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The Tiger/Sherman Ratio [Assistance Request]

Discussion in 'Armor and Armored Fighting Vehicles' started by Otto, Jun 1, 2011.

  1. lwd

    lwd Ace

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    This is a bit off:
    US doctrine (not tactics) was that tanks were for breakthroughs as well as infantry support. In both of those roles they were likelly to encounter opposing tanks. TD's were supposed to be the main AT weapon but if you look at the tactis their designs favored defensive situtation. i.e ambush and retreat before the lack of armor became a critical liability.
     
  2. yan taylor

    yan taylor Member

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    I have this on German Armoured Forces in Normandy (or on there way after the invasion) on June 1st 1944, In brackets means in repair,

    Panzer Lehr Division:
    97 x Pz Mk IVs (2)
    86 x Panthers (3)
    40 x Jagd Pz IVs (1)

    12th SS
    91 x Pz Mk IVs (7)
    48 x Panthers (2)

    1st SS
    42 x Pz Mk IVs (8)
    38 x Panthers
    44 x Stug IIIs (1)

    21st Panzer
    98 x Pz Mk IVs (14)

    17th SS Pz Gren
    12 x Marders
    42 x Stug IIIs

    101st SS Battalion
    37 x Tiger Is (8)

    I found this info on an old floppy disc downloaded from 2001.
    Regards Yan.
     
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  3. yan taylor

    yan taylor Member

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    Also found this,

    s.Pz.Abt. 503 (action from early July)
    33 x Tiger Is & 12 x Tiger IIs
    s.Pz.Abt. 101 (action from early June)
    45 x Tiger Is
    s.Pz.Abt. 102 (action from early July)
    45 x Tiger Is
     
  4. Drucius

    Drucius Member

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    I did say Tigers rather than just tanks.
     
  5. Poppy

    Poppy grasshopper

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    I'm starting to get what Otto means....
    From: 101 Great Tanks- Legendary Tanks from WWl To The Present- says about the Panzer Vl Tiger l: ..." It could knock it's most common opponents, the T-34, Sherman and Churchill lV, at ranges exceeding 1465m, whereas the T-34, although it could penetrate the Tiger's side armour at a range of 460m or less, could not penetrate the frontal armour at any range. The same was true of the M4 Sherman, which whenever possible engaged a Tiger in units of four tanks or more to give at least one of them a fighting chance of getting in close enough for a kill.".
     
  6. rkline56

    rkline56 USS Oklahoma City CG5

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    Nice work CCA/4, XII Corps!! We are lucky the fog negated the range advantage for the Panthers but did not preclude airstrikes at all times or Allied losses would have been higher. [​IMG]

    The Lorraine Campaign An Overview, Dr.. Christopher R. Gabel From a course at the U.S.Army Command and General Staff College.
    I know they mention these numbers are v. Panthers, so I ask the Armored experts; how does that ratio hold up or decrease (by 40%?) if Tigers were there instead?
    [​IMG]
     
  7. Triple C

    Triple C Ace

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    Some of the worst tank fighting experienced by US troops occurred during the Battle of the Bulge. One action on Dec. 23, 1945 meet your criterion: Four Tiger IIs confronted a company of American AFVs (~14) consisted of M4 Shermans and M36 Jacksons. The two forces nearly annihilated each other. At the end of the day the Americans were forced to retreat, but the Germans lost two Tigers. Veterans of the SS division considered the engagement an unmitigated disaster for their unit.
     
  8. lwd

    lwd Ace

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    That's a very selective and rather misleading reading of what happened.
     
  9. 4th wilts

    4th wilts Member

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    So do you think the British doctrine of tank on tank,Sherman Firefly or 6pdr Cromwell for example was less confusing.? The tank destroyers in British divisions were more"Defensive",i believe.I presume American tank crews had enough to think about in action,other than T.D.battalions.Their communication must have been excellent to achieve what they did at the above battles,cheers.
     
  10. Triple C

    Triple C Ace

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    Actually, CCA/4 knocked out 40-50 German tanks without air support of any kind in the first 24 hours. The fog did preclude air strikes. If Ultra heard anything about German counterattacks involving 2 Pz Bde's, no one in the 4th Armored ever had access to that grade of intel, either...
     
  11. Triple C

    Triple C Ace

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    An account of the engagement that unfolded in near ideal terrain for the Tigers, the same firefight Kai-Petri posted on the Sherman Tank thread in the Dead Horses and Sacred Cow section. However, I have committed a serious error: I remembered that the Americans took very heavy tank losses, but TF McGeorge only lost two tanks!

    Fascinatingly, warriors often had no insight into the impact of their own actions on the enemy. The history of the 3rd Armored Division Spearhead in the West made little of this engagement, laconically noting "McGeorge was having trouble getting into la Gleize. He was stopped by tanks and anti-tank fire on his main route and on all routes trying to bypass the opposition."
    Link: http://www.3ad.com/history/wwll/dugan.pages/saga.pages/6bulge.htm

    Cole's history of the Battle of the Bulge similarly reads like a litany of woes. He states on 22 December, "Things are not looking too well." Cole continued: "Later in the day, Task Force McGeorge made a pass at the block barring the river road in the bend but lost its two lead tanks. Colonel Johnson of the 117th Infantry, commanding in this sector, advised General Hobbs that tanks could not get past the bend and into La Gleize, that foot soldiers would have to do the job."
    Link: http://www.history.army.mil/books/wwii/7-8/7-8_16.htm#p377

    I don't remember from where I found the composition of Task Force McGeorge's AFVs. If the German sources were accurate however it would mean an American tank force of 15 Shermans almost overwhelmed 5 Tiger tanks and knocked out 3 Tigers with just 2 losses of their own.


     
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  12. Jager

    Jager Member

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    A ratio is impossible to gather and actually be accurate. When the Tiger I and the KT first appeared in battle they were overwhelmed by relative low numbers of lighter tanks. At other times like Budapest and Berlin small numbers of Tigers managed to hold back large numbers of tanks. So these ratios vary greatly and there really is no accurate one.
     
  13. KiwiTT

    KiwiTT Member

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  14. lwd

    lwd Ace

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    The problem is we don't know just how the losses were calculated. For one thing all the kill numbers end in at least one 0 and most in two. So is this claimed kills rounded? Or confirmed kills rounded? Or something else?
     
  15. SKYLINEDRIVE

    SKYLINEDRIVE Member

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    I wouldn't put any trust in Wehrmacht and Waffen SS statistics and counts, Adolf had to be humored!

    It is without any doubt that there was a gap inbetween the Tiger and the Panther on one hand and the Sherman on the other. To quantify it with numbers seems a rather odd exercise to me. First I don't trust the accuracy of the numbers reported lost, second you don't know what caused the losses, tank to tank engagements? close air suport? infantry anti tank weapons? SP tank destroyers? towed AT-guns? Third you have to keep in mind that a very high percentage of the Shermans "lost" were back in the fight just a few weeks later.

    I think that the US army made the right decision when they went for one standardized tank type. Production was much faster, one reason for the huge number of tanks produced, logistics and maintenance were simplified, so was training the crews and after a while the theething problems were eliminated while every "new" german tank started out with quite serious mechanical defaults.

    Finally the myth around some "Super"- tanks, as the King Tiger e.g., have to be relativized. In the Bulge they were totally inefficient, more of an hindrance then an asset.
     
  16. Carronade

    Carronade Ace

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    Although much attention is naturally given to armor penetration, the Dec 22 account above documents two Konigstigers being knocked out at long range by damage which apparently did not include penetration. The Americans seem to have followed the principle that if you keep putting fire on the enemy, something good will happen, such as the accumulation of damage to 211 or the freak hit on 213's gun. The account does not mention any hits affecting the Konigstigers' mobility, but the crews for whatever reason chose to bail out rather than retire their vehicles from the action.
     
  17. SKYLINEDRIVE

    SKYLINEDRIVE Member

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    You do not simply put a King Tiger into reverse and back down the road in the Ardennes! A good road in the Ardennes in 1944 would be qualified as a goat track by most of todays Americans.
     
  18. Kai-Petri

    Kai-Petri Kenraali

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    Aren´t those figures mostly for the Eastern front? We know the Tigers and Panthers were catching the T-34´s before they could reach the German tanks, and the ground was often favourable to shooting enemy tanks one by one.
     
  19. m kenny

    m kenny Member

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    The table is the one used in the book 'Sledgehammers' which in turn is compiled using the 'claims' for the individual Abteilung taken from Schneider's Tiger In Combat 1 & 2.
    In short fiction.
    By late 1945 the system had become completely absurd (as opposed to just absurd) and claims are made that individual Tigers were knocking out T-34's at the rate of 20-50 each a day!
     
  20. yan taylor

    yan taylor Member

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    The best way for the Americans to combat the Tiger Tank, would be to combine the Sherman Jumbo with the 17 pdr gun mounted in the Firefly, then they would have had a good chance.
     

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