Most survivable tank

SHENANIGANS! YOU CAN'T HANDLE SHENANIGANS!

(Sorry folks, couldn't help myself.)

 

kenny

Interesting stats. I would have thought the crew positions would indicate better survivability for certain men, commander has easy exit for example. In thinking further it occurred to me that the commander was also far more succeptable to sniper and artillery airburst fire and the turret is often an easier target and possibly penetrated more often...possibly.

I know you have a pretty extensive libray, how did you acquire the report you are referring to? (I've seen it in a few bibliographies.)

 

A rough guide? That's not very convincing.

Roughly 25%? Again, not very convincing.

Does it strike you as odd that your total tank losses just happen to round to even numbers, and that these numbers happen to be even at 4500 and 6000 respectively? Rather, why doesn't it strike you as odd, is perhaps more to the point?

Your multiple rounding of numbers and use of the "rough guide" provides results that cannot be statistically reliable. They might well be in the ball park, but the manner in which you present them is questionable at best.

Having these reports is one thing, but knowing how to present and use them in a cogent manner is quite another.

All I am trying to accomplish here is to point out the rather basic fact that your methodology is flawed.

Duckbill

 

Commanders in Meduim tanks were 10% more at risk than the next crew position so they were slightly (depending how you class 10%-anal people who want to go to 5 decimal places excepted) more exposed.

It took me a long while to track it down. There are 3 copies in Libraries in the USA (one at Carlisle) and I was right on the point of paying something like $150 for a photocopy (it is a loose bound paper) when one was given to me for free by Richard Anderson Jnr!
How is that for coincidence?





I intend to put it all out eventualy but it consists of over 100 pages of text, 36 tables and 30 illustrations . Some of the tables were very poorly reproduced and I had to spend a great deal of time redoing them in a much clearer format. The core of the Study is Tables I & II.
2 sheets of data 18 columns by 30- 40 had to be redone and checked several times for errors. It took me a while!

This was what I had to deal with originaly:



I had to get higher resolution copies of around half the tables in order to redo them.

 

Not odd in the least. I said I rounded them so whats the problem?
This is not an area where the numbers are fixed.
Depending on dates you can get different totals. There are no fixed totals that can be agreed upon as precise and 100% completely accurate.
I suggest that if you have any problems with the British tank loss total you contact Bovington Tank Museum and inform them you have doubts about the figures they have listed in the
"Half Yearly Reports on the Progress of the Royal Armoured Corps" for June 1945, losses in 21st Army Group NW Europe
These are copies of original wartime documents kept at the UK PRO at Kew. I am sure they will listen to your fears and put a caution on the documents so no further historian will be fooled by this useless information.


losses in 21st Army Group NW Europe 1944-45 were -
Stuart M3 series .....248
Stuart VI ...............185
M24 .........................2
Sherman.............. 2712
Cromwell ...............609
Challenger................39
Comet ....................26
Churchill ................656

Total.................... 4477 (or 4500 rounded)

For US totals I depend on Richard Anderson Jnr and I believe you had recent interaction with him on another forum so you are aware of his work in this area.

M26...........................................2
M4 Medium Tank.................... 4,365
M4 Medium Tank (105mm)...........174
M3/M5/M24 Light Tank ......... ..1,507
Total tanks............................6,048

Produce your own data if you are not satified.

Thats just liddle 'ol me. Rough, Uncogent and unknowing.

 

Aha! Now we are getting somewhere. For those of you who do not know, 10% in terms of casualties is quite a large number.

Using kenny’s suspect number of 31,500 armor casualties and applying the new information that tank commanders suffered .10 higher casualties than the other crew members we arrive at an equally suspect, “rough” conclusion:

Casualties by Position in Tanks of the Western Allies in the ETO

Commander .2100 6,615.00
Gunner .1975 5,221.25
Loader .1975 5,221.25
Driver .1975 5,221.25
Bog .1975 5,221.25
Total 1.00 31,500.00​

Thus, tank commanders suffered 1,393.75 more casualties than each of the other crew members. Given the importance of the tank commander as an NCO, the loss of so many relative to the other positions in the tank must have had a profound effect on the overall efficiency of the tank, at least until the new tank commander had garnered sufficient experience. This problem is compounded by the fact that platoon leaders might represent as much as .20 of these casualties. Their loss would temporarily effect the effectiveness of the platoon itself, which in turn would hamper the combat operations of the tank company. As a result, tank battalions from the company level on down were in a constant state of flux due to the constant turnover of tank commanders and platoon leaders. Little wonder the problem of securing a steady supply of trained, qualified replacements for tank units presented a problem somewhat out of proportion to their actual combat losses.

We have now arrived at point in the discussion which is not counter-intuitive regarding armor casualties. Tank commanders were frequently more exposed than the rest of the crew, and resultantly suffered a proportional number of higher casualties. This, of course, explains the higher rate of turn-over in tank commanders and platoon leaders so often observed in tank battalion historical reports, journals, and morning reports.

Now we are left wondering if there are other “anal” differences in the distribution of casualties dependent on placement inside the tank.

Duckbill

 

It took me a long while to track it down. There are 3 copies in Libraries in the USA (one at Carlisle) and I was right on the point of paying something like $150 for a photocopy (it is a loose bound paper) when one was given to me for free by Richard Anderson Jnr!
How is that for coincidence?

Nice. Well, I live about two hours drive from Carlisle. They would let me photocopy, no? How bad is the cost there?

Tx

 

0.50c a page and at 160 pages + a handling fee of around $20 (sorry I can not give you a precise figure to 5 decimal places nor an estimate examined using multiple regression analysis) you are looking at $100

 

Here is the current fee schedule. I have my copies made by an old friend of a friend who used to work at MHI, but it is well worth the trip just to see what they have, and drool.

http://www.carlisle.army.mil/AHEC/documents/FeeforServiceSchedule.pdf

Duckbill

 

You don't have to mention it,.... everybody already knows...........

It is much less expensive to copy materials on sight. (.50 less than off-site reproduction.) That's two decimal places not five.

Duckbill

 

% of Crew casualties broken down by crew position.

Medium tank (274 tanks)
commander.........57%
Gunner...............51%
Loader................51%
Bow gunner.........48%
Driver.................47%

Overall 51% (rounded)

Light tank (50 tanks)

Driver...............67%
Bow Gunner.......67%
Gunner..............65%
Commander........63%

overall 65% (rounded)

Data above from US tanks hit by major weapons ETO (69% gunfire) The 51% casualty rate of 2.5 men (mediums) is greater than the overall rate of 1.5-2 men per tank.

% of casualties per UK tank by cause

.....................All fronts....................ETO

Mortar.............38% (14 tanks) ........36% (5 tanks)
Bazooka..........36% (113 tanks) ........32% (74 tanks).
Gunfire............35% (1032 tanks).......35% (335 tanks)
Mine...............19.3% (293 tanks)......11% (183 tanks)

Note that different surveys give differing results.

 

All the more reason to use them more carefully than you have in the past.

And,

All the more reason for you to do the work necessary to understand and appreciate their shortcomings, positive contributions, and the overall ramifications of what they actually mean before throwing them out every chance you get, as if they are the last word on any subject to which you think they might be applied.

In other words, you have a responsibility to use them responsibly, and to date all you have done is demonstrate that you do not really know how to interpret them correctly or use them appropriately.

Duckbill

 

Whatever.

The end result, after about half a dozen of your turgid posts, is you are still unable to counter the information that crew casualties were pretty evenly distributed throughout the tank.

Have you forgotten your earlier claim that the numbers I gave for destroyed tanks is 'odd'

Please enlighten us as to the problems you discovered in the official UK loss figures.

Why are these figures, compiled in 1945 'odd'?

Do you have any US loss figures that suggest their total is also 'odd'?

How does your data on the US losses conflict with mine?

Why is rounding 4475 up to 5000 and 6048 down to 6000 'odd'?

Why is a rounded total of 10,500 'odd' compared to the actual total of 10523?

Are the missing 23 statisticaly important and crucial to any analysis?

Please do elaborate on your suspicions.

 

From Wikipedia article on the M4

"The M4 had an escape hatch on the hull bottom to help the crew survive and, in the Pacific, Marines used this Sherman feature in reverse to recover wounded infantry under fire.........."


Another reference to a floor hatch:

"Braatz and the other crew members scrambled to a ditch by the side of the road. When he looked around, Braatz noticed that one crew member was missing.
"Where's Levengood?"
"He came out the escape hatch," Bowers said.
But Russell Levengood had not gone through the escape hatch on the floor of the tank. The explosion had ripped the hatch cover from its fastenings and blasted it upward with such force that it turned into a deadly projectile. Captain Merrill, the A Company commander, says the hatch cover separated Levengood’s ribs from his back as it shot toward the ceiling of the driver’s compartment."

From http://www.tankbooks.com/stories/stories2/julythird.htm


The M26 Pershing had a hatch in the floor. This site has a photo http://afvdb.50megs.com/usa/pics/m26pershing.html

 

The Light tank casualty figures show that Commanders were 63% and the driver and bow gunner 67%.

By the way I mispoke/mistyped earlier. I said:
Commanders in Meduim tanks were 10% more at risk than the next crew position

When I should have said:
Commanders in Medium tanks were 6% more at risk than the next highest crew position the loader and gunner. Commander 57% and Loader/Gunner 51%.
Bow gunner was 48% and driver 47%

As I warned you earlier

Thats just liddle 'ol me. Rough, Uncogent and unknowing.


Also:

The total of 6048 US tank losses is arrived at by adding up the numbers of each tank types lost(M4, M3, M24 ect)
The figures in SHAEF AFV&W Section, for all tank write offs in the ETO 6 June 1944 to 9 May 1945 is 6274. Difference of 226.

As I said (metaphoricaly) earlier 'you pays your money and takes your choice'

Can you run the following numbers through you magic box and tell me the expected crew casualties for 383 Commonwealth tank casualties in the first week of September 1944?
The calculations are far too complicated for me.

 

Taking into account that about half the tank crew deaths occured outside the tank what actions by dismounted Tank Commanders led to their being at greater risk than other crew members?

 

Thank you Slipdigit!
I didn't start this thinking that folks would bring in outside animosity. Sigh, I guess I am a diehard optimist. Anyhow, thanks for the word of caution.
Hummel

 

First kenny wrote:

Then he said:

And now he says:

As the last set of percentages total more than 1.0 they must represent probabilities rather than percentages of total armor casualties. In other words, the relative probability that a crewman (by position in the tank) would be wounded or killed when a tank suffered significant combat damage.

Darn it all, these number-thingys can be quite slippery.

Edit: Should this latest set of percentages prove reliable, we see once again that the higher a crewman is in the tank, physically not by rank, the more likely he is to be killed or wounded. As previously stated, a few percentage points are highly significant in terms of casualties especially when viewed cumulatively or over time.

Duckbill

 

This is not always true.
In a Light tank the driver and bow gunner were at the highest risk
Commander 63%
Gunner 65%
Driver & Bow gunner 67%


The study also showed that the M4 hull front took 21% of the hits and turret front 9%
Hull side(above tracks) 32% Turret sides 18%
Hull side below track level 19%
Rear hits 1%

Of the 13 front turret hits 10 penetrated
30 Front hull hits and 22 penetrated
Side above tracks hull 47 hits 42 penetrated
Side turret 28 hits 14 penetrated
side below track level 27 hits all penetrated.

Sample of 107 tanks with 145 hits

30 frontal hits on the hull 13 on the turret
47 hull side hits and 28 turret side hits