Best/Favourate Tank in the west

[Juha]

Hello
offtopic but I read Blackett's Studies of war or something like that decades ago but still remember something of it, his participation in Jutland as a midshipman, analyze why a/c at first observed clearly more subs on right of their flight path than on left, why it was right thing to set the fuses of air dropped depht charges to shallower depht and the cynical analyze why the info that AA batteries near coast were shooting down more enemy a/c than those batteries well inland was bogus, etc. IIRC really excellent book.

Juha

 

[Soren]

M_kenny, you're speaking nonesense by now.

42 penetration and 14 glancing off of what ? Where ? When ? And with what weapon ?

You see that's why the statistic is worthless as you at the very least need the below covered at every case, which is IMPOSSIBLE:
1.) Range
2.) Angle location of impact
3.) Weapon used
4.) Time of impact

If you were to find a tank sitting burned out with 4 holes in it, all clean penetrations, then you'd have no, and I repeat, NO way of finding out at what range the tank was hit at, which hit knocked out the tank or which one set it ablaze.

Stuff like this will screw up any statistic, 12 hits, no penetration:

 

[Juha]

Interesting figures, m_kenny
I might have seen them before but not that Panther and Sherman hit comparison side by side.
IMHO only 2 surprises, Turret and sides 10:4, knowing the thin turret sides of Panther there must have been many shallow angle hits, but when one thought it that isn't so surprising, turret turned faster towards potential danger than whole tank.
The second is that only 29% hits on Shermans were frontal, without knowing timeframe, I tended to think that many hits were from A/T guns, or from Pzs or StuGs on A/T mission.
The results clearly indicate that the correct answer to Sherman's weakness was to put more powerful gun in it. One could not put good all around armour, good gun and good mobility in 30 ton tank in 43-45 period, cannons were too powerful for that. Interestingly Germans postwar chose mobility and firepower over protection in Leopard I, British on the other hand put gunpower and protection over mobility. Maybe both saw more clearly downsides of their late WWII tanks than their good points.

Juha

 

[Juha]

Soren
even if your beloved Panther is shown not to be invincible, if you cool down and think you'll find out, that your list isn't a task impossible to an OR team in at least many cases.
And clearly in 44 Panther wasn't very suspectible to after hit fires even if its armour was penetrated.

Juha

 

[m kenny]

I might have seen them before but not that Panther and Sherman hit comparison side by side

Sorry but I did not make it clear I added that comparison table. I used data from the Sherman study and put it side by side with info from the Panther study. I should have made it clear in the initial post and I will edit it in.

.

IMHO only 2 surprises,.................

I think the reports are full of suprises. They are just raw data and thus not slanted or weighted towards proving anything. After the War was when the raw data was worked on and when I contacted one of the authors of ORO-T-117 (probably the largest study ever done of WWII tank losses) I was 'suprised' to be told it was compiled and published during the Korean War specificaly to help find ways to counter the Soviet Tank Threat.

Soren
even if your beloved Panther is shown not to be invincible, if you cool down and think you'll find out,

It seems he is so busy trying to rubbish the whole concept of OR that he missed the fact that of 8 hits on the Panther front plate 7 failed and only one penetrated.

42 penetration and 14 glancing off of what ? Where ? When ? And with what weapon ?

I used the words 'glancing off'. The report simply describes them as 'failures'.
'Off what' is quite simple. If a round is describe as a 'failure' on the hull side then I presume it failed to penetrate the side of the hull.
'Where' ? I think the location of the wreck has no bearing on anything.
'When', Normandy (or France 1944) seems detailed enough for me.
'And with what weapon' is covered because the hits are broken down by type-17pdr, 75mm, 3 inch and 6pdr. However there is a limit to how much formating I can do for these posts...................!
I get the feeling however that even this is not good enough for you. Nothing will ever disabuse you of the 'fact' that:
Allied tankers in vain spended as much as 10 rounds at a German tank only to observe all their rounds just bounce off German armour and then be blown to smithereens by the first return shot fired

 

[Soren]

I am exceedingly curious as to how ANYONE by looking at a tank full of holes could establish both the range at which each hit was made and then exactly which one out of all the hits that knocked out the tank. Alone this impossibility makes the whole statistic worth nothing at all, and that is all I am trying to get at here, I'm not trying to advocate any tank, so you might as-well get that thought out of your head right away.

But I guess I might as-well give up as it's impossible to reason with people like Juha m_kenny. You two can go ahead and believe in what'ever you want, I'm not gonna waste anymore of my time on this.

 

[m kenny]

If you were to find a tank sitting burned out with 4 holes in it, all clean penetrations, then you'd have no, and I repeat, NO way of finding out at what range the tank was hit at, which hit knocked out the tank or which one set it ablaze.

Correct.
However if you find a burnt out Tiger with 5 failed penetrations and 4 holes in it then you can say that this Tiger needed 9 hits to despatch it.
If you find 10 wrecked Tigers with 58 failed penetrations and 22 holes between them then you can say that ON AVERAGE each Tiger suffered 8 hits.
That each Tiger ON AVERAGE needed 2.2 penetrations to knock it out.
That each Tiger ON AVERAGE had 5.8 failed penetrations
If 5 unburnt Tigers had 9 penetrations and 5 burnt out Tigers had 13 penetrations then you can say:
It took 1.8 hits to knock out a Tiger
It took 2.6 hits to make a Tiger burn.
NOTE: All numbers picked at random for illustrative purposes only.

That should show you, or more realistically show the unbiased reader, that:

1.) Range
2.) Angle location of impact
3.) Weapon used
4.) Time of impact

have absolutely no bearing on a survey aimed solely at finding THE AVERAGE number of hits needed to knock out a tank/make it burn.

I am exceedingly curious as to how ANYONE by looking at a tank full of holes could establish both the range at which each hit was made and then exactly which one out of all the hits that knocked out the tank

If you show me the section where any of the above are claimed in this survey then you might have a case. As it stands this is a classic Straw Man argument.

The survey showed it took only 2.5 hits to KO a Panther and 4.2 to KO a Tiger. This news does not sit well with one who believed it took more than 10 hits to do the same. The follwing was even advanced as an exemplar:


Take for example all the times that Allied tankers in vain spended as much as 10 rounds at a German tank only to observe all their rounds just bounce off German armour and then be blown to smithereens by the first return shot fired

Who now would dare vouchsafe such a scenario?


Your nitpicking arguments Lack validity or essence. In a word your whole case is spurious!

 

[Soren]

Keep the excuses coming m_kenny but I'm not the one with a spurious case here, that would be you.

You keep confusing hits with penetrations, there's a big difference between the two.

In your own typothetical example it doesn't take 2.6 hits to KO the tank, it takes 2.6 penetrations! Big difference!

If you honestly believe that it one average took 4.2 hits to KO a Tiger then I say you lack even a basic sense of logic, esp. seeing that Tigers often were hit many times during battle to no effect. There's even an incident in which one got hit 246 times, yet it kept on fighting!

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Keep it nice you two...

I hear the beach calling.

 

[parsifal]

Guys.....how about just debating the topic, and not trying to go at each other incessantly. Soren is a great believer in German Tank technology....good for him. Kenny present arguments to refute that position....good for him too. I suggest you just present your respective cases, and just respectfully agree to disagree on those points you cannot reach agreement on. It will be us, the readers that decide, in our own minds, what to think

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Guys.....how about just debating the topic, and not trying to go at each other incessantly. Soren is a great believer in German Tank technology....good for him. Kenny present arguments to refute that position....good for him too. I suggest you just present your respective cases, and just respectfully agree to disagree on those points you cannot reach agreement on. It will be us, the readers that decide, in our own minds, what to think

Spoken like a wise man...

 

[Juha]

Hello m kenny
I wasn't surprise that Upper Glacis was 1:7, rather hopeless target to Allied guns
or that mantlet and turret front was 2:2 it was the weakest point of Panther's frontal armour which was usually in sight
etc.

Juha

 

[Soren]

Parsifal,

I'm not trying to advocate any tank here, I'm just pointing out how the statistic m_kenny presented is completely inaccurate and useless, and so for a good number of reasons.

Now had he instead presented actual field testing results then there'd be nothing to complain about, cause then all the parameters are known.

The whole argument started because someone mentioned how easily the Sherman lit up if hit (not that guys fault btw). I then explained that it wasn't because of poor design as some people suggest, but probably more due to the type of AP rounds the German were using.

M_kenny then flung out his statistic where it is stated that it on average it took X amount of "hits" to knock out or lit up a tank. Problem is that not all "hits" penetrate the armour or do any serious damage, esp. not if the power of the attacking weapon is insufficient.

He then went on claiming that I didn't like the statistic because it showed that it only took 2.6 hits to KO a Panther, but that I missed that only roughly every 8th hit penetrated the front glacis plate. Problem with that however is that most Allied guns could nothing but dent the front glacis plate of the Panther, so 8 hits from one of these would never result in a penetration. And the guns which could penetrate the Panther' glacis were few and far in between plus only capable at close ranges. M_kenny's statistic however would suggest otherwise, and that's because it obviously neither takes the engagement range, type of weapon or angle of impact into consideration.

 

[Juha]

Soren
In Commonwealth forces, IMHO 17pdr had best chances penetrate the upper glacis of Panther and in Summer 44:
AT Regiments in infantry divisions - 4 batteries each 8 × 17-pdr and 4 × 6-pdr in 3 troops.
AT Regiments in Armoured divs had 24 x 17pdr towed plus 24 x 17pdr SP (Achilles and also Archers later on) plus of course the Fireflies in ArmRgts. There were A/T guns also in other units in div but not 17pdr guns but both could also have attached units, so not so few in British sector where most panzers were. And 6pdr could easily penetrate through side armours of German tanks and StuGs but Tigers.

Juha

 

[Doughboy]

Guys.....how about just debating the topic, and not trying to go at each other incessantly. Soren is a great believer in German Tank technology....good for him. Kenny present arguments to refute that position....good for him too. I suggest you just present your respective cases, and just respectfully agree to disagree on those points you cannot reach agreement on. It will be us, the readers that decide, in our own minds, what to think

Great post.

 

[m kenny]

He then went on claiming that I didn't like the statistic because it showed that it only took 2.6 hits to KO a Panther, but that I missed that only roughly every 8th hit penetrated the front glacis plate. Problem with that however is that most Allied guns could nothing but dent the front glacis plate of the Panther, so 8 hits from one of these would never result in a penetration..

Large numbers of knocked out Panthers that have no hits AT ALL on the glacis?(warning: not all hits were on the fron). The high failure rate of glacis hits has no effect on the 87% of hits on the SIDES or BACK of the tank.
I just took a quick look through Zaloga's Panzers In The Gunsights I/II and US Tank Battles in France noticed that most of the panther hulks hadn't even a dent in the front.
Here are the clearer examples.

 

[m kenny]

You keep confusing hits with penetrations, there's a big difference between the two.
In your own typothetical example it doesn't take 2.6 hits to KO the tank, it takes 2.6 penetrationsBig difference!

Read it again:
If you find 10 wrecked Tigers with 58 failed penetrations and 22 holes between them then you can say that ON AVERAGE each Tiger suffered 8 hits.
However in the hypethetical instance I chose I did slip and write 2.6 hits instead of 2.6 penetrations.
Never said I was perfect!

If you honestly believe that it one average took 4.2 hits to KO a Tiger then I say you lack even a basic sense of logic,

The men on the ground who inspected the wrecks checked the actual number of penetrations/failures per tank (i.e holes/gouges) Are you saying they lied?

If esp. seeing that Tigers often were hit many times during battle to no effect. There's even an incident in which one got hit 246 times, yet it kept on fighting!

Perhaps you could tell us the calibre of the hits. I believe the vast majority were small A/T rifle strikes. You do have that information I presume?
There are other 'incidents' where 1 hit destroyed a Tiger. (examples available upon request)What does that prove?

Where are the '10 hits' on these real life knocked out examples from sSS Pz Abt 101?
Top pic of Tiger '334' knocked out in Rauray 27/6/44
next '214' destroyed by the Poles in August '44
Lastly another Tiger (114) from 27/6/44. Taken frontaly by a troop of 75mm Shermans and thus subject to intense close range fire from multiple sources. Even this text book example of frontal attack only has 8 hits on the front, one of which partialy penetrated in through the drivers visor

 

[Juha]

Hello
Normandy was an excellent place to that kind of OR because almost all, say 95%, of heavier German AFVs, those from Marders, incl, upwards committed to the battle were lost there. IIRC not a single Tiger recrossed Seine but maybe a few recovered early in the battle for reconstruction/factory level repairs in Germany. So they were at least in theory available for research. And there were ca 2500 of them according to Zaloga.

Juha

 

[m kenny]

Hello
IIRC not a single Tiger recrossed Seine but maybe a few recovered early in the battle for reconstruction/factory level repairs in Germany..

I used to believe that. However recent discoveries have shown a few made it. The numbers are very small (half a dozen?) Not enough to make any difference to anything.

 

[Juha]

Hello m kenny
Thanks for correction.

Juha