Panther/FW-190

I hope the Russian side one day tells the "truth"...

CrazyD,

must say that more or less the Russian books on this are plain lies, starting with the "fact" that autumn 1941 was a huge success of surprise withdrawal that was Great Stalin´s plan all the way. Stalin created the cold winter that killed all the Germans. The Great and Mighty Red Army never lost grip of the situation. All the losses were planned. It was already planned by Stalin in 1939 that Red Army would win in Berlin in May 1945.

Unfortunately most of the Russian books are very affected by the communistic view which I am personally totally fed up with. I hope we´ll hear more later on and this time the truth. I mean I am also a victim of the Great Kursk battle where T-34´s rammed Tigers all day long.... What a nice bed time story.

Also I have read on cold war years recently and I find it quite interesting that the USSR taught in schools and I´d believe internationally claimed that the Allied were all murderers who kept on bombing in WW2 women and children even when the Russians told them not to. Now you know why everybody knows it....

 

Kai I have to agree with you though the Russians are not the only people to revise history during the cold war, As the western allies won the war with Nazi Germany with a "little" bit of help from the east.

 

The German production focusing on less variety and more numerical production changing the way the war went is an interesting question.

In my opinion it doesn't matter what you produce, no matter how superior it is, if you cannot support it in the field. The German war machine could focus not only upon less variety and more production, but also would have had to focus on all-out production from the very onset of their effort. Even if they did this they couldn't produce enough materials compared to the people that they decided to fight. Even with an 8:1 ratio required to beat a Panther in the field the Russians and the Americans could still win. German production couldn't keep up.

It also doesn't matter what you put into the field if the units are not allowed to maneuver as the situation requires. Allied doctrine evolved beyond the blitzkrieg. Hitler's doctrine continued to believe that the same thing would keep working. (A strong enough blow will make your opponent give up.)

In my opinion it was the way that they were employed and supplied that doomed to operators of whatever weapons the Third Reich fielded to failure. Could the changes you mention have lengthened the war? They would have made a difference on a local tactical level, certainly. Would they have raised the allied body count? It would have taken more lives to overcome better equipment. The conflict might have lasted longer, but why?

 

The thing that really irritates me is the 5:1 8:1 10:1 ratios that was needed for a sherman to knock out a german tank. This is nonsence.

I have spoken to veteran tankers and such conditions never occured in their experience. The biggest threat was dug in AT guns. Wether it was AT guns or tanks the standard procedure was to call 'Limejuice', fire red smoke on the target and get a hull down position.

There are plenty of books out there written by Allied tankers that simply put these ratios to shame.

So why do these ratios keep cropping up? Fact is that the Allies were doing the attacking '43 onwards. And offensive warfare is more costly than defending (no matter what equipment, training or Tactics)

Then there is Villers Bocage. An incident that never reoccured. The 3rd County of London Yeomanry outran their infantry in Villers Bocage. To make matters worse the commander did not bother to organise in case of an attack, and was jumped by Michael Wittman. The really bad thing is that this horrible incident is recorded as what will happen if cromwells/shermans are faced with the Tiger tank. Arrgh!

 

Drifting away a bit but definitely German Army also suffered from the Hitler´s masterful idea of always building up new divisions etc from the new tanks and vehicles. The Army "looked bigger" but the end result was definitely weaker than if the original worn out divisions had been supplied and raised the soldier number to its normal unit level. The problem was that you have loads of "fake unit" flags on the map and even if the Germans had the units numbered by their fighting capability Hitler seems to have been totally lost what he really got in the battle field.

For instance for the battle of Berlin I remember having read that if Hitler had all the units in Germany area normally manned he would have had millions of men in arms, don´t know how many tanks. In one book the number of men was mentioned even as high as 10 million if the units were as powerful as the flags on the map would indicate....

 

Kai- in regards to those russian sources you mention- clearly, many of the sources coming from russia at the time WERE very far off the mark, and completely unreliable. I'm sure there are a few tidbits of accurate info to find in some of them, but few and far between.

In the theater of studying the Russian/German conflict, russian primary sources would be of doubtful value. But more recent history works- perfect examples being The Road to Stalingrad and The Road to Berlin by John Erickson- certinaly can't be ignored, correct? And I'd wager there are TONS of other works out there that have researched this theater, and come up with quality work.

But some would apparenly rather discount all of that work - which would seem to me to be foolish at best.

And Jaeger "slams it home" with a PERFECT example of what I'm talking about.
If we just read the German accounts, you'd think a Tiger tank was essentially invincible, and every Tiger lost was due to lack of fuel, mechanical difficulty, etc.
But wait- the accounts of American and British vets paint quite a different picture- so they must be completely unreliable sources, right?

Or we could assume that NEITHER set of sources is 100% accurate, and a truer picture would come from comparing and researching all those primary sources, plus the vast amount of work done since then.

To answer "So why do these ratios keep cropping up?"- I'd say to some extent, because of the exact problem I've been pointing at- poor historiography. These ratios keep popping up because many historians who highly favor the qualities of the German soldiers in WW2 keep putting them out there, ignoring information like Jaeger cited.
And over time, the ratios and numbers- without continued questioning and detective work- become an almost completely unreliable cliche.

I mean, as great a source as, say, Schneider is for Tiger tanks, are we really going to believe- without question- that in general, less than 10% of Tiger losses were due to enemy action??

Either some of those numbers are a bit off, or the Tiger I was basically the most horribly unrelaible piece of equipment ever produced. Period. 90% mechanical failure rate??

And, back to the other topic in the thread...

Another aspect to throw in here that bears mentioning- the German economy as a whole during the war. I'd have to check some sources to be sure, but from what I recall the german economy wasn't even put on "wartime status" until 1943!! So until then, there was little to no rationing, and no huge priority given to military production. Civilian luxuries were still being produced right along with war material, both using many of the same resources.

So maybe as part and parcel of this "What If"- we add in that the Germans (Hitler mainly) placed their economy on more of a wartime schedule at a much earlier date, say 1939 at minimum. This would open up much more potential for the production of war material, wether it be more heavy tanks or anythiing else.

This might have a relatively significant effect on "In my opinion it doesn't matter what you produce, no matter how superior it is, if you cannot support it in the field.".
With an earlier wartime economy, would the germans be better able to support their war effort?
'Cause otherwise, bigiceman winds up being right on in the end... more advanced equipment early on would at best extend the war slightly.

 

but the important thing IS that Schneider is correct, the TG 1 and TG 2's were maintenance nightmares, crap as anyone would put it but the German crews felt very safe fighting on the advance and a definate in the defence in them ........

funny how in many captions during the Ardenne that so and so from a AT unit knocked out a King or one was popped by a bazooka round. Good ol US propaganda at it's finest and never questioned in the slightest, and why should it be, the Allies won ! ........ slightly off topic but the US bomber gunners claims and they are claims are never questioned even now and accepted as fact over attacking Luftw. fighters. surely the Luftw sources must be wrong and covering up huge losses multiples in the thousands ........ ah nope

 

The point here, and I think we all agree in is that yes, there was Erich Hartmann, with his 352 kills, and many, many more German aces that might suggest the Red Air Force main occupation was taking off just to be shot to pieces. BUT there were also Iván Kozhiedub and Lidia Lítviakh, who shot down some of those aces and dozens of German planes.

The truth is that the USSR was fielding lots of fighters and bombers with their pilots, fuel, ammunition and ground crews (which might not have been the top of excellence) and never ceased to fight, regardless of the losses. By doing this, at the end, it turned the tide on the air, even if, in the general balance, we can say the Luftwaffe fought better than the Red Air Force.

But let's remember too that 100 Soviet snipers killed the equivalent to one entire German infantry division.

The general picture is clearer now, right?

And what about if we consider that German generals, aware of Germany's inferiority in man power in comparisson to the Soviet Union, decided to launch 'Barbarossa' because they were going to fight Soviet men with German guns and tanks. But the Prussian generals, drunk in their obsession with Clausewitzian brute force and gigantic annihilation battles, didn't take into account that the USSR was out-producing Germany (and matching her in quality) from the very beginning of the war. Therefore, they got sucked into a war where they didn't have the slightiest posibility to support their strategical thought (weaponry vs. men) for long. On the contrary, they soon faced a situation where they had to pour more and more men in to fight with the methods and in the situations the Soviet battlefields and enemy recquired. In 1943, not only there were German guns and tanks fighting 10 guns and 5 tanks each, but men were fighting men AND guns AND tanks.

In 1941 there might have been Germans shooting 88s at un-armed Soviet men. In 1944 there were German soldiers throwing handgrenades and using bayonets against Soviet soldiers and T-34s.

Why do we always remember that the Tigers were doing very well at Prokhórovka, destroying hundreds of Soviet tanks, and forget about the fact that the OKW and OKH were doing exactly what Stavka wanted them to do? The Wehrmacht was bleeding itself against the thoughest defence lines of WWII whilst thousands of well-hidden Soviet men, guns and tanks were ready to smash its flanks? Who, despite of the shining uniforms and the new and marvellous (filthy!) Panthers, Ferdinands and Tigers, had the battle lost before-hand, I wonder?

Why don't we remember German officers throwing whole battalions against destroyed buildings in Stalingrad, where a f ive-menSoviet machinegun squad halted them for days and caused them 50% casualties? Why don't we remember the mighty Luftwaffe, in daylight and with absolute air superiority, being unable to cut the enemy supply line across the Volga or destroying Chuikov's battery on the eastern side (that smashed any German troop concentration before an attack)? Why, instead, we forget about a 10.000-men Siberian division and 17 T-34s halting the attack of three of Paulus 60.000-men Army Corps in just 24 hours?

Also, why do we always forget that, no matter what the Germans did, they were part of a totalitarian (anti-utilitarian) State whose prime objective was not victory, but the annihilation of whole races?

 

young man your point is unclear as this is a WHAT-IF.

fUNNY HOW WE ALL GET SIDETRACKED AND MISSED THE WHOLE IdEA BEHIND THIS VERY THREAD TOPIC, geez........panther and fw 190.

maybe we should split hairs and go back and tear this thread to pieces and selct points known and unknown of the Ost front war, I've made some declarations and so have you

v/r E

 

Erich

I don't think we have strayed too far from the topic. It started by what if the Germans had....
If I had said 'no' What kind of discussion is that.

Instead we have a discussion that goes deeper than Armour piercing capability of this and that gun, and the real armour thickness of a sloped panther chassis.

We have pointed at the most important ingredient: the men operating the machines, and the leaders who throw their dice in the attempt to win.

As long as the posts are non offensive and in best meaning I see this as a good discussion. If I get stepped on my toes every now and again so be it.

 

If I may add something to this Bash-the-Jerries thread (which is somewhat refreshing, considering other forums where the attitude is the tiresome Worship-the-Jerries-Again), I would like to add that notwithstanding the brilliant performance of some German elite units, the fact remains that they were so to speak the shiny teeth of the mouse walking into a trap.

The same trap as at Stalingrad. The Soviet strategy in Stalingrad became (and in Kursk was) to attract the Germans to an almost victory, confronting them with just the right amount of force to let them keep advancing (slowly and at cost) while at the same time accumulating sufficient forces on the flanks until the moment was judged ripe to launch a mass, surprise attack on both German flanks. Not to mention the ability to launch another previous offensive, on the Mius river which had the desired effect of removing the SS Panzerkorps from the Kursk area.

So, brilliant as I said the elite units were, this was certainly not enough to win a war. Otherwise two months after Kursk we would have the Wehrmant and Waffen SS (or the other way round) parading on the Red Square. In fact two months later we see the Red Army in Kiev.

We have to admit that the entire German armed forces were not elite-calibre, and they did not win the war. Brilliance was not overall. Some German units may have won magnificent units, but what was happening around them?

I remember von Mellenthin's memoirs. During the Stalingrad relief attempt we see him and his hero Gen. Balck manoeuvering like crazy and killing every T-34 in sight! Another brilliant report! However if we put things into context and look around for the rest of the picture we see him confronting the advance guard of a tank corps. And what happens acording to Soviet armour doctrine? When the advance guard stumbles into something considered too tough the rest of the unit leaves the adv. gaurd to its fate keeping the other guy busy and carries on to it's ulterior objective. Simple as that. So we have v.Mell. to his brilliant victory while the Russian mass simply ignores him and goes beyond to its real objective.

As von Manstein titled his book, Lost Victories indeed.

 

Za, give up some site names. I'll be more than happy to provide some "balance." It is always fun to return the favor and watch the "the Germans were the best at everything" crowd squirm.

 

Holy cow, Ta, now that can be a can of worms!

I have a treat for you. Go to http://www.soviet-empire.com/ and meet the "Best Tank In The World Is The T-34/85" crowd

Even I don't go there very often! Quite frankly, this one is the most tranquil (for lack of a better word) forum I've seen.

All right, for the other side of the coin the most palatable one I've seen is http://forum.axishistory.com/ . Very knowleadgeable people but high concentrantion of cranks per square foot in places However a few of our esteemed members here also go there (incluing a moderator) and they don't complain, so it can't be all bad.

For a teenage rich environment * you can go to http://www.fun-online.sk/forum/


[add snide remark]* same as here, lately![/add snide remark]

 

Erich,

This is the most civilised and highest quality WWII boards on the whole web. No one ever (of the permanent members) insults each other or goes mad.

This is the most important thread in months, so, I don't think it's a good idea to 'stick to the point'. Everyone's providing good, acceptable points on many aspects in this enjoyable debate. I don't see what's the problem…

By the way, I don't like bashing the Jerries… just telling the truth. That's why I'm always making fun of the incompetent Frainch as well!

 

huh ?

ok I dismiss your point about the forum stats or statistics as that is not what I am talking about.

I think I will leave this thing alone as it is not making sense as it HAS gone off topic. If you indeed think it has generated new ideas then excellent but start a new thread with those ideas bcoming your thread base........that is my point. As for Germany being an evil regime that has nothing to do with the orginal thread from the original poster, go back to page 1 all of you and see what I mean, had the two machines changed the war to continue it 2 more years and had it done so would of jets, rockets and the like done .........you get my idea I hope

 

In Aug-Sept 1941 Heinz Guderian visited Hitler personally in order to get new tanks. All Hitler had to offer was 200 spare engines...I think this tells exactly how well Hitler was prepared for the Barbarossa.

Also in summer 1942 as the Red Army retreated towards Volga Hitler was convinced that the Red Army was running out of men ( "The Russian is dead" was Hitler favourite slogan of the time ). So he ran straight into the trap. Originally it seems the main Red Army reserves were around Moscow waiting for Hitler´s attack there in spring-sumemr 1942. I do think it would be logical that the next attack would continue where it stopped Dec 1941 but Hitler wanted the oil and later on Stalingrad. So it took a while to move the troops where Hitler was attacking.

T.A.
If I remember correctly the January 1944 Red Army attack for opening the siege of Leningrad really tore the German army out of its position. If you have any detailed info on that I´d be interested to hear! ( And Za as well, wouldn´t you!? )

Russian site maps:

http://rkka.ru/maps1944.htm

 

Kai, Finnish brains must be amazingly healthy as obviously you don't need to spend much time operating on them. I say this because you pop up with so interesting sites that it must be impossible for you to lead a normal working life

Thank you very much for your confidence vote, but as I am spending most time away from my books, I have to use what's left of my memory and (gasp! horror!) use such reputable sources as the Internet. So I won't be able to correspond to your kind invitation.

I may however still pick this from Col. David Glantz:

DECEMBER 1943-APRIL 1944

Context:
A COMPARATIVE CHRONOLOGY OF OPERATIONS ON THE EASTERN AND WESTERN FRONTS DURING THE WINTER CAMPAIGN OF 1943-44

Ø From January through March 1944, 18 Allied divisions were bogged down at Anzio and Cassino in central Italy against an equal number of German divisions.

Ø From January through March 1944, the Red Army launched massive offensives with 10 fronts, 55 armies, over 4.5 million men, and over 300 divisions and liberated the Leningrad region, penetrated Belorussia, and reached the Polish and Rumanian borders. The assaults badly damaged 3 German Army groups and inflicted over 1 million casualties on the Wehrmacht.

... (large snip)...

During this period, General L. A. Govorov's Leningrad Front and General K. A. Meretskov's Volkhov Fronts, soon joined by General M. M. Popov's 2nd Baltic Front, conducted the massive Leningrad-Novgorod offensive in the Leningrad region, a painfully slow* advance that began on 14 January and endured through February and drove Army Group North's Eighteenth and Sixteenth Armies back to their Panther Line defenses. At the same time, the 1st Baltic, Western, and Belorussian Fronts conducted limited diversionary operations against Army Group Center's forces in eastern Belorussia.

This is in page 69 of http://www.strom.clemson.edu/publications/sg-war41-45.pdf This is essential reading, but be warned that this is a 9Mb PDF file!

* nobody said the Germans couldn't fight!

(And yes, we should go back on topic and develop a new thread. Why don't we revive the Mother of All Threads, Kursk? )

 

za ........... yes please go back to Kursk

2 cents

 

What are you looking for? An OOB? Can probably provide that. A detailed look at the attack on AGN? Possibly. The OOB would take like a week or two to produce. A detailed look at the battle, maybe a month or so.