Dude is still sharp as a tack. Also had some really interesting insight into the radar advancements of the day, which were surprisingly more complex than I would've thought.
Anyway, this one is interesting because the guy recounts a story of how his unit captured, intact, a German Panzerkampfwagon Ausf B, AKA the King Tiger.
This big fucker right here in particular.
After it's capture it was sent to the Aberdeen proving grounds for testing and after sitting around for roughly 30 years it was sent to Fort Knox in Kentucky where they cut away the side armor to display an interior view. Eventually it made its way to the Patton Museum next door (which is very cool if you like tanks.)
I've seen this tank in person! Folks, it was fucking massive. 33 feet long, 12 feet wide and 10 feet high with a 5 man crew, 7" (180mm) thick frontal armor and the big German 88mm cannon and a total weight of 74 tons. I mean just a truly monumental behemoth. I was maybe 14 or so when I saw it and I remember specifically thinking "oh shit fuck shit damn". That thing was obviously inert and still scared the hell out of me. I can't imagine running into one in 44 or 45 that's actually full of guns and gas.
Weirdly enough, it often proved to be too big. Early versions had insufficient drive trains that constantly broke down and most bridges in Europe simply were not designed to support 74.8 tons of metal. It's weight also proved a hindrance in sandy terrain.
By 1945 a lot of the drive train issues seemed to be corrected (a reliabity rating of 59% lol) but it seems that even the super impressive 7" thick armor wasn't quite as impervious as it seemed. Soviet testing indicated that the welds were significantly worse than previous German tank designs and even if the shell didn't penetrate the weld would "spall" or fragment into the transmission and could render the tank inoperable. The actual quality of the metal itself was also lacking due to supply shortages of molybdenum at that point in the war. That said it could pretty much knock out any allied tank at distances of up to 1.6 miles, so the primary way to deal with them was to ambush or flank them.
I guess the lesson here is: are massive tanks hells of scary? Yes. Are they practical? Not really. Do they look cool? They do.
Being a big tank is in fact a liability not a strength. Both because heavy and because even if you are in a beeeeeeeeg tank your enemy being able to see you before you see them is still often a death sentence. But the Nazis loved them some overly huge tanks.
It was designated a "breakthrough" tank because I guess big and can breakthrough things. But really it looks like it was designed more around being a mobile sniper cannon. Like, it seems like the prevailing tactic would be to point the frontal armor towards the enemy and then pick them off from a range where their guns can't penetrate. Which can be a very successful tactic. Or could be back then I guess.
The obvious flaw here is that you can't always fight on flat terrain across long distances. Eventually that thing has got to go into a town where the roads won't be wide enough and it gets wedged in between buildings or bottoms out because the tracks over shot the road and went into the run off ditches (pretty sure that happened to at least one of the big German tanks in Holland, whether it was a King Tiger or a Panther I don't remember). Plus you go slow as shit and if you don't have tight infantry support you get ambushed.
Also you make a big pretty target for that squadron of P-38's up there, especially considering your airforce is virtually non existent at this point.
Incidentally that's about the weight of a modern NATO MBT, and european bridge strength is still an issue. A surprising number of them look like this one which is less than a mile from where I grew up and very much in daily use
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+3
PiptheFairFrequently not in boats.Registered Userregular
Being a big tank is in fact a liability not a strength. Both because heavy and because even if you are in a beeeeeeeeg tank your enemy being able to see you before you see them is still often a death sentence. But the Nazis loved them some overly huge tanks.
most vehicles had issues penetrating even the side armor of jagdtpanthers and king tigers, but 100lb bombs dropped by fighter-bombers did a real good job
It was designated a "breakthrough" tank because I guess big and can breakthrough things. But really it looks like it was designed more around being a mobile sniper cannon. Like, it seems like the prevailing tactic would be to point the frontal armor towards the enemy and then pick them off from a range where their guns can't penetrate. Which can be a very successful tactic. Or could be back then I guess.
The obvious flaw here is that you can't always fight on flat terrain across long distances. Eventually that thing has got to go into a town where the roads won't be wide enough and it gets wedged in between buildings or bottoms out because the tracks over shot the road and went into the run off ditches (pretty sure that happened to at least one of the big German tanks in Holland, whether it was a King Tiger or a Panther I don't remember). Plus you go slow as shit and if you don't have tight infantry support you get ambushed.
Also you make a big pretty target for that squadron of P-38's up there, especially considering your airforce is virtually non existent at this point.
It was Holland it was my dad's uncle Joes squad that found the tiger in the alley from behind in a Sherman firefly and got em
A lot of the German tanks from WW2 have gotten something of a weirdly overinflated mystique about them. Possibly by early Wheraboos.
They're seen as these exquisitely engineered, perfect war machines that were nigh on invincible. Apparently nearly every American soldier in Normandy identified basically any tank they encountered as a "Tiger" so going into the fight in France it had certainly gained a reputation. But after the initial days of the invasion most troops had not only gotten over their "Tiger Panic" but would often specifically go out hunting for Tigers. Kind of became a a right of passage I guess.
Fact was, the tanks were good but could be just as easily destroyed by a well trained infantry unit as pretty much anything else. Knock out the treads or blow out the engine with a well placed molotov and it's a sitting duck. An admittedly huge and dangerous sitting duck but still. They were also hard to fix on the fly and as the war progressed became harder and harder to replace.
Also, when you get to looking at a lot of engagements, Sherman's actually preformed really well against German tanks. Especially the later versions that came equipped with water lined ammo storage crates on the floor (as opposed to side storage exactly like the German tanks had that caused burning and cook offs when hit, earning the Sherman the "Zippo" moniker) and the 76mm gun. I think maybe the reputation of German tanks as superior and of the Sherman's as being vastly inferior came from the early days of the war when there were a few instances of individual, well positioned Tigers knocking out whole columns. There are tons of anecdotes, even in that above linked video of American tankers knocking out panthers and tigers with single hits, due to cracking the turret ring or damaging the barrel or view ports. Also, as video games have so thoroughly taught us, they were weak in the rear, so obviously a good hit in the back would send one up.
PiptheFairFrequently not in boats.Registered Userregular
edited February 7
german tanks were massively over-engineered
they were superior tanks, but they did not need to be, and the massive price and time it took to make one was a problem(thankfully)
early shermans were terrible: mediocre speed and maneuverability, bad gun, weak frontal and side armor, poor ammo storage, also poorly experienced crews
their benefit was that they were cheap, could be mass produced thanks to our infinite supply of resources and manufacturing, and could be extremely modular
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+1
PiptheFairFrequently not in boats.Registered Userregular
I mean if we're going MVT (most valuable tank) of WW2 I'd have to go with either the Sherman or the T-34 (when it was manufactured correctly, had a radio, and plenty of fuel and ammunition which was not usually the case.)
Shermans were very versatile and surprisingly good at crew survivability in spite of its modest armor. T-34s were actually scary for how cheap they were... again, when they were properly manufactured. Most T-34s had horrendous quality control in manufacturing and assembly so tons of them would have critical shit break at the worst times.
Although my impression has always been that contrary to popular consensus WW2 was not at all won or lost by tanks. They were there, they sometimes did important stuff... but their importance was overshadowed by regular infantry, artillery, and airpower.
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+1
PiptheFairFrequently not in boats.Registered Userregular
edited February 7
tanks are just modernized cavalry, they don't take or hold ground, they just make both acts require less boots on the ground
It's also worth noting that the Sherman was designed under some very tight design restrictions, needing to fit onto cargo ships for shipment over the Atlantic, as well as being easy to mass produced, and as part of a doctrine that basically said "we're going to have a numerical and combined arms advantage on every battlefield."
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Civics is not a consumer product that you can ignore because you don’t like the options presented.
"It's a tradeoff" "It's a design choice" Yep, sounds about right - if there was an easy win button it would have been slammed fast and often for tank design, the US wasn't lacking for design smarts or industrial ability.
they were superior tanks, but they did not need to be, and the massive price and time it took to make one was a problem(thankfully)
early shermans were terrible: mediocre speed and maneuverability, bad gun, weak frontal and side armor, poor ammo storage, also poorly experienced crews
their benefit was that they were cheap, could be mass produced thanks to our infinite supply of resources and manufacturing, and could be extremely modular
The impression I get is that for various reasons (particularly terrain and generalship but production shortcuts later probably hurt them too) German tanks were a lot more effective early in the war
My grandfather was an infantry officer under Patton in North Africa and one of the lessons he was extremely keen to impart upon me was that only complete fucking maniacs preferred riding in a Sherman to a properly built foxhole
they were superior tanks, but they did not need to be, and the massive price and time it took to make one was a problem(thankfully)
early shermans were terrible: mediocre speed and maneuverability, bad gun, weak frontal and side armor, poor ammo storage, also poorly experienced crews
their benefit was that they were cheap, could be mass produced thanks to our infinite supply of resources and manufacturing, and could be extremely modular
The impression I get is that for various reasons (particularly terrain and generalship but production shortcuts later probably hurt them too) German tanks were a lot more effective early in the war
My grandfather was an infantry officer under Patton in North Africa and one of the lessons he was extremely keen to impart upon me was that only complete fucking maniacs preferred riding in a Sherman to a properly built foxhole
The biggest advantage German tanks had early on was coordination. They had a lot more radios, and they grouped their tanks together. So, the French and British tanks could and more often than not did win in “fair fights.” But the Germans generally avoided letting those fights happen. One notable exception was the Battle of Hannut, where two French armoured divisions fought two German armoured divisions and won a narrow tactical victory despite their deficiencies.
Also, your grandfather might have been safer in a Sherman. Per capita losses were lower among tank crews than infantry men IIRC. Of course, that did depend a bit on what your specific unit was like. . .
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Civics is not a consumer product that you can ignore because you don’t like the options presented.
+1
MayabirdPecking at the keyboardRegistered Userregular
they were superior tanks, but they did not need to be, and the massive price and time it took to make one was a problem(thankfully)
early shermans were terrible: mediocre speed and maneuverability, bad gun, weak frontal and side armor, poor ammo storage, also poorly experienced crews
their benefit was that they were cheap, could be mass produced thanks to our infinite supply of resources and manufacturing, and could be extremely modular
German over-engineered tanks were also too difficult to fix. Once they broke down (and if they aren't destroyed by enemy action all tanks inevitably break down) unless there was someone with a master's degree in mechanical engineering or something equivalent just happening to be around the tank would have to be abandoned. Regular mechanics usually weren't educated/trained enough to handle it, much less a bunch of conscripts tossed into the vehicles who barely knew what was going on in the first place.
Whereas sometimes people could get American and Soviet tanks to start running again by screaming a cuss word and smacking it with a wrench.
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Indie Winterdie KräheRudi Hurzlmeier (German, b. 1952)Registered Userregular
New Fall Of Civilisations is out. This civilisation is completely unknown to me so I'm saving this episode for the weekend so I can really enjoy it. Anyway:
I just realized there's only 7 years between King Edward III getting straight goosed at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485 and the official end of the Middle Ages and ole Chris Columbus sailing to the Americas.
That seems like two totally different time periods but it's not! CC probably picked up the Ye Olde Funday Times and was like, "oh damn they stabbed Eddy in the face like 6 times lol"
Posts
Dude is still sharp as a tack. Also had some really interesting insight into the radar advancements of the day, which were surprisingly more complex than I would've thought.
Anyway, this one is interesting because the guy recounts a story of how his unit captured, intact, a German Panzerkampfwagon Ausf B, AKA the King Tiger.
This big fucker right here in particular.
After it's capture it was sent to the Aberdeen proving grounds for testing and after sitting around for roughly 30 years it was sent to Fort Knox in Kentucky where they cut away the side armor to display an interior view. Eventually it made its way to the Patton Museum next door (which is very cool if you like tanks.)
I've seen this tank in person! Folks, it was fucking massive. 33 feet long, 12 feet wide and 10 feet high with a 5 man crew, 7" (180mm) thick frontal armor and the big German 88mm cannon and a total weight of 74 tons. I mean just a truly monumental behemoth. I was maybe 14 or so when I saw it and I remember specifically thinking "oh shit fuck shit damn". That thing was obviously inert and still scared the hell out of me. I can't imagine running into one in 44 or 45 that's actually full of guns and gas.
Weirdly enough, it often proved to be too big. Early versions had insufficient drive trains that constantly broke down and most bridges in Europe simply were not designed to support 74.8 tons of metal. It's weight also proved a hindrance in sandy terrain.
By 1945 a lot of the drive train issues seemed to be corrected (a reliabity rating of 59% lol) but it seems that even the super impressive 7" thick armor wasn't quite as impervious as it seemed. Soviet testing indicated that the welds were significantly worse than previous German tank designs and even if the shell didn't penetrate the weld would "spall" or fragment into the transmission and could render the tank inoperable. The actual quality of the metal itself was also lacking due to supply shortages of molybdenum at that point in the war. That said it could pretty much knock out any allied tank at distances of up to 1.6 miles, so the primary way to deal with them was to ambush or flank them.
I guess the lesson here is: are massive tanks hells of scary? Yes. Are they practical? Not really. Do they look cool? They do.
The obvious flaw here is that you can't always fight on flat terrain across long distances. Eventually that thing has got to go into a town where the roads won't be wide enough and it gets wedged in between buildings or bottoms out because the tracks over shot the road and went into the run off ditches (pretty sure that happened to at least one of the big German tanks in Holland, whether it was a King Tiger or a Panther I don't remember). Plus you go slow as shit and if you don't have tight infantry support you get ambushed.
Also you make a big pretty target for that squadron of P-38's up there, especially considering your airforce is virtually non existent at this point.
Incidentally that's about the weight of a modern NATO MBT, and european bridge strength is still an issue. A surprising number of them look like this one which is less than a mile from where I grew up and very much in daily use
most vehicles had issues penetrating even the side armor of jagdtpanthers and king tigers, but 100lb bombs dropped by fighter-bombers did a real good job
It was Holland it was my dad's uncle Joes squad that found the tiger in the alley from behind in a Sherman firefly and got em
They're seen as these exquisitely engineered, perfect war machines that were nigh on invincible. Apparently nearly every American soldier in Normandy identified basically any tank they encountered as a "Tiger" so going into the fight in France it had certainly gained a reputation. But after the initial days of the invasion most troops had not only gotten over their "Tiger Panic" but would often specifically go out hunting for Tigers. Kind of became a a right of passage I guess.
Fact was, the tanks were good but could be just as easily destroyed by a well trained infantry unit as pretty much anything else. Knock out the treads or blow out the engine with a well placed molotov and it's a sitting duck. An admittedly huge and dangerous sitting duck but still. They were also hard to fix on the fly and as the war progressed became harder and harder to replace.
Also, when you get to looking at a lot of engagements, Sherman's actually preformed really well against German tanks. Especially the later versions that came equipped with water lined ammo storage crates on the floor (as opposed to side storage exactly like the German tanks had that caused burning and cook offs when hit, earning the Sherman the "Zippo" moniker) and the 76mm gun. I think maybe the reputation of German tanks as superior and of the Sherman's as being vastly inferior came from the early days of the war when there were a few instances of individual, well positioned Tigers knocking out whole columns. There are tons of anecdotes, even in that above linked video of American tankers knocking out panthers and tigers with single hits, due to cracking the turret ring or damaging the barrel or view ports. Also, as video games have so thoroughly taught us, they were weak in the rear, so obviously a good hit in the back would send one up.
they were superior tanks, but they did not need to be, and the massive price and time it took to make one was a problem(thankfully)
early shermans were terrible: mediocre speed and maneuverability, bad gun, weak frontal and side armor, poor ammo storage, also poorly experienced crews
their benefit was that they were cheap, could be mass produced thanks to our infinite supply of resources and manufacturing, and could be extremely modular
Go get em little fella.
What a cutie patootie
gotta prove you're responsible enough
Shermans were very versatile and surprisingly good at crew survivability in spite of its modest armor. T-34s were actually scary for how cheap they were... again, when they were properly manufactured. Most T-34s had horrendous quality control in manufacturing and assembly so tons of them would have critical shit break at the worst times.
Although my impression has always been that contrary to popular consensus WW2 was not at all won or lost by tanks. They were there, they sometimes did important stuff... but their importance was overshadowed by regular infantry, artillery, and airpower.
theres gotta be a fetish about this somewhere
Regarding Sherman tanks and the myths regarding them, from a guy who knows a lot about tanks:
It's also worth noting that the Sherman was designed under some very tight design restrictions, needing to fit onto cargo ships for shipment over the Atlantic, as well as being easy to mass produced, and as part of a doctrine that basically said "we're going to have a numerical and combined arms advantage on every battlefield."
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The impression I get is that for various reasons (particularly terrain and generalship but production shortcuts later probably hurt them too) German tanks were a lot more effective early in the war
My grandfather was an infantry officer under Patton in North Africa and one of the lessons he was extremely keen to impart upon me was that only complete fucking maniacs preferred riding in a Sherman to a properly built foxhole
The biggest advantage German tanks had early on was coordination. They had a lot more radios, and they grouped their tanks together. So, the French and British tanks could and more often than not did win in “fair fights.” But the Germans generally avoided letting those fights happen. One notable exception was the Battle of Hannut, where two French armoured divisions fought two German armoured divisions and won a narrow tactical victory despite their deficiencies.
Also, your grandfather might have been safer in a Sherman. Per capita losses were lower among tank crews than infantry men IIRC. Of course, that did depend a bit on what your specific unit was like. . .
German over-engineered tanks were also too difficult to fix. Once they broke down (and if they aren't destroyed by enemy action all tanks inevitably break down) unless there was someone with a master's degree in mechanical engineering or something equivalent just happening to be around the tank would have to be abandoned. Regular mechanics usually weren't educated/trained enough to handle it, much less a bunch of conscripts tossed into the vehicles who barely knew what was going on in the first place.
Whereas sometimes people could get American and Soviet tanks to start running again by screaming a cuss word and smacking it with a wrench.
~ Buckaroo Banzai
Want to play co-op games? Feel free to hit me up!
that's no moon!
~ Buckaroo Banzai
That seems like two totally different time periods but it's not! CC probably picked up the Ye Olde Funday Times and was like, "oh damn they stabbed Eddy in the face like 6 times lol"