Panther/FW-190

the Soviet victory myth over W-Ss armor was continued till this date until Sylvester Stadlers epic book on the W-SS pz korps became available and author George Nipe used it as the core for his monumental work on Kursk and the defensive battles at the Mius. The prime thing i do not care for Nipes work is the repetitiveness of some his statements through the chapters. With Wolfgagn Schneiders new tome on Das Reich Tigers the T1's at Kursk will be given full credit for the accomplishments although retreat was at hand thanks to the Gift-zwerg

did not matter even in 45 the Germans would send armed recon teams forward, both sides accomplished the tasks even under artillery fire

 

Well said Martin, about M C's book(s). I read it long ago (Tigers-a..-b...)and was sorry it didn't come with a BS detector. Propaganda indeed.
it comes back to Kai and his quote from the Pole about how the Russians re-write history. I've heard half of history is a lie, but M C took that to new heights.

 

And this is the German generals' main problem. They thought of war in Clausewitzian terms: the greater violence in the shortest possible time immediately and invariably brings victory. That may be true when playing Blitzkrieg with ill-prepared weaker nations, like France, Poland, Greece or Norway, but certainly NOT when your fighting the world's three greatest powers.

God, it sounds like the poor little Germans were some defenceless victims…

Three armies and half-a-million men against the late 1945 Red Army? It would have melted away in a matter of days… EVEN Hitler knew that.

Right! And don't forget the typical Prussian idiotic obssession for pincer movements! German generals insisted in the use of pincers and Kesselschlächte (annihilaton battles) all the time, in the open steppes of the Don and within the very ruined streets and sewers of Stalingrad!

Bravo!!!

Indeed. He said 'The Red Army is too powerful', or something like that. He also respected the British, so he chose to attack the 'rookies', which were, by the way, the ones with the best recovery capability and fastest strenght growing rate of all the Allies…

 

In situations where that was possible, the total number of kills could be determined. So- if only one unit was involved in the action, and said battlefield recon could be done, then I'd be willing to believe the number... for the most part.

But years of study history has hammered home a healthy sense of skepticism on my part, anyway. Especially when it comes to numbers.

Perfect examples from one of the most reliable source on Tigers, TiC by Schnieder. And I really like how SChneider does this-
on s.Pz.Abt 501- "Total score of the battalion was more than 150 tanks in Africa, more than 200 in Russia during its equipment with Tiger I, and more than 100 scored with the Tiger II."
Similar for s.Pz.Abt 502- lots of "more than"s.
Same for s.Pz.Abt 503. And so on.

Note lack of exact numbers.

Obviously, in some cases, the exact numbers from an engagement could be figured out.
But- apparently like Schneider- I tend to view most uses of exact numbers with a grain of salt, as there are so many things that could cause troubles with said numbers. And when one talks about propaganda... I suppose the Russians were the only nation in WW2 to use propaganda?

But that'll be my last word on it, as some seem to take inordinate amounts of offence when I challenged any numbers in the past. Only the way I personally look at things, nothing more.

 

Serious question here - did people go out and count the wrecks immediately after a battle ? I'd have thought WWII combat too fluid for a luxury such as that, with many other priorities.

 

The British did - they sent out Operational Research teams after 1944-5 battles in Europe to examine German tanks and determine what knocked them out. It caused a bit of a fuss because they found that the Typhoons and P-47s were only accounting for about one-tenth of the number of tanks they claimed

 

Precise figures definitely are hard to get if the enemy has taken over the battlefield. But overall I have seen in books figures of Red Army total tank losses like 80,000 out of 110,000 built which includes totally destroyed and those that could not be repaired and lost to the enemy.

 

Thank you Gen. Der Infanterie.

I thought that nobody noticed my post, or didn't care about it.

In the age of technology we tend to rely on gizmos as the solution (or problem) to win the war.

The manpower will allways be the main ingrediant of the armed services. In my lectures Boyd's decision circle and the work of S.L.A. Marshall is important.

 

More or less my sentiments exactly. I should clarify, again, that I certainly don't disbelieve or cast a suspicious eye on every single number used by sources, primary or otherwise.

But I would also see many situations- often based on the fluidity Martin points at- where any sort of accurate count would simply be impossible, especially for whoever lost territory in an engagement.

As I was thinking about this one, getting into bed last night- during Bagration in 44, the massive russian onslaught- considering how much territory the russians captured, and how far back the germans were forced to retreat- how would it have even been remotely possible to tally the kill counts of the german panzers?
We can surely surmise that they performed superbly in their defnesive actions, and made many russian units pay dearly for territorial gains...
but to come up with anything other than an approximation... how?

Would seem to me that- as Tony suggests- that the winners- the ones who gained ground- would be able to make some close-to-precise counts, but the losers would have almost no means of doing so.
Which leaves us with approximations.

And- in this case- I would imagine that there was in most cases, no "intentional falsification" of numbers, or no "coverup" or anything related. Nothing for which we should play any sort of "blame game".

Simply the inherent problems in coming up with exact numbers.



(OK, I did post again on this subject! But... I work as an editor. Meaning- this whole subject area is very close to me, something I deal with pretty much every day. If we could simply believe any source as it was written... huge parts of my profession would be instantly obsolete.)

again!

 

Crazy you and the others definately need to pick up some of the Heer and W-SS armor histories as it is explained first hand on several operations just whom went out. even the Recon elements of the Pazer Abtelungs went out to seek confirmation. Geez you guys are so hard on yourselves and I do not see why ........

 

eidted, too much of a pointless ramble. And... compliments returned with condescending... bleh.


[ 26. January 2006, 09:31 AM: Message edited by: CrazyD ]

 

first and foremost get yourself a German dictionary and teach yourself. you said it.......you need first had war diaries at your finger tips to get the overall consenus of the operation. If not then all you can do is generalize. Besides learning the German language or any language is fun. doesn't it get rather tedious to read the same B.S. materails published year after year without anything up and coming new, such as new first person accounts.
time is getting short and the veterans are leaving us so broaden your horizons.

as to Tank kills from any side even with upkept records as they are we will never fully know the truth. too many log books have been lost, captured and thrown into the burn piles or vaporized during operations. It is the same in any military field you wish to encounter and study. and in the case of Germanic studies that much harder

 

Personally I see the ostfront after Kursk : The Russian juggernaut winning whatever you do.The Big tank losses only slowed down the Red Army. The main reason why the Russians did not move ahead faster after the previous offensive halted was the supply problem. It could take up to 6 months before a new offensive could be started.

 

Has anyone bothered in mentioning that even if the 'mighty' Germans were 'always' the masters of the tiny battlefields (destroying five Soviet tanks for every German and so on… something completely false when talking about infantry fighting), winning so many tactical engagements, they ALWAYS miserably lost at strategical level?

 

Erich, can you put up a couple of quotes, then?

I certainly don't want to turn this into a "It is! It is not!" sort of a fight. I respect you too much for this, and this is the wrong forum for this sort of behaviour

 

haha

 

Fortune are you padding your posting count by your one-liners ? please start making an effort to add to the discussions in an intelligent and informative manner please

E

 

oh, my mistake, i got it all settled with martin sorry for causing the discrepancies...i wasnt trying to pad just to make feedback...

 

(long post, apologies... )

I distinctly recall- when I first started posting here- very much liking the way Fried thinks.
Still do.
There's no doubt that the logistical issues Kai mentions deserve noting. I've noted them many times myself.
But it's a good thing Friedrich threw his post in here.

We read over and over again about how great the german soldiers were, how superb they were in all their engagements, how they were such great soldiers, and so on.
And then we hear excuse after excuse about why they lost the war, always pinning the blame on something they did wrong, something they ignored.

We rarely hear about how the other combatants might have simply fought better, planned better, and hence won.


I've heard much the same thing from fans of the NY Yankees for many years- and in both situations, unbiased examination shows a more accurate picture, in my opinion.

In short- VERY well said, Friedrich.

(ok, to hell with avoiding any little debate)
No, one could not put up some quotes to back up that whole "idea of historiography", as I'll very loosley call it.

The idea seems to me very clearly to be "first hand accounts are the only viable source, everything else is repeated garbage".
First hand accounts that are 60 years removed from the event.
First hand accounts that have no way of taking in any aspects other than their own first hand point of view.
First hand accounts that are subject to all the same fallibilities as each of us have.

We should take those accounts as 100% truth, and the whole time- dismiss any work not soley based on said accounts, as it must just be "generalize"d or "same B.S. materails published year after year".

Now, why can't any "quotes" justify this?
Because any quotes that contradict said first-hand account will simply and without afterthought be labeled false.
And if 95% of the history written about WW2 is "generalized B.S"- well, then we are left unable to back up anything at all.

Studying history is about taking in all the information you have access to-including veteran accounts- and forming as best and most-informed a picture as you can.
History is *NOT* about close-minded insistence on a single unforgiving view of how everyone has to do things.

I don't see Erich advocating everyone to go out and learn Russian, to read the Russian unit historys dealing with armored combat on the eastern front.

Hm, interesting. One would think that searching for info on armored combat between german and russian forces would involve german and russian sources.

But again, seriously- if you want to get the real gist of what I'm saying in a shorter version- see again Friedrich's post above.
And damn, I *REALLY* hope I didn't mis-interpret said post!!



[ 30. January 2006, 02:19 PM: Message edited by: CrazyD ]

 

I just finished reading a book published in 1990. It is called 'Vi dro mot Nord' (We went north.) It is built on the personal diaries of soldiers and officers of the 196div and naturally the divisional war diary.

In addition there is an account of the experiences of the Norwegian and British army plus the civillian population.

A funny thing is that no story is the same. The experiences recorded in the official diaries are different from the men fighting the battle. IN PARTICULAR regarding the FIGHTING. Private Silla had no objections to say it straight that they got their noses bloody in this and that engagement, but the Div records the event in a favorable light: probing attack and then halting for the night, rather than beeing stopped dead in their tracks.

One must remember that the Regiments official documents will stand for ever, upholding proud tradition and regimental honour.
And who would record for all eternity their shortcomings and failiures, when it is so much easier to tout the highlights??