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Post by fred on Mar 23, 2012 9:56:44 GMT -6
I don't believe, contrary to conventional wisdom, that the Panther (Mark V) or both of the Tigers were as good as they were thought to be. As DC points out they had significant technical and production problems. I do not agree here... at least not with the Mark V. Once the production problems were solved, it had everything you could ask for in a tank of that era: armament, protection, speed. More of them and better done. As for a Pershing opening up a King Tiger... well, it was either a rear shot or a lucky shot. I doubt seriously in a one-on-one punching contest a Pershing would have stood much of a chance, even up-gunned. You are absolutely correct, however, regarding production. I read somewhere that it took us only 30 minutes to fully assemble a working Sherman tank. Enough bees can kill the biggest cat. Best wishes, Fred.
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Post by fred on Mar 23, 2012 10:00:46 GMT -6
... a German officer once said ‘’a Tiger could defeat five of your Shermans, but you always had six’’. Point, counter-point... beautiful!Tigers were, certain underpowered, but not the later Panthers. Don't make the mistake of rating the Panther based on 1943 outcomes. It was the mid-1944 and later versions that were so strikingly good. Best wishes, Fred.
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Post by Yan Taylor on Mar 23, 2012 10:11:55 GMT -6
I thought the Duster may have served in Korea Chuck thanks for verifying it.
The Germans started making the Stug because you could make three Stug’s to every two Tanks, I am not sure if the Stug knocked out more T-34s then any other German AFV, the Elefant (that’s how it’s spelt in my reference book) or Ferdinand was a total waste of metal, the Germans realised this and only made 80, after Kursk they were withdrawn and sent to Italy, probably as mobile pill boxes.
Ian.
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Post by fred on Mar 23, 2012 10:16:49 GMT -6
One of the things that I always faulted the German on was not realizing that the main battle tank was a war winner, both an offensive and defensive weapon. They spent all to much effort on ancillary vehicles like the Stug, the Elephant, and others as anti-armor and assult guns when everything they had from the Mark IV forward could have done the job as well or better. Queenie, I believe you are absolutely correct here. The problem, however, was cost and production capabilities-- despite their efficiencies. Some of the stuff they ran out was a joke, but I always found a smart, efficient use for the STUG, not in today's armies, but there always seemed to be a solid tactical use-- in defense-- for a tank destroyer. Mounting an 88 made sense to me, but any tries they put together always seemed to be half-brained. Remember, as well, their original plans called for some 60 or so armored divisions, but they never approached that level. On paper they may have gotten in the 50s-range, but many of those never had tanks, some were replacement divisions, etc. The real power of the German panzer corps came at the outset of the Russian Campaign and into 1943, but it was more their tactical and strategic use than anything else. By 1941, they had already cut back-- by half or more-- the number of tanks in a division, just so they could field more divisions. Sort of like us going from the ponderous battle group to the more wieldy battalion concept. The North African and Russian campaigns are the ones that fascinate me so much. Hell, I can even give you the order-of-battle with every division commander's name for every major fight in both arenas. Fascinating history! Best wishes, Fred.
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Post by Yan Taylor on Mar 23, 2012 10:19:02 GMT -6
You are right Fred, once the Germans sorted out the Panthers teething problems (it was prone to catch fire, most of the Panther losses at Kursk were due to breakdowns and fires) it was a potent medium Tank, the Germans produced 7.419 of them, not as fast as the Sherman or T-34 but still a deadly opponent.
The Jagdpanther was another variant of the Panther mounting the 88mm Pak 43/3 Gun, much more lethal then the Stug III and IV, again though only 392 made.
The German type 44 Panzer Division had a Panzer Regiment containing two Battalions, one Panther (76 to 94 tanks) and one Pz Mk IV (also 76 to 94 tanks).
Ian.
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Post by quincannon on Mar 23, 2012 10:40:20 GMT -6
Fred: The M26 with a 90mm high velocity gun in this film sequence hit the King Tiger in the right front quarter at the turret ring. The turret came off that thing like it was launched.
I am not disputing that the Panther was good, very good as the problems were ironed out. What I am saying is that had we had a tank that was even close, the reputation of the Panther would not have been as great. No maybe that is not a correct way of saying it. Perhaps it would have not been as feared.
The Germans with their Panzer Divisions did exactly what we did as far as organization. The early divisions 1 to 6 were very tank heavy. 7 to 10 were created out of the "light" divisions and were less so. Experience against first Poland, and later against France and the Low Countries showed them that there were too many tanks per division and not enough in the maneuver supporting arms. They set about correcting this in late 40. The 5th Light (later 21st Panzer) was a thrown together task force of left over units, and the 15th Panzer was the leftovers from the reorganization of the 3rd Panzer. Somewhere around here I have the complete breakdown as to how these higher numbered Panzer Divisions were formed.
We did the same thing though. Our first efforts at armored divisions were very tank heavy. The 2nd and 3rd remained so throughout the war. All of the others were reorganized into the "light" tables configuration of three tank and three armored infantry battalions, the 1st AD in Italy being the last in mid 1944. Our light table divisions mostly resembled those of Panzer Armee Afrika.
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Post by fred on Mar 23, 2012 10:52:00 GMT -6
The M26 with a 90mm high velocity gun in this film sequence hit the King Tiger in the right front quarter at the turret ring. Three keys here: 90mm; high velocity; turret ring... bingo!No argument from me. You are probably correct... but we did not. This is my point, as well. Too many tanks serve no purpose; fast, hard-hitting, maneuverable is way more preferable to too heavy and ponderous, even in numbers. That is why I see no real purpose in the Germans having developed the Mark VIs or some of these other hermaphrodites. Perfect the V; increase its production... and that's about all they would need. Hell, how many Kings got bogged down in the mud of the Bulge? If the mud wasn't already palpable, the heavy weight of the VIs produced it. Best wishes, Fred.
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Post by Dark Cloud on Mar 23, 2012 11:31:21 GMT -6
The secret weapon of the war was Hitler......for the Allies. He screwed up so MANY good thoughts (if you were German) because he didn't understand much after 1918, and in fact tried to relive it only somehow winning this time. Years developing a jet bomber which could have gone into getting a jet fighter by 43. The tanks he apparently viewed as battleships and simply concluded the bigger gun always won, which wasn't true in ships either. This atop fighting to the last and inability to admit error and save to fight again. Idiot, no other word.
Germans outfought everyone, 2 to 1 casualty infliction in their favor over the war against the Western powers, retreat or advance. Worse for the Soviets, who made men charge at gunpoint from behind as well as the Germans. Scary good in some ways, and you understand why our guys fixated on them after and during. Well educated, well trained, well spoken, adaptive, and good, good weapons for the most part. The 88 and their submachine guns, tanks, planes and ships early on but not later.
The helmet speaks for itself, since only after time has passed did we dare adapt it. If one of their good generals had been Commander in Chief it may have been a much different world today. But their good Generals were not Nazis, by and large, so who knows?
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Post by fred on Mar 23, 2012 12:52:23 GMT -6
DC,
I agree with very much of what you say here, though without Hitler I tend to doubt there would have been any war... of course one never knows with the likes of Stalin sitting there.
I think I have mentioned this in the past, but I read someplace that we were never able to defeat a German command in any battle where we did not have air superiority. Also, German troops thought very poorly of our infantry, though I tend to think that was overstated, especially when we see how our boys performed in the Bulge. Still in all, that may be chalked up to guts-- which we never seem to run short of-- rather than ability.
We did adopt a tremendous amount from them after the war, especially in the development of our staff organizations. Our training, as well, was improved by studying the Germans, especially with NCOs. Many people think they were this rigid bunch of martinets, but that is so far from the truth as to be laughable. The German soldier, all the way down to the private-level, was thought to think for himself and move up the ladder of command were he needed. Initiative was highly stressed.
The late Russell Weigley, a professor at Temple University in Philadelphia, wrote a magnificent book called Eisenhower's Lieutenants. (DC, I look at this book very much the same way you view Fussell's.) Here are some of Weigley's comments:
The “German army in 1944 still could claim to be qualitatively the best army in the world. It had held the title in unbroken continuity since 1870. Its quality lay in firepower enhanced by superior professional skill among the officers and superior combat savvy and unexcelled courage among the ranks.... With unvarying consistency it [the German army] had achieved proportionately greater results than any other army for the numbers of men and divisions it employed...." [28]
In World War I, “nearly the whole world had to join in arms against it to bring down this army.” [28]
“In 1944, the German army once again was fending off the blows of nearly all the world. If by the spring of 1944 the tides of war on the Eastern Front seemed to have turned irrevocably against the Germans, nevertheless the Soviets required favorable odds ranging from five to one to fifteen to one to defeat them. In North Africa, the British had never matched the combat effectiveness of the Germans division for division—to say nothing of infantry–tank coordination. The eventual British success from El Alamein to Tunis was founded upon odds of two to one in men and higher in tanks against the Panzerarmee Afrika and its various coadjutors. In North Africa and Italy, the American army also was consistently unable to match the military skill of the Germans division for division.” [28 – 29]
An interesting point he makes here: the Germans felt the majority of American infantry units lacked aggressiveness and were overly bound to their artillery. They were inclined to substitute saturation fire from the guns for maneuver and assault.
He also claimed the German army’s better formations in WWII had no superiors in the world in two military skills, particularly: • Exploiting the offensive breakthrough. • Holding ground tenaciously on the defensive.
He goes on, “So high were the professional attainments of the German army that a handful of German officers sufficed to accomplish apparent miracles of training and leadership. The officer corps comprised only 2.86 percent of the German army’s total strength at the beginning of the Second World War and declined in relative strength as the war went on. In contrast, officers represented seven percent of the overall strength of the American army (and were to grow to fifteen percent of the army during the Vietnam War).” [29]
“… n the German army the company developed a sufficient sense of comradeship and solidarity to constitute a primary group, whereas in the American army the usual primary group was the squad, or at the largest, the platoon. It is not the dedication to a cause but such unit consciousness and solidarity that makes an army an effective fighting force.” [29] I doubt we have achieved this even today; in my years-- 1962 to 1972-- it would have been the platoon, not the squad though I would love to say I achieved something like that in Vietnam. Others, however, would have to speak for me.
Best wishes, Fred.
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Post by quincannon on Mar 23, 2012 13:29:55 GMT -6
Fred: I too think Eisenhowers Lieutenants is a supurb must have book.
To your larger point our 1st, and 3rd Infantry Divisions were as good as anything the Germans had. Our 2nd, 9th and 30th Infantry Divisions, and the 4th Armored were also generally on par with them. The rest were also rans. I give a lot of credit to the Germans and think the basis of their strength were in the methods used in raising, manning, and re-building their divisions based upon home areas. Our divisions were more like never ending casualty machines based upon false efficiency and not effective team building. I did not include the 82nd and 101st in my listing for they were exceptions to the norm.
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Post by Dark Cloud on Mar 23, 2012 14:40:09 GMT -6
The US and British soldier had life options not really open to the Germans or other Europeans that surpassed interest in the uniform over here. We were drafted, and the Germans had been prepped since high school level for mandatory service plus the idea of vengeance for Versailles. The military in Europe was held in higher regard than in the US, and in fact much of US immigration in the 19th century was composed of those devoted to getting the hell away from impressment and draft and worship of the military in German states, France, England, Italy, everywhere.
A drafted army that calls in lots of air strikes and artillery support at the drop of a hat to save lives strikes me as smart and the way to go rather than Glory. Get it won and over. Germans in Europe were fighting defensively and protecting their homes and that added into it. No way a solider from Tape Worm Utah was going to fight as hard as a guy from Weisbaden which was a hundred miles away. The Germans were impressive, but the Americans - who started with cap guns and crappy near everything - put together the biggest and best Navy and Air Force and good ground troopers in about an hour and a half and shipped them over the planet in another hour and kept them all supplied and supported for three years as well as supplying all our Allies with everything. We may sigh over their intense military heritage and presentation, but the Germans and Japanese never quite got our industrial capacity ability until way too late.
We alone had 10k planes over Normandy on June 6, 1944. Plus the rest of Europe, CBI, and the Pacific, plus we built more aircraft carriers alone than the rest of the planet produced in capital ships in aggregate. When that settled into the brain pan of Speer and Tojo (and Stalin), that had to stutter their thoughts.
That we had bad units - we did - was irrelevant. What I've read is that at the Bulge, the Germans waited for bad weather so there was no air cover, selected known bad units to attack, and it went exactly as predicted and might have actually worked if the weather stayed bad. Of course, it didn't. THAT was Hitler's plan and it was stupid.
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Post by fred on Mar 23, 2012 15:22:35 GMT -6
A drafted army that calls in lots of air strikes and artillery support at the drop of a hat to save lives strikes me as smart and the way to go... Been there... and I agree wholeheartedly. My only disagreement with your post is the spelling of Wiesbaden. Best wishes, Fred.
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Post by benteen on Mar 23, 2012 17:31:16 GMT -6
I watched another History channel show(Always gets me in trouble) about Hitlers personal physician, Dr Theo Morrel. Apparently Hitler suffered from intense gastric problems and was a physical wreck. This Dr would inject him with all sorts of feel good concoctions. I didn't jot them down but I did a quick search, and found that some of these drugs were amphetamines, Cocaine, Strychnine, antropine and others. That Hitler was evil is a given, but the man may very well had been a stark raving lunatic from all the effects of these drugs
Be Well Dan
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Post by wild on Mar 23, 2012 17:43:19 GMT -6
I;m not well up on the Korean war but what little I'v read and recall is that the US sent garrison troops from Japan to Korea and the Koreans went through them like sh1t through a goose. You really have to send in the professionals. Shudda learned from the French blunder of defence only policy In the Falklands the Brits did not field a single line unit-the Paras,Marines,Guards,Gurkhas,SAS.Top professional cutting edge career soldiers.No citizen soldiers,no territorials. You just have to keep a portion of your military on a war footing. Even ourselves with our neutrality policy are part of the Nordic battle group.
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Post by quincannon on Mar 23, 2012 18:04:48 GMT -6
Richard I suggest you ask the 5th Marines, 1st Marine Expeditionary Brigade if anyone went through them like crap through a goose while on the Pusan Perimerter. You might be very surprised at the answer.
In the main though you are correct. None of these units sent to Korea were anywhere near full strength. Of the twelve regiments in Japan only one, the Black 24th Infantry had three battalions. The rest only two. The average battalion fielded four to five hundred soldiers vice the authorized 900 plus. The Japan divisions were the lowest in logistical priority. The divisions and regiments were largely retirement homes and hail and fairwell tours for the good old boys., and that stumblebum was the theater commander. Melborne Chandler, commander of H/7th Cavalry relates that after he detailed all of his guard duty, and MacArthur's personal flower stewing in his highness' path details he would have himself, his first sergeant, and guidon bearer present for training. What training that did go on was very limited because of the availability of training areas on the home islands. It was a readiness screw up waiting to happen. So it was circumstance and I would venture to say if you deployed the Coldstream Guards and the 2eme Regiment Etranger de Parachutistes to Korea coming from that very same set of conditions in Japan they would step all over their D**Ks
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