Ad: This forum contains affiliate links to products on Amazon and eBay. More information in Terms and rules
Despite the shortcomings of the Sherman, it was still absolutely the right decision not to allow wholesale changes to be made to the basic design.
The Allies suffered an overall exchange rate of 4.3 tank losses to each german loss. But the Allies were never seriously troubled by these losses whereas the Germans were gutted by the losses they suffered. It should not have been that way. Germany had a head start on AFV production, had superior designs and the productive capacity to absorb losses up to an exchange rate of about 2:1 but they couldn't even survive when the exchange rate blew out to 4:1.
They were on the defensive, which gave them enormous inherent advantages, but they still lost, and badly. the reason for their gut wrenching losses lies in their inability, late war, to appreciate that basic numbers will win you battles (and in terms of favourable loss rates), but quality, if that comes at the price of numbers (which their incessant tampering with production lines certainly did, as did, equally, their mania for ever bigger tanks of greater and greater complexity) will not gain you anything substantial at all.
they estimate that Tigers accounted for less than 5% of that advantage. If they did not have tigers, the German advantage would have dropped to 2.50. Dupuy doesn't look at what numbers might do, but Im willing to bet the farm that if these tigers were replaced by roughly 3x Mk IVs, the German advantage would have increased significantly.
Another factor affecting exchange rates (in men) was the effect of airpower. no direct losses really, but airpower has a multiplying effect on your fpf values that can really turn exchange rates around. EG, trapping an entire army on the Seine as it tries to escape....not directly the result of airpower, but airpower made it all possible.
Do you have a source for that figure.The Allies suffered an overall exchange rate of 4.3 tank losses to each german loss.
Actually this is not quite accurate. By the time 1945 rolled around the Shermans had different engines, different turret, different suspension and a different front hull shape. This disregards different armament. Basic hull shape, layout and transmission stayed the same.
It was pretty much an obsession with numbers that kept the Sherman in production with the above changes, and a refusal to change doctrine/tactics that kept it under armed for so long. They built almost as many Sherman TANKS ( not including SP guns-tank destroyers etc) from 1941-45 as the Germans did tracked chassis from 1936-45 (includingSP guns-tank destroyers etc) from the MK I to the Tiger II.
The Sherman had been intended as an exploitation vehicle, Break through was not supposed to be it's job and tank to tank fighting (or AFV to AFV)was supposed to be handled by the tank destroyers and AT guns. The Germans didn't co-operate with US doctrine.The US built about 10,600 full tracked tank destroyers during the war.
Please look at production numbers, the Germans could NOT afford even a 4-5 loss ratio as they did NOT have the production capacity to keep up. Throw in British (roughly 7,000 later Churchills and Cromwells) and Russian production with the American numbers.
.The Tiger II and the later monsters fly in the face of experience gained with the Tiger I and Panther. Not so much in actual combat ( but semi-mobile pill box/bunker is a very limited role) but in getting into combat and getting out (mobility both on road and off) and with the experience of being unable to recover broken down tanks due to inadequate numbers of recovery vehicles building even heavier tanks (and with the Tiger II using the same overloaded engine and transmission) certainly did not make sense
This rather leaves out the Panthers? It also means you need 3X the crewmen and if not 3X the logistic support perhaps 2X? If many Tigers were abandoned due to lack of fuel will the MK IVs have enough more range (on roads) to reach the fuel dumps?
Tigers and Panthers sometimes allowed crews to survive when they might not in a MK IV and gain experience.
Quite true but then it matters little if the accompanying tanks are Tigers or MK IVs if air power is blocking/restricting the roads/bridges needed to escape./QUOTE]
Falaise arose for a number of reasons. If there had been more tanks in the german formations, they may have been abale to circumvent the encirclement of the pocket, or effect a breakout. Maybe, maybe not, but virtually anything would have been better than having a few broken down heavy tanks no linger able to contain or parry Allied encirclement operations
Do you have a source for that figure.
Thank you.
During the Tunisian Campaign Tiger tanks were credited with more Allied tanks kills than the total number lost from all causes by the Allies during the period in question.no. there are German records for tigers, and then you have some Soviet figures for exchange rates. Somewhere, a long time ago I saw loss rates for Normandy. ive also seen some figures along those lines at the Dupuy website, but I wasn't trying to be super accurate....
During the Tunisian Campaign Tiger tanks were credited with more Allied tanks kills than the total number lost from all causes by the Allies during the period in question.
German army intelligence, when trying to get a realistic figure of enemy tanks destroyed, always cut the figure of claimed tank kills by 50 percent.
As for Normandy the only tank loss figures we can rely on to some extent is the number of tanks totally lost by both sides, around 3,000 for the Allies and just over 1,500 for the German's.