In thoughts/on paper it is often that simple. But in reality likely not.
Who says the Allies can't make monster tanks
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Again, reality doesn`t work like that, or we wouldn`t have tanks in the first place, the biggest armored vehicles would be half-trucks with guns installed (which did exist but were in no way major thing).
It is not always about the numbers and cost of your forces, but about how expensive is it to counter your new, big tanks.
The "grand total" of 1600-something of German heavy tanks forces Allies and Soviets into developing, distributing and maintaining a vastly out sized array of counter-measures starting with much heavier than otherwise necessary AT guns, thousands of tank destroyers, and (otherwise) rather needlessly up gunning their main tanks.
German tanks, on average didn`t score that well against allied tanks. The reason why both Soviet and Allied casualties are higher, is that they had more tanks, fighting German infantry. In fact, German tanks were not even main killers of Soviet tanks.
And Americans actually killed more German tanks for each of their in tank to tank combat, due to, (average) German tank inferiority, and poor training of the crews. Requiring doubling the tank numbers would drop quality of crews even further.
Allies on the other hand, would be fine ignoring rather heavy and unwieldy 75mm AT guns altogather, just keeping producing their light 45 and 57mm cannons, allied tanks would be at huge advantage due to allied much larger supply of tungsten to make AP shells, and a more of lighter TDs instead of the likes of M36 and SU-100.
Also Germans were already very low on Tungsten for ammunition and alloying elements for steel, so more smaller tanks would be very problematic for them to adequately manufacture and supply. Tigers, Panthers, King-Tigers and JagdPanthers could take on allied tanks despite inferior armor steel quality and without Tungsten armor piercing munition, unlike Stugs and Pz4s so going for more Stugs and Pz4s could very seriously backfire in many ways and Germans would`ve lost even harder.
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Well there were a number of things that made "Heavy Tanks", i.e. very heavily armored and gunned vehicles at the expense of mobility, a relic of WW2 era and that has to do with improvements in Ammunition for existing guns and better flexibility with the latest "Gen 1" 'MBT' generation that had very good armor, speed, and gun combination since the end of the war until today. There was a last hurrah for Heavy Tanks with the M103, Conqueror, and IS-3 to 10s after the war but they were never made in the large quantities compared to the latest Main Battle Tanks exemplified in the Centurion, T-54, and Patton series of Tanks as the definitive production types. Most armies at the time didn't really need Heavy Tanks anymore that were more or less there "just in case" the other side had legions of these available which neither Bluefor or Redfor had in any quantity. The final stroke, at least where the USSR is concerned, came with the successful advent of missile guided munitions in the '60s, where Krushchev cancelled further IS tank development in favor of missile tanks that were a failure. The west never really budgeted for further heavy tank development instead working on improvements to successive "Blocks" of tanks. This was apt as the '70s showed the matured development of these missile arms with the the Malyutka (Sagger), TOW, and Dragon which demonstrated the need on making the existing tanks more resistant to both tank gun and missiles with laminated armor, ERA, etc.
To add, it also helps that in most cases from '43 onwards the Wehrmacht never owned the field of battle after each allied push and thrust and had to write off a larger percentage of equipment that could not be salvaged in time. This means in terms of tank recovery, most Allied armies can recover their knocked out tanks, repair, and send them back into battle which limits the actual losses significantly in comparison to complete write offs (tank destroyed beyond repair). This was true in the case of the victorious Wehrmacht earlier in the war where they had owned the battlefield and were able to recover most of their knocked out tanks and put huge equipment tolls of armor and material on each army on both Western and Eastern Fronts right up to the winter of '42. Since, around '42 with the successful Soviet offensive around Stalingrad, there is an increasing rate of losses in equipment for the Wehrmacht where Corps and Army sized levels stocks are removed from the Order of Battle with close to 80% loss rate for those units that made it back to the lines and not get encircled. This puts a huge industrial strain to make up that shortfall. Regardless of how many tanks you knock out, if you do not own the field at the end of the battle then the opponent can recover or salvage and continue to fight much better than a steady retreat.
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The Panther's reliability issues were in fact never resolved, while the Tiger achieved reliability only because its support tail was an astounding 130 trucks, a dozen specialist repair vehicles, and three gantry cranes for a battalion of 45 Tiger tanks.
In contrast, a Sherman battalion of 60 tanks had a mere 30 odd trucks needed to keep it in the field.
The kill ratios moreover actually disfavored the Panther when you get past plagiarist accounts from Stephen Ambrose. Forczyk did the actual numbers and found the US actually achieved a 1.5x1 kill ratio in tank vs tank engagements in their favor.
The Schwere Panzer Abteilung (Heavy Tank Battalion) was not a bad idea, and was probably the only good idea out of the whole program. As noted above Tigers are enormously logistics-intensive and massing them in very large formations in fact wasted their potential since they were supposed to be long-ranged anti-tank weapons (meaning a very sparse frontage) or a heavy breakthrough unit (which you also wanted to deploy sparsely, otherwise a good artillery barrage just wipes out your bunched up tanks).
Indeed, the French had Division-sized heavy tank units in 1940 and they performed abysmally (excepting a few local successes like Stonne) even though their Char B tanks were almost completely immune to the piddly guns of the Mk IIIs and 38ts.
Finally, there's the obsolescence issue. The Tiger I was in fact obsolete by 1944, hence the end of its production run by that year without complaint from the frontline troops. Indeed, its reputation for invincibility is illusory - even the Tigerfiebel notes that it was vulnerable to a frontal hit at ranges of 500m, which was only 100m less than the average engagement range in WW2.
The Russians would just shrug and bypass the Tigers, who'd then run out fuel like the Char B divisions concentrated against the Meuse bridgehead. The Tiger was again an enormously resource-intensive tank and was no good at a maneuver battle. The units that the Germans used to plug gaps against armored attacks were in fact kampgruppen from the Panzer Divisions (who often used their lighter Mk IV tanks or even just the reconnaissance battalion armored cars), or much more commonly the Sturmgetchutze Abteilung who in fact notched far higher kill rates than the Tiger battalions.
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Actually, we pretty much know of every confirmed Tiger II engagement in the West and quite a few in the East; and there's data on these engagements if you know where to look. It's just that silly fanboy Internet sites don't like recalling them because they portray the Tiger II in an extremely negative light.
The Soviets are confirmed to have destroyed a company of Tiger IIs at Sandormierz using only IS-2 and T-34/85 tanks.
The Americans did one better at Padeborn and destroyed a platoon of Tiger IIs using only illumination rounds fired from 75mm Shermans.
The Tiger II was in fact an utter failure, whose mythology was created by the SS so that Hitler would have bedtime stories. To demonstrate: The supposedly best performance by a lone Tiger II was the "ace" Karl Korner supposedly destroying 39 IS-2s and T-34s in a single day. The problem is that the only Soviet unit anywhere near Karl Korner's supposed location was entirely armed with Lend-Lease Shermans, and based on Soviet loss records you need to combine the losses of six seperate Soviet armies to get to the 39 total. "Fabrication" is not a strong enough word to describe the lies the SS propagandists and their Wermacht porn pedelled.
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Oh, and regarding the Allied super-heavies - to be fair they were meant to be deployed against Japan who had built extensive networks of bunkers; which could only really be destroyed economically by direct-fire guns and the armor was in fact heavy enough to withstand almost anything the Japanese could possibly have. They were thus more correctly described as heavy siege weapons - specialist vehicles like the AVRE designed to take out fortifications with minimal losses.
They were saner designs than the German super-heavies who had no real battlefield role except to serve as placebos for a regime still in denial that the war was already lost.
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@ Alexey and @ Chromos-
The German theory to combat tanks was using AT guns and the Luftwaffe and not the Tanks themselves, i am aware that German tanks till 1943 were inferior and so Tank-Tank kill were low, yet in French Campaign and in initial Barbarossa they won due to combined arms and better tactics and avoiding attrition.
KURSK- this was the end, as full fledged attrition was done here; why? due to the presence of the new TIGER and up and coming Panther tanks.
instead if you stick to the old PzIv/Stug combo, there is no KURSK, as you are not confident of outgunning the soviets. so you hoard your resources and actually end up being forced to fight a fighting retreat or mobile defensive campaign similar to 3rd Kharkov or Jassi-Kishinev etc, which is exactly what would have been the fear of the Soviet Generals. Tactically, the Wehrmacht could have fought a better battle.
Now go out and find the maintenance need of KV-1, IS-2/IS-10 and US heavies and compare that aginst PzIV please..
Irony on:
Sure Forczyk is the only right source, all others are wrong, oh wait thats only Ambrose from wich all take their info..
Irony off:
Sure and it was for sure beaten above 500m by some few guns aswell..
But if you can destroy most enemies 500m before, all should be fine for a long time.
Oh fine, so pleae enlighten us others with the links to this of course non fanboys informations.
And please dont come up with things like the one KT disabled and finished of with Piats in close combat in The Netherlands..
Also here I agree, historical sources like real battle reports please, no fanboy site entries.
Thats why I had written:
From all I know, the US/UK heavies were designed for Europe. In Pacific the current tanks proved to be doing well enough.
The AVRE and such were designed initially for D-Day.. Hobarts Funnies were thought to fill a different role as KT/IS/M-103..
And by the way, even initiall Churchill was reported to have a bad reliability.. With aproachingthe "weitht barrier" of 40 tons..(Churchill had ~38 tons at that time..)
And sure GER HARM have been "placebos". Can we take that statement as indication for your attitude towards GER of that time?
From what I know the "placebo" has been more with allied tankers. Seeing everywhere Tigers when a PzIV was around..
Where did you get that from? Thast US-docrine. I just read some of Pattons thoughts, and he stated that own tanks sould stop when seeing other tanks and wait fro AT/ART or CAS to finish the job.. But that was likely because of the "great" AT capabilities of the usual Sherman tank..
The main purpose of a GER tank by thought on the other hand, was to fight off other tanks to be able to support its onw INf afterwards.
Why was tank-tank kill low? Numbers/Sources?
Overall I don't doubt that e.g. KT have been destroyed by enemy fire. I just doubt that it was most times an easy task.
And highlighting such reports were these tanks were destroyed by ambush or close attack or overwhelmed by swarm tactics just prove how valuable they have been. That is the same for early KV tanks wich also proved to be a hard nut to crack if placed very well.
Making the conclusion that a Sherman/T-34/PzIV can knock out a heavy in some circumstances and so is more cost effective, just neglects the whole effect the big ones had historical in combat.
And stating that US had far better ratio than GER has the same backing as I would say POL/FRA had far better as US..
What I miss the most when I read such post is the lack of more objective view on the whole topic.
It seems so often nowadays just highly biased opinions around. Snippest of information taken out of context and throwed around.
Some conclusions like:
Most Sov tanks were not destroyed from GER tanks but GER AT/INF -so GER tanks are not that good AT vehicles wich didn't score "that" well- just are not really understandable.
If more GER tanks would have been around, all could have been assured that not only GER had more tank losses, but had also inflicted much more tank casualities then losses. As the kill ratio of GER tankers is quite good for several reasons most time of the war. Saying the training was bad, because it was not that good anymore in late '44 just drops the whole time before.
I know that some GER commanders asked to have more INf-AT weapons produced as GER INf was very capable of killing tank at the end of the war(end of '44). Some offciers asked to drop tank production in favour of INF-AT. But that was a matter of emergency/last stand, not a matter of things you would do if you have the choice. As then more GER tanks would have been fielded.
Could you please give a source on the American Sherman's taking out an entire platoon of Tiger II's? Of course the Tiger II's aren't what they're made out to be, but having the 75/76mm Sherman guns piercing the vast amount of armor of the Tiger II smells too much like Allied fanboy rhetoric that purposefully leaves out critical information(e.g. If they had any ammo, what the K/D ratio was, if the platoon was damaged by air attack, etc.).
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But similar thing applies to everyone.
Soviets "destoyed" thousands of Ferdinands, often facing units that only had Stugs, and Panzer 4 was very often reported as Tiger. The allies just had the benefit of being able to double check the reports both during(1943+), and after war.
And the former Soviet countries are still drooling over the stories of indestructible KV-1 stopping entire divisions.
The reports of all sides during the conflict were wacky at best, and Germans were hardly the only ones with well oiled propaganda machine.
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Also, reports about what unit was/wasnt in that area and weapons they had often wildly differed from reality.
If you look at the decisive victory in Normandy achieved with Operation Cobra and GoodWood, and eventual creation of the Falaise Pocket, you should see that the biggest victory is the loss the Wehrmacht had to endure by abandoning most of their equipment (both available and ones being recovered) in the field for a rapid retreat to salvage whatever manpower they could in France. This rapid retreat was achieved by the classic maneuver done by vehicles like the M4 Shermans that didn't have to fire a shot at the forces in the pocket as the retreating Wehrmacht had to abandon their charges and burn them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falaise_pocket#mediaviewer/File:Chambois1.jpg
Not owning the field or forcing an quick retreat strategically is the largest single attribution to the non-recoverable losses of large numbers of heavy equipment such as Tanks. This was the single largest reason why troops that cannot survive with their given tanks tend to destroy them if they cannot operate their vehicles or salvage them as had happened in the French Campaign and Barbarossa. The loss rate drops once the Soviets are able to regularly contest the field such as the battle for Moscow, Leningrad, or the victory at Stalingrad as 3 major examples prior to Kursk and Bagration. This is also why post war assessment meant that standardizing on a Medium Tank with the right blend of armor, mobility, and firepower had achieved the key strategic victories of the war with the Soviet Union being the premier military machine with matured strategic tactics to use it and successful conducted with the Soviet invasion of Manchuria.
Yes, Shermans didn`t had to fire a shot to achieve falaise.
One wonders how exactly did Allies lose more than 30% of tanks than landed in Normandy over a space of few days. Probably due to breakdowns during the ride to Caen.
Yes, Shermans didn`t had to fire a shot to achieve falaise.
One wonders how exactly did Allies lose more than 30% of tanks than landed in Normandy over a space of few days. Probably due to breakdowns during the ride to Caen.
Single biggest problem for the US has to do with Doctrine. AT was for specially designed vehicles such as the Wolverine different than the role played by the Sherman. Intelligence didn't help either as there was an assumption both the Tiger and Panther tanks would not have been in any quantity to effect the outcome of France. Of course, in Operation GoodWood, you do see at least Panthers in some quantity so there is a rush to upgun the Sherman to 76mm and "speedy" deployment of the Pershing.
"Roll eyes" my point has to do with recovery of knocked out equipment on the strategic level, not the small tactical arm chair arena. If you want to go back and forth about with mere tactical engagements and not see the bigger picture I'm fine to leave you at your leisure. For example, a priority in Stugs would not have won the war if the Wehrmacht cannot own the battlefield even if their tank killing numbers are legendary. Sure they help to knock out legions of tanks but if the enemy recovers 25-50% of those losses, how much real impact are you really doing other than to prolong the war? Then it's just a repeat of a famous Greek "dice-thrower" General that made quite a battlefield for Rome and Carthage.
My point was rather obvious though, "maneuvers" include a huge amount of shooting, and to achieve pockets and encirclement armored divisions do need to be able to fight enemy.
The point is wrong. To achieve anything, armored division needs to fight a lot, more or less alone in the rear areas. Otherwise the rear area troops provide all the time in the world for a pocket to retreat.
The recovery part, I do agree with.
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I didn't suggest Normandy campaign was literally a "smooth ride" by mentioning both Cobra AND Goodwood; Only that it's easier to ensure losses for the opponent to lose the strategic initiative and be forced to abandon his equipment (and in some cases blow it up on your behalf) where you can guarantee they won't recover the majority of it. The dual operations I mentioned, of which I'm aware of the main armor thrust being thrown at the Commonwealth Forces conducting Goodwood, did much to dissipate forces on a strategic level where the result is a complete strategic loss of initiative (which they didn't have much anyway) and another grand encirclement of the Wehrmacht forcing the withdrawal. Of course, at this stage of the war more questions were being asked on why the war was lasting longer than it was on the Wehrmacht side as it is increasingly obvious the untenable position the 3rd Reich was in as well as the July 20th plot failing to alter the course of the war.
When it's the Allies killing King Tigers, it's "Allied fanboy rhetoric". When it's the SS claiming to kill 39 IS-2s when facing a Soviet Army equipped entirely with Lend-Lease Shermans, it's a "credible account". Such is the jilted narrative of the Second World War on the Internet.
The account of Shermans destroying King Tigers can be found in Ambrose's Citizen Soldiers, which records the incident as happening at Paderborn in March 1945. A corroborating German account (sadly untranslated) has surfaced since that posits the event happening one day later at a nearby location (which shows how Ambrose is perpetually bad at fact-checking), but the story remains the same: three King Tigers knocked out by white phosphor shells. You don't need to achieve a penetration when you can scare the crew into thinking the tank is on fire, especially when the German account is of a surviving crewman who had suffered burns from the WP attack.
And for the record, the only other verified tank vs tank engagement between the US Army and King Tigers occured at Puffendorf in November of 1944. One King Tiger was verifiably destroyed by an M36, and three others were destroyed by artillery or tank destroyer fire (the German records claim artillery, but the unit ID they claim did the killing was of a tank destroyer outfit). American losses that day amounted to about 18 tanks, reduced to a dozen if you leave out the Stuarts; but that's against a total loss of 17 German tanks including the four King Tigers. Hardly proof of the "its takes five Shermans to kill a Tiger/Panther" myth; albeit it is proof of how delusional the Germans were at this point since they claimed that Puffendorf was a "victory" despite the equal losses and the Americans resuming their advance unimpeded by the next day.
A third possible engagement - involving Peiper's column in the Bulge - strains credulity when the King Tiger crew claims to have fired into an unspecified American tank column in an area where no known US armor was present while Peiper himself was grumbling that his Tiger IIs were completely useless and were slacking off.
The Brits have more encounters, though primarily Tiger Is since it was they, and not the Americans, who faced all three Schwere Panzer Abteilungs deployed in Normandy. That said, the one verified engagement they had against the Royal Tigers in Normandy was also so farcical that it again runs the risk of being accused of Hollywood hyperbole even though both sides have agreed on the account: Of four King Tigers that actually tried to move against the Brits (the rest being broken down), three got stuck in the craters, and the fourth was rammed by a Sherman and subsequently destroyed by the Allies. Aside from the Sherman which rammed the Tiger, no other Allied tanks were lost to the King Tigers.
As for the Soviets? After Sandomierz, wherein their IS-2s "cracked open the King Tigers like eggs" (David Showalter - Hitler's Panzers), they examined several captured King Tigers (so no German fanboy excuses of "they misidentified!") and were unimpressed with the tank, finding it of no value.
So really, given how ridiculously all the King Tiger tank vs tank battles ended up in the West (and the utter contempt shown towards it by the Red Army) it's hard to take any of the usual talk of the King Tiger's supposed invincibility or awesomeness based on its paper statistics seriously. It becomes clear that all the gun vs armor comparisons are just wasted ink when in reality war makes mockeries of its supposedly most powerful tanks with Kelly's Heroes type solutions. Indeed, it's worth realizing that some of the most ridiculous scenes in movies that are dismissed as improbable are in fact the ones that have the grain of truth in them. (One famous example being critics complaining that the British paratroop officers were acting unnaturally cool and ignored people shooting at them, when that's exactly what they did based on everyone's recollections).
There are, however, no accounts of a lone Allied tank taking on dozens of enemy Panzers and winning that proved to be mere mythology.
The three greatest single tank performances of the war were in fact fought by a French (Char B ), Soviet (KV-2), and American Tank Destroyer (M10) crew - at Stonne, Rasenai, and Noville respectively. The Char B at Stonne destroyed an entire company on its own. The KV-2 at Rasenai destroyed ten and held up an entire Panzer Division for a day. The M10 at Noville killed seven Panzers and literally left the SS commander crying like a baby in the snow. That last bit should tell you that, quite unlike the SS fanfiction, Allied accounts in fact were eventually fact-checked with the other side and proven true.
Indeed, the battles of Stonne and Rasenai were the main reasons why the Germans tried the "super tank" concept in the first place, with the Char B and KV tanks being specifically cited as reasons for developing the Tiger.
The German units that earned authentic laurels were frankly not the Schwere Panzer Abteilungs, who claimed a lot of kills but close examnation would prove they weren't present in the battles they were supposedly doing the killing (a prime example being the Tiger battalion in Tunisia claiming to have destroyed 150 enemy tanks in the desert despite being excluded from Kasserine and most other major tank battles). These battalions were showpieces from start to finish. They were raised specifically for propaganda purposes and aside from a brief period in 1943 were not tactically powerful; especially considering the logistical tail of one such battalion almost equalled that of an entire Panzer Division.
Instead it was Panzer Divisions with uninspiring names like "11th Panzer" (who solo'd an entire Soviet Tank army in March 1943), or the Sturmgetchutze Abteilings who notched kill rates higher than the best Tiger battalions and actually fought in enough battles to make it realistic -that one should examine if they want to see the German Army at its most effective.
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Is that the same Ambrose you wrote earlier about?
No fanboy masterpiece, but the same things can happen as if Shermans waiting for GER attack waiting in dense fog disable mayn GER PAnthers with inexperienced crews in the West. Such things can happen, require still skill and are laudable.
Overall about "propaganda":
GER command took numbers like very other nations and had a good reason to do so. Some nu,bers may vary because of battlefield sitautions, but ususally they were quiet correct as they could. So you need to get your kills confirmed. Doubt= no kill..
Thats the same for every nation. US airforce claiming lost of kills got put right soon afterwards by own research units of the battlefield and so on.
GER killed more enemies/equipment as any other nation during the war, and following that sad record it is easy to see that also the "average GER Joe" killed more, be it him using an airplane, tank or just his rifle. I don't think that there is a need to try nowadays to hand over that record to any other nation/people..
And I like to add that your way of adressing others attemps to have this discussion polite are not quite helpful imo.
By now I'm more and more under the impression that you're just trolling and like to add disinformation to the forumites here.
So many points are also just plain wrong like the allied heavies planned for Pacific etc..
Or like:
Or:
And most GER high records were not achieved alone but in corporation with other element of the unit.
Not to go into details about SOV attack moves in some stages of the War. High kill ratios had a reason..
Seriously..
Karl Körners record whas described like this:
Where is your information from that the SOV unit at Böllersdorf was consisting out of Lend-Lease Shermans only?wikipedia said:
No fanboy masterpiece, but the same things can happen as if Shermans waiting for GER attack waiting in dense fog disable mayn GER PAnthers with inexperienced crews in the West. Such things can happen, require still skill and are laudable.
Again you need to check your numbers. Pz. Div had planned ~550 trucks..
Overall about "propaganda":
GER command took numbers like very other nations and had a good reason to do so. Some nu,bers may vary because of battlefield sitautions, but ususally they were quiet correct as they could. So you need to get your kills confirmed. Doubt= no kill..
Thats the same for every nation. US airforce claiming lost of kills got put right soon afterwards by own research units of the battlefield and so on.
GER killed more enemies/equipment as any other nation during the war, and following that sad record it is easy to see that also the "average GER Joe" killed more, be it him using an airplane, tank or just his rifle. I don't think that there is a need to try nowadays to hand over that record to any other nation/people..
And I like to add that your way of adressing others attemps to have this discussion polite are not quite helpful imo.
By now I'm more and more under the impression that you're just trolling and like to add disinformation to the forumites here.
So many points are also just plain wrong like the allied heavies planned for Pacific etc..
Or like:
Wich SOV army was ever completely equiped entirely with Lend-Lease Shermans?..
Or:
There're..
And most GER high records were not achieved alone but in corporation with other element of the unit.
Not to go into details about SOV attack moves in some stages of the War. High kill ratios had a reason..
Seriously..
In your case it is sadly allied fanboy rhetoric. As I said about leaving out critical information, you proved me right. SCARING the crews into surrendering and KNOCKING OUT a tank are two completely different things. Since you seem to know this, I suspect you are simply trolling and trying to confuse forumites. Now regarding the JS-2's against the King Tigers; I never supported the German claim(it's most probably to a point just propaganda), but the Soviet account is not that much more valid(Prokhorovka anyone?).
By the way, the story about KT taken out by Shermans is an intersting one and was written about from Belton Y. Cooper:
https://books.google.de/books?id=Ya... Tigers knocked out by white phosphor&f=false
The Attack of KT was on the other hand devastating to the US, so it looks quite differnt if you look at the slightly bigger picture..
By King Tigers at close range(~100 yards!)..
Wait, isn't that the range where tanks like Shermans would show how much wasted steel heavies are?
That book has also some notes on SuperPershings wich reliability problems and maintenace needes. Sounds familar with German Heavies..
Page 270..
But I have mixed feelings about his book as it leaves many questions. E.g. why can KT move and kill when the much more mobile Sherman can't.
Might need to get hand on another book.
As more search results:
http://www.wehrmacht-awards.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1796507&postcount=2
So judging from this guy, Cooper seem to have not all details right. Again would need to crosscheck the Chronik 507 for that.
Interestng sidenote is, that shortly after the battle all KT of that Abtlg. where lost.
https://books.google.de/books?id=Ya... Tigers knocked out by white phosphor&f=false
The Attack of KT was on the other hand devastating to the US, so it looks quite differnt if you look at the slightly bigger picture..
By King Tigers at close range(~100 yards!)..
Wait, isn't that the range where tanks like Shermans would show how much wasted steel heavies are?
That book has also some notes on SuperPershings wich reliability problems and maintenace needes. Sounds familar with German Heavies..
Page 270..
But I have mixed feelings about his book as it leaves many questions. E.g. why can KT move and kill when the much more mobile Sherman can't.
Might need to get hand on another book.
As more search results:
http://www.wehrmacht-awards.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1796507&postcount=2
So judging from this guy, Cooper seem to have not all details right. Again would need to crosscheck the Chronik 507 for that.
Interestng sidenote is, that shortly after the battle all KT of that Abtlg. where lost.
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