German tanks vs Allied tanks

[JasonPratt]

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

[MengJiao]

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?

[MengJiao]

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

[magnus]

Ziemke, is an excellent author.

[JasonPratt]

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.

[MengJiao]

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.

[MengJiao]

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.

[MengJiao]

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.

[magnus]

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.

[acctingman]

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! 

[panzerde]

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

[MengJiao]

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.

[Sir Slash]

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.

[JasonPratt]

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.

[MengJiao]

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.