If you have some information to back your ideas up, that would be helpful.
I base those figures on several sources, principally Colonel Dupuys postwar studies on the causes of defeat. Dunnigan in his SPI book "East Front" also gives a pretty good breakdown on losses by cause.
But if we look at France in 1944, the effects of airpower as a direct means of inflicting casualties are brought inhto focus. The tactical airforces claimed to have destroyed 6200 vehicles and 391 tanks by direct action. They claimed for example, to have destroyed over 90 AFVs (ie tanks) attached to the panzer Lehr Division, in its advance to normandy. In fact only two tanks were actually destroyed by airpower, though approximately 100 soft skinned vehecles were damaged or destroyed.
Like I said, if you have better figures, please go ahead and and post your figures. These are the best i can do at short notice.
391 tanks claimed destroyed is almost certainoly an overclaim. Exactly how much is anybodies guess, but lets be generaous and assume that it is only out by 50%....lets assume that in reality 200 armoured vehicles were destroyed by direct air attack (close air support. What percentage of the total German losses in Normandy do you think that might represent?
Jarymowycz's work also includes a table of causes for German tank losses (time period not specified but probably relates to NW Europe 1944-45):
Gunfire.........................43.8%
Abandonment.....................18.3%
Mechanical.......................4.0%
Self destruction................20.7%
Air Attack.......................7.5%
Hollow-charge Rounds.............4.4%
Mines/Miscellaneous..............0.9%
However, this figure may still be too high. Making various adjustments and alowances gives a figure of around 2% for hard targets, and around 5-7% for all categories of vehicles.
Yet another study (WO 291/1186) gives the comparative performance of anti-tank weapons systems during WWII
This report is British in origin, dated 24 May 1950.
The percentage of tank losses, by cause, for different theatres is given as follows:
Theatre (tanks)..Mines.ATk guns Tanks SP guns Bazooka Other Total
NW Europe
Mines.22.1%
ATk guns 22.7%
Tanks 14.5%
SP guns 24.4%
Bazooka 14.2%
Other 2.1%
Total100%
losses due to airpower arent even listed separately in this report,...I believe they are lumped into the "other" column
In fairness, tanks are also not the biggest killers of other tanks....the biggest anti-armour weapons are Tracked and towed ATgs, and Infantry weapons...Bazookas and mines
As to the comment about animals being used only in the last two years....well, again, a misconception. 80% of the german armoy was classified as unmotorized in 1939.....a frontline German Infantry Div in 1939 had over 1000 soft skinned vehicles when at full strength, and 6200 draft animals. By 1944, the size of the division had dropped from 17000 to around 11000 (on average), the number of soft skinned vehicles had dropped to about 750, on average, but the number of draft animals had sunk to less than 2000....there were simply not enough horses....thats why it was impossible on the eastern front for the germans to undertake any mobile warfare of any description....they had lost their mobility...any rapid movements invariable large losses of heavy equipment, and reduced re-supply capability...this had all happened mostly as a result of the animal and vehicle losses on the eastern front up tpo 1944
