The best tank killer of WWII

Was it lacking fuel or was it the fact that even when fully fueled it had such a short range? Was it a lack of spare parts or was it the fact they broke down so much ,took so much maintenance or were so difficult to recover? Untrained crews? I thought according to what most Tiger lovers say the Tiger crews tended to escape unharmed meaning an actual combat blooded crew making it back to take over a new tank to fight again.

 

My choices are:

Tiger I & II
Panther Tank
T-34

 

It was lacking fuel for sure, don't know why you are even questioning this.

The range of German tanks when fully fuel was comparable to that of Allied tanks.

Contrary to popular belief they didn't require more maintenance than Allied tanks did, they did however only recieve about a quarter of the maintenance that Allied tanks did.

But very few of the German tanks were Tigers and Panthers, so even if they were experienced they were few.

 

What does this have to do with the hydraulic turret traverse?

Furthermore a lot of breakdowns were the direct cause of a lack of maintenance.

But if you wanna discuss the causes of Tiger losses, then I can tell you that the majority were lost to due to a lack of fuel or breakdowns caused by a lack of lubricants & spare parts.

Despite this the Tiger managed an average kill/loss ratio of 5.74.

 

COMMENT: Are we just discussing turret traverse? I thought the thread was about the best tank killer which in that case issues I pointed out definately have a bearing . Were breakdowns because of lack of maintenance or because German heavy tanks were so maintenance intensive? If one has to sideline a tank a week to fix it and a battle is looming then one may put off important maintenance so they have the tank for the upcoming battle ,US tanks were rarely this maintenance intensive things could get fixed much faster on them.

Now Again was it lack of spare parts or the fact that even if spares were availiable they were just too big to get back to a depot to fix? US tanks were made very serviceable in this regard without resulting to the proverbial effort of "pulling the engine to change a spark plug." furthermore US tanks were much smaller thereby much easier to retrieve. The Germans themselves had 18 ton half track tractors that could retrieve MK IV's but two or three were needed to retrieve a Panther,Tiger I or Tiger II but they were also unarmored making rescues very hazardous.

I understand that only about 100+ spare engines were made for 1400+ Tiger I's so what type of ignorance compels a military to build AFV's that they can't or won't make spares for?

 

I thought the first survey of Tiger losses found 7 from 8 were lost to AP shot (90%)
During the phase when the Tigers were in full flight then obviously they lost a higher % to breakdowns ect but you can not compare the losses for an army running for its life and assume ALL losses in the staic phase would be in the same ratio of breakdown to AP penetration.
As a comparison during 28 August to 7 September 1944 British losses were 383 tanks. 78 to enemy action and 305 to mechanical failure.
Clearly during a fast moving phase all sides mechanical losses went through the roof.

As some 171 Tigers served in Normandy/France in the summer of 1944 can we take it that these brand new tanks accounted for 981 Allied tanks from the 3000 lost?
I.E The 1500+ Panthers and Pz IV's, the 500 Stugs and the AT guns only got 2000 between them?

 

The Tiger's 5.74 average kill/loss ratio is naturally for all fronts combined, not just Normandy. Normandy wasn't the kind of place that favoured tanks. Most German tanks became the victim of Allied infantry and artillery in Normandy, and airpower also took its toll.

But even more tanks were lost due to lack of fuel and lubricants, which limited the amount of maintenance each tank recieved. This can also clearly been seen when you look at how the reliability record of the once very reliable Pz.IV suddenly just plummitted to rock bottom from mid 1944 onwards. By this time German tanks on regular only recieved around a quarter of the maintenance Allied tanks did, and this severely hurt the reliability of every single vehicle in their service.

Interesting to note however is how the heavy tank battalions actually maintained a higher percentage of tanks in operation than the rest during this last period. Destroying the myth that the Tiger tank was any less reliable than any of the other tanks when proper maintenance was given.

As for the many engagements where the Allies claimed they engaged and destroyed Tigers & Panthers, they more often than not in reality had come up against Pz.IV's. Hence why accounts from both sides need to be taken with a grain of salt.

I also think it's kinda telling that nomatter what German tanker you ask, they never feared any of the Allied tanks, not even the firefly which was a tank they had good reason to fear because of its excellent gun. They all however feared Allied infantry, artillery & airpower more than anything else, that was their worst enemy and the one which took the biggest toll on them according to themselves.

 

If you look at the figures for the 3 Tiger Abteilung in Normandy then they never rose above 50% of the Tigers available once they entered action.

Over half the tankers were in PzIV's and they very definately had lots to worry about. They even had their own name for the PzIV that mimic the 'Ropnson' description for the Sherman.
In the surveys done the PzIV came bottom of the list and even ranked below the Sherman.

 

What does Germans not having any fear of Allied tanks have to do with combat capabilities? My previous post about comparisons between the Panther & Sherman show that perceptions during the war had nothing to do with reality. Also post war analysis shows that airpower was over-rated in regards to knocking out tanks. So in essence we have German fear of our airpower basic cancelling out Allied fears of all those supposed Tiger tanks out there.

Perception and reality can be totally different.

 

A good video of the Panther showcasing variable traverse speed by use of the the foot pedals for those interested:
YouTube - Panzer Panther im Gelände an der WTD 41 in Trier German Panther Tank in Action

 

Which was similar or better than for Pz.IV's & V's, which just shows us that the lack of lubricants & maintenance halts affected all vehicles in German service.

Pz.IV crews had reason to worry for sure, the armour wasn't particularly thick, and a regular Sherman was a real threat to it even at moderate ranges. We agree on that for sure. But according to the veterans they didn't fear the Allied tanks as they regularly came out ahead of them regardless of what tank they were in, it was the Allied infantry, artillery & airpower which really scared them, they had nightmares about that stuff.

Are you refering to the survey about how easily a tank caught fire or?

Considering how the ammunition storage layout of the Pz.IV is, I'd never expect it to come out ahead of the Sherman in that area, I'd expect similar results. The later Sherman EasyEights had the advantage of wet storage which would give it an edge in this department.

 

Are we talking about Sherman A1's or Sherman Firefly?

 

On the German hydraulics: Judging from the way the system appears set up I would surmise that you have an either / or use there. You could have the high speed traverse engaged to slew the turret with little fine control or, you could have the slow traverse engaged for fine control.
The problem I see here is that you cannot instantly shift from one to the other nor can you have both engaged at once. If it is typical of other hydraulic systems you have to wait for the turret to stop then switch which mode you are in.
I could see this being rather cumbersome in battle so, I would think that a crew would likely just engage the high speed traverse get the turret close to laid and then switch to manual rather than fumble with switching to slow speed traverse. I doubt that there would be much difference in the engagement time in any case.
The bigger problem remains that the gunner has to aquire the target through his gunsight and has a relatively limited range of view compared to the larger periscope on a Sherman.
At longer ranges I doubt that either system has much advantage over the other with the Germans having an advantage in having higher velocity guns so they can shoot out further than a US tanker could on a guess rather than refined range adjustment.
At closer ranges the US tank has the advantage since the German tank either traverses at high speed with little control then either switches modes or goes to manual while the US tank simply slews onto target.
I suppose the reason for the dual system has to do with the limitations on hydraulic valves and motor design 70 years ago compared to today.

 

First of all that is called cherry picking, second you can be almost dead sure that 50% of the tanks claimed to be Panthers were infact Pz.IV's, and next comes overblowing of actual figures, something both sides were guilty of.

According to all the data I've seen and the veterans from both sides, the Panther usually came out on top when numbers were equal. And for that reason Allied tankers always tried to outnumber their foe, cause one on one they knew they were at a distinct disadvantage.

But again, superior tactics & numbers usually counts more than superior weaponry as so many times demonstrated in history, for example in the early German conquests of WW2. This is not to say weaponry doesn't have a major say on things however, it does, big time, but to a certain limit it's possible make up for it with superior numbers & tactics.

 

Seeing as the Sherman & Pz.IV shared an almost identical electrical traverse system which both required manual fine tuning for the final aim, I really don't see how it was at an advantage at close range compared to the hydraulic equipped tanks as long as the right setting was prechosen and stuck to in any hot situation.

It's true that with the hydraulic systems you had to choose before hand which traverse setting you wanted, setting nr.1 for precise control of turret traverse speed requiring no manual fine tuning in traverse for final aim or setting nr.2 for maximum traverse speed requiring manual fine tuning in both traverse & elevation for final aim. Changing settings from 1 to 2 in the middle of combat wouldn't be an option, it would simply be too slow & cumbersome an affair. But on setting nr.2, while gun laying wasn't super precise, it was the same as on tanks like the Sherman & Pz.IV, the same amount of manual control was needed for the final aim.

So nomatter how one looks at it the hydraulic system was a major improvement over the electric one, just as it was intended, since it atleast gave the crew two choices. The hydraulic system offered precisely controlled power assisted traverse + the regular fast traverse, while the electric systems only offered option nr.2.

 

No most engagements involved 75mm M3 armed tanks. From the flanks a Panther was just as vulnerable to a 75mm M3 as a Sherman was to the Panther's gun AT MOST COMBAT RANGES.

 

It's not cherry picking but from an actual study conducted post war notice from post battle reports(not in the heat of battle and from both sides perspective) what it said the defender usually sighted the attacker first ,shot first and hit first simply because it was stationary being very well camouflaged while not moving into attack plus it had all avenues covered already having the ranges preset. The report also states the a mediocre crew in a mediocre tank would prevail over an excellent crew in an excellent tank. Again just who was usually on the defensive on the Western Front? In Italy Panthers & Tigers were alot less of a problem simply because those tanks were usually encountered when they were used for offensive purposes,my source for the latter info is Harry Yiede's "The Tank Killers".

Another thing you talked earlier about how AFV's were mis-identified in the heat of battle therefore those things(battle reports) can't be taken seriously but here your bringing up reports taken in the heat of battle (from one sides point of view) about what Panthers did to Shermans,i.e. veterans from both sides.. Now you can't have it both ways and also tell me how a Sherman crew that gets knocked out knows for sure at the time it was a 75mm from the Panther ? Just because they see the Panther more clearly then they can a SPAT or low sitting AT gun? It could be & most of the time was more likely to be from a MK IV ,evem more likely from a SPAT or concealed 75mm PAK 40. How does a Panther firing at a Sherman know that it was it's shell that did it in ? It could be just as well from a SPAT(STG II,Jagd IV,Marder,ect.) or from an anti-tank gun.

Given a choice a post war report that examines every bit of evidence from both sides as opposed to one taken in the heat of battle from just one side I'll take the former.

 

Uh late model 75mm M3 armed tanks also had wet storage.

 

Well you see I'm having trouble confirming that claim of yours as I can't find any battle where the Germans committed so many Panthers and lost so many for so little damage done.

I have a feeling what you're talking about isn't derived from a post war study looking at both sides, but merely recollects what is stated in Allied after action reports. And as such you can be sure that the real figure was lower, and that most of the enemy tanks weren't Panthers.