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I know this is a war gaming thread, but I had a buddy ask about German tank quality vs allied tank quality and my answer turned out to be a lecture  :uglystupid2:

So, it got me thinking. If you had a random battlefield...no anti-tank guns, no aerial attacks....just straight up tank vs tank....how do you think it would play out?

For instance, let's take all of Germany's Panther tank production (around 5500 units?) vs US M4 production (some 44,000 units?) and "duked" it out.

Not sure what the parameters would be....maybe one battlefield is flat, another hilly, another very heavy forest......

What do you think would be the outcome? I know this is unrealistic, but it's kind of neat to think about (or, is it just me?  :crazy2:)

I see those 5500 Panthers taking out all those 44,000 Sherman's

I think the Panthers would make a good initial go, but be halted by mechanical failures and then swamped by numbers.

Quote from: acctingman on April 22, 2016, 12:00:51 PM
I see those 5500 Panthers taking out all those 44,000 Sherman's

   On real battlefields though, apparently the Sherman with the standard US 76mm gun, was at least three times as effective as the Panther.  So things could vary some at least in reality.

http://www.amazon.com/Panther-Sherman-Battle-Bulge-1944/dp/184603292X

How about if all tanks crews were equal across the board?

I know tank crews, for Germany, at the end of war were probably less experienced?

Mechanical issues have to be considered obviously. As nice and deadly as Panthers/Tigers were, they were prone to breakdowns.

Quote from: acctingman on April 22, 2016, 12:22:53 PM
How about if all tanks crews were equal across the board?

I know tank crews, for Germany, at the end of war were probably less experienced?

Mechanical issues have to be considered obviously. As nice and deadly as Panthers/Tigers were, they were prone to breakdowns.

  The problem is that reality enters the equation at so many levels.  I knew the intelligence officer of a US armored Division and to hear him tell it, a US armored division was superior at so many levels that whatever the Germans might have had...well it really made no difference.  Perhaps the most interesting thing that comes up is that US signals (radio and signit) were so superior that it was simply ridiculous.  German armored forces had developed their radio techniques before anyone else (so they did okay until mid 1942), but they never revised their signals techniques so a US force could essentially read the whole disposition of a German force right off their radios.  On the other had, an entire US armored division could vanish completely from the radio spectrum and still function.

To bring this back to computer gaming, you can probably run this scenario in one of the CM games.  24 Shermans vs. 3 Panthers. 

I think there are many dead Shermans, but in the end they take the field.  Some well placed smoke rounds, eight to one shooting advantage produces some disabling shots...the inevitable race to get rear / side shots on the Panthers...Shermans take it...  but my guess would be 3 Panthers and 12 Shermans dead. 

Would be interested to see someone play this in CMx1...do a youtube video

However, if these are 76mm Shermans, or Fireflys....no contest...dead kitty cats everywhere.

Good answers in this thread but I'll zero in on this:

Quote from: MengJiao on April 22, 2016, 12:32:50 PM

The problem is that reality enters the equation at so many levels.  I knew the intelligence officer of a US armored Division and to hear him tell it, a US armored division was superior at so many levels that whatever the Germans might have had...well it really made no difference. 

Time On Target.

Artillery killed more people than anything, and German artillery was poorly organized and equipped compared to British and American. Even the Russians got good at it, but moreover had vast quantities of tubes and ammo.

American artillery (and I think British) were able to fire several batteries at once and have all the shells land at the same instant in time, no matter what the calibres or distances to the target. This was known as a TOT and IIRC, the Germans never learned how to do it. Just one example, perhaps a better one would be the British Parham system of calling down fire.

Anyway, I know we said all things being equal, and so artillery would not be part of this theoretical exercise, but my point is that in the real deal, tank quality was a little beside the point when your side had the ability to dominate the battlefield with air power and artillery.

Agree with all the excellent points that have already been raised. For some reasons -- that are not far to find -- the myth of the all-powerful Panzer division with its all powerful Panthers and Tigers dies hard. Similarly, the myth of the woefully inadequate Sherman that never stood a chance against the German war machine persists. Yes, on a straight-up, 'all things being equal' metric, the Panther was a much superior machine to the Sherman, especially the early production Shermans. But as MD, Meng Jiao and others point out -- there was never an ideal situation of 'all things being equal'. An American armored division circa D-Day and later was far superior to any unit the Germans could muster by that period. Just compare the TOE of a U.S. armored division to a late-'44 panzer division (or I suppose, brigade, since they were barely able to field divisions at that point) and you will immediately see the sizeable edge in equipment and firepower the US Army had over the Wehrmacht or Waffen SS.

Playing a little Combat Mission can be instructive on these points. If you think your lone platoon of 4 Panthers is going to wipe the floor with a company of Shermans -- unless your Panthers are in very advantageous defensive positions -- think again.

The scenario I just played in the Kampfgruppe Peiper campaign reflects some of this. Artillery was the exemplary branch of the U.S. Army during WW2 -- they relied heavily on artillery and for good reason. My Kampfgruppe got chewed up pretty bad by arty barrages in the Stavelot bridge scenario.

Quote from: sandman2575 on April 22, 2016, 01:40:50 PM
For some reasons -- that are not far to find -- the myth of the all-powerful Panzer division with its all powerful Panthers and Tigers dies hard. Similarly, the myth of the woefully inadequate Sherman that never stood a chance against the German war machine persists.

  And another thing.  As games have gotten more and more sophisticated and better able to bring in more and more aspects of reality, the imagery of the all-conquering war machines have gotten a little more complex.  It would be better if this progressed even more, but we have to be happy with what we get.  For example, we no longer believe that the Germans were able to win most of the time up til mid 1942 because they had better tanks, but we have some idea that they had some combined arms and radios and what not.  We can ignore the spectacles of Australian riflemen picking the crews off of 88mm guns and at least try to be happy with the thought that the flak was thoughtfully brought up.  We can also sort of skip how the very same radio techniques that worked so well early in the war, were a bad idea later in the war.
   On a similar note -- Hoplite made it clear that the Persians were not primitives, but if anything, far more sophisticated with their flexible deployments than the clumsy Greeks and with a few alternations even Flying Colors can show you that the Royal Navy has the luxury of shooting at hulls because they got everything else right in a naval battle first, not because shooting at hulls gives you the win every time.

It seems maybe you want to change the parameters until you get agreement that the Panthers win? I don't think there is any version of this where they do. Even if you ignored the likelihood that a good percentage of the Panthers would break down, they don't stand a chance. At close range, even the short 75mm can penetrate any part of the Panther. At medium ranges, the rear and even the sides could. If we are talking Sherman's with the high velocity 75 or 76 then they are cutting through that panther armor as easily as the Panther does with the Sherman's armor.

Either way, it ends badly for the Germans. The Sherman was reliable, highly mobile and -an under rated quality- had a powered turret that could be traversed quickly. That many Sherman's would have no problem maneuvering for shots.

As someone mentioned though, although the Sherman was under-gunned for anti tank duties, it's armor protection was good and it was an equal peer to the PZ IV of 1942-43. It was reliable, mobile, easily repaired, easy to manufacture, could take a beating and had decent speed. Those combined with organization made the U.S. armored divisions effective.

1 for 1 I think the Panther (late war) is far superior...but battles aren't 1 for 1 and tanks have to make it there.

I (as others have already weighed in) just want to push back on acctman's notion that U.S. or Allied armor was *grossly* inferior to German armor. That just isn't so. And there's simply no way to divorce the effectiveness of the machine itself, say the Sherman, from so many other factors: tactical doctrine, quality of crew and leadership, C&C and signals, etc. Would you take a platoon of Tigers crewed by green, hastily trained recruits over a platoon of battle-hardened veterans in Sherman '76s? I wouldn't.

Everyone can see how cool the Panther and Tiger were. They're undeniably cool. But I have a soft-spot for the trusty ol' Sherman (and an even softer spot for the Churchill -- a tank that manages to seem both completely ludicrous and completely bad-ass at the same time).

@mikeck -- sorry to piggy back on your post, which I completely agree with.

Isn't this the basic question the commanders at the time asked themselves as well? There is a reason why there are so many variants of the same machines.
So apart from crew training and general doctrine, shouldn't the case be less general and define which variants will duke it out?

I think a lot of the misinformation about differences between US and German tanks came from US Tank crews and was propagated by the Army. In June of 1944, the U.S. army had less than 2 years of warfighting experience. History shows it takes 18 months -2 years to build an effective army from scratch. Most of the troops and units had never seen combat. Meanwhile, the Germans, and particularly the officers and NCOs had a lot of combat experience.

When U.S. armor went up against German, the Germans usually had the advantage of training and experience. If you are a green 1st LT commanding a tank platoon and none of your NCOs has combat experience, things go badly when your 4 M-4s hit 1 or 2 German tanks. BUT, when the battle is over, it's always easy to believe what you want to believe. No one wants to believe that our MEN weren't as good as the Germans. Soldiers and officers don't want to believe that. Easier to blame equipment. There are WAAAYYY to many claims of US tanks being shot up by Tigers or Panthers to match up with the actual numbers of deployed Tigers and Panthers. There simply weren't very many. Yet every US tanker claims they were taken out by a Cat. After all, it's more comforting than saying "they are better trained, more experienced and better led"

After a few months, U.S. Units gained experience and the Germans continued to lose experienced tankers on both fronts...but the myth about Cats v Panthers continued

I'm not saying the Cats aren't better tanks 1v1, just that it wasn't the Cats that created the ratio of German to American tanks killed by other tanks. Most of the German tanks were PZ-4's but were better handled

Quote from: mikeck on April 22, 2016, 03:11:47 PM
I think a lot of the misinformation about differences between US and German tanks came from US Tank crews and was propagated by the Army. In June of 1944, the U.S. army had less than 2 years of warfighting experience. History shows it takes 18 months -2 years to build an effective army from scratch. Most of the troops and units had never seen combat. Meanwhile, the Germans, and particularly the officers and NCOs had a lot of combat experience.

When U.S. armor went up against German, the Germans usually had the advantage of training and experience. If you are a green 1st LT commanding a tank platoon and none of your NCOs has combat experience, things go badly when your 4 M-4s hit 1 or 2 German tanks. BUT, when the battle is over, it's always easy to believe what you want to believe. No one wants to believe that our MEN weren't as good as the Germans. Soldiers and officers don't want to believe that. Easier to blame equipment. There are WAAAYYY to many claims of US tanks being shot up by Tigers or Panthers to match up with the actual numbers of deployed Tigers and Panthers. There simply weren't very many. Yet every US tanker claims they were taken out by a Cat. After all, it's more comforting than saying "they are better trained, more experienced and better led"

Excellent points. It was absolutely the case that all too often a sighing of a PzIV got reported as a Tiger, as though by some game of 'telephone' where the initial message and the received message somehow don't match. Added to the fact that the well-warranted fear of the Tiger turned all too many panzers into Tigers etc. in the eyes of rattled green servicemen.

I recall reading in Max Hastings that the kill ratio of the Tiger to assorted Allied tanks on the Western front was something like 2.5:1 or 3:1 -- i.e. a Tiger could be expected to take out 3 enemy tanks before being eliminated himself. It was nothing like 8:1 or 10:1, though that's almost what the mythology would suggest, as though every Tiger were piloted by an ace like Wittmann.

Quote from: mikeck on April 22, 2016, 03:11:47 PM
I think a lot of the misinformation about differences between US and German tanks came from US Tank crews and was propagated by the Army. In June of 1944, the U.S. army had less than 2 years of warfighting experience. History shows it takes 18 months -2 years to build an effective army from scratch. Most of the troops and units had never seen combat. Meanwhile, the Germans, and particularly the officers and NCOs had a lot of combat experience.

When U.S. armor went up against German, the Germans usually had the advantage of training and experience. If you are a green 1st LT commanding a tank platoon and none of your NCOs has combat experience, things go badly when your 4 M-4s hit 1 or 2 German tanks. BUT, when the battle is over, it's always easy to believe what you want to believe. No one wants to believe that our MEN weren't as good as the Germans. Soldiers and officers don't want to believe that. Easier to blame equipment. There are WAAAYYY to many claims of US tanks being shot up by Tigers or Panthers to match up with the actual numbers of deployed Tigers and Panthers. There simply weren't very many. Yet every US tanker claims they were taken out by a Cat. After all, it's more comforting than saying "they are better trained, more experienced and better led"

After a few months, U.S. Units gained experience and the Germans continued to lose experienced tankers on both fronts...but the myth about Cats v Panthers continued

I'm not saying the Cats aren't better tanks 1v1, just that it wasn't the Cats that created the ratio of German to American tanks killed by other tanks. Most of the German tanks were PZ-4's but were better handled

The attitude spread from the military, to the governments who procured equipment. ISTR at least one British MP who stood on the floor of the House of Commons to read reports about the Sherman's perceived deficiencies from the field, and was heckled for his troubles (I think the incident is related in Hasting's OVERLORD book).

To answer the OP, which I think is an interesting and thougth-provoking question:  I think it'd depend which point in time you picked.  Each side at the height of their training and doctrine effectiveness?  Early 1942?  Early 1945?  It also depends on terrain and frontage (i.e., if the American 44,000 tanks had to attack across a valley 10 miles wide, it's very different than if they had the entire Russian steppes for maneuver).

As has been noted above, German tanks were technically superior (if prone to breakdown) but the mythology of that superiority got overblown.  My sense is that if you put them all in a flat field 1,000 miles on a side, the Shermans would eventually win the same way that armies everywhere won in WW II:  They'd find a soft spot and get into their rear areas. 

Taking things a step further, it's hard to isolate the role of doctrine, because neither side had a pure tank-fighting doctrine.  All employed combined arms to varying degrees, and with varying degrees of success.  The P-47 Thunderbolt didn't chew up many Panzers, but it sure chewed up (and thus immobilized) all the fuel trucks, staff cars, and motorized infantry that accompanied panzers into battle.  So trying to untangle the vehicles and doctrines from all the other weapons involved is problematic.

If the two sides had to drive towards each other firing blindly, I suspect it'd be a bloody mess but the German would eventually lose. 

German tank vs allied tanks?  Of course the Russians always win.  O0

Quote from: jomni on April 22, 2016, 06:33:27 PM
German tank vs allied tanks?  Of course the Russians always win.  O0

The Russians have the best tanks. Just ask anyone who works for Wargaming.net. ;)

While playing Patton Strikes Back: The Battle of the Bulge (//http://Patton%20Strikes%20Back:%20The%20Battle%20of%20the%20Bulge), the only way my Sherman tanks could kill a German tank (that was so long ago that I do not remember if they were Panthers or Tigers) was to surround one with four Shermans and shoot it from front, rear, and both sides simultaneously. How historically accurate that is I do not know. But if the Sherman tank in World War II was the equal of a German Panther tank, it goes against everything I have ever read about them.

Zaloga's Armored Thuderbolt, which covers the development and evolution of the Sherman series, does a great job at debunking the myth of the "grossly superior" German tank versus the Sherman on the Western front. Really definitely worth the read: Zaloga knows more about the nuts and bolts of tanks than any three other people, I suspect. Reading that certainly changed a lot of my perceptions - and gave me some great ideas of how to better use Allied armor in games.

Certainly there were instances and times where the combat experienced German crews, regardless of which variety of Panzer they were equipped with, achieved overwhelming success versus Allied armor. There were Sherman equipped units in Tunisia that had to go back to using M3s because they'd had all of there M4s destroyed and M4 production wasn't up to speed yet. Worse, the Allies, Americans in particular, had to re-learn the fundamentals of things like infantry-armor coordination in every theater. They often paid a steep price before they got it right again, and to the point above it's easier to blame the equipment.

Yes, in a one-on-one fight the Panther and Tiger were better tank killing machines than the M4 series. They ought to be; the M4 was never conceived of as an anti-tank weapon. US doctrine called for that role to be handled by anti-tank guns, both towed and self-propelled. It was the proper role of the M-10 and M-18 to engage Panthers and Tigers, not the role of the Sherman. The Sherman was there to support infantry by destroying fortified positions and to conduct exploitation once a breakthrough had been created. It was never a tank killer.

And in that role, the Sherman was certainly the best tank on the Western and Italian fronts. Mechanical reliability is mentioned above as "a consideration." More like this was one of the main consideration with the Sherman versus the German cats. Shermans ran hundreds of miles without maintenance, Panthers and Tigers would be lucky to cover 150 miles before breaking down and requiring extensive refit work. Given that most Sherman crews never even saw a German tank but most definitely were involved in infantry support combat and exploitation drives over very long distances, the mechanical reliability issue is far more important than the Sherman's ability to go toe to toe with a Tiger.

Automotively, there just wasn't a better tank than the Sherman. Even the vaunted T-34 wasn't as good in terms of low-maintenance cross-country performance. Admittedly, the T-34 was a better anti-tank weapon and the better all-around tank - but suffered the entire war from poor quality tank crews that again paint Allied armor in a very favorable light.

Finally, as very correctly pointed out, combined arms is the name of the game, and the Sherman was part of a more comprehensive system made up of anti-tank weapons, infantry, excellent American artillery, and the incredibly powerful Allied airpower. It was designed to function as part of this system, supported and supporting the other components. It makes no sense to consider the Sherman as a weapons system outside of that versus a German tank outside of the doctrine and system that gave rise to those designs. It's like asking if your large intestine is better at fighting than your neighbor's foot.

And now, to make the connection to another thread acctingman started earlier this week - this is one of the cool things you can learn about and experiment with when playing wargames. You don't have to accept the conventional wisdom, or even the writing of experts like Zaloga. Given a well designed game, you can test it out in various realistic and unrealistic scenarios. And you get to blow shit up while doing so. That's a win-win.

Speaking of air power.....someone correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the Il-2 destroy more German armor than all other allied aircraft combined?

Quote from: Greybriar on April 22, 2016, 07:56:55 PM

Quote from: jomni on April 22, 2016, 06:33:27 PM
German tank vs allied tanks?  Of course the Russians always win.  O0

The Russians have the best tanks. Just ask anyone who works for Wargaming.net. ;)

While playing Patton Strikes Back: The Battle of the Bulge (//http://Patton%20Strikes%20Back:%20The%20Battle%20of%20the%20Bulge), the only way my Sherman tanks could kill a German tank (that was so long ago that I do not remember if they were Panthers or Tigers) was to surround one with four Shermans and shoot it from front, rear, and both sides simultaneously. How historically accurate that is I do not know. But if the Sherman tank in World War II was the equal of a German Panther tank, it goes against everything I have ever read about them.

I wouldn't say a Sherman with the short 75 was the equal of a panther at all...not in a fight anyway. But a late model Sherman with a high velocity 76mm gun...absolutely. Similar armor (although American steel was superior to German steel at that point. Same gun ballistics, similar speeds and mobility. Very close. Where the Panther has an advantage is profile. Sherman's are just to easy to see and hit.

The "Panther/tiger can't be beat" is a similar myth to the "Lost Cause" theory of the U.S. Civil war; inasmuch as one side denies they were outfought or out-led and instead blames failures on things out of their control. wW2 would be tanks...in the civil war it would be northern production. So the fact that computer games depict Tigers as invincible is as common as U.S. Civil war games that depict Union troops as having lower morale or ability. Just based on reading the same myths.

Edit: great post Panzerde! I think The Heer would have been much better off had Hitler ordered factories to produce 1 medium tank instead of 2mediun (PZ-IV, V), heavy (tiger) and multiple turretless tank killers. They should have just produced the PZ-IV until mid 1944 when the Panther had most of the kinks worked out. The PZ-IVg was -I'm my opinion- a superior tank overall to the Panther and Tiger based on cost/materials/ease of production and performance

Gotta say that I love reading everyone's comments. I don't have any close friends that are even remotely interested in ww2  :uglystupid2:

Quote from: mikeck on April 22, 2016, 09:29:05 PM
Edit: great post Panzerde! I think The Heer would have been much better off had Hitler ordered factories to produce 1 medium tank instead of 2mediun (PZ-IV, V), heavy (tiger) and multiple turretless tank killers. They should have just produced the PZ-IV until mid 1944 when the Panther had most of the kinks worked out. The PZ-IVg was -I'm my opinion- a superior tank overall to the Panther and Tiger based on cost/materials/ease of production and performance

This, in spades. The IVg may not have had the raw firepower or the armor of the Panther/Tiger, but IVgs produced in quantity would probably have gone a long way, at least in the West, to addressing the imbalance in sheer numbers and given the Heer a much more reliable tank. 


I understand the desire for a tank in the East that could dominate the T-34, but they were never going to produce enough of them, and the mechanical issues are even more of a problem considering the distances in Russia/Ukraine. I don't think the Germans ever got the same sort of automotive performance out of the Panther/Tiger in the East that they got out of the Pz III/IV during Barbarossa. I've never really studied it so that's a guess, but it feels right.


Honestly, in the East they probably have been better off producing as many Panzerschreck and Panzerfausts as they could rather than more tanks. Combined with train loads of 88s.

Quote from: panzerde on April 22, 2016, 08:28:10 PM
Zaloga's Armored Thuderbolt, which covers the development and evolution of the Sherman series, does a great job at debunking the myth of the "grossly superior" German tank versus the Sherman on the Western front. Really definitely worth the read: Zaloga knows more about the nuts and bolts of tanks than any three other people, I suspect. Reading that certainly changed a lot of my perceptions - and gave me some great ideas of how to better use Allied armor in games.

Certainly there were instances and times where the combat experienced German crews, regardless of which variety of Panzer they were equipped with, achieved overwhelming success versus Allied armor. There were Sherman equipped units in Tunisia that had to go back to using M3s because they'd had all of there M4s destroyed and M4 production wasn't up to speed yet. Worse, the Allies, Americans in particular, had to re-learn the fundamentals of things like infantry-armor coordination in every theater. They often paid a steep price before they got it right again, and to the point above it's easier to blame the equipment.

Yes, in a one-on-one fight the Panther and Tiger were better tank killing machines than the M4 series. They ought to be; the M4 was never conceived of as an anti-tank weapon. US doctrine called for that role to be handled by anti-tank guns, both towed and self-propelled. It was the proper role of the M-10 and M-18 to engage Panthers and Tigers, not the role of the Sherman. The Sherman was there to support infantry by destroying fortified positions and to conduct exploitation once a breakthrough had been created. It was never a tank killer.

And in that role, the Sherman was certainly the best tank on the Western and Italian fronts. Mechanical reliability is mentioned above as "a consideration." More like this was one of the main consideration with the Sherman versus the German cats. Shermans ran hundreds of miles without maintenance, Panthers and Tigers would be lucky to cover 150 miles before breaking down and requiring extensive refit work. Given that most Sherman crews never even saw a German tank but most definitely were involved in infantry support combat and exploitation drives over very long distances, the mechanical reliability issue is far more important than the Sherman's ability to go toe to toe with a Tiger.

Automotively, there just wasn't a better tank than the Sherman. Even the vaunted T-34 wasn't as good in terms of low-maintenance cross-country performance. Admittedly, the T-34 was a better anti-tank weapon and the better all-around tank - but suffered the entire war from poor quality tank crews that again paint Allied armor in a very favorable light.

Finally, as very correctly pointed out, combined arms is the name of the game, and the Sherman was part of a more comprehensive system made up of anti-tank weapons, infantry, excellent American artillery, and the incredibly powerful Allied airpower. It was designed to function as part of this system, supported and supporting the other components. It makes no sense to consider the Sherman as a weapons system outside of that versus a German tank outside of the doctrine and system that gave rise to those designs. It's like asking if your large intestine is better at fighting than your neighbor's foot.

And now, to make the connection to another thread acctingman started earlier this week - this is one of the cool things you can learn about and experiment with when playing wargames. You don't have to accept the conventional wisdom, or even the writing of experts like Zaloga. Given a well designed game, you can test it out in various realistic and unrealistic scenarios. And you get to blow shit up while doing so. That's a win-win.

Excellent stuff, Panzerde. One thing I haven't seen mentioned in the discussion generally are the different ammunition types like APDS that the Allies had developed by 1944, which greatly increased the AT capability of guns, which hitherto had not functioned so well against the big cats.

 

Take a look at that you allied fanboys!  ^-^

I was going to reply with chapter an verse,but I don't feel like looking up all the different sources.

If the Allied tanks were so good, why did all the tankers I have ever seen quotes from, state that they would rather have been in German tanks?

I am not discussing the different infrastructures etc.. I am just discussing a straight up tank battle, as in the OP's question.

As far as the Germans being able to defeat the Allies once they were ashore it was never going to happen anywhere, not because of our tanks, but because of our anti-tank guns.

Anytime a German tank group of any size tried to attack a defensive Allied line, they were shot to pieces.

I am not saying a quick counter attack against Allied defenders who hadn't had a chance to get sorted out yet.

One or two tanks that were invulnerable to the their enemies, were shown during the war to do wonders.

Look at the KV II that stopped an entire division for a week if not longer on AGN's road to Leningrad.

Quote from: magnus on April 23, 2016, 10:44:20 AM
I was going to reply with chapter an verse,but I don't feel like looking up all the different sources.

If the Allied tanks were so good, why did all the tankers I have ever seen quotes from, state that they would rather have been in German tanks?


As far as the Germans being able to defeat the Allies once they were ashore it was never going to happen anywhere, not because of our tanks, but because of our anti-tank guns.

Anytime a German tank group of any size tried to attack a defensive Allied line, they were shot to pieces.

Well any story from a tanker is anecdotal. But see my first post: many blamed their tanks for their loss instead of their lack of combat experience. In other words, it was easier to say "my tank sucks" than "the other guys are better than us". Also, soldiers tend to overrate firepower they can see and underrate things like reliability, comfort, turret speed and things they just expect. So I think most privates and such would say I would rather be in a tiger, but there weren't many tigers and panthers and frankly, most of the tanks that scorched them were PZ-IVs. Those were equivalent in armor and firepower to the Sherman

By June of 1944, the vast majority of German combat units had years of combat experience. An equal percentage of American units had none. Tankers paid the price when time and time again they were outfought by the Germans. Look at France 1940! The French tanks were superior in every way except radios. It was their deployment and handling that caused them to get mauled.

Anyway, I'm not saying German tanks aren't better and I'm not saying they are. I'm saying that the disparity in favor of German armor is not a result of the tank itself, but training, experience and leadership.

I don't thing Germany had a chance as if June 6 1944 because the Russians would have bled them white. In the west, no one...no one (even according to a number of German generals) does logistics like the Americans. Americans were able to deliver mass amounts of troops and equipment anywhere...and supply them. Once the allies had a foothold, it was inevitable

Reliability I will give you.

However, I would not want to fight in a "Ronson" or a "Tommy cooker".

Love the discussion here gents. Much appreciated. You all are convincing myself that I need to expand my horizons and start reading some good books on battles and tactics used in WW2.

Any suggestions?

Tinkershuffle.....that video was fun as hell to watch. I struggle with the learning curve of the CM x2 games, but damn, that inspired me.

Also, on a side note here.....My fiancee' has generously agreed for us spend 2 days at Tank Fest in Bovington England next year as part of our belated honeymoon trip!! It's still a year away, but good lord, will I ever be a 10 year old kid at a toy store.

Quote from: magnus on April 23, 2016, 12:20:46 PM
Reliability I will give you.

However, I would not want to fight in a "Ronson" or a "Tommy cooker".

The M4A3 from mid-production on had wet stowage to reduce ammo ignition on penetration and this was continued on later models. As a result the percentage of M4 burnups reduced dramatically, down to approx. 10% from 80%.

Quote from: acctingman on April 23, 2016, 02:00:32 PM
Love the discussion here gents. Much appreciated. You all are convincing myself that I need to expand my horizons and start reading some good books on battles and tactics used in WW2.

Any suggestions?

Atkinson's Liberation Trilogy to get a good sense of the progression of the war on the West Front: http://liberationtrilogy.com/  Does a great job of putting it all in perspective and explaining the main campaigns. Pair with Grigsby's War in the West from a gaming perspective.


The Stackpole Military History Series (http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_0_26?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=stackpole+military+history+series&sprefix=stackpole+military+history%2Caps%2C162) books are wonderful. My recommendation is to buy them as paper books rather than Kindle or PDF, because they are full of great illustrations and maps that are tough to see as ebooks.


Small Unit Actions During the German Campaign in Russia (http://www.allworldwars.com/Small-Unit-Actions-During-German-Campaign-in-Russia.html) is a US Army publication that does a very good job of describing both German and Russian tactics up through the battalion. The link is to a free online version.


Osprey Publishing has a lot of great reference books on individual campaigns, units, and weapons.

Battle of Arracourt (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Arracourt)

Combat Command A of the 4th Armored decisively knocks out the living daylights of 5th Panzer Army's armored assets. Panthers left and right, wiped out by your trusty M4 Shermans and TDs.  :knuppel2:

I fully agree with panzerde - I have around 20 or so Stackpole books, most of which are new, but some I did get as 'very good' condition used books from amazon. Excellent books and not expensive.

Quote from: Crossroads on April 23, 2016, 02:25:07 PM
Battle of Arracourt (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Arracourt)

Combat Command A of the 4th Armored decisively knocks out the living daylights of 5th Panzer Army's armored assets. Panthers left and right, wiped out by your trusty M4 Shermans and TDs.  :knuppel2:

+1, exactly what I was going to mention. By that stage of the war the Germans were putting 17 year olds in those Panthers. Tne M-18s took out 75 German tanks in four days. The Germans lost 200 tanks and assault guns, versus 75 American Shermans and 7 TDs. Of the 200 lost German tanks, 114 of them were broken down with either mechanical failure or damage.


Pretty much the entire Lorraine Campaign is that way.

Quote from: panzerde on April 23, 2016, 02:40:07 PM

Pretty much the entire Lorraine Campaign is that way.

There's a nice book about 4th Armored by a fellow grognard and an all-around good guy Don M. Fox:

Patton's Vanguard: The United States Army Fourth Armored Division (http://www.amazon.com/Pattons-Vanguard-United-Armored-Division/dp/078643094X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1461442605&sr=8-1&keywords=don+fox+pattons+vanguard)

On another note, related to the topic at hand, here's a nice if a bit high flying presenation about US-vs-German tank action in post-Normandy Europe:

Myths of American Armor. TankFest Northwest 2015 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNjp_4jY8pY)

"Every German tank at Normandy was a Tiger"  ;)

I wonder what the American Army of the latter war could have done with German equipment. What could they have exploited differently? What limitations would have been imposed? Would they have chosen the latest models of Pz IV's? Would they have gone with quantities of Panthers? With American industrial potential at the time, with experienced leadership and crews would the German armor have been a benefit or hindrance? I have never contemplated something such as this before reading this thread. It seems so much support for and against the different armor types hinges around quantities and crew experience.

My view is that a nation that could have produced a reliable and plentiful version of the Panther would have been onto a winner.

Quote from: acctingman on April 23, 2016, 02:00:32 PM
Love the discussion here gents. Much appreciated. You all are convincing myself that I need to expand my horizons and start reading some good books on battles and tactics used in WW2.

Any suggestions?

Maybe this might be be a good start  :


Publications by The U.S. Army Center of Military History   (all publications are available for free)

WWII - European-African-Middle Eastern Theater  http://www.history.army.mil/html/bookshelves/resmat/ww2eamet.html

WWII - Asiatic-Pacific Theater  http://www.history.army.mil/html/bookshelves/resmat/ww2apt.html

Quote from: bob48 on April 23, 2016, 04:29:29 PM
My view is that a nation that could have produced a reliable and plentiful version of the Panther would have been onto a winner.

Which is more or less the M26 Pershing.

Yeah, true. I've seen that sequence before. Its incredible, innit.

 The American TDs armament was based off of our excellent anti-tank guns.

They could slice and dice anything on battlefield at that time.

Yes, the problems with both the fires and the original armament were fixed in the later part of the war.

I don't think the OP mentioned what year the battle would take place.

I have also read that the Panthers reliability was fixed by the time of DDay.

Would I want to go to battle in a 1943 Panther or Sherman, hell no.

A JS2 is sometimes touted in books as the " best tanks of WW2". It only carried twenty two shells originally and they were so big it was in two pieces like a battleships. The time between shots was ridiculous.

The T-34 is also listed as " best" the seats for the turret were attached to the tank. So how effective could you be if you had to turn the turret?

There are pluses and minuses to all tanks. The Sherman's great advantage was easy of production and reliability. On the strategy scale that is excellent. The poor grunts in it might and did have a different view.

Having tons of models of all types, my opinion is that in the heat of battle it would not be to hard to confuse a PanzerIV with a Tiger. With the skirts on the turret.

One point here being that the T-34 really became important with introduction of the T-34/85 model. Not only did it have a powerful gun, but a 3 man turret which made a big difference. Again, like the M4, the T-34 was simple enough to be produced in huge quantities.

Here is the pdf version of the SMALL UNIT ACTIONS DURING THE GERMAN CAMPAIGN IN RUSSIA book...

http://www.history.army.mil/html/books/104/104-22-1/CMH_Pub_104-22-1.pdf

btw, I see a lot of myth and legend thrown around here.  I would suggest jumping into the BFC CM archives and look for some of the discussions that went on when CM1 was at its peak.  Many of the myths a that have been perpetuated about German armor and "The Cats"...I hate that reference.  I remember one of the myths was on the propensity of Shermans to catch fire.  I think it was a British study of battlefield wrecks that determined that, on penetration, a panther was as likely to brew up as a Sherman.  The Sherman got the reputation because they got penetrated more often.  Not only did they have weaker armor, but they were more likely to be on the offensive and lead by less experienced senior leaders.

You always have to keep in mind logisitcs also.  The cargo ships could haul more than 3 Shermans for the weight of two Pershings.  If the majority of your combat is offensive operations,  a middling tank that has good mobility and good HE power is good.  And having 33% more of them is better.

And then there is manufacturing change over and crew training.  Its easy for us to look back in hindsight on decisions to not replace the Sherman, but even the US didn't have unlimited resources.  They had carriers, trucks, fighters, and bombers to make also.  Not upgunning the Sherman was a bad decision, but you should underestimate the logistics of those types of decisions when looking back.

Quote from: Staggerwing on April 23, 2016, 02:13:12 PM

Quote from: magnus on April 23, 2016, 12:20:46 PM
Reliability I will give you.

However, I would not want to fight in a "Ronson" or a "Tommy cooker".

The M4A3 from mid-production on had wet stowage to reduce ammo ignition on penetration and this was continued on later models. As a result the percentage of M4 burnups reduced dramatically, down to approx. 10% from 80%.

The reason the M4s "brewed up" was because the gunners would improperly stow the ammo around the turret for easier access. But yeah, if your going to narrow it down to which tank I would rather be inside of if I was shot by another tank, I would take the tiger or Panther. But my point is that doesn't make them better tanks and as to the OPs question, doesn't mean that a group of panthers could defeat 4 times their number in Sherman's. Of course, it's anyone's guess

Quote from: Sparhawk on April 23, 2016, 04:11:16 PM
I wonder what the American Army of the latter war could have done with German equipment. What could they have exploited differently? What limitations would have been imposed? Would they have chosen the latest models of Pz IV's? Would they have gone with quantities of Panthers? With American industrial potential at the time, with experienced leadership and crews would the German armor have been a benefit or hindrance? I have never contemplated something such as this before reading this thread. It seems so much support for and against the different armor types hinges around quantities and crew experience.

One of the biggest problems with the Panther and Tiger were reliability. The Sherman was reliable and easy to repair. That helped the logistics situation considerably. Frankly, if I'm Omar Bradley, I would stick with the Sherman. I don't want my armored divisions slowed or inactive due to mechanical issues. Of course, the PZ-IV was good...so who knows

Quote from: mikeck on April 23, 2016, 06:59:46 PM
The reason the M4s "brewed up" was because the gunners would improperly stow the ammo around the turret for easier access. But yeah, if your going to narrow it down to which tank I would rather be inside of if I was shot by another tank, I would take the tiger or Panther. But my point is that doesn't make them better tanks and as to the OPs question, doesn't mean that a group of panthers could defeat 4 times their number in Sherman's. Of course, it's anyone's guess

Also, the early M4s had unarmoured ammo bins, just sheet metal. The propellant in the shells was what brewed up - the old myth is that the Germans had diesel tanks and the Americans gasoline, and that the fuel was the cause of the rapid vehicle fires. They started putting applique armour over the ammo bins, and all no doubt know about the wet stowage (stowing shells in ethylene glycol and water to suppress propellant fires). Though as mikeck points out, the wet stowage doesn't help much if gunners are cramming shells into every nook and cranny because they're overloading their tanks.

Quote from: RyanE on April 23, 2016, 06:24:14 PM

You always have to keep in mind logisitcs also.  The cargo ships could haul more than 3 Shermans for the weight of two Pershings.  If the majority of your combat is offensive operations,  a middling tank that has good mobility and good HE power is good.  And having 33% more of them is better.

And then there is manufacturing change over and crew training.  Its easy for us to look back in hindsight on decisions to not replace the Sherman, but even the US didn't have unlimited resources.  They had carriers, trucks, fighters, and bombers to make also.  Not upgunning the Sherman was a bad decision, but you should underestimate the logistics of those types of decisions when looking back.

All good points. O0

Although combat reality eventually caught up and Sherman's were upgraded with the 76mm and later variants. But you're right it would have been a big thing to re gear the factories en masse for a new tank model.

It's not talking about tank battles, but a fascinating look at the intersection of equipment, doctrine, and soldiers who fought the ground war in the South Pacific can be found in Eric Bergerud's Touched by Fire.  Bergerud has a similarly excellent treatment of equipment, doctrine, and fighting men for the air war in the South Pacific during that same time frame.

The South Pacific from 1942-1943 makes for a very interesting historical sample.  It was about the only time in the war when the Allies and the Japanese fought on anything near equal terms, and it was also the only time in the war when they had vaguely comparable levels of expertise in their soldiers or particularly in their pilots.

Atkinson's Liberation Trilogy makes for fine reading (the first book is better than the last, I fell) and I certainly learned some things along the way, but it doesn't provide much insight into tactical, tank-by-tank battles.  Atkinson does a great job of looking at interactions between the different commanders, if that's of interest to you.

Quote from: RyanE on April 23, 2016, 06:24:14 PM
Here is the pdf version of the SMALL UNIT ACTIONS DURING THE GERMAN CAMPAIGN IN RUSSIA book...

http://www.history.army.mil/html/books/104/104-22-1/CMH_Pub_104-22-1.pdf

btw, I see a lot of myth and legend thrown around here. 

   There's some interesting deconstruction of some German myth-making in Glantz's six-book Stalingrad trilogy.  In volume 2 of book 3 (Endgame at Stalingrad), the editors
finally just let Glantz go and he spends a lot of time demonstrating how German accounts seriously misrepresented what happened.  He also tries to explain what went on
as each German account got assembled and how they scrambled most events and omitted any discussion of any real operational disasters (rather like the Russian Army-level accounts where commanders tended to gloss over areas where things didn't work out -- but the Russian accounts were command summaries, not final books).  As usual, Glantz ends up making his points by massive accumulation rather than by incisive writing -- but in this case it kind of works.

I struggle to read Glantz.

I have his 'Before Stalingrad' book, which does huge credit to his research both in terms of detail and breadth. His research is outstanding, and hard to fault (even down to small stuff like when Sgt Schulz of the 112th Regiment farted on the night of 12th August 1941  ;) :2funny: ). I'm joking on that last bit, but in all seriousness while I find his research great, I find his writing style so dry that he is difficult to enjoy reading. It's interesting that he managed not to bore you to death with 'Endgame at Stalingrad'. Do you recommend it?

Quote from: MengJiao on April 25, 2016, 10:15:02 AM
As usual, Glantz ends up making his points by massive accumulation rather than by incisive writing -- but in this case it kind of works.

Put another way -- Glantz employs Red Army tactics in writing about the Red Army...   ;)

I have read all of his books, but to me there is a problem.

He is a fanboy of the Soviets as bad as some authors are of the Germans.

Take one thing as an example. When writing about Kursk, he hammers home the point that the Soviets " made " the Germans turn to Prokhorovka.

The only thing is that their are numerous examples of Hoth saying long before the battle started that he was going there. These are not written accounts long after the battle.

Quote from: Boggit on April 25, 2016, 10:35:38 AM
I struggle to read Glantz.

I have his 'Before Stalingrad' book, which does huge credit to his research both in terms of detail and breadth. His research is outstanding, and hard to fault (even down to small stuff like when Sgt Schulz of the 112th Regiment farted on the night of 12th August 1941  ;) :2funny: ). I'm joking on that last bit, but in all seriousness while I find his research great, I find his writing style so dry that he is difficult to enjoy reading. It's interesting that he managed not to bore you to death with 'Endgame at Stalingrad'. Do you recommend it?

  I cannot recommend Glantz as an enjoyable read.  I could not really get what was happening in Endgame until I played some games on the topic while reading it.  Perhaps the very, very worst and most unforgivable thing about the Stalingrad "trilogy" is the maps.  There are a few that are readable but for most you need some other method to figure out what is what where and when.

Quote from: magnus on April 25, 2016, 11:31:46 AM
I have read all of his books, but to me there is a problem.

He is a fanboy of the Soviets as bad as some authors are of the Germans.

Take one thing as an example. When writing about Kursk, he hammers home the point that the Soviets " made " the Germans turn to Prokhorovka.

The only thing is that their are numerous examples of Hoth saying long before the battle started that he was going there. These are not written accounts long after the battle.

Yes, the Kursk book is perhaps the most irritating of all....but I blame the editors.  The fact is the Stalingrad trilogy does fashion a new picture of the whole event, and not by making any sense, but by pouring on the layers of his working through all his sources.  But you have to use some outside maps to get anywhere and watch what happens day-by-day.
I've only read about half of the trilogy (3 out of 5 of the narrative books).

It's a lot like reading books on the American Civil war. Certain authors have biases. Only way to really overcome that is to read books from different authors; both pro confederate and pro Union. Then draw your own conclusions

For grins, I just ran a scenario in CMAK.  24 M4s (75mm), vs. 3 Panther As.  On a flat field, 1500 meters by 1500 meters.  Result, M4s put down smoke on the Panthers, and charged.  Eventually, the Shermans got some side shots.  3 dead Panthers and 17 dead Shermans.  I'll do a video next time.

Quote from: ArizonaTank on April 25, 2016, 02:25:56 PM
For grins, I just ran a scenario in CMAK.  24 M4s (75mm), vs. 3 Panther As.  On a flat field, 1500 meters by 1500 meters.  Result, M4s put down smoke on the Panthers, and charged.  Eventually, the Shermans got some side shots.  3 dead Panthers and 17 dead Shermans.  I'll do a video next time.

Cannot wait to see this! Thanks AT  :D

Quote from: ArizonaTank on April 25, 2016, 02:25:56 PM
For grins, I just ran a scenario in CMAK.  24 M4s (75mm), vs. 3 Panther As.  On a flat field, 1500 meters by 1500 meters.  Result, M4s put down smoke on the Panthers, and charged.  Eventually, the Shermans got some side shots.  3 dead Panthers and 17 dead Shermans.  I'll do a video next time.

I'd pay the $200+ for all the CM2 titles to have the ability to do a ton of tank vs tank fights....if I could bring myself to learning how to play that beast of a game!  :uglystupid2:

That sounds about right.

I think several people worked it out as five Allied tanks to one German.

They were however on the defensive, and the attacker most always takes more casualties.

Way back when I set-up a fight in CM 1 with a bunch of Shermans--chosen by the game vs a couple of Jadgtigers. The Shermans did surprisingly well with the terribly slow rate of fire of the Jadgtigers and the speed of the Shermans, they were able to get close enough to kill both of the Jadgs with side shots. I was completely surprised. I hadn't thought about it until I started reading this thread. I wonder if the same would happen with CM 2 engine?

I like this guy's channel and illustrated lectures a lot; and this video seems relevant:

Quote from: sandman2575 on April 25, 2016, 10:58:06 AM

Quote from: MengJiao on April 25, 2016, 10:15:02 AM
As usual, Glantz ends up making his points by massive accumulation rather than by incisive writing -- but in this case it kind of works.

Put another way -- Glantz employs Red Army tactics in writing about the Red Army...   ;)

  So true.  Or rather Glantz writes about the Red Army the way the Red Army tended to attack:  "peculiar rippling" -- though not so much in the better-coordinated battles such as the endgame and Little Saturn in the Stalingradian period.  the Germans really never had the option of launching multiple drives on the same general axis since they didn't have hundreds of thousands of American Trucks to push everything forward all over the place; they could really only support one motorized group per axis.
  On the other hand, there are other really good writers who pursue the same expository strategy:  Andrew Gordon, for example, in his Jutland Book (the Rules of the Game), so I'm not really sure how to define Glantz's narrative problem except maybe that he doesn't (unlike Gordon) know what is really eating him.  I think good writers (with the exception of Martin Blumenson, who is simply a pure genius) work hard to show the reader what is driving them -- what are the small, personal quirks that blossomed into turbulent chunks of historical exposition?

Quote from: MengJiao on April 27, 2016, 10:53:37 AM

Quote from: sandman2575 on April 25, 2016, 10:58:06 AM

Quote from: MengJiao on April 25, 2016, 10:15:02 AM
As usual, Glantz ends up making his points by massive accumulation rather than by incisive writing -- but in this case it kind of works.

Put another way -- Glantz employs Red Army tactics in writing about the Red Army...   ;)

  So true.  Or rather Glantz writes about the Red Army the way the Red Army tended to attack:  "peculiar rippling" -- though not so much in the better-coordinated battles such as the endgame and Little Saturn in the Stalingradian period.  the Germans really never had the option of launching multiple drives on the same general axis since they didn't have hundreds of thousands of American Trucks to push everything forward all over the place; they could really only support one motorized group per axis.
  On the other hand, there are other really good writers who pursue the same expository strategy:  Andrew Gordon, for example, in his Jutland Book (the Rules of the Game), so I'm not really sure how to define Glantz's narrative problem except maybe that he doesn't (unlike Gordon) know what is really eating him.  I think good writers (with the exception of Martin Blumenson, who is simply a pure genius) work hard to show the reader what is driving them -- what are the small, personal quirks that blossomed into turbulent chunks of historical exposition?

"Peculiar rippling" comes from another pure genius writer -- Ziemke:

http://ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/USA-EF-Defeat/index.html

Ziemke, is an excellent author.

I just kindled that book, and his previous one on the war up to Stalingrad and Moscow. Obviously there's a significant overlap since he summarizes events of the early for for context in the second book.

Quote from: JasonPratt on April 27, 2016, 01:53:05 PM
I just kindled that book, and his previous one on the war up to Stalingrad and Moscow. Obviously there's a significant overlap since he summarizes events of the early for for context in the second book.

  Ziemke is kind of amazing.  For the most part he seems to have been working from German war diaries at various levels, but his expositions are
brilliant and often full of dark humor.  Humor doesn't seem to surface much in Glantz, though I've developed a kind of defensive comic reflex whenever
STAVKA tries to get somebody on the phone.  There's a kind of comic set-piece that Ziemke would have exploited when the regional STAVKA representative just flat out re-routes the 2nd Guards army without permission for a crucial 48 hours to stop Wintergewitter and he can't get STAVKA on the phone, but Glantz either understates the comedy or doesn't see it.  Plus in that case, Russian transport inefficiency actually paid off which makes it all doubly weird.

Quote from: MengJiao on April 27, 2016, 10:57:17 AM

Quote from: MengJiao on April 27, 2016, 10:53:37 AM

Quote from: sandman2575 on April 25, 2016, 10:58:06 AM

Quote from: MengJiao on April 25, 2016, 10:15:02 AM
As usual, Glantz ends up making his points by massive accumulation rather than by incisive writing -- but in this case it kind of works.

Put another way -- Glantz employs Red Army tactics in writing about the Red Army...   ;)

  So true.  Or rather Glantz writes about the Red Army the way the Red Army tended to attack:  "peculiar rippling" -- though not so much in the better-coordinated battles such as the endgame and Little Saturn in the Stalingradian period.  the Germans really never had the option of launching multiple drives on the same general axis since they didn't have hundreds of thousands of American Trucks to push everything forward all over the place; they could really only support one motorized group per axis.
  On the other hand, there are other really good writers who pursue the same expository strategy:  Andrew Gordon, for example, in his Jutland Book (the Rules of the Game), so I'm not really sure how to define Glantz's narrative problem except maybe that he doesn't (unlike Gordon) know what is really eating him.  I think good writers (with the exception of Martin Blumenson, who is simply a pure genius) work hard to show the reader what is driving them -- what are the small, personal quirks that blossomed into turbulent chunks of historical exposition?

"Peculiar rippling" comes from another pure genius writer -- Ziemke:

http://ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/USA-EF-Defeat/index.html

Here are some paragraphs from the US official history (the Lorraine Campaign volume, Arracourt section).  The Panthers got massacred by Shermans and M10s:

The superior mobility of the American tanks and self-propelled tank destroyers gave the defenders a decided advantage. When the Panthers turned away, after the abortive attack at Lezey, Captain Lamison took four tanks from C Company and raced the enemy some three thousand yards to a commanding ridge west of Bezange-la-Petite. Arriving on the position about three minutes before eight Panthers appeared, Lamison's tanks got set and knocked out four of the German tanks before they could return the fire; then they withdrew over the crest of the ridge, moved south a short distance, reappeared, and finished off the remaining Panthers. In the late morning the German attack turned west toward Réchicourt-la-Petite, attempting to drive around the town, first to the north, then to the south. Here again the American artillery, tanks, and tank destroyers inflicted severe losses on the enemy armor. A platoon of tank destroyers from the 704th netted eight Panthers and succeeded in driving the rest of an enemy tank company back in flight.

The company of medium tanks which had been sent to Lunéville returned in the afternoon and Colonel Clarke was ready to counterattack. A combined force from Companies A and B, 37th Tank Battalion, led by Maj. William L. Hunter, wheeled south through Réchicourt, caught the Germans in the flank, and knocked out nine Panthers with the loss of only three tanks. As the day ended, the 37th Tank Battalion turned its attention to mopping up the German infantry west of Moncourt, and finally, guided through the night by burning German tanks, assembled in the vicinity of Lezey.

The German armored attack appeared to have spent itself. General Patton, who had come to Arracourt from the Third Army headquarters at Etain, talked with General Wood and agreed that CCA should begin the push toward Sarreguemines the next morning, reinforced by CCR, which had arrived from Lunéville during the day. On the whole there appeared to be no reason for worrying further about a German threat in the Arracourt sector, since CCA reported that forty-three enemy tanks, mostly factory-new Panthers, had been destroyed, and that its own losses had been only six killed and thirteen wounded; three American tank destroyers and five M-4 tanks had been knocked out.

Quote from: MengJiao on April 28, 2016, 01:14:19 PM

Quote from: MengJiao on April 27, 2016, 10:57:17 AM

Quote from: MengJiao on April 27, 2016, 10:53:37 AM

Quote from: sandman2575 on April 25, 2016, 10:58:06 AM

Quote from: MengJiao on April 25, 2016, 10:15:02 AM
As usual, Glantz ends up making his points by massive accumulation rather than by incisive writing -- but in this case it kind of works.

Put another way -- Glantz employs Red Army tactics in writing about the Red Army...   ;)

  So true.  Or rather Glantz writes about the Red Army the way the Red Army tended to attack:  "peculiar rippling" -- though not so much in the better-coordinated battles such as the endgame and Little Saturn in the Stalingradian period.  the Germans really never had the option of launching multiple drives on the same general axis since they didn't have hundreds of thousands of American Trucks to push everything forward all over the place; they could really only support one motorized group per axis.
  On the other hand, there are other really good writers who pursue the same expository strategy:  Andrew Gordon, for example, in his Jutland Book (the Rules of the Game), so I'm not really sure how to define Glantz's narrative problem except maybe that he doesn't (unlike Gordon) know what is really eating him.  I think good writers (with the exception of Martin Blumenson, who is simply a pure genius) work hard to show the reader what is driving them -- what are the small, personal quirks that blossomed into turbulent chunks of historical exposition?

"Peculiar rippling" comes from another pure genius writer -- Ziemke:

http://ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/USA-EF-Defeat/index.html

Here are some paragraphs from the US official history (the Lorraine Campaign volume, Arracourt section).  The Panthers got massacred by Shermans and M10s:

The superior mobility of the American tanks and self-propelled tank destroyers gave the defenders a decided advantage. When the Panthers turned away, after the abortive attack at Lezey, Captain Lamison took four tanks from C Company and raced the enemy some three thousand yards to a commanding ridge west of Bezange-la-Petite. Arriving on the position about three minutes before eight Panthers appeared, Lamison's tanks got set and knocked out four of the German tanks before they could return the fire; then they withdrew over the crest of the ridge, moved south a short distance, reappeared, and finished off the remaining Panthers. In the late morning the German attack turned west toward Réchicourt-la-Petite, attempting to drive around the town, first to the north, then to the south. Here again the American artillery, tanks, and tank destroyers inflicted severe losses on the enemy armor. A platoon of tank destroyers from the 704th netted eight Panthers and succeeded in driving the rest of an enemy tank company back in flight.

The company of medium tanks which had been sent to Lunéville returned in the afternoon and Colonel Clarke was ready to counterattack. A combined force from Companies A and B, 37th Tank Battalion, led by Maj. William L. Hunter, wheeled south through Réchicourt, caught the Germans in the flank, and knocked out nine Panthers with the loss of only three tanks. As the day ended, the 37th Tank Battalion turned its attention to mopping up the German infantry west of Moncourt, and finally, guided through the night by burning German tanks, assembled in the vicinity of Lezey.

The German armored attack appeared to have spent itself. General Patton, who had come to Arracourt from the Third Army headquarters at Etain, talked with General Wood and agreed that CCA should begin the push toward Sarreguemines the next morning, reinforced by CCR, which had arrived from Lunéville during the day. On the whole there appeared to be no reason for worrying further about a German threat in the Arracourt sector, since CCA reported that forty-three enemy tanks, mostly factory-new Panthers, had been destroyed, and that its own losses had been only six killed and thirteen wounded; three American tank destroyers and five M-4 tanks had been knocked out.

  Overall armored loses in the 5th Panzer army offensive in Lorraine (where the US 4th armored division was the main US force engaged) seem to have run close to 10 to 1 in favor of the US tanks.  So at least in that case the 5 shermans to each Panther ratio doesn't seem to hold.

I didn't come up with the number. Some people with a lot more brains then I have did.

It does stand to reason, that the Germans in this campaign were far from the A team by that time.

So, the Allies probably lost ten or fifteen to one earlier in the war when they were untrained.

I am not trying to start an argument, but were these figures checked against reported German losses?

We were all brought up with the notion that at Prokhorovka the German losses were staggering.

The newest books on the battle show the losses from combat during Kursk were not that great and the SS divisions were pretty much back to their starting numbers at the end.

Of course this doesn't take into account how many crews were lost during the same period.

I'd rather have a wrecked tank and a saved veteran crew then the other way around.

I just finished watching the HC "greatest tank battles" shows.....DAMN! That was great fun!!  O0

It made my bike cardio @ the gym much more palatable!  :uglystupid2:

That isn't a bad series. They generalize some and gloss over details, but that's to be expected in a show geared to a more general audience. Makes a good "gateway drug" to other military history stuff, though!  O0

Quote from: magnus on April 28, 2016, 03:52:00 PM
We were all brought up with the notion that at Prokhorovka the German losses were staggering.

  When I was a boy, I was pretty bored with the whole Kursk thing.  In the world of tedious battles, it seemed to be the most tedious battle imaginable:
a massive German attack in which the Germans don't lose much but are utterly defeated and go on to one massive defeat after another (as always without actually losing very many tanks).  In the historiography of my youth, there was just no questioning the basic fact that the Germans won all the time and then lost the war.  Certainly a puzzle, especially for me since I had to play the allies in all games since the only way I could get people to play was to say "Yes, you can be the Germans."  And I was certainly capable of beating them even in games massively slanted to make them easy to play, so eventually, when books started to come out that suggested how the Germans had actually been beaten, I was touched: my childhood instincts had been right -- there were lots of ways to defeat armies that kept up their tank numbers and lost everything else.  After all, no one doubts that the Luftwaffe not only more or less vanished as a battlefield force, but that the Luftwaffe field Divisions were almost unbelievably bad.
Similarly it was a delight for me to find that the Germans had a growing fuel shortage, only 10% of the trucks they needed, and had sent their vital horses to winter outside of Stalingrad, thus immobilizing themselves there even had they wanted to leave.  I guess that turned out well for the horses, though.
And then Kursk -- pinnacle of boredom -- how to make it an interesting battle?  Well, you can imagine things from the point of view of the northern pincer -- (while yes the attack in the South went relatively okay and the SS didn't suffer much) -- utter disaster from day one -- blown to bits from all sides and then overrun whilst still trying to bring in more forces and sort of get going.  There's not even a pause up north (the SS got to take a break in position and get fixed up -- but things didn't go that way up north) -- the Russians go straight to a major offensive without a pause up north.
So, at Kursk, the undamaged SS is sort of an island of undamagedness in an army that is getting swept away in the middle of carrying out its carefully built up offensive.  I guess  there is a story there.  I was always bored with Kursk anyway.

I've always felt personally that the Germans biggest weakness going forward through the war was their decline in quality infantry. Without this solid foundation the panzers just drove around killing the enemy but could never hold territory they won. Especially so in Russia. Von Mellithin's book, "Panzer Battles" illustrates this very well. Just look at the crap units to defend Normandy-- only one veteran division out of what 12, in the 7th Army? Just my feelings.

Maybe the Germans themselves fell prey to a tank-cult mindset? Hadn't thought in that direction before, but it helps explain a number of things.

Quote from: Sir Slash on April 29, 2016, 10:23:35 AM
I've always felt personally that the Germans biggest weakness going forward through the war was their decline in quality infantry. Without this solid foundation the panzers just drove around killing the enemy but could never hold territory they won. Especially so in Russia. Von Mellithin's book, "Panzer Battles" illustrates this very well. Just look at the crap units to defend Normandy-- only one veteran division out of what 12, in the 7th Army? Just my feelings.

  As Adam Tooze argues in the Wages of Destruction, the German's biggest weakness was that their economy was falling apart before the war even started and everything they did after starting the war only accelerated a collapse that was already happening before the war.  Perhaps the weirdest thing is killing off (by starvation and so on) labor in the 1941-1943 period.  They had an economy that desperately need labor (at least partly because of an almost unbelievably inefficient agricultural sector), but they killed around 6 or 7 million potentially forced laborers (Russian prisoners, Jews etc.) at the exact wrong time.  From mid 1943 on, even the Germans woke up to the fact that killing people was remarkably inefficient in terms of labor extraction and Aschwitz (as much a giant factory as a death camp) replaced Treblinka (pure death camp) as the ideal concentration camp and they moved to incorporate or extract as much labor as they could consistant with killing off lots of people.  And of course there were all sorts of non-Germans in those German units in Normandy.  But if they had started with a sensible labor extraction program even as late as 1941, they would have been much better off.  Of course rationalizing their economy in about 1930 would have been better, but then you'd have had much less support for the Nazi party and probably no WWII at all, except maybe in Spain, China and Ethiopia. 

They actually did the same sort of thing in WWI.

They slaughtered most of their livestock in 1914 and early 1915 for food, without thinking of tomorrow.

We tend to think that the Germans in both wars were this gigantic war winning structure that had it's best interests in mind.

When actually in both wars it was very dysfunctional.

You guys are quite correct. What the Germans needed at Kusrk, and everywhere else, was veteran infantry and lots of it.

It didn't help that 30-40 divisions were sitting in Norway and other places.

Quote from: Sir Slash on April 29, 2016, 10:23:35 AM
I've always felt personally that the Germans biggest weakness going forward through the war was their decline in quality infantry. Without this solid foundation the panzers just drove around killing the enemy but could never hold territory they won. Especially so in Russia. Von Mellithin's book, "Panzer Battles" illustrates this very well. Just look at the crap units to defend Normandy-- only one veteran division out of what 12, in the 7th Army? Just my feelings.

I suspect that this is painting with too broad a brush, but I always had the sense that German tactical capabilities were quite strong while their strategic capabilities weren't.  Some of that was Hitler's meddling, some of that was just the nature of politics at that level, some of that was the difference between fighting the Americans/Brits in the West and the Russians in the East.

It's not a flawless book, but former SS Lt. Col Paul Karl Schmidt (aka Paul Carell) talks in his book, Invasion: They're Coming about how badly Rommel wanted veteran units close to the beaches, while the rest of the German High Command wanted the reserves massed further back.  Rommel had learned from North Africa just what it meant to fight in the face of Allied air superiority, and he knew that expecting reserves to cover hundreds of kilometers quickly was unrealistic.  The rest of the German High Command didn't agree with that assessment. 

And whatever air superiority the Germans faced in North Africa paled besides what they faced in France, 1944.

But I think that the bigger reason the Germans lost the war was that they were fighting the Americans, and the Americans had a secure base of operations from which to operate.  We've all seen the various stats about US wartime production, but every time I look at them again, I'm astonished all over.

Quote from: FarAway Sooner on April 29, 2016, 02:27:20 PM
But I think that the bigger reason the Germans lost the war was that they were fighting the Americans, and the Americans had a secure base of operations from which to operate.  We've all seen the various stats about US wartime production, but every time I look at them again, I'm astonished all over.

Well, they were fighting the Americans while at the same time taking on the British and the Russians. Only in the fever dreams of the most blindly fanatical Nazi was that a formula for success..   ;)

Along the lines of the above post, I think Germany's biggest "problem" was that it wasn't prepared for a long war. The economy wasn't shifted to a "wartime" economy until 1943. After that point, the Germans had more than enough production capabilities to produce what they needed, but factories were producing multiple variations of tanks of multiple chassis. Each one an upgrade. A long term plan would produce single types. Germany failed to design and produce trucks in quantity to supply and carry fuel. They failed to timely design new fighters and strike aircraft...determined that the war would end before the Me-109 and Stuka were obsolete. They failed to produce enough spare parts.

Basically, German failed to build up a proper logistics network. They believed that their tactics would force enemies to quickly capitulate. They were satisfied with the weapon systems they had in 1939 and saw no need to improve. By the time 1943 hit and obselecense became an issue, any new designs couldn't come out until 1945 or so. So in 1939, they had the best fighter (Me-109), the best attack craft (Stuka) a good rifle and tanks that- they wrongly believed- were superior to what anyone else had (Pz-38 and Pz-3). Great if the war lasts 2-3 years. So by 1944 they had a Stuka that was a slow target, the Me-109 a short ranged and under gunned antique, a bolt action rifle which lacked firepower and Tanks which were designed and fielded waaaay too quickly and were unreliable.

Germany planned for a short and violent war. They failed to consider that the war would last for years. I think their economy, on a war footing, Could produce adequate amounts of everything had it been ordered to do so. By 1943, outside of armor, their weapon systems were outdated, factories couldn't produce enough tanks because they were producing 5 variants of every chassis as well as overly complex tanks and they lacked logistics vehicles to properly supply those units even if they did have the equipment.

4 years into a war is simply too late to shift to a wartime economy and adopt a mindset that the war will last. It is too late to build supply trucks and fuel trucks. It is too late to increase refining capability and stockpile fuel.

Probably most importantly, the German concept of warfare was similar to US/UK doctrine now: orders tell unit commanders what is to be done and why. The "how" is left to the commander. A sergeant might make a decision that changes the attack of a whole battalion. That type of system is in opposition to, and much more complex than, a centralized Soviet model where little discretion is allowed to the junior office or NCO. The German system then, as now, required highly trained NCO's and junior officers who were capable of making these decisions. Replacing a body is easy but replacing the years worth of training that takes is not. They simply lost a lot of combat effectiveness even though the Army numbers remained the same. Russians and Americans could replace a 3 year veteran Sgt with a 6 month Sgt and the squad doesn't miss a beat. They simply do what the Platoon commander orders.

Quote from: magnus on April 29, 2016, 11:36:19 AM
They actually did the same sort of thing in WWI.

They slaughtered most of their livestock in 1914 and early 1915 for food, without thinking of tomorrow.

We tend to think that the Germans in both wars were this gigantic war winning structure that had it's best interests in mind.

When actually in both wars it was very dysfunctional.

They invaded Poland, then Russia, with major deficiencies in such things as spare parts, ammunition and fuel (not to mention winter clothing in the latter case) and in 1943 more women were employed as hairdressers, so it is told, than as war workers. I couldn't agree with you more.

Quote from: mikeck on April 29, 2016, 03:20:34 PM
Along the lines of the above post, I think Germany's biggest "problem" was that it wasn't prepared for a long war.

Perhaps as telling as the examples you cite is the fact they apparently avoided use of the very term Krieg for as long as they could. They were in a state of "national emergency" until Goebbels had to give in and appeal for Total War.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sportpalast_speech

Quote from: Michael Dorosh on April 29, 2016, 03:28:03 PM

Quote from: magnus on April 29, 2016, 11:36:19 AM
They actually did the same sort of thing in WWI.

They slaughtered most of their livestock in 1914 and early 1915 for food, without thinking of tomorrow.

We tend to think that the Germans in both wars were this gigantic war winning structure that had it's best interests in mind.

When actually in both wars it was very dysfunctional.

They invaded Poland, then Russia, with major deficiencies in such things as spare parts, ammunition and fuel (not to mention winter clothing in the latter case)

Absolutely right. These deficiencies weren't problems in short conflicts. Don't need spare parts if you don't need to replace tanks!

I've always found the Wikipedia entry for the Luftwaffe to be interesting and especially the section on what went wrong: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luftwaffe#Omissions_and_failures (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luftwaffe#Omissions_and_failures)

Quote from: mikeck on April 29, 2016, 03:20:34 PM
Along the lines of the above post, I think Germany's biggest "problem" was that it wasn't prepared for a long war. The economy wasn't shifted to a "wartime" economy until 1943.

  After Tooze's the Wages of Destruction (2006), it seems the Germans shifted to a wartime economy far too early and with a base that could not even sustain a non-war economy.
If they had built up rationally as late as 1936 or 7 they would have been better off.  Going to full war footing early gave them a brief early advantage that was fading fast even by 1941.
Germany wasn't prepared for any kind of war at all, long or short.  Once Britain didn't give up in 1940, Germany was doomed.

Just found this in my Amazon recommendations : SS Panzer: Sherman Killers (Eyewitness Tank Combat)

http://www.amazon.com/SS-Panzer-Sherman-Killers-Eyewitness-ebook/dp/B00T7R0XIG?ie=UTF8&redirect=true&ref_=pe_820440_191835090_em_1p_3_ti

Might get it for only $ 3.