The Tiger/Sherman Ratio [Assistance Request]

i was watching a documentary recently about the tiger and there was a apperance of a former tiger commander and he quoted "we could always take out at least 2 of your shermans, but you always had 5 more"

 

The usual trick of using the data when the Germans were running for the border |(and thus miles in advance of any pursuing Allied forces) when breakdowns and fuel shortages were fatal and trying to claim this data also applied when they were standing their ground and fighting.
The same book you cherry picked this 'fact' from also has data for June and July and yet you failed to post it. Any reason why you ignored it?

The book is Panzertruppen Vol 2 and the data used above is on page 190. Page 189 has the numbers for June/July.
From 110 panzer wrecks only 7 were destroyed by crew and 4 abandoned (10%). A further 18 are listed as 'unknown cause' and most usualy lump them in with the abandoned/blown up category but this is a gross distortion of the actual meaning of 'unknown' used by the inspectors.
For example from 13 unknown Panthers 5 were found to have AP and Hollow Charge penetrations. So unknown numbers contain all wrecks with more than one type of damage.

For those who think breakdowns only effect German tanks:
From 28 Aug to 7 Sept 1944 British tank casualties during the fast advance into the low countries were 383.
Of this 383 only 78 were due to enemy action.
305 were due to mechanical breakdown.
Can we now claim Allied tanks were so powerful that 4 out of every 5 broke down and were unable to be knocked out?
That seems to be the way German tanks are regarded in the same circumstances..

 

I cherry picked this fact to show air power was not the main destroyer of German Tanks, just the same as the June July figures.I picked August to show that even in the period when the Germans were running away (sorry they didn't win) they still suffered minimal air power losses. That's why I quoted it. Do your figures prove any different to mine.

Nowhere did I ever say that Allied Tanks don't break down so get off your high horse (Panther) for a minute.

 

If you count the Falaise pocket as part of the battle (I should have made this point clear in my last post) then air power played a significant role in knocking out AFVs, I have found this on a site I seen recently.


‘’Within an hour the Thunderbolts had blown up or burned out between 400 and 500 enemy vehicles. The fighter-bombers kept at it until they ran out of bombs and ammunition’’.


I know it’s not the place for this topic so I will apologise now to Von before he gets his coat.

 

Maybe but you also said:

Which is not true.

Well I know for a fact a number of air-destroyed tanks did not make it into the survey. 10 Tigers at least. Now they were destroyed by bombing and also missed were a good number of Pz IV from 21st Pz Div. Bombing or TAC make no difference to the fact Aircraft got them and if those numbers are included it would double the ratio given by Zetterling.
I have come to the conclusion over-reliance on Zetterling leads one to underestimate the effect of aircraft on tanks.

I am sorry to learn of your sorrow.
Sorry about that!

I like the view from there. It enables me to see things others miss.

 

The question is where did that number come from? Tactical aircraft claimed many tank kills in Normandy but even the airforce analysis of the German tanks left behind indicated that these claims were vastly inflated. On the otherhand air attacks on the log network and vehicles were responsible to some considerable degree for the losses of German tanks.

 

As Mr Kenny would like another source I cite "enemy casualties in vehicles and equipment during the retreat from Normandy to the Seine" Report No15, No2 ORS 21st Army group. In the Falaise gap area 385 tanks and armoured vehicles were examined. Of that total 13 tanks and self propelled guns were knocked out by aircraft eleven by rockets and two by bombs. In a similar report on the Bulge it was found only 7% of aerial claims were actual losses. It's not impossible 4-500 vehicles were destroyed but not tanks.

 

I like the view from there. It enables me to see things others miss.[/QUOTE]

What like I quoted Jentz not Zetterling.

 

Now find the figures for June and July.
Can you not see that in August the whole Germany army was making a run for it and as such mechanical losses figure large. Find a period where they stood and fought to see how the fighting went rather than how the running went.

 

Jentz/Zetterling/Gooderson et al all are using the same source. Nothing you posted was the work of Jentz rather you repost the source data as published by Jentz (note I gave the book and page number-unlike what you did not).
The most readily available poponent of the 'air power was a poor performer' is Zetterling and thus I reserve the right to inform the general reader that this source (Zetterling) is far from being the final word on the subject. That and the blatant manipulation of the statistics to falsely claim the majority of panzers in France were destroyed by crew/ran out of fuel .

 

But if you eliminate those abandoned or destroyed by crew the those destroyed by aircraft are still in the minority from the numbers posted. If you want to argue the effect of aircraft on the panzers the period when they are running may be the most tellling. Aircraft were responsible in many cases for the lack of fuel or transport and a good part of the confusion in the rear areas. The same would apply to some of the counter attacks where aircarft may not have destroyed many if any tanks but unhinged the timeing so attacks were made in isolation rather than coordinated as planned.

 

The examples I gave of 'missed' aircraft victims all came from the static period.
The 3 Tiger Abteilung all lost Tigers to bombing in that period. The 6+ Pz IV's from 21st Pz Division ditto.
The chaos of the retreat makes it very difficult to obtain solid information on losses during the flight period and thus the static phase is where most of the hard evidence is based.

 

Tigers in combat I and II list them pg 256 shows Tiger batallion 101 losing 15 tanks in June. Only 4 of these came to airpower in a single night raid of 15/6/44. In July they lose 5 and none of these are aircraft They don't abandon a tank til 8th of August. They lose 25 in August none to aircraft and 12 abandoned or destroyed by the crew.

 

and yet eye witnesses to the Tiger lost on June 16th on the Cahagnes-Villers Bocage road (D193) at Greland say it was hit by straffing aircraft.....
Schneider is not always the best source.

 

A tank hit by "straffing aircraft" is not necessarily lost.

 

Believe me this one was because it was still in the same position after the war.
You should know me well enough by now to realise I would not introduce this tank if there was the slightest chance it was not an aircraft victim.

 

I know that you are an expert on Tigers in the campaign but the Tiger batallions lost 45 Tanks we're only up to 5 lost to airpower.

Tank tactics: from Normandy to Lorraine page 268 quotes Hausser in a post war interrogation. When asked for %'s of losses by type he gave the following figures.

20-30% losses to mechanical on long marches. Of the remainder 15% mechanical, 20% air power, 50% to A/T defense and 15% artillery. He said Tank crews feared tanks and tank destroyers.

In the same interrogation Dietrich said air losses would be about 15% and Guderian said AT and mechanicals were the killers only Schweppenberg was impressed by air power.

 

This is not something confined to Tigers. I just think the over-reliance on the OR Reports is a mistake. Zetterling (in my view) goes too far in the opposite direction from the wartime claims made for the Typhoons. There are plenty of individual accounts of tanks being knocked out by aircraft and SS 101 suffered badly on its way to the Normandy Front. They may not have lost any Tigers (though Agte claims Wittmann's alloted Tiger '205' was damaged so badly it never got repaired and took no part in the campaign-not in his book!) but were significantly damaged and delayed by air attack.
I also think the use of the August OR report to try and work out June/July losses is simply absurd.

 

Panzer Lehr suffered from air attacks when it moved it to the front, but I think most of these losses were half-tracks and trucks. Going back to the subject over Tigers v Sherman’s, SS-Unterscharführer Willi Fey from the 1st Company of sSSPzAbt 102 claimed to have destroyed 14 (it may have been 15) Shermans on the 8[SUP]th[/SUP] of June with his Tiger tank, well so he says in his book.

 

Short version is it didn't happen.
Schneider's book on Das Reich has a document for an award recomendation for Paul Egger and this claims he got these Shermans but that still does not change the fact it never happened.