationary targets of the same size, taking differences between guns, gunners ammunition into account.



Not so. The actual description of the figure in brackets is:

_"The average calm gunner, *after sensing the tracer from the first round,* could achieve the accuracy shown in the second column"_

Thus it is a second round capability, not first round.

Anyway in order to get around this problem here is a direct OCR word-for-word version of the text from Jentz's book:

_"Both the 8.8 cm Kw.K.36 L/56 and the 8.8 cm Kw.K.43 L/71
were very accurate guns capable of first round hits at ranges ex-
ceeding 1000 meters. The estimated accuracy is given as the
probability (in percentage) of hitting a target 2 meters high and
2.5 meters wide, representing the target presented by the front of
an opposing tank. These accuracy tables are based on the as-
sumptions that the actual range to the target has been correctly
determined and that the distribution of hits is centered on the
aiming point. The first column shows the accuracy obtained dur-
ing controlled test firing of the gun to determine the pattern of
dispersion. The figures in the second column in parentheses in-
cludes the variation expected during practice firing due to differ-
ences between guns, ammunition, and gunners. Both columns
were reported in the accuracy tables from original fire tables as
shown in Table 7.1.2. These accuracy tables do not reflect the
actual probability of hitting a target under battlefield conditions.
Due to errors in estimating the range and many other factors, the
probability of a first-round hit was much lower than shown in these
tables. However, the average, calm gunner, after sensing the tracer
from the first round, could achieve the accuracy shown in the
second column."_


----------



## Soren (Jan 4, 2010)

Again dunmunro1, the Panzer IV featured better armament, optics internal ergonomics than the Cromwell. 

As for the committee you talk about, which committee exactly are we talking about here? And where did you get the information? Also the 10% hit rate can only have been established in controlled tests as those done by the Germans.


----------



## m kenny (Jan 4, 2010)

Soren said:


> Oh and as for the 3.5 million 8.8cm AP rounds produced, well a lot of them were left at wars end. But that having been said ofcourse there would be many misses, there was for all rounds produced during WW2, and for many reasons: Moving target, unclear target, misjudged range, nervous gunner, blind fire, alternative use etc etc....



As proved by the average 11 -20 shots per claimed tank kill from the 8.8cm A/T gun data.
There were also 16 million 7.5cm A/P rounds manufactured. It would appear quite a few misses in total.



Soren said:


> But as can be seen from the actual tests conducted, the actual accuracy of the KwK36 gun sight combination was so great that if the range was judged correctly (by use of range finder) then first round hits at 2,000m on 2x2.5m target (small AFV size) were quite easily made, just as reported from troops leaders at the front.



I see a table that calculates a *second round* hit on a stationary target was given as 30-50%.
I see nothing that gives a first round hit probability as these ranges.


----------



## Soren (Jan 4, 2010)

m kenny said:


> Not so. The actual description of the figure in brackets is:
> 
> _"The average calm gunner, *after sensing the tracer from the first round,* could achieve the accuracy shown in the second column"_
> 
> Thus it is a second round capability, not first round.



lol m_kenny are you know claiming that the hit percentages mentioned couldn't be expected in combat if the range was known? The tests clearly demonstrate that if the range had been judged correctly, then the hit rate percentage shown in brackets could be expected in combat. And the optical sight on the Tiger allowed the gunner to very accurately determine the range to the target if it was clearly visible, which ofcourse it wasn't always, but when it was you atleast expect the accuracy shown in the brackets.

But if you remain defiant to accept this then I invite you to read the actual German after action reports once more, at 1,000 meters it usually took just one round to obtain a hit. And with the even higher velocity 7.5cm KwK42 8.8cm KwK43 range estimation became easier, resulting in better accuracy in combat. There is ofcourse also the British results obtained with a captured Tiger I tank, where the British gunner obtained 5 successive hits on a 0.4x0.4m target at 1,200 yards.


----------



## Soren (Jan 4, 2010)

m_kenny said:


> I see a table that calculates a second round hit on a stationary target was given as 30-50%.
> I see nothing that gives a first round hit probability as these ranges.



It seems you don't know what the word probability means. If a gun hits its mark 30% of the time at 3,000m, then there's also a probability of a first round hit at that range.

The actual tests conducted by the Germans against a 2x2.5m target clearly demonstrate the accuracy of the KwK36 gun and sight combination to be as shown in the first collumn:

*PanzerGranate 39*
500m = 100% 
1,000m = 100% 
1,500m = 98% 
2,000m = 87% 
2,500m = 71% 
3,000m = 53%

*PanzerGranate 40*
500m = 100% 
1,000m = 99% 
1,500m = 89% 
2,000m = 71% 
2,500m = 55% 

So the above are the exact the chances of a first round hit at the listed ranges providing the gunner gets his range estimation right the first time. And that's a fact. 

Now ofcourse in combat the gunner doesn't always get his range estimation right the first time, and this again because of many reasons such as for example the target being only partially visible, which would make range estimation a lot more difficult. But if the target is a T-34, clearly visible and stationary, then the gunner of a Tiger will have an easy time getting the range right by simply utilizing the built in range finder in the optics, and after doing that then hitting the T-34 with the first round at a range even as great as 3km will have a 53% chance of succeeding.


----------



## m kenny (Jan 4, 2010)

I simply repeat what Jentz says directly after giving the test results:

*"these accuracy tables do not reflect actual probability of hitting a target under battlefield conditions. The probability of a first round hit was much lower than shown in theses tables"*


----------



## dunmunro1 (Jan 4, 2010)

Soren said:


> Again dunmunro1, the Panzer IV featured better armament, optics internal ergonomics than the Cromwell.
> 
> As for the committee you talk about, which committee exactly are we talking about here? And where did you get the information? Also the 10% hit rate can only have been established in controlled tests as those done by the Germans.



It certainly had a bigger gun, but that doesn't make it better, and it's AP performance could not match the 6 pdr. It was also much less mobile than the Cromwell and ergonomic and optics issues are hard to quantify and might not have have conferred any real advantage at typical battle ranges.

I believe this was the APP committee, which I think stands for the Armour Piercing Projectile Committee. Some of the output of that committee can be found here:
Naval Armor and Ballistics program

As I said a friend sent it to me, and he obtained it from a 3rd party who got it from the UK archives. In any event the data on 6 pdr APDS penetration that I presented earlier certainly confirms the theoretical ability of the APDS round to defeat the Mk VI frontal armour, but here's some output from the actual results:


----------



## Soren (Jan 4, 2010)

m kenny said:


> I simply repeat what Jentz says directly after giving the test results:
> 
> *"these accuracy tables do not reflect actual probability of hitting a target under battlefield conditions. The probability of a first round hit was much lower than shown in theses tables"*



Which goes against nothing I have written. What he is saying is that the figures in the table can't be used as absolutes for all situations, which is true, they only apply if the range to the target is known. That's why he mentions "battlefield conditions", cause under battlefield conditions range isn't always known, and the target might only be partially visible or/and moving, and the gunner might be nervous etc etc...


----------



## Soren (Jan 4, 2010)

dunmunro1 said:


> It certainly had a bigger gun, but that doesn't make it better, and it's AP performance could not match the 6 pdr.



You've got that all wrong. The 7.5cm KwK40 L/43 48 was a more powerful gun with better AP performance than the 6 pdr by far. It was only when the 6 pdr fired APDS rounds that it could match the AP performance of the KwK40. But as mentioned the APDS rounds were inaccurate and in small supply, plus they did far less damage once they penetrated armour than the APCBC shells used by the Germans which by comparison contained an explosive charge which was triggered once the projectile entered the inside of the tank.



> It was also much less mobile than the Cromwell



And this is based on what exactly? 



> and ergonomic and optics issues are hard to quantify and might not have have conferred any real advantage at typical battle ranges.



Optics ergonomics means a lot to the fighting effectiveness of a tank.



> I believe this was the APP committee, which I think stands for the Armour Piercing Projectile Committee. Some of the output of that committee can be found here:
> Naval Armor and Ballistics program
> 
> As I said a friend sent it to me, and he obtained it from a 3rd party who got it from the UK archives. In any event the data on 6 pdr APDS penetration that I presented earlier certainly confirms the theoretical ability of the APDS round to defeat the Mk VI frontal armour.



Well only problem is that it remained theoritical, just as the high hopes made of the US 76mm gun introduced in 1944. That gun was believed to be able to penetrate the Tiger's armour at up to 1100 yards, but once it entered service US tankers were horrified to discover that it didn't work at point blank range. The reason again being that the projectiles simply shattered once they hit the Tiger's armour.


----------



## dunmunro1 (Jan 4, 2010)

The above results are those obtained against an actual Tiger tank, as the data above indicates.

The Pzr IV weighs about 25 tons and has a 300hp engine and a top speed of 25mph while the Cromwell weighs about 28 tons and has a 600hp engine and a top speed of 40 mph. I wonder which one is more mobile. Can you name any medium tank with a higher power to weight ratio than the Cromwell?

Please provide some comparative data AP data for the 75mm L48 versus the 6pdr.


----------



## Soren (Jan 8, 2010)

> The Pzr IV weighs about 25 tons and has a 300hp engine and a top speed of 25mph while the Cromwell weighs about 28 tons and has a 600hp engine and a top speed of 40 mph. I wonder which one is more mobile. Can you name any medium tank with a higher power to weight ratio than the Cromwell?



Speed is not what defines how mobile a tank is, and neither is the hp of the engine vs the weight of vehicle. What matters most is the torque available vs the weight of vehicle and how it is transferred through to the tracks, plus what type of track suspension design is used. The narrow tracks of the Cromwell will limit mobility in some key inviroments such as muddy snowy terrain. If the Pz.IV was fitted with its wide tracks I suspect the Cromwell wasn't any more mobile. 



> Please provide some comparative data AP data for the 75mm L48 versus the 6pdr.




*7.5cm KwK40 L/48 performance against vertical 240 BHN RHA armour plates:*
_Projectile: 6.8 kg PzGr.39 APCBC(HE)
MV: 792 m/s
100m = 135mm
500m = 123mm
1,000m = 109mm
1,500m = 97mm
2,000m = 86mm
2,500m = 76mm
3,000m = 68mm_

*5.7cm 6pdr L/52 performance against vertical 240 BHN RHA armour plates:*
_Projectile: 3.23 kg Mk.9T APCBC
MV: 831 m/s
100m = 115mm
500m = 103mm
1,000m = 90mm
1,500m = 78mm
2,000m = 68mm
2,500m = 60mm
3,000m = 52mm_

As can clearly be seen the German 7.5cm KwK40 L/48 is a superior anti tank gun with the std. armour piercing ammunition used by both guns, being powerful enough to punch through the thickest part of a the Cromwell (76mm front) at ranges as great as 2,500m and even beyond seeing as the Cromwell's armour was very brittle at 400 to 450 BHN. The Cromwell will however struggle against the Panzer IV Ausf.G H's 80mm frontal armour, the 6pdr only being capable of defeating it within a range of 1,500m with its std. armour piercing round.


----------



## parsifal (Jan 8, 2010)

The debate regarding mobility is incomplete by a wide margin. Even defining what sort of mobility you are talking about needs to be clarifed....tactical or technical mobility, operational mobility or strategic mobility, for a start.

I suggest some further reading on the issue, and as a start refer you to the following link 

http://www.hrbi.hr/_images/files/izdavastvo_55.pdf


----------



## Soren (Jan 8, 2010)

Fully agreed, that's what I was pointing out as-well.


----------



## Juha (Jan 8, 2010)

Oh Soren
Now you are claiming that penetration info against 240RHA can be used without any calculations as equivalent to penetration against GB tank armour.

Not surprisingly German figures for 7,5cm Pak 39, the gun of Hetzer which had the same performance than the PzIVH’s KwK 40, with side angle of 30deg, are smaller and that is true even when we take into account the 30deg side angle, its PzGr. 39 penetrates Cromwell turret front up to 1000m, mantle up to 1600m, driver’s front plate 1800m and nose up to 1400m. 
And BTW Pz IVG’s H’s turret front armour was only 50mm, so?

On mobility, Finns were not overly impressed on PzIVJ’s mobility and Charioteer, a Cromwell with a new turret with 20pdr (83mm, the mother of the Nato 105mm tank cannon) was fairly mobile in rather deep snow. I know, I have got a drive on one in the middle of Finnish winter and fought against them in the middle of Finnish winter during military exercises.

On the other hand KwK 40 had a good HE round, 6pdr had not.

Juha


----------



## Vincenzo (Jan 8, 2010)

saw the figure either 6pdr and kwk 40 are versus same armour so it's right the kwk 40 was best. the range of soren it's not real world range but for both. 80mm for PZ IV it's for hull (and soren don't write that were for turret)


----------



## Soren (Jan 8, 2010)

Juha said:


> Oh Soren
> Now you are claiming that penetration info against 240RHA can be used without any calculations as equivalent to penetration against GB tank armour.



No Juha, I never claimed that, esp. since I actually know what difference it makes. Now if you actually understood the effects of BHN relative to the penetration performance of AP projectiles you would've never made that comment. It might surprise you to know that a RHA plate of >70mm thickness with a BHN of 240 is more resistant to APCBC projectiles than one of 400 to 450 BHN of the same thickness. 



> Not surprisingly German figures for 7,5cm Pak 39, the gun of Hetzer which had the same performance than the PzIVH’s KwK 40, with side angle of 30deg, are smaller and that is true even when we take into account the 30deg side angle, its PzGr. 39 penetrates Cromwell turret front up to 1000m, mantle up to 1600m, driver’s front plate 1800m and nose up to 1400m.
> And BTW Pz IVG’s H’s turret front armour was only 50mm, so?



Ok that made exactly zero sense to me. I posted the peformance of the gun against vertical 240 BHN RHA plates which are tougher than the armour of the Cromwell. So yes, the 7.5cm KwK40 will infact punch a hole in the 76mm front armour of the Cromwell at 2,500m and beyond with the PzGr.39.



> On mobility, Finns were not overly impressed on PzIVJ’s mobility and Charioteer, a Cromwell with a new turret with 20pdr (83mm, the mother of the Nato 105mm tank cannon) was fairly mobile in rather deep snow. I know, I have got a drive on one in the middle of Finnish winter and fought against them in the middle of Finnish winter during military exercises.



You haven't tried both so your opinion on this is worthless really. Furthermore when you say that the Finns weren't overly impressed with the mobility of the Pz.IV you're implying they actually had something negative to so say about it, so did they? I'm interested in this since the Pz.IV was regarded as a pretty mobile tank, one designed for the concept of BlitzKrieg.

I sincerely doubt that the Cromwell was more mobile than the Pz.IV over very muddy or snowy terrain.


----------



## Juha (Jan 8, 2010)

Now IMHO German figure of 7,5cm Pak 39 being capable to penetrate the turret of Cromwell up to 1000m when side angle is 30deg is not comparable to your claim that KwK 40 using same ammo was capable to penetrate the turret of Cromwell from over 2500m head on. So do you believe German figures or not?

And as I wrote 6pdr should only to be capable to penetrate 50mm to knock out late Pz IV, so it seems that 6pdr Cromwell could penetrate the turret of Pz IV from longer range than late Pz IV could penetrate the turret of Cromwell, but that was mostly theoretical advantage, both could penetrate other's turret at normal battle ranges in NW Europe.

On Finnish oppinion on cross country mobility of PzIVJ, IIRC it was not very high, but the yardstick was T-34.

I have seen and ride on Charioteer in snowy conditions but not in muddy condition. The snow was rather deep say 50cm.

Juha


----------



## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Jan 8, 2010)

Soren said:


> You haven't tried both so your opinion on this is worthless really.



No ones opinion is worthless!


----------



## dunmunro1 (Jan 8, 2010)

LoL, I wonder which was more " mobile" over the typical conditions in western Europe? Your argument that the Mk IV "might" be more mobile under a very narrow set of circumstances is pretty weak.

What is your source for the AP data? It looks like the 6 pdr results are for a 30 deg target angle. Here's some data from the WW2 Equipment site: WWII Equipment.com

6 pdr Mk IV/V APCBC 2780fps Target Angle=30 Armour=MQ 500yds =86mm 1000yds=80 2000yds= 68 

Pak 40 Pzgr 39 (APCBC) 792m/s TA 30 Armour =MQ 500m=96mm 1000m = 85 2000m=	64 

and this is very close to the data here: 7,5 cm Kampfwagenkanone 40 L/48, 7,5 cm Panzerabwehrkanone 40 L/48 and 7,5 cm Sturmkanone 40 L/48

so your data differs widely from the above. The 75mm gun has only a small advantage, decreasing with range.

BTW, here is a US Army report on firing trials of the 6 pdr versus a Panther:
http://efour4ever.com/57mm.htm


----------



## Vincenzo (Jan 8, 2010)

I commonly reading that heavy shell it's best a long range it's strange that kwk 40 loss comparate with the 6pdr as the range longer


----------



## dunmunro1 (Jan 8, 2010)

Vincenzo said:


> I commonly reading that heavy shell it's best a long range it's strange that kwk 40 loss comparate with the 6pdr as the range longer



It may be that the Ballistic Cap for the 6pdr had more efficient aerodynamics, and thus a smaller drop in Striking Velocity.


----------



## Soren (Jan 8, 2010)

dunmunro1 said:


> LoL, I wonder which was more " mobile" over the typical conditions in western Europe? Your argument that the Mk IV "might" be more mobile under a very narrow set of circumstances is pretty weak.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


----------



## Soren (Jan 8, 2010)

dunmunro1 said:


> It may be that the Ballistic Cap for the 6pdr had more efficient aerodynamics, and thus a smaller drop in Striking Velocity.



No its just that your data is wrong. The 7.5cm 6.8kg APCBC projectile retains velocity better than the 5.7cm 3.23 kg APCBC projectile.


----------



## Soren (Jan 8, 2010)

Juha said:


> Now IMHO German figure of 7,5cm Pak 39 being capable to penetrate the turret of Cromwell up to 1000m when side angle is 30deg is not comparable to your claim that KwK 40 using same ammo was capable to penetrate the turret of Cromwell from over 2500m head on. So do you believe German figures or not?



Are you talking about the calculated German figures against an enemy tank standing at a 30 degree angle, or the actual real life test results they obtained against high quality RHA plates laid back 30 degrees? Cause the actual tests only support the US test figures I've supplied so far. 

In short I trust the German, US British test figures 100% as they are real life results and the parameters are clear.


----------



## Soren (Jan 8, 2010)

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:


> No ones opinion is worthless!



How can you compare two cars if you've only driven one of them Adler? It's that simple really.

I've driven a T-55, a Leopard Centurion, but my actual experience of their mobility aint really worth much as my experience in them is very limited to say the least, having probably 20min behind the controls in each of them. And if I was to compare them to a tank I've never even sat in then my opinion would be worthless.

I think you're misinterpreting a simple stating of fact as an attempt at being rude, not so.


----------



## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Jan 8, 2010)

Soren said:


> How can you compare two cars if you've only driven one of them Adler? It's that simple really.
> 
> I've driven a T-55, a Leopard Centurion, but my actual experience of their mobility aint really worth much as my experience in them is very limited to say the least, having probably 20min behind the controls in each of them. And if I was to compare them to a tank I've never even sat in then my opinion would be worthless.
> 
> I think you're misinterpreting a simple stating of fact as an attempt at being rude, not so.



You know what my point was...


----------



## Soren (Jan 8, 2010)

I thought you meant I was being rude Adler, which wasn't what I wanted, just wanted to point out that unless one has experience in both vehicles then ones opinion on the matter is worthless. Truth is that Juha I can only guess how these two tanks compare in terms of mobility, and my guess is that they were rather close overall.


----------



## Soren (Jan 8, 2010)

Anyway all this talk of tank guns and their performance has urged me to post a complete list of data on the most numerous tank guns used during WW2 in a seperate thread. It will be up soon, either today or tommorrow


----------



## dunmunro1 (Jan 8, 2010)

Soren said:


> Which is because your data is wildly wrong.



LOL!, did you not read the data in the image that I posted? It shows the 6 pdr APCBC penetrating the 82mm Tiger turret side armour at 30deg target angle @ 600yds! According to your data this isn't possible!


----------



## Soren (Jan 8, 2010)

dunmunro1 said:


> LOL!, did you not read the data in the image that I posted? It shows the 6 pdr APCBC penetrating the 82mm Tiger turret side armour at 30deg target angle @ 600yds! According to your data this isn't possible!



You do realize that the Tiger's turret is curved on the sides right? That means there's a high probability of the projectiles impacting the armour at a 90 degree angle despite the 30 degree side angle to the hull. At 90 degrees the 6pdr Mk.9T will penetrate 102mm of 240 BHN RHA armour at 540 meters (600y), making it capable of penetrating the Tiger's sides from that range. That would explain the results.

Also you should not forget the rules of physics at play here, the penetration performance of a projectile very much depends on how much kinetic energy you can concentrate in as small an area as possible; Hence why subcaliber sabot rounds are so effective. And the 6pdr is a good deal behind the KwK40 in this respect, by some 5 Kilo Joules pr. cm^2.


----------



## dunmunro1 (Jan 8, 2010)

So the Hull side is also curved? It was also penetrated by the 6 pdr APCBC at 30deg target angle. Again impossible according to your data. The 30 deg Target angle for both the Turret and the Hull is clearly stated.

Also why did the Brits test their guns in the USA at Aberdeen? Why the variation in armour type for the two different tests?


----------



## Juha (Jan 8, 2010)

Soren
Do you really think that British were incapable to measure hit angles in their tests?
If you bothered to look the scan you’ll see that the other angles are given with exact angle but the turret side as approx. 30deg. So the British noticed that turret sides of Tiger were a bit like horseshoe.
And it was a test against real Tiger, and I believe more on tests made against real targets.

The Pak 39 figures were probably calculated, they were from Zaloga’s Hetzer book, he gives as the source Wa Prüf 1 report dated 5 Oct 44. Have you figures from actual tests against Cromwell, Spielberger’s Czech Tank book had one graph which showed Hetzer and PzIV/70(V) vs several types of Allied and Soviet tanks, but again it isn’t clear how the figures were got.

On real test results, British tests against real panzern in North Africa showed that 6pdr penetrates 50mm FH turret front of PzIV from 800m and driver’s plate from 900m. Source Jentz’ Panzertruppen Vol 1.
Ammo not mentioned but probably plain AP. Later APC penetrated better and still later APCBC clearly better. 

So to clarify my claim, depending the 57mm fullbore ammo used, Cromwell could penetrated the turret of Pz IVH-J farther, about same distance or from shorter distance than PZIV could penetrate its turret with PzGr. 39.

On mobility of Pz IVJ vs Charioteer. Now I have read, admittedly a long time ago, on Finns experiences with Pz IVJ, 25ton tank with 272hp engine and have sawn and ridden on Charioteer on same kind of terrain, albeit only in winter, during our summer manoeuvres other side’s light infantry kept us very occupied. IIRC Charioteer was as heavy or a bit heavier than Cromwell, which was 28ton tank with 570bhp engine. Now at least Charioteer didn’t give impression of underpowered tank with oldfashioned suspension.

Juha


----------



## Soren (Jan 8, 2010)

dunmunro1 said:


> So the Hull side is also curved? It was also penetrated by the 6 pdr APCBC at 30deg target angle. Again impossible according to your data. The 30 deg Target angle for both the Turret and the Hull is clearly stated.



Listen dunmunro it is not MY data, it is the official British tests with the gun. So unless you believe the British somehow got their own figures wrong after hundreds of firing tests done to establish the average penetration performance then I really don't see a problem here.

Problem with the paper you presented is we know no other parameters than the angle upon which was opened fire and the range. At right angles the 6pdr could defeat 102mm of 240 BHN armour at 600y, so if it struck at around 20 degrees on the Tiger's side turret hull it would've been likely to penetrate. 

There could also be anothe reason for the result; If the Tiger's side armour was face hardened, this would've worked well against uncapped projectile but poorer against the by then modern capped APCBC rounds. I do know that the Tiger's front armour wasn't face hardened, but IIRC the sides actually were. This practice was however discontinued in 1944 as the Soviets started using capped AP rounds in mass.



> Also why did the Brits test their guns in the USA at Aberdeen? Why the variation in armour type for the two different tests?



The British didn't test their guns at Aberdeen, the Americans did. The Americans brought German, British, Soviet and even Italian guns over for testing to assess the effectiveness of each gun and learn from it. The Brits made their owns tests with US, German Soviet guns for the same reasons, as did the Germans.


----------



## Soren (Jan 8, 2010)

Juha said:


> Soren
> Do you really think that British were incapable to measure hit angles in their tests?
> If you bothered to look the scan you’ll see that the other angles are given with exact angle but the turret side as approx. 30deg. So the British noticed that turret sides of Tiger were a bit like horseshoe.
> And it was a test against real Tiger, and I believe more on tests made against real targets.
> ...



As I told Dunmunro I believe face hardening is the answer to the results of the British tests. The Germans face hardened armour of ~85mm below to increase its effectiveness against uncapped enemy AP projectiles. The Soviets mostly used uncapped solid shot AP projectiles up until around some time in 1943, and FH armour was very effective against these, often shattering the projectiles which in theory should've penetrated. But by late 1943 onwards the Soviets started using capped APprojectiles in mass and as a result the Germans discontinued the practice of face hardening their armour at around late 1943 to early 1944. The point here being that the 5.7cm APCBC projectile of he 6pdr would've had an easier time against face hardened armour than just plain RHA, which would explain the results against the Tiger in 1943.

The first Panther's featured FH armour as-well.


----------



## dunmunro1 (Jan 8, 2010)

US Army testing of 57mm AT gun against captured Panther:

_"The gun was moved to a new position of 300 yds range at an 8 degree angle off the front of the tank. Three rounds were fired into the front of the tank. These rounds made slight penetrations then ricocheted off the frontal armor. *Two rounds were fired into the turret—one made a clean hole, the other mad a hole about three inches in diameter.* No fires were started. Two rounds were fired low on the track, these went through the bogie wheels on one side and came through tore up the bogie wheel and track on the other side of the tank. Two rounds were fired into the front driving sprocket and the track was broken. All but one round fired from this position, which was a bad frontal angle, made clean holes, with the exception of the three fired on the frontal armor, which made only slight penetration."_
57mm AT Gun

The Turret Armour = 110mm at 8deg...again impossible to penetrate according to your data.


----------



## Juha (Jan 8, 2010)

One point
British 6pdrs, both A/T and tank guns were either L/43 or L/50 type, also ammo development was constant. So both shots and mvs varied according to shot type and barrel leght.

Juha


----------



## vinnye (Jan 9, 2010)

I think this article is a little optimistic in saying the Tiger was eliminated! It does not say at what range the shot was fired and how many Churchills attacked the Tiger (and how many were lost?).
I have seen the Tiger at Bovington and you can see the goue made by the round on the gun barrel.

_View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BD9UdQxE70c_


----------



## Soren (Jan 9, 2010)

Dunmunro, the Panther's front turret armour is 100mm thick, not 110mm. The mantlet is 110mm thick. But even then the 6pdr proved capable of defeating that a 300yards, penetrating 115mm of vertical 240 BHN RHA armour at 300yards in US tests at Aberdeen. At a 8 degree side angle the figure only decreases by about 4 to 5mm, and th Panther wasn't known to have the best quality armour, sometimes featuring 212 BHN RHA armour. So again, no the test results I presented do NOT say it was impossible, quite the opposite infact. So stop your whining an read what is being written before you respond!


----------



## fastmongrel (Jan 9, 2010)

Soren said:


> D So stop your whining an read what is being written before you respond!



Thats a bit uncalled for do you really need to be rude. He has a different view of the evidence which he is allowed to have.


----------



## Soren (Jan 9, 2010)

fastmongrel said:


> Thats a bit uncalled for do you really need to be rude. He has a different view of the evidence which he is allowed to have.



He was practically saying I was making stuff up, and thats rude. Instead of saying that "according to your stats thats impossible!" over and over again he could've simply read what I wrote, and if he still disagreed he could said it in a calm manner. What he doesn't seem to understand is that all British tests have been taken into account in Livingston Bird's book, and that includes the ones he just posted.


----------



## Juha (Jan 9, 2010)

Hello Soren
But why in in Livingston Bird's book test results for British guns are poorer than in original British tests, especially at longer ranges? What is their explanation? After all British criteria was a bit more strict than the US one. And it’s odd that their result for 17pdr against homogeneous armour is the same as British results against FH and poorer than British result against homogeneous as shown by the scan in the other tread.

And the Panther’s mantlet was 100mm, all sources seemed to agree with that, the turret front was 100mm or 110mm depending on source.

Juha


----------



## Vincenzo (Jan 9, 2010)

for Panther turret front i think there was a change the D had 100 A G 110


----------



## Juha (Jan 9, 2010)

Hello Vinzenco
that how it is in some sources but according to Jentz' Panther book also G had 100mm turret front.


Hello Soren and Vinzenco
and the 77mm penetration table that Soren gave in the other tread is comparable to the British tests, so at 30deg homo.
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

Juha


----------



## dunmunro1 (Jan 9, 2010)

Soren, you're not making stuff up, but you are attempting to take one data set and proclaim that it is 100% accurate. Every time data is brought to your attention showing actual performance being better than the data your present, you then try to present an implausible argument explaining the discrepancy. 

For example, the US Army fires two 57mm APCBC rounds at 300 yds and 8 degs target angle, into the turret front and almost certainly these hit the 115mm mantlet of the Panther (it is almost impossible to miss the mantlet on a panther) and cleanly penetrated it...an amazing result if the gun is right at its critical velocity for penetration! The data I presented in the WW2 Tank gun thread, shows the 6 Pdr APCBC penetrating 102mm at 10deg at 2400fps on an actual tank target, and this would be equivalent to a range of ~1000 yds.

edit: The mantlet thickness seems to vary from source to source. Here's what I used, but I note that it is 110mm not 115mm:
FileantheraScheme.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


----------



## Vincenzo (Jan 9, 2010)

mantlet of panther it's 100 i think all source are agree on this, as told to juha.


----------



## dunmunro1 (Jan 9, 2010)

Vincenzo said:


> mantlet of panther it's 100 i think all source are agree on this, as told to juha.



Sorry, I edited my last post before your reply.


----------



## Soren (Jan 9, 2010)

Juha said:


> Hello Soren
> But why in in Livingston Bird's book test results for British guns are poorer than in original British tests, especially at longer ranges? What is their explanation? After all British criteria was a bit more strict than the US one. And it’s odd that their result for 17pdr against homogeneous armour is the same as British results against FH and poorer than British result against homogeneous as shown by the scan in the other tread.
> 
> And the Panther’s mantlet was 100mm, all sources seemed to agree with that, the turret front was 100mm or 110mm depending on source.
> ...



Well Juha what's strange is that Dunmunro claims the figures listed under "C" are against FH armour and the results against this are worse. In reality APCBC projectiles behave better against FH armour than pure RHA. So the only explanation for the figures is that they weren't obtained with the Mk.8T APCBC projectile, but some other projectile, AP, APBC or APDS.

Here's the 17 pdr performance against plain 240 RHA vs Face hardened 240 RHA plates (From the book _WW2 Amor Gunnery_):






As you can see the APCBC's performance increases against FH armour and declines vs pure RHA, where'as it's the other way round for the plain AP projectiles. 

Here's what Livingston has to say on the matter:

_Face Hardened armor is best at defeating uncapped AP when it overmatches
the projectile, that is, the diameter of the round is less than the
thickness of the armor. Caps on APC and APCBC defeat FH by encouraging
crack formation in the hard brittle surface. The nose of the round is
supported by the cap during the impact stage of penetration. The cap
blows out of the way for the rest of the trip through, with penetration
either by deepening cracks and ejection of material (plugging), or by
"ductile push-aside". FH tank armor generally had 80-95% of its depth at
machinable homogeneous levels. It was, in fact, made out of RHA. You can
see why it was more expensive as it took time, materials, and other
effort. After the additional heat treating, the plates tended to curl,
and so were flattened cold in presses. This cold-working introduced
locked up stresses which could be relieved catastrophically under
ballistic impact.

Homogeneous armor was "the best" by the end of WWII, when 3-6+" thick.
Even so, the Germans had considerable industrial plant dedicated to
production of FH plate, some made by the novel method of induction
hardening. People ask why the Pz III and IV remained in production too
long, to which we should add that much of their plate was expensive to
produce and difficult to assemble. Against uncapped Russian small bore,
capless AP and APBC (ballistic windshield only) it probably worked well.
These weapons were more likely to hit the Panzers than the
76-85-100-122s, due to the quantities of 45s and 14.5s on the field.

Rolled armor is ballistically superior to cast armor due to the
compaction and consolidation of grain structure which occurs during
rolling. Rolled armor is made directly from cast ingots, so you an see
that cast armor could be cheaper, as it dispenses with a huge and costly
step in fabrication. Mold making cost offsets this, but in mass
production allows savings on long term pattern use. The USA pioneered
cast armor during WWII, taking the lead from the French with their S-35s
and all. We had developed big casting techniques for for our locomotives
a good decade earlier.

Cast hulls and turrets can easily be curved, which results in less
exterior surface area for the same volume enclosed (the igloo principle).
Cast hull Shermans were good at taking glancing hits on the curved sides.
The armor was soft and ductile, and photos don't usually show cracks in
punctured Shermans. Cast armor was subject to poorly controlled
thickness, resulting in oddities such as 44mm M4A1 hull sides as measured
by the Germans 38mm nominal thicknes), and 2" rather than 3" inner gun
shields found on an early/mid M4A3. Crystalline grain structure up
through 11/43 limited ballistic resistance of cast and rolled US plate._

He also has this to say about German projectiles tests, as-well as some info on the late war Panthers:

_At the beginning of the war the Germans tested French and British armor
as found on captured tanks at Dieppe and in N. France, finding it
comparable to German armor. By the end of the war the US had tested
German projectiles and found them significantly better than ours, against
our own and British plates. As their penetration data for their own guns
showed, the Germans were able to make VERY resistant plates through to the
end of the war for their own test programs. The quality of AFV
production armor suffered, though. The loss of nickel and molybdenum
supplies was critical, and they could only compensate successfully on a
proportion of the plates delivered, due to the finicky and troublesome
interrupted-quench system, wherein plates were hoisted in and out and
back into huge quench pools, with timing to the nearest second. I
believe the Panther glacis often was defeated at the mill, with a 10-20%
reduction in effective thickness due to incorrect quenching and
tempering. A metallurgical report on a Panther glacis showed the
presence of bainite, a crystalline form of steel, in an interior layer
(like plywood)._


----------



## Juha (Jan 9, 2010)

Hello Soren
Thanks for posting the info even if I was aware of that before. IMHO the problem is that 17pdr shot didn’t overmatch the plates in question, they being thicker than 76,2mm. On German ammo, on one message to one board Lorrin wrote that because only very small % was proof tested, of those captured ones which Allied tested most were under specs, which were very high, higher than Allied ones, some even so much that they should have had rejected.

Juha


----------



## Soren (Jan 9, 2010)

Updated my response Juha


----------



## dunmunro1 (Jan 9, 2010)

Soren said:


> Well Juha what's strange is that Dunmunro claims the figures listed under "C" are against FH armour and the results against this are worse. In reality APCBC rounds behave better against FH armour than pure RHA. So the only explanation for the figures is that they weren't obtained with the Mk.8T APCBC projectile, but some other projectile, AP, APBC or APDS.



C =cemented armour, which is another way of stating face hardened armour. Once again you launch into an improbable explanation for results that challenge the data you are presenting.


----------



## Soren (Jan 9, 2010)

dunmunro1 said:


> C =cemented armour, which is another way of stating face hardened armour. Once again you launch into an improbable explanation for results that challenge the data you are presenting.



Improbable? Well you then explain the better results against RHA vs FH armour in those "test" results you posted then. One thing is for sure, if C really is for FH armour and not just C for Calculated, then it can't have been the Mk.8T which was fired. It simply must have been some other projectile.


----------



## dunmunro1 (Jan 9, 2010)

Or UK cemented armour was more resistant than that used in the data you are presenting. FH armour will be more variable in its quality than RHA because it is more complex to produce.


----------



## Soren (Jan 9, 2010)

dunmunro1 said:


> Or UK cemented armour was more resistant than that used in the data you are presenting. FH armour will be more variable in its quality than RHA because it is more complex to produce.



And you called my explanation improbable?? Stop accusing me of something you are yourself guilty of. Sorry but FH armour is FH armour, and the Brits were no better at making it than the US or Germany, Germany infact had the most experience with it. Fact is that APCBC projectiles perform better against any type of FH armour than they do against pure RHA, there's no getting around that Dunmunro.


----------



## Juha (Jan 9, 2010)

Now all I can say on British cemented is that at least that used by RN was exceptionally good, clearly more resistant to hits than that used by USN during the WWII according to US tests post-war.

Juha


----------



## Soren (Jan 9, 2010)

Juha said:


> Now all I can say on British cemented is that at least that used by RN was exceptionally good, clearly more resistant to hits than that used by USN during the WWII according to US tests post-war.
> 
> Juha



That might very well be, but it would still behave worse against APCBC projectiles than would pure RHA.


----------



## Soren (Jan 9, 2010)

Ok looked abit around for some more info on British tests, and the British apparently tested their guns against armor plates not nearly as resistant as 240 BHN RHA plates, face hardened or not, they were generally too brittle. Explaining the results. The Churchill tank apparently suffered from the same problem, using armour way to hard for its thickness at some 450 BHN, often cracking spalling on the inside when hit.


----------



## Soren (Jan 9, 2010)

Anyway lets take this to the appropiate thread for it: http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/ww2-general/wwii-tank-gun-specifications-22607-2.html


----------



## dunmunro1 (Jan 9, 2010)

Soren said:


> And you called my explanation improbable?? Stop accusing me of something you are yourself guilty of. Sorry but FH armour is FH armour, and the Brits were no better at making it than the US or Germany, Germany infact had the most experience with it. Fact is that APCBC projectiles perform better against any type of FH armour than they do against pure RHA, there's no getting around that Dunmunro.



FH armour varies widely in its quality and resistance to projectiles. For thick naval plates, the RN had FH armour that was far superior to USN armour and somewhat better than KM armour as well. In general, the UK had more experience with armour and AP projectile design than any other country, including Germany.


----------



## Soren (Jan 9, 2010)

dunmunro1 said:


> FH armour varies widely in its quality and resistance to projectiles. For thick naval plates, the RN had FH armour that was far superior to USN armour and somewhat better than KM armour as well.* In general, the UK had more experience with armour and AP projectile design than any other country, including Germany*.



Sorry but that's quite simply untrue. But you're welcome to try and back it up.


----------



## dunmunro1 (Jan 9, 2010)

let's see: 
2 pdr versus 37mm 
6 pdr versus 50mm
6 Pdr APDS versus 75mm 
17 pdr versus 88mm
17 pdr APDS...

The UK always had a lead over Germany in AP gun and projectile design, and the other major powers involved in WW2, your own data shows this, although you've been careful not to present any data on the APDS round. We've been arguing over the merits of a 57mm UK gun versus a 75mm German gun, but once we introduce APDS the contest is over. The UK began intensive study of armour and AP weapon performance after Jutland, and they never let go of that lead until well after WW2. Even Canada was well ahead of Germany in terms of APDS design.


----------



## Vincenzo (Jan 9, 2010)

dunmunro1 said:


> let's see:
> 2 pdr versus 37mm
> 6 pdr versus 50mm
> 6 Pdr APDS versus 75mm
> ...



i've no words


----------



## Juha (Jan 9, 2010)

Hello dunmunro
while I agree that British were forefront in armour business after their research on Jutland that not always shown up on battlefields. The material losses in France in 1940 forced British hand together with losses on production capabilities because of the impact of the Great Depression. IIRC the development of 6pdr began in 1938 and it was more or less ready for production at the time of Dunkirk but after that the numbers became overriding factor, thinking was that it was better have some 2pdrs than a few 6pdrs because after Dunkirk UK was almost without A/T guns, so production of 6pdr was delayed appr one year, so it was more of contemporary of 75mm Pak 40 than 50mm PaK 38 even if it could have been contemporary of the latter. But 17pdr was near contemporary of the 75mm Pak 40, so at that point British got again more powerful standard A/T gun than VM. 2pdr was clearly more powerful than 37mm Pak 36 but the thinking behind those guns was different, 2pdr was heavier and more powerful, 37mm was lighter, more easily to manoeuvre but clearly less powerful-

Juha


----------



## Vincenzo (Jan 9, 2010)

Juha 17 pdr was near contemporary to 88 pak 43 more that 75 pak 40
some data
6 pdr 1st action may '42 75 pak 40 first action maybe december '41
17 pdr 1st action feb '43 (on 25 pdr carriage) 88 pak 43 summer '43


----------



## m kenny (Jan 9, 2010)

Introduction to Weapons Data


----------



## Soren (Jan 9, 2010)

dunmunro1 said:


> let's see:
> 2 pdr versus 37mm
> 6 pdr versus 50mm
> 6 Pdr APDS versus 75mm
> ...



Your blinded by your bias, that's all there is to say.

APDS was a poor ammunition type during WW2, it was inaccurate and poor against sloped armour, had poor killing power once penetration was achieved and in short supply. I can for the love of God not understand why you're so obsessed with this projectile type.

Also as for your little comparison, again you're wrong, German guns of the same caliber size were usually better than British, US Soviet guns. And the Germans were also the ones with the most experience within the field of armour projectiles, being the first to deploy boat tail designs and establish certain thickness to hardness standards within the armour industry to obtain the best quality plates in the world. The US were the second nation to follow this line.


----------



## dunmunro1 (Jan 9, 2010)

Yes, I agree that production difficulties delayed the introduction of the 6 pdr and this has created the impression that the UK fell behind in AP design. The German army was certainly good at improvising, using the 88mm, for example as an ad hoc AT gun, while the UK very rarely used their 3.7" AA gun for the same purpose, although it had an AP round available. In general. however, the UK used its lead in AP research to stay one step ahead of the German army, and far ahead of everyone else. It is almost enough to make one weep, when you realize that the UK was urging the USA to mass produce the Sherman with a 17 pdr in the USA, every Sherman in Normandy could have been the equivalent to a Firefly. The decision to replace the 6 pdr with the 75 mm OQF was really crazy, and again gave the impression that the UK had fallen behind in AP design, when 6 pdr/APDS Cromwells would have been far superior in the AT role and the UK had thousands of them sitting in depots in the UK while UK tanks crews in Normandy were bouncing 75mm rounds off German tanks...Luckily some sanity remained and 6 pdr Churchills were reintroduced to Normandy where their APDS guns gave them a massive edge over the 75mm Churchill. The Canadian Army was sitting on over 1000 6 pdr Ram tanks in the UK, that actually had thicker armour and a far superior gun than the Shermans they had to fight with. Crazy!


----------



## Juha (Jan 9, 2010)

Hello Vinzenco
88mm PaK was never a stardard A/T gun for WM divs, check the TOEs, 17pdr otherwise was for British divs in ETO, also check the relevant TOEs.

On service entry. The first combat development is a different thing, it was much faster to put a gun to raiway wagon in Germany and sent the train to Russia than to put a gun on a ship, sent the ship around the Cape of Good Hope to Egypt and from there to the front.

Juha


----------



## Vincenzo (Jan 9, 2010)

Juha said:


> Hello Vinzenco
> 88mm PaK was never a stardard A/T gun for WM divs, check the TOEs, 17pdr otherwise was for British divs in ETO, also check the relevant TOEs.
> 
> On service entry. The first combat development is a different thing, it was much faster to put a gun to raiway wagon in Germany and sent the train to Russia than to put a gun on a ship, sent the ship around the Cape of Good Hope to Egypt and from there to the front.
> ...



1st true but was talking on ATG technology, if WM use indipendent AT unit for 88 it's no relevant.

true but idk what road take the 17 pdr for go in tunisia, there is some more short of Good Hope route (also air route)


----------



## Soren (Jan 9, 2010)

Well let's compare the guns in question:

*8.8cm KwK43 Pak43 L/71*

Projectile weight: 10.4 kg PzGr.39/43 APCBC(HE)
Sectional Density: 1.342
Muzzle Velocity: 1000 m/s
Total Kinetic Energy: 5200 KJ
Kinetic Energy pr. cm^2: 85.49 KJ

Performance against 90 degree 240 BHN RHA armour:
500m = 219mm
1,000m = 204mm
1,500m = 190mm
2,000m = 176mm
2,500m = 164mm
3,000m = 153mm
________________________________________

*7.62cm 17pdr *

Projectile weight: 7.7 kg Mk.8T APCBC
Sectional Density: 1.326
Muzzle Velocity: 883 m/s
Total Kinetic Energy: 3001 KJ
Kinetic Energy pr. cm^2: 65.8 KJ

Performance against 90 degree 240 BHN RHA armour:
500m = 163mm
1,000m = 150mm
1,500m = 137mm
2,000m = 126mm
2,500m = 116mm
3,000m = 107mm
_________________________________________________

*7.5cm KwK42 L/70*

Projectile weight: 7.2 kg PzGr.39/42 APCBC(HE)
Sectional Density: 1.280
Muzzle Velocity: 925 m/s
Total Kinetic Energy: 3080 KJ 
Kinetic Energy pr. cm^2: 69.7 KJ 

Performance against 90 degree 240 BHN RHA armour:
500m = 168mm
1,000m = 149mm
1,500m = 132mm
2,000m = 116mm
2,500m = 103mm
3,000m = 91mm
_________________________________________________

*8.8cm KwK36 FlaK18/36 L/56*

Projectile weight: 10.2 kg PzGr.39-1 APCBC(HE)
Sectional Density: 1.317
Muzzle Velocity: 773 m/s
Total Kinetic Energy: 3107 KJ
Kinetic Energy pr. cm^2: 51.09 KJ

Performance against 90 degree 240 BHN RHA armour:
500m = 151mm
1,000m = 138mm
1,500m = 126mm
2,000m = 116mm
2,500m = 106mm
3,000m = 97mm
_________________________________________________

*7.5cm KwK40 L/48*

Projectile weight: 6.8 kg PzGr.39 APCBC(HE)
Sectional Density: 1.208
Muzzle Velocity: 790 m/s
Total Kinetic Energy: 2122 KJ
Kinetic Energy pr. cm^2: 48.03 KJ

Performance against 90 degree 240 BHN RHA armour:
500m = 123mm
1,000m = 109mm
1,500m = 97mm
2,000m = 86mm
2,500m = 76mm
3,000m = 68mm

_________________________________________________

*5.7cm 6 pdr L/52*

Projectile weight: 3.23 kg Mk.9T APCBC
Secional Density: 1.005
Muzzle Velocity: 831 m/s
Total Kinetic Energy: 1115 KJ
Kinetic Energy pr. cm^2: 43.69 KJ

Performance against 90 degree 240 BHN RHA armour:
500m = 103mm
1,000m = 90mm
1,500m = 78mm 
2,000m = 68mm
2,500m = 60mm
3,000m = 52mm
_________________________________________________


As most historians agree, it is pretty clear that when it came to armour armament, the Germans were ahead throughout the war.


----------



## Soren (Jan 9, 2010)

Juha said:


> Hello Vinzenco
> 88mm PaK was never a stardard A/T gun for WM divs, check the TOEs, 17pdr otherwise was for British divs in ETO, also check the relevant TOEs.
> 
> On service entry. The first combat development is a different thing, it was much faster to put a gun to raiway wagon in Germany and sent the train to Russia than to put a gun on a ship, sent the ship around the Cape of Good Hope to Egypt and from there to the front.
> ...



And yet the Germans had 88's, Pak40's Tigers in Tunisia before the Brits had 17 pdr's there.


----------



## Vincenzo (Jan 9, 2010)

Juha i just checked the 17 pdr gun go in Egypt via air route, w/o carriage, they are not ready, in Egypt the guns were mounted on 25 pdr carriage and so go on front i think on road


----------



## Juha (Jan 9, 2010)

Hello Vincenzo
Quote:"Juha i just checked the 17 pdr gun go in Egypt via air route, w/o carriage, they are not ready, in Egypt the guns were mounted on 25 pdr carriage and so go on front i think on road."

Thanks for that info, I knew that the first combat deployed went through Egypt but didn't know that they were airlifted, but without carriages.

IIRC the first production PaK 40s were delivered in Nov 41 and first production 17pdrs in April 42, so there was 5 months difference.

Juha


----------



## Vincenzo (Jan 9, 2010)

Juha said:


> Hello Vincenzo
> Quote:"Juha i just checked the 17 pdr gun go in Egypt via air route, w/o carriage, they are not ready, in Egypt the guns were mounted on 25 pdr carriage and so go on front i think on road."
> 
> Thanks for that info, I knew that the first combat deployed went through Egypt but didn't know that they were airlifted, but without carriages.
> ...



juha the first production 17 pdrs was w/o carriage this is reason for the use of 25 pdr carriage, so the 5 months aren't true you can use a gun w/o carriage, and delivery is not same of start production


----------



## Juha (Jan 9, 2010)

Hello Vincenzo
British produced 25pdr carriage for 17pdr and it worked OK as DAK found out in Jan/Feb 43. And as I wrote the first 17pdrs were delivered in April 42, first proper carriages were produced in May 42.

Juha


----------



## Vincenzo (Jan 9, 2010)

i ever read first 17 pdr completed in april (or production started in) never delivered in april.
i no writing that the 25 pdr carriage was not ok. maybe first proper carriage produces in may but there were some trouble it they have not carriage for guns to sent in north africa some months late


----------



## dunmunro1 (Jan 9, 2010)

The 8th army also used the 3.7" AA gun (in very small numbers) in an AT role at Gazala. It had an AP round and could have been used in this role in North Africa from 1940 onward.


----------



## parsifal (Jan 9, 2010)

A significant reason why there was no real rush by the allies to introduce heavier AT guns in the theatre was that they did not need to. The 2 pounder was seen as being able to very adequately deal with the armour being fitted to German tanks of that period, whereas the 37mm and 50 mm (and 47mm Bohler design used by the italians) laboured with the armouring schemes fitted to British Tanks of the day.

Of course there was some really insane notions in the British army that believed AA guns were for AA use only, and should not be employed in a role for which they were not design. There is a famous quote, that goes along these lines....a German officer has been captured and is being questioned by a British officer....essentially the british officer asks..."why are you germans so unsporting and insist on using AA weapons in the AT role?", to which the German replied "why are you british so unsporting and inist on building tanks that only our 88s can pernatrate?" Perhaps an exagerration but the general idea is converyed...


----------



## Juha (Jan 10, 2010)

Hello Vincenzo
IIRC the problem with the proper carriage for the 17pdr was the slowness of production but you might be right on complete 17pdr guns, the solution of carriage problem might have taken some time because no 17pdrs participated El Alamein battle, even if 6pdr could handle most of the German tanks, the most difficult targets to it with 42 ammo were those with 30mm+30mm FH spaced front armour which were immune to 500y. 
BTW have you info the route and the a/c used to transport the 17pdr guns without carriages from GB to Egypt?

Juha


----------



## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Jan 10, 2010)

Very good info guys, I am enjoying the conversation. Armour is not a strong point for me, and I am learning quite a bit from this discussion. I do however have a gut feeling that it is about to turn ugly. Try not to let it...


----------



## Vincenzo (Jan 10, 2010)

Juha said:


> Hello Vincenzo
> IIRC the problem with the proper carriage for the 17pdr was the slowness of production but you might be right on complete 17pdr guns, the solution of carriage problem might have taken some time because no 17pdrs participated El Alamein battle, even if 6pdr could handle most of the German tanks, the most difficult targets to it with 42 ammo were those with 30mm+30mm FH spaced front armour which were immune to 500y.
> BTW have you info the route and the a/c used to transport the 17pdr guns without carriages from GB to Egypt?
> 
> Juha



My source on this, Armi da guerra (italian edition of War Machine, Aerospace Puplishing, London 1983), report only that 100 guns go way air route in North Africa and there were mounted on 25 pdr carriage, this source report also that first 17 pdr were built in august '42.


----------



## vinnye (Jan 17, 2010)

May be old news to some - I have just seen the Discovery Channel investigation into who killed Michael Wittmann.
I am not sure that the ranges quoted in Villers Bocage engagement were exactly right - if they were it suggests that even at 50 yds a British tank could not take on the frontal armour of a Tiger! Could not say if the tanks knocked out by Wittmann's Tiger were Cromwell's or Churchills - I think the former. But both would have been fitted with 6 pdrs? 
One British tank had a perfect side on shot at point blank range - but could not shoot because the gunner was out of the tank relieving himself! How lucky / unlucky is that!
During the engagement were Wittmann's Tiger was knocked out - a Yeomanry Sherman Firefly engaged 3 Tigers from a position about 800m away (in a wood) knocking them out!
Wittmann's Tiger was engaged by Canadian Shermans from his left flank at under 200m. It looked like the hit that brewed up his Tiger hit at the rear left corner and set the fuel on fire - which ignited the ammo blowing the turret off!
I like to see the technical arguments that some of you guys have - using test data - but the real performance that matters is in the field. The Firefly guys said they could engage a Tiger out to 1200m but preferred to do so at 800m if they could.


----------



## pbfoot (Jan 17, 2010)

here is the link for part 5 and the summary of Wittmans demise according to the show Wittmans Tiger was was taken out from 143 meter by the Sherbrookes's . It was very good IMO doc ome of the better ones 

_View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qp2GKAEup5I_
the other previous 4 pts of the documentary are also available


----------



## tanker1408 (Apr 2, 2010)

Doughboy said:


> the T-34 is probably the best of the tanks in the poll because it had speed, sloped armor, and a good main Armament. IMHO.



Oh please. All tanks in the poll have the exact same features, the T34 is not the only tank during WW2 with sloped armor, a good main armamament and speed. The most notable disadvantage is that the most built T34 variant (T34-76) dididn't even have a radio until 1944. Thus, T34 crews couldn't communicate and were unable to make any successful tactics on the battlefield. They had to use signal flags for silly tactic purpose called "i drive first you follow me". Furthermore, early T34's had very bad sights and no cupola on the turret for the tank commander. Thus, they had a very bad around view over the battlefield, for that reason they often drove into german PAK ambushes. The early T34s even suffered from major transmission problems. Also another disadvantage, T34 had no mechanized turret, thus the crews had to use handwheels to turn the turret and the gun. 

Compare this to german tanks. ALL german tanks did have a radio, cupola for 360° view over the battlefield and mechanized turrets. This is called QUALITY!

Only in 1944, the T34-85 was the first improved variant and first soviet tank ever with a radio and cupola. Plus the Russians stole the German idea of "spaced armor" (better known as side skirts on the panezr IV). In 1945 many soviet tanks which fought in Berlin were additionally protected by spaced armor (additional armor plates) which has been seen before on the german Panzer 4 in 1943 before the Russians used it for their own tanks.



Messy1 said:


> I had to go with the T34. It had a good mix of the qualities needed for a tank. Speed, firepower, armor and most of all numbers.



This is exat the kind of over-patriotic junk I'm getting sick of. Some people actually believe that the T34 was some sort of supertank with the best armor and best gun. But that's not even close true. T34's DID NOT have good armor and a good gun as seen from the whole war. Only during a short time period bewteen 1941-1942 when it was new on the battlefield it dominated over all german tanks. ( It never amazes me because at this time most german tanks didn't even have anti tank guns, only auto cannons which were designed for infantry support purpose and so could not penetrate any armor. Most german tanks during this time were designed for infantry support only). But after 1942, thel T34 did have thin PAPER armor for german guns which could be pierced by 90% of all german tank guns! T34s had only the best armor in 1942, before Germans released their new tanks to counter the T34. ALL German medium-heavy tanks (except for Panzer III) had better armor and a better gun. The T34 was only superior from 1941-1942. This is only a short time period of 1 year, but as we all know that the whole WW2 lasted 5 years at least. 
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

*German tank guns performance vs T34 armor*

Early T34 variants (T34-76, which were armed with the 76,2mm gun) had only 20mm thin armor sloped at 60° which results in 40mm vertical (every armor plate angled at 60° is double).

Compare this to the Panzer IV which had 80mm thick vertical armor on the front. Even though it was only vertical and NOT sloped it was thicker anyway! 
(as you can see, sloped armor is not always the best if it is not thick enough) hehe

Only the new T34-85 variant (armed with the 85mm gun) had increased front armor on the turret (mantled) of 80mm thickness. The hull armor was increased up to 
45mm front armor at 45° angled which equals 80mm in vertical.

Almost all german tank guns after 1942 could destroy the T34 at ranges of 2,000 - 3,000 meters:

Panzer III ausf. L, M, N (all of these versions were upgunned with either 5cm L/60 or 7,5cm L/24 guns, using APC it could penetarte the front armor of T34 at 500m distance)
Panzer IV Ausf. F2, G, H, J (All of these versions were upgunned with the 7,5cm gun that could penetarte the T34's armor at 2,000 meters distance) 
Tiger I Ausf. E (the 8,8cm kwk 36 could kill the T34 at ~3,000 meters)
Tiger II Ausf. B (King Tigers 8,8cm kwk 43 could kill the T34 at ~4,500 - 5,000 meters maximum range)
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
*
T34's gun performance vs German armor:*

the 76,2mm gun of the early T34 variant was ineffective against the front armor of Tiger I, King Tiger and Panther at any range. Even at point blank (very close distance) the gun would not penetrate the front armor.

However, because the Panther had very thin side and rear armor (only 30mm thick) the early T34 could destroy it at over 1,000 meters distance by shooting the thin side or rear armor. 

the Tiger I still had 80mm thick side and rear armor, thus, the T34-76 could only penetrate it's side armor at very close ranges of 100-200 meters.

King Tiger had 80mm on the side/rear as well, but therefore it was sloped and not vertical like from the Tiger I. trials proved that the early T34-76 could NOT penetrate the side or rear armor of the King Tiger at any range. the 76,2mm gun was ineffective against King Tiger's armor. 
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

*Mechanical reliability *

Now to the rumors about unreliability of Tiger and King Tiger tank. It is true that many King Tigers on the Western Theatre (mostly in the Bulge/Ardennes) had alot of mechanical breakdowns and ran out of fuel and were abandoned and/or destroyed by their own crews. But the majority of all King Tigers on the Eastern front worked very well with littlle reports of mechanical problem. According to reports of heavy tank battalions made in 1944, average overall operational status for the Tiger and King Tiger was between 65 and 70%. That's not too bad. NO tank type of ANY nation had an operational average of 100%. Not even the Soviet T34.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

*Battle reports of the tanks:*

*Tiger I*: In 1943, when the Tiger saw first action, it was the best protected and most powerful licensed tank in the world. It was soo good protected that only a very rare number of anti tank guns could barely penetrate it. On the Eastern front during Battle of Kursk and Battle of Prokharovka Tigers were outstanding and always dominated the battlefield. ONLY the ZIS-3 field gun was able to penetrate it's front armor ( and the SU-76 wich had the same gun as the ZIS-3). All other russian tank guns were ineffective beyond 200 meters. the first 100 Tiger tanks that saw action against the Russians performed very successful and scored very high kills (because they could surive many battles and destroy many tanks). In the first few weeks a small group of Tigers destroyed many soviet tank divisions. the 503rd, 502nd and 501st German heavy tank battalions successfully destroyed over 3,600 soviet AFVs in the first few months for very low own losses.


----------



## tanker1408 (Apr 2, 2010)

*Final combat statistics and overall result which was the most effective and most successful tank on the battlefield* (this has nothing to do with my own opinion, it's all about real facts and historical researches):

Best tanks during WW2 by combat history and in terms of kills per loss are only *Tiger I* and *Tiger II*. Both had the best kill-to-loss ratios (highes kills for the lowest losses) because they had the best survival chance on the battlefield because of the good armor protection and they could kill plenty of enemy tanks with the powerful 88mm gun. best tank battalion was the 503 which scored over 1,700 tank kills for only 250 own losses (Tigers and King Tiegrs) This is a 13.08 kill-to-loss ratio. Second best unit was Heavy tank battalion 502 with 1,200 tank kills and only 107 own losses. Kurt Knispel who was tank commander of a King Tiger is the best tanker of all time and the highest soring tank ace of WW2. He is credited with 168 tank kills. 10 further Tiger aces are credited with the destruction of 100+ tank kills (Otto Carius, Johannes Bölte, Michael Wittmann etc etc). In other words, only 10 Tiger tanks have destroyed over 1,000 enemy tanks! (This is NOT propaganda, only true facts). Also notable is Hauptscharführer Karl Körner, he destroyed 13 soviet IS-2 tanks in Berlin and killed further 100+ T34s while defending Berlin against the Red Army. He was awarded the knights cross of the iron cross in the Fuhrerbunker. 

The *Panther* is not credited with such a good kill to loss ratio as we know it from the Tiger, because this tank had very bad side and rear armor protection. Thus, most Panthers were destroyed before they even scored 10 tank kills. Only successful Panther ace was Ernst Barkmann, he is famous for his ambush known as "Barkmann's corner". In this encounter he ambushed a whole american tank division and destroyed 13 Shermans in less than 15 minutes. Overall he is credited with 80+ tank kills in total. Neither Panther, nor Tiger or King Tiger could be mass-produced (like all other german tanks) because Germany didn't have the industrical capacity and lacked of enough man power.

*T34*s never really had good kill-to-loss ratios in majority because most crews were not trained and lacked of enough skills. Plus T34s had thin armor/bad protection and were vulnerable to almost all german guns from 1942-1945, thus T34 didn't have good survival chance on the battlefield. Only some T34 crews got skills during the early war and killed many german Panzers. Often Many T34s had to be sacrificed to destroy one Tiger tank. There are reports where a single Tiger took out 30 T34s during one encounter! Leading ace is Lieutenant Dmitriy Lavrinenko who is credited with 52 tank kills. He could score this high amount of kills only in the early years when most German tanks lacked of anti tank guns. T34s could be mass produced because the Soviet Union had the largest industrial capacity/capability + alot manpower. And because they were supplied by the USA with tons and tons of recources and materials throughout the war. Notable prestige: It changed the outcome of the war by its brutal numbers and helped the Soviets to defeat the Germans.

*Shermans* are, as we all know, mostly famous for being sacrificed, nicknamed as lighter or tommycooker (because they catched easy fire after hit) and they are known for high losses compared to german tank losses. Early Sherman variants had very thin armor and a weak gun. And like the T34, almost all further versions didn't increase the armor. Even the latest M4 Sherman Version in 1945 was still weak against most german tank guns. Here again, Many times Shermans very sacrificed to destroy a handful german Tiger tanks. Best Sherman ace/commander was probably Staff Sergeant
Lafayette G. Pool he destroyed 258 enemy vehicles (not sure how many tanks, most of them were soft targets though), but he never was awarded the Knights Cross. Notable prestige: It was built in high numbers comparable to the T34 and helped the Allies at the Western Theatre to defeat the Nazis.


----------



## fastmongrel (Apr 2, 2010)

Hey tanker get off the fence tell us what you really think

I go for the Matilda Mk1 that bad sonofabitch would have pwned the narzis


----------



## Vincenzo (Apr 2, 2010)

Afaik the hull front armour of T-34 was ever 45mm at 60° (or 30° with the other standard). the Pz IV has 80mm only in H J variant (G has 50+30 that was not same the one palte of 80) and ever badest side and rear protection and Panther side 40mm. this for the armour.


----------



## tanker1408 (Apr 2, 2010)

fastmongrel said:


> Hey tanker get off the fence tell us what you really think
> 
> I go for the Matilda Mk1 that bad sonofabitch would have pwned the narzis




What do you mean? I'm not hiding behind any fence, I'm stating some real facts. 
The Matilda was even slower than the King Tiger. And the King Tiger was almost 50 tons HEAVIER!

Matilda had a very weak gun, not very effective at long ranges. Yes it could probably deal with Panzer III and IV. It was a good protected tank in 1942. But lately when the Germans got their 75mm and 88mm guns the matidla was ready for the dustbin. And that's exactly what the British did, they throw it like trash in the bin because nobody wanted a tank that reaches 10 lm/h maximum speed on sandy terrain or off/road area ffs soldeirs are faster by foot...



Vincenzo said:


> Afaik the hull front armour of T-34 was ever 45mm at 60° (or 30° with the other standard). the Pz IV has 80mm only in H J variant (G has 50+30 that was not same the one palte of 80) and ever badest side and rear protection and Panther side 40mm. this for the armour.



Yes, as i stated only the T34-85 was upgraded with thick armor some up to 45mm on the front chassis.

Well, it seems that your knowledge and informations are out of date anyway. Because on January 5, 1943, Hitler decided to make all Panzer IV to have 80 mm frontal armor. That includes Panzer IV Ausf. G as well


----------



## Juha (Apr 2, 2010)

Hello Tanker
while admitting that generally Germans weaponry was good and for ex Tiger I was an excellent design I must say that you have got some of your facts wrong. For ex. T-34/76 frontal armour was 45mm not 20mm thick. T-34s had both manual and electronical turret traverse, later giving max 26º/sec traverse.
I agree that early T-34s were “half-blinds” when compared to German tanks and that was a great tactical handicap. 
And T-34 had better armour protection than Pz III and IV but the better gun of later Mk IVs (KwK 40) vs T-34/76 balanced that.
T-34/85 turret front armour was 90mm not 80mm and hull front was still the same 45mm, but as you wrote, because it was heavily sloped it gave a protection equal of appr 90mm vertical plate.

Panther’s side armour was 40-45mm, in Panther G 40-50mm not 30mm.

Comparing claimed kills to known own total losses isn’t very productive. Tiger Is got a good kill ratio but to find out what it exactly was one needs to study real losses of Soviet and Allied tank units in those engagements in which Tigers participated.

Quote:” Best Sherman ace/commander was probably Staff Sergeant Lafayette G. Pool he destroyed 258 enemy vehicles (not sure how many tanks, most of them were soft targets though), but he never was awarded the Knights Cross.”

Why would Germans ever award an enemy soldier for destroying their tanks?

Juha

ADDITION: while late in the war Pz IVs got 80mm hull front armour turret front armour was only 50mm to the end.


----------



## michaelmaltby (Apr 2, 2010)

"... but he never was awarded the Knights Cross. Notable prestige.."

Juha, I think Tanker knows that Lafayette G Pool isn't German  I believe he meant that Pool wasn't a US national hero, like Whitman and the other Germans. 

MM


----------



## tanker1408 (Apr 2, 2010)

Juha said:


> T-34/76 frontal armour was 45mm not 20mm thick. T-34s had both manual and electronical turret traverse, later giving max 26º/sec traverse.
> I agree that early T-34s were “half-blinds” when compared to German tanks and that was a great tactical handicap.
> And T-34 had better armour protection than Pz III and IV but the better gun of later Mk IVs (KwK 40) vs T-34/76 balanced that.
> T-34/85 turret front armour was 90mm not 80mm and hull front was still the same 45mm, but as you wrote, because it was heavily sloped it gave a protection equal of appr 90mm vertical plate.



Edited: T34-85's turret was protected by 90mm frontal armor (mantled) and the chassis had 45mm front armor thickness, as well as T34-76. 

Second, Panther had 40mm side/rear armor. thanks for correction btw.



Juha said:


> Comparing claimed kills to known own total losses isn’t very productive. Tiger Is got a good kill ratio but to find out what it exactly was one needs to study real losses of Soviet and Allied tank units in those engagements in which Tigers participated.



Edited: All claimed kills of Tiger battalions were only affected by Tiegr I and Tiger II tanks. No other german tanks, guns, weaponry were affected. 
Tiger losses are affected by all enemy weaponry tough (Air force, anti tank self propelled guns, tanks, mines etc. etc.) 
The Tiger tank decimated Soviet armour in the winters of 1943/44. Michael Wittmann's 88th kill was registered in January 1944, in the middle of winter. 

From December 1943 to April 1944 the Germans destroyed 7,500 Soviets tanks against 2,000 of their own losses. 4 to 1 ratio. (all german tank divisions are afflicted on this statistic)



Juha said:


> Why would Germans ever award an enemy soldier for destroying their tanks?



It was kinda supposed to be a joke, I just forgot to post the rest of it. But here it is:

_but he never was awarded the Knights Cross. He was never presented to Hitler, he never wore a fancy black uniform with death heads and S.S. runes, and he never commanded a Panther or Tiger. The reason? He was an American GI _



Juha said:


> ADDITION: while late in the war Pz IVs got 80mm hull front armour turret front armour was only 50mm to the end.



I'm not aware of this information sorry.


----------



## tanker1408 (Apr 2, 2010)

michaelmaltby said:


> Juha, I think Tanker knows that Lafayette G Pool isn't German  I believe he meant that Pool wasn't a US national hero, like Whitman and the other Germans.



guilty


----------



## Juha (Apr 2, 2010)

Hello Tanker
If you read the T-34 article in Ð“Ð»Ð°Ð²Ð½Ð°Ñ - THE RUSSIAN BATTLEFIELD, You'll find out that the picture which shows the armour thicknesses is that of A-20 prototype, which was designed as successor of the BT-series fast tanks, it was built with a heavier A-32 proto with 30mm armour and 76,2mm gun and later it was decided that heavier A-32 was the better one which went into production after it was uparmoured to 45mm standard and became T-34.

On kill statics, have you ever added all the kill claims of Tigers, Panthers, all other Panzers, StuGs, PzJgs, JgPzs, Paks, infantry with all kinds of weapons incl. Panzerfausts and -schrecks, those destroyed by mines and by artillery fire?

Quote:"From December 1943 to April 1944 the Germans destroyed 7,500 Soviets tanks against 2,000 of their own losses. 4 to 1 ratio."

4:1 seems reasonable loss ratio for tanks but how many were destroyed by other means than by enemy tanks. Soviet were attacking so larger part of their losses than those of Germans were because of A/T guns, StuGs/PzJgs/JgPzs, infantry weapons and mines. So what was the exchange rate in pure tank vs tank combat is more difficult to find out. Surely positive for Germans but what exactly?

You can find the turret front armour of PzKfw IVG, H and J from any decent book on German armour.

Sorry on Pool joke. I'm old dour Finn.

Juha


----------



## parsifal (Apr 2, 2010)

tigers did poorly in the Ardennes....in the critical battle supporting eiiper, over 45 were on strength when the offensive kicked off, ...i think seven returned in January.

Similar story for the panthers under Peipers direct control....though fuel became an increasingly important factor the Peiper, his tank formations were not achieving the great one sideded victories so often attributed to the Germans, even whilst mobile and largely unnaffected by airpower.

The really big killer for those that support the German tanks as the most advanced in WWII is their exorbitant cost....with an industrial index several time that of Russia, several years of extra fighting, and a huge potential in occupied europe, the Germans managed to produce something like 44000 AFVs (not including halftracks and the like). The Russians with a fraction of the industrial capacity, and fully 35% of her industry overrun produced at least twice that number. And the loss rates for Russian tanks after 1942, compared to those of germany, do not justify the lavish and overextravagant outlay on the german tanbk forces in thaqt time period....only by including the losses in the first half of the war, when the uber tanks were not available, can the Germans justify or corroborate their massive scores over the Russians. The exchange raters were still heavily in favour of the Germans, but this dis not offset the enormous costs per unit that the Germans were lumbered with


----------



## Messy1 (Apr 2, 2010)

Tanker, the main advantage of the T-34, and the Sherman for that matter, was the ease of production, the numbers produced! I never said the T34 was a super tank, I said it was a good mix of the qualities needed in a tank. I would say Germany produced the best overall tanks, but if you are outproduced, 2:1, 3:1, etc. what the hell good it having the best tank if you cannot produce it in numbers enough needed?


----------



## michaelmaltby (Apr 2, 2010)

"... what the hell good it having the best tank if you cannot produce it in numbers enough needed".

And THAT is the point. The Russians and the Americans both understood that mass armour was the key. German tankers were Knights - damn fine knights but nonetheless - an elite.

MM


----------



## tomo pauk (Apr 2, 2010)

Juha said:


> 4:1 seems reasonable loss ratio for tanks but how many were destroyed by other means than by enemy tanks. Soviet were attacking so larger part of their losses than those of Germans were because of A/T guns, StuGs/PzJgs/JgPzs, infantry weapons and mines. So what was the exchange rate in pure tank vs tank combat is more difficult to find out. Surely positive for Germans but what exactly?


I'd have to back Juha on this (not that he needs any really). 
Any attacker using a lot of tanks vs. defender that has decent towed AT guns, need to reckon the tank force would suffer great deal. In the same time, attacker's towed AT guns would be rarely deployed. 
When we count in the mines, AT ditches, hand-held AT means, attacker's forces would be dented notably.

Comrade Stalin had tanks to spare, so he said: What a heck, lets roll to Berlin. 
The rest is history.


----------



## tanker1408 (Apr 2, 2010)

Juha said:


> Hello Tanker
> If you read the T-34 article in Ð“Ð»Ð°Ð²Ð½Ð°Ñ - THE RUSSIAN BATTLEFIELD, You'll find out that the picture which shows the armour thicknesses is that of A-20 prototype, which was designed as successor of the BT-series fast tanks, it was built with a heavier A-32 proto with 30mm armour and 76,2mm gun and later it was decided that heavier A-32 was the better one which went into production after it was uparmoured to 45mm standard and became T-34.



Oh, ok thanks for clearing this up. the A-20 prototype confused me a litttle. As you see I'm just a human who makes mistakes sometimes too. I'll edit it in my previous posts, hope you don't mind. To improve my own statement, T34-76 as well as T34-85 had both 45mm front armor thickness at 60° sloped.



Juha said:


> On kill statics, have you ever added all the kill claims of Tigers, Panthers, all other Panzers, StuGs, PzJgs, JgPzs, Paks, infantry with all kinds of weapons incl. Panzerfausts and -schrecks, those destroyed by mines and by artillery fire?



No. Panthers, Panzer IVs or Panzer IIIs or any other AFVs and anti tank guns were NOT involved, added or affected. Panthers did NOT serve in Heavy tank battalions since it was classified as a medium tank by the Germans. Only *Tiger I* and *Tiger II* served in Heavy tank battalions. So if we mention kill stats of any Tiger units then it means all these kills were ONLY caused by either Tiger I or King Tiger tanks, nothing other additional weaponry like tanks, guns, air force or anything else. 

Tank losses in Tiger units include *NOT* only losses inflicted by enemy tanks because many Tigers were destroyed by their own crews due a lack of fuel or ammunition, thus the real tank-to-tank ratios got even worse. In other words, these stats are not pure tank vs tank stats. In addition, many Tigers were also killed by enemy anti tank guns, artillery, mines, aircraft etc. 
etc. 

"_From December 1943 to April 1944 the Germans destroyed........._" 
This quote was referred to ALL German tank divisions together (including Panther, Panzer IV, Panzer III, STuG etc etc.) 

All heavy tank battalions together have a total loss of 1,715 Tigers (including Tiger II). All together destroyed 9,850 enemy tanks in total (from 1942 - 1945). This is a 5.74 *final kill-to-loss ratio* of all known Tiger units. 



Juha said:


> 4:1 seems reasonable loss ratio for tanks but how many were destroyed by other means than by enemy tanks.



Well, that's the point. We don't know how many Tiger tanks were exactly killed by enemy tanks, we know only how many Tigers were lost by the enemy. Only the kills alone are made by Tiger tanks this information is valid! 



Juha said:


> Sorry on Pool joke. I'm old dour Finn.



No problem sir, it's ok. you don't need to excuse, it's all fine and I didn't mind at all


----------



## tanker1408 (Apr 2, 2010)

michaelmaltby said:


> And THAT is the point. The Russians and the Americans both understood that mass armour was the key. German tankers were Knights - damn fine knights but nonetheless - an elite.



No, that's quite not true. I think all the time during ww2 German tank designers KNEW that numbers are the key for vitory. Blitzkrieg for example was a warfare in which Germans had only weak tanks compared to the heavy french Char B-1 tanks but the Germans won anyway because they had alot of more than the french. Many german weak tanks won over a few superior french heavy tanks only because they were more. But you have to consider, that Germany is a small country with small population compared to Russia. Germany *DID NOT HAVE* the industrial capability to produce as much tanks as the Soviet Union could do! Germans knew they COULD NEVER win a industrial war by numbers, that's why they decided to produce quality over quantity.

And God damnit, they were almost successful taking over the world by this tactic. Just take a Look where the Germans were in 1941, They were at the gates of Moscow! 

It *DID NOT MATTER * if the Germans produced only Panzer IV or only Panthers, it also *DID NOT MATTER* what kind of tank they would have produced, since they were not able to massproduce any AFV comparable with Russia and the USA.



Messy1 said:


> I would say Germany produced the best overall tanks, but if you are outproduced, 2:1, 3:1, etc. what the hell good it having the best tank if you cannot produce it in numbers enough needed?



Again, it has *not * much to do only with the tank itself. It depends mostly on the country which produces the tank. I heard of a Russian factory were over 350,000 workers were busy on preoducing soviet tanks.  Compare this to a common german factory in which less than 50,000 slave workers were busy and many of them were killed in concentration camps.

Another example, if the Russians decided to produce only the Tiger instead of T34, then they could also have MASSPRODUCED the Tiger as well. There is no point in arguing.


----------



## Juha (Apr 2, 2010)

Hello Tanker
I suggested that it might be a good idea to count all German tank kill claims and compare the result to known Soviet losses from Krivosheev’s book to see how far off the German claims were, of course one must also take into account what the LW claimed (Rudel’s 517 etc) and what other Axis forces claimed even if they were a minor factors in tank kill calculations.

One must also remember that in 44 in the East Germans lost some some 4500 StuGs, StuHs, PzJgs, JgPzs and SP guns vs 6800 Soviet SUs.

On A-20 proto. Yes it is rather easy to confuse its info meaning T-34 on the Russian Battlefield site. I was helped on the fact that it was circa 45 years ago when I was on the first time on, in and around T-34/76

Juha


----------



## michaelmaltby (Apr 2, 2010)

"... they were almost successful taking over the world by this tactic. Just take a Look where the Germans were in 1941, They were at the gates of Moscow! " Very true - but no winter clothes. 

The Germans are masters of both the deception/ambush and the staggered retreat - as Canadians know who fought them up the boot of Italy. Two or three Tiger tanks staged strategically would cost a tank-rich attacker heavily. Again and again the Germans achieved huge damage on Soviet forces (and UK-Canadian Shermans).

In the Battle of France I think that from the get-go the Germans out-fought, out-maneuvered and out-smarted the French. I know generalizations are not favored by some on the this post but - there it is . France (not every Frenchman) lacked the will.

MM


----------



## schwarzpanzer (Apr 3, 2010)

Hi tanker1408,



> It DID NOT MATTER if the Germans produced only Panzer IV or only Panthers, it also DID NOT MATTER what kind of tank they would have produced, since they were not able to massproduce any AFV comparable with Russia and the USA.



They produced the Stug III G Spater - which was a simple, reliable, easily produced and repaired AFV. It was also reasonably well armoured, and it's gun was still enough to deal with any threat, excepting perhaps the Churchill. However, the factory that made them was bombed, but the design was sound. The Panther was a very flawed, complicated, unreliable, labour and materiel-intensive and expensive vehicle, and also too much for the Sdkfz 9 FAMO to handle. However, Germany were short of crews, so I would say that what was needed was quality, not quantity.



> Another example, if the Russians decided to produce only the Tiger instead of T34, then they could also have MASSPRODUCED the Tiger as well. There is no point in arguing.



No, it was tricky to mass-produce. Soviet designs were deliberately simple. Of course, a greater labour pool would have helped though. A quality of the Tiger was that it's armour quality always remained high. Soviet armour was hard, but brittle - which allowed spalling, and had no real advantages when facing APCBC projectiles.


----------



## Juha (Apr 3, 2010)

Hello all
If we looked 1944 main AFV losses at the Eastern Front; circa 9000 German Panzers, StuGs, StuHs, PzJgs, JgPzs and SP guns vs 23700 Soviet tanks and SUs without counting Romanian, Hungarian and Finnish losses and heavy Axis A/T gun losses it IMHO seems that Axis were, while still having clearly positive exchange rate, clearly loosing because of they were outproduced and after D-Day their losses against Western Allies also increased dramatically.

Hello schwarzpanzer
while I like StuGs and I’m not a big Panther fan IMHO you are too hard on Panther. Panther was more or less as expensive as Pz IV, of course it needed more material to produce, while having definitely better armour and armament and also better power to weight ratio. But as you wrote it was too heavy as a MBT for WM infrastructure and in 43, which was strategically most important year of its service, much too unreliable. What Germans would have needed from 43 onwards was much more like the original plans for Panther, circa 35 ton reliable medium tank with a very good gun and clearly adequate frontal armour but still much more easily recoverable and more suitable to available bridging etc equipment. Lighter weight would have made it easier for the running gear and powertrain to cope. 60mm frontal glacis would have been perfectly adequate in 43 and even a bit less powerful gun than the original L/60 would also have been perfectly adequate in 43.

Juha


----------



## parsifal (Apr 3, 2010)

_No, that's quite not true. I think all the time during ww2 German tank designers KNEW that numbers are the key for vitory. Blitzkrieg for example was a warfare in which Germans had only weak tanks compared to the heavy french Char B-1 tanks but the Germans won anyway because they had alot of more than the french_. 

wrong! the french actually outnumbered the Germans, but they dissipated their armoured strength in penny packets and failed to provide adequate all arms support for their tank forces. 

There are three principal elements to a balanced tank design....firepower, mobility and protection. All design decisions revolve around those three basics. The french designs, whilst superior in firepower and protection, lagged badly in mobility. They lacked radios to concentrate thjeir tanks, their tanks suffered low power to weight ratios and most of their tanks possessed very limited endurance. These factors rendered their tanks inneffective and vulnerable to the numerically inferior, and theoretically more vulnerable German tanks....but in fact the germans were abl;e concentrate at the decisive point and use mobility to make their tanks far less vuklnerable than they seemed. They seemed to forget these important elements to armoured warfare later in the war... 



_ But you have to consider, that Germany is a smallomically in the world, country with small population compared to Russia. Germany *DID NOT HAVE* the industrial capability to produce as much tanks as the Soviet Union could do! Germans knew they COULD NEVER win a industrial war by numbers, that's why they decided to produce quality over quantity._


Another myth!!!! Germany in fact in 1938 was the second most powerful country economically with industrial potential several times (at least), that of the Soviet Union. The early victories in westren europr and in western russia in 1939 -41 only served to widen that gap. Yet by pure mismanagement of their resources the germans allowed themselves to be outproduced by a far more backward and less well developed nation. Part of that mismanagement was the choices made in the last half of the war in their tanks ....large, complicated heavy monsters with limited mobility was not what Germany needed....these are not my opinions....they are the opinions expressed by suchmen as Rommel and Speer, both of whom advocated cheaper, more easily produced and more readily aavailable types for germanys key defensive campaigns. They never won that argument, and Germany resisted less well than she could have as a result. 


_And God damnit, they were almost successful taking over the world by this tactic. Just take a Look where the Germans were in 1941, They were at the gates of Moscow! 

It *DID NOT MATTER * if the Germans produced only Panzer IV or only Panthers, it also *DID NOT MATTER* what kind of tank they would have produced, since they were not able to massproduce any AFV comparable with Russia and the USA_.

Wrong again...Germany won her battles to the end of 1941 with types that followed a completely diffrernt design philosophy to that which followed from 1942 to 1945. The mismanagement of germany's tank production was but one element to the overall failure....Germany could have made different choices in her military procurement machine, but Hitlers 9and others) mania to have the biggest, heaviest meanest tanks available doomed germany to chronic equipment shortages for the rest of the war. 

_Again, it has *not * much to do only with the tank itself. It depends mostly on the country which produces the tank. I heard of a Russian factory were over 350,000 workers were busy on preoducing soviet tanks.  Compare this to a common german factory in which less than 50,000 slave workers were busy and many of them were killed in concentration camps.

Another example, if the Russians decided to produce only the Tiger instead of T34, then they could also have MASSPRODUCED the Tiger as well. There is no point in arguing._

Sheer speculation, and i believe fantasy! The tiger was an exorbitantly expensive pice of machinery, that I believe cost aboput eight time that of the T-34 to produce....If the russians had tried to opt for high quality, high cost items like the germans, their lower industrial potentials would have meant an even smaller production run in tanks than the Germans were able to manage. They would have suffrered the same problems as the germans only worse......


----------



## michaelmaltby (Apr 3, 2010)

"... Part of that* mismanagement* was the choices made in the last half of the war in their tanks ...." 

Parsifal your point about economic mismanagement of the German economy is spot on. As history has shown time and again; in wartime producing guns AND butter is a magic act.  A leader who claims he can do that is delusional. Germany didn't even mobilize women workers in the way UK, US, Canada, USSR and others did. The idea of Slave Labor building complicated weapons and ammunition is a travesty to those who would have to use them.

MM


----------



## riacrato (Apr 3, 2010)

I wonder how all my grandmothers aunties were either factory workers of flak helpers then


----------



## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Apr 3, 2010)

Parsifal, very interesting summary there, and I have to say I think you are spot on.

I too find it interesting how Germany changed her philosophy after several years of war, when they already had a winning philosophy to begin with. If it is not broke, do not fix it...

I wonder if this change came about because of the quick and fast victories they sustained early on?


----------



## fastmongrel (Apr 3, 2010)

riacrato said:


> I wonder how all my grandmothers aunties were either factory workers of flak helpers then



I recall reading that pre 42 Nazi ideology kept women out of factories because of a fixation that women were only meant to produce children not munitions. Perhaps your female relatives were only working in factories after that date.

Things were different in Britain. My great Aunt who was 21 in 1939 was conscripted as a war worker in late 1939. She spent the next 6 years working as a station clerk for the railways till the men were demobilised and came back to resume there jobs.


----------



## michaelmaltby (Apr 3, 2010)

"... I wonder how all my grandmothers aunties were either factory workers of flak helpers then"

No disrespect Riacrato to your grannies and aunts  . Can you give us more details like what years? and what kind of factory work they performed? When I stated "Germany didn't even mobilize women workers in the way UK, US, Canada, USSR and others did." I didn't meant to imply that they (women) didn't contribute to the German war effort. Lots of air plotters I'm sure, and the flak helpers you mentioned. But the underlying question is WHEN did German economy become fully mobilized for war?

Can you provide some personal insights, please. 

MM


----------



## Shortround6 (Apr 3, 2010)

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:


> Parsifal, very interesting summary there, and I have to say I think you are spot on.
> 
> I too find it interesting how Germany changed her philosophy after several years of war, when they already had a winning philosophy to begin with. If it is not broke, do not fix it...
> 
> I wonder if this change came about because of the quick and fast victories they sustained early on?



It may have come about because of their combat experience. While they did win battles perhaps they thought they were losing too many tanks and tank crewmen with those thinly armored and not particularly well armed tanks. One can easily argue that they swung the pendulum too far the other way but neither the the MK III with it's 50-60mm vertical armor and 50mm gun or the MK IV with the short 75mm had much life left to them once they met the T-34 or KV tanks. depending on the Russians to keep building their 1941 tanks for another 4 years ( I know, hindsight) without a really new model might not have worked either. Canceling the Panther Tiger while hoping the upgraded MK IV will work against what ever the US comes up with after the M-4 Sherman (which never did show up) doesn't seem like the best planning.


----------



## schwarzpanzer (Apr 3, 2010)

Late in the War German designers seemed to copy the French dsigns of 1940, rather than those of the Blitzkreig. it must be asked, why??

It needs to be remembered, that Germany had Durcbruchwagen (Breakthrough Vehicle) designs as early as 1936, but felt it didn't need them (which turned out to be right). One of these designs morphed into the Tiger and was used in the Sturer Emil.

As you know DerAdler, Blitzkrieg relies on 2 things: breakthrough and exploitation. Late war, the Germans had good Breakthrough, but poor exploitation tanks, whereas the Soviets were the opposite. This was reversed for Germany in the early war. Ironically, the Soviets had a great breakthrough tank in the KV-1 in the Winter War, but later on had a poor one, in the shape of the IS-2 (though the IS-3 was excellent).


Having heavy armour is no problem, so long as it's not overdone, but complicated mechanicals are what did it for German tanks IMO.


Hi Shortround6,

The Panzer IV was able to deal with any opposing tank in WW2. Though the Ausf J was a massive downgrade, this was due to the war situation more than anything. With APFSDS, the Panzer III may have been able to soldier on into 1945, hypothetically speaking. The Panzer III was also useful as the Stug III G Spater, in 1945. 



> Canceling the Panther Tiger while hoping the upgraded MK IV will work against what ever the US comes up with after the M-4 Sherman (which never did show up) doesn't seem like the best planning.



Sorry, what didn't show up?


Hi Juha,

Sorry. It seems you like the Panther, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to be controversial and say that, although it is a popular contender for 'best tank of WW2', I believe it was the worst - and is what lost the war for Germany.

My reasonings are: It was unreliable. It was poorly protected. It didn't serve any real role well - not exploitation or breakthrough. Too fragile. Too tall, too complex, flawed design, too labour-intensive. These are even reasons that cover all variants, not going into each individual variant (like the AusfD).

Admittedly some variants were good, but these were: Panther II (which probably never saw action and was cancelled), the Ausf G Spater (too late? poorer crew quality) and the Ausf F (< 10 saw combat, and even then were probably only part Ausf Fs).

I do agree with your thought on the DB Panther contender though. The thing was though that it would have been targeted by PaK gunners, as it was too similar to the T-34 (Converted German T-34s suffered from this a lot). 

Lighter weight wasn't the only thing in it's favour - the DB engine was far superior to the Maybach HL230, and could have later even be upgraded to be like the DB 605 and even 603 - allowing for some awesome heavy tanks.

Ever thicker armour was called for by Hitler, as was an L70 gun (he had to be talked down from an L100! - which proved to be poor anyway). His obsession with thickness length (oo-er!) led to a lot of problems.

I don't think even the L60 was needed. I believe the KwK 40 would have been more than adequate. It would also have allowed a 3-man turret crew (which the L60 made difficult) and would also help with logistics.

The leaf spring suspension would have allowed for easier maintenance, a lower silhouette, a floor escape hatch and slightly more side protection. I think torsion bars were selected just because they were trendy considered 'German'.

The DB design did have its problems though - for example a front-mounted hull. If the hull was central, or even rear mounted, it likely would have allowed for the L70 and might have caused less confusion with the T-34?

It would have been more upgradeable and less flawed than the Panther though, and allowed heavier versions - which IMO would outclass the Konigstiger.


----------



## parsifal (Apr 3, 2010)

One thing I should clarify about Germany. her principal weakness was not a lack of industrial potential, so much as inadequate manpower. Germany did not have the manpower reserves that were available to the Russians, and this did influence he production choices as the war progressed.

Shortrounds point about german perceptions on armoured warfare are well made, in my opinion. This was in no small measure due to the German early encounters with the Russian advanced armour designs in '41-2, principally the T-34 and KV-1s. Men like guderian could see that in the hands of an experienced crew, a T-34 or a KV-1 could get the better of a mkIII or an early Mk IV. Their reaction was to construct the heavy tanks like the tiger and panther

Whilst I believe the Tiger (both mks I and II) were a profligate waste of resources, the Panther was less so.....it took half the resources to build compared to a Tiger, and was more than adequate to deal with most armoured threats then in place. My opnion is that the heavy tank should have been solely built around the Panther, with no Mk IV, and supplemented by an increased output of SGIII s. It cost roughly 2/3 the cost of a Mk IV to build a SGIII, and the Stug was about as effective defensively as the bigger German tanks. I would also have increased the production of towed ATGs, concentrating on the 75mm calibre (forget the 88s), and not wasted time putting out the Luftwaffe field divs, or the SS formations to pay for that effort....but then i am digressing badly I guess


----------



## schwarzpanzer (Apr 3, 2010)

Hi Parsifal,

I think that manpower shortages would require better armoured, and armed tanks - but they would still need to be reliable, and the crews would need to be well trained.

One thing I've always wondered though, is that could the Fug (?) radio be put in the turret, and operated by the Commander and/or loader - as in Allied tanks? - This would reduce the crew number to 4, rather than 5. Also, there were experiments with autoloaders - which would have further reduced the crew to 3.


It is not true that the T-34 and KV-1 led to the development of the Tiger - they just speeded it up (but they may have contributed to upgrades in its armour thickness - or that was just Hitler?).

The VK3001 and VK 3601 were originally to be used in the Blitzkrieg, and were the mechanical basis.

When the heavily armoured French tanks and especially the Matildas, were encountered in France, the Durchbruch designs were brought back - with the change that a weapon capable of defeating the Matilda, like the Flaks, an 88mm L56 was called for. Also, armour as thick as the Matilda IIs (80mm allround) was specified.


Of course you are right that the Soviet tanks could better PzIIIs and early PzIVs, but the best response would have been the Stuk40/Stug F and PzIV F2 'Special' IMO - not wasting resources making a brand-new, untested, complicated, expensive heavy tank.

The Panther was still flawed. When it first saw combat, it's thin side armour was easily defeated by any Soviet gun - even anti-tank rifles! Also, it had a shot-trap in the mantlet and plenty of openings in the glacis - and armour was a strong point! Its 75mm L70 KwK 42 was awesome though - perhaps a Hornisse-based Jagdpanzer mounting this weapon may have been a better bet?

The Panthers main problem IMO was its transmission, with fragile design and inferior quality. I think this was remedied with the Ausf G - which IIRC used the beefier transmission from the Jagdpanther, though this was offset, as the quality had slipped by then. The cancelled Panther II used the transmission of the Konigstiger too - which was a much better (albeit more expensive) design - and the Panther was intended for mass production. Though why you'd have a scrimped transmission and an over-complex and expensive suspension and engine is beyond me.

I also think that if the Panther had used the Tigers transmission, then that may have been OK?

The Pz IV was obsolete in 1943 I suppose, yet it's gun allowed it to take on any opponent even into 1945.



> It cost roughly 2/3 the cost of a Mk IV to build a SGIII,



Thats some good info there, thanks! 



> and the Stug was about as effective defensively as the bigger German tanks.



I would say too that the Stug was as effective in an offensive breakthrough role. Some Ferdinands were used in this role, but it ended badly (they tried doing the exploitation part too, which they were not suited for).



> I would also have increased the production of towed ATGs,



I had this idea before, based on Rommels musings. However, I have since learned that this tactic is easily overcome with artillery - unless those ATGs are in bunkers?...



> concentrating on the 75mm calibre (forget the 88s),



The 88 was still necessary IMO. Infact, I would have simplified the Flak 88, or modified the KwK 36, and put them on an ATG carriage, rather than set up PaK 40 production.



> and not wasted time putting out the Luftwaffe field divs, or the SS formations to pay for that effort....



Sorry, could you please explain that to me?



> but then i am digressing badly I guess



We all do that. It's not on the threads topic, but the thread has digressed onto the subject we are talking about. This subject is also vital to the subject matter IMO - and has recently led to me considering the Panther Ausf A as probably the worst tank of WW2, rather than the best, as I felt previously.


----------



## Njaco (Apr 3, 2010)

I don't think that I would rely on "tank vs tank" stats for a comparison. If I had one Tiger vs 50 T-34s, I would prpbably gain a 5:1 advantage before being knocked out totally with 45 T-34s still roaming about the place.


----------



## tomo pauk (Apr 4, 2010)

Germany developed 3 (three) heavy tank designs in WW2, jet none of medium tanks. That was their undoing.
As for 7,5cm/70 vs. 8.8cm/56: they were throwing money when developing that 7,5cm, since 8,8 had no troubles to pierce anything in practice, while offering 50% bigger HE shell. The HE shell is important if your biggest land opponent produces 200 000 artillery pieces between 1935-45, fields millions of infantry and adores all kinds of fortifications.
As for concentrating at 7,5cm in towed form: the gun that weights 1,5 tons still needs a motorized transport. Therefore, if it's self propelled, it would've barely cost anything more than gun+mover combo, while being more maneuverable needing less crew - a main advantage for Germany.


----------



## Shortround6 (Apr 4, 2010)

schwarzpanzer said:


> Hi Shortround6,
> 
> The Panzer IV was able to deal with any opposing tank in WW2. Though the Ausf J was a massive downgrade, this was due to the war situation more than anything. With APFSDS, the Panzer III may have been able to soldier on into 1945, hypothetically speaking. The Panzer III was also useful as the Stug III G Spater, in 1945.



The MK IV wound up being able to "deal" MOST opposing tanks in WW2. Granted it wasn't until very late n the war with the bigger Russian heavies that it was in real trouble, Although the T-34-85 couldn't have been good for the morale of MK IV tankers. Being able to "deal" with an enemy tank by shooting it in the side is not the best solution, especially if your own mobility is no better or worse than the enemy tanks.
The MK III was toast and no amount of fancy ammo was going to save it. Since most tanks fired a lot more HE than they did AP ammo the 50mm simply didn't have enough HE capacity to be effective. Couple that with APDS (APFSDS is even later in timing) needing either tungsten, uranium, or some rather special steel alloys to work and it is pretty much a non-starter for the Germans in WW II. 

A better bet for the MK III, if work had started earlier, would have been the enlarged 100mm smoothbore based on the PW 800(?). 




schwarzpanzer said:


> Sorry, what didn't show up?



Basically the M-26. 

The point being for the Germans, making decisions in 1942, to depend on your opponents NOT to develop better tanks in the next 2-3 years is not a smart decision even if, historically, that is what happened.


----------



## Shortround6 (Apr 4, 2010)

tomo pauk said:


> Germany developed 3 (three) heavy tank designs in WW2, jet none of medium tanks. That was their undoing.
> As for 7,5cm/70 vs. 8.8cm/56: they were throwing money when developing that 7,5cm, since 8,8 had no troubles to pierce anything in practice, while offering 50% bigger HE shell. The HE shell is important if your biggest land opponent produces 200 000 artillery pieces between 1935-45, fields millions of infantry and adores all kinds of fortifications.
> As for concentrating at 7,5cm in towed form: the gun that weights 1,5 tons still needs a motorized transport. Therefore, if it's self propelled, it would've barely cost anything more than gun+mover combo, while being more maneuverable needing less crew - a main advantage for Germany.




Good points.


----------



## schwarzpanzer (Apr 4, 2010)

Hi Njaco,

True, but in the right circumstances, a Tiger would be a match for 25+ T-34s. I can't remember how many T-34s could be produced for a single Tiger (anyone?), but I doubt it is more than 10?

So, for 50 T-34s, in the right circumstances, 2 or 3 Tigers would be adequate.


Hi tomo,

Do you include the Panther as a heavy? It was apparently meant to be a medium, but I agree with what you're saying. It could be classs as an MBT, retroactively. It still had medium tank side armour though (less than the T-34s, infact).

A true medium tank may have been good, but I would have insisted on 60mm of armour, sloped @ 60 degrees allround, as someone else here suggested. I don't think a gun bigger than 75mm mattered too much, but good armour did, very much so. As you say though, an 88mm may have been vital?...

You make excellent points on the advantages on the 88mm, though complicating things further (curses!). Still, great food fr thought, thank you!

I think the 75mm may have been cheaper? There were also other advantages, such as shell storage.

The problem with using 88mm for firing HE shells is barrel wear. In my opinion, Guderians idea of a Battle and Support tank was sound (Panzers III IV). Rommel was very relieved when he heard that the Tiger was to have an anti-tank gun, rather than a super-calibre mortar. Thankfully,(in some circumstances) Hitlers obsession with gigantism extended to length, as well as width (again, oo-er!).

Was the 88mm shell 50% bigger than the 75mm's?

Was it good enough against fortifications?

I can see now the dilemmas the Germans had, as well as the sense in using an 88mm. They would not have been helped by Hitlers insistence on ever bigger guns though (though he was right on the PzIII initial design - so this may have caused him to be more pushy).

Yes, PaK 40s were often left behind. If youre going to have a heavy gun, may as well do it properly? I think the PaK 40 was in development in 1940 though - so may have been worth pursuing after all?

What type of self-propelled mover would you suggest?
Why would it need less crew - no seperate radio operator?
SPGs apparently need less training than tanks too...


Hi Shortround,

The Panzer IV was still able to del with IS-2s (dunno what version though, sorry) - because of it's KwK 40. Even the inferior PaK 39 on the Hetzer KO'd an IS-2 (or IS-2s) @ 1.5km IIRC (info on this Forum). Again, I'm afraid that I don't know what version of IS-2, the early ones were much inferior. That was from the front I'm pretty sure, not the sides. The Churchills armour would prove a problem, but it's pea-shooter of a gun wouldn't. If it had kept the 6pdr, firing SVDS though, then that might have been different...

Apart from the gun and sights though (the fitment of which also caused problems), the PzIV design was very dated. The T-34 and Cromwell being huge leaps over it.

The PzIII had a high fire rate. I even think that the 20mm on the PzII still had merit - see Saving Private Ryan to see what I mean. Also, the Bradley has a 30mm - and 50mm autocannons were in service with Germany in WW2.

Of course though, I believe these were obsolete, and needed replacing ASAP - but they were by no means useless.

I think Germany went straight to APFSDS? APDS may have been considered, but I think only briefly - and no rounds of this type were produced?

Plain old Manganese steel, as used in the standard PzGr 39, is good enough for long-range shooting (The usage I suggested for the 50 75mm's). Close range though, it wouldn't be much use though, especially against the IS-3 (unable to penetrate I think). Steel PzGr40's were produced though, and I think for the KwK 40? - and these were intended for close-range usage. Uranium was also used in some PzGr40s - so would allow even better performance (including after-penetration damage).



> A better bet for the MK III, if work had started earlier, would have been the enlarged 100mm smoothbore based on the PW 800(?).



That might be a great idea, I'll have to check up on that. I also think the Puppchen might have been a good idea, or the autoloading Italian 40mm (with Effeto Pronto rounds) - or larger calibre versions of these weapons.

The M26? Ah, right. But I think that the KwK 40 would have even been able to deal with this threat. German designers were always either rushing to catch up, or dealing with threats that didn't exist (the 100-ton Soviet tank and magnetic mines, for exampe).

The PaK/KwK 40 design was in being in 1940 - before it was needed, the KwK 36 also (maybe only due to Hitlers size obsession though?). In 1942 the KwK 42 of the Panther was being developed, which was enough to deal with anything, including the M26 (though flawed IMO). America not developing the M6 Heavy tank helped, though if the US had introduced this tank in large numbers, then I'm pretty sure the PzIV would have been dropped. Every action has a reaction. If the M6 had turned up though, then this would likely have limited tank numbers in US service, at least/especially initially.


----------



## tomo pauk (Apr 4, 2010)

schwarzpanzer said:


> Hi tomo,
> 
> Do you include the Panther as a heavy? It was apparently meant to be a medium, but I agree with what you're saying. It could be classs as an MBT, retroactively. It still had medium tank side armour though (less than the T-34s, infact).



Since Panther weighted 45+ tons, I'd consider it as heavy. And not so good heavy - it lacked tick armor and big gun of a proper heavy tank.



> A true medium tank may have been good, but I would have insisted on 60mm of armour, sloped @ 60 degrees allround, as someone else here suggested. I don't think a gun bigger than 75mm mattered too much, but good armour did, very much so. As you say though, an 88mm may have been vital?...



If Russkies managed to handle the recoil of 85mm in a 32 ton tank, there is no reason that Germans wouldn't be able to do the same with 88mm, that had muzzle brake to reduce the recoil futrher.
As for armor - a tank of modest dimensions (like T-43 (no typo)) was armored as good as IS-2, so nothing out of capabilities of German designers.



> You make excellent points on the advantages on the 88mm, though complicating things further (curses!). Still, great food fr thought, thank you!







> I think the 75mm may have been cheaper? There were also other advantages, such as shell storage.


Perhaps it would've been cheaper per piece, but you need to take to account development costs vs. already developed 8,8cm KwK.
7,5cmL70 used different ammo than 7,5cmL43 L48 - full round was much closer in dimensions to the ammo Tiger used for it's 8,8cmL56.



> The problem with using 88mm for firing HE shells is barrel wear. In my opinion, Guderians idea of a Battle and Support tank was sound (Panzers III IV). Rommel was very relieved when he heard that the Tiger was to have an anti-tank gun, rather than a super-calibre mortar. Thankfully,(in some circumstances) Hitlers obsession with gigantism extended to length, as well as width (again, oo-er!).


Why do you think Panther's gun was void of barrel wear when compared with Tiger's one?
As for reasoning of making both Pz-III Pz-IV, that really escapes me. Hardly any country could finance TWO 20-ton tank designs within couple of years, plus, there was really no reason that Pz-IV couldn't carry 37 50mm cannons.



> Was the 88mm shell 50% bigger than the 75mm's?



9kg vs. 6 kg



> Was it good enough against fortifications?


Nothing spectacular, but better than Panthers any time. And, I've said 'all kinds of fortifications' - not just Sevastopol-like ones.



> I can see now the dilemmas the Germans had, as well as the sense in using an 88mm. They would not have been helped by Hitlers insistence on ever bigger guns though (though he was right on the PzIII initial design - so this may have caused him to be more pushy).



He was right about Pz-III - it doesn't take military academy to see 5cm was better gun.



> Yes, PaK 40s were often left behind. If youre going to have a heavy gun, may as well do it properly? I think the PaK 40 was in development in 1940 though - so may have been worth pursuing after all?



It was a weapon up to the task for 95% of AFV it might have encountered, so nothing wrong with gun itself.



> What type of self-propelled mover would you suggest?
> Why would it need less crew - no seperate radio operator?
> SPGs apparently need less training than tanks too...



Towed 7,5cm Pak had crew of 6, Marders StuGs had 4. Towed guns require much more manhandling.

As for what kind of SPG, well, Marders were just fine, Hetzer too, but this would be less pricey: Ardelt Waffentraeger.
The weapon at the pic is 8,8cm pak; hefty 6,5m barrel looks out of proportion, so 4m barrel of 7,5cm PaK would fit in nicely. (Of course, some kind of wheeled vehicle would be also nice).
Here is the Ardent Waffentraeger:


----------



## Shortround6 (Apr 4, 2010)

schwarzpanzer said:


> The problem with using 88mm for firing HE shells is barrel wear. In my opinion, Guderians idea of a Battle and Support tank was sound (Panzers III IV). Rommel was very relieved when he heard that the Tiger was to have an anti-tank gun, rather than a super-calibre mortar. Thankfully,(in some circumstances) Hitlers obsession with gigantism extended to length, as well as width (again, oo-er!).
> 
> Was the 88mm shell 50% bigger than the 75mm's?



the 88mm was around 22lbs for the projectile vs about 15lbs for the 75mm (or less?). 

The cartridge case (and propellant) for the 88/56 was smaller/less than the 75mm/70.



schwarzpanzer said:


> What type of self-propelled mover would you suggest?
> Why would it need less crew - no seperate radio operator?
> SPGs apparently need less training than tanks too...



A 75mm AT gun might only need a 3 ton half-track or truck, an 88 may need a 5-8ton half track or very large truck. Towed anti-tank guns need larger crews to manhandle them into and out of firing positions (the tow vehicle can not always get them the last 10-30 ft into position. You also often need an extra ammo handler or two to get ammo from storage area (which is a number of feet away from the gun) to the gun breech. 



schwarzpanzer said:


> The Panzer IV was still able to del with IS-2s (dunno what version though, sorry) - because of it's KwK 40. Even the inferior PaK 39 on the Hetzer KO'd an IS-2 (or IS-2s) @ 1.5km IIRC (info on this Forum). Again, I'm afraid that I don't know what version of IS-2, the early ones were much inferior. That was from the front I'm pretty sure, not the sides. The Churchills armour would prove a problem, but it's pea-shooter of a gun wouldn't. If it had kept the 6pdr, firing SVDS though, then that might have been different...



Depending on your enemy to use bad metallurgy or heat treatment is not good planning.



schwarzpanzer said:


> The PzIII had a high fire rate. I even think that the 20mm on the PzII still had merit - see Saving Private Ryan to see what I mean. Also, the Bradley has a 30mm - and 50mm autocannons were in service with Germany in WW2.



A high rate of fire does not mean a high rate of engagement (number of targets engaged per minute) if each target needs multiply hits to kill. As far as the PZ II goes, do not confuse movies with reality. PZ II 20mm guns used 10 round magazines instead of the AA guns 20 round magazines and most PZ IIs only carried 18 magazines (180 rounds) Once you figure in the AP ammo there wasn't a lot of HE to spray around. Auto loading 50mm guns were large, heavy and rather finicky. Reducing your crew to 3-4 men just means each man has to perform more hours of maintenance on the tank and if you add in the auto-loader maintenance the crew is really going to be over loaded. Poorly maintained tanks with tired crews do not perform well in combat. 


schwarzpanzer said:


> Of course though, I believe these were obsolete, and needed replacing ASAP - but they were by no means useless.



Well, they were useful as tracked recon vehicles but that's about it. 


schwarzpanzer said:


> I think Germany went straight to APFSDS? APDS may have been considered, but I think only briefly - and no rounds of this type were produced?



Not that I know of, care to give a source for this? They did use a few "arrow" shells but these were for very long range artillery and not anti-tank use but I could be wrong. 


schwarzpanzer said:


> Plain old Manganese steel, as used in the standard PzGr 39, is good enough for long-range shooting (The usage I suggested for the 50 75mm's). Close range though, it wouldn't be much use though, especially against the IS-3 (unable to penetrate I think). Steel PzGr40's were produced though, and I think for the KwK 40? - and these were intended for close-range usage.



There were definite and well known impact velocity limits for plain steel (by plain I mean various alloys but uncapped.) which were raised by using capped shot/shell (APC) which was streamlined by using a pointed wind screen/ballistic cap (APCBC). Tungsten was used not only for it's weight but because it didn't shatter on impact. Certain substitutes worked by only in certain circumstances, like the round had to over match the target armour by a larger amount than a more conventional round or the tungsten round. 



schwarzpanzer said:


> That might be a great idea, I'll have to check up on that. I also think the Puppchen might have been a good idea, or the autoloading Italian 40mm (with Effeto Pronto rounds) - or larger calibre versions of these weapons.



The Puppchen had neither the range or accuracy to be worthwhile as a tank gun and the size of the ammo vs the effect wasn't in it's favor either. 

Got a source for the " Effeto Pronto rounds"? One source I say a while back listed the same penetration for ever single caliber the Italians used , from 47mm to 105mm and if you believe a 47mm shell will penetrate exactly what a 105 shell I hae got a large bridge in New York city to sell you, cheap.


schwarzpanzer said:


> The M26? Ah, right. But I think that the KwK 40 would have even been able to deal with this threat.



define " deal with this threat". While the M-26 certain wasn't invulnerable to the KwK 40, if used in large numbers fewer would have been knocked out per one hundred hits than Shermans and on the flip side MK IVs weren't going to stand up to 90mm hits anywhere near as well as they could stand up to 75mm hits from Shermans. Being able to knock out individual M-26s is one thing but having a rather large shift in the rate of exchange (how many American tanks knocked out per one hundred MK IVs lost) 

The PaK/KwK 40 design was in being in 1940 - before it was needed, the KwK 36 also (maybe only due to Hitlers size obsession though?). In 1942 the KwK 42 of the Panther was being developed, which was enough to deal with anything, including the M26 (though flawed IMO). America not developing the M6 Heavy tank helped, though if the US had introduced this tank in large numbers, then I'm pretty sure the PzIV would have been dropped. Every action has a reaction. If the M6 had turned up though, then this would likely have limited tank numbers in US service, at least/especially initially.[/QUOTE]

The KwK 36 was already developed in the form of the AA cannon. Internal ballistics, a variety shells even range tables. A different recoil mechanism and a change of primer and it is ready to go, low risk--fast development.
THE American M6 was a bigger joke than the German Tiger. One can look at a Tiger and figure out pretty well what the Germans were thinking.
Take a good look at an M6. It looks like it was designed by a bunch of grade school kids. The 3in gun was OK but what is with the co-ax 37mm? Looks cool but how many more rounds of 3in could be carried if the 37mm is dropped. If the target needs a cannon shell it probably deserves a 3in.
The multiple .50 cal hull guns are another "looks and sounds cool" feature of dubious usefulness. Ground air cooled .50s overheat their barrels in very short order so long bursts are not used. guns are large and hard to aim and keep on target by one man using muscles alone. Ammo takes up much more space than .30 cal ammo so making the tank over large in order to carry a large amount. (6,900 rounds of .50cal? that is around 1 ton of .50 cal ammo)
some early models had a .50 cal located in the turret rear for AA use, see:
http://ww2photo.mimerswell.com/tanks/usa/heav/m6/03654.jpg

Again looks "cool" but how do you aim the thing and how does the .50 cal gunner traverse the turret to track an airplane? Might require extreme co-operation on the part of the airplane in order to get shot down?

On second thought maybe the US should have fielded the thing. Imagine the easy victories as the US tankers drive past the Germans who are rolling on the ground helpless with laughter


----------



## Juha (Apr 5, 2010)

Hello Swartzpanzer
As I wrote I’m not a great fan of Panther but it had its good points. And while its side protection was weak for a tank of 45 tons, Schürtzen plates removed the problem with Soviet AT rifles, its frontal armour was excellent but the turret front, which was weaker than glacis. As I wrote in 43 Panther was all too unreliable but in 44 they got that more or less corrected BUT final drive, which was still too weak, at least for reverse on soft ground. 
As I wrote a gun a little less powerful than 75mm L/60 would have been quite adequate in 43, and it would have been possible to upgun later. Tomo’s idea of using 88mm L/56 is a good one but Army wanted a smaller calibre higher mv gun, IIRC they wanted Waffen 755, which might have been the tank gun version of 75/55mm Pak 41. IIRC one reason was to allow greater number of shells to be carried for given volume. I’m with the Tomo that Germans seemed to have been underestimated the need of powerful HE shell. KwK 40 was a good gun but with a new tank Germans needed to anticipate possible uparmouring of enemy tanks like it happened with Churchill VII and VIII with 152mm frontal armour and with JS 2, especially with its modified form.

IMHO the leaf spring suspension a la Pz IV was already old-fashioned but of course there was other possible solutions. Torsion bar suspension had its drawbacks but also Christie suspension (T-34 and British Cruisers incl Comet) ate precious armoured volume.

I think Germans had enough problems with a 45 ton tank, especially in Soviet Union, they didn’t needed more heavy AFVs. IMHO Tiger I was OK, even if expensive and heavy, in 43-44. After all it was a vehicle for special units not a standard issue tank. But Ferdinand showed the problems with super heavy vehicles so IMHO King Tiger and JgTiger were mistakes. IMHO Panther in its 43-45 tons form was a mistake. What Germans would have needed was a circa 35 tons tanks a la T-34, M4 (76) or Comet.

Tiger transmission was not be used in Panther because lack of production capacity, it was OK for heavy tank but too complex for amount of production needed for medium tanks.

StuGs worked well in Russia but had problems in Normandy.

Juha

ADDITION: Some Churchills had kept their 6pdr guns in Normandy just for A/T support for theit 75mm gun brothers and had some Sabot ammo for special targets. According to the unit history at least in 6th Guards Tank Brigade they were not overly impressed by its effects against Panther's glacis but surely Pz IV would not have been a much a problem especially its turret front armour was inadequate in 44 (50mm)


----------



## parsifal (Apr 5, 2010)

Hi Juha

Do you have any examples of Tigers performance in the east. I know their first use was around Novgorod in late '42, used offensively, they were not successful. They also were not outstanding in Kursk, but in the defensive battles that followed, they could at times prove deadly to advancing Soviet armour.

But details would be a great help


----------



## Shortround6 (Apr 5, 2010)

As I understand it the first use in the east used just a handful of Tigers (3-6?) and used them on bad ground so some of them bogged down.


----------



## Juha (Apr 7, 2010)

Hello Parsifal
one project has kept and is still keeping me busy, so a late and short answer.
That the first use of Tiger, around Mga IIRC, was a failure isn't surprising. Use a small number of tanks attacking along a narrow soft forest track, so that a single file was the only possible formation was curting a disaster.

IMHO Tigers did well at Kursk, without them the breaching of numerous well prepared defensive lines with numerous and deep A/T minefields and very numerous A/T nests would have been much more difficult and much slower.

Juha


----------



## Ferinx (Apr 8, 2010)

Njaco said:


> I don't think that I would rely on "tank vs tank" stats for a comparison. If I had one Tiger vs 50 T-34s, I would prpbably gain a 5:1 advantage before being knocked out totally with 45 T-34s still roaming about the place.




You are trying to make it seem as simple as in video games like Company of Heroes. But war is not a computer game my friend. In reality, it depends on many things and the situation, such as the area where the battle takes place (if open field or urban area - town/viallge/city) and it depends mostly on what T34 version it is. If we have 50 T34-85s with the 85mm gun, then sure a whole company of Tiger tanks can be taken out (when T34s are good camouflaged and the tankers are good skilled enough). But if we have only T34-76s (As seen in 1943 battle of Prokharovka) and adding open fields, then only one single Tiger can indeed knock out all of the 50 T34s in one encounter. There are dozzen of reports of Tiegers taking out 30 T34s and the rest escaped. If the Tiger wasn't running out of ammunition, then it would have knocked out even more of the withdrawing T34 tanks.

Same goes for the Shermans. Still in 1944 during battle of Bulge, most of the Shermans were still running with the weak 75mm gun which was ineffective against the Tigers armor at any good combat range. Only small numbers of a few Shermans were upgunned with the 76mm M3 gun but these were less than 20% of all Sherman variants at that time. Therefore very bad ground (narrow streets, bad terrain and hills) not good for such heavy tanks. There were more Tiger tanks abandoned int he Ardennes than on the Eastern front, for this reason. Tigers performance was significant better on the Eastern theatre of course!

regular Sherman (75mm gun) and T34 (76mm gun) were not only inferior to the Tiger and Panther, also Panzer IV ausf. G,H,F were all a little bit superior in proportion of armor protection and gun fire.


----------



## Ferinx (Apr 8, 2010)

Juha said:


> I think Germans had enough problems with a 45 ton tank, especially in Soviet Union, they didn’t needed more heavy AFVs. IMHO Tiger I was OK, even if expensive and heavy, in 43-44. After all it was a vehicle for special units not a standard issue tank. But Ferdinand showed the problems with super heavy vehicles so IMHO King Tiger and JgTiger were mistakes. IMHO Panther in its 43-45 tons form was a mistake. What Germans would have needed was a circa 35 tons tanks a la T-34, M4 (76) or Comet.



You make the same mistakes as most other people. More but less powerful tanks wouldn't be helpful for Germany in WW2. Germany didn't have enough men to use all of their tanks, so even if they had massproduced only medium tanks in higeher numbers, they still couldn't use them all. What are many tanks good for if you can't even use them? lol. Heavy tanks were the best way they could go with. And it WAS the best way as battle reports prove. Yes, they have lost the war with heavy tanks, but they would have lost with 'only medium tanks' as well! Fighting against 3 Super powers + 50 other nations on 3 fronts at the same time can only go wrong, Hitler was dumb.

Back to topic. As can seen today how battle reports prove, the Ferdindand tank destroyer, was one of the most effective tank killer ever used on the battlefields in the world, togeteher with the Tiger I and Tiger II. in 1943 during the battle Kursk, only *84 Ferdindands* were used by the 653. Jägerpanzerbattalion and 654. Jägerpanzerbattalion. both battalions destroyed* 556 soviet tanks* and 1,200 guns/artillery pieces! most Ferdindands were destroyed by their own crews after mechanical failures though.

It just needed a better engine and some more MGs for close defense, then it would have been the best AFV of WW2. the new Maybach HL230 engine was released in late 1944, if they had this engine 1 year before.... holy sh- i think we would speak all german now.


----------



## Juha (Apr 8, 2010)

Hello Ferinx
Germany had some 10 million in arms at its peak strenght, IIRC, surely they could have man many more tanks than they did. During the last desparate months they could create several divisions from superflous Krigsmarine men for ex. So the limiting factor wasn't the number of men, it was more on how they allocated them.

And Germany had also its partners, it wasn't fighting alone.

Quote:"84 Ferdindands were used by the 653. Jägerpanzerbattalion and 654. Jägerpanzerbattalion. both battalions destroyed 556 soviet tanks and 1,200 guns/artillery pieces!"

Sorry, that is the number of what they claimed, its a different thing than what they really destroyed. And while Ferdinand was very effective long distance tank killer its weight made its operative use difficult as one can see from unit histories.

Juha


----------



## Messy1 (Apr 8, 2010)

I saw a episode on Tank Overhaul on the military channel maybe. The narrative stated that the Ferdinand was extremely unreliable, too heavy for most roads, and the lack of a rotating turret, and the lack of mobility was an extreme handicap. IMO, they were more of a terror weapon than a feasible tank destroyer


----------



## parsifal (Apr 9, 2010)

Manpower was the limiting factor in the defensive battles that Germany had to fight, but the losses in manpower were exacerbated by the shortages of equipment, particulalry tanks, and fielding more tanks would have had a neglibilble additional effect on the manpower resources available to the germans, but would have enabled the catastrophic losses in manpower from July 43 onward to have been avoided or atleast reduced. 

Fielding a few heavy tanks doesnt place heavy demands on the manpower resources, and wherever those heavy tanks were present, they did cause upsets for the Soviets......but the problem was that there were simply not enough of them to cover enough of the frontages in sufficient quantities to make a difference. Statistically, the German Heavy Tanks formations could kill about 3 Soviet tabks for every one loss of their own...in 1944, the Germans lost 9000 tanks to the Soviets 23000. This was simply not enough of a difference in the exchange rates to justify their added expense. 

If the Germans had opted for say a Panther/StugIII tank park instead of thre menagerie of different tanks that they did, they might have fielded two to three times the tank numbers that they did. A Tiger cost twice as much to field as a Panther, and 5-6 times (roughly) that of a Stug. If the Germans had fielded twice as many tanks as they did, and also rationalized, and sped up the delivery of towed ATGs, as was suggested by Rommel in 1943, I believe they may have been able to blunt the Soviet steamrollwer that hit them after Kursk, and perhaps gained a respite that may have had far reaching consequences. 

In any event, things could not have gone wmuch worse than they did....and contrary to the claims made by revionists in the modern age, this was not all Hitlers fault. hitler had a big influence on the failures, but it was still the German Army, and not just Hitler that fought these later campaigns, and lost....to an enemy that by all accounts should not have won.


----------



## timshatz (Apr 9, 2010)

Messy1 said:


> I saw a episode on Tank Overhaul on the military channel maybe. The narrative stated that the Ferdinand was extremely unreliable, too heavy for most roads, and the lack of a rotating turret, and the lack of mobility was an extreme handicap. IMO, they were more of a terror weapon than a feasible tank destroyer



A mobile anti-tank gun you didn't have to dig in or deploy.


----------



## Juha (Apr 10, 2010)

Hello timshatz
or semi-mobile bunker for heavy A/T gun.

Juha


----------



## Mikey g (Nov 17, 2010)

You are going into battle against other tanks. You are not concerned with how many tanks are made, you are concerned with staying alive. My Tiger, manually traversing the turret, will blow you up before you get close enough to kill me. The Panther had a better gun, perhaps better frontal armor, but was a tin can everywhere else. The Sherman was a piece of junk that could not beat any of the top tanks without a clear numerical superiority. How many T-34's where slaughtered by a force one quarter the size? Really, British tanks???


----------



## parsifal (Nov 17, 2010)

Mikey g said:


> You are going into battle against other tanks. You are not concerned with how many tanks are made, you are concerned with staying alive. My Tiger, manually traversing the turret, will blow you up before you get close enough to kill me. The Panther had a better gun, perhaps better frontal armor, but was a tin can everywhere else. The Sherman was a piece of junk that could not beat any of the top tanks without a clear numerical superiority. How many T-34's where slaughtered by a force one quarter the size? Really, British tanks???



I think it is well understood that the germans held a qualitative advantage over all their rivals, but this comes at a price, which you are attempting to excorcise from the equation. German tanks typically cost many times that of any comparable Allied or Soviet tank. And they paid for that cost in numbers. Without the numbers, they simply could not win their battles. Individually there is no argument, German tanks were technological marvels....operationally they were clumsy, few in number and vulnerable because of that. 

The best defence is numbers....the russian experience is proof of that. The worst defence is sacrificing numbers for quality....and the germans proved that too.


----------



## Mikey g (Nov 17, 2010)

The question is what is the best tank. Given equal resources, not being bombed day and night, there is no doubt the Germans would've had twice the numbers in battle as there were. the numbers alone are staggering. It took damn near the entire modernized world to stop the Germans and their damned engineering capabilities. 
The T-34 was what, 3-4 years developed by the time of Kursk, the German attack was held up waiting for an unproven tank yet that tank left an impression of destruction that is still hotly debated today. This is not a question of numbers as the Russians had far more manpower to make the tanks, fight in the tanks, and ultimately, die in the tanks. In a straight up fight, nothing made that saw service in the war could expect to win against a Tiger(there are many questions regarding the actual ability of the crews operating the IS-2s and JS1-2's).
That a faltering and crumbling infrastructure couldn't keep up the production in 1944 is not a fault of the tank design itself...rather a knock against the situation it was constructed in.
If you are going into battle, die if you lose, what vehicle do you want to be in?
How many T-72s are equal to 1 Abrahms, or 1 Leopard 2s? Therin lies my point. This question aint industry or sheer numbers. WHAT IS THE SINGLE BEST TANK?


----------



## Mikey g (Nov 17, 2010)

By your wording, youd rather be with 70 T-72s vs an Abrahms line of 33 tanks. Even if 2/3rds of the Abrahms malfunction, you would expect to live? Now, back to what you were saying....Air support is not around, 'tis a fight to the death... Hello Iraq circa 1990s, NOTHING IN WW2 WAS EQUAL TO A TIGER. Qote numbers, quote production...that isn't the question. What's a previous posters quote? Dieing for your country doesn't win wars....


----------



## Shortround6 (Nov 17, 2010)

The biggest, baddest tank in the world that is 20 miles from the fighting isn't doing any good at all. 

The biggest, baddest tank in the world that is stuck in a depression because it's power to weight ratio won't let it get out isn't much good.

The biggest, baddest tank in the world that is stuck on the wrong side of a river because it is too heavy to use any bridge in the area isn't much good.

The biggest, baddest tank in the world that eats in own transmissions and engines at much higher rate than lesser tanks on routine road marches also doesn't do much good in the fight. 

Many battles were NOT fought on large billiard table flat open areas with no cover that allowed for 360 degree vision for several miles.


----------



## parsifal (Nov 17, 2010)

_The question is what is the best tank. Given equal resources, not being bombed day and night, there is no doubt the Germans would've had twice the numbers in battle as there were. the numbers alone are staggering. It took damn near the entire modernized world to stop the Germans and their damned engineering capabilities._ 

The question is the best, thats true, but the best is the best al round tank, and that should include its cost of production. The costs of production for german tanks was quite staggering. Though it is not entirely accurate to do so, the best estimate i can come up on the cost of a t-34 is around 40000RM, versus 312000RM for a tiger. A Panther cost 190000 whilst a a MkIV cost just over 100000. A Sherman cost around 80000. So the question is, are you better off with 1 tiger, 1.6 Panthers, 3 mkIvs, 4 Shermans or 8 T-34s. Given the average exchange ratio on the eastern front was about 3:1 against the russians, and somewhere around 2:1 against the Americans, the low cost options utilized by the allies over the high cost uber tanks of the germans starts to make sense


_The T-34 was what, 3-4 years developed by the time of Kursk, the German attack was held up waiting for an unproven tank yet that tank left an impression of destruction that is still hotly debated today. This is not a question of numbers as the Russians had far more manpower to make the tanks, fight in the tanks, and ultimately, die in the tanks. In a straight up fight, nothing made that saw service in the war could expect to win against a Tiger(there are many questions regarding the actual ability of the crews operating the IS-2s and JS1-2's)._ 

The reason the Germans found it necessary to develop the Panther, can be found directly from their experiences in encountering the T-34. It was found to be a near perfect blend of firepower, mobility, and protection, which are the three main ingredients to effective tank design. The panther paid rather more emphasis on firepower and protection, at the expense of mobility, which the germans could afford to do because they were not being asked to execute significantly mobile operations by the time the panther was being introduced. Panthers never performed outstandingly in the attack, though they were adequate in this role. 

The tiger was not inspired by the T-34, but it was upgunned and uparmoured as a result of German experiences with the Heavy allied tanks of 1940, principally the Char B and the Matilda. To me it represented the heaviest in firepower and protection, but was a very poor tank in terms of mobility and range, and also suffered in any sort of attack role. During the fighting in the Ardennes the unit supporting Peipers attack on the Americans left with 45 Tigers, and a week later returned with none. These were not encircled...they simply ran out of fuel, or more embarrassingly broke down. I think just 7 succumbed to enemy action.

So, it is quite wrong to insist that ina "straight up" fight the german tank would always win.....it depends on the circumstances, and often the weaknesses in German designs, their lack of range and mobility, and to a certain extent their poor serviceability, meant they fought at a distinct disadvantage. That, in part is why they hardly ever got to fight in a "straight up" fight....it was inherent in their design failings that they seldom got that opportunity. 

And even though your last claim is essentially nothing could stand up to the german tank forces, in fact the Germans lost nearly all the battles after 1943 that they were involved in. They put up a helluva fight, and shot up more tanks than they lost, but they still lost.....

_That a faltering and crumbling infrastructure couldn't keep up the production in 1944 is not a fault of the tank design itself...rather a knock against the situation it was constructed in._

I agree with this to a point, and yet the very designs you are talking about are reflective of the regime that produced them. Often overlooked, it is telling to note that the germans commanded the second biggest economy in the world in 1938, easily many times that of their future principal enemy, the russians. If you were to index the German Industrial potential in 1938 at 15, the Russian Industrial period at that same time was just 5....yet they at least matched the germans in tank outputs, by making far better use of their resources, and that included designing tanks that were built for mass production. German tanks were not, as is amply shown in Speers comments about the monstosities the heer was demanding at that time. 

So the germans in their tank designs like so many of their other technological endeavours became intoxicated with size and firepower, and paid a heavy price in the outputs they achieved. This lack of produceability ultimately lost them the war, but it also made the outnumbered germans in the field highly vulnerable. The vaunted superiority in design of tanks like the Tiger simply could not compensate for the faults inherent to the design, many of which displayed themselves off the battlefield, but nevetheless had an effect on the battle.....


_If you are going into battle, die if you lose, what vehicle do you want to be in?_

If I was faced with a single Tiger, I would opt for the 8 T-34s that I know I could have inexchange. Statistically the tiger will kill 3 of the t-34s, or in other words ther is a 37.5% chance of my tank being knocked out. However statistically, these eight T-34s will have killed the Tiger 2.7 times, meaning ther is a 270% chance of me being killed if I am in the Tiger

_How many T-72s are equal to 1 Abrahms, or 1 Leopard 2s? Therin lies my point. This question aint industry or sheer numbers. WHAT IS THE SINGLE BEST TANK?_

Well in terms of what happened in Iraq, the majority of tanks destroyed in 1991 were not T-72s at all, they were T-55s, though they there were quite a few T-72s destroyed. However, as usual, this does not take into account the circumstances....the Iraqi tanks lacked proper night vision equipment and lacked many of the high performance rounds used by the US. We can draw very little in design comparisons from the experiences in Iraq, though there is no doubt in my mind the Abrams is a much superior tank. If ther is little to be drawn in analysis of this battle in a contemporary context, then there is nothing to be learnt from the iraqi experiences in the WWII context.


Incidentally, a much better picture of just how capable "modern" Soviet armour actually is, is obtained by examining the Israeli usage of the T-55, T-62s and T-72s that they captured and used for quite a few years themselves. They did update their electronics, and communications, but as tanks, they found them to be very satisfactory.


----------



## DonL (Nov 17, 2010)

Sorry Parsifal 



> A Panther cost 190000



This is nothing but a myth.

A panther cost 117.100,- RM (without radio equipment) at Februar. 1 of 1943.
So at the beginnig of the production.



> 312000RM for a tiger


Next myth.

A Tiger I cost 250.800,- RM

Edit:
Comparison production of Pz IV to Panther (Pz V) at 1944:
3777 Panther were built at 1944 and 3125 Pz IV (the highest number of all years)

So I can't see that the Panther Tank was this expensive or difficult to mass produce


----------



## parsifal (Nov 17, 2010)

This sheet I have seen before, but I am told does not revela the full costs associated with delivery, manning, fitting of armament, optics and communications. 

If i were to apply the same criteria to the T-34, its costs would drop down to around 25K per unit. There would be similar discounts applicable to US tanks.

I need to stress that the figures I quoted are estimates only, for the tank in a combat worthy form and delivered to the units at the front. When these costs are included, one arrives at the figures I suggested.

But this argument about individual unt costs is largely irrelevant, and i wish i had not raised it because it detracts from the important thing to note. How did Germany, with a production base at least twice, and probably closer to three times that of its main enemy, manage to only produce less tanks than them. If we compare apples to apples, and look at MkIV production plus MkV production, vs T-34 production one arrives at figures of approximately 11000 AFVs (from memory) compared to over 60000 for the t-34. This difference cannot be explained by bombing.....Germans lost an estimated 10% of their productive capacities in 1943 and 19% (some sources say 35-40%) in 1944. By comparison, the Soviets lost 35% of their productive capacity due to enemy occupation (from Overy). Then there are the impacts of production from the occupied territories. 

There are many variables, of course, but I think the inescapeable conclusion is that German tanks were complex and very expensive to prduce. This is certainly backed up by comments from Speer, who constantly complained about the difficulty of producing German types, and held up the Sherman as an example of what Germany should be producing


----------



## riacrato (Nov 17, 2010)

Why would it not include these if they are specifically mentioned a few lines up? That doesn't sound very likely to me.


----------



## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Nov 17, 2010)

Mikey I will agree that the Tiger and Panther were the best overall tanks, however what others are saying to you is true as well. In the end the best tanks were the tanks that could be massed produced in extremely large numbers. 

The allies had it right. Better to have 100 Sherman's than 5 Tigers. Those Sherman's that you call a "piece of junk" still won the war. Why it could easily be built in large numbers. The Germans were never going to win the war with the Tiger.


----------



## parsifal (Nov 17, 2010)

From Wiki…….


_One source has cited the cost of a Panther tank as 117,100 RM). This compared with 82,500 RM for the StuG III, 96,163 RM for the Panzer III, 103,462 RM for the Panzer IV, and 250,800 RM for the Tiger I. These figures did not include the cost of the armament and radio. In terms of RMs per ton, therefore, the Panther tank was one of the most cost-effective of the German AFV's of World War II. However, these cost figures should be understood in the context of the time period in which the various AFVs were first designed, as the Germans increasingly strove for designs and production methods that would allow for higher production rates, and thus steadily reduced the cost of their AFVs. For example, another source has cited the total cost of the early production Tiger I in 1942–1943 to be as high as 800,000 RM.. 

The process of streamlining the production of German AFVs first began after Speer became Reichminister in early 1942, and steadily accelerated through 1944; production of the Panther tank thus coincided with this period of increased manufacturing efficiency. German AFV manufacturers at the start of World War II utilized only heavily labor-intensive and costly manufacturing methods unsuitable for the needs of mass production; even with streamlined production methods, Germany never approached the efficiency of Allied manufacturing during World War II_.

An important point to note is that the unit costs of German AFVs tended to decrease as the war progressed, so coming up with a consistent unit cost can be difficult to agree upon. This phenomenon occurred for all nations as production runs increased. 

There are inherent inaccuracies in comparing unit costs with the Soviets, not least of which is the currency conversion issue, so perhaps it is better to compare the numbers of man hours needed to produce T-34s with MkVs. According to one source, T34 = 3000 manhours versus Panther= 55000 manhours. 

This is a link to a Russian site that gives some indication of the costs of the T-34. 

Ñåáåñòîèìîñòü íåêîòîðûõ òèïîâ ñîâåòñêèõ òàíêîâ ïî ãîäàì

In dollar terms the T34/85 cost 71000 Roubles to produce and field in 1945. Determining an appropriate exchange rate is fraught with difficulties, but in 1938, the following exchange rates are known to apply.

(source (World Almanac and Book of Facts 1940))

Exchange Rates- based on Average NY stock exchange noon-time exchange rates 1938 
RM = 0.40 US Dollars
UK PND = 4.88 US Dollars
Franc = 0.029 US Dollars
Ruble = 0.20 US Dollars (used for internal pricing/ exchange)
Chevronets = 8.23 US Dollars (at gold par) (used for foreign trade), 

I think therefore, that the unit cost of 75000 Rb equates to approximately $14000 USD (though I am open to suggestions on an appropriate exchange rate….this is perhaps the most difficult thing to do in a WWII comparison). That’s about RM 36000 per unit, but this is admittedly very rough.

Admittedly, the cost per unit dropped for the T-34 as the war progressed, and the T-34/43 and T-34/85 were actually about 30% cheaper to produce than the T-34/76 (M1941). In 1941 the unit cost for a T-34/76 was as high as 140K, which is equivalent to approximately RM71000 per copy


----------



## Mikey g (Nov 17, 2010)

Do you think any modern MBT is easy to make? hile the T-34 may've been the very best ground weapon of the war, based on numbers and ability, in a straight out tank battle it got its butt whipped. Going back to Kursk, the Russian airforce and anti tank guns knocked out twice as many German tanks as the well positioned, dug in, Russian tanks did. For all the losses, the krauts did a phenominal job against impossible odds. 
Look at the battlefield of Kursk, the defences, and just how far the panzers got...No other tank of the war could've done that(Is2 Js excluded...potentially) 

The Ardennes? Any tank is going to run out of gas if not supplied. Tanks got through, supplies did not. Besides, you cannot blame the tank for flawed strategy against impossible odds. Germany fighting with triple the tank force, built of T-34's, would still lose. Once again, none of that has to do with the tank specifically.
Asfar as not winning a battle after 1943 goes here is a truth...The only times in modern history when an equally equipped army has won, while being completely outsized, was failure of the opposing commanders to press their charge. Soldiers will not stop if they're gonna get shot by their own troops for stopping. Quantity won the war, not quality. The moment Adolf decided to attack Russia, while England still stood, the war was lost. 10,000 Tigers and Panthers could not change that fact. Once again, numbers do not lie. 
It isn't correct to look at unit cost of tanks. If the workers stopped working because of lack of pay, The Germans and the Russians would've had there military kill the ringleaders and made the people work. Price was no object, and to the Russians, neither was cost of life. They sent their tank crews to die...die in a woefully inadequate tank from 1944 on. Unfortunately there appears to be no tankmen from the war on this sight or else they could weigh in. The Allies feared the Tigers, the Germans feared the airplanes.


----------



## Mikey g (Nov 17, 2010)

...by the same logic, Ford Taurus must be better than Ferarri Enzo because there's 10,000,000 Taurus' on the road vs 500 Enzos. Since Ford can make so many cars, I guess the Enzo just isn't really that good of a car...especially how frequent the maintence requirements are. Yet, going from New York to San Francisco, which do you want to be in?


----------



## pbfoot (Nov 17, 2010)

Mikey g said:


> ...by the same logic, Ford Taurus must be better than Ferarri Enzo because there's 10,000,000 Taurus' on the road vs 500 Enzos. Since Ford can make so many cars, I guess the Enzo just isn't really that good of a car...especially how frequent the maintence requirements are. Yet, going from New York to San Francisco, which do you want to be in?


The Taurus without one word of a lie and I hate them


----------



## parsifal (Nov 17, 2010)

_Do you think any modern MBT is easy to make? hile the T-34 may've been the very best ground weapon of the war, based on numbers and ability, in a straight out tank battle it got its butt whipped. Going back to Kursk, the Russian airforce and anti tank guns knocked out twice as many German tanks as the well positioned, dug in, Russian tanks did. For all the losses, the krauts did a phenominal job against impossible odds. 
Look at the battlefield of Kursk, the defences, and just how far the panzers got...No other tank of the war could've done that(Is2 Js excluded...potentially) _

In answer to the first point, no all tanks represent a high investment of military capital, but in the case of the German heavy tanks of the late war period, the investment was much higher per unit than any other nation was prepared to pay. The Germans entered this race for heaviest meanest tank, without having considered the implication of their procurement strategy 

There is a strong argument to suggest that the uber tanks on which the Germans pinned their hopes for victory, actually cost them that victory. The strong defences that you mention actually were made possible b the delay in kicking off the offensive. And the offensive was delayed primarily because of the desire to get the Panther into action.

And you seem to jump to the conclusion that the excellent performance by the germans was due to the performance of the Panther Tank (and to a lesser extent the Tiger). In fact there is no evidence to support that notion. The majority of the damage to the Russian mobile forces was done by the lighter more proven types in the german, inventory, principally the mkIIIs and Ivs. The mkVs were actually rather a failure. 

According to OKH reports, of the 200 that kicked off on the opening day of the offensive only 9 were still operational by the second day. The overwhelming majority had simply broken down due, mostly to transmission failures. Most of these were recovered, but then lost for good in the Soviet counteroffensive. By the 1 August AGS retained just 6 out of that original batch of 200. 

For the loss of that 194 tanks, the Panther equipped formations are credited with the destruction of 267 Soviet AFVs….hardly a “butt kicking” as you refer to it. 

_The Ardennes? Any tank is going to run out of gas if not supplied. Tanks got through, supplies did not. Besides, you cannot blame the tank for flawed strategy against impossible odds. Germany fighting with triple the tank force, built of T-34's, would still lose. Once again, none of that has to do with the tank specifically._

I agree that the defeat in the Ardennes was not directly the fault of the tank itself, but it was still part of the surreal lack of reality that gripped the Heer in those final months of the war. The heavy tanks developed by the germans, at the expense of numbers, reliability, and mobility was symptomatic of the general malaise afflicting german military thinking at that time. The Germans believed that their wonder weapons would tip the balance for them….and that included the equipment of their tank parks. They were wrong about the effects of their super weapons generally, and they were wrong about their uber tanks specifically.

It is doubtful that after the formation of the grand alliance against them, therir was anything that Germany could do about staving off defeat. Its an open question if they could have done better with amore conventional tank force…Rommel certainly thought so, and advocated the use of massed AT defences rather than continuing to turn out small numbers of super tanks, as they did. Whilst the majority of the front, particularly the easter front, was forced to fight a “poor mans war” with inadequate quality and quantity of AT weapons, the germans continued to fulfil its unrealistic dreams of producing super tanks but in completely inadequate numbers. 

I personally think they would have been far better to follow Rommels suggestion and produce large quantities of AT weapons…towed guns and Stugs mostly

_Asfar as not winning a battle after 1943 goes here is a truth...The only times in modern history when an equally equipped army has won, while being completely outsized, was failure of the opposing commanders to press their charge. Soldiers will not stop if they're gonna get shot by their own troops for stopping. Quantity won the war, not quality. The moment Adolf decided to attack Russia, while England still stood, the war was lost. 10,000 Tigers and Panthers could not change that fact. Once again, numbers do not lie. _

Germany was defeated comprehensively, not just by numbers. And it was not just “Adolph” that was responsible for that, though he played a big part in it. The decision to attack Russia was never seriously opposed by any member of the General Staff, in fact they enthusiastically supported it.

The problem was never with just one individual, or one decision, it was a comprehensive failure by the whole. I have seen this argument so many times…”oh it was Hitlers fault”, or “Germany’s fatal mistake was this or that”….variations to the “we were stabbed in the back” argument that followed the heels of the defeat in 1918.

The facts are that the German military system was defeated not just one individual or one decision. 

_It isn't correct to look at unit cost of tanks. If the workers stopped working because of lack of pay, The Germans and the Russians would've had there military kill the ringleaders and made the people work. Price was no object, and to the Russians, neither was cost of life. They sent their tank crews to die...die in a woefully inadequate tank from 1944 on. Unfortunately there appears to be no tankmen from the war on this sight or else they could weigh in. The Allies feared the Tigers, the Germans feared the airplanes._

Err, the simple facts are these, in 1944, the Germans destroyed 23000 Russian AFVs whilst losing about 9000 of their own. At those rates, the uber tank concept was bound to fail, because of the unit cost argument that you believe to be irrelevant. In fact the economic realities of equipment costs affected the Russians and the germans just as much as everybody. Probably moreso in fact, since the democracies had a certain amount of elasticity in their credit systems that could absorb losses and costs for a time at least, whereas Nazi Germany in particular was living a hand to mouth existence with no credit reserves to call on. 

I would say the allies had a respect for the German tank crews, not so much a fear. The same could be said of the german view of allied airpower.

As far as ther being no tankmen on this site...I beg to differ. there just is no one willing to take on the argument, as we have suffered casualties in this debate before


----------



## parsifal (Nov 17, 2010)

_by the same logic, Ford Taurus must be better than Ferarri Enzo because there's 10,000,000 Taurus' on the road vs 500 Enzos. Since Ford can make so many cars, I guess the Enzo just isn't really that good of a car...especially how frequent the maintence requirements are. Yet, going from New York to San Francisco, which do you want to be _in?

Actually this analogy does pretty neatly show up the weakness in your thinking. On the face of it, having a Ferraris would be an eminently better mount….but then you have not considered the circumstances that contest….what if you had to stay on unsealed roads the whole way, for example, or worse, on no roads. And what if you had to compete against those 10000 fords simultaneously, to see how many miles could be racked up by each group. Under both those circumstances the Ferrari might not be a good choice. In Australia with its notoriously bad outback roads it is a definite liability, notwithstanding the prestige effect such a car has. 

So, as a general statement it probably does make sense to go for the Taurus under most circumstances. And similar conclusions can be drawn for the German tank arm in a lot of circumstances.


----------



## Mikey g (Nov 17, 2010)

Of 200 of a brand new type, without the bugs having had a chance to be found, they destroyed 267 of the Russian tanks. Moreso, the Russians didn't destroy the German tanks, their own mechanical issues destroyed them. Take a look back at 1941 and the teething problems of the T-34, took a couple of years to make them right. That the Panthers and Tigers didn't have those years to develop, once again, isn't those tanks fault. The tanks were superior, the economy and reality of war doomed them. But you cannot sit there and say a T-34, a Sherman, a Firefly, a Cromwell, a Churchill an M-26 or any other tank produced was a superior tank in a tank battle. The time ran out to fix all the bugs but...here we talk about those tanks today as if they had all the relevence in the world.
I do agree that the German high command had as much to do with screwing things up as Hitler. There seemed to be an abundance of brilliant tacticians... some really keen minds, but the failures on top rolled the sh!t downhill. 

You're right on this, numbers alone didn't cost Hitler his "fortress Europe". From the idiot Goering in charge of the LW, to trying to build a surface navy, bailing out the Italians in Greece(5 weeks!!!!!), declaring war on the US, desecrating millions of welcoming civilians, and not sending reinforcements day 1 to Normandy, Germany was destined to lose WW2 although, if you take out the numerical superiority, make an even odds fight, Europe would today be a one country continent and its flag would be German. They cost themselves the war they had pretty much wrapped up.


----------



## Mikey g (Nov 17, 2010)

"So, as a general statement it probably does make sense to go for the Taurus under most circumstances. And similar conclusions can be drawn for the German tank arm in a lot of circumstances". 

Yes, a better car for the circumstances, but not THE better car.

I'm upset that there are vets on here who dont speak because of prior disrespect or slander. You guys have earned my respect for the jobs you did and and find it difficult to fathom alienating your firsthand source of information. I sit back and read, since I was 8, about this stuff. It's you who I read about, your exploits, places you've been, what you went through...Thank you for your time and your opinion.

Michael Georges


----------



## riacrato (Nov 18, 2010)

parsifal said:


> From Wiki…….
> 
> 
> _One source has cited the cost of a Panther tank as 117,100 RM). This compared with 82,500 RM for the StuG III, 96,163 RM for the Panzer III, 103,462 RM for the Panzer IV, and 250,800 RM for the Tiger I. These figures did not include the cost of the armament and radio. _


_

I suppose you do not own the sources for that claim?_


----------



## parsifal (Nov 18, 2010)

riacrato said:


> I suppose you do not own the sources for that claim?



I dont own it....its a quote from Wiki, but it looks very similar to the post made by DonL. 

M_Kenny revealed this list from posted by DonL as not including the armament and comms equipment

I dont suppose you have any further information to contribute...


----------



## riacrato (Nov 18, 2010)

I have not seen the post where it was revealed that this list does not include armament and communication equipment, maybe someone can point me to it. I just find it very odd to have a breakdown list of the main components of a tank, even point out specifically that the weight includes armament, but then put a price under that doesn't include a significant portion of the above mentioned bulletpoints that's all.


----------



## parsifal (Nov 18, 2010)

The wiki extract also says that the quoted costs dont include armament or comms


----------



## parsifal (Nov 20, 2010)

As I said wiki is the main source, though ther are plenty of others you can use if you want to do some serious research.


Relevantly, Wiki states...._One source has cited the cost of a Panther tank as 117,100 Reichmarks (RM). This compared with 82,500 RM for the StuG III, 96,163 RM for the Panzer III, 103,462 RM for the Panzer IV, and 250,800 RM for the Tiger I. These figures did not include the cost of the armament and radio.[13][14] In terms of Reichmarks per ton, therefore, the Panther tank was one of the most cost-effective of the German AFV's of World War II.[15] However, these cost figures should be understood in the context of the time period in which the various AFVs were first designed, as the Germans increasingly strove for designs and production methods that would allow for higher production rates, and thus steadily reduced the cost of their AFVs. For example, another source has cited the total cost of the early production Tiger I in 1942–1943 to be as high as 800,000 RM.[16]_

The link for this extract is Panther tank - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Another link gives further breakdowns on loses and unit costs for selected german items

http://www.achtungpanzer.com/panzer-statistics.htm


----------



## renrich (Nov 20, 2010)

Very interesting debate. Brings up questions which I had not pondered before. Michael especially has made some good points, IMO. What might have been the outcome if Germany had settled on a single tank design somewhat like the T34 or M4 that was easily and cheaply produced and was very reliable and had had six or eight times as many of those units as they had Panthers and Tigers?

As far as which car, Ferrari or Taurus, is best. Depends on your definition of best. My bet is that if a factory fresh Ferrari( or M-B, Porsche or BMW) is pitted against a factory fresh Taurus (or Toyota, Nissan or Hyundai) in a coast to coast summer time run across the US at posted speed limits, the Taurus would have better odds at making the trip without a breakdown. I think that situation is a little like the comparison of the T34, M4 versus the Panther, Tiger.


----------



## tomo pauk (Nov 20, 2010)

While Germany produced 3 different heavy thanks within 2 years, they totally neglected 'workhose' tanks. 
Pz-IV was decent tank, but it was older design than competing M4 T-34, and it was not as suited for mass production as those two were. We should take in account that Germany was main/sole supplier of military hardware for it's allies, and it was not able to supply those with enough tanks, planes etc. So the Romanians, Hungarians, Fins, Italians had to use their flimsy tanks vs. better equipped enemies. Same goes for planes - Buffaloes, CR-42s and He-112 instead of 109s.


----------



## Shortround6 (Nov 20, 2010)

I would note that production of arms, whither it is rifles, Submarines, tanks or airplanes, is often governed by the availability of both raw materials and manufacturing capability. 
Just because one design costs three times what another design costs doesn't always mean you can build threes times as many of the cheaper design. 
Steel production figures can tell a lot about the relative strengths of countries but steel production is not armor production. Armor needs special elements for alloying and it needs special furnaces and heat treatment facilities. 
You can't take 2000tons of steel from a destroyer and build eighty 25 ton tanks either. Not unless you have several dozen tones of the elements needed to turn regular steel into armor. And you need hundreds of hours worth of heat treatment. Depending on the construction of the tank the armor may have to be fabricated as to size and shape with holes pre-drilled and then heat treated. Trying to roll out already heat treated steel is going to be a real B***H!
It is also nice to think that you can get three 250hp engines for the price of a single 750hp engine but things seldom worked out that way either. 

While the smaller, lighter tank will need smaller, lighter, cheaper cranes and handling machinery in it's factories to really build three times as many you are going need more of them.

when comparing some models of tanks it is always a good idea to try and find out what they were really capable of. For instance the Russians use of the same and engine and transmission in the T-34 and KV series tanks is often held up as a good example of standardization. Was it? Some people claim that KV's rarely reached their quoted top speed because the transmission was so hard to shift the drivers rarely got them into top gear. Cruising in 2nd or 3ed isn't going to do much fro range either. 

The Germans did make plenty of mistakes in production and in design but lets examine real performance and choices and not just dividing one cost into another and claiming instant changes in production numbers. 

My vote for best tank available in numbers and available for almost a year?
Sherman Firefly.


----------



## parsifal (Nov 20, 2010)

Your caution is well founded, but the fact that it takes 55000 hours to produce a single Panther, versus 4000 hours for a T-34, says volumes about produceability.

The Germans had all sorts of problems in their manufacturing apparatus, thats true. One of the great advantages for the Russians was the formation of massiver tank building complexes, whereas German industry, despite being many times larger overall, was really a colloection of relatively innefficient smaller factories, the result of poor prewar preparation and planning.

Shortages of resources was another factor limiting German production, but so too were the shortages afflicting the Russians. Overwhelmingly for the Russians was the losses of their most productive territory, amounting to 35% of their factory spaces. Unlike the Germans, who never took steps to manage their production apparatus correctly, the Russians from the start took steps to command their economy, and plan centrally for industry requirements.

So low productivity in the German industrial complex is definately a major factor, as is shortage of materials. However, none of this was taken into account in their procurement machine. Despite knowing these limitations, they still opted for complex, large tank designs difficult to manufacture. If you have a weak tank manufacuring base, then the last thing you need to do is produce a tanks difficult to build. you build to your capacities and capabilities, not to an unrealistic wish list unattainable with the resources available to your country


----------



## Shortround6 (Nov 20, 2010)

Is it really a fact or is it just repeated very often?

How are the numbers determined? just like trying to compare prices between two economies using price controls to determine true costs, you jave to have some idea of how man hours are counted. Work on loading docks, unloading materials? Work done in foundry on castings? 
Does the German figure include armament and engine?
Does the Russian figure include armament and engine?

Or, like US aircraft numbers, are the engine, armament, radios and a few other items considered government furnished equipment and only the hours needed to install them are counted? 

Don't get me wrong, I believe that the big German tanks were expensive and time consuming but the idea that 30 ton tanks could be built TOTALLY in 3000-4000 hours seems a bit much. 
For big production you also have to invest in big factories. How is this investment counted in price?
as an example the Ford company was given 14 million by the US gov to start construction of a plant to build R-2800 engines. Some sources say the building cost 39 million to complete without machine tools or equipment. I don't know if this is the original building or if it applies to the building as it was in 1944. The 1944 structure was triple the size of the 1941 building that rolled out the first engine. Man hours dropped from 2,330 hrs per engine to 905 hours.


----------



## parsifal (Nov 21, 2010)

Is it valid to make a direct correlation between the 55000 hours needed to build a Panther and the 4000 hours needed to build a t-34??? Absolutely not. Ther are too many unknowns to reach that conclusion, but I believe there is at least some indicative truth in there. The fact that the russians, with all their problems and limits could turn out 83000 T-34s whilst the Germans, with a much bigger Industrial base could manage about 11000 equivalent types over a longer time frame makes it clear there was something seriously wrong in the German acquisition system....and that means, by extension, there was something seriously wrong with the actual designs they were trying to build. We dont have enough information to be more specific than that, but we can say that something was wrong....really wrong


----------



## Shortround6 (Nov 21, 2010)

parsifal said:


> The fact that the russians, with all their problems and limits could turn out 83000 T-34s whilst the Germans, with a much bigger Industrial base could manage about 11000 equivalent types over a longer time frame makes it clear there was something seriously wrong in the German acquisition system...



There may be something wrong with this fact also. 

Do you have a source for 83,000 T-34s (even including Su-85s and Su-100s) being built in WW II?

As for the 11,000 equivalent types----that seems a bit low. if we include just MK III with the long 50mm gun and MK IVs with the longer 75mm we can get to around 17,150 tanks plus 8,500 assault guns with long barrels plus about 1800 jagdpanzers not including the jagdpanzer 38t. adding in about 1300 Hummel and Nashorn chassis and the total, while far below Russian numbers is way above 11,000.

The Germans also built almost 22,000 armoured half tracks compared to the Russians production of how many???

The Germans produced about 4,000 armored cars compared to 8,000 Russian BA-64s but comparing a BA-64 to even a Sd Kfz 222 shows were manufacturing effort was going. 

Considering the Russians had built over 20,000 tanks by the start of the war, even if most of them were lighter than the T-34 makes it a bit tougher to claim the Russians were coming from way behind in tank production facilities. 
Yes, a number of them had to be moved and yes, a number of them operated in appalling conditions for large parts of the war but they had the machine tools and cranes and production equipment TO MOVE. 
The easiest civilian production facility to convert to tank production was a railroad locomotive shop/factory. They were about the only facilities that already had the over head cranes, foundries and machine tools big enough to handle tanks. If your country doesn't have enough locomotives to begin with then using those shops for a quick and easy addition to production isn't really an option and you have to build factories from scratch. 

Were the German designs over complicated? Yes, but not to the 7 to 1 extend your numbers suggest. 

One could also say that the Russian designs were over simplified leading to both combat losses and breakdowns. That 2 man turret with the commander acting as the gunner meant that you needed more tanks to have the same combat effect. Break downs can be recovered a fair amount of the time but can affect operational readiness. The KV trying to use the same transmission as the T-34 was a problem as much as the Panther trying to use one designed for a lighter tank.


----------



## parsifal (Nov 21, 2010)

_Do you have a source for 83,000 T-34s (even including Su-85s and Su-100s) being built in WW II?

As for the 11,000 equivalent types----that seems a bit low. if we include just MK III with the long 50mm gun and MK IVs with the longer 75mm we can get to around 17,150 tanks plus 8,500 assault guns with long barrels plus about 1800 jagdpanzers not including the jagdpanzer 38t. adding in about 1300 Hummel and Nashorn chassis and the total, while far below Russian numbers is way above 11,000._

I think I do have to concede an error here. After checking it seems the Soviet output of tanks is slightly different to the number I gave, though not necessarily less. 

please find attached some figures on tank production for both the axis and the allies, which, whilst differnt to what I thought, does not really diminish the production differential between the two countries. 



_ The Germans also built almost 22,000 armoured half tracks compared to the Russians production of how many???_


Have attached Ellis's list on truck production. I consider Halftrack production to be more akin to truck production to be more closely related to truck production than tank production, particulalry given that a good percentage of Soviet trucks were tracked anyway. Some german HTs were lightly armoured, whereas Russian HTs were not, but this hardly puts the germans in the category of AFVs


Here is a good link to try and get an idea of the general characteristics of Soviet vehicles

Engines of the Red Army in WW2 


_ The Germans produced about 4,000 armored cars compared to 8,000 Russian BA-64s but comparing a BA-64 to even a Sd Kfz 222 shows were manufacturing effort was going. _

Agreed, but the Russians were not known for their high quality ACs, nevetheless they took the view that ACs were expendable and designed and built accordingly

_Considering the Russians had built over 20,000 tanks by the start of the war, even if most of them were lighter than the T-34 makes it a bit tougher to claim the Russians were coming from way behind in tank production facilities. _

I never claimed or said that, but their production was behind that of germany in 1939-40, and had to cope with wholesale dislocation and relocation in 1941 and 42. 

_ Yes, a number of them had to be moved and yes, a number of them operated in appalling conditions for large parts of the war but they had the machine tools and cranes and production equipment TO MOVE. _

According to Overy, they still lost 35% of their factory capacity to enemy occupation despite the relocation plan. The fact that the Russians planned for an indepth conflict almost from 1921, does what to lessen the argument that the russians were prepred for a war, in the sense of its control of production???



The easiest civilian production facility to convert to tank production was a railroad locomotive shop/factory. They were about the only facilities that already had the over head cranes, foundries and machine tools big enough to handle tanks. If your country doesn't have enough locomotives to begin with then using those shops for a quick and easy addition to production isn't really an option and you have to build factories from scratch.

KIind of, except that the Russian tank factories were usually Tractor factories that were converted to tank production. 

_Were the German designs over complicated? Yes, but not to the 7 to 1 extend your numbers suggest. _

Probably agree with this, though the implication that seems to be embedded in your inferences that they were only slightly more complicated (please accept my apologies if I have misinterpreted you), I totally reject. There were significant differences in the complexities of germnan and Russian tanks. German tanks were markedly more complex, and harder to build.

Not sure how mechanical you are, but have a look at their respective suspension systems, and the compexities of the engines they put into each of their vehicles. Russian suspensions and drive trains were a model of simplicity (and in the case of the drivetrains, in the beginning, embarrassingly unreliable), German suspensions and drive trains were hopelessly overcomplicated....just as an example. 

_One could also say that the Russian designs were over simplified leading to both combat losses and breakdowns. That 2 man turret with the commander acting as the gunner meant that you needed more tanks to have the same combat effect. Break downs can be recovered a fair amount of the time but can affect operational readiness. The KV trying to use the same transmission as the T-34 was a problem as much as the Panther trying to use one designed for a lighter tank._


I dont agree....one of the great lies was that they suffered such heavy losses. TGhey suffered heavy losses, but it was not the onesided affairs that people think. 1944 is the year to consider I guess...somewhere between 19 and 23000 tanks lost, versus somewhere between 9 and 12000 German losses, in my book this fails to justify the lavish effort and manhours put into the German tanks


----------



## timshatz (Nov 21, 2010)

Good discussion guys.


----------



## tomo pauk (Nov 21, 2010)

Indeed - thanks for the table


----------



## Shortround6 (Nov 21, 2010)

parsifal said:


> I think I do have to concede an error here. After checking it seems the Soviet output of tanks is slightly different to the number I gave, though not necessarily less.
> 
> please find attached some figures on tank production for both the axis and the allies, which, whilst differnt to what I thought, does not really diminish the production differential between the two countries.



thank you for the figures and charts but they do show that for total tank/SPG production the Russian out produced the Germans by a factor of 2.24 and not the 7.54 suggested by your original figures. Shift to tanks/SPGs with 75mm guns and above the ratio changes to 2.44. Juggle light tanks or SPGs based on light tank chassis in and out of the figures as you will but I doubt if the ratio will change to better than 3 to 1. 



parsifal said:


> Have attached Ellis's list on truck production. I consider Halftrack production to be more akin to truck production to be more closely related to truck production than tank production, particulalry given that a good percentage of Soviet trucks were tracked anyway. Some german HTs were lightly armoured, whereas Russian HTs were not, but this hardly puts the germans in the category of AFVs



Ah, but it does affect armor production and work load. As a for instance say the half track has 6.35mm armor (10lbs per sq. ft.) and is 15ft long and 5 ft high. that is 1500lbs of armor per vehicle just for the sides. Add in the front,rear and hood and I think we can comfortable estimate 1 ton of armor per vehicle. Only 500-1000 medium tanks worth but the labor involved is probably dis proportionally high. 


Thank you for the link, it is interesting. 


parsifal said:


> Agreed, but the Russians were not known for their high quality ACs, nevetheless they took the view that ACs were expendable and designed and built accordingly


An armored jeep, while expendable is also rather limited in capabilities and may require the support of more capable (expensive) vehicles, in order to perform sone missions in which case it's actual cost/benfit ratio goes down a bit. 
Why was Soviet tank production down in 1939-40? Lack of manufacturing capability or were they unhappy with the present models and waiting for new models (T-60?-T-34 and KV series) to finish trials and be approved? 



parsifal said:


> KIind of, except that the Russian tank factories were usually Tractor factories that were converted to tank production.



That is nice sounding propaganda, peaceful Russians convert agricultural tractor factories to war production and defeat invaders, but it doesn't stand up well to closer examination, anymore than saying the US converted car or truck factories to tank or aircraft production. In the US many such "converted" factories were actually new buildings with new equipment built adjacent to existing car/truck factories to take advantage of transportation infrastructure (rail, ship/barge) and existing workforce/housing. Granted minor parts suppliers could supply both types of factories (nuts, bolts, tubing, instruments, batteries,etc.) but a factory equipped to deal with 6-11 ton tractors with minimal body work is not equipped to deal with 26-45ton vehicles without substantial reworking let alone the armor fabrication. 

See: Oldtimer gallery. Trucks. Tractors. S-60 "Stalinec".

And poke around a bit to see what kind of pre war tractors we are talking about. 

I agree that the German designs were more complicated and harder to build, they may also have been caught by timing. When the Panther transmission was originally designed the designers may have screwed up in not anticipating that the production tank would be much heavier than they planned on. Did they also screw up in not anticipating that there would be material shortages 2 years in the future leading to gear and bearing troubles or that 2 years in the future much of the labor would be slave labor? 
Designing transmission/steering gears for heavy AFVs is not easy. What works in a simple system for a 3-10 vehicle just fine and is OK but not great in a 20-30 ton vehicle can be hopeless in a 45 ton vehicle. Transmission design can also be influenced by engine availability. If you have a large, powerful engine in a relatively light tank you can get away with fewer gears than in a lower powered engine in the same weight tank and still keep mobility. Abrupt changes in track speed while turning can lead to track throwing or breaking traction with the ground surface and bogging down. Regenative steering systems, while more expensive to manufacture do have less wear on the steering clutches/brakes and may need less frequent maintenance.
Just like in cars, even putting in synchronizers on the gears makes the transmission larger, more complicated and more expensive but it may pay for itself in an easier to use transmission, less clutch wear and fewer broken/chipped gear teeth and failed transmissions. 

How many gears and how complicated you make the transmission is subject to debate but simplest is not always better. 



parsifal said:


> I dont agree....one of the great lies was that they suffered such heavy losses. TGhey suffered heavy losses, but it was not the onesided affairs that people think. 1944 is the year to consider I guess...somewhere between 19 and 23000 tanks lost, versus somewhere between 9 and 12000 German losses, in my book this fails to justify the lavish effort and manhours put into the German tanks



By 1944 the Germans were also suffering more from air attack, retreats always loose more tanks than advances, you can't recover damaged/broken tanks and the Russians are introducing 3 man turrets. 
The Germans were never going to build a medium/heavy tank that used a 2 man turret. It gives away too much in command and control of both small formations and even the tank itself. If the commander is the gunner he is not looking out for dangers, looking for the next target, following what the rest of the platoon is doing, spotting for the gunner and other commander type duties. 

The Germans would have been well served by using a smaller, simpler tank than than the Panther/Tiger but the T-34 was no paragon after the first few thousand had been built until the T-34/85 showed up. 

For a totally fictional German tank, Imagine a slightly stretched MK IV with wider tracks with the front and sides of a Jagdpanzer IV with a bit bigger than normal turret on top mounting 75mm/60 gun with about the performance of the 77mm gun in the British Comet. get an engine with perhaps 20% more power to top things off. 
Off course I have the benefit of hind sight to KNOW that this combination would take care of most threats until the end of the war.


----------



## riacrato (Nov 24, 2010)

parsifal said:


> Considering the Russians had built over 20,000 tanks by the start of the war, even if most of them were lighter than the T-34 makes it a bit tougher to claim the Russians were coming from way behind in tank production facilities.
> 
> I never claimed or said that, *but their production was behind that of germany in 1939-40*, and had to cope with wholesale dislocation and relocation in 1941 and 42.


The tables you attached to this very same post directly contradict this statement or am I not getting something here?

1939: 2950 vs 247
1940: 2794 vs 1643

With light tanks and tankettes added that ratio might actually be more drastic (T-26, BT-5) We might argue about quality (both in the engineering and production sense), but to me it seems e.g. the T-26 was not hopelessly outclassed (was at least good enough to be sometimes used by the Germans when captured), eventhough its concept was outdated when compared to the Pz III and IV. Same can be said about the T-28 or the T-35, although these had also mechanical reliability problems so servere that most of them broke down in the first few weeks of the war (see, it's not just a German problem). And that's why they are often overlooked.

In the early 30s the Soviets were the first to have relatively modern medium and heavy tanks and considering the peacetime they built quite a few of them too. Compare this to the contemporary French (FT-17) and German tanks (Pz. I and II and even those were still on the drawing board). They were also among the first to have radios and aaa guns on their tanks. The SU was a strong player in the field of tank design and production long before the war started and their designs were steadily improving. It didn't happen over night sometime in 1941.

It was rather their general armor doctrine that was outdated and they have to blame themselves for that. The Germans learned quickly from the experiences in the Spanish Civil War. The Soviets had the same experiences and the Khalkhin Gol War, but Stalin rather listened to his pet-marshals like Kulik and not progressive commanders like Zhukov. Thus they had to re-learn the hard way in the Winter War and the first months of Barbarossa.


----------



## Soggy (Dec 3, 2010)

Mikey g said:


> The Sherman was a piece of junk that could not beat any of the top tanks without a clear numerical superiority.


Myth, as demonstrated by the Battle of Arracourt in September 1944. Another myth is that the Soviet 85mm had superior anti-armor performance to the much-maligned US 76mm; the reverse was true, as illustrated by the Soviets' own tests conducted against captured King Tigers. 

The typical Sherman of WWII was outgunned and underarmored vis a vis the heavy German panzers like the Mark V and Mark VI, but that was not due to any inherent fault in the design, which was quite amenable to uparmoring (like the M4A3E2, one of which shrugged off six direct hits by 88mm shells) and upgunning (a 90mm variant was produced as the M36B1). 

Shermans served in the front lines into the 1970s, and with upgunning (first with a Panther-derived 75mm and later with a 105mm) Israeli Shermans were able to successfully take on frontally much more formidable opponents than anything the Germans build in WWII. 

FWIW von Manteuffel's choice for best tank of WWII was the IS2.


----------



## peterpro (May 22, 2011)

I voted the King Tiger as the best defensive tank of WWII.


----------



## parsifal (May 23, 2011)

Just a bit more information that I found, since these interesting discussions took place.

A lot of debate revolved around the relative produceability of Russian tanks versus German tanks (of which the T-34 was representative of the russian tanks, and the Panther and Mk IV were representative of the german tank park). Other arguments were advanced that whilst the German economy was considerably larger than the Russian economy, German production tended to dissipate into other areas, such as Halftrack production. This is all true, but tanks are not isolated weapons, used without reliance on other weapons systems. A tank, like and aircraft, is supported by a whole range of supporting arms and technologies, so it is impossible to spearate the effects of a single weapon system in relation to overall loss rates. Its like those arguments that try to argue that if only the Me 262 was ready earlier, things would have been different, or that the Mustang was THE weapon that broke the back of the Luftwaffe. There are elements of truth in both statements, and yet the underlying messages in each case are misleading. The Me 262 was a significant weapon system, that had great potential, but it could not turn the air war around by itself. The Mustang was a big factor in the defat of the Luftwaffe, but it cannot be argued that it was THE aircraft that won the battle of germany. 

Similarly, you cannot say that the t-34 was responsible for winning the war in the east, or that the panther was responsible for nearly beating it. Both these statements are really quite ridiculous. Point of fact is that in both cases....the t-34 and the panther, these pieces of equipment represented the pointy end of the spear, but really only represented a fraction of the whole. Even if you want to restrict the discussion to the effectiveness of the armoured formations, these respective pieces of hardware still only represent a fraction of the whole package. Armoured warefare was an all arms concept , of which the tanks were a part, but not even the major part of the package. 

Other arguments have been put forward about the relative vulnerability of the russians vis a viz the Germans. An often quoted figure is that the Russians lost 23000 tanks in 1944 to about 9000 German tanks. This, on the face of it suggests that Russian tanks were 2.55 times more vulnerable to German tanks. In fact this is a misuse of the statistic. For a start, the Russians were on the offensive....an inherently more dangerous and costly posture....the textbooks usually assume casualties are about 1.5 to 2 times higher for an army on the attack than that same army would be if defending. Secondly over 14000 of those Russian tanks lost, were lost to ATGS and not tanks at all. Most of thes ATGs were of the towed variety, under the control of the Infantry formations. I doubt that german tank losses by source were comparable. Invaribaly, German tanks were being employed to contain breaches made by Russians tank formations, rather than immolating themselves against Russian Infantry formations. Put another way, whereas 56% of russian tank losses wre due to ATGs, I doubt that a similar proportion of German Tanks were lost to Infantry controlled ATGs after 1943. Certainly at Kursk and before, whilst the Germans were on the attack, this was true, but after Kursk, the nature of Panzerwaffe deployments suggests fewer assaults against Russian Infantry


----------



## tomo pauk (May 23, 2011)

Good point about Russian tank losses - guess StuGs like really shine in defence, while that's 'natural' way of employment for towed ATGs . 
IIRC Russians considered StuG-III the most dangerous opponent from all German AFVs; can someone shed some light on that?


----------



## ctrian (May 23, 2011)

Guys how many tanks you produce depends on the facilities available.On the one hand SU had Chelyabinsk and Nizhny Tagil while on the same scale Germany only had Nibelungenwerk in Austria .Also it would be best if people who think that German tanks took 2.000.000 hours and only 5 for the T-34 actually source their material.


----------



## parsifal (May 23, 2011)

ctrian said:


> Guys how many tanks you produce depends on the facilities available.On the one hand SU had Chelyabinsk and Nizhny Tagil while on the same scale Germany only had Nibelungenwerk in Austria .Also it would be best if people who think that German tanks took 2.000.000 hours and only 5 for the T-34 actually source their material.



Who said that it took 2 million hours versus 5 hours for Tiger and T-34 production?

A pretty good discussion of the manhours needed to produce each tank is availble on the Axis history Forums. here is a link if you are interested

Axis History Forum • View topic - Manhour required to produce armament

None of the figures given for production times are reliable, which explains why there are wildly fluctuating differences in th manhours per unit produced. I myself have seen figures ranging from 7 times the hours, down to about 2.2 times when comparing Panther to T-34. 

There are numerous factors that go to explaining this fluctuation. For a start it depends on the point of reference. If you look at the first Tiger produced, a figure of around 300000 man hours is going to surface. You can then compare that to a T-34 during its peak production runs and arrive at a figure of 11000 man hours per (T-34) tank. On the face of it, the production times per Tiger tank are about 30 times that of a T-34. but this would be a gross misuse of the stats. I believe that it may well have cost 300000 man hours for Tiger production, at the beginning of its production run, and that it may well have cost just 11000 man hours for a t-34 during the height of its production. But the figures are just not comparable. Once the tiger got into stride the time taken to produce each unit came down dramatically. 

But I still firmly am of the opinion that the production costs for the advanced German tank designs were prohibitive. Some of this arose from the poor management of the lines themselves, where the germans allowed constant detail changes to the designs to occur, with resultant disruptions to the production programs occurring almost continually. Some of the problems arose from materials shortages, and transport bottlenecks. Some delays occurred as a result of bombing. Some of the delays occurred because the germans were about a year behind the Russians in setting up the lines for their new designs. Ths meant that the production of these types was occurring behind a backdrop of setting up the line in the first place and that the new types were essentially prototypes whilst the Russians wre producing a tried and proven design. Some of the problems arose from the relatively small size of the factories themselves. Some problems arose becaise of the inherent innefficiencies in the Nazi system, which deeply corrupt and basically innefficient. And some of the problems arose because the designs themselves were over complex and difficult to build 

Panther tank production is an intersting case study. Production began in 1943, and a target production figure of 600 vehicles per month was set. This was never attained. In 1943, the average production rate was 148 vpm. With basically the same factory space and workforce, this steadily ramped up in 1944, to a peak of 380 in September. Then the Allies bombed the MAN Diesel plant, halting engine production for nearly 5 months....production continued but at a reduced rate. . It demosntrates the difficulties the germans were labouring under....


----------



## parsifal (May 23, 2011)

ctrian said:


> Guys how many tanks you produce depends on the facilities available.On the one hand SU had Chelyabinsk and Nizhny Tagil while on the same scale Germany only had Nibelungenwerk in Austria .



With regard to this extract, it is simply not true. There were many firms in Germany associated with AFV production, not least of which was the giant Krupp works based at Magdeburg. The factory at Nibelungen was not involved greatly with AFV production until the second half of the war, and was never associated with Panther production. At wars end it was the only factory used to turn out turretted versions of the MkIV and was engaged in the production of a number of other heavy types including the Maus and the Jagdtiger types. It was responsible for a little under 50% of tank production for Germany from 1943 on. But ther were other factories involved with AFV production...not al of them with final assembly but some were like the MAN diesel engine factory were resonsible for significant component manufacture.

To try and argue that the germans put less resources, or had access to less factory space compared to the Russians is simply ingoring some basic dacts. truth is they had considerably greater factory floor space, and a considerably greater amount of factory space devoted to AFV production. Admittedly some of these factories were not all that effieicient, due mainly to their small size, but in total there was a large number of firms involved in AFV manufacture, or associated components. Russian industry should have been heavily outgunned in this respect, but never was.....and I believe some of that reason was because of the emionent produceability of their equipment. The Russians always designed their equipment with one eye oon production. The germans hardly ever considered this aspect of the equation.


----------



## ctrian (May 24, 2011)

The stats i have are from ''Kursk 1943 a statistical analysis'' : PzIV - 103.462 RM ,Panther - 117.100 RM. I don't see anything prohibitive .You seem to be under the impression that the PzV cost as much as the Tiger.
Regarding tank facilities there can be no comparison with the huge Russian plants in the Urals and the German plants in terms of size.Like i said only one was built up to specs during the war.There is a detailed discussion on this in AHF but i simply don't have the energy to look it up.Check RichTO90's if you want to find it.


----------



## ctrian (May 24, 2011)

Parsifal did you check your own link? It says 2.000 manhours for a Panther.Thats would make it ''cheaper'' than a T-34 even though the Russian tank was in production for a number of years.That seems reasonable to you?


----------



## parsifal (May 24, 2011)

ctrian said:


> The stats i have are from ''Kursk 1943 a statistical analysis'' : PzIV - 103.462 RM ,Panther - 117.100 RM. I don't see anything prohibitive .You seem to be under the impression that the PzV cost as much as the Tiger.
> Regarding tank facilities there can be no comparison with the huge Russian plants in the Urals and the German plants in terms of size.Like i said only one was built up to specs during the war.There is a detailed discussion on this in AHF but i simply don't have the energy to look it up.Check RichTO90's if you want to find it.



I think you will find the figures given in your reference are exclusive of turrets, comms, optics, delivery and armament. The more often quoted figure figure for the cost of a Panther is RM192000, which includes the delivery charges. A Sherman is about $30000 USD from memory, but it is difficult to make direct correlations. A T-34 had a variable cost depending on point of manufacture, but ranged from about R136000 through to about R198000. There has never been a satisfactory conversion rate determined for Roubles to Dollars, but it may have been as little as 5% as valuable. If so that makes a T-34 dirt cheap....about $6-12000 USD per copy. I am doubtful of that....a more reasonable estimate I read somewhere is about $25000 per copy. 

Breaking my own rule, if I wanted to attempt a conversion of the wartime currencies (which I think is innaccurate, and therefore not a lot of help) the conversion of the RM to Dollars is about 3.5 to 1. Thats based on rough estimates of what commodities were worth, and how much your RM could purchase of that commodity. There is no relaible exchange rate, and the whole thing is upset by artificial pegging, devalauations and a lack of crfedible exchange rates at the time. So for what I about to do, I know I am going to be truly sorry, but what the hell......

On the basis of the above exchange estimate, a Panther in USD terms is worth about $55000USD, a Tiger I is about $90000 and a Tiger II about $180000. A T-34 might be $12-25000 

In terms of floor space per individual factory, many German plants did labour under trhe disadvantage of being not designed for the purpose, and not sufficiently large. But in terms of overall factory space the germans enjoyed a considerable advantage. They also enjoyed a big advantage in the pool of skilled labour, but this was wasted in their mindless use of precious skilled labour as general Infantry 

Regarding the Tank facilities, the Russians had larger individual factories builot for the purpose, whilst the Germans had more factory space overall but in smaller packets. The factory in Austria accounted for nearly 50% of tank production after 1942, but virtually none before then. The Germans had a better ntrained workforce...more skilled workers that is, but tended to rely on slave labour as the war progressed which badly affected build quality, particularly heat treatment of the armour plate. 

Truth is, you cannot be as precise as all this suggests. The figures are too rubbery, the comparisons too artificail, the assumptions too great. All one can say really is that German tanks were expensive and took a lot of man hours to build. Russian tanks were cheap and took a lot less time to build. And given that numbers are a quality all their own, and wars were won by numbers, the Russian approach was the superior one


----------



## parsifal (May 24, 2011)

ctrian said:


> Parsifal did you check your own link? It says 2.000 manhours for a Panther.Thats would make it ''cheaper'' than a T-34 even though the Russian tank was in production for a number of years.That seems reasonable to you?



Its a forum...you have to sort through the chaff. These were not the only, or even the most significant sources to rely on, but they provide a good spectrum of the different opinions. You have to take a statement, run with it, try and verify it from other tertiary sources and work your way through the minefield very carefully


----------



## ctrian (May 24, 2011)

parsifal said:


> I think you will find the figures given in your reference are exclusive of turrets, comms, optics, delivery and armament. The more often quoted figure figure for the cost of a Panther is RM192000, which includes the delivery charges. A Sherman is about $30000 USD from memory, but it is difficult to make direct correlations. A T-34 had a variable cost depending on point of manufacture, but ranged from about R136000 through to about R198000. There has never been a satisfactory conversion rate determined for Roubles to Dollars, but it may have been as little as 5% as valuable. If so that makes a T-34 dirt cheap....about $6-12000 USD per copy. I am doubtful of that....a more reasonable estimate I read somewhere is about $25000 per copy.
> 
> Breaking my own rule, if I wanted to attempt a conversion of the wartime currencies (which I think is innaccurate, and therefore not a lot of help) the conversion of the RM to Dollars is about 3.5 to 1. Thats based on rough estimates of what commodities were worth, and how much your RM could purchase of that commodity. There is no relaible exchange rate, and the whole thing is upset by artificial pegging, devalauations and a lack of crfedible exchange rates at the time. So for what I about to do, I know I am going to be truly sorry, but what the hell......
> 
> ...


 
It is the cost given without gun and radio.Since the Panther gun and radio were not made of gold or diamonds i don't think they would change the comparison .This price makes the Pz V seem like a very good deal.
I will agree that all the data have their own problems and cannot be used for an apple to apples comparison.But i don't think it's reasonable to assume that the T-34 was 10 times cheaper 55.000 manhours vs 4.000 per your previous post.Tank production was not a major part of the German war economy and had to start in the 30's from point zero.You should keep that in mind when trying to compare countries .Then things that you attribute to mistakes etc come off as the natural evolution of events.


----------



## Shortround6 (May 24, 2011)

ctrian said:


> .Tank production was not a major part of the German war economy and had to start in the 30's from point zero.You should keep that in mind when trying to compare countries .Then things that you attribute to mistakes etc come off as the natural evolution of events.



For all practical purposes everybody but the Russians started their tank production (not design) in mid 30s and the Russians had only a few years head start. It is true that the Russians built more tanks than the rest of the world put together (and then some) during the 30s but a factory that was constructed to build T-27 tankettes or even T-26 light tanks may not be capable of building T-34s without some major rework. the overhead gantry cranes might be incapable of handling the heavier components or completed tanks and other machinery may be too small. There is a reason that both the US and Britain contracted with railroad locomotive builders for their first large batches of tanks. 
As far as the Panthers "golden gun" it may not have been gold but 5.25 meter long barrel needs a good sized lathe to work on it. It may have required a much larger initial forging and more machine time to complete, Not 5 times a shorter 75mm gun but perhaps double.


----------



## ctrian (May 24, 2011)

The Russians were building T-26 and BT tanks while the Germans struggled to produce tankettes that's quite an advantage.As for the gun i doubt it was that more expensive than the kwk40 and even if it was the difference in overall price would still be small.Bottom line the Panther was a good deal financially.


----------



## parsifal (May 24, 2011)

ctrian said:


> It is the cost given without gun and radio.Since the Panther gun and radio were not made of gold or diamonds i don't think they would change the comparison .This price makes the Pz V seem like a very good deal.
> I will agree that all the data have their own problems and cannot be used for an apple to apples comparison.But i don't think it's reasonable to assume that the T-34 was 10 times cheaper 55.000 manhours vs 4.000 per your previous post.Tank production was not a major part of the German war economy and had to start in the 30's from point zero.You should keep that in mind when trying to compare countries .Then things that you attribute to mistakes etc come off as the natural evolution of events.



Cost without armament for a turreted tank nearly always means cost without turret, and that represents roughly 1/3 the total cost of the vehicle. Thats why the figure you are quoting is a gross understatement of the total unit cost for a Panther and just one of the pitfalls when looking at the cost of the item. I know that the quoted cost for the Sherman is fully equipped, but exclusive of delivery. I am not sure about some of the quoted costs for the T-34, or even if some of the quoted costs are uniform for each factory that made the delivery. There is so much difference in the quoted costs and manhours per unit, for the T-34 for each of the major factories that I am doubtful about uniformity. 

All this statistical uncertainty doesnt alter the basic trend evident in those statistics. In terms of cost, or man hours or any other production cost measure, the T-34 consistently and markedly is substantially less than the MkV. No amount of massaging of the uncertainties can hide that really. Its the elephant in the room that just wont go away.


----------



## ctrian (May 24, 2011)

Like i said before the book states that it is the price without radio and gun.Obviously the T-34 would be cheaper since it was a smaller vehicle and in production for years before the Panther.However was the price justified by performance ? That's whats important in any comparison.Yes the T-34 was built in record numbers.It was also destroyed in record numbers.And after ww2 in Korea and the Middle East it had a similar bad performance.You have to look at cost AND performance.


----------



## Shortround6 (May 24, 2011)

ctrian said:


> The Russians were building T-26 and BT tanks while the Germans struggled to produce tankettes that's quite an advantage.As for the gun i doubt it was that more expensive than the kwk40 and even if it was the difference in overall price would still be small.Bottom line the Panther was a good deal financially.



length of KwK 40 L/43 138.6 in weight 1,041lb both include muzzle brake.
length of KwK 40 L/48 153.6 in weight 1,094lb both include muzzle brake.
length of KwK 42 L/70 218 in, weight 2,390lb both include muzzle brake.

length of 76.2 F-34 .. 124.6 in weight 1003lb no muzzle brake.
length of 75mm M3 ....118.4 in weight 893lb no muzzle brake.

If you have to rebuild/retool either factory to make 20-30 ton tanks compared to what you were building where is the head start?

The Russians may have had more design experience and even more experience riveting tanks together but if you need a 5 ton over head crane to move the turret in the factory and the factory only has a 3 ton crane you are out of luck no matter how many 8-15 ton tanks you may have designed/produced.


----------



## ctrian (May 24, 2011)

Because you already have factories , transport channels ,design bureaus , engine plants , gun plants , trained workers etc ,the whole system.Meanwhile the other guys start from scratch .Even if that lead is 5 years you're still one generation ahead.Compare the main tanks in German and Soviet arsenal for example in 1941.On the Soviet side you have 45mm as the main armament (T-26 and BT ) with 75mm for the new tanks.On the German side only the new PzIII with 50mm gun and PzIV with 75mm are better ,meaning only 36% of total force for Berbarosa was superior to standard old Soviet tanks.


----------



## parsifal (May 24, 2011)

ctrian said:


> Like i said before the book states that it is the price without radio and gun.Obviously the T-34 would be cheaper since it was a smaller vehicle and in production for years before the Panther.However was the price justified by performance ? That's whats important in any comparison.Yes the T-34 was built in record numbers.It was also destroyed in record numbers.And after ww2 in Korea and the Middle East it had a similar bad performance.You have to look at cost AND performance.



I agree that T-34 losses were heavy, but in the context of WWII this does not hold true that just because T-34 losses were heavy, that this makes German Tanks autometically superior. Case in point are the much quoted losses for 1944, the year that the German super tanks really began to have their alleged effect. Total Russian losses were about 23000 AFVs, of which the T-34 had to form a big proportion. Against this the Germans on the Eastern Front lost 9000 AFVs (not including Halftracks). However, about 13000 of these 23000 were destroyed by ATGs, and the vast majority of these were of the towed variety. Small wonder then that Rommel in 1943 advocated a near total abandonment of tank production in favour of ATG production. Using that flawed cost analysis raised earlier, an 75mm ATG costs around RM 12000 to a Panthers RM192000. Do the math. Which was more a threat to Soviet Armoured breakthroughs, 100 Panthers or 1600 ATGs? In tank on tank engagements, overall the Germans were not nearly so superior as their counterparts, it was the Infantry ATGs that did most of the killing of tanks, including Panzerfausts and the like. 

When the Germans were on the attack, the same was true for them as well. During Kursk the majority of German Tank losses were not suffered at the hands of Soviet armour, they were lost to dug in Soviet ATGs. And the socalled superiority of the German Heavies was certainly not evident there. Of the the 250 or so Panthers committed to the battel, about 192 actually got into combat (the balance broke down enroute), and of that 190 or so, only 40 were still operational three days later. Similar dismal performancxes were experoienced by equipment such as the Elefant and Tigers. They did some good work, to be sure, but their overall performance was a failure for any number of reasons. So unless these Panthers were blessed with super powers, it certainly wasnt them that was killing the Soviet armour in that battle. In fact the majority of the tank victories for the germans were achieved by their MkIVs and their MkIIIs.

Moreover, after Kursk, the Germans lost the initiative and were on the strategic defensive. Contrary to popular belief, so long as your equipment is reliable and doesnt break down on the battlefield (something these flat footed behemoths had a lot of trouble doing), it is actually far less costly to operate on the defensive with tanks than in the attack. Thats because the defending armour has to contend far less with the threat of Infantry AT weaponary. So whereas more than 50% of Soviet armour was lost to the German Infantry formations as they executed their various offensive breakthroughs, the German Panzerwaffe was exposed to thjis kind of shenanigan far less. Therefore, it seems very likley that the majority of German AFV losses were lost either to breakdown, or direct attacks by Soviet armour. Not such an imporessive advantage after all despite all the lavish resources spent on it....

Dont get me wrong, German tanks were a marvel of engineering, a thing of impressive military pzazz and flash. But because of their expense they could not be deployed in sufficient numbers to make a difference, and so, whilst individually fantastic weapons, collectively they were basically a liability to Germany.


----------



## ctrian (May 24, 2011)

I'm sorry but i don't see how the Tiger was a failure in any possible way ,in fact it was a force multiplier in all fronts.The figure i have for the Panther is 117.100 RM without a gun and radio.I also fail to see how you could tell which T-34 was destroyed by tank gun and which by anti tank gun.Didn't they have the same caliber? I also don't understand how a stationary gun will follow a tank during a breakthrough.What you say about the Kursk battle is true but the kill record of the Panther units also tells a different story .If you look at the T-34 it also had serious maintenance problems in the first years.Finally i have to agree with you that a lot of German AFV's were destroyed in retreats ,this is another proof they were so survivable that they managed to avoid being destroyed in direct combat like the super duper T-34.Their crews of course were free to find a new vehicle and return to battle unlike their enemies.


----------



## Shortround6 (May 24, 2011)

ctrian said:


> Because you already have factories , transport channels ,design bureaus , engine plants , gun plants , trained workers etc ,the whole system.Meanwhile the other guys start from scratch .Even if that lead is 5 years you're still one generation ahead.Compare the main tanks in German and Soviet arsenal for example in 1941.On the Soviet side you have 45mm as the main armament (T-26 and BT ) with 75mm for the new tanks.On the German side only the new PzIII with 50mm gun and PzIV with 75mm are better ,meaning only 36% of total force for Berbarosa was superior to standard old Soviet tanks.



You are only comparing guns. Most T-26 maxed out at 15mm of armor which means that they are vulnerable to the German 20mm armed vehicles. Most have no radios. Ergonomics are terrible, is the commander the loader for the turret MG? and at about 6 secs per drum of ammo he is going to be doing a lot of loading. 

Just because you have an engine plant that can make an air cooled flat four of 90 hp does not mean you have an engine plant that can make a water cooled V-12, at least in quantity. Maybe it can and maybe it can't. Where the aircooled cylinders cast separately or in paired blocks. Are the v-12 cylinders separate with a sheet metal jacket or 6 cylinder engine blocks. same with the cylinder heads, One piece castings? Are the lathes for turning the crankshafts long enough. The V-12 crankshaft being much longer. Are the V-12 cranks cast or forged? and so on.
maybe the engine plant can make V-12 diesels without a major upgrading but it is not automatic. 
Changing transport channels? is this a joke? How far were most places in Europe (Germany) from a rail line if they had enough people to staff factory to begin with. If you have a rail line with in a few miles and close in elevation you have a "transport channel". Nobody was moving either masses of steel or competed tanks by truck if they had any choice what so ever. 

and to repeat, just because you have the infrastructure to manufacture 8-10 ton vehicles does not mean you have the infrastructure to manufacture/handle 20-30 ton vehicles. without some serious upgrading/modification.


----------



## parsifal (May 24, 2011)

ctrian said:


> I'm sorry but i don't see how the Tiger was a failure in any possible way ,in fact it was a force multiplier in all fronts.The figure i have for the Panther is 117.100 RM without a gun and radio.I also fail to see how you could tell which T-34 was destroyed by tank gun and which by anti tank gun.Didn't they have the same caliber? I also don't understand how a stationary gun will follow a tank during a breakthrough.What you say about the Kursk battle is true but the kill record of the Panther units also tells a different story .If you look at the T-34 it also had serious maintenance problems in the first years.Finally i have to agree with you that a lot of German AFV's were destroyed in retreats ,this is another proof they were so survivable that they managed to avoid being destroyed in direct combat like the super duper T-34.Their crews of course were free to find a new vehicle and return to battle unlike their enemies.


 

_I'm sorry but i don't see how the Tiger was a failure in any possible way ,in fact it was a force multiplier in all fronts_.


Viewed as an individual piece of hardware, you are correct, the tiger was a force multiplier. Viewed as a set, however, its great cost and difficulty of construction meant that it was only ever possible to deploy the type in very limited numbers. Moreover, because of that, as an overall element of the German panzer arm, it was a liability. For example, if we base our examination on what we do know, that the tiger I at some point in its career cost RM 312000 per unit, and a towed 75mm gun cost just RM 12000 to produce, or a Stug III cost just RM 52000 to produce, then the alternatives are 1xTiger I, 6xStugs or 26 75 mm Paks. Viewed in those terms the tiger is not a force multiplier, its an unnecessary and expensive flamboyance that sucks out resources better suited to German capabilities and requirements 


_The figure i have for the Panther is 117.100 RM without a gun and radio_? 

And, as Ive pointed out to you, your figures less armament means that they are being delivered at that price without turrets. This was a product of the Nazi system of AFV production. The Germans more than anybody, tended to contract out components manufacture, so it is very easy to either miss something, or deliberately underquote to make the product look more price attractive. The figures for Panther fully constructed are not RM 117000, its RM 192000 although this might have changed as the war progressed. In 1943, which is what your reference is concerned with, the cost of those 250 panthers was many times the accepted figures, because they were delivered at the beginning of the production run. I am also reasonably certain it also would lack a full electrical fitout communications and most of the optics if the turret is not fitted, which I am 100% sure it is not at RM 117000. 

_I also fail to see how you could tell which T-34 was destroyed by tank gun and which by anti tank gun.Didn't they have the same caliber?_

Yes they did, and the research behind that comes from Russian sources. What the Russians are able to dduce are the points and when losses were sustained. Since the majority of Soviet armoured operations were directed against German Infantry formations, with the German armour nowhere to be seen, it makes sense that the majority of losses came from Infantry crewed weapons. I don’t have the details about the particular breakdowns of particular engagements. But the methodology makes sense to me, so I accept the findings. If you don’t accept them, that’s fine, but I would suggest you would need to find a source to back that up. 


_I also don't understand how a stationary gun will follow a tank during a breakthrough. What you say about the Kursk battle is true but the kill record of the Panther units also tells a different story. If you look at the T-34 it also had serious maintenance problems in the first years. Finally i have to agree with you that a lot of German AFV's were destroyed in retreats ,this is another proof they were so survivable that they managed to avoid being destroyed in direct combat like the super duper T-34.Their crews of course were free to find a new vehicle and return to battle unlike their enemies._


German heavy tanks were in fact no more mobile, or able to keep up with Soviet Breakthroughs than a towed ATG could. That was their great weakness. Soviets would punch a hole and pour through, pushing as hard and as fast as they could. Calling it a hole is a misnomer, it was more like a section of the front, since soviet doctrine called for broad front penetrations rather than schwerepunkt style incisions in the German method. German Panzers were no more able to intercept or keep up with these fast moving breakthroughs than a truck towed ATG

In fact German losses in their Panzer crews was heavy and crippling during their retreats, but it would, and was, be a much higher loss rate whilst on the offensive. Their losses during Kursk attest to that. As to survivability, well, one just has to look at the experience level of the crews during Ardennes and the Colmar offensives to get an idea there. Crew training for the 1945 Colmar offensive consisted of a static run through of the tank systems, and then they were off to the front. The average crew experience level on the western front (and most of the tank formations had come from the east) in late 1944, was just three weeks. The panzerwaffe was anything but a bunch of country clubbers swanning around brewing up Allied and Soviet tanks. Moreover in the east, they had failed in their mission of stopping the Soviet breakthroughs. Whilst there is no denying their heroism, and their individual effectiveness; as a force viewed in the whole they were a failure, and a good measure of that failure came from the equipment choices they made.


----------



## parsifal (May 24, 2011)

SR

I agree completely with your comments (a welcome change?). Part of the problem in the german production system was their failure to invest in setting up proper factories in th lead up to war. hitler was a gambler, and he gambled on ashort war. He believed he could win his war with a minimum of investment in long term infrastructure. This explains at least in part, that whilst the british, Americans, Russians and just about everyboidy else was investing in long term production infrastructure, the germans were expending the bulk of their military spending on completed equipment, rathr than spending it on infrastructure. There was a long term penalty to be paid for that....eventually the plant being used would become obsolete, and for the germans this may well have been the case.


----------



## Shortround6 (May 24, 2011)

parsifal said:


> SR
> 
> I agree completely with your comments (a welcome change?). Part of the problem in the german production system was their failure to invest in setting up proper factories in th lead up to war. hitler was a gambler, and he gambled on ashort war. He believed he could win his war with a minimum of investment in long term infrastructure. This explains at least in part, that whilst the british, Americans, Russians and just about everyboidy else was investing in long term production infrastructure, the germans were expending the bulk of their military spending on completed equipment, rathr than spending it on infrastructure. There was a long term penalty to be paid for that....eventually the plant being used would become obsolete, and for the germans this may well have been the case.



I may be stretching things here but that may be why the Germans kept t-38 chassis in production so long. Not that the factory didn't have "space" (square footage)to make MK IVs or something like that but that the physical plant couldn't handle the larger vehicles. And if you did have the cranes and lifts and machine tools needed to build MK IVs or Panthers why not stick them in a new building and build both?

I could be wrong but the idea that Germany started from "nothing" and some how built this "almost" world beating Machine seems a little out of touch with reality. While it is true that they were banned from building new war equipment for the 20s and the early 30s most other countries didn't build all that much either in the 20s. They got by on WW I left overs and in many cases relied on these left overs a little too long. In many cases the western nations didn't "tool up" for newer, more modern designs until after the Germans did. Germany was also one of the most heavily industrialized nations in Europe. It's steel production and heavy industry was bigger than than most anybody else except the United States. Czechoslovakia actually had quite a steel and heavy industry section itself, in the old Skoda works. Heavy industry being railway locomotives, railway wagons or carriages, bridges, structural steel, ship building, heavy machine tools, stationary power plants etc. 
I think you are right, Germany tried to "coast" on this head start in capability, and either didn't realize how much the opposition was improving it's capability, or gambled (and lost) that the war would be over before the factories could make a difference.


----------



## ctrian (May 25, 2011)

Shortround6 said:


> You are only comparing guns. Most T-26 maxed out at 15mm of armor which means that they are vulnerable to the German 20mm armed vehicles. Most have no radios. Ergonomics are terrible, is the commander the loader for the turret MG? and at about 6 secs per drum of ammo he is going to be doing a lot of loading.
> 
> Just because you have an engine plant that can make an air cooled flat four of 90 hp does not mean you have an engine plant that can make a water cooled V-12, at least in quantity. Maybe it can and maybe it can't. Where the aircooled cylinders cast separately or in paired blocks. Are the v-12 cylinders separate with a sheet metal jacket or 6 cylinder engine blocks. same with the cylinder heads, One piece castings? Are the lathes for turning the crankshafts long enough. The V-12 crankshaft being much longer. Are the V-12 cranks cast or forged? and so on.
> maybe the engine plant can make V-12 diesels without a major upgrading but it is not automatic.
> ...




Are you joking ? One country has a several year lead in building tanks and you're actually suggesting that they also started from scratch? Do you have any idea of industrial economics?


----------



## ctrian (May 25, 2011)

@Parsifal : Let me repeat one more time from two separate sources i get 117.100 you may choose to believe that the true price was 2.500.000 RM but it's still your assumption.Price for PZIV is given as 104.000 again without gun and radio.Price difference is marginal ,the Panther WAS NOT expensive like a Tiger.Everything else you said isn't sourced from anywhere.Oh and i found that the 2.000 hours is actually taken from Spielberger ''Panther and its Variants '' so it's not chaff.Tank crew losses were high? How did that happen if the tank survived and was blown up by the crew later? Did they return from the afterlife to dispose of their tank?
Anti-tank gun were useful in defense of a specific location but the Eastern Front was a VERY big place and when the enemy tanks pass you by what are the anti-tank guns to do? Fly after them ? That's where you need mobility.


----------



## parsifal (May 25, 2011)

Hi CT

If you are not all that keen to debate this issue, why are you here....I dont get that.

As per your request, I did go and dig up some source material to back up the statements I have made. I have a double garage that I have converted to a library, with some thousands of books dealing with all manner of WWII issues. Ive found about 20 publications that appear relevant to this issue. I have not researched all of them yet, so I will just stick to those that I have looked at so far. 

According to: George Parada (Achtung Panzer the Pzkpfw V) and Pzkpfw VI, "the M-4 Sherman alone accounted for over 50000 tanks produced. It had outstanding operational rediness rates on average over 75% in Normandy, but suffered poorly in open combat with German Heavy Tanks. Exchange rates of 4:1against the Sherman were frequent. A Soviet T-34 had an exchange ratein excess of 1:1 against the Panther due to mobility and reliability advantages"

This last statement really surpised me, and I will talk further a little later. 

Parada furthe states "Construction of the Tigertank took 300000 manhours and cost RM321500 in 1944, fully ready and delivered. A Panther cost slightly more than half that, when fully fitted out and ready for combat(my underline). Prices for a fully completed Panther could vary from RM150K to RM221K". 

According to the Soviet Department Of Weaponaryt of the Red Army - Foreign Weapons Evaluation Reports in a report dated late 1944, it states "The Red Army is encouraged to use and maintain captured Stug III and Mk IV types, as these tanks are reliable and suited to breakthrough operations. There is a good supply of spare parts for these types....the newer German Panther and Tiger types suffer poor reliability and there are few reservesof spares. They suffer poor mobilitiy levels and are unsuitable for rapid breakthrough operations. They have unreliable engines and transmissions and overly complex suspension and steering mechanisms"....wow...well said fellas

A report by the British Military College Of Science; School Of Tank Technology  quoted by J Spielberger reaches very similar conclusions in a report dated about the same time. 


I kind of anticipate you are not going to be happy with these comments, so I decided to dig a little further. I uncovered a book I have noreally looked at for a while.....which I will elaborate on in my next post


----------



## parsifal (May 25, 2011)

The next reference I uncovered was from Robert Forczyk Panther and T-34 Operations in the Ukraine July- December 1943 The author is PHD of military history and has written several books. I know that he lectures in military history at the University of Maryland. I am also told he lectures periodically at Westpoint. He is a recogbized specialist in armoured warfare on the Eastern Front 1941-5.

The book goes into considerable detail about the design, development and production of both the Panther ands the T34. He points out the serious weknesses in the drive train of the Panther and the low serviciability rates they suffered. For the T-34, he is critical of the retenjtion of the T34/76 in production lontg after it was outclassed as a battle tank. However he concedes that given the choices available at the time this was the right decision. Whereas in these crucial months the Soviets were well supplied with a relaible, mobile and somewhat effective battle tank, the Germans were opting for the introduction of untested prototypes in the middle of a war and with known design faults. It was a recipe for disaster. 

At Page 23 he states "If ever there was an example of 'haste makes waste' in wartime, it lies in the Panther development and production program...unlike the T34 program of two years earlier, the Panther never underwent serious mobility or field trials. Guderian knew the tank was a loser and stated as such to Speer". But he was overruled by Hitler, who was supported by Saur (chief designer)"......hmm, seems like there are some fairly prominent Germans not supporting you. First you denigrate Rommels suggestion in favour of your pet tank, now it seems the father of the panzerwaffe is deserting you too....what is the world coming to.....but I suppose you do have Hitler on your side, so that might be good.....

Relevantly the author goes into some detail in a comparison of the respective armaments carried by the Mk IV, MkV and T-34/76.

The gun used in the T34/76 in the latter part of 1943 was the 76.2mm (F-34 subtype). The German guns are of course the L43 and L70 guns. The F-34 could penetrate 63mm @1000m, the L43 could penetrate 87mm [email protected] and the L70 111mm @ 1000m. The accuracxy and rof of the Soviet tank was wosened by the optics and the turret design.

With these performance figures the T-34 was vulnerable to a frontal penetration by either german type at ranges in excess of 1000m. By comparison, the F-34 wouold only achieve a side penetration of the panther at that range and a penetration of the glacis plate at 300m , whilst frontal armour of the Panther could not be penetrated except at point blank range. Clearly at range the German tanks held a significant advantage......but did this matter as much as one might think....more to follow


----------



## parsifal (May 25, 2011)

Continuing from my last post...

Close fighting required a rate of turret traverse, and in this the T-34 held a clear advantage. It had a rate of traverse of 30degrees per second, or roughly five times that of the Panther. According to the author, the Panther held a clear advantage in terms of firepower at ranges above 600m, but not much of an advantage at ranges below that. at short ranges I suspect the germans needed to rely on their superior crews in 1943. 

In terms of mobility the author says that the Panther was only theoretically as mobile as the T-34. In reality, it was much less mobile. Only in the seventh road cruising gear was it faster that the Soviet Tank. I the likely combat gears, the T-34 had a top speed of 29kmh to the Panthers 13kmh. Fuel consumption of the Panther was four times that of a T-34 and twice that of a MkIV, and was using petrol rather than diesel. This did not make any sense for a country short of petrol. 

A major weakness of the MkV was its relaibility compared to the T-34/76. According to the author, German records reveal that no unit equipped with the Panther in 1943 achieved a readiness rate above 35% during sustained operations (operations lasting more than a week). "Far more Panthers were lost to mechanicalfailures in 1943 than to enemy action, whilst the opposite is true for the T-34." 

For comparison, T-34 formations achieved a redines rate of 90%for manouvres up to 300km. Panther readiness rates sank to below 90% after less than 100 km of road travel, on average. At 500 km of continuous movement Panther readiness rates statistically would sink to 10%, whilst T-34 rates continued to be above 60%. This was one of the key crieria laid down by Guderian at thye concept stage of the panther in late 1941. It was never achieved by the panther. According to the author "it was the T-34s continued advantages in mobility and reliability in the latter half of 1943 that assisted the most in achiving the Soviet victory". 

The author mentions the relative levels of crew proficiency. At this time the Germans still held a qualitative advantage , which however was gradually changing. 

Its late...next instalment tomorrow guys


----------



## ctrian (May 25, 2011)

In Tanknet forum someone posted the serviceability rates for Pz IV ,Panther and Tiger for East and West from May '44 to March '45 , source was Jentz "Tiger I and II combat tactics' .The Panther compared with the PzIV had slightly lower serviceabiliy in the East and in the West avg 5-6%.I have the Forczyk book ,calling it biased would be the mother of all understatements.His conclusion is that the T-34 was a better tank.This at the same time Soviet commanders were begging for a replacement......If you want to be amused check his reviews for Amazon ,i won't say anything more.You need to realize that a tank is also affected by several variables for example the Panther would be given the hardest missions ,thanks to it's survivability it would take damage but keep working etc .All this factors would cause lower serviceability.Best source for German tanks is Jentz if you don't have Panzertruppen go get it.


----------



## parsifal (May 25, 2011)

ctrian said:


> In Tanknet forum someone posted the serviceability rates for Pz IV ,Panther and Tiger for East and West from May '44 to March '45 , source was Jentz "Tiger I and II combat tactics' .The Panther compared with the PzIV had slightly lower serviceabiliy in the East and in the West avg 5-6%.I have the Forczyk book ,calling it biased would be the mother of all understatements.His conclusion is that the T-34 was a better tank.This at the same time Soviet commanders were begging for a replacement......If you want to be amused check his reviews for Amazon ,i won't say anything more.You need to realize that a tank is also affected by several variables for example the Panther would be given the hardest missions ,thanks to it's survivability it would take damage but keep working etc .All this factors would cause lower serviceability.Best source for German tanks is Jentz if you don't have Panzertruppen go get it.



These are the reviews of Forczyks book from Amazon as you suggested, and he receives generally good reviews....here they are:

_Review
"...Robert Forczyk, a Ph.D. who served 18 years as an armor officer in the U.S. Army Reserve, concludes that the T-34's brilliantly simple, functional conception made it the better of the two... After providing technical details, [the] book discusses crew training and tactics, profiles one or two outstanding operators of each tank and then shows how they performed against one another in combat. Enhanced by photos and artwork, including views of the interiors and through the gun sights, the Duel series is sure to spark debate among Buffs." -Jon Guttman, Military History Magazine (January/February 2008)

"Robert Forczyk's Panther vs. T-34: Ukraine 1943 is a pick for any military library focusing on equipment and action. A blend of first-person perspectives and digital artwork chart the progress of the two greatest tanks of World War II." -The Bookwatch (December 2007)

"This work provides a welcome contrast to the usual praise surrounding the Panther, and it is one of the best Osprey Duel series titles to date." - Mark E. Stille, World War II Quarterly (Volume 4, Number 4, 2007)

"In all, a superb look at these two tanks and how well they operated in combat against each other. A book I can highly recommend for you." -Scott Van Aken, modelingmadness.com (November 2007)

"Overall, this is a good addition to Osprey's library... The text was compelling to read and caused me to reconsider my thoughts about both tanks." -tabletopgamingnews.com (October 2007) 
Product Description
Robert A. Forczyk provides a riveting and intense description of the design and development of these two deadly opponents, the Panther and the T-34, analyzing their strengths and weaknesses and describing their tactics, weaponry and training. Moreover he gives an insight into the lives of the tank crews themselves, who were caught up in the largest land conflict of World War II, in some of the most important engagements in the history of warfare. 

Innovative digital artwork and first-person perspectives place the reader in the midst of a duel between the titans of the Soviet and German armed forces in a ruthless and relentless death match that would determine the war on the Eastern Front and, indeed, the fate of Nazi Germany._ 

I would hardly think they are canning him. Guess you dont have too many friends there either. He has the credentials and the expertise to say what he says with some authority. And there are others that support him. Aqs for Jentz.....well....l'll check him out too if you like and see just how selective you have been there as well....


----------



## ctrian (May 25, 2011)

No no no i meant HIS reviews  .Also if you have the time i recommend ''T-34 Mythical Weapon'' it's a great book ,really amusing and it *totally* destroys the myth.
Oh and there's no need for insults im'not responsible for you lack of knowledge.


----------



## tomo pauk (May 25, 2011)

Thanks for the input.

One might just wonder what would've happened had the Soviets continued to produce 57mm from 1941-43, both in towed tank gun flavor (produced in perhaps 1:3 ratio vs. 76,2mm tank gun?). Or opted for a derivative of 76,2mm AA gun as tank/AFV armament in 1939, for future T-34 KV tanks.


----------



## ctrian (May 25, 2011)

Problem with soviet tanks wasn't just the gun with low velocity and lack off accuracy but also engine ,suspension and transmission.In the end you _get what you pay for _regardless of what mr Forczyk thinks.


----------



## Shortround6 (May 25, 2011)

tomo pauk said:


> One might just wonder what would've happened had the Soviets continued to produce 57mm from 1941-43, both in towed tank gun flavor (produced in perhaps 1:3 ratio vs. 76,2mm tank gun?). Or opted for a derivative of 76,2mm AA gun as tank/AFV armament in 1939, for future T-34 KV tanks.


 The thing is it wasn't needed for 1941 and most of 1942, With the normal 76.2mm being able to handle any German tank until the Tiger shows up in the fall of 1942 you have about a year or more were it is just a needless complication. And even then the numbers of Tigers are quite small. With the Panther not showing up until the summer of 1943 the 57mm isn't really going to change to overall picture. A klittle more long range tank sniping perhaps but it wasn't going to decide any battles.
Russian 76.2mm AA gun would have about the same armor penetration as an American 3in or 76mm tank gun given equal quality projectiles, With many of the same problems. Larger heavier gun needs bigger turret and or counter balances on turret rear, larger ammo restricts number of rounds that can be carried. Would the improved performance be worth it in 1941-42?


----------



## tomo pauk (May 25, 2011)

The intention was not to battle Tigers (the one year earlier SU-85 might've been nice for that), but to deprive Pz-IV (from F2 to H), Pz-III J L, and StuGIIIF/F8/G from gaining advantage or parity in gun vs. armor race. As for ability of existing turret to receive a bigger gun, it was not a problem for Pz-III (5cmL42 -> L60) and for PzIV (L24 -> L43 -> L48 ). The decision made in 1939 caters for issues better than one made in 1941, for Soviet example. As for ammo, the difference for Pz-III was 87 vs. 80 rounds (short vs. long 5cm) while Pz-IV with longer 7,5cm carried more rounds than types with L24 gun 
Of course, it takes much more than golden bullet to reverse the outcome of a major campaign.


----------



## DerAdlerIstGelandet (May 25, 2011)

ctrian said:


> Oh and there's no need for insults im'not responsible for you lack of knowledge.



Hey now, the only one being insulting here is you. Chill out!


----------



## wwii:)aircraft (May 25, 2011)

I know that the T-34/85 tank was the overall greatest tank of the war: cheap, reliable, good range, great all-terrain vehicle, very well armor, and still had the necessary firepower to tackle on Panthers and Tigers, but if I had to say which tank was the best with combat record, id say it was the Tiger I. The Panther was great but I would argue that it only became that dominant weapon late in the war with the F and G variants. The Sherman was very easy to produce, but was made out of paper compared to German and Russian tanks. The Tiger Tank, although being near invincible, ate fuel and resources like no tomorrow, plus was extremely heavy, slow and only increased the problems that the Tiger I suffered from. The T-34 was wonderful in almost every aspect, but its problems didn't come from the tank itself, they came from the Russians who didn't have radios in there tanks and did a very poor job at developing effective tactics (it was easier for T-34 to ram German tanks than to aim and fire at them).

The reason for why the Tiger tank is so great is because of the ways that the German employed it. Its true that the tank suffered from taking up a lot of resources, was a difficult and heavy tank to move under poor conditions, was very difficult to repair, and didn't have the angled armor. But the tank entered service as early as 1942 months before the Panther would, was in fact impressively maneuverable, did a great job as a stationary gun (usually ambushing British and American forces over France), and could fire at almost every tank before they were in range (the only tanks that were equal or superior to the T-34 in range were the SI-1 and SI-2 tanks and any long range anti-tank weapons).

I've read a bunch of stories of how German tank commanders even though outnumbered were able to take out a number of enemy tanks before either being forced to retreat, rearm, or get hit.

So these 4 options with the voting aren't that great. These are obviously the best tanks there were in the war when related to performance. But they should have also included the Tiger I, the firefly, and the Panzer.


----------



## Shortround6 (May 25, 2011)

tomo pauk said:


> The intention was not to battle Tigers (the one year earlier SU-85 might've been nice for that), but to deprive Pz-IV (from F2 to H), Pz-III J L, and StuGIIIF/F8/G from gaining advantage or parity in gun vs. armor race. As for ability of existing turret to receive a bigger gun, it was not a problem for Pz-III (5cmL42 -> L60) and for PzIV (L24 -> L43 -> L48 ). The decision made in 1939 caters for issues better than one made in 1941, for Soviet example. As for ammo, the difference for Pz-III was 87 vs. 80 rounds (short vs. long 5cm) while Pz-IV with longer 7,5cm carried more rounds than types with L24 gun
> Of course, it takes much more than golden bullet to reverse the outcome of a major campaign.


 Some tanks and turrets were more suitable for up gunning than others. Americans went for a new turret to go to the 76mm on the Sherman, British had to cut a hole in ( or a good part of the rear wall out) in order to move the radio back far enough to clear the recoil of the 17pdr. Ammo fell from 97 rounds of 75mm in an M4A3 to 71 round of 76mm in an M4A3E8 but it seems Sherman ammo storage was rather "flexible" form version to version? Fire fly fell to 42 rounds and that was after they took out the bow gunner and used the space for an ammo rack. Most T-34s are listed at 67 rounds or so but some people claim the 1943 model could hold 99 rounds (??), wither the tank had radio could make a rather notable difference in rounds carried. T-34-85 carried 56 rounds. 

One of my books while staying pretty consistent on main gun rounds for the German tanks has the MG ammo jumping all over the place 
Mk IIIs, even with 50mm/L60 guns had a hard time with T-34s unless they had AP 40 ammo, they were better than L42 guns but to be effective they had to get within effective hitting range of the Russian gun.


----------



## parsifal (May 25, 2011)

ctrian said:


> No no no i meant HIS reviews  .Also if you have the time i recommend ''T-34 Mythical Weapon'' it's a great book ,really amusing and it *totally* destroys the myth.
> Oh and there's no need for insults im'not responsible for you lack of knowledge.



You will always find adverse reviews, though in this case I havent yet see the review you are talking about. Your dismissal of Forzyk might have some legs, except that much of what he says is supported by other sources. This includes some primary sources as well as some observations by some fairly well respected experts. I have not read Jentz, and need to, but i note he has received some criticism as well over th years, and judging from the title, is mostly concerned with operations after 1943 (ie from May 1944). 

As to insults, where did I insult you. Perhaps you are uncomfortable with finding your ideas aligning to those of Hitler. That can be off putting, but it is, what it is....many of the respected senior leaders of the regime, both inside and outside the wehrmacht saw the introduction of the panther in 1943 as gross folly. Names like Guderian, Rommel, and Speer demostrate in their comments their opposition to it. 

About the only real insult is that I dont agree with your preconceptions and positioning in this debate. Apart from that, I respect your right to say what you feel and advance whatever argument youthink appropriate. Perhaps, finding your beliefs founded on shaky ground is insulting, but you have only yourself to blame for that.


----------



## ctrian (May 26, 2011)

I'm insulting HIM?_ I would hardly think they are canning him. Guess you dont have too many friends there either. He has the credentials and the expertise to say what he says with some authority. And there are others that support him. Aqs for Jentz.....well....l'll check him out too if you like and see just how selective you have been there as well.... _

_Perhaps you are uncomfortable with finding your ideas aligning to those of Hitler_

Parsifal Jentz is a more reliable source on German tanks since that's all he writes about and he uses *only* German reports and documents.Also Spielberger's books are extremely detailed and again rely on German records.My advice would be not to put your trust on credentialism since the social ''sciences'' aren't really scientific but instead focus on actual reports and records not their i*Interpretation * by a third party.


----------



## parsifal (May 26, 2011)

Since when did I put my faith into the social sciences. Is this another comment like the one about a panther costing RM 2.5million? If so it wont work, I will pull you up every time.

Forzcyk is certainly not a social scientist. Now, I believe you when you say that jentz is a good source, but not for the reasons you give. Limiting sources to the country of origin is a surefire way of producing a biased, lopsided propaganda rag, rather than getting a balanced overall view. 

Ther is nothing wrong with Forzycks view, and in large measure he is backed up by both Spielberger and Parada as well as the evaluations made by the foreign reports of captured vehicles. These foreign sources are still primary sources, and no less valid than German only sources. I cannot comment on Jentz, but I am willing to bet that what I find when I do have a look will not be what you are trying to say it is. 

And whilst I am not offended by your comments, neither should you be about mine. My comments are well within the accepte norms of this place. Your opinions are in alignment with hitlers, and out of step with some very distinguished commanders of the wehrmacht as well as Speer. Your opinions about Forzcyk are are out of step with most reviews about his book. This means in my book that from independant, un-involved parties you are isolated. I am sure ther are many persons who do agree with you...good for them, but those places wher you are seeking support or seeking to denigrate the opinions of distinguished persons are being proven untrue every time i look closely at the claims you are making. If that is insulting you, it can only be because the claims you making are being exposed as untrue. It may be insulting, but its within acceptable limits. I am not seeking to denigrate you personally, but I am endeavouring to disprove what you are saying. Evidently I am having some success, because if I wasnt, you would not find it so "insulting". 

Now, can we get back to business please


----------



## ctrian (May 26, 2011)

Man reductio ad hitlerum is the lowest form of argument.If you want to move on i have no problem but what if i call you Goebbels or Himmler? This is up to the admin to decide.


----------



## parsifal (May 26, 2011)

I didnt call you Hitler, or Goebels or Himmler. I said that your view coincided with Hitlers, and is at odds with Guderian, Rommel and Speer ( and a whole lot of other eminent German officers). Are you saying that Hitler did not press for the early deployment of the Panther, to the point of delaying Citadel, and that that this premature deployment, by an overweight behemoth that had been upgunned at Hitlers insistence was not a problem? Because, when you break it all down, that seems to be what you are supporting, when you argue that the Panther did not suffer from numerous problems on deployment. In other words, on this issue, and no other, yours and Hitlers view are synchronized. Its not too late for you to recant and say the early deployment of the panther was a mistake, and that it did indeed suffer numerous mechanical faults. In short, agree with Forczyk. Or you can continue to agree with hitler, and anyone else from the period that might agree with you. 

I am not saying you are Nazi, or a Hitlerite or anything even remotely like that. There is nothing low or insulting in observing this fact and commenting on it. But I am playing hardball with you, because thats how you want to play.


----------



## ctrian (May 26, 2011)

This is getting tiring....Of course the Pz V had the well known problems since it was rushed into service.Despite that it also had the most kills compared to other tanks in Kursk.You seem to think it was similar to the Tiger in weight and cost,i'm sorry but it was in different class.Eventually problems were sorted out and like i posted before in '44 difference in serviceability was 5-6% despite Panther given the hardest missions.For the 2n half of '43 Soviets paid for their belief that the Germans would only field new heavy tanks in small numbers.The T-34 was thus rendered obsolete and they had to scramble for a solution( T-43 , T-34/85).What of the above is provocative or new ? What does any of this have to do with Hitler?
Oh and i'm sure that if it was me who had started calling you names i would be banned by now, but instead i don't see the admin anywhere...


----------



## DerAdlerIstGelandet (May 26, 2011)

ctrian said:


> Man reductio ad hitlerum is the lowest form of argument.If you want to move on i have no problem but what if i call you Goebbels or Himmler? This is up to the admin to decide.



He never called you Hitler or anyone of that like. He said your view of the topic is the same that Hitler had, and that even Hitler's commanders did not agree with him. Go back and read carefully what parsifal said...



ctrian said:


> Oh and i'm sure that if it was me who had started calling you names i would be banned by now, but instead i don't see the admin anywhere...


 
I am right here and have been here the whole time. I have seen no one insult you, but then again I read what parsifal is saying. I do not believe that you do (note, I am not insulting you by saying this). So again parsifal has not insulted you. I will repeat this again. He said that your view of the Panther is the same view that Hitler had on the matter. He did not call you Hitler or any other Nazi, nor did he say you were a Nazi. I think you do not understand what he has written in plain english or you are too senstive.


----------



## ctrian (May 26, 2011)

You're absolutely right i'm insulting people here while noone is insulting me .
_Hey now, the only one being insulting here is you. Chill out!
_

I guess if i start calling people Hitler ,Goebbels etc i'll get the same treatment.What an old boys club.


----------



## parsifal (May 26, 2011)

If you are finding discussing and debating this issue tiring, then dont get into the debate in the first place. I am having no difficulties with this conversation

No one is calling you names, but I am pointing out the inconsistencies in your posts. Ive had my share of reprimands from mods, but I doubt I will on this occasion, because I am actually trying to steer the debate back on track and am making effort to keep the dialogue intelligent and civil. There are very simple rules I would suggest for you, just use respect and honesty and you will be fine. Try to avoid inflaming peoples tempers. That doesnt mean I have to treat you with kid gloves, you want to play rough and call me stupid, bring it on. Whilst my tactics are making you squeal, I am not being offensive toward you, am simply using well known facts to put pressure on you, am trying to keep the debate on track, and am actually trying to help you, though it is hard....

Finally you concede there were problems with the Panther, at least in '43. If there were problems with the Ausf Ds deployed to Kursk, with only 40 still operational after 3 days out of 190 deployed and a further 60 broken down on the 100 km journey from the railhead to the form up point, then how could such problems be sorted out without the introduction of a new model. There were 900 or so Ausf Ds built before the changeover to the A series, and even then the types continued to suffer serious reliability issues until after 1943. In fact the Panther throughout its career suffered significant problems in this regard. I have provided more than one source to corroborate that position, all I am getting from you right now is indignant bluster. I am sure you can do better than that. ,


----------



## Shortround6 (May 26, 2011)

There is a thread over on tank net that has some bearing on this discussion. At least in regards to Russian tank up-gunning.

M4 vs M26 - Tanknet - Page 4

Posts# 65 and 72 seem especially relevant.


----------



## DerAdlerIstGelandet (May 26, 2011)

ctrian said:


> [/I]
> 
> I guess if i start calling people Hitler ,Goebbels etc i'll get the same treatment.What an old boys club.









You really do not read anything that has been posted, that or you do not undestand what is being read in very simple English.

Go back and read the posts *very very very very very carefully*. Where has anyone called you Hitler or Goebbels? Come on now, go back and read the posts.

*NOT A SINGLE PERSON CALLED YOU ANY OF THOSE NAMES!!!!!!!*

It is starting to get very tiresome and old...


----------



## parsifal (May 26, 2011)

guys, I am going to do the smart thing and give this a rest for a couple of days. Have a new boat, a couple of days off, and the fish are biting. Maybe things will cool off a bit, and we can have a reasonable discussion then.


----------



## tomo pauk (May 26, 2011)

Shortround6 said:


> There is a thread over on tank net that has some bearing on this discussion. At least in regards to Russian tank up-gunning.
> 
> M4 vs M26 - Tanknet - Page 4
> 
> Posts# 65 and 72 seem especially relevant.


 
Thanks for the link.

BTW, I've registered there, but I'm not able to log-in there quite for sometime now. IIRC you are the member there, could you help me (perhaps to drop a line to the admin, or something) in this problem?
edit: scratch that, managed to log in


----------

