Apparently the Sherman tank was a good tank

[keynes2.0]

Greetings.

As one of the more enthusiastic discussions on the web precipitated by my talk, I thought I'd register and drop in.

As long as we've got you here....

Who would win in a race between superman and the flash?

Seriously though that is a very interesting story you posted there.

 

[redflag]

Greetings.

As one of the more enthusiastic discussions on the web precipitated by my talk, I thought I'd register and drop in.

If you do have issue, such as the question of doctrine, I'll be happy to engage you.

Thank you for your contribution to World of Tanks. Before this game I never really understood how terrain affects tank battles (I realize this is a game). That being said did the Americans make an effort to have gun depression on their tanks and the Soviets did not or is this an artifact of WOT? I am assuming that the Soviets realized how gun depression allows tanks to take advantage of terrain (hull down etc).

The other question I have is why did the Germans not slope the armor of the Tiger tank?

 

[Secret Master]

Good question. The majority of German tanks in general were deployed against the Soviet, but the Tiger started to appear in 1943, when the West was beginning to engage the Wehrmacht on a somewhat large scale. This website gives a quick history for each Tiger battalion (the Tigers were conveniently regrouped in specific units). I'm too lazy to track every number, but for what it's worth, I count 7 battalions that went to the Western Front, 8 that went to the Eastern Front, and 5 that went to both. That seems surprisingly even.

Good to know. I guess I had this image of 75% of Tigers facing the Soviets, but the battalion figures don't bear that out.

I have no idea why people are so crazy about tanks vs. tank engagements. Last time I checked, war was waged between many kinds of weapons and all of them had different tasks. The job of killing tanks was not primary duty of tank. There are many other means of stopping them.

More specifically, different tanks had different missions. And even in HOI3, the vast majority of battles in the game did not include tank on tank fighting.

But...

Tank on tank battles were often decisive in HOI3, if only because no one can really afford to see multiple armor divisions retreating or taking heavy losses. Even the USA, who can replace losses easily, still needs to win battles to maintain a foothold in Europe.

During the actual war, major campaigns and tank on tank battles ended up being decisive, if only because both sides wanted to put their armor at the schwerepunkt. So the tanks end up appearing in major battles, because otherwise they weren't being used properly in strategic terms. If the tanks weren't at a major battle, then they were a huge waste of supply and fuel.

Still, an argument an be made that having lots of armor in general to put into lots of battles (not just a few key battles) is a virtue in and of itself. Even if you think the Sherman was a piece of crap that could be destroyed by poking it with a sharp stick (I'm not saying it is, I'm just indicating that someone could think it was), having twice as many Shermans as the OPFOR has tanks means that you can do more than overwhelm the enemy tanks. You can also apply armored thrusts to softer formations while still tying down the enemy's armor in tank battles, regardless of whether you win or lose them.

As always the answer is StugIII. Fantastic vehicle. Only thing that tops the M4 and T-34.

Everyone loves the StuG.

 

[The_Chieftain]

It's a matter of size, more than anything else. If you want gun depression, you need to have a higher roof. I go over it a bit here.http://forum.worldoftanks.com/index.php?/topic/283233-detail-page-depression-angle/

As to Tiger's sloping, I'll let Hilary Doyle answer that one. Go to about 09:55 in this video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?=aq5wWYBvsD0

 

[Zinegata]

Good to know. I guess I had this image of 75% of Tigers facing the Soviets, but the battalion figures don't bear that out.

No, the battalion figures are misleading. This is because multiple Tiger battalions had already been deployed in a big way in the Eastern Front starting February 1943 - in time for Third Kharkov - whereas in the West there was generally only one Tiger battalion facing the Western Allies.

In 1944 the situation was still pretty uneven - with only three actual Tiger battalions participating in Normandy, only one of which ever got near to full strength, and all were essentially destroyed requiring the raising of new Tiger battalions which were then subsequently obliterated in the Bulge and battles in Southern France/Germany.

In short, while the individual battalion figures may seem even, the Russian front got many more Tigers because they were deployed there in significant numbers since 1943, and kept getting replacements for lost/damaged Tigers. The West for the most part faced only 1 working Tiger battalion at any given time, rising to two to three working Tiger battalions during the Bulge counter-offensive, and were thus never that big of a threat.

The apogee of the Tiger I was in fact 1943 in the Eastern Front, primarily because the Tigers were still facing mainly T-70 light tanks and not even the T-34. By 1944, with the T-34 becoming much more common, the Tiger I was in fact already deemed obsolete by the Wermacht itself.

 

[mvm900]

How did I know this thread was going to go way into left field the moment I saw it?

 

[Opanashc]

How did I know this thread was going to go way into left field the moment I saw it?

Because almost all of them do?

 

[Zinegata]

Except that didn't happen.

http://www.battleofnormandytours.com/villers-bocage.html

Except that's your typical tourist-grade outdated account. Wolfgang Schneider got the actual pictures of the aftermath of the battle and it was clear Wittman only destroyed 7 medium tanks at most. The full account of what really happened can be found in Schneider's Tigers in Normandy, and Schneider - who was an actual Bundeswehr tanker rather than a mere tourist guide trying to sell tours - is quite critical of Wittman as he essentially launched a spoiling attack with insufficient force in a reckless and irresponsible manner.

By the way, the bit where Wittman dies in the end? What happened there was Wittman blundered his platoon into a British ambush, leading to the destruction of his entire platoon without any losses inflicted on the British. If you keep rolling the dice like a reckless maniac, the dice bite back eventually.

 

[Comrade Chaos]

Sometimes the best tank is the one that actually shows up.

 

[nimrod123]

It's a matter of size, more than anything else. If you want gun depression, you need to have a higher roof. I go over it a bit here.http://forum.worldoftanks.com/index.php?/topic/283233-detail-page-depression-angle/

As to Tiger's sloping, I'll let Hilary Doyle answer that one. Go to about 09:55 in this video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?=aq5wWYBvsD0

its stuff like this, and all your chieftain's hatch work that makes me stay away from these sorts of discussions any more. thats not to say i disagree with your work, its just that your work has lead to me face-desking at some of the stuff i read on the net now.

Also as a aside, i no longer play WOT, but i still read your posts and stuff...

 

[Darkrenown]

Greetings.

As one of the more enthusiastic discussions on the web precipitated by my talk, I thought I'd register and drop in.

Hey Chieftain, nice of you to visit Your tiger armour video just takes me to the main youtube page though.

 

[Beagá]

Nice to see different people posting, specially when they make some people bite their tongues...

Tunnel vision is never good, so before taking the word of an author as word of God (and Zaloga eas elevated to that status here), think a bit more.

Chieftain do you think a heavier 45ton would be more useful for US?

 

[The_Chieftain]

Hey Chieftain, nice of you to visit Your tiger armour video just takes me to the main youtube page though.

Odd. Copy/paste the URL, it works. I try again, though https://www.youtube.com/watch?=aq5wWYBvsD0

Beaga, difficult to say. The US certainly thought it was worth looking into the idea, see the T28 and T29 series.

 

[tommylotto]

Hey Chieftain, nice of you to visit Your tiger armour video just takes me to the main youtube page though.

I think he was referring to -- Operation Think Tank 2012 Part 9, interesting stuff.

 

[Beagá]

Odd. Copy/paste the URL, it works. I try again, though https://www.youtube.com/watch?=aq5wWYBvsD0

Beaga, difficult to say. The US certainly thought it was worth looking into the idea, see the T28 and T29 series.

I ask because unlike WoT in HOI the point is exactly making ahistorical choices, else there would't be a point of putting a research system - you would gain new stuff by event, and that's it.

so it's interesting to consider the ahistorical choices and if they would be better... or worse

 

[redflag]

It's a matter of size, more than anything else. If you want gun depression, you need to have a higher roof. I go over it a bit here.http://forum.worldoftanks.com/index.php?/topic/283233-detail-page-depression-angle/

As to Tiger's sloping, I'll let Hilary Doyle answer that one. Go to about 09:55 in this video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?=aq5wWYBvsD0

I think you meant this link for the Tiger tank in regards to sloping

Thank you. I figured the Germans were not stupid and I knew they were arrogant. Having a scientist calculate that the German armor is good enough so we don't need sloped armor makes perfect sense.

 

[Chepicoro]

You do realize how insane those numbers are right? 96k complete write offs for the Red Army would mean that it had only a few thousand tanks left since that's higher than the combined number of T-34s and T-26s produced before and during the war. The problem, as Keynes 2.0 has repeatedly been trying to say, is that all nations counted losses differently and thus ended up with different numbers. The Red Army, for example, had a practice in which every tank that was sent back to repair stations behind the front was counted as a loss, in order to get a replacement tank ASAP as opposed to waiting for "their" tank to come back. This , along with how German kill counts are basically just German soldiers making numbers up and claiming them to be real, meant that earlier research made it seem as if the USSR lost pretty much every tank it ever sent into the field. This is of course resolutely disproved by the actual number of tanks the Red Army had operational by the end of the war, which numbered well into the tens of thousands.

Krivosheev counted 96.5k soviet AFV irrecoverable losses by all causes, accidents, combat, scrapped , it is almost the only source for soviet losses during the war but coincide with historians like Zaloga or Zetterling,

Irrecoverable is a very clear word includes tank destroyers and lend and lease tanks, by the end of the war the USSR had more AFVs than in 1939.

 

[D Inqu]

Krivosheev counted 96.5k soviet AFV irrecoverable losses by all causes, accidents, combat, scrapped , it is almos the only source for soviet losses during the war but coincide with historians like Zaloga or Zetterling,

Irrecoverable is a very clear word includes tank destroyers and lend and lease tanks, by the end of the war the USSR had more AFVs than in 1939.

Krivosheev also says that "production" also includes capital (factory) repairs and rebuilt tanks. Thus the 96.5k losses isn't quite the number it appears, as it includes the tanks being sent for factory repairs.

 

[Chepicoro]

Here you go. Not sure on the accuracy of the documentary but the crew certainly have interesting and I think valuable information.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Goodwood

Found another with crew experiences. Not paying much attention to what else but first hand accounts and what not are valuable information to me.

Of course you are wrong, allied tankers are an unreliable source, the were probably infiltrated by hydra to spread nazi propaganda, and the absolute truth must be in the hand of people with evident and strong bias... ironic mode.

See more propaganda...

United States vs. German Equipment: As Prepared for the Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Force

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1468068156?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s00

https://books.google.ca/books?id=Cb...ce=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

Here a free preview, anyway the complete version has the opinion of 165 american soldiers, from tank crews to colonels and a general.

Chieftain, one important question, you have any base to support your claim about the falsehood of the nickname Ronson? and I mean something more than a suspicious about a massive case of implanted memories.

 

[Chepicoro]

Krivosheev also says that "production" also includes capital (factory) repairs and rebuilt tanks. Thus the 96.5k losses isn't quite the number it appears, as it includes the tanks being sent for factory repairs.

If you are right, then the soviets inflated artificially the production numbers.