The Stug kill ratio

Gun = Artillery Either translation is acceptable and accurate.

 

Early in the war, Sturmartilliere was a choice assignment because that was the only oppertunity an artillerist obtain a Knight's Cross. Later in the war, I think some antitank gunners wanted to be transferred to StuG because if you would be fighting tanks, at least you'd have some armor and mobility to contend with the tanks. What was the casaulty rate of antitank gunners in the German Army?

 

I would think that with Guderian as Inspector of Panzer troops, moving the PAK crews over to Stugs first and then to the Jagdpanzers was an obvious decision in keeping with his blitzkrieg concept. So I do not think that it was a choice for the conventional gunners but more of a transition. Although it may have been easier to conceal a PAK but when it came time to boogie....far easier to leave in a mobile platform.

 

I believe AT guns can only survive if they stop the attack, limbering up under machine gun fire is unlikely to succeed. Self propelled tank destroyer can pull back, this was possibly an advantage for the lightly armoured allied designs that either had a rotating turret or a rear pointing gun!!.
Redirecting the Stug production to the panzer units left the infantry with nothing, this contributed to the decline of the offensive power of the foot infantry though the main cause was the reduction of two/three rifle batallions due to manpower shortages.

 

Artillery was the only branch of the army that would accept the Stug's

They were originally made for infantry support against fortifications but, it's potential for a Tank Killer was shown and later on they did equip it with a 105mm Howitzer

 

Evenin'


Odd way of putting things.

Manstein's 1935 memorandum, which fed into the initial basis of the StuG's & StuH's role, was always linked to reintroducing the 'Escort Batteries' of the first war in some way "that is, the elite of the light Artillery".
He refers to the concept of 'Sturmartillerie', makes specific mention of how even though a Tank & SPG seemed similar "In a technical sense, they must be considered completely different branches in regards to tactics",

Only branch that would accept? Only branch they were designed for.
Artillery from day one (despite the exigencies of war which led to their stopgap use in later Panzer formations).

The 1936 development of the Sturmartillerie Abteilung under the Heersartillerie was a clear-cut decision as to where the new weapon would fit. Not some place-finding of a weird new weapon rejected by other Arms.

'Fortifications' is again a slightly odd statement.
Even in 1935 there was a multi-role intent. Manstein's paper (again) makes reference to the desirability of a certain versatility as well as the main intent of assisting infantry with "the most dangerous objectives by direct fire". He specifically says: "The gun must be able to take enemy machine gun emplacements out of action with a few rounds. It must also be able to knock out enemy tanks", and makes reference to an indirect ability also being rather desirable.
A general purpose machine was envisioned which might even eliminate the need for Artillery & Divisional Anti-Tank battalions from day one. Not purely a device for attacking fortifications.

~A

 

Here's some (a lot actually) info about the Finnish StuGs, including the detailed kills of each and every StuG.

http://www.andreaslarka.net/sturmi.html

"In 1943 Finland bought 30 Sturmgeschütz 401) G -assault guns from Germany. The first batch of 10 arrived in Finland on July 6th 1943, the next batch of 8 on August 10th 1943 and the last batch of 12 on September 3rd 1943."

"In 1944 Finland bought another 29 Sturmgeschütz III1) G's from Germany. The first batch of 5 arrived in Finland on June 29th 1944, the next batch of 7 on July 2nd 1944, the next batch of 3 on July 6th 1944, the next batch of 6 on August 3rd 1944 and the last batch of 8 on August 6th 1944."

"From the 1944 batch of StuG's none probably ever fired their guns in anger. Most of them arrived too late to see any real action, as the first of the 1944 batch StuG's that arrived were used as reserves and for securing the rear areas."

A"s amoung others (the unlucky) Ps.531-13 had been stripped for spare parts and a few others of the 1943 batch StuG's served as reserves, a fair estimation would be that only about 20 of the 1943 batch StuG's were operational and saw action during the summer of 1944."

"Finland lost 8 of the 1943 batch StuG's. (Ps.531-1, Ps.531-2, Ps.531-3, Ps.531-5, Ps.531-17, Ps.531-23, Ps.531-24 and Ps.531-29). The Soviets lost 87 tanks and an uncounted number of anti-tank guns, anti-tank rifles, trucks etc. thanks to our StuG's and their crews. Quite a remarkable result for such a small force!"

 

A lot of things are missing :

the total number of tanks fighting against the 20 StuG :all we know is that this must be at least 87

the number of combats StuG:tanks

the numerical superiority in each of these combats

were all these 87 tanks destroyed by the Stu G?

the loss ratio :40 % of the Stu G were lost,how much% of the tanks were lost ?

Were there no other "arms" intervening in these battles ? no intervention of infantry,tanks,"ordinary" artillery ?

 

This thread needs pictures. Couple of photos (see next post) of my dad posing on a Stug, either just after Battle of Bulge or maybe Ruhr River valley. There were several Stugs abandoned in there along with a knocked out Sherman (haven't scanned those).

View attachment 19156

 

And another. That's his medic helmet sitting on top of the turret.

View attachment 19157

 

It is very difficult to calculate "kill ratios" with any accuracy. Unlike on ranges, or in war games, WW2 warfare did not have electronic scoring systems, a central umpire or a score-card. Here are some of the problems:-

1. How do you know when an enemy tank has been destroyed,? How do you know if you are firing at a tank which has been abandoned? How do you know you have hit the target?

2. How do you know that its your shot which knocked out the enemy? Many targets might be claimed by several firers. See all the argument about who killed Wittman!

3. The desire for commanders to look good and other political factors might encourage a culture of over-claiming. The claims of the US 3rd Army and its supporting XIX tactical Air command to have destroyed the entire tank strength of the German Army on the west, several times over may be plausible to those who believe that only Patton's boys did any fighting, but should raise a quizzical eyebrow! http://www.pattonhq.com/textfiles/thirdhst.html

The British 21st Army Group's Operations Research team looked at wrecks and tried to work out what killed them. This only works for an army on the advance which has the luxury of being able to examine the battlefield.

The Sturmgeschutz were not specifically designed as tanks so the "kill ratio" with tanks may not be the best measure of their effectiveness. As the name suggests they are assault artillery designed to provide artillery fire to support assaulting infantry. It is a concept which logically follows the German use of field guns to accompany their infantry in the advance. Their effectives should be measured in the effectiveness of the infantry attacks they supported.

They were part of the artillery arm and not the Panzer arm. Besides the administrative implications, it meant that gunners were trained to correct fire as artillerymen, by systematic bracketing rather than making an estimate by eye, which was an option for tank gunners. Guderian, the Inspector of Panzer Troops argued in Panzer leader that they were a waste of a good tank chassis - but he was just a bit biased.

 

Of course lot of things are missing, as always. There's always more info which could be added.

"The battles took place at Kuuterselkä June 14th - 15th 1944, Perkjärvi June 16th 1944, Tali-Ihantala June 25th - 29th 1944 and at Vuosalmi July 11th - 21th 1944. The first victory is noted on June 15th 1944 and the last on July 13th 1944. All in all, taking into consideration re-grouping etc., the StuG's only saw about three weeks of front-line duty and only about seven days of tank fighting."

The soviets had always the numbers on their side - in every battle. In Karelian Isthmus the soviets had c. 800 tanks/assault guns on 10th June 1944, the Finns (and the Germans later) altogether 110 (31 German), including the obsolete T-26s. The soviets lost about 600 tanks/assault guns (75%), the Finns NOT 40 % (since there were more than those 20 StuGs in total) but a lot less.

Yes, that 87 is the official number of the StuG only kills. Other arms normally destroyed more soviet tanks. Of course a "kill" does not always mean a totally and/or finally destroyed tank. Finns often repaired own/captured tanks - so did the soviets.

In Kuuterselkä the soviet official sources list 40 lost tanks, out of which the StuGs destroyed 21 and the pioneers 4.

http://yhdistykset-akaa.fi/reservilaiset/panssarihistoriaseminaari2009.pdf (page 7, in Finnish)

"Finnish sources estimate that the Soviet army lost about 300 tanks in the Battle of Tali-Ihantala (June 25 to July 9, 1944),[5] mainly to air attacks and close defence weapons"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tali-Ihantala

In battle of Vuosalmi there were 35 Finnish StuGs (3 lost), and 150 soviet tanks (60 lost).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Vuosalmi

 

The StuG/H was designed to support infantry and was later with the longer gun also used in AT role. Tanks are more suitible of offensive roles. In the offense the chances of being hit by a prepared and hidden enemy is much higher. This is the main reason why i think the Stug/H has a higher kill ratio. In this i not count in the Tiger, which was used most of the time as a effective counter measure agains armoured assauls.

 

Right and also flanking attacks, in which the StuGs were sutting ducks. Real tanks have turrets

 

In principal/theory yes, except at least in Finland the StuGs did very well indeed also in attacks against T-34s and others. The main reasons for that were IMHO the better visibility of the StuG compered to T-34 and the lower profile. Also the better markmanship of the StuG crews did not harm either.

 

At medium or long range a turret is not a must, the limited traverse of the stug was probably enough to cover the sector assigned to it from 200+ meters behind the advancing infantry line.

IIRC one of the few "battles" Guderian won after he became ispector general of the panzers was to bring the stugs under his control, this led to some panzer divisions having a panzer batallion (not the AT batallion) equipped with stugs during the 1943 tank shortage crisys. I recall reading a report from one of those divisions that the stug batallion performed marginally worse than the Pz IVG equipped one.

I'm a bit surprised at Manstein's proposal for a complete replacement of all divisional artillery with sturmartllerie, such short sight is "un-Manstein". While the armour thickness common at the time of his writing (15 to 30mm) is not that much different to what was ultimately used on the Wespe and Hummel an SP gun only needs protection from splinters while an "escort battery" vehicle requires sufficient armour to withstand hits from direct fire weapons. At the time he was writing the 37mm Pak 36 was just entering service so 30mm would be ok, (the early stug had 50mm front armour while the best contemporary German tanks had 30mm front plates). But as AT guns improved direct fire protection is not practical for a true SP gun that needs a much larger fighting compartment to allow for sustained fire and high gun elevation.

Guderian in achtung panzers mentions "artillery that is fast moving and sufficiently well protected to follow up immediately behind the tanks", so he is thinking of SP guns not sturmartillerie, the sturmartillerie direct fire role in the early war panzer division is performed by the Pz IV with a nearly identical 75mm gun, reports of the Meuse crossings by Rommel and Guderian highlight the use of the Pz IV in this role to engage by direct fire any enemy strongpoints that threaten the crossing infantry, a typical "escort battery" role.